After any significant snowfall we now experience an obligatory freezing rain follow-up. So, I wake up this morning to both driveways essentially skating rinks. For fun I took a shovel as a rudder to keep my balance and stepped onto the steep top of the lower driveway and allowed gravity to propel me forward. It was smooth as glass and by the time I got to the bottom, I was moving pretty fast. So, I leaned over and headed for a snow bank.
I spent about two hours sanding the top driveway (the bottom one was hopeless) and then went out to buy another 360 pounds of sand for the future. Of course, after lunch it started raining hard and the 45–50-degree temperature melted most of the ice on both driveways. Well, what can you do? Basically, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t so, “Yay New England!”
So that put the kibosh on my plan to get finished with the marketing chores I need to perform for the book launch. But I’ll get going soon.
I read some more news items on-line. This is a seriously mixed-up world both domestically and internationally. But I remain optimistic that the Trump administration can make a substantial difference in the lives of Americans if he keeps his eyes on the factors that are limiting the ability of young people to marry and have children. If he finds ways to address this; some kind of Marshall Plan for this country I think he can get the Zoomers solidly in his camp.
And I’m not saying that will be easy. Our economy is seriously distorted by the off-shoring of manufacturing. But Trump has a lot of levers he can push to force business to do his bidding. And I think he should use every last one of them to restore the middle-class. Everyone since Aristotle has known that only countries with a large thriving middle-class are worth living in. I think he should build houses and pay women to stay home and have kids. If enough incentives are offered, I think it would change the direction of our demographic collapse and at the same time make this a much more human and interesting place.
Well, we’ll have to see if Donald is up to the challenge of “making America great again.” And without a doubt I’m rooting for him. I hope he doesn’t get too wrapped up with his Venezuela project or spend too much time refereeing the Ukrainians and Russians. I’m satisfied with leaving the Europeans to muddle through that disaster on their own. There’s nothing but death and misery happening there.
So, as we approach the New Year, I’m still mostly optimistic about 2026. I think the economy is starting to show signs of life and that could make a big difference for the mid-year elections. If by some stroke of luck, we hold onto the House and Senate it’s possible Trump will talk the Senate into abolishing the filibuster and just pass a bunch of laws that will make this country normal again (like having a balanced budget!).
Well, that’s enough for now.