Almost Thursday

Yes, it is Thursday, not a few minutes before Thursday. Take a look at the B line on this Powerball ticket.

 

 

Since I bought the ticket I was obsessed with that B line and, somehow, felt it would be the winner. Here are the actual winning numbers from last night’s drawing with one matching ticket sold in the state in which I was born and raised, Maryland:

40 53 60 68 69

Not far off, huh? Yes, it’s just a coincidence (including the location of the winning ticket)–an after the fact association, if you will–but it still “speaks” to me.

The odds of winning any prize in either giant multi-state lottery are about 1 in 30 or 1 in 25, but my wonderful wife and I are on quite a dry spell having bought many times that number of tickets in the last 12-18 months without having won anything. Put down in black and white it seems like a giant waste of money. Still, if we don’t play the lottery our chances of winning a life-changing amount of money are zero. If we play, then our chances asymptotically approach zero, but they’re not zero.

We have no debt and we have a healthy net worth. We are not spending our last dollars in the hopes of winning the lottery. I think playing not only gives you an infinitesimal chance of winning, but it allows you to have very pleasant daydreams about what you would do if you won.

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Frank Luntz is a Republican pollster who predicted that the Democrats would win the two Senate runoff elections in Georgia to gain de facto control of that body. In this CNBC article he makes some chilling comments after recently hosting a virtual focus group of Americans from across the “political spectrum”:

 

“It’s going to be very tough for the president and Congress to find that middle ground because, quite frankly, it doesn’t exist. It was the most contentious group I’ve done in a long, long time. It was even more contentious than in the lead-up to the election.” (The focus group was held earlier this week.)

 

Ironically, even though a shrinking number of “unaffiliated” voters can give that group more power in an otherwise deadlocked political landscape, I think it has become inevitable that the US cannot exist much longer in its current state. Whether it happens in 10 years or 50, I don’t see any solution except dissolution.

Given that most elected officials in the US only care about being elected and re-elected, and nothing about actually governing, I don’t see a “way out” other than to get out. I know I have written this many times before, but the results of the 2020 elections only show how divided the country is. The Senate has 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. The House has 221 Democrats and 211 Republicans with three vacant seats. The most polarizing President in US history did not really inflict much damage on “his” party, which actually gained seats in the House. That party distribution in both houses is not a mandate from the people, it’s a strong indication that “the people” are not capable of delivering a mandate.

I’m not even going to write that I hope I’m wrong because nothing lasts forever. If it’s time to dissolve the US into two or three countries, so be it.

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Would the dissolution of the US lead to more automotive innovation in one of the “spin-off” countries? After all, a country that is not the US would not be bound by US DOT and EPA regulations. Would “modern” versions of a car like this return?

 

 

This is a picture of a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham that was offered at the RM Sotheby’s Arizona 2018 auction. Body shapes like this are probably in violation of current US regulations and laws, but in a country that is not the US could these shapes return?

I am quite enamored of these cars that were not only a styling tour de force, but also had many innovations such as the first automatic two-position memory power seats. These are a contender to be part of Ultimate Garage 3.0, but not a lock.

I welcome thoughtful comments from you on any post topic from today or any other day.

 

#AlmostThursday

#NoSolutionExceptDissolution

#1957-58CadillacEldoradoBrougham

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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