Two Observations

1. I was watching a "man on the street" type interview show the other day.  The people who were being interviewed were Trump supporters.  They were asked why they supported him. The various reasons were all over the place but one common theme seemed to emerge.  I heard a lot of people say they always voted republican because they hated socialism.  I've heard this many times from people I know also.  

It got me to wondering: Do these people actually know what socialism is?  What do they mean by socialism?  The answer to the first is no.  The fact is this country is no where near a socialist state.  Socialism is when the government owns and operates the means of production.  They own everything.  We are a very, very long way from that.  The answer to what do they mean by socialism is, to me, very simple.  They're against welfare.  The notion that the government is giving handouts to people who are unwilling to pull their own weight.  Most of these people in their view are members of minorities.  So now we're talking about something very different than socialism.  

We need a new name for this phenomena.   How about racism?

2. My second observation is on a totally unrelated note.  I grocery shop at Stop & Shop.  I go there for two reasons.  First I know where everything is and second I get gas points for the amount I spend.  I get ten cents per gallon off for every one hundred dollars I spend.  As you may know it's not hard to spend a hundred bucks.  

The problem with this is that the one and only gas station in town where this program applies is a Shell station.  What do they do?  They jack up the price of their gas by as much as $.40 a gallon.  So in order for it to be worth going there I have to accumulate at least 500 points or $.50 off per gallon. On top of that they limit you to 20 gallons.  

Well, my truck has a 26 gallon tank but of course I don't run it dry but if I have a 5 gallon gas can to fill for my yard equipment in which case I easily go over the limit.

Not worth it.  My incentive to go to Stop&Shop just went out the window. 

That's it for today.