Ayato Kimura's "Tropical Vibes" video- MTB urban freeride from southern Japan

The thing about me being out of the industry loop, of the BMX and MTB worlds, is that sometimes my blogging digs up other people who are largely out of the loop.  Do you know who Ayato Kimura is?  No?  I ran across a handful of his videos last year.  He's a mountain bike trials and freerider from Japan.  He's about 18-years-old now.  He rides for Specialized Japan, I believe.  He's really talented, hungry, and willing to huck himself.  He's really amazing, both doing technical, trials type riding in his earlier videos, and balls out, hauling ass freeriding, like in this video. This is his latest video, and it just came out today (2/29/2024).  Check it out!  And keep an eye out for this kid in the future...

This YouTube video had 11,000 views when I wrote this blog post, February 29, 2024.  

My $10,000 Investment Challenge- paper trading- Taking profits!

Mark Yusko is one of my favorite crypto people to listen to.  He's on a podcast every Staurday morning on Blockworks Macro's "On the Margin" podcast.  The Bitcoin halving due in 2024 should happen in April.  The ETF's and an overall change in sentiment has driven Bitcoin up from a cycle low around $16,000 per coin in late 2022, to peak over $63,000 this morning.  

Disclaimer

I wasn't planning to write another post about my $10,000 Investment Challenge for a couple of more months.  Then I checked the markets this morning, and Bitcoin was well over $60,000.  By the time I decided to "take some profits" in my experimental investments, Bitcoin was at $61,069.  Again, this is a paper trading experiment I began on December 21, 2023.  I did not actually invest any money.  I'm just paper trading, pretending to trade, as an experiment, since I couldn't do it for real.  I opened a Coinbase account, but wasn't able to transfer any money into it, because I have a free Obama phone, apparently.  The account wouldn't accept it for my security check to transfer funds.  That pissed me of.  So I decided to paper trade $10,000, starting 12/21/2023.  I could "invest" in anything, and chose to put it all in crypto.  

Today's changes:  I sold half of my Bitcoin for $61,069.39 per BTC.  I sold half of my Eth for $3,352.28 per Eth.  I sold 7 SOL (Solana) for $114.56 per Sol.  I figure 5% gas fees for each purchase or sale.  Here's how that works out.  

Sold: .011995 Bitcoin for $61,069.39 per BTC = $732.53  less 5% fees ($36.63) = $695.90

Sold: .2259 Ethereum for $3,352.28 per Eth = $757.28, less 5% fees ($37.86) = $719.82

Sold:  7 Solana for $114.56 per SOL = $801.92, less 5% fees ($40.10) = $761.82

Total profits taken today- $2,177.54

Then I put all of that $2,177.54 into Apecoin which was at $1.98 per APE 

After 5% fee, that's $2068.66 into Apecoin at $1.98 = 1,044.78 APE

This puts my total investment into crypto as follows:

.011995 Bitcoin

.2259 Ethereum

14.647 Solana

56.931 Avalanche

74.962 Polkadot

595.298 Polygon

2,279.34 Apecoin

490.196 Sandbox

510.204 Decentraland

Total Value of these right now (11:45 am Pacific, 2/28/2024)  $11,028.06

Prices dropped a bit since I "traded" this morning.

So the whole basket of my cryptos, in this experiment, is up over 10% in less than 3 months, after all fees are covered.  Not bad.  

For any of you experienced gamblers or investors out there, you may have realized that the Bitcoin, Eth, Solana, and Apecoin are now all paid for in pretty good prices.  I now have paid $21,183.82 per Bitcoin for the BTC I have (it's now $60,233).  I've paid $1,018.95 per Ethereum for the Eth I now have (it's now $3,232).  I've paid $67.25 per Solana for the SOL I now have (it's now $111.66).  I'm not quite totally playing with "house money," but I can just let all those ride, with no fear, and see how high they go.  

I'm over $4,000 into Apecoin, which is my main pick of this whole group, for $1.78 per APE.  Apecoin is the token of Yuga Labs, who created the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT's, Bored Ape Kennel Club NFT's the Otherside gaming metaverse (that's NFT friendly), and own the Crypto Punks, and other Old School NFT's.  Apecoin is at $1.84 as I'm finishing this post, and it hovered in the $6 to $7 range for a long time, before the crash.  APE peaked around $27 shortly after it debuted, so it has a ton of room to run.  And the FOMO crypto market of this cycle, and the Bitcoin halving, haven't even happened yet.  I'm pretty happy with this basket of cryptos now.  

Here are the previous posts in this series:

The Great Bitcoin Play of 2023-2025 has begun  11/14/2023

The $10,000 Paper Trade Investment Challenge- 12/11/2023

The $10,000 Paper Trade Investment Challenge Post #2 Ten days later

The $10,000 Paper Trade Investment Challenge- Two months in- 2/21/2024

There are NO paid links in this post.

I've been doing a lot of writing on Substack lately, a platform designed specifically for writers, check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

Skateboard Art Deck article in Feb. 2024 Architectural Digest

A whole wall full of skateboard art decks, this photo leads a single page article in the February 2024 issue of Architectural Digest.  Yeah, that old school magazine that you used to flip through at the dentist's office to take your mind off your cavity as a kid.  

Architectural Digest- February 2024- Skateboard art decks

I'm working at a library today, because that's what you do when you're a homeless blogger and artist.  Taking a little break between computer things, I picked up a couple of magazines to flip through, while listening to a podcast.  I grabbed a couple Architectural Digest magazines, because they caught my eye on the rack.  Much to my surprise, the February 2024 issue has a little article about skateboard art decks (link above).  The web page is polluted with too many ads, but you can read the short article if you want to, without subscribing, it's half a magazine page long.  I think about the future a lot, but I definitely did not see this one coming.  Just a weird place to find skateboarding art, more proof that action sports keep seeping deeper and deeper into mainstream society.  

Here's an action sports themed video from Architectural Digest that you'll either love or hate

I made my first skateboard art decks when I was back East in 2012.  I took the trash out one day in the apartment complex where I was living, and there were three, well worn, muddy, skateboard decks sitting beside the dumpster.  I think some mom just cleaned out her son's stuff that had been sitting around the apartment for a while.  They were all decks (Baker maybe?) that came out 3 or 4 years earlier.  I was doing my Sharpie Scribble Style drawing technique then, but I hadn't really figure out what to do with it.  Mostly I was drawing alien drawings with funny captions, I called them Grey Trash, like "trailer park aliens."  They just made me laugh, and were fun to draw.  I put art, actual drawings on paper, on each deck, with a clear coat, and they looked pretty cool.

Grey Trash (trailer park alien) art deck, 2012.  One of the first three I did.  #sharpiescribblestyle

Years later, about 2020, I was homeless out here in SoCal, and I was selling drawings, not many, to people on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.  I did a Kobe Bryant tribute deck, after his untimely death, and made a tribute deck.  I took it over to Hollywood to see what people would think.  The art deck got way more looks than traditional drawings did.  It was a chilly night, and I was debating whether I would take off or not.  But the Kobe tribute deck sold in 15 or 20 minutes.  I got $40 for it, and I had maybe 12 hours or so of work into it, but I was broke, and took the money. 

Kobe Bryant tribute art deck, 2020.

 

Being homeless, I was sleeping outside, scraping by, and selling some art every month then.  I moved up from a 5' X 5', closet-sized storage unit, and moved up to a 10' X 10' unit.  That actually turned into a cool little art studio.  I started making more art decks, planning to start selling them in Hollywood, and work up to a somewhat steady income, to start getting back on track financially.  But this was during the pandemic, like with everyone else during the pandemic, things didn't go as planned.  I got behind on rent for the bigger unit, and lost it all two or three months later.  Shit happens.  I did like doing the art decks, and would like to make some more someday.  I don't have a space to store all the supplies and to work now.  

I've been doing a lot of writing on Substack lately, a platform designed specifically for writers, check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

Freestyle Pioneers: Bob Haro

Bob Haro invented BMX freestyle.  If you ride flatland, ramps, pools, park, street or anything similar, you do that, because Bob Haro started doing tricks on his bike in the 1970's, and then started doing trick shows. Bob Haro invented BMX freestyle, that's what us old riders all learned, when getting into "trick riding," the emerging sport of BMX freestyle, in the early 1980's.  Yes, other people rode BMX bikes in pools, and most BMX racers jumped and did some tricks.  But Bob started doing trick shows at BMX races, and those early demos led to the growth of "trick riding," which became BMX freestyle, all the non-racing aspects of BMX, except dirt jumping.  This short video above gives a quick overview of Bob Haro talking about riding skateparks in the mid 1970's, then starting the business that became Haro Designs, and eventually Haro Bikes.  This video is from 1985 or 1986, I believe.

Bob Haro (left) and Bob Morales- around 1979 or 1980.  This is the first touring BMX freestyle team, and two incredibly entrepreneurial young guys.  Bob Haro invented the first BMX freestyle bike in 1983, redesigning the twin top tube Torker to work better for trick riding.  He sold Haro, and has been doing other design work in the decades since.  Bob Morales designed the first Dyno bike, and helped design the GT performer freestyle bike, and later put out Auburn race bikes, and Morales flatland bikes.  He started the ASPA, put on BMX skatepark contests, and then the AFA, the flatland and ramps comps of the 1980's.  He went on to create mountain bike and motorcycle components.  Early BMX freestyle was about shows, and was completely intertwined with entrepreneurship.  If this photo is from 1980, then Haro is about 22 and Morales is about 17.  

Bob Haro riding quarterpipe and wedge ramp- somewhere between 1981-1983

Bob Haro- one man freestyle show in the U.K. in 1983- This 5 1/2 minute video shows Bob doing a demo, and then has a short interview.  While these tricks look pretty simple now, Bob was inventing the foundational tricks that everything since has been built on.  Do you ride now?  Go out and try to do a back wheel 540 on a wedge ramp or bank, like Bob does in this video.  Forty one years later and that's still a solid trick, and not as simple as it looks, is it?   

Bob Haro describing the original Haro Freestyler bike in 1984, It came out in 1983, and was later known as the Haro Master.  This is the first BMX bike designed specifically for trick riding.

23Mag page on Bob Haro- This page includes a BMX drawing from 1976, rock walk how-to from 1979, and several more really early photos and some written description of Bob's work in BMX freestyle.

Bob Haro and the original BMX freestyle bike, the Haro Freestyler, 1983.  Photo nabbed from internet.

The BMX chase scene from the movie E.T. (1982)-  Bob Haro was one of the riders in this scene- In the recent Unclicked podcast with Bob Haro (linked below), Ryan Fudger and Dennis Enarson talk with Haro about the two early movies featuring BMX, E.T.- The Extraterrestrial from 1982, and RAD from 1986.  To people coming up after the 1980's in BMX, those two movies seem comparable.  But there was a huge difference between them.  E.T. was a mainstream hit movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, and it grossed over $359 million in North America, $619 million worldwide, and sold over 120 million movie tickets, in theaters.  Riding a BMX bike in E.T. in 1982 would be like riding in a BMX chase scene in a movie like one of the Harry Potter movies, or a Star Wars or Avengers movie in recent years.  E.T. was that big in its day, at a time when most people had never really seen BMX racing before.  

RAD, on the other hand, cost $3 million to make, and completely bombed in theaters, grossing only $2 million.  Theaters were the game in the 1980's movies, the whole home video market was just getting going in the 1980's.  As I wrote in one of my most popular blog posts, I hated RAD when it came out.  I actually liked the Kevin Bacon bicycle messenger movie, Quicksilver, which came out about the same time, much better.  That bombed in theaters, too, grossing $7 million, after costing $10 million to make.  

RAD, however, turned into a cult classic, in the early 1990's when the home video market grew.  In the home video era, RAD was watched over and over by kids coming up then, and drew a lot of people into BMX.  RAD, as you older riders know, featured Eddie Fiola and Martin Aparijo stunts for the main characters, plus several other top BMXers of that era.  Quicksilver featured Martin Aparijo and Woody Itson, along with bike stuntman Pat Romano, in the jam session scene, which was more like an actual BMX freestyle session in those days.  

So E.T. showed a really cool scene of BMX jumping and riding to well over 100 million people in 1982, just as BMX freestyle was beginning to emerge as a separate thing to BMX racing.  RAD was a whole movie about BMX, that despite a pretty goofy story line, it showed BMX riding to hundreds of thousands of kids in the early 1990's, and drew a lot of new riders into the sport, earning is a cult status to riders coming up in that era.    

Bob Haro BMX Masters- This is a short video talking about his art and cartoons.  Bob's artwork is what first got him drawn into working at BMX Action magazine in the mid 1970's.  

Talk Tales- This is a 7 minute video, from 2023, of Bob talking about life as a kid, freestyle, his music, and other stuff.  

Born from BMX/Bell Helmets- This is a short clip of Bob looking back at drawing, and how he developed his cartoon style of BMX drawings.  

Bob Haro- Master Class in France in 2012 (put on by Frank Beliot & crew)-  59 minutes-This is a one hour video, with Bob talking about his whole life in BMX freestyle, and work since.  He shares a lot of his own photos in this presentation.  This predates all of the more recent podcasts, and is Bob himself giving a talk about his life and work.  

Unclicked podcast with Bob Haro- 2:32:00- Ryan Fudger of Our BMX and current Haro pro rider Dennis Enarson, sit down with Bob Haro and talk about his whole life, in and out of BMX, for 2 1/2 hours, in early 2024.  

Bob Haro with an edged, coaster brake kickturn, on an early quarterpipe, about 1982 or 1983.  Photo nabbed from internet. 

This new blog post idea, looking at pioneers in BMX freestyle, was inspired by the recent Unclicked podcast with Bob Haro.   While I really liked the podcast, I realized while listening to it that today's BMX media people weren't around in the 1980's.  So there are certain questions they may not even think to ask, or aspects of that first decade of BMX freestyle that they just aren't aware of.  I'm a rider and industry guy from that era, who is now a blogger operating outside today's real world of BMX.  I decided I could do a series of blog posts where, instead of my personal stories of some event, I gather the best videos and material about a pioneering rider, and bring the best info about that rider into one place.  This isn't everything there is about Bob Haro on the web.  But if you want to learn about Bob's influence on BMX freestyle, going through the videos and info in this post will give you a solid understanding of who he was, what he's done, and his input in the early years of BMX freestyle.  In future "Freestyle Pioneers" posts, I'll do the same with other riders and industry people.  

My $10,000 investment paper trading exercise- two months in

Way back on November 14th of 2023, I wrote this post about "The great Bitcoin Play" of 2023-2025."  The idea was that the coming Bitcoin ETF(s) and the Bitcoin halving in the spring of 2024 were solid, fundamental reasons why Bitcoin was in the early stages of another big bull cycle.  

Disclaimer

The rise in Bitcoin, and then Ethereum (there's one or more Eth ETFs coming as well), should drive many other cryptos higher as well, over the next 12 to 24 months.  When I wrote that post, Bitcoin was at $35,554 per BTC, and Ethereum was at $1,979 per Eth.  As I write this post today (on February 21, 2024), Bitcoin is at $51,019, up $15,465 per Bitcoin, or 43% from November 11th, 2023.  Ethereum is at $2,910, up $931 per Eth, or 47% since then.  I told you guys something was happening here.  If I had any actual money, I would have invested some at that point.  But I'm a broke homeless guy, and I didn't.  My loss. 

On December 21st, 2023, I opened a Coinbase account, hoping to be able to scrape up $50 or $100, to get at least a little bit of money into crypto to ride this big wave.  As most of you know, I've been homeless a long time, and am continually struggling with day to day life, and to eventually make enough money to get back on my feet, rent an apartment again, and all that stuff.  I see this crypto bull market, for Bitcoin and Eth, at least, as one of the most solid investment opportunities of the next couple of years.  Personally, I think we're already in a recession, one that will become visible to everyone in the next 2 to 4 months.  I may be wrong with that assessment, but if so, it appears the U.S. will head into recession soon.  Germany, and now Japan and the U.K. ,are all in recession now, and China's residential real estate market (which is a HUGE Ponzi scheme, basically), is beginning to implode.  Chinese developer Evergrande isn't so grand anymore, and is being liquidated, and that's a huge company.  China's real estate market was worth something like $62 trillion, possibly the biggest investment market in the world (the total bond market may be bigger).  That will lead to more chaos and economic woes for China, for quite a while.  YouTube economic brains, Steven Van Metre and Jeff Snider, have been talking about a "globally synchronized recession" for months.  We seem to be heading into it now, with the U.S. economy better than others,  but still probably heading into recession, if we're not already in one.    

It looks to me like most traditional investments (stocks, residential real estate, gold), will drop, or at best be pretty chaotic, possibly stagnant, for the next 2 to 3 years. 

 Unfortunately, I wasn't able to put any money into my crypto account, since I have a cheap Obama phone, the system wouldn't accept it.  I think that's the government saying, "We won't let you speculate on crypto, you broke-ass motherfucker."  Or something like that.  That really pissed me off.  I've been watching crypto for a couple of years now, learning, and trying to understand the Big Picture of it.  The growing bull market cycle is about as obvious as it comes, if you pay attention to crypto.  Bitcoin hit bottom about $15,500 per BTC, in November 2022, when the FTX collapse/scandal happened.  Then U.S. regulators tried their best to kill it off, but couldn't.  Bitcoin has inched back up to over $50,000 now, with other top cryptos climbing behind it.  There's more to come, thanks largely to the halving, which is encoded into the blockchain.  That should happen in April.  

Not being able to put at least a little bit of money into crypto in December really pissed me off.  I'm sick of seeing investment opportunities drift by, and not being able to take advantage of them, since I'm just scraping by.  So I decided to "paper trade" this crypto market instead.  Paper trading is an old term, where people would pretend to buy and sell stocks or other investments, and write the in and out points on paper.  In the pre-internet days, that's how investors would test ideas, or try to learn about markets, without putting an real money up that could be lost with a bad decision.  

So that's what I did.  I pretended to invest $10,000 in several cryptos on December 21, 2023.  I decided to check in every once in a while, and see how they're doing, and "sell" or "buy" other cryptos (or other investments, if any look better than crypto), and see how it all plays out.  This is a big experiment.  Am I right about a 12-24 month bull market in crypto?  We will all find out as the months play out.  This post is my two months in look at how my crypto picks are doing.  

I was thinking that I did the original post on December 11, 2023, not on the 21st.  So on the evening of February 10, 2024, I figured out where each pick was, up or down, and made one change.  So here's how things are going.  I made one change on December 10th, I sold all my THORChain, at a loss, and bought more Solana with the remaining money, figuring a 5%, gas fee for each trade.  

On December 21st, I took my imaginary $10,000, and "invested" $9,500 in several cryptos, with $500 (5%) in total fees.  That's the high end of potential gas fees, just to figure them in and make it legit.  Here's what that bought me then.  Here's the December 21, 2023 post, to see the details, and initial prices paid for each. 

On December 21st, 2023, I "bought" .02399 Bitcoin for $1,000, .4518 Eth for $1,000, 1234.56 Apecoin for $2,000, 56.931 Avalanche for $2,000, 14.357 Solana, 172.413 Thorchain for $1,000, 74.962 Polkadot for $500, 535.298 Polygon for $500, 490.196 Sandbox for $250, and 510.204  Decentraland for $250.  

Again, this is a paper trade, an experiment, NOT an actual investment of money.  So that was $9,500 into crypto with $500 in fees.  Then, since I was thinking I did this on December 11, I looked at it on February 10, to figure it all out and write this 2 month blog post.  Then I double checked, and realized I was ten days early.  But I decided to dump the Thorchain then, and but more Solana with the proceeds.  I sold the Thorchain at a loss for $881.03, with a $44 fee.  I picked up Solana at $109.02, with the remaining $837.03.  That gave me 7.29 more Solana after the 5% fee.    

So here's where my $10,000 investment challenge stands right now on February 21, 2024, at today's prices:

.02399  Bitcoin at $51,109.76 = $1,223.96

.4518 Ethereum at $2,910.98 = $1,315.18

21.647 Solana at $101.83 = $2,204.31

56.931 Avalanche at $36.74 = $2,091.64

74.962 Polkadot at $7.35 = $550.97

595.298 Polygon at $.92 = $547.67

1234.56 Apecoin at $1.68 = $2,074.06

490.196 Sandbox at $.48 = $235.29

510.204 Decentraland at $.47 = $239.80

Total value: $10,482.88   (Feb.21, 2024)

So, from the $10,000 "invested" in crypto on December 21, 2023, with $500 paid in fees initially, I'm up 4.8% from initial $10K, (with the fees included), in two months.  Or I'm up 5.08% from the $9,500 invested in crypto, not including fees, in two months.  That would be a 57% return on an annual basis, if it stays at that level.  So my $10,000 investment, my paper trade experiment in crypto is off to a good start.

OK, that's cool and all.  But you may be wondering, why did I pick these cryptos out of the thousands that exist?  Here's my thinking.  Bitcoin is the original blockchain crypto, and while it's useful mainly as a store of value these days, It is the most decentralized crypto, and the biggest, and most widely held.  The case for the ETF's and then the halving (in April?) made sense to me.   Those are solid reasons that Bitcoin is in another long bull cycle, which usually lasts 12-24 months.  So far, each bull cycle has been much bigger than the previous one.  So that's a good reason to put some money in BTC.  But Bitcoin may go 4X from the $35k it was at (at my November 14th 2023 blog post), that's $140,000 per coin.  Maybe.  3X or 4X TOPS from $35K.  But not much more.  So I thought Eth, my personal favorite crypto, will ride the wave, probably hitting another higher high, like Bitcoin.  So those first two are the solid bets, if we're in the early part of another long, crypto bull market.  So far, it appears that we are in that next bull cycle.

Solana is huge in the NFT space now, because people can mint NFT's on the Solana chain, with much, much lower gas fees than on Ethereum.  That's why I picked Solana, and why I dumped THORChain to to buy more Solana.  Avalanche is tied to blockhain gaming, and I think NFT's, and especially Web 3/blockchain gaming, will be huge this crypto wave.  

Apecoin is the token of Yuga Labs, who put out the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT's, and much more since.  I think they're a great team, and doing really cool shit in Web 3/crypto world, so that's why the big bet on Apecoin.  I think they will pop late, quite a while after BTC, Eth, and the level 1 & 2 cryptos.  Apecoin hit about $27 per unit at its peak, and hovered around $6 to $7 each for a long while, before crypto winter set it.  

Polkadot and Polygon are both Level 2 cryptos from the last wave, and my guess is that they'll ride the big wave to some degree, with solid returns.  Sandbox and Decentraland are two of the main metaverses, which are still being used, but have completely fallen out of favor with most crypto investors.  But they are still places where NFT's can be shared, where people can buy "land" in their metaverses, and build virtual locations.  And they're cheap.  So they are a long shot that.  Once we hit the FOMO stage of crypto buying, several months from now, they may pop big and come back in vogue.  Maybe.  Or they may not.  Like I said, they are a long shot.  

So that's my thinking on why I picked these particular cryptos for my $10,000 crypto paper trading experiment.  This is not a "shoot for the moon, I want 100X return!" basket of cryptos.  I picked cryptos that I think can be sold near their new peaks, and turn the original $10,000 investment into $20,000 to maybe $40,000 in 12 to 18 months.  That's the idea.  Again, it's an experiment, a paper trade, since I couldn't get money into crypto when I wanted to, as things were rising.  

 

Trey Jones' & crew's Swampfest 2024 (#8)

Here's the Dig BMX intro video to Swampfest 2024 above, the build.  Pirate ship halfpipe and a full concrete bowl? No problem.  And a whole bunch of other stuff.  It's flat out amazing how much stuff they build for this event.  It looks amazing.  Then comes a weekend of fire, bikes, and mayhem, to quote one of the former FBM slogans.  As an Old School Has Been BMX industry geezer and blogger, far outside the loop these days, I'm just going to compile links to most of the best videos here.  Watch one, watch 'em all, do what you want.  Looks like another crazy fun time at Swampfest 2024.  

Video editor tip (from a guy who made BMX videos back in the Dark Ages of S-VHS/Hi8)- If you put people's names in yellow, it shows up better on almost any background.  Just sayin'.

Swampfest Unclicked- Our BMX- 83 minute podcast on the whole Swampfest series- 2/2024

Our BMX Day Zero- Swampfest 2024 (practice day- Cameo by Old Schooler John Paul Rogers who has an actual alligator to cook.  How'd the gator bar-B-Q turn out?)  

Our BMX- Day One Mayhem- Swampfest 2024- 10:15

Bloom BMX- Swampfest- Waldo, Florida- 2024- 17:32- I think this is my favorite video yet.  While the guys were shooting Roman candles, lighting shit on fire, and shooting phone video, the Bloom crew women were actually riding the trails.  Little interviews with Robbie Morales and Chris Moeller, and different angle of the mayhem with really funny commentary throughout.  All that's missing from this edit is L7's "Everglade" playing in the background.  Oh, and don't grab a woman's ass at Swampfest.  

Dig BMX- Swampfest 2024- Odyssey Jam- Source High Air- Blood Wizard Channel- 8:40

Christian Raymond- Insane man-ramp to boardslide on fired up rail- 8:03

Dan Foley- Swampfest 2024- Raw- 10:00

Our BMX- Swampfest 2024- Odyssey Ramp Jam- 8:13

Our BMX- Swampfest 2024- Independent Swamp Rail- 9:50

Our BMX- Swampfest 2024- Cult Long Jump- 5:06

Our BMX- Swampfest 2024- Blood Wizard Channel Jam- 3:44

Our BMX- Swampfest 2024- OJ Wheels Wild Ride- 6:52

Our BMX- Swampfest 2024- Up Ledge Jam!- 9:00

Our BMX- Swampfest 2024- Bowl Jam- They built a cool permanent (?) concrete bowl for this event

Dig BMX- Swampfest 2024- Day Two- 10:28  

The Daily Woo- Swampfest 2024- Florida's Wildest event- 27:58

Moto Broo- The Most Crazy BMX Jam of the Year- Swampfest 2024- 20:52

Psumo Psensei- The Burning of Swampfest 2024- 23:42

Check out Our BMX site for their "The Best of Swampfest 2024"

Check out Dig BMX for their final edits

I've been doing a lot of writing on Substack lately, a platform designed specifically for writers, check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

Welcome to the Phoenix Great Depression - Part 2

 

Back in the 1980's, I worked at Vision Skateboards/Vision Street Wear clothing, when their logo was iconic in the skateboard and BMX worlds.  In late 2019, I wondered what a modern version of that logo would be.  This American Struggle Wear drawing is what I came up with.  Yes, the little guy, the American worker, is bent over, holding it all up, trudging up the mountain of the stock market chart, which is heading down.  The little word bubble at the top says, "The economy is awesome - The 1%."

In the late 2010's, several economic trends that I had been watching, one for nearly 30 years, seemed to be converging.  One long term cycle said the U.S. should have a great depression, or at least a really bad recession, starting in 2020, or soon after.  Another theory, the late futurist Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave, said that the Industrial Age was still dying off, and we were creating a new kind of society, an Information Age, to replace it.  That would lead to more old industries and businesses dying off, and new ones emerging.  In addition, Rich Dad, Poor Dad author, Robert Kiyosaki, had been saying for years that we should have a big economic downturn around 2017, because that's the year the first Baby Boomers hit retirement age, and they had to start pulling their money out of the stock markets.  In addition, we were getting to the end of the normal business cycle, which ends with a recession.  The normal 4 to 7 year business cycle has now been stretched out to 15 years, through all kinds of manipulation.  We haven't had a full recession in the U.S. since 2009.  

I had a whole bunch of interconnected ideas, based on theories I'd read and heard, and my own observation of economic trends, for about 30 years.  Everything was telling me that the coming decade, the 2020's, were going to be one really crazy decade.  So I began to write and work these ideas out.  I decided to self-publish them as a book/blog.  I built the empty blog on December 21st, 2019, and began writing the first chapter that day.  I called this big project Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now- Book 1.  at the time, I thought there would be a "Book 2" at some point.  In paragraph 8 of Chapter 1, I wrote:

"The word "recession" is basically meaningless in today's ultra-manipulated economic world.  I'm calling this coming decade " The Phoenix Great Depression."  Whatever the numbers and economists' statistics wind up being, this decade will feel like a full blown great depression to most people.  Yes, no one wants to hear that, but that's where we're headed.  But the tough initial blows economically are setting the stage for tremendous opportunity, like the mythical phoenix being reborn from the ashes." 

I wrote that on December 21st or 22nd of 2019.  At the time the business media was saying we might have a minor recession in late 2020.  But the Repo Market Crisis had already happened in September of 2019, and The Fed was quietly putting billions of dollars a week into the banking system to keep it functioning.  "Liquidity," they called it.  Everything I had read and seen told me a big recession was coming pretty soon. 

Then Covid-19 began to spread out of China, it hit U.S. shores, and the stock market collapsed in early 2020.  Soon came the mask rules and the mandatory lockdowns, with millions and millions of people stuck inside their homes for months.  That threw us into a deep depression.  Yes, depression.  The second quarter of 2020, the GDP dropped by over 32%, and a 10% drop qualifies as a depression, by definition.  

On March 1st 2020, I was writing chapter 17 of Dystopia, about "The Phoenix Great Depression," what I believed would be 5 to 7 years of severe economic turbulence, in the 2020's.  At that point, we were halfway down in the stock crash of early 2020.  Nobody had any idea just how big a deal the pandemic would become.  I wrote the remining three chapters of Dystopia over the next three months, as the pandemic set in.  The major economic downturn that all the long term trends pointed to was actually happening, much as I had anticipated.  I did not expect a pandemic to spark the recession, but I expected a serious recession to begin in 2020.  

Then something really crazy happened.  The Fed and the U.S. government started a series of stimulus measures.  I expected a bailout, much like in 2008-2009, that would lessen the effects of the recession.  But I did not expect that they would ultimately create $6 trillion, and throw that money at not only big business and banks, but local and state governments, and everyday Americans.  Between the stimulus checks, the Cares Act, PUA, PPP, ERC, ARPA, and other programs, The Fed (Federal Reserve) and the U.S. Treasury, increased the U.S. money supply by close to 25%, roughly $6 trillion.  That stopped the 2020 depression dead in its tracks, and nearly everyone suddenly became Hood Rich.  Wealthy people bought assets.  Big businesses bought stock shares back.  Everyday Americans, the world's greatest consumers, bought all kinds of stupid shit, like putting down payments on $90,000 trucks and SUV's they couldn't afford, then not paying the payments, or buying meme stocks with their new Robinhood accounts, and other nonsense like that.  Suddenly, in late 2020 and through 2021 there was all kinds of money in the U.S. economy, and life felt good for many people, except for the lockdowns.  Recession?  What recession? 

So the great depression level economic crisis I wrote was coming started in February of 2020, and then got put on pause by this huge deluge of money throughout the U.S., and other major countries as well.  Then, as we began to emerge from the pandemic, all that new money that had been created sparked really high inflation.  Because that's what happens when you create huge amounts of a fiat currency, the value of the currency goes down, and prices go up, usually about 12 to 18 months after the money is created.  

Then The Fed raised interest rates faster than ever before, "to fight inflation," inflation that they and the U.S. treasury, caused.  We went from near zero interest rates, to more historically normal levels, 5.25% on the Fed Funds rate, and 7% 30 year mortgages, which no one was used to anymore.  The economic system just got more and more out of whack as one crazy event after another happened.  The rapid rise in interest rates caused all kinds of different problems, including for banks, who had loaded up on .75% and 1% return T-bills, which suddenly dropped in value because T-bills started paying 4% or 5% interest.

As interest rates rose, the economy, now running on trillions of dollars of "helicopter money," began to slow down.  But there was still so much new money sloshing around the system, that it took a really long time for the economy to really slow down.  Finally the Employee Retention Credit system, which was being scammed left and right in 2022 and 2023, was dialed back in late 2023.  The economy began to slow down, as inflation also dropped back down to lower levels.  The Fed wants to get CPI inflation back to 2% per year.  According to Truflation, which tracks inflation in real time (not with a lag, like The Fed's data), U.S. inflation right now (Feb. 15, 2024) is 1.42%.  The official government CPI number is 3.4%.  So prices are still going up, but much slower than they were in 2021 and 2022.  

Most of the main economic indicators now show that the U.S. is either in a recession, or heading towards one in early 2024.  Yes, there is a strong narrative in mainstream and business media, that we will have a soft landing, and there will be no recession in 2024.  But if you dig into the people studying the actual economic data, the economies of most major countries appear to be slowing down.  Personally, I think we went into a recession around October or November of 2023.  When the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) officially names a recession (a year or two after one ends), that's when I expect them to put the beginning around October 2023.  But two things have been keeping most people from believing we're in a recession.  The stock market indices are hitting new, all time highs recently, and the unemployment rate is still really low.  These are two things average people look to as "signs of the economy."  But, in reality, stocks usually don't drop dramatically, until well into a recession, and the unemployment rate usually rises well into a recession, as well.  Both of these are lagging indicators.  In the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the big stock drop was in September of 2008.  But the actual recession officially started in December of 2007, nine months earlier.  The unemployment level didn't really take off until May of 2008, five months after the recession started.  We were several months into that recession before the recession became obvious to average working people.  

I think we are at the time now, where I can safely call the return of The Phoenix Great Depression.  It started in February of 2020, but was put on hold by all the stimulus programs, but late summer of 2020.  I believe we are in a recession now, and this second recession of the 2020's will be deep, it will be long, and it will involve most of the industrialized world.  

Germany's manufacturing has been struggling for several months, although they aren't quite officially in a recession, but much of the Euro Zone already is.  Across the Pacific, China's gigantic, $62 trillion real estate market is collapsing.  They reportedly have over 100 cities full of condos that no one will ever live in.  They actually built at least 65 to 80 million homes and condos that no one will every live in.    There may be even more unused condos, in fact.  They just kept building condo towers to keep their growth economic growth going, but the Ponzi scheme structure of their real estate industry is imploding  now.  Giant Chinese real estate developer Evergrande has just gone bankrupt, and is being liquidated, which is spooking Chinese workers away from investing in new homes, one of the few things Chinese people can invest in.  In addition, as I was writing this today, a report came out that Japan is now in recession, and has dropped from the 3rd largest economy to the 4th, behind struggling Germany.  

There's no strong growth anywhere in the world to help pull China, the European Union, and the U.S. out of our slowing economies.  If The Fed and U.S. treasury try to bail everyone out again, they will quickly spark up more inflation, which is exactly what they don't want to do.  The biggest power players in the world of economics basically have to just let the chaos play out at this point, around the world.  There will be limited bailouts of banks, and maybe some big businesses, but each one must be weighed now against the risk of causing more inflation.  American consumers are struggling to make their regular bill payments, and can't afford even higher prices.    

So what does all this mean?  It means the serious recession, that the trends I follow predicted, is settling into most major countries, China, Japan, Germany and the European Union, and here in the U.S.A.. In tomorrow's blog post, I'll go into some of the trends I think will play out as we head into a deep global recession, one that will probably feel like a great depression, by the time it's finally over.  

I've been writing a lot lately, on a platform called Substack, designed specifically for writers, check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

The Our BMX edit- BMX Triple Challenge Jumping- Glendale AZ 2024

Here's the Our BMX edit of the highlights of the Triple Jump challenge that just happened in Glendale, AZ.  The jumps are huge, and the tricks are video game level stuff.  Just watch.

Check out the qualifying and semi-finals from Triple Challenge Glendale on the Our BMX website

The last 115,000 page views

 Here's a peak at my Blogger analytics.  This latest spike, nearly 9,000 views, centered in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, along with Denmark and about 12 other countries, all in the last week.  I don't know what's causing these spikes in page views.  The darker areas on the world map are the countries where recent views have come from.

Several months ago, I noticed a weird spike in page views to my blog.  For about six years, since I started this blog in the summer of 2017, I've been getting steady page views.  Most of the time, I get maybe 15 to 40 views a day.  My more popular BMX posts, back in 2017 and 2018, would sometimes get 300 to 800 views, in one or two days, on that one post.  But usually I get somewhere between 20 and 100 views a day, with 15 to 30 being about average if I don't post that day.  This blog has 373 backlinks, I just checked.  Most of those are my own links, from social media and other blogs.  a reader will find one of my other blogs, and at the bottom there's a link, "Hey, check out my main blog..."  But not all of links are mine.  There are sites linking to this blog from Slovakia, for example, that showed up on the report.  There are BMXers, and people who read some of my financial oriented posts, from around the world.  

Back in the late summer of 2019, this blog got banned from linking on Facebook.  When I wrote a BMX post, I'd usually post it in 3 or 4 BMX groups on FB, so a bunch of Old School BMX freestylers could check out that post.  I suddenly got tagged ad a spammer, for linking posts about Old School BMX freestyle, in Old School BMX freestyle Facebook groups.  But in 2019, for whatever reason, I couldn't link to this blog, or any of my other blogs, from Facebook.  

At the same time, my analytics here on Blogger (owned by Google) got weird as well.  My page view count suddenly dropped by 80% to 90%.  Before then, a good BMX post would usually get 300 to 400 page views, and after about August of 2019, a similar BMX post would get 30 to 40 views.  It's like my page views were either being hidden, or the algorithm was just keeping my posts from being seen.  Now, there's been all kinds of other weird shit happening in my life, going all the way back to right after the 9/11 attacks, in 2001.  So to me this was "just another weird thing happening."  Around that same time I got banned from linking this blog on FB, is when Peter Thiel started advising Facebook.  A LOT of content creators, particularly on YouTube, started complaining about the algorithms around that same time.  

But I just kept blogging, and after about four years, I suddenly could link this blog on Facebook again.  But my number of page views was far less that whole time.  I lost tens of thousands of page views because of not being able to link on FB.  

I don't really care about absolute numbers of views, just that somebody is actually reading my posts on a consistent basis.  If it's 15 people reading a post, or 1,000 reading it, doesn't really matter to me.  I don't have ads on my blogs, so I don't need millions of views.  I keep the counters on my blogs to show somebody actually reads these blogs.  There are over 600 million blogs in the world, and most of them probably have fewer than 1,000 total views.  Most bloggers don't promote their blogs, for a variety of reasons.  I want somebody to read my stuff, so I promote my blog, post by post, so at least some people can find it.  

I got up to about 140,000 page views on this blog, slow and steady, by mid 2023 or so.  Then around 145,000 page views, I noticed a weird spike in views, thousands of views in a week, mostly from Singapore.  When I look at the posts being checked out, it only shows the 20 to 40 daily views from regular people.  I wasn't sure what was going on.  That first spike was all from one kind of browser, on one kind of phone, from Singapore, according to my analytics.  Then that spike passed, and things went back to normal.  Then came another spike, but that one was from another region, a different computer and browser, and they appeared to be looking at 30 or 40 different posts.  So some of these spikes look like this blog has gone viral in some region, where lots of people check it out.  Like some influencer in that region said, "Hey, check this out."  Other times, like the current spike of just under 1,500 views a day, for several days right now, are coming from Chrome on a Mac, and centered in Singapore, Hong Kong, and China, with 12 or 15 other countries also represented.  Is is some hack?  Is someone using A.I to scan my blog for keywords or themes?  Is some group who doesn't like my financial posts trying to figure out who I am, and why a homeless guy writes about future market events and inflection points?  I don't know.  

In any case, this blog has blasted higher, with much of the last 115,000 or so page views coming largely from huge, unusual spikes, that I can't explain.  It's just one more weird thing happening in our ever-changing world, and in the wild ride that is my life.  At the same time, I'm getting 15 to 100 views a day, slow and steady, like always, checking out the BMX and other random things I blog about.  

In any case, these weird spikes in page views have accounted for much of the last 115,000 views on this blog.  I'm not sure what's going on.   

Creative Life- 2/12/2024

Would you sleep on this mattress, not knowing who had slept there before?  This is what "transitional housing" looks like.  Imagine a 100 year old hotel building, on the outskirts of downtown L.A., and the whole building matches this mattress.  Everything is run down.  The toilet didn't flush either.  I was supposed to live here for several months, eating the pig slop they called food, with no functional toilet, for the CHANCE of getting a "permanent" (aka 2 year lease) apartment subsidized.  There was a wet, black substance, possibly black mold, growing on the wide window sill.  I picked the other mattress, about half as bad.  I was out at 6:30 the next morning, even though I knew there were several days of rain coming.  The "programs" all of you hear about for the homeless, are for the drug addicts and lazy fuckers who never want to work again.  The system is creating government sponsored drug addicts that your tax dollars (and inflation) pay the living expenses for.  There are at least 7 or 8 million of these people across the U.S. that you're paying for already.  There are plenty of those people.  But I'm not one of them.  There are no programs (other than food stamps (Cal Fresh) for people actually trying to work and earn a living again.  See this post for more info on that.

Just to be clear, my goal is to start a small business selling ebooks, real books, a few T-shirts, and my Sharpie art.  I want to use the proceeds from this business to rent a room or apartment, buy a BMX cruiser, start riding again to the level I can, and start slowly losing weight.  That's the goal.  That's always been the goal, since I landed back out on the streets of SoCal in the summer of 2019.  

The main reason a "real job" is out of the question is that, after living in North Carolina for ten years (2008-2018), where I couldn't find ANY job (except taxi driving for a year), I have no work history.  The last "real job" I had that could verify my employment would be a warehouse I worked at in 1997, where I tested computer monitors, drove a forklift, and loaded trucks.  Every job I've had since, taxi driving and "real jobs," the companies have all gone out of business, or been bought out and no longer exist.  I'm 57, really overweight, and can't do any physical jobs at this point.  But there's a lot I can do online.  

At this point, I have a better chance of creating a small business of writing and art, than I have of getting a real job that pays enough to rent a place to live.  I also used to be a part time flipper, buying storage unit auction units, and selling the stuff for cash.  That's a good way to make some money, week to week.  With a vehicle and a place to store stuff, I could do that as well.  That would combine well with the online business idea.  I always made some money doing that, I did it part time when I drove a taxi in 2004-2007.  So that's the goal, create my own job, rent a place to live, and stabilize my life again.  Then get a bike.  That's all I've been trying to do for nearly 5 years now.  

It's hard trying to build a business right off of the streets.  Really hard.  But that's the only realistic option right now.  And we're heading into a major recession (don't believe the media hype, we're in a recession, financial YouTube is talking about it daily).  I've built online stores twice since 2019, and both times my inability to get a legit bank account held me back.  I didn't realize something that simple would be such an issue.  But when you can't show proof of a physical address, it's an issue.  And no, a P.O. Box won't work.  

Anyhow, here's the last 3 1/2 months worth of drama.  At the end of November, I signed back up for food stamps (aka Cal Fresh), mine had expired at the end October.  I got approved for six months, like usual.  They had the first month on my card the next day.  Cool.  Then I got a free "Obama phone," because I couldn't scrape up enough money to buy a Trac phone, after mine got stolen last summer.

My food stamps didn't come in December, so I figured what I got at the end of November was for December, instead of back-timed for November.  Then they didn't come in January.  I called them in January.  The woman said the money would be on my card in three days.  It didn't come.  So I called again, that woman said they owed me for December and January, and it would all be on my card the next day.  It didn't come again.  As of now, for reasons no one can explain, I haven't had my food stamps payments for December, January, or February.  I'm in the system, it says so on the computer.  But they won't send the payments to my card, for some reason.  If I don't qualify, just say so, and I'll figure something else out.  But their online system says I should be getting the payments, and I'm not getting them, I'm in the system.

I also had a prepaid bank card thing, which allowed me to transfer money out of Paypal, and similar sources, so I could get paid for doing artwork, or other work online.  That card got shut down, no reason given, in December as well.  Then, since I've been following crypto for a couple of years now, I signed up for a Coinbase account.  I know the crypto major bull market is in its early stages, and will play out over the next 12 -18 months.  So I was planning to scrape up $50 or $100, and put it in Bitcoin, Eth, and a couple others, and just let it ride for the next year, as the cycle plays out.  I couldn't fund the account, my "Obama phone" wasn't accepted.  Then, a couple of days later, the new Google account I opened, to have a separate email for the crypto account, got shut down for no reason, as well.  That's the third Google account I've had shut down with no notice, with no reason given.  

With no food stamps in January, I struggled to scrape up food money.  Normal people are pretty generous to homeless people from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  Then the generosity just shuts off.  January is always the hardest month to scrape through.  I was going through my days, and not eating much.  I actually "work" much of every day, though I have to bounce from location to location to do it.  Other than the library, I have to pay, I have to buy something, at most of the locations I work at daily, like fast food joints, Starbucks and similar locations, etc.  Buying a drink or food gives me access to heat or A/C, a place to sit, power (sometimes) wifi, and a bathroom.  So I have to buy something to use those places, and I need bus fare to get from place to place.  That's just everyday life in my situation.  

Because I wasn't eating much, and not eating well, my immune system got depressed.  I got sick in the middle of January, and went to the hospital for three days.  I had some infection that normally I could fight off.  My lack of decent food, and battling the chilly weather, wore me down.  I had some infection, and it landed in my lower left leg, a form of cellulitis.  I've been prone to that since I was a taxi driver in 2007.  When I was leaving the hospital, it took half a day for them to find my belongings, that I had to leave with security in the E.R., when I checked in. When they found my stuff, My sleeping bag and blanket were gone.  The hospital either lost them, or threw them away.  That's a bummer.

From the hospital I got sent to a "homeless rehab" place up in Palmdale.  The people working there were all cool, the food was decent, but luke warm or cold.   But the place was completely underfunded for the services they are supposed to provide.  They had problems getting me my antibiotics three times a day the first few days.  I could barely walk when I got there, and just laid in my little bed, with my leg elevated on my backpack.  I healed up, mostly.  But now my left leg swells up with fluid each day, then the fluid drains at night.  It's still improving over time.  It was back to pretty much normal size this morning.

I talked to the social workers about looking into "housing" after a few days in the rehab place.  Then I didn't see them again.  My social worker went ahead and signed me up for the housing system, at the beginning of February, and I was taken to the sketchy-ass building in downtown L.A., with the nasty mattress in the photo above, and no working toilet for my room.  So I left.

Then I had to deal with a couple of 38 to 40 degree (F) nights, the first with no sleeping bag.  Luckily, a person I know in this area gave me a sleeping bag the second day.  That was a life saver.  It's good down to about 45 or 50 degrees, so I want to buy a moving blanket for additional warmth at night.  Those are compact, and are good insulation for their size.  I squeaked through the huge rainstorm, 7.25 to 8.25 inches of rain in about four days, where I'm at.  One night, I set down my big, trash bag wrapped sketch pad, to put on my poncho, when leaving a business.  I spaced out, and left my sketchpad there.  It had the finished "Regrets" drawing (below), a large doodle art (black and white) drawing, and a couple smaller things.  Not a huge loss, but still a bummer.  So I have to buy a new sketch pad before I can do any more drawings.  Another thing on the list.

Then last night, while I was sleeping, some motherfucker stole my shopping bag, which was tucked behind my legs while I slept.  All my clothes were in it, and about 15 razors, since I have to buy a 20-pack of razors to get one, these days.  So I have the clothes on my back, my laptop, Obama phone, and Sharpies and my basic art supplies.  I have the new sleeping bag.  And that's it.  

I want to be perfectly clear, I'm NOT asking, or hinting that I need help.  I'm just writing this post to explain how fucked up life can be, to vent, and to let everyone know the kinds of things I deal with, and don't write about most of the time.  This is why I scrape by, and haven't been able to get back on my feet.  When you're homeless, things you need, everyday items, are getting lost or stolen, on a regular basis.  These setbacks can take months to recover from.  

It's a beautiful, but chilly morning here in The Valley, north of L.A..  I've been here in a fast food place for over an hour, and it's still only 52 degrees (F) out right now.  It's been a crazy winter, and I'm doing my best to survive, and keep plugging away at the overall goal of getting a functioning business going, and making a living again some day.  But it's been a crazy winter, I have a bunch of stuff to replace, and I can't even do artwork right now.  But I keep plugging away at it.  

So that's my status right now, as a creative guy working to earn a legit living again.  Again, I'm not asking for help or any items.  I'm just writing about the things I normally don't write about, and letting everyone who follows my work know how things are going.  Thanks for reading, thanks to all who have bought drawings from me, helped me out in some other way, or support me on Patreon (I can't access that $$ right now either, but will be able to soon).  More stuff to come.  I'll try to keep it interesting, most of the time.  

Both legs were swollen at this point, even my hands were.  But the left lower leg was more swollen.  This is the morning after I got to the homeless recuperation place in Palmdale, after three days in the hospital, in mid January.  

"Regrets."  This is the #sharpiescribblestyle drawing that was in the big sketchpad that I left in a restaurant.  It wasn't there when I checked a day later.  Nobody wanted to buy this one, but technically, it's one of my better drawings.  I wanted to do something weird for Halloween, try another idea, and this was the result.  I hope whomever nabbed it likes it.   

I've been doing a lot of writing on Substack lately, check it out:

Steve Emig The White Bear's Substack

 

Homelessness is an industry

Watching a whole bunch of videos about how different cities and regions are doing the other day, this video popped up in the side results.  Although it focuses on Los Angeles, the basic themes should be the same in most major cities at this point.  Billions of dollars are now being spent nationwide "to combat homelessness" in major cities.  Those billions are your tax (and inflation) dollars, and the number of homeless people keeps rising.  This video does a good job of explaining how convoluted the homelessness programs and "housing" services are these days, and why the numbers of homeless don't go down that much.  In L.A., the number of homeless people went up significantly last year.  It doesn't matter who the mayor and city council members are of these cities, the problem will continue to get worse.

I could write a book about homelessness in the U.S. today, since I've experienced so many aspects of it, and could research the other aspects.  But I don't want to write that book, because it wouldn't do any good.  The incredibly expensive current programs, which are very lucrative for a handful of people and businesses, non-profit entities, will just keep going in the direction it's already going.  

There are more spare bedrooms in the U.S. than there are homeless people.  There are more empty, livable houses in the U.S., right now, than there are homeless people.  We could house all the homeless, in humane conditions, for less money than is being spent right now on homelessness in major cities.  It's completely possible, but it's not politically palatable.  Bureaucracy, the status quo, and the businesses and non-profits now profiting, get in the way.  

In fact, at this point, the solution to homelessness in the U.S. is Extended Stay America hotels, run by Extended Stay America, or a comparable business, not run by non-profits and slumlords.  L.A. (and at least a handful of other major cities) could house there entire homeless people in Extended Stay America hotels, one person per suite, for less money per person, per night, then they are spending right now, keeping the homeless people on the streets.  It's cheaper to house a homeless person in an Extended Stay America room, and give them food stamps to buy food, than it is to house them in homeless "tiny homes."  This article has the costs of L.A.'s tiny homes.  If you double up couples, single mom or dad families, and people who could live as roommates together in a suite, it's would be totally possible, and considerably cheaper, to house the current homeless people that way.  But that would end the huge income streams to certain businesses, non-profit entities, and people, that now exists.  So it won't happen.  It would also remove homelessness as the political football that it now is in many cities.  

One more thing.  The current homeless "housing system" DOES NOT get homeless people back on their feet, earning a living income, renting their own apartments, and paying taxes again.  Yes, there are a lot of homeless that won't ever be able to work, and the current programs house some of them.  But there are a lot that could earn a living again, including many living in cars or other working homeless.  The current system is designed to create a separate population of adults, who are entirely dependent on government programs, for the rest of their lives.  There are already 7 million to maybe 10 million people living off of Social Security Disability, SSI, and other social programs, who have scammed the system, and will never work again.  Just go visit the states of Kentucky and West Virginia, stop in a small, local restaurant, and ask what most people do for a living.  "Disability" will be one of the first answers.  That's the nature of the system currently in effect.  I first learned about this while living in North Carolina, and have seen it in Virginia and here in California since.  The only academic I've seen looking into this issue is Nicolas Eberstadt, who wrote a book about it, Men Without Work, in 2016, and there's now an updated, 2022 version out.

For those of you interested, this video explains the basic systems in place really well, and may help you begin to understand why the homelessness issue just keeps getting worse, and will continue to get worse as the recession really sets in.  

Just to be absolutely clear.  THIS costs less money per day than THIS.  I know there are not enough Extended Stay America's, or comparable suite hotels, in any of these cities to house all the homeless, and I'm not pitching this company.  I'm making the comparison on what kind of amenities can be rented for the same, or less money, than the places homeless people are currently housed.  

There are no paid links in this post.  

Over 475 mudslides reported in L.A area in the last couple of days

This report says this rain storm, (Feb. 4-6, 2024) is the third wettest two-day rainfall since records have been kept, which began in the 1870's.  The report earlier today was that 307 mudslides had been reported in the Los Angeles area.  That total is now up to 475 mudslides and counting.  Taking a bus through The Valley today, skirting the hills (aka Santa Monica Mountains) I saw three really small slides myself, where patches of grass had slid down the hill.  These were maybe 8 to 10 feet wide, and 10 to 15 feet long. This storm is dying down, but we're still expecting some more rain for the next two or three days.  

This blog just crossed 243,000 page views! Wow.

Here's a CNBC segment from yesterday (Feb. 2, 2024) about New York Community Bank, which ran into trouble this past week.  This struggling bank got the U.S. financial world worried about other regional banks in the U.S., many of which are struggling due to the rise in interest rates, exposure to commercial real estate properties that are declining in value, and the crazy economic times we're in.  The most popular post on my blog in recent days has been a short, obscure, sarcastic post, written when many people were wondering how much bigger the 2023 banking crisis might get.   

This makes 968 posts on this blog, a big chunk of them are about Old School BMX freestyle, and other things I find interesting.  But for several day now, the most popular post has been this short post from April 30th 2023, with a couple of memes I made, about the potential for further chaos in the banking system.  The post links to my idea of "The Big Transition", a chapter of my 2019-2020 book/blog thing, Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now.  In that chapter, I share my thoughts on why I think the Third Wave Concept of the late futurist Alvin Toffler is still playing out in the 2020's. The Big Transition chapter explains why Toffler's concept from his 1980 book, The Third Wave, really helps explain the Big Picture of why I thought (in late 2019/early 2020) that the 2020's were going to be an incredibly chaotic period of time.  I dubbed this decade "The Tumultuous 2020's," when I began publishing Dystopia, on December 21, 2019.  

Yep, one of my geeky economics posts, and one of my futurist chapters/posts, seems to be what drove over 900 views to this blog today, and pushed it over the 243,000 threshold.  A lot of these views are coming from Asia, again.  As the 2020's get more weird and more chaotic, my online book/blog Dystopia, and some of my obscure economic posts, are striking a chord with some events happening now, and they go viral in some circles of people somewhere.  

Thanks to all of you who check out my blog for any reason, and hopefully you'll find something interesting, insightful, or even entertaining, in some of my work.

For those of you from outside the BMX world, wondering why I'm making a big deal about hitting the odd number of 243,000 views, 43 is kind of a lucky number in the BMX world.  An inside joke among the legendary Curb Dogs bike/skate team in 1986, grew into a thing throughout much of BMX.  43 is to BMX, particularly Old School BMX freestylers, what 420 is to the marijuana/cannabis/weed culture.  It's an inside joke that eventually became tied to the whole subculture, a lucky number of sorts.  So any big "43" is a milestone to Old School BMX people from the 1980's, like myself.  

Thanks again for reading, and I'll try to keep writing interesting stuff, on a variety of themes.