All of these changes I'm making are to offer visitors to this website a smooth experience and as hassle free as I can possibly make things in order for everyone to have a good time and maybe even enjoy it enough to make a donation or buy a book.

In other changes, everyone is going through lifestyle changes right now because of the United States president. With his stupid war in Iran, at the behest of Bibi Netenyahu and Israel, all of us middle income and poorer economic strata people are tightening our belts in the hopes that this will sort itself out soon and the cost of living will drop down to something we can manage again.

Nearly every country on the planet is scrambling to manage their energy resources, now that a lot of it is bottled up in the Persian Gulf still and not likely to loosen up back to prewar standards anytime soon. Iran and Oman are starting to set up a Strait of Hormuz toll station to coerce the world's ocean shipping companies to pay reparations for the damage done in the last couple of months, and for the mental anguish laid onto the Iranian people. Kind of like the punishment given by a court in a civil liability trial. In this case, the defendants are the U.S., the GCC states who sided with the U.S., and Israel. The plaintiffs are the Iranians and they're winning the case right now.

This choking off of the maritime sea lanes at the Strait of Hormuz is making slow drastic changes in the way countries have been doing business with the U.S. all of these years. More and more countries are starting to slow down their exports to the U.S. and sell them in other markets that are more stable and friendly. China being the largest recipient of a lot of those exports.

China is also emerging as the largest consumer market in the world now. Soon to top out over the United States within a few short years. They are now the world's number one country for exporting manufactured goods as well. Their technology advances are rapidly taking over the world, leaving the once number one innovator in the dust.

The United States has lost its edge in being at the top of the innovation mountain to China. Now, the U.S. is doing all it can to try and compete with China and losing miserably. But not without a fight. The trouble is, the United States is a sore loser and they're not above cheating their way back to the top of the heap, if they can get away with it. Which they're not. The world is starting to stand up the bully in the west and call them out for their bullying. Especially since Trump has no problems trying to be the Mafia Don and try to force everyone to kiss his ring on bended knee.

All of this is creating geopolitical change around the world, as countries once deferential to the U.S. are now starting to spend their money elsewhere. Just today I noticed a headline that Saudi Arabia, the U.S.'s once loyal middle east partner, has decided to stop paying for western consulting services because the Iran war has cost them too much money. In other word's the Saudi's are hurting for cash now, along with several other gulf countries.

Europe and Canada are diversifying their trade away from the U.S. now, after Trump started the disastrous trade war last year. China drew away last year as well, during the ongoing trade war. Now, in the latest saga of this sad chapter, Trump went to China last week to try and see what he could get away with and came back with nothing to show for the trip, other than a polite rebuff from the Chinese.

On the other hand, two days later, Russia's Putin arrives and he's given the deference due as a near equal economic partner and more deals were made. Don't get me wrong, Trump was given the red carpet treatment when he arrived, like any other state leader would have received. The difference between Trump and Putin, was the Chinese president treated Trump more like a ruler of a banana republic, and not the president of the second largest economy on the earth. Putin was treated like the head of state that he is, while Trump got a lot of vanity pleasing greetings and tours. Trump got buttcuss in trade deals, while Putin received actual on paper deals. That's what happens when you treat your partners with respect and politeness.

China doesn't 'need' to trade with the United States. There are certain things that the American tech companies still have a leg up on that China would like to work out a trade deal on, such as the high quality semi-conductor chips from Nvidia and others. But, as the podcasters keep saying, China's R&D sectors are rapidly catching up and soon, will surpass the american technology and that will be the end of that. China doesn't need American energy products, any agriculture products, or much of anything for that matter. What they do import, they're getting from other countries that aren't so cantankerous, such as the Canadians, for instance.

Europe is caught between a rock and a hard place now. Trump has thrown temper tantrums and cut off a huge amount of trade and military security of late. The EU is trying to step up and handle the security gaps without the Yanks but it's bankrupting some of their economies. Such as Germany and France. Germany is in the worst shape of all of them and they're trying to re orientate their economy to a war time economy at the expense of their once top tier social services programs. The German and Austrian regular working class people are becoming destitute with factories closing left and right and unemployment skyrocketing.

All of this is pointing to governments all over the world going through seismic changes soon. Especially in the United States. Trump has literally become one of the most hated presidents in U.S. history. He's gotten so blatantly corrupt, that even some of his once loyal republican base is starting to finally stand up and say no more. The voters are also telling him they're done with his lying and spending taxpayer money on vanity projects, instead of spending that money on social programs. Instead, he stripped out a lot of them over the last year and a half, making their lives worse, instead of better, as he promised them in 2024. That and the promise to not start any new wars.

He has stripped out so much, that the death toll from the Ebola breakout in central Africa has become alarming high because Trump and DOGE stripped out and closed up USAID last year. Now, some of the infected are trying to leave for other countries. So far, they've managed to catch them but what happens if they miss some?

My podcast this week, is all about a nightmare situation like that. The podcast is about how Russia has exposed the U.S. duplicity in funding dual use bio research laboratories to create highly lethal bio weapons under the guise of health research on Slavic peoples near the Russian borders. Which have now relocated to Africa and central Asia. Listen to the podcast with this link and see for yourself.

As I said, with the U.S. economy slowly crashing under the weight of massive debt, and with Trump making things worse nearly everyday, big changes are coming for everyone. I have a online pen pal who lives in a small town outside of Sophia, Bulgaria and she wrote me a message the other day in response to something I mentioned regarding our dwindling financial resources, telling me that she and her husband are also having to tighten up their meagre budgets over there too, because of Trump's war in Iran. She's an accountant and her husband is a border guard for Bulgaria, along the lines of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. They don't make a lot of money between the two of them and they're trying to send their son to college, along with keeping a roof over their heads. So, it's not just an American thing. What Trump is doing or not doing effects so many other people across the planet. Here in the U.S., most of us rarely hear about how all of this is affecting regular people everywhere else.

I also watch a young lady from Austria, who posts live videos on YouTube about how bad the economies are getting in Austria and western Europe at large. She tells us about how all of this is affecting how her and her partner are struggling to make ends meet there, with a small child to take care of to boot.

I'm spending some money this year in preparation for the downsizing of the American economy. I mentioned putting a new roof on my house last month. This month, I replaced an old, very old, 21 inch PC monitor with a new Dell 25 inch. It was on sale at half price so I grabbed it while I could. I'll be needing to replace this old laptop soon, as it's starting to fall apart. It's getting slower, plus functional parts and the plastic case is coming apart now. I tried to glue back on the small plastic corner that fell off in my hand the other day to no avail. I shouldn't complain. I bought this laptop at a half price sale from Dell back in 2020. It was on sale to clear out some of their obsolete inventory at the time. It's a four thousand dollar laptop that I bought for half of that, that I customised myself. I told my wife that I can make it limp along until next year but I will end up having to replace it within the next year or so.

My older desktop is also in the same category to a degree. It's not physically falling apart, but the parts in the case, like the GPU, motherboard and systems, are starting to become obsolete and struggling to keep up with today's demands. Especially with AI becoming integrated with nearly everything we do on the internet anymore. And that is another sign of societal change. The use of AI in nearly everything we do now.

I'm old enough to remember growing up and going through my twenties without cell phones and personal computers. Now look at where we are fifty years later? We can't live without our hand-held personal computers anymore, and most of us have some kind of personal computer in our house somewhere.

I've had to adapt to the changing times a lot in the last fifty years. I went from being a grease monkey boat engine mechanic, where the closest electrical thing I messed with, was the low voltage wiring to the electro-hydraulic governor on a diesel engine. Now, at age seventy, I'm a semi-retired IT network engineer who fixes computers and servers. I configure servers and PC operating systems to operate in domain network environments, along with all of the associated network equipment. That's a long way from someone who started his career learning how to change out cylinder heads and fuel injectors on Caterpillar engines, among other things. At one time, I was a journeyman diesel mechanic before a recession forced me to change trades. I have had to do that a couple of other times through the years for the same reason. Changing economics.

If you aren't willing to adapt to changing circumstances, life can become very hard. I've had it hard while I was in school learning a new trade. My last school, when I was 64, wasn't near as bad, as the Veterans Administration paid for it and I was in a better place financially at the time. I'm what's considered middle income these days but I'm totally dependent on my military pension, VA disability and social security pension. Without those, I would be homeless. Which is why I'm so concerned about the U.S. government going broke in my lifetime.

There are millions of other Americans in similar circumstances. The senior population in the U.S., and around the western world, is a lot higher now than the working population, and the numbers are getting worse as the years go by. The U.S. is not the only country experiencing this problem. China, for all it's faults, is also having this issue. Europe is also in this mix as well. If we all lose our pensions, and the governments don't have the money anymore to provide for us, and the job markets are saturated with younger people, a lot of seniors are going to die of malnutrition, disease and starvation.

Technically, I can still work on computers and network systems. The problem is, who would hire someone in their seventies to work for them, when there are plenty of younger people also competing for the same jobs? With AI taking over a lot of redundant IT jobs now, there are a lot more IT technicians out there looking for work. Most of them are coders as the people still handy with a screwdriver and a multi-meter are dwindling more and more now. More lost skills as young people continue to gravitate to what they think are less physically strenuous jobs. That is until AI replaces them.

One last thing I will add here. No matter how much technology advances and changes, there will always be a need for someone with the skills to fix the hardware that all of that AI and the connected networks need to function. If I do lose my pensions and have to go back to work to feed and shelter myself, those will be the skills I market to potential employers. The know how and ability to fix IT hardware that may give me a leg up on the younger competition.

Be well everyone. I hope the people of the world can afford to wait all of this chaos out without it causing too many changes to our geopolitics and social cultures. If history is any guide, huge economic changes around the world usually don't happen without a lot of friction. Our last worldwide historical guide was world war II, brought on by the U.S. and the global depression they caused in the 1930's. We're on track to repeat history again right now in the 21st century, unless we can figure out a way to stop it before things get too far out of hand.

I'll leave that thought with you for now. I'll be back next week with more of what I'm thinking about. Sláinte