In spite of what you see with your own eyes, the Department of Agriculture says food inflation in 2021 was the same as 2020. Don’t hurt yourself laughing.

Yeah, the research wizards at the Ag Department concluded food inflation in 2021 was exact same as 2020. We will see even smaller price increases in 2022.

US Department of Agriculture – 1/28/22 – 2021 retail food price inflation continued at the same pace as 2020, but varied among food categories – In a clever disinformation effort, the alleged economists at the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture claim food prices increase of 3.5% during 2021 was the same rate of increase as in 2020. The mere 3.5% during 2021 is only slightly higher than the historical average of 2% from 2000 through 2019.

In newsflash to everyone who actually buys groceries or goes to a restaurant, food prices barely increased in 2021.

Because of the pushback this article is already receiving, it will likely be memory-holed momentarily so I will quote a few parts of the article. Will quote the entire article at the end of this post.

The headline information:

“Retail food prices increased by 3.5 percent in 2021, equal to the rate in 2020 and greater than the historical annual average of 2.0 percent from 2000 to 2019. Of the 12 food categories depicted in the chart, six showed slower price increases in 2021 compared with 2020.”

Prices for half the food you buy are coming down. Cool, huh?

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Jim Ulvog

20th anniversary for Ulvog CPA.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Today, January 28, 2022, marks the twentieth anniversary of the Ulvog CPA firm.

It has been a joy to serve the nonprofit community for these two decades as an independent CPA firm. Focusing on the religious nonprofit community has been a professional honor and a personal delight.

Thanks to all the organizations who have made this journey possible.

Looking forward to many more years of serving churches and ministries.

God’s blessings to you all.

Jim Ulvog

Grim news from Denmark on evaporating vaccine effectiveness.

Visualization of Covid vaccine effectiveness. Except for the part about effectiveness going negative. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

A study of all Covid infections in Denmark over a three-week period of time shows vaccine effectiveness against Omicron not only evaporates but goes negative after three months. Yes, negative.

Unsafe Space on Substack – 1/19/22 – Do The Covid Shots Work Against Omicron? – The short answer, according to a study of all cases in Denmark occurring during three weeks last fall?

Covid shots only work against Omicron for around 30 days, falling off to minimal effectiveness at 90 days. After that you’d be better off not having a shot.

According to that research, sitting here in late January 2022, if you got your double shots earlier than October 2021 you are wide open to catching omicron. That might explain why almost everybody you know has been sick in the last month, regardless of their vaccination status.

More details…

Research

The research report, which can be found here, looked at all PCR-confirmed Covid infections in Denmark between 11/20/21 and 12/12/21.

The researchers calculated vaccine effectiveness (VE) for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, with the calculation broken out into 30 day increments since full effectiveness. Fourteen days after the second shot is when one gains full effectiveness.

Researchers further calculated VE against the Delta and Omicron variants.

Results

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Jim Ulvog

Why it is imperative to gather for worship in person. In person.

Congregation at worship. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Gathering in person is critical for the body of Christ.

Just in case the Holy Spirit’s directions to us to gather together is insufficient support for that comment, Karl Vaters provides a few more reasons in his 11/18/21 article:

Being The Church’s Isn’t Enough: 11 Reasons We Also Need To Go.

Recently came across his twitter post linking back to that article. His discussion was healing.

I heartily encourage you to read the full article. I will merely quote his key statements. Please read his explanation of each point.

As you read this post and his article, please remember those religious leaders who bowed to the Emperor. 

Forgive, but never forget, those who used scissors to cut Acts 5:30 out of their Bible: “We must obey God rather than man!” and then proceeded to willfully bend the knee.

Karl Vators’ 11 reasons:

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Jim Ulvog

The narrative is collapsing, part 2. Leaders in business world are backpedaling before more people catch on to their failure as leaders.

Visualization of the Covid narrative. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Those people who tried so hard and for so long to crush me, you, our children, the economy, and our freedoms are backpedaling as fast as they can.

Those alleged leaders who put so much effort into grinding the heel of their boot into your face and mine are positioning themselves to evade the accountability they so richly deserve.

Do not forget who tried to take away your health, wealth, and freedom.

Forgive, but do not ever forget.

DIscussion for today:

  • Starbucks drops vaccination requirement for their 349K staff.
  • GE drops vaccination requirement for their 174k staff.
  • Boeing drops vaccination requirement for their 141k staff.
  • Amtrak, Union Pacific, and BNSF all drop vaccination requirement for their staff.

Previously in part 1:

  • A year ago this would have gotten your on-line accounts banned and gotten you cancelled:  CDC acknowledges prior infection provides more protection than vaccinations.
  • England lifts ALL covid restrictions. Yes, all.
  • WHO recommends all international travel be resumed and no more checking of vaccination status before international travel.

It would appear that a growing number of alleged leaders in the business world have slowly come to the conclusion that killing their company is not a bright idea. Corporate suicide is not a promising strategy to increase value of those juicy stock options.

As mentioned in part 1, if you find lots of sarcasm along with point-and-laugh-out-loud ridicule in these two posts, my apologies for my feeble efforts.  I really wish I had the ability to pour on the heads of our supposed leaders the full dose of ridicule these ‘leaders’ have so richly earned.

When you read below of the about-face by GE, keep in mind how harshly they dealt with staff who filed for a religious exemption.

At issue is all the covid vaccines were either developed or produced using fetal stem cells somewhere in the process. This is deeply offensive for some people of faith.

For anyone who requested a religious accommodation, GE gave the person a list of about 20 medicines and asked if the person had ever used any of them. The handout asserted all those items were either developed, tested, or produced using fetal stem cell tissue. The handout then asked the applicant to provide a theological explanation for the distinction between using any one of those meds and getting a covid vaccination.

That is some serious hardball.

Now?

GE says never mind – don’t get a shot if you don’t feel like it for any reason. No further questions will be asked.

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Jim Ulvog

The narrative is collapsing, part 1. Alleged leaders in political and public health worlds are backpedaling before more people catch on to their failure as leaders.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Those people who tried so hard and for so long to crush me, you, our children, the economy, and our freedoms are backpedaling as fast as they can.

Those alleged leaders who put so much effort into grinding the heel of their boot into your face and mine are positioning themselves to evade the accountability they so richly deserve.

Do not forget who tried to take away your health, wealth, and freedom.

Forgive, but do not ever forget.

Check out Zuby on Twitter for a summary:

In Zuby’s words, claim the W!

  • A year ago this would have gotten your on-line account banned and gotten you cancelled:  CDC acknowledges prior infection provides more protection than vaccinations.
  • England lifts ALL covid restrictions. Yes, all.
  • Ireland is dropping most covid restrictions.
  • WHO recommends all international travel be resumed and no more checking of vaccination status before international travel.

In part 2:

  • Starbucks drops vaccination requirement for their 349K staff.
  • GE drops vaccination requirement for their 174k staff.
  • Boeing drops vaccination requirement for their 141k staff.
  • Amtrak, Union Pacific, and BNSF all drop vaccination requirement for their staff.

By the way, if you detect rounds of sarcasm along with point-and-laugh-out-loud ridicule in these two posts, my apologies.  I really wish I had the ability to pour on the heads of our supposed leaders the full dose of unrestrained ridicule our ‘leaders’ have so richly earned.

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Jim Ulvog

Supply chain continues to deteriorate.

Image courtesy of adobe stock

So many articles are describing the deterioration in the supply chain. Lots of comments on twitter show pictures of grocery stores in the United States with a fraction of the stock you would normally see.

Government policies, such as forced lockdowns, work restrictions, flooding the economy with trillions of dollars, and travel restrictions are increasing pressure.

Just a few of recent articles describing increasing troubles:

  • Railroad robberies are again a thing in Los Angeles.  Those items that got lost in transit are probably off the side of a railroad in LA.
  • China’s zero-Covid policy is closing factories and locking down cities.
  • China restricting its border with Vietnam is leaving lots of fruit to rot in trucks waiting to get into the country.
  • SoCal ports struggling even more with so many dockworkers out sick.
  • Currently truck drivers in Canada must be vaccinated and starting 1/22 drivers entering the US must be vaccinated, putting further strains on the supply chain.
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Jim Ulvog

The logical conclusion is the British Prime Minister and his senior staff firmly believe the Covid virus is completely harmless. How else to explain their routine, systematic, *weekly* violation of lockdown restrictions?

Boris Johnson by BackBoris2012 Campaign Team is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

The level of flaming hypocrisy emerging from #10 Downing Street is growing so fast that I wonder if the issue is actually hypocrisy or instead a belief that the Covid virus is not actually dangerous.

Back on 12/17/21 I discussed Flaming hypocrisy: “It’s good to be the king” of Netherlands or Prime Minister of England edition.

In December news reports said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson attended a pizza and wine party on 5/15/20, just a couple months into the pandemic. He claimed he was there only a few minutes.

Then on 12/18/20 somewhere between 40 and 50 people had a Christmas party at #10 Downing Street.

Journalists (plural) attended but kept quiet about the event. Of course. They wanted to protect their sources and they knew they are part of the elitist elite who are also exempt from Covid rules.

I discussed this on 12/16/21 in my post Still more flaming hypocrites get caught, this time including Prime Ministers of England and Finland.

The Prime Minister’s press spokes-liar at the time, Allegra Stratton, is on video laughing in a mock press conference that they would call this a “business meeting” and therefore could continue partying.

Just to be clear, multiple staff working for the Prime Minister were laughing at us because they can get away with whatever they want.

Oh, at the time the Prime Minister staff was partying hearty, Christmas parties were explicitly banned. In addition, no more than two people were allowed to get together, even indoors.

Senior leadership were laughing at you and me. Well, not me because I am a free American citizen not personal property subject of the Queen.

The story has gotten a lot worse for the Prime Minister in the last week or so. The extent of flagrantly ignoring Covid restrictions has expanded.

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Jim Ulvog

More depressing news on federal judges not recusing themselves from cases. Three resignations by senior officials of the Fed because of their stock trading.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

News keeps rolling in about senior Fed officials trading stock when they have extremely valuable inside information. Tally grows of federal judges who did not recuse themselves when they had a financial interest in a case they were hearing. Oh yeah, Chief Justice Roberts of the Supreme Court had his own failure-to-recuse oopsie.

This round of lack-of-integrity-by-senior-officials news reports, federal edition:

  • 800 more failure-to-recuse by federal judges. The Chief Justice did not recuse himself until after oral arguments in a case where he had a mere $100K personal investment in one of the litigants.
  • Vice Chair of the Fed resigns after news leaks out of timing for his stock trades.
  • Previously, two regional bank presidents of the Fed resigned this past October.
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Jim Ulvog

More explanation why the entire supply chain system is overloaded.

The supply chain is complicated. There is no switch you can throw to magically make all those connections smoothly work together again. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The supply chain for everything is tangle up to the extent it will take lots of time to function normally again.

Two articles describing the depth of issues:

  • Analogy of turning off a complex computer system. Some of the hundreds of components won’t work when you throw the ‘on’ switch.
  • Description of the demand side pressure on supply chain. All those trillions of federal dollars sloshing around have created demand which has overloaded distribution systems.

American Thinker – 12/11/21 – We broke everything in the name of Covid – Author ran a large IT department at one point in the past. Every few years they had to shut down the entire computer system so that the factory could go through maintenance of the electrical system.

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Jim Ulvog

Um…About the effectiveness of the vaccination…Let’s look at data from North Dakota.

Might want to not tell your vaccine hesitant friends and family about this discussion.

I have been tracking a lot of data about Covid since the start of the pandemic.

Why? The data is subject to interpretation, misinterpretation, delays, and manipulation.

So again, the question is: Why?

Publicly available data is what our supposed leaders are using to make decisions. By watching the public data we can maybe guess what they are about to do to us.

Anyway, I have been watching the data. Also have a large number of graphs set up so I can better see data and trends.

Something weird is happening with the vaccination.

Fully vaccinated people are getting sick. Lots of them.

People I know who are vaccine hesitant are noticing.

This is where hard numbers come into play.

I don’t know what these numbers tell us about what may happen soon, but the picture I see is distressing to me.

One set of data I have been watching is from North Dakota.

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Jim Ulvog

Record high inflation is going to continue and likely get worse.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

There are a lot of indications the inflation rates we’ve seen in the last year or so are going to continue. My guess is we will see higher inflation in the next year than we did in 2021. Author of the article discussing PPP says he expects a shock in the CPI sometime in the next few months.

Merely a few recent items pointing towards sustained and even increasing inflation:

  • Dollar Tree is now $1.25 Tree.
  • Experienced farmer describes how severely inflation is hitting his operations. Those increases are going to appear on the store shelves soon.
  • Producer Price Index is accelerating. Indications that unprocessed and intermediate goods are going up far faster than what we’re seeing at retail, so expect accelerating inflation.
  • Unusually high lumber prices are back.
  • Decent prices on cars will be harder and harder to find.

Dollar Tree is now Dollar and a Quarter Tree – Bought a couple items at Dollar Tree. They all rang up at $1.25. Glanced around the store noticing all the signs said $1.25.I asked the clerk about it and he said everything in the store is now a dollar and a quarter.

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Jim Ulvog

Why have we knowingly caused so much harm to children? Better question – Why are we allowing our alleged leaders to inflict another round of devastation?

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Evidence has been present for well over a year that remote learning, economic shutdowns, and general panic is causing severe harm for kids.

In spite of this our so-called leaders in the political realm, public health world, and educational circles have started another round of school shutdowns.

Even The New York Times is catching on to the devastation inflicted on children. The New York Times!

It is well past time to stop the destruction we are inflicting on children.

Merely three of a growing string of articles pointing out the destruction willfully visited on school children:

  • Twitter string from New York Times outlining the devastation inflicted on children.
  • Column by medical doctor wondered why we have inflicted such harm on children.
  • Research by NBER identifies adverse educational outcomes are a direct result of school shutdowns.
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Jim Ulvog

Federal mileage rates for 2022.

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The IRS has published the reference amounts for mileage rates for 2022. The rates:

Beginning on January 1, 2022, the standard mileage rates for the use of a vehicle will be:

  • 58.5 cents per mile driven for business use, up 2.5 cents from the rate for 2021,
  • 18 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes, up 2 cents from the rate for 2021, and
  • 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations.

The standard rate for business is based on their analysis of the fixed and variable costs of operating a vehicle.  The medical & moving rate is based on variable costs of operation.

Rates were published in Notice 2022-03  2022 Standard Mileage Rates.

Jim Ulvog