Monique Torres

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@walterkirn Walter, we miss you! Please reconsider including an occasional stop @ Racket News as part of your future visibility. Your commentary was such a high point of me week (selfish, I know).

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

Peter Hotez is such a piece of wasted humanity. Absolute charlatan and grifter.

https://t.co/m33lIREOIZ

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

https://t.co/t8PJEOFhaj

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@Pro__Trading @DOGE Dude, most companies don't even do this kind of work. I'm happy to see the results, but pretending this exists only in a vacuum in government is a fallacy.

[Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling]

People need to stop overreacting about Kamala’s plan to reduce food inflation, as if it would lead to communism, mass starvation, and the end of America.

I worked in M&A in the food industry. Here’s a step-by-step summary of what would actually happen:

1. The government announces that grocery retailers aren’t allowed to raise prices.

2. Grocery stores, which operate on 1-2% net margins, can’t survive if their suppliers raise prices. So the government announces that food producers (Kraft Heinz, ConAgra, Tyson, Hormel, et. al.) also aren’t allowed to raise prices.

3. Not all grocery stores are created equal. Stores in lower-income areas make less money than those in higher-income areas, as the former disproportionately sell lower-margin prepackaged foods (“center of the store”) instead of higher-margin fresh products like meat (“perimeter of the store”). Because stores in lower-income areas aren’t able to cover overhead (remember, even if their wholesale costs are fixed, their labor, utilities, insurance, and other operating expenses aren’t fixed… yet), grocery chains start to shut them down. Food deserts in rural areas and in low-income urban areas alike become worse.

4. Meanwhile, margins for food producers are also quickly eroding. Their primary costs (ingredients, energy, and labor) aren’t fixed, and their shrinking gross profits leave less cash flow available to cover overhead, maintain facilities, and reinvest in additional production capacity.

5. Grocery chains, which have finite shelf space, start to repurpose their stores (those they didn’t have to shut down, I should say) to sell more non-price-controlled items—everything from nutrition supplements to kitchenware to apparel—and less price-controlled food products. Your local Kroger or Safeway starts to look and feel more like a Walmart.

6. Food producers stop making products with lower margins. Grocery chain start competing with each other to secure inventory. Since they can’t compete by offering stronger prices (remember, producers aren’t allowed to raise prices here, and, even if they could, grocery chains no longer have the gross profit to bear price increases), they compete on things like payment terms.

7. Small grocery chains start to shut down entirely, or get sold to larger chains like Kroger. In addition to not being able to cover fixed costs, a major reason for this is because they can no longer reliably secure delivery of products, due to producers prioritizing sales to larger customers, which are able to leverage their stronger balance sheets to offer superior payment terms.

8. Smaller food producers—which typically sell via distributors, rather than directly to grocery chains—start to go out of business. Because these producers have an additional step their value chains, and because they have lower volumes over which to spread their fixed costs, their cost structure is inherently disadvantaged compared to major food producers. When grocery stores aren’t able to raise prices, cutting product costs becomes all the more important, and deprioritizing purchases from smaller producers is an easy way to do so.

9. As supply chains break down, lines start to form outside grocery stores every morning. Cities assign police officers to patrol store parking lots, and food producers draft contingency plans to assign armed escorts to delivery trucks.

10. The federal government announces a program to issue block grants for states to purchase and operate shuttered grocery stores. The USDA also seizes closed-down production facilities.

11. The government announces that prices for all key food costs—corn, wheat, cattle, energy, etc.—are also now fixed, to stop “profiteers” from gouging the now-government-operated food industry.

12. Shockingly, the government struggles to operate one of the most complex industries on the planet. The entire food supply chain starts imploding.

13. Communism, mass starvation, and the end of America quickly ensue.

Hey wait a second

[Holden Culotta @Holden_Culotta]

RFK Jr. at Michigan rally: “I’m gonna put the entire US budget on blockchain”

“Every American can look at every budget item in the entire budget, anytime they want, 24 hours a day.”

“We’re gonna have 300 million eyeballs on our budget, and if somebody is spending $16,000 for a toilet seat, everybody’s gonna know about it.”

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

NPR has become a hard left propaganda machine that tolerates no dissent

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@GovTinaKotek Why do Oregon school districts always need more money? My salary has been reduced by 15% in 2023 due to austerity. And yet I need to make do.

I am neither an R or D. What I am is someone who is sick of hearing teachers & others claiming they need more money without proving why.

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

Fact Checking Trump's 2023 CNN Town Hall https://t.co/L3dhrvWlmr

[Debbie N. @BeatlesFanDeb]

@JohnFugelsang

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

To be sure, those who control birth also control society. Look historically at the types of people who strive to control when a female can and cannot… and now must… carry a pregnancy. Seems to me that it's a pretty consistent grouping.

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

Forced birth in a country with:

—No universal healthcare
—No universal childcare
—No paid family & medical leave
—One of the highest rates of maternal mortality among rich nations

This isn't about "life." It's about control.

[Patton Oswalt @pattonoswalt]

FINE it’s the Trump Vaccine. Two decades of mRNA research had nothing to do with it. The Pfizer vaccine developed prior to WaRp Speed by a Turkish immigrant in Germany meant zero. All Trump. Will THAT get you ignorant crybabies vaccinated? Trump Vaccine it is.

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@PreetBharara #askPreet USPS ... can independent billionaires (e.g., Gates, Branson, Angel donors, Hollywooders) come together & fund the USPS budget such that Trump's & his minions cannot further block voting and infiltrate the US election?

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@PreetBharara Hi Preet. Love what you do. Hoping Biden offers you Barr's job. Q :: How do you & other lawyers stay up-to-date on all the law stuff? I know doctors (should) get continuing education thru their careers. is there similar for you/yours?

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

Intel® oneAPI | Unified X-Architecture Programming Model: https://t.co/R00hNM2d1A #IntelSoftware

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@MichaelAvenatti @SenatorCollins I've not been able to sleep or work or (frankly) give a sh*t about anything since this Kav hearing. Bereft of emotion. Working thru suppressed memories of abuse that are sucker-punching me. As if a rape weren't enough. So angry. Focused!

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@MichaelAvenatti And since 3's a charm ... (my tweets, that is) ... the first time I was assaulted I, too, was 15. I'm 50 now. My mother still doesn't know this happened. My shrink does.

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@MichaelAvenatti Where the hell is Melania in all this? Getting her high colonic and nails done? Or ... maybe she believes that women are chattel. Wouldn't surprise me either way. Now that I think about it ... Melania, don't worry your pretty little head.

[Monique Torres @LexLuthor]

@MichaelAvenatti Ok, we must fight back in battle-sized proportions. Is their an org (orgs?) that can help offset costs of bus tickets for folks from Anytown USA to DC? Imagine a united front of 10,000 that peacefully levels a "hell, no!" gaze on our Tarnished House.