"*still unknown whether the lingering odour poses serious health risks*"

Sigh, they better monitor every single student for any signs of malignancy. Not to mention the residents.

The DRA is doing PR rounds on how things have changed. But the most that changes is the name. Our actions always follow the same pattern. Disaster, chaos, damage, PR on how we'll change things next time.

I guess someone will soon mention how proactive they are and that they have air quality testers... as they quietly order them today

Fortune.com Apr-3-25

"*While Walmart doesn’t disclose what percentage of what it imports come from where, China is by far its biggest supplier, with some estimates that about 60% of the goods it imports into the U.S. are from there. (On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced new tariffs of 34% on Chinese products.)*"

I bet you the CEO knows the majority of them come from China or he would not have delivered the "*empty shelves*" warning message to the White House or the "*we're raising prices*" on their earnings report

How would I know? Ask the CEO, that's a direct quote from him. Maybe "dolls", President Trump said girls would have to settle for less dolls, he has to settle for a 400million dollar plane and a billion dollar meme coin. Tough Christmas ahead...

Today cnn.com

"*.**Walmart** the world’s largest retailer, warned that is not immune from President Donald Trump’s tariffs. It **plans to raise prices** on some items as Trump’s global trade war sends the company’s costs higher.*

“*We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible but **given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins**,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon will tell analysts Thursday on an earnings call.*

Sure.

Not sure if this is what he "promised". One very prominent Trump supporter said this week, "this looks like the swamp*".

In any event, you cant argue with history. Last week is officially "*history*". China didnt budge.

You also cant argue with the CEOs of Walmart and Target who visited the White House right before the arranged China talks to warn that there would be empty shelves soon.. Next thing you know, Switzerland trip

"*The US position is so volatile, and changes so fast, I don’t know if it would be prudent to make long-term decisions in this environment,*"

**And that is the point at the end of the day**. Remove tariffs, add tariffs, spin them on their heads, it doesnt matter. **The damage is done**. Businesses are now skittish. They will not be making, or less likely to at least, dramatic growth investments in this environment and that's bad for every economy, because the world is affected. It's like those Japanese dolls that open to reveal another doll, it keeps giving.

"*pallet loads, products where we cannot bring in container loads in from China, they are likely to be affected by the US-China tariffs. Strangely, all suppliers are quiet and not talking about price increases. I suppose they’re sitting and hoping like we are that it’s not going to happen or nothing too big to affect the cost of living or increasing it. It’s normal; nothing to report. We’re just hoping for the best.”*"

I'm not sure if people saw the link. We wont feel the 145% duty impact for now. I say for now because who knows what the administration will do next week. China gave up nothing in the Switzerland talks, literally. It was America that was scrambling because they **had** to.

**That meeting with the Chinese was a desperate move. A few days later and the shipments from China affected by the 145% duty would have been at every US port. And the two options were disastrous for the American economy**. Either buyers would leave goods at the port because they had no funds to clear a 150% price increase, meaning no inventory replacement and empty store shelves and chaos as people fought for dwindling supplies, or... clear the goods and hike prices 150% another disaster as businesses would be on the hook for products with fewer buyers. Some industry would ultimately be on the losing end as customers shifted money to essentials.

It's like the world is dancing to the tune of the mad king again. I read a term "planned, *strategic uncertainty*" and thought, omg, in a game of poker maybe, but not with the world economy and people's lives, but someone will believe it.

**So there's no surprise that 145% duty hasnt hit us yet, the US had to act to prevent that scenario from playing out at all costs**

Its better news, but not all good news, because the impact of the 30% increase and the uncertain environment will still have an impact.

But in all the chaos, someone is getting very rich. Who's orchestrating the music?

I agree. Peter not better than Paul or Robert.

The problem is most of the people elected to the house dont think for themselves. They dont educate themselves on the area they purport to be experts in. They dont write their own speeches. They cant defend their ideas because they didnt research them. They're simply words that someone else put together that if we're fortunate, they can read properly. That's what we've come to. I cringe to think of the numerous shortfalls in the last administration that will be welcomed back as the saviour of the day because they have "experience". And that's not a vote of confidence for the PLP or COI, they all subscribe to this model.

For example, many people love Rodney Moncur, but how did he meet the qualifications to be appointed as a Senator by any body? This does not make him any less loved, it means we look at how important the job is, how critical it is to our survival and we get people to vie for it who at least have a semblance of a chance of working hard, approaching it systematically, being effective and operating ethically. What we have for governance is a joke. With intelligent people speaking of the senate as a "place for young people to learn". We've doomed ourselves.

I'm shocked everytime I hear Wayne Munroe speak about fire response after four years in his role and repeat that he doesnt know anything. That's not acceptable. You dont have to be an expert, but you have to know something about the thing you've accepted custody of. Something that can indicate to you that proposals are good or bad or have some chance of success or you'll end up buying a 2.5mil dollar plane while you have no fire hydrants operating anywhere and broken down fire trucks with hoses that spout leaks on response.

It wasnt a shortage of water though. It was response time. The resident said she called at 7:45 to report a "small" fire. There's no way a "small" fire turned into a raging inferno in "7mins" Wayne Munroe says it took a fire truck to begin response. Theres no argument in the world that would support allowing a fire to burn free reign to the south and deem it an "adequate and excellent" response. That situation showed the decades of underfunding of the fire service. We are really lucky no fire has broken out during a hurricane. Not so sure what will happen now with LNG being pumped from Clifton to Blue Hills(? still not clear on endpoint). I hope for our sake that Anthony Ferguson and FOCOL have been made to foot the bill for full explosion response equipment pre-placement in their "plan".

"*This will look to use the ‘5-minute response time’ model, commonly used worldwide. An on-call fire engine will be crewed by on-call firefighters who respond from home or work to the station within five minutes after a message is passed to them via a modern alert system*"

Sometimes I scratch my head. I posted this last week after listening to comments about fire response for a number of days.

"*I waited to hear the response across multiple concerns, but have not heard anyone speak to this issue using a scientific approach, because this is science. Wayne Munroe confirmed it, he said "they havent asked for anything". So I looked it up. I found a comment referencing a 2003 ISO standard, that's 2003, ISO is a body whose work is documenting best practice standards, typically across the sciences. According to the comment, response time to a fire should be under 5mins. There should be one fire truck for every 5-10sq miles, i.e., Nassau alone needs 14 fire trucks. There should be one fire station for every 10,000 people, i.e., Nassau alone needs 14 fire stations. There should be 2.5 firefighters for every 10,000 people, i.e., Nassau alone needs 250 firefighters.*...

Other comments referenced the complement of vehicles at each station... I'm not under the illusion that 10million will do it, has to include sustained maintenance and upgrades