Established in 2014, Tampa Bay Rants and Raves is a weekly airing of local and national news, sports and historical notes from a politically incorrect viewpoint.

First thing on our mind:

We’re envious; our wife gets more emails from Tractor Supply than we do.

Leading off: Economics 101 for Kamala

Kamala Harris either did not take or slept through Economics in high school or college or both. Her plan to help the average American by slapping a higher tax rate on corporations is sophomoric. Ask any economist what happens when corporations have their tax rates increased. Three things top the list (1) the cost of the goods and services of that company increase affecting, of course, the average American. (2) Corporations begin cutting expenses and the biggest expense in virtually every company is personnel. (3) Companies begin to look for a better tax rate offshore again causing a loss of jobs. The two things you can count on big corporations not doing is cutting top executive salaries and cutting the rate of return to their shareholders. If only Kamala had cracked that Economics text book!

Tampa Bay, politics and notes:

You have to give the Democrats credit. They are persistent in trying to buy college graduate’s votes with tuition loan forgiveness. But more credit to SCOTUS for continually swatting the giveaways down.

Can’t for the life of us, figure out why Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all those charges.

July-August economic news is not so chipper. Home sales and consumable goods down as people worry about the job market.

Here’s another reason to get our nation’s border secure. Illegal immigrants, particularly those from Caribbean nations, are showing up with exotic diseases.

The statistical height of the hurricane season is September 10. There have been no hurricanes between August 12 and September 3 for the first time in 56 years to the amazement of those people in Colorado who supposedly know so much about Atlantic hurricanes.

Related: remember Florida’s drought?

We are sad to report that Tiffany’s Restaurant in Palm Harbor has closed after 40 years. Our friends Ed and Fran Stumpff introduced us to the restaurant over a decade ago, and we always enjoyed our stops there.

A couple of hardware notes. Lowes has joined the growing number of companies returning to hiring on merit rather than bowing to DEI pressures. Meanwhile, we apologize to Home Depot for overlooking their courtesy parking spots for veterans like those at Lowes.

Factoid: McDonald’s feeds one per cent of the world’s population every day.

Word of the week – neophobia (fear of the new), a condition common to many of we baby boomers.

This week in 1966 (Sept. 11), the University of South Florida signed on its TV station WUSF-TV channel 16, the bay area’s second PBS station. Having two PBS stations eventually proved to be untenable and WUSF terminated operations in October of 2017. Its sister station, WUSF-FM remains as the area’s NPR station.

Sports, media and other notes:

It was simply music that made you feel good – the music of Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66. The highly successful musician passed away last week at age 83.

From the editor of the 5:05 Newsletter: I am tired of hearing people whine about the price of food - $5.00 for a beer, $8.00 for a mixed drink, $10.00 for a hamburger, $7.00 for a hot dog, and $5.00 to park their car. Any more complaining and I am going to stop inviting people over to my house for cookouts.

Speaking of which, Seattle’s Lumen Field is the priciest NFL venue for a beer and a dog at $19.98. Raymond James is in the middle of the field at $15.00. Cheapest combo is at Falcon’s games - $7.49.

Now it’s Direct TV and ESPN in a spitting contest. Don’t know who will come out on top, but we always know who loses contests like this – the viewers.

The NFL is underway and will be part of our lives for the next 23 weeks. It only seems like 123 weeks to long suffering wives.

Born 100 years ago this week (9/11/1924) in Mission, Texas was legendary Dallas Cowboys coach, Tom Landry.

We like The Athletic’s weekly football poll because it ranks all 134 Division One schools including #134 – Temple. As for Florida schools, it’s Miami (8); UCF (39); FSU and Florida (46-47); South Florida (59); Florida Atlantic (100) and FIU (118).

How did the pre-season prognosticators miss so badly on FSU?

One last thing: S.S. United States to Florida?

Over the past decade, we’ve written several pieces about the S.S. United States, the last liner built in the U.S. To this day, it holds the record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic – the prestigious Blue Riband. Now it appears the final resting place for the 72-year-old liner could be off the coast of Okaloosa County in Florida’s panhandle as a gigantic artificial reef. The end comes as the United States is being forced from the pier in Philadelphia where it has been docked since 1996 (and where we first laid eyes on the ship). Numerous efforts to find a new home for the ship have failed and the conservancy group that fought to find it a home feels providing a marine habitat is far more fitting than a scrap heap in Asia.

UP NEXT: Salvatore Perez; Cable Guy Time; Ten words for Don

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