ECONOMIC FORECAST - UPDATED

39% think that the economy will weaken next year.*
DETROIT – General Motors, Ford Motor and other automakers in the past year cut thousands of jobs and shuttered factories as industry vehicle sales slow and fears of an economic slowdown pick up.*
MIDLAND, Texas—America’s hottest oil-drilling regions—such as this one at the heart of the Permian Basin—are seeing their economies soften as shale producers slash spending, leading to emptier hotels, choosier employers and less overtime for workers.


Early this year, demand for the tubing, bolts and valves used in fracking was so high that Homer Daniels’s oil-field equipment company, RK Supply, in the Midland area was on track to easily beat its annual revenue forecast. But by August, Mr. Daniels had to impose a hiring freeze as customers delayed projects.*
U.S. industrial production plunged in October at the fastest rate in a year-and-a-half, further underscoring the nation’s manufacturing downturn at a precarious time in its ongoing trade negotiations with China.*

Respondents to a poll by The Financial Times-Peterson said they did not feel better off since Donald Trump took office and that the strong economy is only helping the wealthy.**
The Financial Times-Peterson poll released Monday found that almost two-thirds of Americans said their finances haven’t gotten better since Trump has taken office.**

Thirty-one percent of respondents in the new poll said their finances have gotten worse since Trump won the White House, while 33 percent said their finances haven’t gotten better or worse in the same time frame.**

Just over one-third, 35 percent, of respondents did say they have seen a positive change in their finances since Trump took office.**

Of those who said their financial situation has worsened since Trump took office, 36 percent said their wages are to blame, while 19 percent blamed their personal or family debts.**

There are indications that the Global Tariff War has adversely affected industry.
“We find that the 2018 tariffs are associated with relative reductions in manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices,” concluded Fed economists Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce, in their academic paper.


“[T]he longer-term effects of the tariffs may differ from those that we estimate here,” the economists conceded, but added: “[T]he results indicate that the tariffs, thus far, have not led to increased activity in the U.S. manufacturing sector.”
.....................................................................
According to the report, the top 10 manufacturing industries hit by foreign retaliatory tariffs were producers of: magnetic and optical media, leather goods, aluminum sheet, iron and steel, motor vehicles, household appliances, sawmills, audio and video equipment, pesticide, and computer equipment.****
.....................................................................

Conclusions made by the Pew Research Center are similar to those of the Financial Times Peterson poll.
Majorities of upper-income and middle-income Americans say current economic conditions are excellent or good. But only about four-in-ten lower-income adults share that view, while a majority say the economy is only fair or poor.**

In spite of all the news above,  the "experts" say that a recession in 2020 isn't likely.***
Of the 53 professional forecasters that make up the panel of the National Association for Business Economics survey, for example, no one predicts a 2020 recession. A model from Goldman Sachs estimates that there is less than a 25% chance of a recession in the next 12 months, and notable investors including Marks and “Bond King” Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, have told CNBC that they don’t expect a recession during 2020.***


* https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/23/where-the-wealthy-expect-market-economy-to-be-at-end-of-2020.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/23/automakers-cut-jobs-close-factories-to-save-billions-in-2019.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shale-slowdown-takes-economic-toll-11576405800
https://www.ccn.com/manufacturing-recession-puts-u-s-economy-on-track-for-worst-quarter-under-president-trump/
** https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/468802-majority-says-they-are-not-better-off-under-trump-poll
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/11/americans-say-strong-economy-only-helping-the-rich.html
https
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/12/11/most-americans-say-the-current-economy-is-helping-the-rich-hurting-the-poor-and-middle-class/
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/homebuilder-confidence-jumps-to-highest-level-in-20-years.html
*** https://grow.acorns.com/what-experts-say-you-can-expect-from-the-economy-in-2020/
**** https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/tariffs-trump-china/2019/12/27/id/947571/?ns_mail_uid=142cf6cb-b757-4a77-afda-d3310b9288ee&ns_mail_job=DM78602_12292019&s=acs&dkt_nbr=010102p8bb49



https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/homebuilder-confidence-jumps-to-highest-level-in-20-years.html





https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/02/ism-manufacturing-november-2019.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/yellen-good-reason-to-worry-about-us-economy-sliding-into-recession.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/27/economy-growing-better-than-economists-had-expected-a-few-weeks-ago.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/11/bond-king-gundlach-says-a-recession-is-very-unlikely-in-2020.html
https://grow.acorns.com/what-experts-say-you-can-expect-from-the-economy-in-2020/

CHRISTMAS EVE - 2019

When saying grace, for over 10 yrs I have been adding "Guide us to Middle East Peace."  Several years ago I added to it, "Guide us to Middle East and North Korean Peace."  Now I say this to all of you reader's, however many there may be, on this Christmas Eve of 2019.

IS IT TOO LATE?

President Trump is impeached.  For one thing, he encouraged and accepted the involvement of a foreign power in our presidential election.  He not only asked Russia to find the 30,000 missing e-mails by Hillary Clinton but also said he would accept "oppo" research if offered by a foreign power (He used Norway as a theoretical example.).  For another, he used U.S. military weapon aid to a foreign power to coerce them to start an investigation into one of his political opponents.

What President Trump has done is a textbook example of what the Founding Fathers of our country feared.
When the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, they represented a loosely held confederacy of Atlantic states recently freed from British rule. If the American experiment was going to work, the founding fathers knew that they had to insulate their new republic from deep-pocketed interests and old alliances from Europe.
......................................................................
If the United States was going to be different, the framers needed a founding document that fully recognized and defended against the corrupting influence of foreign money and power, particularly on the president.*

The use of U.S. aid to coerce favors from foreign governments may yet be a step too far because the aid was finally sent before the promise.

I have written about the Decline Of American Politics before.**  What we are seeing is the continued decline, mainly imposed by Republicans.  So encouraging foreign powers to become involved in our presidential elections seems to be the next step in this decline.  The impeachment is an attempt to stop this but is it too late?

If it is, I wonder what foreign posers might prefer the Democrats over the Republicans?  I can imagine that the Chinese might favor the Democrats and most assuredly the Iranians to counter the Russians, Saudi Arabia, and Israelies that favor the Republican Party.  Other possibilities of countries favoring the Democrats are the UK, France, and Germany.

I could be wrong about Israel, however, as nine members of the U.S. Senate are Jewish (No Republicans) including the minority party leader, Chuck Schumer.  In addition, there are 26 members of the House that are Jewish with only two that are Republican.  The Israel Prime Minister clearly would favor the Republicans (and the Republicans brought him to the U.S. to denounce the Iranian nuclear bomb treaty.).  President Trump not only has recognized Jerusalem as the Isreal capital and moved our embassy there but also supported Israel's claim to the Golan Heights.

Another thing that Netanyahu and Trump have in common is that both are indicted for bribery and other charges in the same year.****  The American impeach is the same as an indictment.

* https://www.history.com/news/foreign-influence-constitution-founding-fathers
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwGCQZDNlrgGNdQTGWgvZDXcflg
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/06/decline-of-american-politics.htm
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_members_of_the_United_States_Congress
**** https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18008697

MAYBE IT WAS LAOS

   A couple of weeks ago, I heard a joke that was so funny I let out a guffaw which is unusual for me.  Maybe you heard it too as the joke has Ukraine framing Russia for interfering in our 2016 Presidential election to favor Donald Trump whereas "they" say it actually was Ukraine that framed Russia and Ukraine was in favor of Hillary Clinton.  Ha, ha, ha
     Now that is funny.  I happen to know something about Ukraine, and I’m not sure they even have computers there. If they have, does anyone know how to operate them?  I don’t mean sending e-mails and checking your bank account, I mean professionals who can go into your computer and delete something or add something without you knowing what had happened.
   Is there a country in the world less likely to have interfered in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election?  Hmm, Laos maybe?  The CIA used to say that Laos is the poorest country in the world and maybe it still is.
   In addition, the U.S. tried to get the new president of Ukraine, who was elected on an anti-corruption platform, to commit corruption as his first act and investigate the Bidens.  Ooh.  Ho, ho.  A leg slapper for sure.
   Meanwhile, back in the United States, the job of rescuing our Democracy, that hangs by a thread, is in the slender hands of a 79 year -old woman and her lieutenants.  Seriously.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DONALD TRUMP? - II

Claims that Donald Trump is the Second Coming of Christ have died down lately, but it doesn't take away from what has been going on.  Last October 13th, I published a piece with the same title "What Is It About Donald Trump?" (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-is-it-about-donald-trump.html).  In particular and an interview between Frank Graham and Eric Metaxas has gotten a lot of coverage.

There are several things to say in response to the [Frank] Graham-[Eric] Metaxas conversation, starting with the theologically distorted and confused charges that were leveled by Graham and amplified by Metaxas. They didn’t make the case that Trump critics are sincere but wrong, or even that they are insincere and unpatriotic. Instead, they felt compelled to portray those with whom they disagree politically as under demonic influences, which for a Christian is about as serious an accusation as there is. It means their opponents are the embodiment of evil, the “enemy,” anti-God, a kind of anti-Christ.*

[Frank] Graham and  [Eric] Metaxas appear to believe that they, along with Donald Trump, are part of a holy crusade to rid the world of evil, wickedness, and demonic powers. What they are saying in their interview is that you either stand with them, or you stand with the forces of Satan.**

The two went on to agree that it’s a “fact, not our opinion” that “literally three years ago our economy was dead in the water” but is now “just screaming forward.” In actual fact, the economy grew at 1.9 percent in the third quarter of 2019 vs. 2.2 percent three years ago.

But if politics is a spiritual battle between God and demons from hell, who cares what statistics from the Commerce Department say — or what any of the impeachment witnesses say?***

But Graham and Metaxis are not all.
On Fox News on Sunday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry reported that he told Trump he was God’s choice: “I said, 'Mr. President, I know there are people that say you said you were the chosen one and I said, 'You were.’”***

Some facts about the economy.
It’s true that the unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in half a century, and the stock market is at a record high. That’s all to the good. At the same time, economic growth under Trump has been so-so. GDP growth—which, under Trump will not reach even 3 percent during his first three years in office—is decelerating. The deficit has exploded. The manufacturing industry is in recession. And job growth during the last 33 months of the Obama presidency was higher than job growth during the first 33 months of the Trump presidency. *

* https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/graham-claps-back-biden/story?id=67298788
**https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/to-trumps-evangelicals-everyone-else-is-a-sinner/602569/
*** https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/25/who-demon-could-impeach-gods-chosen-one/

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE

She is a frequent commentator on MSNBC.
Born in the U.S. to Haitian immigrant parents: 13 August 1977 (Age 42)
Is LGBT
Height: unknown, Weight: unknown  Issaid to have "considerable height and weight"  I've seen profile shots of her on TV and she doesn't look overweight at all, but neither is she rail thin.

Graduate of Columbia Univ. with an MS and also lectures there.
She is a social activist and has published a biography titled "Moving Forward" in which she records how driven she was and once tried to commit suicide.

Did I mention that she is Drop Dead Cute?

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karine_Jean-Pierre
** https://www.nbcnews.com/know-your-value/feature/karine-jean-pierre-it-s-time-talk-about-mental-health-ncna1065311

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/graham-claps-back-biden/story?id=67298788