INTEREST RATES THROUGH TIME

Friday, November 25, 2016

CNBC has published an interesting article by Louise Yamada on interest rates with time.*  It seems kind of peculiar to me that a low in interest rates occurs every 30-40 yrs and the bottom interest rate is lower than the last one.  In contrast although the first three peaks in interest rates were also lower than the previous one for the first three cycles, the 1981 high blew things out of the water with its high rates over 10%.

Yamada says:
History shows the only place for interest rates to go from here is higher — according to veteran technical analyst Louise Yamada.
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"The early stage of a bull market can be accompanied by the initial rising rate cycle," she said. "It isn't until you get to about 5 percent that you start having problems."*

(Click on figure to enlarge)

* http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/17/200-years-of-us-interest-rates-on-one-chart.html

 Posted by Everett Estes Ford at 2:36 PM No comments:

SMALL BUSINESSES ARE LASTING LONGER BUT ARE SMALLER

The WSJ has an interesting article showing a decline in the percentage of adults that own businesses.*  Some excerpts from this article are shown in italics and included is a figure showing the decline.  Please see the full article for more discussion.  This piece complements an earlier item on the decline in new start-ups that started as early as 1997.**

Curiously, the decline in ownership started in the late 1990s during the cot.com bubble for reasons that are not discussed in the article.   There was a small recovery during the first decade of this century.   The recovery was snuffed out by the Great Recession when there was another steep decline beginning in 2008 lasting until 2012 when the decline sort of leveled off.

 A new report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation,  a Kansas City, Mo., nonprofit, tracks the number, survival and density of small businesses (those with fewer than 50 employees) across the U.S. While small companies are making it past their fifth year at a near-record rate, business ownership and firm growth remain historically low, possible reflections of declining dynamism across the U.S. economy.
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 In the group’s latest index, for example, just over six out of every 100 adults owned a business in the U.S. That’s down from about 7.8 two decades earlier, highlighting a drop in entrepreneurship over that time.

(Click on figure to enlarge)

At the same time, the smallest businesses—with one to four employees—made up 53.1% of small businesses, up from 49.5%. That suggests that small firms are less likely to see breakout growth.
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For men and women who start businesses, they’re sticking around longer. The survival rate—firms that make it at least five years—hit a low of 42.9% in 2011 during the lingering aftermath of the recession. The most recent index posted a three-decade high of 48.7%.

* http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/11/17/small-businesses-are-living-longer-but-also-staying-smaller/?mod=djemRTE_h
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/11/company-new-startups-declining-for.html

MONETIZING THE PRESIDENCY

Most Presidents monetize their presidency  but after they are president.  Ronald Reagan famously gave four speeches in Japan for $2 million (http://articles.latimes.com/1989-11-08/local/me-890_1_ronald-reagan).  The Clinton's too became wealthy for giving speeches for fees up to $500,000 for Bill.

President-Elect Donald Trump, however, plans to monetize his time in the White House and we had better either get used to it or eventually impeach him.  Of course, he is a big exception to those running for president all along in that he never released any of his taxes to the voters.

The latest word from President-Elect Donald Trump is that he plans to run his business after he is sworn in as President.  Yes, we will have a part-time president who will meld his business interests into his duties as president.  In spite of what he says, our President-elect will have severe conflict of interest problems and even constitutional violations though he claims a President can't have conflict of interest.*

Although the President, like all other federal officers and employees, is prohibited from receiving 
personal gifts from foreign governments and foreign officials without the consent of Congress 
(U.S. Const., art. I, §9, cl. 8), the President is generally free to accept unsolicited personal gifts 
from the American public.  Most of the restrictions on federal officials accepting gifts from “prohibited sources” (those doing business with, seeking action from, or regulated by one’s agency) are not applicable to the President of the United States (5 C.F.R. §2635.204(j)), although the President may not solicit gifts from such sources. The President, in a similar manner as other federal officials, may also receive unrestricted gifts from relatives and gifts that are given on the basis of personal friendship. When personal gifts accepted by the President or his immediatefamily exceed a certain amount, those gifts are required to be publicly disclosed in financial disclosure reports filed annually by the President. 5 U.S.C. app., §§101(f)(1), 102(a)(2). The President remains subject to the bribery and illegal gratuities law which prohibits the receipt of a gift or of anything of value when that receipt, or the agreement to receive such thing of value, is connected in some way to the performance (or nonperformance) of an official act. *

Trump may already be in congressional violation of soliciting gifts as he is already hawking his Washington, D.C. hotel to foreign diplomats:
About 100 foreign diplomats, from Brazil to Turkey, gathered at the Trump International Hotel this week to sip Trump-branded champagne, dine on sliders and hear a sales pitch about the U.S. president-elect’s newest hotel.**
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Some attendees won raffle prizes — among them overnight stays at other Trump properties around the world — allowing them to become better acquainted with the business holdings of the new commander in chief.**

Trump also has already talked about his business partner in Turkey with the President of Turkey Erdogan,***

Of course Trump's daughter  Evanka sitting in with the meetings with the Japanese Pirme-Minister doesn't look good, nor does her hawking her mother's $11,800 duamond and gold bracelet for sale by her company don't look good either.****

* http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-conflict-interest-problem-no-white-house-candidate-ever/
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42662.pdf
** https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/2016/11/18/9da9c572-ad18-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html
***  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-turkey-business_us_5836188ae4b01ba68ac41d9f
**** http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43660.pdf

INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM

At this point, it is not clear that Trump is proposing a real infrastructure program but intends to give utilities and other companies a big tax break for building what they already plan to do.  But let's say in the end it will be a real infrastructure program of improving bridges, roads, airports, train stations, the electrical grid, and others.

The way it goes is this.  It takes time to ramp up the program so if Congress is smart they will start a large infrastructure program slowly (this would be unusual, but let's suppose.)  So let's say, they start the first year with, um, $25 billion.

So an interagency committee is formed to select which infrastructure programs to do first.  This is important because, although it is supposed to be a multiyear program, Congress may abandon it after the first year (you never know).  The interagency committee forms a working group to select and prioritize projects.  The working group gathers together and starts to prioritize when someone gets a bright idea.  They point out that the American Society of Civil Engineers already has a list so why don't we just go with that?  Everyone agrees and the meeting is disbanded.

So they publish the list and the next thing you know, the Senator from, say, Mississippi says,"What do you mean that Mississippi is number 293 on the list?  We have projects as important as anybody. " Well, he is a powerful Senator (Mississippi happens to be a ward of the U.S. government) so something from Mississippi is made number 9 on the list.  Of course the Senator from the state that has just been dropped from the top 10 objects to losing out.  So the interagency group discusses if they could handle 11 projects to start.  It is agreed that with overtime, enough person power can be focussed on 11 projects and that is that.  Only the Senator and a representative from Arkansas object to being only 173 on the list.  And so it goes.  Finally, the system is overloaded so they are given authority to make some new hires.

The hiring has to be done quickly.  The Senators from Mississippi and Arkansas say they have an idea for some people. As time is passing, some people are hurriedly hired that the organizations involved spend the next 20 yrs trying to get rid of.

Finally, contracts are being prepared.  The approval process is slow but accomplished and contracts are let.  The low bid is an organization that can't do the job so papers have to be prepared explaining why the low bid isn't being selected.  A fight ensues and the contract may have to be relet.  Finally, a company is selected and some company higher on the list complains that they should have been selected so the whole thing starts over.  But a contract is finally issued (with luck) and ready to go about halfway through the fiscal year.  The approved company then has to ramp up their operation which takes more time.  With maybe about 3/4ths of the fiscal year gone, the company finally starts to do some work.

SUPERFUND AS AN EXAMPLE
Consider a program called Superfund Program initiated in 1980 that deal with cleaning up commercially contaminated sites with various chemicals and other toxic materials in the U.S.  To get a feel for what I am writing about, see the Superfund program in just the state of New Jersey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites_in_New_Jersey)
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Here is a quote from Wikipedia about the Superfund today:
Approximately 70 percent of Superfund cleanup activities historically have been paid for by parties responsible (PRPs) for the cleanup of contamination. The exceptions occur when the responsible party either cannot be found or is unable to pay for the cleanup. Until the mid-1990s, most of the funding came from a tax on the petroleum and chemical industries, reflecting the polluter pays principle, but since 2001, most of the funding for cleanups of hazardous waste sites has come from taxpayers. Despite the name, the program has suffered from under-funding, and Superfund cleanups have decreased to a mere 8 in 2014. As a result, EPA will typically negotiate consent orders with PRPs to study sites and develop cleanup alternatives, subject to EPA oversight and approval of all such activities.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund

ECONOMY IS GOOD

President Obama will turn over to President-elect a good economy* with prospects of getting even better if Trump doesn't screw it up with a big personal tax cut as he threatens.  (See my 2010 piece on the Effectiveness Of Taxes)**

Nor is the economy struggling much, based on last week’s reported data. October housing starts jumped 25% from September, with help from a big rise in single-family homes; jobless claims for the week ended Nov. 12 dropped to 235,000, the fewest since 1973; and retail sales had their best two-month stretch in at least two years. Combined with Trump’s stimulus plan, there is the potential to drive economic growth toward 3% or more, says Jefferies economist Thomas Simons. “The fourth quarter is starting to show what the real strength of the economy is,” he says.*

I am in favor of Trump's infrastructure plan, but doubt he will get anywhere near the trillion dollars he asks for.  A problem with the government programs is that the biggest amount of money is in the first year and then there are complaints that the Civil Service  is dragging their feet, but it takes some time to ramp up (You can't issue contracts over night, for example).  As President Obama said, there is no such thing as a shovel ready program.  Then the program is over in three years when the program is finally ramped up and in high gear.  Then it is time for a new program much different so everyone has to reshift grears and start over.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  No drying.  If you are going to work for the Federal government, you have to accept you are a political football.

* http://www.barrons.com/articles/stocks-rise-almost-1-on-solid-economic-growth-1479537677?mod=BOL_hp_we_columns
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.html

STATE JOBLESS RATE CHANGE (OCTOBER 2015 AND OCTOBER 2016)

The WSJ has an article that discussed states with rising and lowering unemployment with regard to the recent presidential election.  I found the information to be interresting regardless of the election and quote a few passages here (in italics).  You of course will want to look at the original article that include a table where you can scroll down and see your own state (information for the states comes from the Labor Department).

Unemployment rates in October ranged from a low of 2.8% in South Dakota and New Hampshire to 6.8% in Alaska.
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[There were]17 states where unemployment rose over the past 12 months
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 ... Pennsylvania ...  saw its unemployment rate rise from 4.8% in October 2015 to 5.8% in October 2016. 

There were 33 states with falling unemployment over the last year:
...states with falling unemployment, such as North Carolina  [5.6% to 4.9%] and Michigan [5,1% to 4.7%], whose rates dropped by 0.7 and 0.4 percentage points respectively over the year. ...  And Wisconsin, ...  saw its unemployment rate drop to 4.1% in October 2016 from 4.6% a year earlier. But falling unemployment doesn’t necessarily translate into good jobs or jobs for everyone. For the first time in 2016, the bulk of the U.S. labor force wa college graduates.

Results for some states:

(Click on figure to enlarge)

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/11/18/states-with-rising-unemployment-went-overwhelmingly-for-donald-trump/?mod=djemRTE_h

WATCHING SAUSAGE BEING MADE

We are in the stage of a new administration where we are watching the messy process of sausage being made.  It is said you do not want to watch sausage being made.  So let's wait for awhile and see how some of the sausage turns out.  Let's hope it tastes good.

I don't plan to make a blow by blow commentary during this sausage making process that will go on for many months.  Even though I am not a fan of the Republican Party, I will make a couple of  constructive comments about possible appointments.

Personally, I thought that Mike Rogers (Republican from Michigan) would have been a good pick for CIA Director, or even NSA Director, but he has resigned from the transition team.  He spent 4 yrs in the Army.   Rogers has not only had previous experience working for the FBI but was former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.  Let's hope that Trump reconsiders. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rogers_(Michigan_politician)

I heard once that Dr. Richard Haass was mentioned for Secretary of State, but his name has not been mentioned again.  He certainly has excellent Republican credentials for the job as he served in both Bush administrations at State.  For the past 14 yrs, Haass has been President of the Council on Foreign Relations.  It is a pity if he is passed up on this or maybe he doesn't want it? (http://www.cfr.org/experts/afghanistan-iraq-middle-east-and-north-africa/richard-n-haass/b3350)  Donald Trump is aware of him and had a breakfast with him. (http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/03/03/donald-trump-held-briefing-with-richard-haass-head-of-council-on-foreign-relations/?_r=0)

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND MICHIGAN

Of all the strange things in the recent presidential election, Michigan confuses me the most.  After all, the Obama government saved GM and Chrysler from bankruptcy and Hillary Clinton voted for it.*  The Federal government has contributed all sorts of aid to Flint, MI, to help their toxic water problem** in addition to the auto bailout. Hillary was also the earliest of politicians to visit Flint and is credited with helping to raise record donations from 1337 donors for the Community Foundation of Greater Flint.***  President Obama visited Flint and drank a glass of filtered water and said it was safe.****  Yet, Hillary lost to Bernie Sanders in the Michigan primary and lost the state in the general election.*****  It is just weird.

It seems to me that the state of Michigan and Flint, MI, are ungrateful for all this administration and Hillary Clinton have done for them.  Something that might have hurt Hillary was that she didn't waffle on her support of Pro Choice on abortion and went all out.  There was considerable effort by Pro Life groups to turn out the vote.

* Hillary and the auto bailout
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/07/the-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-debate-over-the-auto-bailout-explained/
** Flint Fact Sheet on government involvement
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/03/fact-sheet-federal-support-flint-water-crisis-response-and-recovery
*** Hillary Clinton and the Flint, MI, lead rich water problem
http://michiganradio.org/post/beyond-talk-heres-what-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders-are-doing-actually-help-flint
**** Drinking Filtered Water
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-drinks-flint-water_us_572a4117e4b016f378947a5d
***** http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/detroit_flint_voting_muscle_we.html

COMPANY NEW STARTUPS DECLINING FOR DECADES

With a few zigs and zags, the WSJ shows the number of new startups per year has been decling since, at least, 1977 or 39 yrs though it looks to be pretty flat since 2010 (see figure).*  Also during this period, the number of employees in new startups has declined from nearly 6% of the workforce to 2.1% today (see figure).  As the WSJ says, this is very disturbing.

Examination of the figure shows a drop in the number of new startups and employees was pretty flatduring the 1990s; however a steep delcine occurred from about about 2006 to 2009.  Curiosly, this decline started well before the Great Recession.

Economists are concerned that the slowing rate of startups signals the economy is growing less competitive, with the largest firms controlling more market share than they did in earlier periods. The White House’s Council of Economic Advisers has argued this leads to outsize returns for certain companies, and has dampened wages for workers, widening inequality.
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Other figures from Wednesday’s Business Employment Dynamics report pointed in the same direction. The number of “establishment births,” or new businesses, fell by 26,000 to 220,000 in the first quarter of 2016. The number of jobs those establishments accounted for also dropped by 161,000 from the previous quarter to 734,000, the lowest level since 2011. The net employment change in the first quarter was a gain of 194,000 jobs, the lowest figure since the first quarter of 2010.*

(Click on figure to enlarge)

* http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/11/09/job-gains-at-startups-are-way-down-and-thats-a-bad-sign/?mod=djemRTE_h

RISE OF HISPANICS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Hillary Clinton didn't win the presidency, but she owes a lot to the Hispanic community because she got 200,000+ more votes in Florida than Obama did.  The problem was that Trump got 400,000+ more votes than Romney.  The Democrats need to continue to groom their Hispanic members for future power in the party.   To see a brief take on Hispanic politicians, a piece in Latino Leaders gives 15 rising politicians.*    For a long list of Hispanic Democrats in politics, see Wikipedia.**

Head of the list I suppose is Thomas Pérez, the current Secretary of Labor who has also served in the Justice Department.   At age 55, he won't be too old to consider for a presidential run, young by today's standards where Donald Trump is 70 and Hillary Clinton is 69 (Sanders was 74!.   Remember the 1960s when young people said you can't trust anyone over 30?  Now young people go for Bernie Sanders who is well into his 70s!).

Younger candidates are the Castro twins, Julian, current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Joaquin, member of the House of Representatives.  They recently turned 42.  Perhaps the House is a good place for Joaquin to grow,*** but Julian might benefit from a position giving more visibility as he will soon be out of his job as Secretary of HUD.   I do't know what that might be.

It seems like most Hispanic women political candidates are Republicans, but  two outstanding Democrats are Rep.Michelle Lujan Grisham, 57, from New Mexico  and Leticia Van de Putte, 61, are  good ones.  Perhaps the House of Representatives is an appropriate place for Lujan to mature as a national candidate.***   Leticia has served in both the Texas House and Senate and is a pharmacist.  Alas, she lost her bid to be mayor of San Antonio.  She will be 65 by the time of the next presidential election, not old by present standards, She has been a strong advocate of veterans.

* http://www.latinoleaders.com/Media-Kit/15-Rising-Hispanic-Politicians/
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latino_Democrats
*** This may not be an appropriate place if the Republicans continue to dominate the House.

ECONOMY AND EMPLOYMENT

There is an article from the WSJ that gives the state of the economy in 15 figures and you are encouraged to look at the entire article.* The economic expansion since the Great Recession is the 4th longest* and is projected to last for at least the next year. If this is true, then the expansion will overtake the 3rd longest expansion in about six months (see figure).  The expansion has been steady but slow when incorrectly compared with previous recessions.  The only proper comparison is with the Great Depression that was the only other collapse of the financial system in the last 100 yrs.   In this regard, the current expansion is quite good having almost recovered in only 8 years.

Normal recessions are due to a buildup of inventories.  When the inventories are worked down, the recovery is comparatively rapid.

(Click on figure to enlarge)

There is the mystery of the decrease in workforce participation that has nothing to do with the Great Recession as it started in 1997 during the best economic period of my life, the long "bubble" economy of the 1990s.

There is the problem of declining employment in American manufacturing (see figure) that is seen to occur in two major steps seeningly related to recessions.   Beginning in 2010 there seems to be a gentle rise in employment, however. Though this is oft attributed to off-shoring of American manufacturing to low wage countries, the big decline is actually msotly due to automation and the introduction of robots.   Even so, wages of workers in private industry and other private occupations began to increase during 2015 and have continued to increase during 2016.*

(Click on figure to enlarge)

An encouraging sign is in the decline of  layoffs with September of 2016 hitting a record low.**
When Americans do leave a job, it’s overwhelmingly classified as a voluntary separation. Of course, some people quit jobs out of frustration or are pushed out. But on the whole, an increasing level of quits reflects labor market health.**

(click on figure to enlarge)

* http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/11/11/the-u-s-economy-president-donald-trump-will-inherit-in-11-charts/?mod=djemRTE_h
** http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/11/08/the-u-s-layoff-rate-fell-to-a-record-low-in-september-but-hiring-also-declined/?mod=djemRTE_h3

NOT A CHANGE ELECTION

The WSJ puts out monthly a jobs reports in 15 figures (See the one below).  The latest one is from October 2016.  In the figure on job unemployment rate it is seen that the unemployment rate for workers without high school degrees over 25 has been comparable to 2007 for awhile., although the more educated are only somewhat above the 2007 lows.  I really don't understand all the anger.  Actually I think I do understand it and it isn't pretty.

But I hope the anger may be that the unemployment rate rose so high in the Great Recession, however, the decline in unemployment rate has been in a steep decline for several years.  If this is correct, it seems unfair to blame the president who helped the recovery and not blame those the helped cause it.

There is a lot of talk about the recent election being a change election.  However, there was not much change, really only the president.  The electorate changed only two Senate seats out of the 34 up for election and 12 seats in the House out of 435 up for election.  So the electorate chose to give the Republicans the total  President, Senate and House when it was the Seanate and House that kept the recovery from being better.  Ultimately, I think historians will say Obama's greatest contribution was the Great Recovery.

Personally, I'm willing to give the new president, Donald Trump, a chance to see what he actually does.  He has said that he will protect Social Security and Medicare.  Let's see if he will do it as Republicans have had these two popular programs in their crosshairs for a long time.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/11/04/the-october-jobs-report-in-15-charts/?mod=djemRTE_h

AMERICA NOT READY FOR A WOMAN PRESIDENT

So the first woman candidate for president by a major party loses to a con man.*  As I wrote in August of 2016:
There is nothing quite like trying to con the public into voting for you for president when you have no qualifications.  Even Obama had a few.  What is the old saying: You can fool all of the people some of the time., you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.  Well Donald Trump is trying.

Look on the bright side.  It could have been Ted Cruz.

I realized even in 2015 that Donald Trump tailored his campaign to appeal to the Deplorables. and it worked. Here is what I wrote in December of 2015:
ALL his comments are carefully crafted to appeal to this large group of people who believe Obama was born outside the U.S., that he is a secret Muslim, that all Hispanic illegals should be deported, that we should build a wall on our southern border, that Muslims should not be allowed to enter America (I suspect many would find the idea appealing that all Muslims should be deported or placed in detention camps.), etc., etc.  It isn't pretty folks but there it is.  You aren't going to solve this hate by getting rid of Trump.  It will still be out there, as Trump is following these people, not leading them.**
Well we will find out just how much Trump believed in his message.

I do have big worries about Trump's love affair with Putin.***  I'm surprised people went along with this,  And twice he said that American labor is paid too much, but the Deplorables ignored this.

In the end, all sorts of people voted for Trump including college educated women.  Yes, Hillary got a larger vote from them, but not nearly as big as expected.  Frankly, I don't know how any woman could vote for Trump, but I conclude that being a womanizer is now off the table as an issue in running for president, just as being divorced is.  This opens the door to a lot of men for the future.

I think that Hillary ran as fine a campaign as possible.  I don't know what she could have done better.  She did loads of appearances.  She raised loads of money.   She had a great ground game. I don't know what she could have done better. She had a popular president behind her, she had celebrities for her, and she had a fine crew of surrogates, including Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden,  Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, and Tim Kaine (her running mate), among others .  She spoke well.  She had an upbeat message until she felt it necessary to get down in the mud with Trump.

My take away form this is that we have found that it is very difficult to beat a well known entertainer.  At least Ronald Reagan knew how to act presidential.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/08/donald-trumps-biggest-con.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/12/donald-trump-final-comments-i-hope.html
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/08/trump-putin-love-affair.html

I'M ALSO BEGINNING TO FEEL SORRY FOR ....

Melania Trump.  It is clear that she doesn't want an active role in this election process, but they got her to give a speech at the Republican Convention.  It was a nice speech, I thought, and wondered how much of it she wrote herself.  Of course, it turned out that not only did someone else write a part of it, but it was a part of the speech given by Michelle Obama.  Oops!

After that she was pretty quiet.  But with only a few days to go, they got her to give another speech trying to lure women voters to Trump, I guess.  In this one she said that if she became First Lady, she would focus on cyber bullying!  I suspect she actually wrote this.  Problem is that her husband, Donald, who is the Republican nominee for president, is one of the worst cyber bullies around.*  Oops!!  Can it be that she is unaware of this?  I think it is possible that she can be in denial about unpleasant things (Donald too?).  Somehow, his campaign managed to take away Trump's Twitter account for the rest of the campaign.

She, of course, has tried to get her husband, Donald, to be more presidential.  It didn't work.  I hope Donald is nice to her.  After all, he considers women to be ornaments and vessels for sex.  They have been married since January 22, 2005 or 11+ years (He was married to Ivana for 15 yrs and Marla Maples for six years including two years of separation.).

I don't want to know about Melania's early life before Donald.  Models in particular tend to lead lives messier than most, I think.  I think what she is today is what counts.  Whether she entered the U.S. illegally or worked illegally when she came to the U.S. is long ago and I am willing to forget it.  There was a Democratic lawyer on the Lawrence O'Donnell TV program The Last Word who went through in detail Melania's records and concluded she was OK.

* http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/melania-trump-our-culture-is-too-mean-800701507833

WAGE GROWTH BEST IN 7 YRS (OCTOBER)

In spite of all the dismal talk about the economy and the anger among many voters, everything I can find is that things are looking up:

Wages rose more in October  [2.8%] than any time since the economic recovery began, a sign that the labor market is tightening and the Fed should be on course to raise interest rates in December.*

GDP. Inventories, Housing, and Unemployment also looking good.**

As I have written elsewhere, How Good Do Things Have To Get Before People Realize It.***

* http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/best-wage-growth-in-7-years-pushes-the-fed-toward-a-december-rate-hike.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/10/gdp-inventories-housing-unemployment.html
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/09/how-good-do-things-have-to-get-before.html

IT'S ROBOTS NOT TRADE AGREEMENTS COSTING JOBS

In an article titled "Mexico Taking U.S. Factory Jobs?  Blame Robots Instead,"* it is claimed that the U.S. is still number two in factory production and probably will overtake China due to automation.  Below are some excerpts from the article, but I urge you to read the original article.  Quotes are in italics:

Despite the Republican presidential nominee's charge that "we don't make anything anymore," manufacturing is still flourishing in America. Problem is, factories don't need as many people as they used to because machines now do so much of the work.*

America has lost more than 7 million factory jobs since manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Yet American factory production, minus raw materials and some other costs, more than doubled over the same span to $1.91 trillion last year, according to the Commerce Department, which uses 2009 dollars to adjust for inflation. That's a notch below the record set on the eve of the Great Recession in 2007. And it makes U.S. manufacturers No. 2 in the world behind China.*

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But research shows that the automation of U.S. factories is a much bigger factor than foreign trade in the loss of factory jobs. A study at Ball State University's Center for Business and Economic Research last year found that trade accounted for just 13 percent of America's lost factory jobs. The vast majority of the lost jobs — 88 percent — were taken by robots and other homegrown factors that reduce factories' need for human labor.*
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General Motors, for instance, now employs barely a third of the 600,000 workers it had in the 1970s. Yet it churns out more cars and trucks than ever.

Or look at production of steel and other primary metals. Since 1997, the United States has lost 265,000 jobs in the production of primary metals — a 42 percent plunge — at a time when such production in the U.S. has surged 38 percent.

Allan Collard-Wexler of Duke University and Jan De Loecker of Princeton University found last year that America didn't lose most steel jobs to foreign competition or faltering sales. Steel jobs vanished because of the rise of a new technology: Super-efficient mini-mills that make steel largely from scrap metal.*

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The Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit that lobbies manufacturers to return jobs to the United States, says America was losing an average of 220,000 net jobs a year to other countries a decade ago. Now, the number being moved abroad is roughly offset by the number that are coming back or being created by foreign investment.*

* http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/02/mexico-taking-us-factory-jobs-blame-robots-instead.html

COUNTRY GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

I have spent a lot of time over the last year or two trying to understand what people mean when they say our country is going in the wrong direction.  The problem is that the term is too generic.  What I mean is that I think that wealth is being concentrated into a small fraction of the American populace.

Early in the election process, one heard a lot about this but lately you don’t hear of others concerned about it.  The closest people come is when they say they worry that their children won’t have a better life than they do.  I’m sure that , if their children are ambitious and motivated, they will do just fine.

That some people get left out of work in trade deals is well recognized.  There is even a Federal Program to deal with this problem called the Trade Assistance Program (TAA) in the Department of Labor.  The Trade Act Fact Sheet says, “The TAA program seeks to provide these trade-affected workers with opportunities to obtain the skills, resources, and support they need to become reemployed.”  They claim to help about half of those left out of work due to trade.  Perhaps their work could be expanded somehow to cover more workers..

What I am afraid of is that what is quietly meant is that they want minorities kept in line and in their view stop being favored.  Some may bemoan women having so many opportunities.  And of course then there are the Gays in general and Gay marriage in particular.

It seems strange to me is that, in addtion to prayer in schools, having In God We Trust on our coinage really means a lot to many people (It was added in 1861 during the Civil War), though I can take it or leave it alone.  Along with this is the phrase “under God” added to the Pledge of Allegiance, only added only in 1954.  It means a lot to many people to have some sort of prayer said before sports games and other social gatherings, for reasons unknown to me.

Lastly is the emotional tie to the Star Spangled Banner that really was only adopted as the National Anthem in 1931. In my youth, it was sung before seeing a movie or symphonic concert but now before American sports events and many other social gatherings.  I would prefer a song less militaristic and easier to sing like America The Beautiful that has a reference to God in each verse (e.g. “America! America! God shed His grace on thee” in the first stanza), or even  God Bless America that is very short with only 12 lines and usually sung twice.

650,000 E-MAILS ? ( ! )

You know what impresses me?  What impresses me is the e-mail productivity there seems to be in government,  There were apparently thousands of e-mails involved in Bridge-Gate, the Christy Scandal.

Then there comes Hillary Clinton's e-mails during the four years she was Secretary of State.  Let's see. She turned over 30,000 e-mails and the FBI found another 15,000!  So 45,000 emails divided by 4 is 11,250/yr or 30.8 emails per day, every day 4 yrs or 3.1 emails/hour in a 10 hr day every day for 4 yrs. (!)

Now consider that the Secretary of State spends a lot of time in meeting dignitaries and in meetings of various kinds so the 30.1 e-mails she takes care of every hour is actually compressed into fewer hours.

But that is child's play.  Now it comes out that Hillary's assistant Huma Abedin shared a computer with her estranged sexting husband  (Anthony Weiner) on which it is said that there are 650,000 e-mails !!!!!, but presumably not all involve Hillary.

How can you do that?  Even if you keep the computer for 10 yrs, you are talking about 65,000 e-mails/year.  And if the hard drive goes, you may have lost everything.

A note here: An important factor in Hillary's classified e-mails was that everyone had security clearance.  The question was, was Hillary's e-mail server hacked?  There is no evidence that it was, though you don't always know.  This is true of Abedin also, but I suppose it is not true of her estranged husband.  So if classified e-mails are found on that computer someone is in trouble.


Note added November 2nd: It occurred to me that someone like the Russians may have broken into the laptop computer and planted hundreds of thousands of e-mails.  Unofficially it is said that about a thousand involve Hillary.  If they are planted, they may be duplicates or even fakes.