LIFE AS A POLITICAL FOOTBALL - Biographical

I have mentioned before that working for the Federal Government is to be a political football.*  We now are in the third Federal shutdown this calendar year.
The first shutdown for the calendar year 2018 was from Saturday, January 20th to 22nd and regarded the failure of a Sen. Shumur proposal to give Pres. Trump his money for The Wall in exchange for legal status for DACA, the Hispanic Dreamers who came to the U.S. as children illegally.**
But on Friday afternoon, as the hours ticked away toward a government shutdown, Schumer went to the White House and told [on Friday, January 19th] Trump he could have his wall. “The president picked a number for the wall, and I accepted it,” Schumer recalled in the midst of the shutdown. He had agreed to a significant sum of money for the wall—reported to be $20 billion, though the Democrat’s office will neither confirm nor deny that figure—in exchange for Trump’s support of permanent protections for the nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants covered under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.**

While this shutdown was mainly over a weekend, employees had to prepare to shutdown at a moments notice before that harming productivity.

The current shutdown is longer and has lasted more than a week with no end in sight, though the Dems take over of House of Representatives on Thursday.  There is no guarantee that Trump will sign a bill giving him $5 billion for his "WALL."  As seen above, he backed off even more money if he would give Dreamers legal status.  When you agree to a point, he tends to add others like getting rid of chain immigration or lottery immigration.  As to this shutdown, he already had a deal once but then backed off when the Fox News crew didn't like it.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/03/fired-by-federal-government-biographical.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/01/2018-lost-fiscal-year.html

STEVE MNUCHIN: IS HE DUMB OR A GREAT LIAR?

I don't know about our Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin.  If you look at his history, you would think he knows a lot about the stock market, but it sure isn't visible.  It is true, however, he has specialized in mortgages, especially distressed mortgages,* and not so much on stocks.  Frankly, he seems either dumb or a great liar.

In 1965 I went to Japan for 12 wks.  People were very nice, but sometimes we would be sort of milling around and someone would come up to me and would say "Don't worry."  I grew to understand that, if I wasn't worrying, I should be.

Mnuchin knew what he was doing when he sounded the alarm by saying banks had plenty of liquidity.  To me and plenty of others, it sounded like my experience in Japan that if you weren't worried you should be.  He should know that no one had reason to worry about the banks during the fall of the stock market, but he had to come out to say that banks have plenty of liquidity

Mnuchin tweeted late Sunday afternoon that he’d called the chief executive officers of the nation’s six largest banks and that those chiefs “confirmed they have ample liquidity available for lending to consumer, business markets, and all other market operations.” Those banks all have liquidity coverage ratios -- a measure of unencumbered high-quality assets that can easily be converted into cash -- that exceed 115 percent, more than the 100 percent required by Basel III rules.**

Manchin has also expressed concern about the stock markets falling steeply in December while the economy is so good.  Surely he really knows that the stock markets aren't concerned about today. Stock markets are concerned about tomorrow, and all the current confusion over tariffs, Trump's attacks on the head of the Federal Reserve, etc., makes tomorrow look awfully uncertain.  It is not a surprise the markets are falling steeply.  Normally the stock markets don't pay much attention to government shutdowns, but this one just adds to the overall uncertainty.  Of course, he must know this and just joined the liar corps.

* OneWest was profitable one year after Mnuchin had bought it, and it became the largest bank of Southern California, with assets worth $27 billion.\\
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OneWest was criticized for aggressively foreclosing on homeowners. The high foreclosure rate might have been a result of the loss sharing agreement with the FDIC, whereby the FDIC had to reimburse OneWest for losses.[11] According to The New York Times, OneWest "was involved in a string of lawsuits over questionable foreclosures, and settled several cases for millions of dollars".[36] Because of these foreclosures, around 100 protesters of Occupy Los Angeles gathered outside Mnuchin's home in October 2011 and held signs that read "Make Banks Pay".[21] Two California fair-housing groups filed complaints to the federal government alleging that OneWest violated the Fair Housing Act by not lending money to African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians.[28][30][37]

In November 2016, after OneWest was sold to CIT, the California Reinvestment Coalition submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to learn more about CIT's reverse mortgage subsidiary, Financial Freedom.[37] According to the HUD's response, CIT/Financial Freedom foreclosed on 16,220 federally insured reverse mortgages from April 2009 to April 2016. This represented about 39% of all federally insured reverse mortgage foreclosures during that time. CRC estimated that Financial Freedom only serviced about 17% of the market and thus was foreclosing more than twice as often as its competitors.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Mnuchin)
** https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-24/bank-liquidity-never-a-question-despite-mnuchin-s-tweet-chart

DEATH FROM DRUGS

I have been taking Tramadol for pain caused by arthritis of my lumbar beginning in 2009.  Once due to a mixup with my physician, I ran out of pills and got very unsteady on my feet, dropped my cane, and fell trying to pick it up (a friend of mine had a similar experience).  I was fine using my walker.

At any rate, I have heard of deaths caused by Tramadol and wondered about it as I feel nothing on taking my pills except I have less pain, not elation or depression, etc.  In fact, I don't crave Tramadol at all and on occasion forget to take a two-pill dosage, usually at lunch.  If I miss once, there is no problem, but, if I skip twice, I begin to feel pain.

I don't know how many pills a day it would take to overdose yourself on Tramadol, but, presumably, it is more than 8/day which is the maximum dosage recommended.  (I take 6/day).  I have found the table* below that is very instructive, I think (Dark blue is for 2016 and light blue is for 2015).  You will note that Tramadol is down the list at #14.

Number 13 is Gabapentin that I also take for nerve pain.  I take a relatively small dose of 300 mg/day and had a friend who would take a gram a day for shingles.  So apparently, you have to take a lot to overdose yourself.  Frankly, I can't tell if Gabapentin does me any good (my friend says it didn't help him much), but it is not a controlled substance.

Please notice the list includes fentanyl that now is the leading cause of death by suicide and over-dose (quotes are in italics).*
As an example, roughly 40 percent of people listed as dying of a cocaine overdose also had fentanyl in their system.

After fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine were the deadliest drugs in 2016. After declines earlier in the decade, the report said, overdose deaths from both cocaine and methamphetamine were starting to rise again.

The study said illegal drugs such as fentanyl and heroin were the primary causes of unintentional overdoses, while prescription drugs such as oxycodone tended to be used in suicide overdoses.*

(click on figure to enlarge)

Incidentally, I have read that about 2/3rds of deaths from Tramadol are suicides and 1/3rd overdoses.   This follows the statement above that prescription drug deaths are more from suicide. You are instructed if you want to discontinue Tramadol not to go off the medication "cold turkey," but to phrase out of it at decreasing one pill per week so It would take me 6 wks, presumably.

Note: I couldn't get #15 on the list, but it is Amphetamines at 1,193 deaths in 2016, that was not ranked in the top 15 in 2015.

* https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/12/fentanyl-now-america-deadliest-drug-overtakes-heroin/2287343002/
Also see:
https://drugabuse.com/featured/the-rise-of-tramadol/
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-11-tramadol-dangerous-illegal.html
https://www.pdr.net/drug-summary/Ultram-tramadol-hydrochloride-950

WHAT NOW? REALLY SCARY!

I'm shocked at the resignation of Gen. Mattis as Secretary of Defence.  I, along with many more informed people, felt reassured with him in office.  Of course, he gave in to sending troops to our Southern border as a political ploy, so he was having to slowly give ground.  Perhaps President Trump's actions to remove our troops from Syria and maybe half the troops in Afghanistan was the last telephone pole (It is more major than a straw) to break Mattis' back.

I'm not sure how important this is, but the stock market is behaving like someone with the bipolar illness.   Right now, the DJIA will have the worst December since 1931.  Can a Santa Klaus rally fix that?

What with Trump shutting down the government, 2019 proves to be a very wild year.  Of course, who knows what is in store for us before 2019 that is only 10 days away?

TAKE THAT TRUMPIANS

Yesterday (December 18), District Judge Emmet Sullivan sentencing Gen. Michael Flynn delivered a message to Trumpians that said, in essence, that they shouldn't "count their chickens before they are hatched."*

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, for example, predicted that the judge would throw out the Flynn case.  Various commentators on Fox crowed over what the judge was going to slap down the FBI.  For one of the more mild examples:
Sullivan has the authority to toss Flynn’s guilty plea and the charge against him if he concludes that the FBI interfered with Flynn’s constitutional right to counsel, although he has given no indications that he intends to do so.*

This was a mistake.  Afterward, they were a bit more careful.
“After 18 months—and you’ve got this guy in a vice grip for 18 months—this?” [Laura] Ingraham said, referring to Mueller’s sentencing memo. “I mean, unless those redactions are really, like, knock your socks off, maybe they will be, I think this is a big zero. I think this Mueller thing, and what they did to Flynn is disgusting.”**

Before turning his discourse to  what Hannity calls the real criminals are Hillary Clinton and James Comey
“This is a disgrace, and this is what we've been telling you. This is a glaring example of a two-tier justice system in America,” Hannity said in his opening monologue after lamenting the alleged hardships Flynn has suffered over the previous year. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials while a member of the Trump transition team. In the memo, the Mueller team recommended that Flynn face no prison time because of his "substantial assistance" to the investigation.***

The judge really tore into Flynn and even asked the prosecution if they have considered Treason!  It looks like the judge is ready to sentence Flynn for a crime worse than lying to the FBI{.
"I'm not hiding my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense," Sullivan said


* https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-national-security-adviser-michael-flynn-sentenced
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/18/michael-flynn-sentencing-collapses-judge-disgust-former-trump-aide/2352912002/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/case-michael-flynn-timeline
** https://www.newsweek.com/laura-ingraham-fox-news-mueller-flynn-1245223
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXCGpK1gtxQ
*** https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-sean-hannity-michael-flynn-hillary-clinton-1244655

GOOD BYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE GEN. JOHN KELLY

When Gen John Kelly was appointed to be the Secretary Of Homeland Security, I was reassured; however, instead of deporting serious criminals, he started to deport illegal immigrant mothers from their American citizen children because maybe they had a shoplifting conviction 10 yrs before.  If the mother had a shoplifting conviction a decade or more before and wasn't deported then, why now?

But Kelly took this so seriously. he looked into the possibility of deporting the American citizen children with the mother.  So I was relieved when Kelly was removed as Secretary and made Chief of Staff to President Trump.  But even there he couldn't restrain himself and picked a verbal fight with an African American U.S. Representative using false arguments.  When it was pointed out to him that his points were not true, Kelly refused to apologize.

Because Kelly was willing to deport illegal immigrant mothers from their American citizen children, it should be no surprise that he didn't think anything was wrong with separating children from illegal parents crossing the border with no intent of ever reuniting the children with their parents.*  He said the children would be well taken care of and "put in foster care or whatever." This was being done to discourage illegal immigration, but it includes people asking for asylum as well.

"They're overwhelmingly rural people," Kelly said. "In the countries they come from, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-grade educations are kind of the norm. They don't speak English — obviously that's a big thing. They don't speak English. They don't integrate well. They don't have skills."*
But what about what used to be called "stoop labor?"  I believe people willing to pick crops such as tomatoes and strawberries are in short supply.

Needless to say, Gen Kelly has been a huge disappointment to me.  I have a hard time understanding his attitude on the permanent separation of the children from their parts.  Perhaps if you had to face putting soldiers into harms way, separating children from the parents, literally kidnapping them, doesn't seem like such a moral problem.

* https://www.businessinsider.com/john-kelly-family-separation-policy-illegal-border-crossing-2018-5
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/29/615211215/fact-check-are-democrats-responsible-for-dhs-separating-children-from-their-pare

EFFECT OF THE CORPORATE TAX CUTS, NOT MUCH

I have had an observation that the 2017 Corporate Tax Cuts haven't had much effect.  Much to my pleasure, an article has been published explaining my observation (Quotes are in italics.  You are encouraged to read the whole article.).*

Ever since Treasury Decision 8697 came into effect on Jan. 1, 1997, American companies have largely avoided paying tax on profits from sales outside the U.S. The rule, which was passed more or less by mistake, allowed companies to defer paying tax indefinitely as long as they “reinvested” their earnings in offshore subsidiaries. U.S. companies could not use those foreign profits to pay dividends to shareholders, repay their debt, or do M&A.

This regime encouraged American multinationals to shift reported profits from places where they actually sold goods and services to places with favorable corporate tax codes, most notably Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Switzerland. By 2017, the latest year for which we have comprehensive data, roughly 80% of the net foreign direct investment income earned by U.S. corporations came from subsidiaries in those seven tax havens—up from just 30% in 1997.
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Since the end of last year, however, U.S. multinationals have been able to formally “repatriate” their retained earnings without paying tax. So far, companies have brought back just $184 billion in the first half of 2018. Foreign subsidiaries paid dividends to U.S. parents worth $434 billion, but $250 billion of that was funded from fresh profits earned from offshore sales. .....  At current rates, it would take more than a decade to fully return all of the reinvested earnings stashed in the main corporate tax havens to U.S. shareholders.
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After years of steady increases, stock prices have been flat since the passage of the tax changes, while volatility has increased. Tariffs have increased costs and raised uncertainty. Wage growth has continued to accelerate, albeit from a low base.

Together, these forces could have persuaded executives to cut back on investment, M and A [Mergers and Acquistions], and shareholder payouts. It is possible that the corporate tax changes helped offset all this, which would explain why nothing seems to have changed. It is also possible, however, that the tax changes were a pointless transfer that simply gave companies more earnings to retain rather than spend. 

An analysis of the current and coming markets has been made by Liz Ann Saunders.**

I don’t think that earnings growth will persist next year. Unless there is a reversal back up in oil or a big drop in the dollar, the consensus earnings growth estimates for 6% to 8% for 2019 seem too high. There is not an insignificant risk that we move into an earnings recession, like we saw in late 2015 and early 2016. That didn’t turn into an economic recession because it was concentrated in energy. There’s a cushion in energy so that it won’t be as deep as we had in 2015-16, but exports and capital expenditure-tied industries could take a significant haircut from mid-single- digit earnings growth to negative territory. And that’s not in stock prices.
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We are seeing notable deterioration in key indicators, like an upward trend in unemployment, a rollover in ISM [Institute for Supply Management] orders, a lengthening of the average workweek, and housing not looking good. 
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We hit the first wall in 2008. That was the crash. But the only thing that unleashed was a massive deleveraging of households, and we shored up the banking system. The components of debt today are outside the household sector. Corporations have record amounts of debt. That’s not as ugly a story as the numbers tell you, but the public-sector debt hasn’t gotten any better

Although there was great economic enthusiasm at the beginning of the year, enthusiasm has died during the year.  Previously I have said the personal income tax cuts are an inefficient way to stimulate the economy.***  I guess we are finding that corporate income tax cuts are also an inefficient way of stimulating the economy as companies buy back stock, raise dividends, raise salaries of CEOs and other major executives.  They also tend to buy companies that they know nothing about and later return to the "core" business while selling them off at a loss.  They also may pay off bonds they have accrued in borrowing to pay for dividends and other non-productive investments.

* https://www.barrons.com/articles/last-years-corporate-tax-overhaul-hasnt-made-much-of-a-difference-1544226832
** https://www.barrons.com/articles/charles-schwab-strategist-on-stock-market-recession-51544799898
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.htm\
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/07/trouble-with-income-tax-cuts.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/09/tax-cuts-and-economic-stimulation.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/11/tax-cuts-do-not-pay-for-themselves.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/11/tax-cuts-do-not-pay-for-themselves-ii.html

TRUMP'S ROMAINE LETTUCE FIASCO

Huge agri-businesses in California and Arizona deliver most of the lettuce, spinach, and cabbage we buy. Greens are mostly eaten raw so any — hold your nose — fecal material that might have attached to it doesn’t get cooked away. Giving them a bath in your kitchen sink isn’t enough. At least 43 people fell ill in such a wide swath of the country that there had to be a “clean break,” with a warning that all romaine could be contaminated.*


How did Trump cause the Romaine lettuce plague you ask?

There oughta be a law to make sure that animal waste and the E. coli bacteria that comes with it doesn’t find its way to your table. There is. Before Congress was paralyzed, it occasionally saw a problem and moved to fix it. The Food Safety Modernization Act signed by President Barack Obama in 2011 was the first attempt since 1938 to improve the safety of what we eat. A more stringent requirement for growers to test water for the strain of E. coli that makes us sick grew out of that law.*

The government was slated to start testing samples this year. Instead it’s now 2022 and could be later yet. Sarah Sorscher of the Center for Science in the Public Interest says the FDA was right when it said the rules on agricultural water could have been improved. “But then they started talking about the regulatory burden on farms and you knew the delay was leading towards even less protection,” Sorscher says.*

It’s part of Trump’s M.O. Most regulations are a nail and he’s a hammer. All requirements are pesky and burdensome. Anything with Obama fingerprints on it is particularly bad. He’s going to get government off the backs of hard-working businessmen, even if it kills us.*

I suppose we can't find out how many of those who got sick voted for President Trump.

No doubt there are regulations that are superfluous, but those, or at least nearly all of those, dealing with food safety are there for a reason.

https://www.newsmax.com/margaretcarlson/romaine-lettuce-e-coli-trump/2018/11/30/id/892653/?

GEORGE H.W. BUSH (BUSH-41) REST IN PEACE

I have written about the Bush-41 presidency before and will republish my comments herein.  Though I couldn't stand either Jimmy Carter or Bush-41 when they were president, I came to feel they were the best presidents after WW-II.

Here is what I wrote in the item called "Landmines In The Way To Becoming A Great President".*
(http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2012/05/land-mines-in-way-of-becoming-great.html) (published in May of 2012)
Bush-41 (George H.W. Bush) In retrospect, George H.W. Bush had a pretty good record as president. Unfortunately, he raised taxes after famously saying, "Read my lips. No new taxes." This action has caused him to be ignored by his party. He got through the Americans With Disabilities Act and started the ball rolling on NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement). After a mistake by his State Department that led to the first Iraq War (Desert Storm), the allies decisively won and freed Kuwait. Furthermore, the U.S. used up existing munitions and other countries contributed to financing the war that cost the U.S. essentially nothing monetarily. Also, he knew when to stop the war. He also conducted a war in Panama (Operation Just Cause) over illicit drugs that captured the dictator Noriega, a task that Reagan was unable to accomplish. Although Republicans give Reagan all the credit, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later, both while Bush was president. From what I read, getting there took the skills of Bush to complete the fall. Bush consummated the Start Treaty. Bush also started Operation Restore Hope in Somalia that unfortunately came to a disappointing ending in his successor's term. He cut the Federal labor force by several hundred thousand employees. He was never able to obtain his dream of a capital gains rate of 20%. When speaking in public, Bush tended to speak in a rather whiny voice that many found unattractive. Like Carter and Ford before him, Bush was plagued by the perception of rising unemployment running up to election day. I was surprised that in one on one interviews, his voice was quite normal and attractive. Bush was noted as a gentleman in his campaign for reelection that should be a model for others, but, as he pointed out, he lost.

Here is an excerpt from "THE ECONOMY: PART 2:" (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/02/federal-economy-part-2.html) (published in Febrayry of 2010)
Bush-41 should get a lot of credit for raising taxes as should Clinton, but it was too late to balance the budget for Bush-41. Contrary to the belief by many, there is little evidence that raising taxes ruins the economy or that lowering taxes helps the economy.* In fact, if Bush-41 and Clinton had not raised taxes, there would probably have been no positive cash flow in the 1990s. Combined they also decreased Federal employment by more than a million.

* The reason that lowering personal income taxes have minimal positive benefits to the economy is that the poor do not pay income taxes, the middle class tends to pay off debts with the new money, and the wealthy buy Treasury bonds, chalets in Switzerland, Bombardier personal jets from Canada, and islands in the Bahamas. Though some of these benefit the global economy, they do not aid the American economy. Alan Greenspan, when he was chairman of the Federal Reserve expressed the worry of the wealthy buying too many Treasury bonds with their tax savings. As I said in the post below, there probably is an optimum tax level to maximize Federal revenues, but I do not know what that level is.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO PAY FOR SHOOTINGS

A recent news article states that the Federal Government has put aside nearly $17 million for survivors of the Nevada concert shooting, the worst in U.S. history

Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker said Friday in Cincinnati that the money will defray costs of counseling, therapy, rehabilitation, trauma recovery and legal aid for thousands of people affected by the Oct. 1, 2017, massacre.*
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Fifty-eight people died and more than 850 were injured when a gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel into an open-air country music concert crowd of 22,000 people.*

I was kind of shocked that the government was going to pay aid to shooting victims as I didn't know that it had been done before.  But then I thought, "Well if the government isn't going to do something about guns, then it may be in order for the government to pay reparations to victims of shootings."

So I looked into this and apparently it is not unusual for the government to do this.  Among other shooting events cited are:
An unspecified portion of the money [later said to be $29 million], allocated under the government’s national Crime Victim Assistance Formula Grant program, can be used to provide services to the families of victims of the shootings at Emmanuel AME Church, spokesman Kevin Lewis said.**
A payment was also made in the Sandy Hook school shooting and no doubt others.

* https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/us-las-vegas-shooting-funding/2018/11/30/id/892656/?d3310b9288ee&ns_mail_job=DM9600_11302018&s=acs&dkt_nbr=01013514ua2v
** https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/07/01/charleston-victims-payout/

TRUMP'S CONTEMPT FOR GOVERNMENT

Increasingly, I am getting the idea that Trump is going out of his way to pick weird candidates for office.  For example, he chose Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme  Court even though McConnell told him Kavanaugh would be the hardest choice to confirm.  He chose Matthew Whitaker for Acting Attorney General even though he is wildly unqualified and maybe even a crook.

Then there is Alex Acosta who is Secretary of Labor who seems like a crook when he got off a billionaire who was raping teenage girls.  No, he wasn't the defense attorney, he was the Prosecutor!  Of course, we shouldn't overlook Ryan Zinke, Secretary of Interior, who seems to think working for the Federal Government is like a child locked in a candy store.

Administrator of EPA Scott Pruitt is so bad he had to resign and so did the Secretary of HHS Tom Price.  Did I mention Michael Flynn?

There is more: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/15/trump-cabinet-officials-in-ethics-scandals.html

Trump's choices certainly show a contempt for government:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/19/donald-trump-has-assembled-the-worst-cabinet-in-american-history/?utm_term=.5ab6e88c80c0

PERSONAL SPENDING

In spite of the tax cut of 2017, many Americans are cutting back on their spending (see figure*).  I encourage you to read the entire cited article.

Americans are cutting back on how much money they spend. More than two-thirds of U.S. adults say they're making an effort to reduce their monthly budget in order to save more, according to a new survey from consumer-financial company Bankrate. But saving isn't the only reason they're cutting back.*

While 36 percent say their priority is saving, 24 percent say they're curbing their spending because their income hasn't changed. About 17 percent say they have too much debt, 11 percent say they're worried about the economy and 5 percent are concerned about job security.*

Trying to spend less makes sense for most people, regardless of the reason. A survey from personal-finance website GOBankingRates found that 42 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 put away for retirement, while a Northwestern Mutual study found that a third of Americans had less than $5,000 for retirement and 21 percent had nothing saved at all. And only 39 percent of adults say they have enough in savings to handle a $1,000 emergency.*

Meanwhile, middle-class incomes have shrunk in all but two states, credit card debt has hit $1 trillion and student loan debt exceeds $1.5 trillion.*

(click on figure t enlarge)

Surprisingly 24% say they are cutting back because their income hasn't changed compared to 36% who say they are saving more.

* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/heres-why-americans-say-theyre-cutting-back-on-monthly-spending.html

IS THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE ALWAYS OF THE MAJORITY PARTY?

Recently Nancy Pelosi was named the Majority of the House of Representatives The Speaker of the House of Representatives need not be a member of the majority or plurality party or even a member of Congress.  The exceptions mainly have come when a third party has members of the House, but the leader of the majority or plurality party need not be the speaker.  Though possible, the Speaker has always been a member of Congress.

Historically, the Democrats have always elevated their minority leader to the speakership upon reclaiming majority control of the House. However, Republicans have not always followed this leadership succession pattern. In 1919, Republicans bypassed James Robert Mann, R-IL, who had been Minority Leader for eight years, and elected a backbencher representative, Frederick H. Gillett, R-MA, to be Speaker. Mann had "angered many Republicans by objecting to their private bills on the floor", and was also a protégé of autocratic Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon (R-IL18) who had been Speaker from 1903 to 1911, and was still in the House. Many members "suspected that he [Mann] would try to re-centralize power in his hands if elected Speaker".[10]*]**
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Most Speakers whose party has lost control of the House have not returned to the party leadership (Tom Foley lost his seat, Dennis Hastert returned to the backbenches and resigned from the House in late 2007). However, Speakers Joseph William Martin, Jr. and Sam Rayburn did seek the post of Minority Leader in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Nancy Pelosi is the most recent example of an outgoing Speaker who was elected Minority Leader, after the Democrats lost control of the House in the 2010 elections.*

Thus it is unusual for a former Majority Leader, like Nancy Pelosi, to become the Majority Leader again after a period of being Minority Leader.

During the period of changeover of Majority or Plurality Parties from the November election to the January transition, the Speaker remains the same.

But the bottom line is that the election of Nancy Pelosi to Speaker is not a sure thing since a number of members of her party voted against her as Majority Leader.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives
http://www.quora.cohttpsm/Has-there-ever-been-a-Speaker-of-the-US-House-of-Representatives-who-was-not-from-the-majority-party

CAN DEMOCRATS WIN 60 MORE SEATS TO THE HOUSE THAN REPUBLICANS?

There is a bias toward the Republican party because of sparsely settled rural America has a disproportionate number of spots in Congress.  Even then they have to do voter suppression to win in many places.  But for Representatives, gerrymandering is also in Republican favor.

An organization called FiveThirtyEight apparently forecast the House of Representative's outcome in 2018 dead on at again for the Democrats of 39 seats.  Incidentally, they forecast that the probability of the Democrats gaining 63 was 0.8%.

(click on figure to enlarge)

OK so here it is.  In 2010 Republicans got 6.7% more votes than Democrats and won 63 more Representative seats than the Democrats.  In 2018 Democrats got more than 8% more votes than the Republicans and won 40 (max.) more seats than the Republicans.  In other words, with a smaller margin of votes than the Democrats, Republicans won 23-24 more seats in the House than the Democrats.

Democrats probably cannot win 60 more seats in the House than the Republicans.  There are people who play with the numbers and, as I recall, Democrats would have to win something like 30% more of the votes to win 60 seats in the house.

* https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/

ECONOMY OUTLOOK 2018

It is hard to believe, but the tax cut on top of a roaring economy seems to have had only a very short-term effect.  I think that to a large extent this is due to corporations buying back so much stock and doing so many Mergers and Acquisitions so it is wasted money.  My feelings are reinforced by Jim Cramer.

I have wondered what the decline in home sales may mean for the economy.*  It turns out there are other problems too.
"I know more than they do," Cramer said, urging Fed officials to "do more homework" and talk to more CEOs to get a better picture of the pockets of weakness in the economy. "I'm shaken here about what's happening because it's happening faster than the Fed seems to realize." He pointed to the recent sharp drop in oil prices as well as slowing in homebuilders, autos, and retailers as signs.**

Regarding agriculture:
Corn and soybean prices are hovering near decade lows, and this year's bumper harvest is further swelling U.S. farmers' massive stocks of unsold grain.***
....................................................................
Overall, U.S. net farm income will fall to $65.7 billion this year, down 47 percent from just five years ago, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts.***
....................................................................
In July, Trump slapped a 25 percent tariff on $34 billion of Chinese imports, prompting China to impose a 25 percent duty on American exports, including soybeans. The impact was swiftly felt among soybean farmers. Last year, China bought about 32 million tons, but now buys almost none.***

To some extent, the economic problem was covered up by companies buying back stock that had the effect of juicing the stock market making it look like we were entering a bubble, something that seems to be over.  If we are in a bubble, it may be a debt bubble:
"From a 50,000-feet viewpoint, we're probably in a global debt bubble," [Paul Tudor] Jones said at the Greenwich Economic Forum in Connecticut. "Global debt to GDP is at an all-time high."****
.........................................................................
The hedge fund manager believes it is in the corporate bond market where the first signs of trouble will emerge. Data from SandP Global released earlier this year showed U.S. corporate debt hitting an all-time high, totaling $6.3 trillion. Global debt also hit a record high earlier in 2018, reaching $247 trillion.****
It is amazing that companies haven't used all this money from the tax cut to buy back debt.  Since the tax cut generated money coming from the tax cut is borrowed by the Federal government, there may be a two-way debt crisis.

All the above is receiving supportive forecasts from financial organizations.
JP Morgan economists expect economic growth to slow down in 2019, to a pace of 1.9 percent for the year.
The economist say the slow down from a "boomy" 3.1 percent in year-over-year fourth quarter growth will come as fiscal, monetary and trade policy get less supportive or more restrictive.****
..........................................................................
The economists expect that growth will hold above 2 percent in the first and second quarter, at 2.2 and 2 percent respectively, before falling to 1.7 percent in the third quarter and 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter. The economy last grew at less than 2 percent in the first quarter of 2017.****
..........................................................................
Boosted by tax cuts and stimulus, the economy's growth picked up to a peak of 4.2 percent in the second quarter, 2018 and was growing at 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter, according to JP Morgan's forecast.****

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/10/home-sales-fall.html
** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/16/cramer-blasts-the-fed-i-know-more-than-they-do--do-more-homework-on-the-economy.html
*** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/soybean-farm-belt-sticks-with-gop-in-midterms-but-democrats-gain-ground-cnbc-analysis-shows.html
**** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/15/paul-tudor-jones-says-were-in-a-global-debt-bubble-and-maybe-tax-cut-wasnt-a-good-idea.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/21/theres-a-9-trillion-corporate-debt-bomb-bubbling-in-the-us-economy.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/20/jp-morgan-sees-a-slowdown-coming-with-economy-growing-at-less-than-2-percent-in-2019.html

CARAVAN INVASION

More than 7,000 American troops are spread in a thin line dressed in camouflage uniforms along the border between U.S. and Mexico.  Bayonets are fixed and rifles loaded and cocked awaiting the invading horde any minute.  Soldiers at any point along the line are to hold it for at least 10 min. no matter what until reinforcements arrive to save the horde from raping our women and converting our children into slaves.

Through the above paragraph is a gross overstatement, President Trump has said the soldiers should shoot to kill if rocks are thrown against them. The latest report I can find on the location of the Caravan shows them to be over 800 mi from the U.S. border. on November 1*  Estimates are that the Caravan has shrunk from 7,000 to about 4,000 including 2,300 children.  As of November 1st, the Caravan is said to be about 896 mi. from the closest border crossing at Reynosa, Mexico, near McAllen, TX.

The claim is that the group is traveling 30-35 mi. a day, a figure I consider totally suspect, even without so many children.  Personally, the most I have walked in a day is 21 mi. and had blisters all over my feet.  These people must be in excellent shape to walk 30-35 mi. a day, day after day.  But accepting the figure, it will take them a month to reach the closest point of the U.S. well after Thanksgiving if they can keep it up.*

(click on figure to enlarge)

November 18: Reports are that some of the Caravan is at the border in Tijuana.**  Apparently, they are arriving by bus and more buses are arriving daily so they cheated and haven't walked the whole way.  I'm not surprised.  I wonder who is paying for the buses?  Apparently, around 350 arrived as long ago as November 13, but most are still far from the border.

* https://www.newsweek.com/where-migrant-caravan-and-when-will-it-reach-us-border-1196055
** https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/world/americas/mexico-tijuana-migrants-caravan.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Video
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/13/migrant-caravan-some-border-most-mexico-far-us/1992059002/

MONICA LEWINSKY AT 45

Now a nice loking lady of 45, Monica Lewinsky is reappearing again, this time in a documentary "miniseries," of all things, and publishing another article in the magazine Vanity Fair.  Make no mistake about it.  When I was growing up a woman such as Monica Lewinsky at 22, pursuing a married man old enough to be her father, would have been called a "homewrecker."

Perhaps not surprisingly, Monica has managed to somehow rationalize herself with the #MeToo movement, but there is no comparison.  In contrast with the #MeToo movement that was concerned about powerful men being predators of women trying to get a job or to sexually harrass a woman at work, Lewinsky threw herself at Bill Clinton, a known womanizer.  Not only did she flip her blouse to show her bra strap to Clinton, but she admits she did other things.   For example, she once ran home to put on clothes that Clinton noticed recently in the hopes that he woud notice her again at an event (he did).  She has said that she was disappointed that they didn't have intercourse and that she wanted him to divorce Hillary and marry her.

Yes, I have written about Monica  Lewinsky before:*
This is a new age and women don't keep quiet about their affairs.  The big problem was that Monica blabbed about the affair and blabbed to the wrong person who started a political campaign against the president.
....................................................................
I'm surprised that so many women had sympathy with Monica Lewinsky at the time and feel that President Clinton took advantage of a girl, a child of 22.  I am reminded, however, that age 22 is considered an adult with the full privileges of voting, drinking alcohol, and smoking.   It is hard for me to understand that a woman of 22 doesn't know that she is not supposed to have an affair with a married man.  Apparently, it is accepted by many women that it is all right for a "girl" of 22 to pursue a married man, even one old enough to be her father, if he is powerful.* (underlining added)
____________________________________
From my piece on Monica Lewinsky again, I need to repeat my own thoughts:
What I would have done in a similar situation, I really don't know.  I have a saying that "Untested Virtue Is No Virtue At All,"  and I never had pretty young women come on to me.**
.......................................................................
Her real sin was that she had to blab about her affair.  It used to be that women kept their mouths shut if they managed to have a affair with the President, but she just had to tell an enemy of the President.  Today is different, women tell.**

If women at 22 are not mature enough to know that you shouldn't take up with a married man, then at what age are they mature enough to be considered adults and not covered by statutory rape?

Among the women that feel great sympathy with Monica is Mika Brzezinsky.  I wonder if she would change her tune if Morning Joe (her fiance) were to hire her?  Also I wonder if many of Monica's problems aren't due to other factors about her personality than the famous affair?  I mean after having an affair with the President, would she marry a truck driver, for example?  I suspect it would have to at least the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.   I also suspect that people that might hire her feel she might be a problem in the work force and I don't mean as just a distraction.  Still Monica has done pretty well, monatarily, being known as the woman who had an affair with President clinton.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/05/monica-lewinsky-still-with-us.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/10/monica-lewinsky-again.html
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Lewinsky

NO LOVE LOST OVER SESSION'S FIRING

President Trump is a screwball for sure.  Here he had an Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, with no daylight between him and the Attorney General and the attorney general gets fired.  The one unforgivable thing, one thing, the Attorney General did that the President didn't like was that the Attorney General recused himself from the Russian election mischief, something Sessions had to do

It is clear that Donald Trump thought, even before the election, that The President was a dictator and that the Attorney General should be his 100% loyal personal lawyer and "take a bullet" for him if necessary.

Make no mistake, Session is an evil man.  He is the "father" of kidnapping children from Hispanic foreigners entering the country with the goal of never, ever returning them to the parents.  This was to teach people a lesson that the U.S. was not a welcoming place for refugees.  Sessions even managed to find a verse in the Bible to justify his horror though the quotation says nothing about the government kidnapping children and never returning them to their parents.*
*Apostle Paul also said“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes,” Sessions told a group of law enforcement officers in Fort Wayne, Indiana last week. “Consistent and fair application of the law is in itself a good and moral thing, and that protects the weak and protects the lawful.”
Read more at https://www.themonastery.org/blog/2018/06/sessions-cites-bible-separating-children-and-parents/#H9ya8CUyQ1CSlq0O.99

Apostle Paul also said, "The one who is unwilling to work, shall not eat." (https://biblehub.com/2_thessalonians/3-10.htm)  Did Paul really mean that the infirm should starve to death if they would not work?  

ECONOMY AT PRESIDENTS' FIRST 22 MONTHS

A recent article on CNBC compared the first 22 mo. of recent presidents to check on Trump's claim that his economy is the greatest ever.*  The reference includes four figures with accompanying text.  It turns out that while Trump's record is good, it is in about the middle of the pack for economy growth in the first 22 months.  I think it wouldn't be right for me to reproduce all the four figures here, so I'll do just one, and you can bring up the reference to read the whole article.

Until recently President Trump has touted the growth of the stock market as a sign of his success with the economy, but the figure below shows that the record belongs to ---- Obama!  Surely Trump's stock market record has been good. He comes in 3rd place, but not the best.

(click on figure to enlarge)

There is also a figure and text on Job Gains (Trump comes in 4th behind  Jimmy Carter, the clear winner, followed by Bill Clinton and John Kennedy.  On gains in Gross Domestic Product, Jimmy Carter again is the clear winner closely followed by Jack Kennedy and Gerold Ford with Trump in 5th place closely followed by Barack Obama.  On Wages, the winner is John Kennedy closely followed by Richard  Nixon, then Jimmy Carter, and Gerold Ford with Trump 5th.

Please note that Trump's first 22 months does not rank first in any of the four categories.  Trump's best ranking is 3rd and that is on the stock market.

In view that some claim that Jimmy Carter was one of or the worst Presidents, it should be noted that his economy was very good.  He came in 1st in both Job Gains and GDP plus 3rd place on Wage Gains.  Though I didn't like him as President, in hindsight, he looks very good,  He got more than 70% of his program through and settled the Panama Canal issue against strong Republican opposition.  One shouldn't forget, of course, the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

A special note needs to be included on President Lynden Johnson whose first term lasted only 13 months.  For example, Johnson was the leader on wage gains at 13 mo. and higher even than Kennedy and Nixon after 22 mo.  On GDP and wage gains, Johnson was 2nd and 3rd on stock market gains if just the first 13 mo. are counted.

* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/03/trumps-campaign-claims-about-his-economic-record-just-dont-add-up.html

TRUMP AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION

President Donald Trump's appointment of someone who has not been vetted by the Senate as Acting Attorney General is in violation of the Constitution.  Every Senator should have standing in a legal case because the Trump appointment deprives them of voting on confirmation as the constitution states.  The Senator can say that one of the reasons he/she ran for Senator was to have a say on departmental appointments.

There is little doubt that Trump has done this as an initial step to break the constitution and permit him to pursue his desire to become a dictator.  I grant it is possible that Trump did this to take attention off the election results.  Either way, it should not be allowed to stand.

I believe this should be litigated even if a new Attorney General nomination is put forth shortly in order to have a decision for future reference.  The litigation should be made even if the decision isn't finalized before the Acting Attorney General (Whittaker) is out of the office.  It is my hope that the Supreme Court would vote in favor of defending the Constitution, but I am not sure of this.

THEY ARE LIES UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE

We know, or should know, that our President is lying until proven otherwise.  When he says things like "many people say so," and "some lawyers say" or similar phrases, actually he has not talked to anyone.  It is hard to train yourself to doubt everything our President says.

Remember Donald Trump's proposal of a 10% tax cut for the Middle Class only?  We were supposed to see the write-up of the bill probably before November 01.  Well, it is November 03 and no bill.  My guess is that this is the last we hear of this unless the news media bring it up.  Actually, the bill doesn't sound like a Republican bill as they wouldn't just give a tax cut to the Middle Class without a larger cut for the wealthy.  I'd like to see the Republicans bring such a bill up for discussion and a vote in Congress.   They could probably get some Democrats to come along as it would be more of a Democratic bill than Republican (but watch out for the fine print).  In fact, if the Democrats would take control of Congress, they might float a tax cut for the Middle Class and might even get some Republicans to join them and make it bipartisan (though I doubt it).

For example, the 5,200 to 15,000 armed forces on our Southern Border.  Our president tells us that the first troops are there and setting up.  I say, "where are the pictures, President Trump?"  Actually, there are pictures that show a beginning of such a move.  Here is one reported by Stars and Strips.*

(Click on figure to enlarge)
The Washington Post includes a picture of troops spreading razor wire.*

Note added Nov. 06: Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters more than 4,800 troops were already deployed near the border as of Monday in support of Operation Faithful Patriot, including 1,100 troops in California, 1,100 in Arizona and 2,600 in Texas. He anticipated that the number of active duty troops could reach 7,000 soon.*

I feel sorry for these troops because I presume they are probably going to be at the Southern border for at least months until the Caravan arrives.  Will the deployment stop after the election?  There are already 2,100 National Guard troops have been at the border since April.  No doubt all this will be paid for on the cuff (i.e. borrowed).

Then there is the President's claim that Republicans will take care of "preexisting conditions" in health better than the Democrats who were the first to cover preexisting conditions with the ACA (Obamacare).  Many Republicans running for office now say they are for covering preexisting conditions in health care.**  These even include governors of Florida and Wisconsin who are members of a group trying to make the ACA illegal.**

A cute one is by Rep. Martha McSally, a retired Air Force Colonel, who has voted against the ACA but at least briefly came out for it (at least the preexisting conditions part).  Now she really doesn't want to talk about it.  REALLY DOESN'T.  Somehow, McSally is known as a centrist though she votes with Trump 97% of the time.  There are rare occasions, however, where she votes for the people.  Somehow, I thought that a woman military officer would be more centrist than male officers.

As with the tax cut for the Middle Class, I think Republicans being for coverage of preexisting health conditions will disappear after the election.  In fact, Senate Leader Mike McConnell has said he would like to have a vote after the election to repeal the ACA.***

Then there is the weird Trump claim about getting rid of, by Executive Order, the part of the 14 Amendment to the Constitution (passed in 1968) that has long been interpreted that children born in the U.S. are U.S. citizen.
But his [Trump's] interest in repealing birthright citizenship isn't a new idea. Lee says for the last 30 years or so, there have been several overtures by the political right to explore "citizenship reform," a timeline that she says aligns with the ascendancy of modern American conservatism.****

Though Trump cannot get rid of the birthright clause of the 14th Amendment by Executive Order, would the Supreme Court really reinterpret the 14th Amendment and overturn the birthright clause to not include the children of non-citizens born in the U.S. as has been done for 150 yrs.?  I don't know, but any Supreme Court that approves of the Citizen's United and Hobby Lobby decisions could do anything, in my opinion.  "There have been attempts since the 1990s to break away birthright citizenship, or narrow it down, and it did not seem that they would have a chance at succeeding until now," she says.
"To me this not only reflects the ascendancy of an extreme right position but also a return to a very narrow and exclusionary definition of Americanness."****

* https://www.stripes.com/news/us/trump-might-send-up-to-15k-troops-to-us-mexico-border-1.554452
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxvzLWzdgLqzkDtPxmXpwHlmQlSG
Added Nov. 06: https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/pentagon-border-troops-detention-facilities/2018/11/05/id/889436/?ns_mail_uid=142cf6cb-b757-4a77-afda-d3310b9288ee&ns_mail_job=DM8031_11062018&s=acs&dkt_nbr=0101045ul26n
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/10/republicans-come-to-jesus-moment.html
*** https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mitch-mcconnell-repeal-obamacare-election_us_5bc7893ce4b0d38b58748f19
**** https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/us/14th-amendment-birthright-citizenship-explainer-trnd/index.html

ECONOMY TODAY (November, 2018)

Though both men and women have seen an improvement in the economy, women's perception is not as great as it is for men.*  In fact, Democratic women feel the economy has lost much of the ground gained since the Great Recession (see figure below*).  Republican men and women see the economy much differently going into 2017, though here too Republican women feel the economy has lost some ground in 2018.
Nearly half of men — 47 percent — said their family’s finances had improved in the past year, according to a survey conducted for The New York Times in early October by the online research platform SurveyMonkey. Just 30 percent of women said the same, despite an unemployment rate that is near a five-decade low and economic growth that is on track for its best year since before the recession.*
......................................................................
“Republican men are just more confident and more optimistic than even Republican women are,” said Laura Wronski, a research scientist for SurveyMonkey.*

(Click on figure to enlarge)

The economy does seem to be rolling what with the first October estimate seeing a growth in hires of 250,000.  Though this number can easily change in the coming months by 40,000 hires (plus or minus), even 40,000 less would still be wonderful.  What's more, it is said that wages increased by 3.1% for the first time in a decade.  Of course, increasing wages are good for the workers, but they are bad for the industry that sees costs increasing as a result.  This is reflected in the stock market decline today (November 02).

I have wondered for several months if we are entering a bubble and the October information on jobs and wages is compatible with a bubble.

Despite all the enthusiasm over the economy what with the tax cut (see figure below),** there seem to be surprising worries about the economy.  The figure below shows that as recently as early 2015, the GDP almost touched 4% whereas now it is at 3%.  While 3% is an improvement over the last couple of years, is it really what was expected from the tax cut (that is being paid for by Federal borrowing).

(Click on figure to enlarge)

Consumer confidence is at an 18 yr high.***  After a low in confidence in June, there have been four consecutive months of increases.

(Click on figure to enlarge)

I have been remarking on the low sales of homes, both new and existing, and wondering what it means.**** Though there was an increase in home construction in September, it was offset by a drop in government construction spending.  There also is some moderation in the manufacturing index in October.****:
Despite the moderation in the manufacturing numbers, October marked the 114th consecutive month of overall economic growth, according to the Manufacturing ISM report.****
................................................................
Spending on U.S. construction projects was essentially unchanged in September. It is the weakest showing since June, as an increase in home construction was offset by a slide in spending on government projects.

Certainly, not all segments of the economy are on fire.  Women feel the uncertainty in the economy more than men.

* https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/business/economy/women-usa-economy.html
** https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/27/trump-tax-cuts-were-supposed-set-off-an-investment-boom-they-arent-so-far/?utm
*** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/30/consumer-confidence-rises-to-an-18-year-high-in-october.html
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/10/home-sales-fall.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/01/october-ism-and-september-construction-spending.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/02/octobers-jobs-report-was-perfect-for-everyone-except-wall-street.html

CARAVAN

We are told there is a huge Caravan of Central American people (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) coming to the U.S. through Mexico.   How big is huge?  I've seen estimates of 1,500 to 7,000 people.

I've also seen estimates that about 1,500 people have sought asylum in Mexico so far.

The first wave of the Caravan reached the Guatemala-Mexico border on October 19th.*

A Caravan of 5,000 people (WSJ's estimate) is a bad idea.  It is said that they are let into various buildings at night such as auditoriums.  But nobody seems to cover how they are being fed.  Can you call ahead to a McDonalds and order 5,000 Big Macs with Spanish rice and a Coke?  And how long would it take distribute the food?  For example, if they could distribute the food on average for 1 sec. each, it would take 5,000 seconds to distribute the food.  That is 83.33 min. or 1.38 hrs.  And how is this paid for?  It is unbelievable that you could distribute 5,000 Big Macs with rice and a Coke and have the recipient pay for it in a second.  Do all the members have money for this?

Three days ago, it is said that the Caravan is 800 mi, from the U.S.-Mexico border.   If they can average walking 10 mi. a day, it will take 80 days before they arrive at the border which would take them into the next calendar year.  Remember that one of the other bad things about the huge Caravan is that it must move at the rate of its slowest members and one sees small children in the Caravan.  As the days go by, I'm sure that some members give up and try to go home (On a news program I saw a bus that was said to be filled with members going home.).  Others will seek asylum in Mexico that has more lenient criteria than the U.S.  Just how many members of the Caravan will reach the U.S. is unknown.

On the news, you will see trucks loaded with people, maybe 40-50 (As nearly as I can tell, all men.), that can certainly move much faster than the Caravan.  So it is possible that small groups will reach our border with Mexico this year, but does this require Army forces to handle?

Note added 10-30-2018:  The Army is said to be sending 5,200 troops to the border.  It is now only a week until the election.  I wonder whether the order will be rescinded after next Tuesday before the bulk of the forces arrive?

The whole thing is just a political joke made to influence the election in November that many voters will probably take seriously.  Can Trump also really close the border to asylum seekers?**

* https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2018/10/19/mexico-caravan-guatemala-weir-bpr-wolf-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/migrant-caravan/
** https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/10/26/asylum-explained-can-trump-shut-down-process-migrant-caravan/1775728002/

REPUBLICANS "COME TO JESUS" MOMENT

After years of trying to get rid of the ACA (Obamacare), Republicans have finally discovered  that the voting public is serious about having pre-existing conditions covered in medical care. * Included among these, in addition to the President, are two Republican governors: Gov. Rick Scott of Florida and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.  These two governors are actually in a lawsuit brought by 20 governors' Attorneys Generals trying to make the ACA illegal.

In fact one Attorney General Josh Hawley who is running for the Senate in Missouri is among those trying to get rid of the ACA.
Mr. Hawley is among a group of G.O.P. officials from 20 states who have brought a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. If the suit succeeds, the entire law, including its guarantees of affordable coverage for Americans with prior illnesses, could be eradicated. (The Trump administration has argued in court that most of the law should stand, but its pre-existing conditions protections, alone, should be invalidated.) Ms. McCaskill has been using Mr. Hawley’s participation in the suit as a central line of attack in her campaign, and has highlighted her personal experience with breast cancer.**

The big question is, do these Republican politicians mean it?  Suppose they get elected.  Will they still vote to protect pre-existing conditions, or is this just another Republican con job such as our president is famous for?

* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/24/trump-pledges-to-protect-obamacare-pre-existing-conditions-as-midterms-loom.html
** https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/upshot/republicans-health-care-ads-midterms.html

PRESIDENTIAL BOMBER

At least 10 Democratic politicians and supporters received packages mailed to them that contained pipe bombs that may or may not had been made to explode (two people received two packages).  Normally I would decline to write about the matter because the investigation is still in an ongoing preliminary stage, but this bomber did something unique in American political history. .

I believe to be unique among former presidents,  one of the pipe bomb packages was addressed to former President Barack Obama.  Although many presidents have had attempted assassinations while President (including President Trump) this is the first case I know of , of an assassination attempt on a former President

Former Presidents, until now, have been surprisingly exempt from assassination attempts to the degree that proposals have been made to remove their lifetime Secret Service protections.  I guess those proposals were premature.

So we have the continuation of the Decline of American Politics.*  Perhaps it is Newt Gingrich who started the decline with his intemperate language, but a very serious major step was made by Mitt Romney when he politicized the Benghazi attack while he was running for president as it was the first time the political parties didn't come together on an event that happened beyond the American shores or boundaries.

The turn from words to physicality began in President Donald Trump's run for the presidency:
During Donald Trump's run for President, he spoke of "get 'em outta here" about protesters in which they were shoved and yelled at in a Kentucky rally.  At an Arizona rally, a protester was punched and kicked as he was being led out of the rally.  Then there was Trump's comment at a rally in Nevada about a protester,"I'd like to punch him in the face, I tell you."  And " They's be carried out on a stretcher, folks." in the old days.*
and There may be somebody with tomatoes in the audience. So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Okay? Just knock the hell—  I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise. It won’t be so much ’cause the courts agree with us **

The verbal violence turned to shootings by a fanatic Bernie Sanders supporter with the very serious wounding of Rep. Scalise and others on while practicing on baseball on a  ball field.**

And now we add attempted bombings even of a past-President.  What next?
...................................................................
The authorities have a suspect in the multiple mail bombing cases (now maybe more than 12) by the name of Cesar Sayot, Jr. Age 56.  He has a van with all sorts of pro-Trump stickers showing he is a fan of him.  He also has quite an arrest record dating back at least 20 yrs.

Note added 10-30-2018): The what next was an attack on a Jewish congregation in which 11 were killed and 6 wounded plus two African Americans were killed at random in Kentucky after trying to enter a Black church on Sunday, October 28th that turned out to be locked after the service.

You also need to look at the references in these cited postings.
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/06/decline-of-american-politics.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/06/rep-scalise-shot-now-what.html

HOME SALES FALL

Though there are many signs that the economy is on fire, one place that it isn't is in home sales for both existing and new homes.  Several factors may be the cause such as paying off college loans, getting married later, high cost of homes, increasing mortgage payments and perhaps others.  Home sales are having a damping effect on the economy though the economy is very good at present.

Sales of existing homes fell 3.4 percent in September to a 5.15 million seasonally adjusted annual rate. Sales are down 4.1 percent from a year ago and 10 percent from the recent peak of 5.72 million in November 2017. Sales declined in three of the four regions tallied: sales fell 3.6 percent for the month in the West and are 12.2 percent below the September 2017 rate; sales declined 2.9 percent in the Northeast, putting sales 5.6 percent below year-ago levels; and sales dropped 5.4 percent in the South, leaving that region's sales rate 0.5 percent below the year-ago pace. Sales were unchanged for the month in the Midwest but remain 1.5 percent below the year-ago level.*

Sales in the market for existing single-family homes, which account for just under 90 percent of total existing-home sales, also fell 3.4 percent in September, coming in at a 4.58 million seasonally adjusted annual rate (see chart). From a year ago, sales are down 4.0 percent. Sales were down across the four regions: sales fell 4.0 percent in the West to 950,000 from 990,000 in the prior month; sales dropped 4.6 percent in the South to 1.86 million; the Northeast saw a 3.4 percent decline; and the Midwest posted a 0.8 percent pullback.*

(Click on figure to enlarge.  Source: https://www.aier.org/article/new-home-sales-fall-again)

New home sales in the South, which accounts for the bulk of transactions, declined 3.3 percent in July. Sales rose 10.9 percent in the West and 9.9 percent in the Midwest. They tumbled 52.3 percent in the Northeast to their lowest level since September 2015.**

The median new house price rose 6.0 percent to $328,700 in July from June. There were 309,000 new homes on the market in July, the most since March 2009 and up 2.0 percent from June.**

*https://seekingalpha.com/article/4212907-existing-home-sales-fall
 https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/19/existing-home-sales-falls-3point4percent-in-september.html
** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/us-july-new-home-sales-fall-to-9-month-low.html

IF THE U.S. ISN'T A DEMOCRACY, WHAT IS IT?

[This is a companion article to Is The U.S A Democracy?] (https://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/10/is-us-democracy.html)

Although the U.S. isn't a democracy, it certainly is different from authoritarian states like Russia and Saudi Arabia.  All American presidents rail at the press, and feel it is unfair, but so far as I can tell, members of the press are not assassinated, as they are in Russia and Saudi Arabia.  Also it is rare that reporters are jailed though it does occur:*
But assaults by politicians only account for 4.5% of the total number of physical attacks in 2017. Including attacks by police officers, 70% of the total number of physical attacks against journalists in the U.S. occurred at protests and rallies.

Who was attacking all these journalists at protests? In five cases (19% of the attacks at protests and 11% of the total attacks), the assailants were law enforcement officers. But in sixteen cases, the assailants were protesters — either white nationalist protesters or anti-fascist protesters — who objected to a journalist’s reporting.
...............................................................
While the First Amendment is a unique and powerful protection that virtually all other countries lack, the state of press freedom in the United States is increasingly perilous. It’s vital that we continue to monitor any and all attacks on journalists, and we plan on even more coverage in 2018.*

So we have a largely free press.  Also in spite of attempts to keep various groups of people from voting, 10s of millions do and the elections often turn out surprises like the election President Trump himself.

Also a characteristic of the U.S. is the dominance of business that is largely given a free rein to behave as they please and supported by the Supreme Court.  There are also "truth in advertising" food requirements such as strawberry jam must have some strawberries or juice in it. Also required is a cursory meat inspection.  But consider the Hobby Lobby case where the Supreme Court  gave permission for a company to go into a law and pick and choose which parts of the law they intended not to obey.

One aspect of the business nature of our country is attempts to keep wages low.  thus there are attempts to freeze the Minimum Wage or even get rid of it.  If wages take a sudden rise, it is likely that the stock market will sustain a decline.  German auto companies feel that the American South is a third world country and have built many car factories there.

Sometimes industry is reined in somewhat such as by the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1963 (and later amendments)** and the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP)*** that resulted in what is called CAP AND TRADE**** of sulfur dioxide emissions by power plants.  Although CAP AND TRADE worked well on sulfur dioxide emissions, there are strong forces  in industry against applying it to carbon dioxide emissions.

In addition to the Republican party being the supposed party of business, it is also the party of conservative religion.  Thus the Republican party wants to control not only abortion but also contraceptives and limiting the freedoms of groups like homosexuals.  In the past there have been cries of "Freedom OF Religion does not mean Freedom FROM Religion" directed at Atheists.

I'm not sure what you can call us.  Perhaps a Capitalist Democracy?

* .https://pressfreedomtracker.us/blog/34-arrests-44-physical-attacks-and-more-chilling-numbers-us-press-freedom-trackers-first-year/
** https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Acid_Precipitation_Assessment_Program
**** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading

IS THE U.S. A DEMOCRACY?

There has been a recent spate of articles about democracy being in danger (http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/four-threats-to-american-democracy-250120) and this item is my take on the matter.

The U.S. has never been a full democracy and was designed to be a Representative Democracy because of how to count slaves.*

But over the decades, America has become less and less even a representative democracy.  The problem is a couple fold.  One is that every state has at minimum three electors (one for each Senator and one for each Representative).  These are Alaska, Delaware, District of Columbia*, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming.

The problem comes in because the number of electors has become fixed at 538.  Therefore, states with minimal population got three electors whereas the more populous states divide up the remainder.  Although California has the most electors with 55, it is still under representative of its population.  Of course this could be fixed by increasing the number of electors, but this has never been done.

Furthermore, the electors of most states vote on a winner take all basis.

In 2000, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore won the popular vote, yet Republican George W. Bush won the presidency.  In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by quite a margin (about 3 million); yet Republican Donald Trump won the election on the basis of electors from Michigan (16),  Pennsylvania (20), and Wisconsin (10).  Thus in two of the last 5 elections, the candidate with the most popular votes lost the election.

There was a problem in the Senate in 2016 also.  Though Republicans kept their majority in the Senate, Democrats got more votes total.**  The big part of the problem is that each state gets two Senators no matter what their population.  This is dramatically shown by Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was re-elected with 111,000 votes; Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York was re-elected with 4.8 million votes.**

 Today, Republicans don’t even need to win any “swing states” to win a Senate majority: 52 seats are in states where the 2016 presidential margin was at least 5 percentage points more Republican than the national outcome. By contrast, there are just 28 seats in states where the margin was at least 5 points more Democratic, and only 20 seats in swing states.***

Similar biases also appear in state legislatures, e.g. Michigan****  In Virginia, Democratic delegates got by far the most votes but only tied with the Republicans for number of seats.  The Republicans ended up controlling the House by a coin flip and taking names from a hat.****

If the U.S. is a democracy, shouldn't all American have the right to vote?
First, the law requires that voters present qualifying ID in order to cast a ballot. An ID card isn’t valid unless it contains the voter’s current residential street address. This requirement disproportionately burdens Native Americans, plaintiffs pointed out, since many do not have residential addresses; they have their mail delivered to a post office box rather than to a physical address
I think this idea that you have to have a street address is a compromise from the day that you had to be a property owner to vote.  When I lived in Washington, D.C., for example, homeless people didn't have a street address so couldn't vote.  The current case involves American Indians living in North Dakota who have P.O. address but not street addresses. This requirement should be abolished if we are going to consider ourselves a democracy, but the Supreme Court thinks otherwise. (https://rewire.news/ablc/2018/10/11/supreme-court-native-americans-november/)

The bottom line to all this is that the U.S. is no longer even a representative democracy.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_electors,_2016
** https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/11/10/democrats-won-popular-vote-senate-too/93598998/
*** https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-congressional-map-is-historically-biased-toward-the-gop/
**** https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/once-again-michigan-dems-receive-more-votes-in-the-state-house-but-republicans-hold-onto-power/Content?oid=2472685
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/12/21/virginia-election-tie-coin-tosses-picking-names-hat-yep-thats-how-races-decided-probably-never-going/973630001/

DEMOCRATS BEHAVING LIKE REPUBLICANS

It occurs to me that in the recent battle over a Supreme Court nomination, that the Democrats fought a battle worthy of Republicans, though their efforts were doomed from the start.  As Bill Clinton said, Republicans like to fall into line.  I think that a lot of current Democrats appreciated that their Party fought back.  Old timers like me liked it better when Democrats were the adults in the room, but they were being run over, again and again.  So at least they gave it a try in fighting back.  It doesn't work if one political party has to do all the compromising.

Barack Obama was a compromiser, but found to get 20% of what he wanted, he had to give the Republicans 89% of what they wanted.  so that couldn't last and we had a scorched Earth policy by the Republicans.

Perhaps as a result of the fight , Kavanaugh might moderate his positions a bit, but I doubt it.  I don't see that Clarence Thomas moderated his positions at all.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? - Republished

About once a month, I have taken to republishing old posts that I feel have some note.  Curiously, my most viewed post "What Does This Mean?" (published September 28, 2012) by far is also the shortest.  It has 816 page views with 17 in just this last month.  Here it is in its entirely"

What can you say about a nation that opposes unions  for teachers, firemen, and police, but supports the professional National Football League referee's union?  Are our priorities straight?

EQUINOXES

(I find that I have published a little piece called the Autumnal Equinox in 2017.  The current item is much better.)

Now for something lighter.  It was overshadowed by the Supreme Court events, but we passed the autumnal equinox at 9:53 PM,  Saturday, September 22.

If you pass a plane through the Earth and the Sun, the Earth is tilted on its axis relative to the plane.  The result of this is that for half the year, the North Pole is pointed toward the Sun and the other half, the South Pole is pointed toward the Sun.  We see day and night because the Earth spins on its axis.

The word equinox means "equal night" so most places on Earth will get 12 hrs of daylight and 12 hours of night on an equinox.

But not every place will experience the exact same amount of daylight. For instance, on Saturday, Fairbanks, Alaska, will see 12 hours and 16 minutes of daylight. Key West, Florida,will see 12 hours and seven minutes. The differences are due to how the sunlight gets refracted (bent) as it enters Earth’s atmosphere at different latitudes.*

You might also notice that both of these locations have daylight times longer than 12 hours. Aren’t day and night supposed to be equal? Daylight time is slightly longer than nighttime on the equinox because of how we measure the length of a day: from the first hint of the sun peeking over the horizon in the morning to the very last glimpse of it before it falls below the horizon in the evening. Because the sun takes some time to rise and set, it adds some extra daylight minutes.*

Incidentally, all planets have equinoxes.  Mercury's tilt is only 2.11 degrees.  Earth's tilt is 23.5 degrees, similar to most planets, but Uranus is tilted 98 degrees.  The planet Venus is weird in that its tilt is 177.4 degrees (i.e. its North axis is below the plane), and it also rotates in a retrograde direction opposite to the Earth.**

* https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/9/20/17873846/fall-equinox-2018-autumnal
** https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt