An exciting development from Elon Musk is solar shingles (tiles) for roofing.* I have felt for many years that eventually, solar roofing would become a common roofing material but I didn't dream of solar tiles. At this stage, it is very expensive to have your house reroofed with solar tiles (One man who did so paid $100,000! He did need to reroof his house anyway, and it has lowered his energy bills by about 90% in the summer.).
I don't know to what extent Elon Musk's recent psychological problems will have to do with this.
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/24/tesla-solar-roof-tiles-where-are-they.html
https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-solar-shingles
https://news.energysage.com/tesla-solar-roof-price-vs-solar-panels/
Friday, September 28, 2018
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
CONSUMER SENTIMENT AND CONFIDENCE IS HIGH
Only about a week ago, I published a piece in which I said that Consumer Sentiment was high.* Now there is a report that another measurement by the Conference Board - the Consumer Confidence Index is at its highest value since the year 2000 at 138.4. The all-time high was 144.7 set in 2000.
"Consumers' assessment of current conditions remains extremely favorable, bolstered by a strong economy and robust job growth," said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at the Conference Board. "These historically high confidence levels should continue to support healthy consumer spending, and should be welcome news for retailers as they begin gearing up for the holiday season."**
An additional bit of good news is: The average FICO credit score hit an all-time high this year, reaching 704 and continuing an upward trend that began about a decade ago. Scores are increasing because more people are checking their credit and staying informed, and because of new standards for how negative information on your report is handled.***
The attitudes of business seem to be changing awfully fast in a positive direction. I wondered before if we are entering a bubble phase of the stock market. These recent reports only tend to confirm that feeling.**** If we are entering a bubble, we have yet to see the blowout phase.
Of course, not all the news is so good. For example, new home construction is low and only slowly recovering. (https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxvzKkmXRxcHQnNlBRPBLFLZZXvW)
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/09/government-debt-and-mixed-economic.html
** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/consumer-confidence-september.html
*** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/heres-how-credit-scores-compare-across-generations.html?forYou=true
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/09/is-boom-over.html
"Consumers' assessment of current conditions remains extremely favorable, bolstered by a strong economy and robust job growth," said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at the Conference Board. "These historically high confidence levels should continue to support healthy consumer spending, and should be welcome news for retailers as they begin gearing up for the holiday season."**
An additional bit of good news is: The average FICO credit score hit an all-time high this year, reaching 704 and continuing an upward trend that began about a decade ago. Scores are increasing because more people are checking their credit and staying informed, and because of new standards for how negative information on your report is handled.***
The attitudes of business seem to be changing awfully fast in a positive direction. I wondered before if we are entering a bubble phase of the stock market. These recent reports only tend to confirm that feeling.**** If we are entering a bubble, we have yet to see the blowout phase.
Of course, not all the news is so good. For example, new home construction is low and only slowly recovering. (https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxvzKkmXRxcHQnNlBRPBLFLZZXvW)
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/09/government-debt-and-mixed-economic.html
** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/consumer-confidence-september.html
*** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/heres-how-credit-scores-compare-across-generations.html?forYou=true
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/09/is-boom-over.html
Monday, September 24, 2018
SEXUAL ATTACK
(Between the Kavanaugh matter and the NYT publishing a piece about Rod Rosenstein wearing a wire in the office of President Trump, political news is making me depressed so I am stopping to listen to TV news and avoiding political matters in newspapers. Unavoidably, I do see something like Rosenstein is either quitting or being fired. But until further notice, there will not be political articles on my blog after this piece.)
Humanity has never come up with a satisfactory solution to the accusations of sexual attacks. So long as the man is willing to lie, and stick with it, he gets off Scot-free, unless there is some sort of other evidence (semen, etc.).
The problem is that there are false claims of sexual attacks so telling the difference is difficult.
In the latest 36-yr-old case, of Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh, it seems to me that the preponderance of the evidence is on her side. She has requested an FBI investigation. She has identified a third person in the room. Brett Kavanaugh says he never did such a thing and besides he was not at the party although we don't know what party, at whose home, and on what exact date it was held. What is his proof? Was he in the south of France that summer? Also, you would think he would love an FBI investigation if he was certain it was not him. But he definitely does not want the FBI messing in his high school career.
Certainly, Ms. Ford was much affected by the event but handled it in a mature matter by getting a Ph.D. in psychology, I'm sure in part to deal with her problem that she has never completely solved.
Now I'm willing to believe he does not remember the event and that the third person does not remember either. The friend of Kavanaugh says he may have been blacked out (dead drunk), and Christine says they were both fall-down drunk.
Apparently, Kavanaugh has admitted to being in a 100 keg club, i.e. they were to drink 100 kegs of beer during their senior year. In case you don't recall, kegs come in various sizes and contain from 53-55 to 5300 bottles of beer. Let's accept that it was the smaller kegs of interest. So 100 kegs would be 5,300 bottles of beer in a school year. If the target was a school year of 43 wks, then Kavanaugh would have had to drink 123.25 bottles of beer every week or 17.89 bottles of beer every day, nearly 3 six-packs every day. In other words, Kavanaugh was drinking alcoholically every day for a school year. Even if what was meant was a calendar year, he still would have had to drink 14.56 bottle a day, every day of the year which is still very alcoholically.
Let's hope that he failed in his 100 keg target. If not, one wonders how he was able to prepare for college? If he was meeting his goal of 100 kegs, then let's hope he has become a recovering alcoholic. He at least seems to be a functional alcoholic. I'm sure he won't be the first supreme court Justice who is an alcoholic.
I'm sure that the Republican men feel that since there was no penetration, nothing happened so what is the big deal? Besides, they feel it was 36 yrs ago when boys are struggling with runaway hormones. So here we are. I do not want to follow this situation any further.
Humanity has never come up with a satisfactory solution to the accusations of sexual attacks. So long as the man is willing to lie, and stick with it, he gets off Scot-free, unless there is some sort of other evidence (semen, etc.).
The problem is that there are false claims of sexual attacks so telling the difference is difficult.
In the latest 36-yr-old case, of Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh, it seems to me that the preponderance of the evidence is on her side. She has requested an FBI investigation. She has identified a third person in the room. Brett Kavanaugh says he never did such a thing and besides he was not at the party although we don't know what party, at whose home, and on what exact date it was held. What is his proof? Was he in the south of France that summer? Also, you would think he would love an FBI investigation if he was certain it was not him. But he definitely does not want the FBI messing in his high school career.
Certainly, Ms. Ford was much affected by the event but handled it in a mature matter by getting a Ph.D. in psychology, I'm sure in part to deal with her problem that she has never completely solved.
Now I'm willing to believe he does not remember the event and that the third person does not remember either. The friend of Kavanaugh says he may have been blacked out (dead drunk), and Christine says they were both fall-down drunk.
Apparently, Kavanaugh has admitted to being in a 100 keg club, i.e. they were to drink 100 kegs of beer during their senior year. In case you don't recall, kegs come in various sizes and contain from 53-55 to 5300 bottles of beer. Let's accept that it was the smaller kegs of interest. So 100 kegs would be 5,300 bottles of beer in a school year. If the target was a school year of 43 wks, then Kavanaugh would have had to drink 123.25 bottles of beer every week or 17.89 bottles of beer every day, nearly 3 six-packs every day. In other words, Kavanaugh was drinking alcoholically every day for a school year. Even if what was meant was a calendar year, he still would have had to drink 14.56 bottle a day, every day of the year which is still very alcoholically.
Let's hope that he failed in his 100 keg target. If not, one wonders how he was able to prepare for college? If he was meeting his goal of 100 kegs, then let's hope he has become a recovering alcoholic. He at least seems to be a functional alcoholic. I'm sure he won't be the first supreme court Justice who is an alcoholic.
I'm sure that the Republican men feel that since there was no penetration, nothing happened so what is the big deal? Besides, they feel it was 36 yrs ago when boys are struggling with runaway hormones. So here we are. I do not want to follow this situation any further.
Sunday, September 23, 2018
IS THE BOOM OVER?
As I look at the behavior of the DJIA this last week (sometimes called the "DOW"), I get the feeling that we have entered a bubble phase of the stock markets. When I look at the other indices, however, they are all down for the month or up just a little: the SandP 500 (up 1%), with the NASDAQ Composite, the NASDAQ 100, and the Russell 2000 all down. Only the DJIA has increased ( up nearly 3% this month).
Certainly, a problem since the tax cut bill is that companies have wasted a lot of money on stock buybacks and probably in buying companies that they don't know how to run.
The latest leg of the bull market has been fueled by last year's tax cuts that also contributed to soaring corporate earnings along with a fresh round of share buybacks that is expected to eclipse $1 trillion this year. Buybacks have totaled $4.7 trillion since the crisis.*
I continue to think that we are good for the rest of this year,** but next year (2019) begins to look more and more iffy. Just too much money was dumped on industry too fast. At least they have been spending an increased amount on plant and equipment, as their hesitancy to do so has been the biggest drag on GDP.
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/19/the-great-bull-market-is-dead-and-heres-whats-next-bank-of-america-strategist-says.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/07/economy-tariffs-and-stock-markets.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/09/government-debt-and-mixed-economic.html
The latest leg of the bull market has been fueled by last year's tax cuts that also contributed to soaring corporate earnings along with a fresh round of share buybacks that is expected to eclipse $1 trillion this year. Buybacks have totaled $4.7 trillion since the crisis.*
I continue to think that we are good for the rest of this year,** but next year (2019) begins to look more and more iffy. Just too much money was dumped on industry too fast. At least they have been spending an increased amount on plant and equipment, as their hesitancy to do so has been the biggest drag on GDP.
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/19/the-great-bull-market-is-dead-and-heres-whats-next-bank-of-america-strategist-says.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/07/economy-tariffs-and-stock-markets.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/09/government-debt-and-mixed-economic.html
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
HILLARY: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY
The Baby Boomers got us into our present mess, and I guess they will have to get us out of it. This coming November would be a good place to start.
Men are capable of saying, "He may be an SOB but he is our SOB." Even if a lot of women didn't care for Hillary, why didn't they say the same thing, and we would have had our first woman president? With Republicans demeaning Hillary for 25 yrs, too many women believed it, though it was mostly lies. No, the e-mail server was not a lie, but everyone involved in her e-mails had security clearance so there was was no crime. And it is said that Pres. Donald Trump uses an unsecured phone, and that doesn't seem to bother anyone.
It is not that I think Hillary would have accomplished a lot before Republicans impeached her since the Baby Boomers would have given her a Republican Senate and House. In fact, her accomplishments would have been things that didn't happen: like the law that permits mentally unstable people to buy guns, or the election of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, or ruining the ACA, or the verbal war on our allies, or the Muslim Ban, etc.
You might think that Hillary would have gotten an infrastructure bill through. Maybe, but Republicans don't like infrastructure bills. Even Donald Trump was for an infrastructure bill (remember $100 billion/yr for 10 years?). Whatever happened to that? I heard the other day that Trump was thinking about resurrecting it, but now it is too late. Now you get very little for your money (construction workers are in short supply and we have economically recovered from the Great Recession.).
The big hope is that Hillary would have flipped on TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and come out for it. Many Republicans might have gone along with it as free trade is their thing and it would have gone a long way to containing China.
Besides, Republicans really need a Democratic President to find their inner desire for balanced budgets. I doubt we would have had the recent tax-cut bill paid for entirely by government debt. With a Republican President, Republicans can be even worse spenders than Democrats, as we have seen.
You may wonder why I don't blame my own generation (1930-1945) born during the Great Depression followed by WW-II. Well, I suppose we contributed to it, but there are too few of us to swing elections. We are the depleted generation. We never have had a president born during our period. Of course, Bernie (Sen. Sanders b. 1941) still has a chance, I guess, but he is a bit much for me. Joe Biden was born in 1942. Common guys, what kind of a country are we that need our grandparents for president? No, our time has passed.
And so have some of the Baby Boomers so far as I am concerned. Elizabeth Warren was born in 1949 so she will be 71 in 2020. Just for the record, Hillary, born in 1947, will be 73 in 2020.
Speaking of "the time has passed," it has for me as well, as I am 87. I would like to see a recovery during what time I have left or at least the beginnings of one. Right now, I don't see it. Remember, workers gave away their unions. As ineffective as unions may have been, it was workers only hope for some sort of equality. So I am not sure that America won't give away Democracy also. But then, I have been a life-long pessimist.
Men are capable of saying, "He may be an SOB but he is our SOB." Even if a lot of women didn't care for Hillary, why didn't they say the same thing, and we would have had our first woman president? With Republicans demeaning Hillary for 25 yrs, too many women believed it, though it was mostly lies. No, the e-mail server was not a lie, but everyone involved in her e-mails had security clearance so there was was no crime. And it is said that Pres. Donald Trump uses an unsecured phone, and that doesn't seem to bother anyone.
It is not that I think Hillary would have accomplished a lot before Republicans impeached her since the Baby Boomers would have given her a Republican Senate and House. In fact, her accomplishments would have been things that didn't happen: like the law that permits mentally unstable people to buy guns, or the election of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, or ruining the ACA, or the verbal war on our allies, or the Muslim Ban, etc.
You might think that Hillary would have gotten an infrastructure bill through. Maybe, but Republicans don't like infrastructure bills. Even Donald Trump was for an infrastructure bill (remember $100 billion/yr for 10 years?). Whatever happened to that? I heard the other day that Trump was thinking about resurrecting it, but now it is too late. Now you get very little for your money (construction workers are in short supply and we have economically recovered from the Great Recession.).
The big hope is that Hillary would have flipped on TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and come out for it. Many Republicans might have gone along with it as free trade is their thing and it would have gone a long way to containing China.
Besides, Republicans really need a Democratic President to find their inner desire for balanced budgets. I doubt we would have had the recent tax-cut bill paid for entirely by government debt. With a Republican President, Republicans can be even worse spenders than Democrats, as we have seen.
You may wonder why I don't blame my own generation (1930-1945) born during the Great Depression followed by WW-II. Well, I suppose we contributed to it, but there are too few of us to swing elections. We are the depleted generation. We never have had a president born during our period. Of course, Bernie (Sen. Sanders b. 1941) still has a chance, I guess, but he is a bit much for me. Joe Biden was born in 1942. Common guys, what kind of a country are we that need our grandparents for president? No, our time has passed.
And so have some of the Baby Boomers so far as I am concerned. Elizabeth Warren was born in 1949 so she will be 71 in 2020. Just for the record, Hillary, born in 1947, will be 73 in 2020.
Speaking of "the time has passed," it has for me as well, as I am 87. I would like to see a recovery during what time I have left or at least the beginnings of one. Right now, I don't see it. Remember, workers gave away their unions. As ineffective as unions may have been, it was workers only hope for some sort of equality. So I am not sure that America won't give away Democracy also. But then, I have been a life-long pessimist.
Monday, September 17, 2018
GOVERNMENT DEBT AND MIXED ECONOMIC INDICATORS
There is much mention about the tax cuts by Republicans, but little mention that they are financed by debt. I am not alone in worrying about the increased debt. Billionaire Tepper feels the tax cuts were too steep and likely borrowed economic growth from the future.* The estimate of the debt for this fiscal year (2018) had risen to 895 billion from 665 billion for fiscal 2017.
Though the economy overall is doing very well, from an individuals point of view, it is more problematic. Indicators are best described as mixed.
After five months of decline in Consumer Sentiment, it has bounced up and is now near a high (see figure for recent behavior).**
"Fifty-one percent of the electorate lives paycheck-to-paycheck," explains David Winston, a strategist for GOP leaders battling to save their House majority. "Their issues are wages and the cost of living. Ultimately for those folks, the question is, are those paycheck-to-paycheck dynamics getting better?"***
I think that it can not be overstated how much many people were affected by the Great Recession and it may affect them the rest of their lives. In a survey of workers from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, 56 percent of respondents said they have not fully recovered from the Great Recession.*** In spite of that, we are told that jobs are at an all-time high and workers are feeling more free to changes jobs.****
Lack of business investment in capital spending was the largest drag on GDP, but in the first quarter, business investment was found to increase by 39% which is good news.**** There are disturbing signs in the economy such as the decline in both new and existing home sales.*****
Another wild card in the economic mix is what will the American Global Tariff War have on the American economy, especially the Tariff War with China? In one "stress test" case, the effects on the U.S. stock market are substantial percentage declines with three scenarios. As this piece is being written, it appears that President Trump is to impose tariffs on 200 more Chinese items. (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/11/stress-testing-the-trade-war-possible-bear-market-in-stocks-looms-for-us.html):
In spite of all the mixed news, my conclusion is the same as last April and July and continues to be that we cannot go into a recession this year because there is just too much money sloshing around (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/07/economy-tariffs-and-stock-markets.html; http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/04/investors-are-changing-from-stocks-to.html). It should be noted that the value of the S and P 500 index is roughly the same in mid-September as it was at the peak of January 28th. While this is still a nice gain from the beginning of the year, growth in the stock markets has stalled.
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/tepper-says-tax-cuts-were-too-steep-and-likely-borrowed-economic-growth-from-the-future.html
** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/september-consumer-sentiment.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/29/second-estimate-of-q2-2018-gdp.html
*** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/watch-out-gop-the-economy-is-roaring-but-most-americans-arent-feeling-it.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/nearly-6-in-10-workers-are-still-recovering-after-the-great-recession.html
**** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/11/job-openings-hit-record-high-and-more-people-confident-enough-to-quit.html
https://taxfoundation.org/business-investment-increases-39-percent-q1-2018/
***** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/29/pending-home-sales-fall-for-seventh-straight-month-in-july.html
https://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news/68237/existing-home-sales-drop-fifth-straight-month
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/the-trump-tax-cuts-were-supposed-to-depress-housing-prices-they-havent.html
Though the economy overall is doing very well, from an individuals point of view, it is more problematic. Indicators are best described as mixed.
After five months of decline in Consumer Sentiment, it has bounced up and is now near a high (see figure for recent behavior).**
I think that it can not be overstated how much many people were affected by the Great Recession and it may affect them the rest of their lives. In a survey of workers from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, 56 percent of respondents said they have not fully recovered from the Great Recession.*** In spite of that, we are told that jobs are at an all-time high and workers are feeling more free to changes jobs.****
Lack of business investment in capital spending was the largest drag on GDP, but in the first quarter, business investment was found to increase by 39% which is good news.**** There are disturbing signs in the economy such as the decline in both new and existing home sales.*****
Another wild card in the economic mix is what will the American Global Tariff War have on the American economy, especially the Tariff War with China? In one "stress test" case, the effects on the U.S. stock market are substantial percentage declines with three scenarios. As this piece is being written, it appears that President Trump is to impose tariffs on 200 more Chinese items. (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/11/stress-testing-the-trade-war-possible-bear-market-in-stocks-looms-for-us.html):
Optimistic
|
Base case
|
Conservative
|
|---|
| U.S. | -10.83 | -16.45 | -21.88 |
In spite of all the mixed news, my conclusion is the same as last April and July and continues to be that we cannot go into a recession this year because there is just too much money sloshing around (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/07/economy-tariffs-and-stock-markets.html; http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2018/04/investors-are-changing-from-stocks-to.html). It should be noted that the value of the S and P 500 index is roughly the same in mid-September as it was at the peak of January 28th. While this is still a nice gain from the beginning of the year, growth in the stock markets has stalled.
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/tepper-says-tax-cuts-were-too-steep-and-likely-borrowed-economic-growth-from-the-future.html
** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/september-consumer-sentiment.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/29/second-estimate-of-q2-2018-gdp.html
*** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/13/watch-out-gop-the-economy-is-roaring-but-most-americans-arent-feeling-it.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/nearly-6-in-10-workers-are-still-recovering-after-the-great-recession.html
**** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/11/job-openings-hit-record-high-and-more-people-confident-enough-to-quit.html
https://taxfoundation.org/business-investment-increases-39-percent-q1-2018/
***** https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/29/pending-home-sales-fall-for-seventh-straight-month-in-july.html
https://nationalmortgageprofessional.com/news/68237/existing-home-sales-drop-fifth-straight-month
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/the-trump-tax-cuts-were-supposed-to-depress-housing-prices-they-havent.html
Sunday, September 9, 2018
ANONYMOUS IS . . . .
The current news discussion is all about an op-ed column written by Anonymous "I Am Part Of The Resistance Inside The Trump Administration:" (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html) I have read the op-ed piece three times wondering what all the fuss is about. I don't know about you, but I learned nothing new about President Trump.
Wait, perhaps I did learn one sort of thing new which is that the President actually did not want to expel so many Putin spies over the poisonings in Britain,. Certainly doing so seemed against everything President Trump has to say about President Putin. But I'm with Senator Corker, that there is really nothing new.
At any rate, the fun is in trying to identify who Anonymous really is. It seems like 25 people in the Trump Administration have actually told us who Anonymous is . . . .NOT ME. Of course, every family knows the famous NOT ME.
I'm, told that Chief Of Staff John Kelly hasn't written a letter so maybe it is he. I am sure he is capable of it in his frustrating job of trying to get order out of chaos. I admit I am not fond of Gen. (Rtd) Kelly who thinks it is all right to separate children from their mothers and to tweet disrespectfully to elected minority women congressmen.
There is something in the op-ed piece that did strike me, however: Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. I note that the paragraph says these are ideals and I'll buy that, but I've not noticed that Republicans are for "free minds" for decades and are they really for "free people?" They certainly aren't for women to freely decide what to do with their own bodies. They also are for freedom for people to discriminate against other people because of religious beliefs.
And they certainly said awful things during the Bush-43 Administration about people who opposed the war in Iraq such as they are unAmerican and disloyal to America. While it is true that Republicans in recent years have been for free trade, suddenly they switched to opposing free trade. Though I am a social libertarian, I am for free trade.
It is recognized that there are losers as well as winners in free trade. In fact, the Federal government has a bureau to help displaced workers to train and help find new jobs called the Trade Adjustment Assitance Act (https://www.doleta.gov/TradeAct/pdf/Factsheets-2016/NC.pdf*) that claims to have helped 74% of its effects in 2016 to find new jobs. This way, the public can enjoy the lower prices of imported goods and displaced workers can find new jobs. Perhaps the budget of $450 million should be increased to cover more people.
* In this blog, also see the Trans-Pacific Partnership http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/07/tpp.html
Wait, perhaps I did learn one sort of thing new which is that the President actually did not want to expel so many Putin spies over the poisonings in Britain,. Certainly doing so seemed against everything President Trump has to say about President Putin. But I'm with Senator Corker, that there is really nothing new.
At any rate, the fun is in trying to identify who Anonymous really is. It seems like 25 people in the Trump Administration have actually told us who Anonymous is . . . .NOT ME. Of course, every family knows the famous NOT ME.
I'm, told that Chief Of Staff John Kelly hasn't written a letter so maybe it is he. I am sure he is capable of it in his frustrating job of trying to get order out of chaos. I admit I am not fond of Gen. (Rtd) Kelly who thinks it is all right to separate children from their mothers and to tweet disrespectfully to elected minority women congressmen.
There is something in the op-ed piece that did strike me, however: Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. I note that the paragraph says these are ideals and I'll buy that, but I've not noticed that Republicans are for "free minds" for decades and are they really for "free people?" They certainly aren't for women to freely decide what to do with their own bodies. They also are for freedom for people to discriminate against other people because of religious beliefs.
And they certainly said awful things during the Bush-43 Administration about people who opposed the war in Iraq such as they are unAmerican and disloyal to America. While it is true that Republicans in recent years have been for free trade, suddenly they switched to opposing free trade. Though I am a social libertarian, I am for free trade.
It is recognized that there are losers as well as winners in free trade. In fact, the Federal government has a bureau to help displaced workers to train and help find new jobs called the Trade Adjustment Assitance Act (https://www.doleta.gov/TradeAct/pdf/Factsheets-2016/NC.pdf*) that claims to have helped 74% of its effects in 2016 to find new jobs. This way, the public can enjoy the lower prices of imported goods and displaced workers can find new jobs. Perhaps the budget of $450 million should be increased to cover more people.
* In this blog, also see the Trans-Pacific Partnership http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/07/tpp.html
Thursday, September 6, 2018
CONSUMER SENTIMENT - AUG 2018
Consumer sentiment has been in a downdraft since March 2018 when it hit 101.4. Except for a tiny rise in June, the index has gone down steadily with the August number being 96.2.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/consumer-sentiment-final-august-reading.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/31/consumer-sentiment-final-august-reading.html
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
FREE SPEECH AND INTERNET PLATFORMS
FaceBook is an intriguing idea allowing just plain citizens to express themselves.
Though other internet platforms have risen since, other media does this. You can write letters to the editor, but these are culled to publish just those the editor likes.
Though other internet platforms have risen since, other media does this. You can write letters to the editor, but these are culled to publish just those the editor likes.
But can we tolerate a platform where anyone can express themselves?
YouTube has removed Alex Jones' page, following bans earlier Monday from Apple and Facebook.*
The Alex Jones Channel, which counts 2.4 million subscribers, still appeared in YouTube search results by midday Monday, but presented only a take-down notice when users clicked in.*
"This account has been terminated for violating YouTube's Community Guidelines," the notice says.*
There are some restrictions to free speech. The common restriction is that you cannot shout FIRE in a crowded movie theater.Should hate speech be another**? Is cyberbullying another?*** Where do we stop? Is it possible to catch all of these in real time among millions of posts per day?
In the 2016 election, there was much controversy about false ads by Russians masquerading as Americans, especially against the Democratic candidate.**** Is it now all right for other countries getting involved in our politics? If it is all right for Russia to help the Republican party, then do the Democrats need to find a country to help them - perhaps China will get mad enough at the current Trade War to help the Democratic Party.
* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/06/youtube-removes-alex-jones-account-following-earlier-bans.html
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicides_that_have_been_attributed_to_bullying (scroll down)
https://www.salon.com/2018/03/11/teen-suicides-rise-in-tandem-with-cyberbullying-and-advocates-have-had-enough
https://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/cyberbullying-social-media.html
**** https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-election-facebook.html
Saturday, September 1, 2018
FIXING WHAT ISN'T BROKEN
The ideal on trade is that another country has something we want and we have something they want so we exchange our product(s) for theirs. A good example is Canada where we want their raw steel and aluminum and they want our services. We even fabricate steel and aluminum into value-added products, some of which we sell to Canada. In fact, we got the better end of this deal because we have a slight trading surplus with Canada.
But we (i.e. our President) then imposed tariffs on Canada raw steel and aluminum to subsidize our steel industries presumably for national security. Canada a danger to national security? Good, grief. What a misuse of authority.
STEEL
But consider, in 2016 Canada produced 12.6 million tons of steel total whereas America produced 83 million tons. And Canada is ruining our steel industry? Any two months steel production in the U.S. exceeded the entire yearly steel production of Canada! Furthermore, the U.S. exports iron ore to Canada to be made into raw steel!
Now get this:
Canada imported 7.1 million tonnes of iron ore (valued at $0.6 billion) in 2016, up from 6.6 million tonnes in 2015. Most of these imports (98.5%) were in the form of pellets from the United States. The balance (1.5%) was in the form of concentrates from Argentina (71.0%), the United States (19.1%) and Sweden (9.1%). Concentrates are unfinished products used in the production of blast furnace pellets and pellets used for metallization.*
Through the courtesy of the steel tariffs, our socialized steel production is up in 2018
ALUMINUM
In contrast to steel, America imports the largest amount of aluminum from Canada (with China second). In 2017, 87.2% of Canadian aluminum exports went to the U.S. Neither America nor Canada has any bauxite (aluminum ore) so the ore must be 100% imported for each country. Canada can produce aluminum cheaper than in the U.S. because of abundant hydropower in Quebec, Canada.
OTHER
Steel and aluminum aren't the only things impacted by tariffs between the U.
S. and Canada. Canada has a tariff of 270% (!) on American milk and Trump put a 20% tariff on Canadian softwood lumber used in the housing industry. There are estimates that the lumber tariff is increasing the cost of building a new single-family house by $9,000 and a multi-family unit at $3,000.***
The milk subsidy tariff figure is biased because the U.S. government subsidizes the American milk industry to the tune of $20 billion or 73% of the cost of milk production.**** Also, the Canadian tariff only applies to filtered whole milk and not other milk products like powdered milk. thus we would be doing what is called "dumping" of milk on the Canadians without a tariff, i.e. selling Canada milk below cost. We in America sure didn't like it when China shipped us steel below cost.
I don't know how Trump can justify a tariff on Canadian assembled automobiles. There must come a point where claims of national security threats become an even great tragic joke. There must be a way to stop this. As it is, the U.S. trade war with Canada is a threat to American security.
The poor American consumer to say nothing about the Canadian consumer, but at least Putin is happy what with all this discord and Trump is happily bullying Canada (as well as Mexico?).
* http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/facts/iron-ore/20517
** https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/facts/aluminum/20510
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-canada-trump-tariffs-20180303-story.html
*** https://globalnews.ca/news/4293847/tariffs-lumber-pricing-americans-out-of-housing-market-trump/
**** https://www.realagriculture.com/2018/02/u-s-dairy-subsidies-equal-73-percent-of-producer-returns-says-new-report/
But we (i.e. our President) then imposed tariffs on Canada raw steel and aluminum to subsidize our steel industries presumably for national security. Canada a danger to national security? Good, grief. What a misuse of authority.
STEEL
But consider, in 2016 Canada produced 12.6 million tons of steel total whereas America produced 83 million tons. And Canada is ruining our steel industry? Any two months steel production in the U.S. exceeded the entire yearly steel production of Canada! Furthermore, the U.S. exports iron ore to Canada to be made into raw steel!
Now get this:
Canada imported 7.1 million tonnes of iron ore (valued at $0.6 billion) in 2016, up from 6.6 million tonnes in 2015. Most of these imports (98.5%) were in the form of pellets from the United States. The balance (1.5%) was in the form of concentrates from Argentina (71.0%), the United States (19.1%) and Sweden (9.1%). Concentrates are unfinished products used in the production of blast furnace pellets and pellets used for metallization.*
Through the courtesy of the steel tariffs, our socialized steel production is up in 2018
ALUMINUM
In contrast to steel, America imports the largest amount of aluminum from Canada (with China second). In 2017, 87.2% of Canadian aluminum exports went to the U.S. Neither America nor Canada has any bauxite (aluminum ore) so the ore must be 100% imported for each country. Canada can produce aluminum cheaper than in the U.S. because of abundant hydropower in Quebec, Canada.
OTHER
Steel and aluminum aren't the only things impacted by tariffs between the U.
S. and Canada. Canada has a tariff of 270% (!) on American milk and Trump put a 20% tariff on Canadian softwood lumber used in the housing industry. There are estimates that the lumber tariff is increasing the cost of building a new single-family house by $9,000 and a multi-family unit at $3,000.***
The milk subsidy tariff figure is biased because the U.S. government subsidizes the American milk industry to the tune of $20 billion or 73% of the cost of milk production.**** Also, the Canadian tariff only applies to filtered whole milk and not other milk products like powdered milk. thus we would be doing what is called "dumping" of milk on the Canadians without a tariff, i.e. selling Canada milk below cost. We in America sure didn't like it when China shipped us steel below cost.
I don't know how Trump can justify a tariff on Canadian assembled automobiles. There must come a point where claims of national security threats become an even great tragic joke. There must be a way to stop this. As it is, the U.S. trade war with Canada is a threat to American security.
The poor American consumer to say nothing about the Canadian consumer, but at least Putin is happy what with all this discord and Trump is happily bullying Canada (as well as Mexico?).
* http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/facts/iron-ore/20517
** https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/facts/aluminum/20510
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-canada-trump-tariffs-20180303-story.html
*** https://globalnews.ca/news/4293847/tariffs-lumber-pricing-americans-out-of-housing-market-trump/
**** https://www.realagriculture.com/2018/02/u-s-dairy-subsidies-equal-73-percent-of-producer-returns-says-new-report/
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