STOCK MARKETS: SOMETHING 100%

So far, 2017 has seen 17 new all-time closing highs for the SandP 500 and just 10 days where the index moved more than 1 percent in either direction. That kind of higher highs with low volatility always — yes, always — has been positive for the market, according to Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.

The previous 17 times that has happened, the market has averaged a 19.4 percent gain, with advances happening 100 percent of the time.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/29/get-ready-for-the-big-jobs-report-a-potential-june-market-swoon-more.html

LEFT BEHIND - FINANCIAL HEALTH OF AMERICANS

As can be seen in the figure below, Metro areas are in good shape regarding employment gains since the Great Recession, but Non-Metro (rural) areas are lagging behind, even 9 yrs after the end of the Great Recession though they have improved some.  Employment in Non-Metro areas are still 2.4% below the pre-Great Recession values.  In fact, the Metro Areas turned positive in 2014 and have been gaining since and now are 4.2% above the pre-Great Recession values.  Note at the bottom of the Great Recession, the employment figures were pretty close, i.e. Metro areas were only a little better off than Non-Metro areas.
In 2016, Luzerne County, which had twice previously cast majorities for Obama, supported Trump 57.9 to 38.6 percent.
Similarly, in Defiance County in northwest Ohio, population 38,158, the unemployment rate rose from 5.3 percent in August 2007 to 5.9 percent in February 2017. The local labor force shrank over this period by 1,379 workers.
In 2016, Defiance became much more Republican than it had been: while voters there had supported Romney over Obama 55.5 to 42.2 percent, they supported Trump over Clinton 63.7 to 29.3 percent.
Compare Luzerne and Defiance counties to the Los Angeles-Glendale-Long Beach metropolitan area. There, not only did the unemployment rate fall from 5.6 percent in July 2007 to 4.8 percent in February 2017, but total employment grew from 4.68 million to 4.84 million.*

Employment Recovery: Metro vs Non-Metro Areas
Comparison 1Q 2008  to subsequent years**

(Click on figure to enlarge)

In addition, college educated adults have fared much better than non-college educated.  I presume that Metro areas tend to be more educated than non-Metro areas.**

Some 70% of respondents polled in October 2016 said they were either “living comfortably” or “doing okay,” up from 69% the year before, and 62% when the question was first posed in 2013, the Fed found in its latest Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (sic), released Friday.

Yet the share of respondents with no more than a high-school diploma who said they were “living comfortably” or “doing okay” declined last year to 60% from 61% in 2015.
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In another sign of the educational divide, 79% of those with at least a bachelor’s degree said they would still be able to pay all of their other bills in full if hit with a $400 charge. Just 52% of those with no more than a high school diploma said the same.**
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Still, the overall share of adults who would struggle to come up with $400 in a pinch has declined by 6 percentage points since 2013, indicating Americans’ financial situation is slowing getting better. While 25% of respondents reported skipping medical treatments due to cost in 2016, that was down 7 percentage points since 2013.
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Many respondents also reported that they lack retirement savings, with 28% of adults who haven’t retired yet indicating they had no retirement savings or pension whatsoever. That is down from 31% in 2015.**

I urge you to read the entire articles.  Also see: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/04/economic-recovery-uneven.html
and
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/05/economy-roars-ahead-in-april-2017.html

* https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/opinion/reaching-out-to-the-voters-the-left-left-behind.html?_r=0
** https://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-health-improved-for-most-americans-in-recent-years-fed-survey-says-1495210829

LEFT BEHIND - MISSISSIPPI EXAMPLE

The recovery of states from the Great Recession, not surprisingly, has been uneven.  One of these states that is economically being left behind is, again not surprisingly, Mississippi:*

Call them the unrecovered—a handful of states where job markets, nine years later, are still struggling back to where they were before the recession.

That's true in Mississippi, where job numbers and the overall size of the economy remain below 2008 levels. Unlike states that have long since sprinted ahead, Mississippi is struggling with slow economic growth and slipping population in a place that's rarely at peak economic health.** The Mississippi economy is so bad that it is essentially a "ward of the Federal government."

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Not only Mississippi, but also Alabama, Michigan, New Mexico, and West Virginia are still short of pre-recession job levels by multiple measures. That contrasts with states including Colorado, North Dakota, Texas and Utah, where employment numbers have soared. Nationwide, job numbers surpassed pre-recession peaks in the middle of 2014, about the same time Mississippi was saddled with the nation's highest unemployment rate.**
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Growth has long lagged in Mississippi, and jobless rates are high even in good times. The unemployment rate fell to 5 percent in March, the lowest since the U.S. Labor Department began the current system of measurement in 1976. But at the same time that the Magnolia State's unemployment rate was at a record low, it tied for the ninth highest among the states.**
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It is not just the number of jobs, but what they pay. Workers made an average of $669 a week in Meridian and surrounding Lauderdale County in late 2016, compared to $739 statewide and $1,027 nationwide.**

* http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/19/9-years-after-recession-began-some-states-still-unrecovered.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/11/infrastructure-program_23.html

YOU MUST WEAR A DRESS - Biographical

About 20 or so years ago, we were going to Tucson, Arizona, that is right on the Mexican border - in July!   I was going to present an award at a small scientific society banquet so I told my wife she had to take along a dress.  We were in our 60s and she really resisted doing this, but I eventually convinced her that it would be very embarrassing if she didn't wear a dress.  So we got to Tucson and, boy, it was HOT.  I'm not sure how hot but probably over 100 degrees.

When the time came for the banquet my wife dutifully put on her dress, pantyhose,and  made herself up.  She looked beautiful, if a bit wilted, and off we went to the banquet.  As we were walking into the building where the banquet was to be held, we were passed by some women geologists wearing cut offs, knapsacks, stringy hair, and flop flops.  My wife stopped me and glaring at me said., "You will never get me to do this again!

Some years later I was again to present an award at a large scientific society meeting in Denver, but I knew better than insist she bring a dress.  The banquet was to be held in a large fancy hotel.  We were in a crowd mulling around in the lobby before the banquet hall when in came the women geologists again, straight from the field, I guess, dressed in their costumes of stringy hair, knapsack, cut offs, and flip flops.  My wife and I just looked at each other and smiled.

How times have changed.  I now live in a continuing care facility, and it is very rare to see a woman in a skirt or dress.  Pants are the rule, though actually in the summer, a dress or a skirt is cooler than pants if the legs are bare.  Think of Arab men in the Middle East wearing their long tunics, equivalent to long dresses (actually called a thawb).  And of course, in Scotland there is the men's kilt, a sort of skirt  even though it never gets real hot in Scotland.

SYMPATHY FOR COMEY

Though I think it was proper to fire Comey, I have sympathy for him because he got into situations he didn't know how to handle and didn't handle them well.  Overall, I guess he well as Deputy Attorney General of the Justice Department although he seemed confused about whether waterboarding was torture that showed he could become rattled.

After getting Trump elected, Comey did seem to pursue the Russian election scandal seriously; however, it was too late.

Comey's replacement might be a matter of concern.  Rumors are the favorite is Joe Lieberman.

Now with a special prosecutor, things might progress even better.  Mueller seems to be a popular choice and bipartisan choice; however, it seems like the White House will attempt to muddy the waters.*

I'm not sure about Joe Lieberman as a replacement.  Lieberman is also senior counsel at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres, and Friedman, a law firm that has frequently represented Trump  ...**  It would seem that conflicts with Lieberman are even more severe than for Mueller.  As far as I am concerned, Lieberman also got kind of weird late in his career and was very critical of President Obama.  I think that the acting FBI director might be the best choice.

* http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/reuters-trump-mueller.
** http://theweek.com/speedreads/700053/trump-says-joe-lieberman-leading-candidate-replace-comey-fbi-director

CRYBABY TRUMP NO SURPRISE

Now we see President Trump as a crybaby before the Coast Guard Academy.
“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately,” Trump said, as some in the audience burst into laughter, “especially by the media. No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly.”*

On second thought it should come as no surprise as he was forever crying "rigged" during the nomination and election process.  I'm hardly the first person to use the word crybaby for Trump.  Certainly his first wife thought so.**

Of course, he has been the most unfairly treated President ever in his eyes.  Whatever it is it must be the greatest or biggest, no matter what the facts.  He might even think of his predecessor President Obama where the Republicans went after him with a "full-court press" from the day he was inaugurated.

I must say, however, that I don't recall any previous President in my lifetime who was able to cause such a furor from the "git go."  And I must say that Republicans and President Trump should not always assume that the Democrats will be the adults in the room.

President Trump may not have been in collusion with the Russians prior and post the election, but he certainly was in collaboration with them when he urged, in public, the Russians to find the missing 30,000 e-mails of Sec. Hillary Clinton.

And Trump can't seem to resist contradicting the efforts of his aids that are trying to help him.  No sooner do they come out with some spin on his actions to save him from himself than he contradicts them.  A good example was the firing of Director Comey from the FBI.

Well, if something he has already done doesn't get him, President Trump will find something new to keep him in hot water.  Actually all this has had some positive results.  President Trump hasn't dared to try to get rid of the sanctions on the Russians and it has slowed action on his policies to a crawl.


* http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/17/donald-trump-coast-guard-gradution-unfairly-treated-president-238505
** http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/donald-trump-cry-baby

HOWARD STERN ON DONALD TRUMP

I know it is an old cliche, but the "Shock Jock" Howard Stern "hit the nail on the head" with Donald Trump.*  We are watching a president become unhinged, not is slow motion, but rather rapid motion.  Small government conservative "Morning Joe" Scarborough mentions this sort of thing almost daily now.  Trump is throwing everybody under the bus.  No sooner do his surrogates try to bail him out on something then Trump says something to contradict them, even the National Security adviser Gen McMaster's non-denial denial.**

Stern said last February,
"I personally wish that he had never run, I told him that, because I actually think this is something that is gonna be detrimental to his mental health too, because, he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved," Stern said. "He wants people to cheer for him."

I really don't look forward to President Trump being replaced, but Republicans better start getting serious about Trump.  It could be either impeachment or the 25th amendment (mentally incapacitated) and they shouldn't wait until he seriously impairs the country, if he hasn't already.

I'm no fan of Mike Pence but maybe he can at least keep a secret.  but he to has had to lie for the president and been" thrown under the bus."  And Pence certainly knew about Flynn when he, Pence, was in charge of the transition team, long before Flynn lied to him.

* Stern if a friend of Trump and Trump has appeared on Stern radio show a number of times.  When there, Trump and Stern trade, ah, "Locker Room Talk." http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/02/media/kfile-stern-on-trump/
** https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/05/16/mcmaster-and-tillerson-are-complicit-in-trumps-dishonesty-so-must-they-resign/?utm_term=.fdc84d704984