Sunday, April 30, 2017

Jeremy Siegel Remains Positive. Trump - Quid Pro Quo Master? Sharia Law. Pithy Thoughts.


++++++++++++++++++++
Jeremy Siegel is one of the best market statisticians and prognosticators.  He remains positive. (See 1 below.)
+++
Trump is a businessman who understands the math of drug development.  The high cost of medicine is partly due to time delays, red tape and the fact that drug companies have to price in the many failures in the price of successful drugs.

Trump is a quid pro quo kind of thinker and he knows you get more with honey than vinegar.  (See 2 below.)
====
For those who read these memos they know I often warn about the encroachment of Sharia law upon our legal system.  Radical Muslims will continue their effort until they make headway.

To prevent Sharia from becoming a legal facet of the laws that govern us we must insist Congress remain ever vigilant. (See 3 below.)
===============
Before I leave for Athens and then Pittsburgh I will leave you with a few pithy thoughts: (See 4 below.)
====

Have a great week,
++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++

Jeremy Siegel's Bullish Call: This Is a 'Goldilocks Situation' for Stocks

By F.M. McGuirecent 
Stock-market guru Jeremy Siegel sees a “Goldilocks situation” for the raging bull stock market to continue.
"I actually think we have a Goldilocks situation going on now," He recently told CNBC. "We have everything moving in tandem," said the finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School,  
Siegel’s enthusiasm has yet to wane despite a 12 percent rally in the past six months, and nearly a tripling of the S&P 500 over the past eight years.
"But much more important than that is the maintained or upward guidance for second, third and fourth quarter — something we've not had for years," he said.
"It's been stunning how year estimates have come way down by the time we get to December. Now, anything can happen. We're only in April — but it's the first time that I have seen forward guidance maintained or increased since we turned around from the great crisis back in 2009," said Siegel, most famous for penning a classic of popular investment literature, "Stocks for the Long Run."
Siegel isn't alone in his optimism.
David Horowitz, author of the best-selling book "Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America," told Newsmax TV that the market rally since Republican Donald Trump won the election has more room for gains as the president pushes his pro-business agenda.

“There's more upside. Starting from when he was president-elect he started this stock market boom,” he told “The Income Generation Show.”
“There will be corrections. There are going to be setbacks along the way like the healthcare which they hurried too fast. If you're looking over the long term of this administration I think the stock market is going to love Trump.”
(Newsmax wires services the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters.)
++++++++++++++++++++
2) Prices…Here Is Their SHOCKING Response

Big Pharma seeks enormous profits over the health and well-being of the humans it serves, and drug companies invasively corrupted the way that the healthcare industry delivers its vital services.
All that is about to change after Trump met with  leaders in the pharmaceutical industry Tuesday.
The Conservative Post reports, THIS IS MASSIVE!
President Donald Trump met with leaders in the pharmaceutical industry Tuesday to push for lower prices and increased U.S. production. He also vowed to speed up approval times for new medicines and appoint a new Food and Drug Administration leader soon.
Trump told those in the meeting that price increases in the industry were “astronomical.
Fox News reported that the CEOs of Novartis, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Celgene, Eli Lilly and Amgen and the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America lobbying group attended the meeting.
“We have to get prices down for a lot of reasons. We have no choice, for Medicare and Medicaid,” Trump said, noting that federal programs for the elderly, the poor and the disabled are the largest purchasers of medications.
Trump promised to lower regulations, get new treatments to market faster at the FDA and increase international competition.
Robert Hugin of Celgene said the companies were excited to work with Trump, The Washington Post reported. 
+++++++++++++++++++ 
3)  BREAKING: Sharia Law is GONE – THE HOUSE MADE A DECISION!

Former president Barack Obama and his Democrats wanted us to believe that Muslims are good and kind, that they’re just a bunch of unfortunate people forced to leave their homelands.


Obama wanted you to think that these poor people are just here to assimilate and leave the American dream. No, they don’t want to live the American dream, but take it.
America went through hell during Obama’s presidency, because the former president didn’t fight against terrorists. 


Now Muslims are trying to plant their Sharia law in every institution across the country. Is this what Obama referred to when he said that “Muslims are here to assimilate?”
This law is the most terrible of them all. According to this law, you can get killed for being a gay, and rape victims can’t do anything to punish rapists. Can you believe this? President Donald Trump will never allow anything like this, and he was clear about this during his presidential campaign.

The good news is that the House passed a new bill that bans “the application of foreign law.” Democrats and Muslims aren’t quite happy about it, and they complain that the new bill only targets Muslims, and approves xenophobia and racism. Really?


“We’ve heard a lot of discussions about this being a religious law and specifically directed at preventing Sharia law and I just don’t read it that way,” explained Republican Theresa Hamilton.
Sandy Montgomery had a similar opinion. “We have allowed legal immigrants, illegal immigrants and now refugees to take advantage of our law and culture to take up their own agendas. They have no intention to abide by our laws, nor are they interested in assimilating to our culture,” she said.
What do you think about this bill? Will Muslims protest again?
++++++++++++++++++++++++
4)
I've learned....
That the best classroom in the world is at the 
feet of an elderly person.


 I've learned....
That you should never say no to a gift from a 
child 

I've learned....
That money doesn't buy class.


I've learned....
That when you plan to get even with someone,
you are only letting that person continue to 
hurt you.


 I've learned....
That life is tough, but I'm tougher.



I've learned....
That one should keep his words both soft and 
tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat

them.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 





Friday, April 28, 2017

Is My CONCERN Justified? Ten Disappearings.I






+++++++++++++++++++++++
Think about this. (See 1 below.)
+++++++++++++ 
Liberals and the far left have frequently been successful in ridding themselves of those they do not like. Their victims, in may instances, have contributed to their own downfall conduct-wise but conservatives also are more prone to capitulate and fall on their own sword because they do not know how to counter attack and/or fight back.  They are too patrician.

I cite Dewey, Bush 41, Romney, Gingrich among others.  In the communication field we have O'Reilly, and soon we shall see how Hannity and Watters fend off their detractors.

FOX is under attack because they threaten the left.  They have taken the heat off Limbaugh.

When the left feels threatened look out because they will resort to anything and generally begin with a series of attacks on their protagonist's character and escalate from there.

Fortunately, Trump is willing to fight back unlike far too many of his predecessors who just caved. Sometimes he goes overboard but his calling Warren , Pocahontas, and suggesting JEB suffered from low energy were classics.

My greatest fear is the misplaced hatred towards Trump can lead to tragedy. We already witnessed the hatred towards Kennedy. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++
Is China turning up the heat on N Korea and, if so, will it have an effect? (See 3 below.)
+++++++
The Iran Deal, Obama crammed through by circumventing Congress and the Constitutional demand that all treaties be approved by The Senate continues to give heartburn.  (See 4 below.)
====
Off to Athens and then Pittsburgh.  Returning late May 12. 
+++++++++++++
Dick
_________________________________________________
1) Subject: Ten things will  DISAPPEAR IN OUR LIFETIME......

1. The Post Office Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills. Will unions allow this to happen?

2. The Check  Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with check by 2018.  It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks.  Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check.  This plays right into the death of the post office.  If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper  The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper.  They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition.  That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man.  As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it.  The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance.  They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell     phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book  You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages  I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes.  I wanted my hard copy CD.  But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music.  The same thing will happen with books.  You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy.  And the price is less than half that of a real book.  And think of the convenience!  Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone  Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore.  Most people keep it simply because they've always had it.  But you are paying double charges for that extra service.  All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.

6. Music  This is one of the saddest parts of the change story.  The music industry is dying a slow death.  Not just because of illegal downloading.  It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it.  Greed and corruption is the problem.  The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing.  Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalogue items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with.  Older established artists.  This is also true on the live concert circuit.  To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."

7. Television Revenues   To the networks are down dramatically.  Not just because of the economy.  People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers.  And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV.  Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator.  Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds.  I say good riddance to most of it.  It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery.  Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The "Things" That You Own  Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future.  They may simply reside in "the cloud."  Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents.  Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be.  But all of that is changing.  Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services."  That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system.  So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet.  If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud.  If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud.  And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider.  In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device.  That's the good news.  But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?"  Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical?  It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

9. Joined Handwriting (Cursive Writing)  Already gone in some schools who no longer teach "joined handwriting" because nearly everything is done now on computers or keyboards of some type (pun not intended) sad!

10. Privacy  If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy.  That's gone.  It's been gone for a long time anyway..  There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone.  But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View.  If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits..  "They" will try to get you to buy something else.  Again and again and again.
++++++++++++++++++
2) RED ALERT: Serious Assassination Threat Against President Trump 

Top lawyers and researchers who monitor the political climate for threats of presidential assassination say Trump is in big trouble.


Many of these guys have dedicated years to researching the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
And they say President Trump is at even greater risk than JFK was.
And that’s all thanks to the mainstream media, Hollywood liberals and radicals like Black Lives Matter setting a very violent tone against Trump.
Speaking at the National Press Club, New York attorney co-chair of the Citizens Against Political Assassination (CAPA), Lawrence Schnapf, had this to say:
“I’m really worried, whether you like Donald Trump or not – I’m concerned about where this is going. The Deep State that conspired to assassinate JFK is still in place today.
“CAPA is going to do everything we can to get the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to make public all the JFK assassination records, even if we have to take legal action. But Donald Trump must understand the threat to his life from enemies within the Deep State is real.”
If you support President Trump, now is the time to PRAY.
+++++++++++++++++++
3)  BREAKING: China Delivers HUMILIATING Slap To Kim Jong Un

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have reached dangerous levels over the past few weeks, sparking concern in China that a second Korean War may be right around the corner.

China has no desire to see the United States topple the North Korean regime and plant a pro-Western government right on China’s borders. In fact, it appears that China may be taking actions to rein in North Korea.
An editorial published in the Global Times, a newspaper widely believed to be the unofficial mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, warned that North Korea would suffer if it conducted another nuclear test.
“The game of chicken between Washington and Pyongyang has come to a breaking point. If North Korea carries out a sixth nuclear test as expected, it is more likely than ever that the situation will cross the point of no return. All stakeholders will bear the consequences, with Pyongyang sure to suffer the greatest losses,” the editorial read.
The editorial seemed to suggest that China wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. launched a strike against North Korea if the country conducted another nuclear test — and perhaps more importantly, the article never suggested that China would respond to such an action.
“Once the US launched surgical strikes against North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities, the Pyongyang regime will be forced to make a life-or-death decision. By then, if North Korea does not resort to strategic retaliation, its deterrence will lose ground and Washington will play it like a fiddle,” stated the article.
China has already taken unprecedented action to show its displeasure with North Korea, such as turning away coal shipments from the country.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that he wants the Chinese to do more to stop North Korea, but that if they are unwilling to help him, he is willing to go it alone against North Korea.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4) Why the debate about Iran isn’t over
By Jonathan S. Tobin

When the Obama administration managed to avoid a congressional vote on its nuclear deal with Iran in the fall of 2015 courtesy of a Democratic Senate filibuster, the argument surrounding the controversial agreement seemed to be over. That’s why Democrats are reacting with impatience and skepticism about statements from the Trump administration about re-evaluating the deal.

Yet rather than an impotent gesture designed to distract us from a decision not to tear up the accord that President Donald Trump blasted throughout the 2016 election campaign, the administration’s talk of reopening the issue should be taken seriously. Trump’s foreign policy team is coming to grips with the fact that everything it hopes to accomplish in the Middle East as well as threats to U.S. security are connected to an Iranian regime immeasurably strengthened—both politically and economically—by Obama’s misguided effort to create détente with Tehran.

At best, the pact with Iran merely kicked the can down the road on the nuclear threat, since the accord will expire in a decade. With its advanced nuclear infrastructure and research ability left intact, Iran will soon be in position to achieve its nuclear ambitions while having its economy bolstered by revived ties with the West. Yet by deliberately ignoring Iran’s role as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, its illegal testing of ballistic missiles, and its military adventures in Iran and Yemen, Obama’s deal essentially made the Islamist regime even more dangerous to its Arab neighbors, as well as to Israel and the West, while seemingly leaving Trump with no choice but to live with the mess he inherited.

President Barack Obama left office certain that the unwillingness of America’s Western allies and the Russians to think about re-imposing sanctions on Iran essentially foreclosed any effort to revisit the deal. Western Europeans wish to benefit from the lifting of sanctions, while Moscow has worked closely with Iran in Syria as they pursue a joint war to keep the barbarous Bashar al-Assad regime in power. That effort ensures Islamic State will never be defeated, since so long as Assad and his Shi’a Iranian and Hezbollah forces are let loose in the country, the Sunni population will look to the terrorists for protection. Iran’s increased ability to deploy its terrorist allies also poses a threat to any effort to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians, or between Israel and the Arab world.

But those who assumed the Trump administration would give up and deem the problem insoluble may be wrong. Contrary to his critics’ assumptions, Trump doesn’t need to tear up the deal to attempt to undo its consequences. The pact gave broad leeway to its signatories to interpret its terms. This means Trump can police Iran far more strictly than Obama did. By tightening restrictions on terror groups—such as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has a hand in much of the country’s economic activity—the U.S. can start to recreate the leverage over the ayatollahs that Obama threw away in his feckless drive to get a deal at any price.

By designating any company involved with the IRGC as a terrorist entity, the U.S. could use existing American laws to essentially re-impose economic sanctions in a way that would put the brakes on Iran’s efforts to reconnect to the global economy. Moreover, though the Europeans and the Russians may not agree, Washington could force the rest of the world to follow its lead by making it clear that those who do business with terrorists won’t be able to also conduct commerce with American companies or use U.S. banks.

Support for such a policy should be bipartisan and ought to be strengthened by growing knowledge of Obama’s disinterest in enforcement of the nuclear agreement. Politico’s exposé about the prior administration’s decision to abandon the curbing of illegal Iranian efforts to procure military and nuclear material makes clear not only the mendacity of Obama’s effort to sell the deal, but the need to re-open the issue of sanctions.

Re-opening this issue is the only course of action the U.S. can take to curb the growing power of Iran, and to have any hope of creating stability in the Middle East or defeating Islamist terror. Rather than dismissing this as mere Trumpian bluster, those who purport to care about Israel or peace should be applauding the effort to revisit the Iran deal.

Jonathan S. Tobin is opinion editor of JNS.org, a contributing writer for National Review. and  an award-winning columnist, blogger and editor..