Pensions: An Economic Time Bomb
Who cares about public pension liability? Well, you should—after all, it’s the reason entire cities and even states are facing bankruptcy. Joshua Rauh, professor of finance at Stanford and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, paints a startling picture of just how broken the public pension system really is, and what will happen if we continue to ignore it.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This memo is largely devoted to the three topics and my thoughts:
a) The markets, b) Trump and c) Articles from the Naval War College Review:
I spoke about the market about a month ago and basically was correct. The market did drop, as I warned it might. Then, it also turned quickly, which I did not expect, but was not surprised based on the China Trade news.
Anyone who predicts what the market will do short term is a fool and generally wrong but these are factors that one can think about.
Market valuations are not very high based on low interest rates and the belief the economy will pick up speed in the 4th quarter.
Secondly, corporations have little use for extra capital so will continue buy backs and that helps smooths/buttresses EPS results.
Third, I believe China will be willing to sign a trade agreement but not the one Trump would prefer but he will probably agree and state that there will be further talks and prospects of a broader agreement which I suspect will not happen as he seeks.
Fourth, market sectors are narrow and it would be a favorable development if sector widening occurred.
Fifth, the consumer remains relatively un-leveraged, the market reached highs today but it was not based on euphoric enthusiasm.
Finally, we are going into the months when stocks, historically, do well. but before that happens we could have one more modest correction.
As for stocks: My BMY recommendation has done well, oils continue to lag and will until true demand improves and that means economic activity in Europe and China must first rise. From a contrarian standpoint, I still have faith IBM might begin to do better as it penetrates the AI market and its acquisition of Red Hat should continue to improve. I am willing to bet Kraft will eventually turn as they get their handle on selling what consumers now demand. This view is based on the belief new management understands what it must do and Buffet is a large investor. I am willing to stick with QCOM because I believe they will win their law suits, they are focused on 5G and will ride along with AAPL near term. My speculation in Dr. Frost's OPK, has been a disaster but they are showing favorable results in their dwarf growth drug and have just completed a sale of stock to generate funds for additional research. Management bought very large amounts of new stock.
T has worked out well price wise but I sill believe their management are not first class.
I own positions in all of the above mentioned stocks.
AAPL and CSCO have done very well but I doubt CSCO has much more upside until the Chinese economy recovers.
+++++++++++++++
As for president Trump I certainly got additional insights after reading O'Reilly's recent book. My own years of analysis gives me some insights of my own and I believe we deplorables got what we voted for along with a dose of a bit more egoism and unnecessary vulgar boorishness. That said, I also knew to focus on what he does more than what he says and I have been willing to give him latitude because he is not a DC establishment type nor ever will be..
I continue to believe Trump is unorthodox and, unlike most presidents I have known. He is committed to doing what he believes is practical, needs to be reversed, accomplished and is not driven totally by politics. I also believe he loves this country and is driven by his desire to set us back on a course that will confirm this nation remains the leader of the Western World. Finally, I believe he is a billionaire who understands the message the deplorables sent him and relishes the opportunity of doing more for American workers and their families.
He is not a racist and has been hurt by the hatred he and his family have endured considering the fact it is the Democrats and their radical friends who will be found to have done everything possible to thwart his efforts, to have lied to the FISA Courts and done so with contempt for the nation. I also believe Obama was aware of many of these efforts if not an instigator. Time will tell.
Trump is impatient and does act impetuously, at times, to his detriment and that of the nation but has shown he is willing to turn about and quickly.
When Trump accuses the mass media as dangerous, the haters get riled because they believe he wants to be a dictator when, in fact, he simply would like to see the mass media return to their roots as true unbiased ombudsmen.
As I have written untold times, once the mass media became controlled by corporate America entertainment supplanted facts and bias became the goal since it generates more revenue than reporting straight news. This is why the long term prospects for newspapers are dire and radio and demand for pod-casts are surging because radio is transportable and is proving to generate significant revenue.
There are those highly placed among the Hollywood Trend-Makers who are predicting such and working to bring it about.
Trump entered the office with scant knowledge of the ways of The Swamp who will never accept his ways nor will he accept the way he has been treated by a wildly biased mass media and a bunch of petulant politicians who have been at his throat since the get go. They remain unwilling to accept the fact that he beat them at their own game and now are grasping at anything to impeach him. He is the first Republican street fighter in my time and actually is amazing when it comes to remaining up beat, an indefatigable worker and a master at keeping his detractors off base.
He may not go down in the history books as one of our greatest presidents, because of his unorthodox ways, but he will be at the top of what needs to be another category of presidents because he will leave an indelible mark on The Oval Office that successors would be wise to follow, because he believes in the rule of law. He has not killed Political Correctness but at least he has put a knife in it.
Finally, I am convinced Trump sought the presidency, not for personal gain or personal power, only after becoming thoroughly disgusted with Obama's transformation of America. He, like the deplorables, believed he could handle the responsibilities and, given a chance, could right some of the wrongs we have allowed to incur.
I believe Trump has been a good president, has lived up to his pledge to do what he promised and has done so under the most difficult, if not despicable, circumstances.
If the election were held this November, I believe Trump would win an overwhelming re-election because the deplorables are content and the current field of Democrat candidates are worse than Hillary. The Democrat party has swung too far to the left and their attempt at impeachment will boomerang. (See 1, 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
AND:
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/10/
++++++++++++++++
Marko Tasic explores North Korea's Asymmetric Military Strategy and suggests they have accomplished 3 of their objectives and are close to completing the fourth (naval capabilities with intercontinental missiles.) The author concludes Korea has transformed their military strategies which we need to reassess
All warfare is based on deception and Korea is working towards layered not linear hybrid capabilities., ie. a combination of conventional and asymmetric forces and integrated capabilities. By this it is meant N Korea's strategy is based on an ability to meet U.S and S Korea head-on conventionally and through asymmetric capabilities to overwhelm with deception, disruption, sabotage, and interstate insurgency.
As I read this article I began to think perhaps China is aware of N Korea's advanced military capabilities and would like nothing better than for N Korea to try its hand at attacking and ultimately overwhelming S Korea and its American Ally while it announces it will respond to any attack on N Korea. What a message this would send to nations in the Pacific if it would be successful.
I also thought about Russia which we know penetrated our election in 2016 and continues to probe as well as China's theft of our intellectual properties and cyber attacks on our financial and military systems.
I seriously doubt N Korea is going to give up their military capabilities so they can become a developed nation which feeds it's people and offers them a degree of freedom. I rather believe,at some point in the future, they will undertake Pear Harbor 2 in the belief they can defeat S Korea as long as China announces they have their back. But then, what do I know about these matters?
All I can say is that if Tasic is correct about N Korea's improved capabilities I seriously doubt we have adequately prepared for them and Kim is not going to accommodate Trump's announced "quid pro quo."
Kim may be another dreaming dictator but having devoted his life, as have his predecessors, to constructing massive military capabilities it is little wonder why he would cave for an offer of a meal of tasty capitalism.
++++++++++++++++
Christian Heller discussed near term applications of artificial intelligence and it was most interesting to hear MICROSOFT's contract to supply our military with a large AI contract. beating out AMAZON.
Heller began to explain how AI would improve the speed, reliability, accuracy and reduction in cost of decision making, and I certainly concur. The Defense Department has embraced the concept and the author goes into some detail regarding the near-term applications of AI by the Navy and Marine Corps.
AI lends itself to personal productivity, planning, logistics, crisis response, training, intelligence, and force structure, among other eventual applications. Impeding it's introduction is training personnel, man-power availability and, of course, funding.
That AI is here and will grow like Topsy is a given. We are also not too far from robotic warfare. In this regard, everything I read suggests Russia is light years ahead of everyone.
Left up to those engaged in developing warfare technology one way to increase their funding, beyond necessity, is when you are able to make a valid case the civilian population are more likely to suffer less, then wars can then/will become more moral and possibly occur more often.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) The Air Force and Trump Turnberry
About that tempest in a Scottish tea cup: Consider it debunked.
The Editorial Board
Remember the brouhaha a couple months back about Air Force crews who stayed overnight at the Trump Turnberry golf resort in Scotland? The insinuations of corruption spread quickly, with the critics rolling out their favorite word, “emoluments.” But on this one the scandalmongers appear to owe President Trump an apology.
The Air Force on Friday released its official review of the matter, a 30-page report by the Air Mobility Command. Push past the jargon, and it’s pretty clear: “The data collected during this review convincingly confirmed that patterns across the 2015-2019 timeframe conform to use on the basis of operational military necessity.”
To dig in a little deeper, Scotland’s Prestwick Airport, which sits about 20 miles from the Trump Turnberry, is often preferred for operational reasons: It runs 24/7, with no quiet hours. It has long runways and fewer weight restrictions. Diplomatic clearances are easy to get from the United Kingdom, even for missions carrying hazardous cargo, and the weather is better than at other airfields in Britain.
“Although the review found no instances of inappropriate decision-making by aircrews transiting Prestwick Airport,” the report says, it suggests some additional training. One thing commanders should specifically be taught to weigh: “Are there any obvious concerns to be considered about public perception of where the crew is lodging?”
In other words, there’s nothing to see here, other than hype from the President’s critics. Last year the Trump Turnberry lost almost $14 million, according to the Scotsman newspaper. Since Mr. Trump bought the place in 2014, the resort’s losses run to more than $50 million. If the President’s illicit “profiteering” was to inveigle the hotel patronage of 31 U.S. aircrews over five years, it would be the most trivial corruption in history. Judging by this Air Force report, it isn’t even that.
1a)Foreign Influence and Double Standards
Democrats deplore Trump on Ukraine but not Clinton in 2016.
Democrats want to impeach Donald Trump for inviting Ukraine to investigate 2020 election rival Joe Biden. But then why are they opposed to investigating whether Democrats used Russian disinformation to get the FBI to investigate Donald Trump in 2016?
That’s the double standard now on gaudy public display over multiple news reports that U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the origins of the Russian fiasco of 2016 has become a criminal probe. Attorney General William Barr this year appointed Mr. Durham, a highly regarded and veteran prosecutor, to examine this part of the Russia tale that special counsel Robert Mueller chose to ignore.
Yet you’d now think, judging from the political reaction, that Mr. Durham was Rudy Giuliani. “These reports, if true, raise profound new concerns that the Department of Justice under AG Barr has lost its independence and become a vehicle for President Trump’s political revenge,” said a joint statement from Democratic impeachment investigators Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff.
“If the Department of Justice may be used as a tool of political retribution, or to help the President with a political narrative for the next election,” the statement added, “the rule of law will suffer new and irreparable damage.”
This is called pre-emptive political damage control. Democrats know that the Hillary Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Mr. Trump, and Fusion hired former British spook Christopher Steele, who compiled a dossier of allegations about Mr. Trump from Russian sources that turned out to be false.
Worse, Fusion funneled the dossier to the FBI, which used it to persuade the secret FISA court to issue a warrant to eavesdrop on Trump official Carter Page. Democrats now want to discredit any attempt to hold people accountable if crimes were committed as part of this extraordinary dirty trick.
But how can you be appalled about one form of foreign intervention in U.S. politics while whitewashing another? Based on the public evidence so far, Mr. Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden’s activities in 2016. Mr. Trump may also have delayed U.S. aid as leverage to persuade Ukraine’s new president to open an investigation. Yet the aid did flow again starting Sept. 11, even though Ukraine never opened the investigation of the Bidens that Mr. Trump wanted. In other words, Democrats want to impeach Mr. Trump for asking Ukraine to investigate an opponent, even though he failed.
By notable contrast, the Clinton campaign’s invitation and payment for foreign intervention in 2016 against Donald Trump succeeded. Russian disinformation was used by America’s premier law enforcement agency to justify investigating an American presidential campaign. This is what Mr. Durham is looking into, and thank heavens someone finally is.
Regarding potential crimes, Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham referred Mr. Steele to the FBI and Justice Department “for investigation of potential violation(s)” in 2018 related to the dossier and Mr. Steele’s public comments. Devin Nunes, former head of the House Intelligence Committee, also sent eight criminal referrals to Justice this year related to the Russia probe, including leaks of “highly classified material.”
Mr. Durham may decide not to charge anyone with crimes in the end, and that’s fine. What Americans deserve to know is what happened, including who in the Obama Administration or FBI worked with Fusion GPS, whether the White House or CIA were involved, and what James Comey’s FBI told the FISA court. People need to be held publicly accountable so reforms can be made and to serve as a deterrent so this doesn’t happen again.
Mr. Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine will be investigated to a fare-thee-well, and it seems inevitable that Democrats will impeach him. They have wanted to do so since the day he was elected. But they and their media friends can’t then object with a straight face to an investigation into the Clinton campaign’s solicitation of Russian misinformation in 2016. Their double standard is impeaching the credibility of their impeachment of Donald Trump.
1b)
Pelosi Peril: Impeachment Not Looking Too Popular in These Key Swing States By Guy Benson
We've written about impeachment polling for quite some time, noting that public support for that process was deep underwater following the release of the Mueller report, then tracking voter sentiment evolving from unchanged to generally supportive of at least an impeachment inquiry, as related to the Ukraine/quid pro quo matter. As things currently stand, national surveys show a clear majority in favor of the inquiry, with opinions split on the question of conviction and removal. There is no disputing that the president's standing on this question has eroded in recent weeks, and that empowered Democrats are feeling bolder. That being said, while pro-impeachment fervor appears to be running high in the heavily-populated anti-Trump precincts of coastal blue states, this observation should give the president's electoral college-minded opponents some pause:I'm not surprised by this in the least, given the media's obvious rooting interest on all things Trump, but I'd be surprised if Nancy Pelosi -- who was always skittish about the I-word, and who still hasn't called a vote to formally launch the inquiry -- weren't keeping an eye on this data out of two highly contested 2020 battlegrounds:
A new Marquette University poll from the state of Wisconsin finds that 44% of voters want President Donald Trump impeached and removed from office, while 51% do not want him impeached and removed from office...A look at the national polls indicate that impeaching and removing Trump from office is at, a minimum, a plurality position...Florida is one of the most important swing states in the nation. Trump won there by only a point in 2016. With 29 electoral votes, Democrats would likely take back the presidency with a win there in 2020. A poll of Florida voters conducted by the University of North Florida out this week shows the divide at 46% in support of impeaching and removing Trump and 48% opposed to it.
From a political perspective, states like Florida and Wisconsin are decent stand-ins for the electorate's views in the sorts of closely-divided House districts that helped Democrats gain their lower chamber majority in 2018. But as Enten points out in his piece, this phenomenon isn't relegated to this pair of swing states:
Take an examination of the battleground states that Democrats almost certainly need to make inroads into in 2020. The New York Times and Siena College, 2018's most accurate pollster, took a poll of voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Arizona. These were closest states in the country that cast their electoral votes for Trump in 2016...Just 43% of voters in these six states want to impeach and remove from office at this point. The majority, 53%, do not. This means that the margin for not impeaching and removing Trump in these states (+10 points) is running well ahead of Trump's margin in these states of about 1.5 points. Put another way, impeaching and removing Trump from office in these states is not a popular position.
Polling does not and should not affect the substance of presidential misconduct or potentially impeachable offenses (here's the latest on the quid pro quo question), but because the whole process is inherently and explicitly political, public opinion considerations matter a great deal. I reject the notion that opinions are already set in stone, no matter what evidence emerges. As we documented above, voters shifted from solidly anti-impeachment, based on one set of information, to slightly pro-impeachment, based on another. Facts on the ground matter. And on the Ukraine scandal, I suspect that there are still quite a few facts yet to emerge -- especially if this man, who cannot be mistaken for a deep state agent, delivers testimony devastating to the president. We're following it all, with an eye toward accuracy and fairness; we'll see where developments may lead.
It must also be said that if or when evidence emerges that President Trump's opponents are revealed to have abused their power in pursuit of various machinations, the waters on impeachment could get awfully muddy. We've been keeping tabs on the Horowitz and Durham probes, having highlighted that the latter has morphed into a criminal investigation, reportedly (at least partially) due to findings in the former. This developing sequence is no accident, says a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee:
will be dropping on both sides of the investigation wars, quite possibly very soon.
Guy Benson's Latest Book, End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun). is available on Amazon
ic)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ic)
| ||
|
No comments:
Post a Comment