Blake Brings In The New Year.
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Did you know that small businesses provide employment for roughly half of the United States’ workforce? That means a lot of people’s income depends on small businesses thriving. But high taxes and intrusive government regulations cost these businesses money and hinder their ability to grow, create new jobs, and raise the wages of their workers. How would tax cuts for these small businesses benefit the U.S. economy and help just about everyone? Find out in this week’s video.
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Saw Samuel T Jackson on TV
He said he was leaving the country if Trump won
What is he still doing here?
He is supposed to take Michael Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, Whoopi Goldberg and ten other Hollywood anti-Trumper's with him.
And they accuse Trump of lying. Can't believe anyone these days.
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Predictions are just that. These were sent by a friend and fellow memo reader. (See 1 below.)
My own market forecast is as follows:
I expect the market to continue to do better for the time being because of tax reform, repatriation, ability to write off 100% of new equipment, consumer spending should pick up and infrastructure spending could begin. I also see the beginning of a co-ordinated world economic recovery.
I would not be surprised if a correction occurred some time in 2018 but, for the moment, I see no recession. The negatives to consider are as follows:
Market extended valuations, N Korea and Iran confrontation, Fed raising rates could produce headwinds, possible resurgence in inflation , trade war, Democrat intransigence and 2018 election could cause Republicans to lose control of the House but I am more positive they will not than most..
As for market sectors, I believe energy and raw materials will do better, selected technology remains a place for exposure and health care and capital formation should also do relatively well along with financial stocks.
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Netanyahu remains a highly respected leader among a large percentage of Americans. (See 2 below.)
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Clever aphorism's and conundrum's (See 3 below.)
Finally, a few thoughts why societies only last 200 plus years.
Things get bad, capitalism comes along and makes things better. As things get better, people want to get rid of capitalism and try socialism.
Socialism makes things worse and by then it is too late to bring back capitalism.
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Can we do anything to help protesting Iranians or should we ignore their plight as Obama did? (See 4 below.)
I have not had time to read more in Elliott Abram's book but it could not have come at a more propitious time.
I asked him what he thought we could/should do about the protesting Iranians and he said take a page from Reagan's playbook.
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It is the beginning of the New Year and we have our granddaughter, Dagny, here this week so this is probably my last e mail until we return from taking her home Sunday. I made sure she watched the Ga. game this evening but it was too late for her to watch Bama win. The match -up between Alabama and Georgia was made in heaven.
Finally, I thought I would end with some humor. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)*Predictions:*
1. Auto repair shops go away. A gasoline engine has 20,000 individual parts.
An electrical engine has 20. Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees
and are only repaired by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and
replace an electric engine. Faulty electric engines are not repaired in the
dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with
robots. Essentially, if your electric "Check Motor"
light comes on, you simply drive up to what looks like a car wash. Your car is
towed through while you have a cup of coffee and out comes your car with a
new engine.
2. Gas stations go away. Parking meters are replaced by meters that dispense
electricity. All companies install electrical recharging stations.
3.. All major auto manufacturers have already designated 5-6 billion dollars
each to start building new plants that only build electric cars.
4. Coal industries go away. Oil companies go away. Drilling for oil stops.
5. Homes produce and store more electrical energy during the day and then
they use and will sell it back to the grid. The grid stores it and dispenses
it to industries that are high electricity users.
A baby of today will only see personal cars in museums.
1. The FUTURE is approaching faster than one can handle! In 1998, Kodak had
170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a
few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.
What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next
5-10 years and, most people won't see it coming.
Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures
on film again?
Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had
10,000 pixels, but followed Moore 's law. So as with all exponential
technologies, it was a disappointment for a time, before it became way
superior and became mainstream in only a few short years. It will now
happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence, health,
autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs.
Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Welcome to the Exponential Age!!
2. Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.
3 Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, yet they are now
the biggest taxi company in the world.
4. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't
own any properties.
5.. Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in
understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in
the world, 10 years earlier than expected.
6. In the U.S., young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM's
Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff)
within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by
humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer
lawyers in the future, only omniscient specialists will remain.
6A. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, its 4 times more accurate
than human nurses.
7. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces
better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than
humans.
8. Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the
public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted.
You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it
will show up at your location and drive you to your destination.
You will not need to park it you only pay for the driven distance and can be
productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a
driver's license and will never own a car.
8A. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for
that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks.
1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now
have one accident every 60,000 mi (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that
will drop to 1 accident in 6 million miles (10 million km). That will save a
million lives worldwide each year.
8B. Most car companies will doubtless become bankrupt. Traditional car
companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while
tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and
build a computer on wheels.
8C. Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of
Tesla
9. Insurance companies will have massive trouble because, without accidents,
the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model
will disappear.
10. Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute,
people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood..
11. Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less
noisy because all new cars will run on electricity.
12. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has
been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the
burgeoning impact.
13. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil.
Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to
prevent competition from home solar installations, but that simply cannot
continue. technology will take care of that strategy.
14. With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water.
Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0..25 cents). We don't
have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water.
Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he
wants, for nearly no cost.
15. Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are
companies who will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star
Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood
sample and you breath into it. It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will
identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on
this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for
free.
16.. 3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from
$18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times
faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes.
17. Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports.
The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large
amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.
18. At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning
possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at
home.
19. In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-story office
building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D
printed.
20. Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, first
ask yourself: "In the future, do I think we will have that?"
And, if
the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?
20A. If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. Any idea designed
for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.
20B. Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be
a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in
such a short time.
21. Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future.
Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field
instead of working all day on their fields.
22. Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal
is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018.
Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we
don't need that space anymore.
23. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market
shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as
"alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of
eating insects).
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2)
Bibi Netanyahu just showed us how to make Iranian ministers eat the lies they spew
Once again Iranian leaders have attacked humanity. They arrested Christians, merely for being Christians.
Yet the irony is that publicly, they pretend to be good, fair Muslim leaders and wish everyone a “Merry Christmas.”
But behind closed doors, they arrest Christians. What utter hypocrisy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is standing up for those victims.
He is standing up to Iran. After years of the world giving in to Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been the one constant voice of morality against evil.
Human rights in Iran are abysmal. A few years ago, six Iranians were arrested for dancing to the song “Happy.”
There is no freedom of the press, and political freedom is a joke. Iranian leaders want to kill Jews.
They imprison Christians. And they deny their own citizens basic human rights.
The Iran terror regime has got to go!
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3)
skydiving is not for you.
I read that 4,153,237 people got married last year. Not to cause any trouble, but shouldn't that be an even number?
Relationships are a lot like algebra. Have you ever looked at your X and wondered Y?
America is a country which produces citizens who will cross the ocean to fight for democracy but won't cross the street to vote.You know that tingly little feeling you get when you love someone? That's your common sense leaving your body.
My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We'll see about that
You're not fat, you're just easier to see.
The location of your mailbox shows you how far away from your house you can go in a robe before you start looking like a mental patient.
I think it's pretty cool how Chinese people made a language entirely out of tattoos.
Here are six Conundrums of Socialism in the United States of America :
1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.
2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other Countries only dream about..
6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about, yet they want America to be more like those other countries.
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4)Where We Can Agree on Iran
How Americans of both political parties can come together to support the Iranian people.
By MARK DUBOWITZ and DANIEL B. SHAPIRO
Imagine a free, democratic, independent and wealthy Iran giving full expression to the beauty of Persian culture and the brains and spirit of its people. Imagine a political, clerical and military elite that doesn’t steal its country’s patrimony while brutally repressing its own people and terrorizing its neighbors. We are long-time friends who have disagreed vehemently on the wisdom of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran; Dan is Obama’s former ambassador to Israel, and Mark is one of that agreement’s most persistent critics. But we agree with equal passion that Americans, regardless of party or position on the nuclear deal, should be supporting the aspirations of Iranians to be free from their brutal and corrupt rulers. That’s the dream of the tens of thousands of Iranians who have taken to the streets this past weekend in dozens of cities across the country.
Iranians are on the streets voicing fury about corruption, inflation and unemployment—but they are also directing their ire against the regime’s foreign adventurism in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza and against the billions of dollars provided to terrorist proxies like Hezbollah. The Iranian clerical regime is a cruel, human-rights abusing, terrorism-sponsoring menace that is destabilizing the Middle East, developing and proliferating missiles and seeking nuclear weapons. It runs an economy so far incapable of capitalizing on the relief of sanctions for the good of its people because it is regime-controlled, socialist, centrally planned and stifling to private entrepreneurship. Companies controlled by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the clerical establishment provide billions to grease their corrupt patronage networks. They have permeated key sectors of the economy, creating legal and reputational risks that have sidelined both foreign and private Iranian investors.
One clear takeaway from these protests is that, as outsiders, we don’t know enough. The causes of the protests are not monolithic, their scale is significant but not necessarily determinative, the trajectory is uncertain, the leadership unclear and the regime’s response is likely to be repressive. We must approach these protests with humility in understanding their ultimate meaning and impact. They are big, bold, widespread, impressive and heartfelt—but we have no idea if these protests will mushroom into a genuine threat to the regime. We hope so; any prospect of shortening this Iranian regime’s lease on life should be welcomed. If this movement could lead to the end of Khamenei’s regime, it would be a boon mostly for Iranians but also for Lebanese, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Israelis, Palestinians, Saudis, Emiratis—and for Americans.
There is no reason for anyone who worked in the Obama administration or supported the nuclear deal to not embrace these arguments. The rationale for the deal was to roll back this odious regime from the precipice of a nuclear weapon so that the United States could confront other pressing Iranian threats. The Obama administration’s belief that this was, and remains, the best (or least bad) strategic call, given the nuclear threat, need not lessen our antipathy for this thuggish regime nor our hope for its demise. Deal supporters should also be open to dialogue with deal opponents, whose concerns over nuclear restrictions that sunset, inspection rights of military sites that might prove insufficient and a missile program that is expanding has led them to raise valid concerns. Chief among these: the need for measures to augment and extend the deal’s provisions to prevent the eventual development of an industrial-size, advanced centrifuge-powered, near-zero nuclear weapons breakout capability and intercontinental ballistic missile program in the hands of this regime.
Nuclear deal supporters and opponents should resist the urge to make this a “gotcha moment” for people with whom they have tussled on Iran policy. This undermines the cause of ensuring broad, bipartisan support for peaceful protests, and hopefully real political change. Let’s focus on the Iranian people and what the United States and our European allies can do to advance their aspirations, not our own political squabbles. We can all agree that hundreds of thousands of people protesting massive regime corruption and repression should worry autocrats all over the world, from Iran’s Khamenei to Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
What is to be done? Americans of both parties should speak up. Iranians, like dissidents everywhere, are looking for support from abroad. The Trump administration’s early statements have been important—as have statements from Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bernie Sanders, and Republican and Democratic lawmakers. More attention to their cause, and more media coverage, may help stay the security forces’ hand and encourage governments to isolate the Iranian regime.
But more is required. First, officials both current and former should be flooding the airwaves on Persian-language television and radio to express their support for the Iranian people’s human rights and aspirations. Let’s provide details on the stolen assets held by regime and IRGC officials, and the vast sums spent on Iran’s destabilizing regional interventions. U.S. taxpayers have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Voice of America’s Persian Service and Radio Farda. Let’s use them. Keep politics out of it. Condemn the regime’s human rights abuses and corruption; don’t re-litigate the Iran deal.
Second, Congress should pass a joint bipartisan resolution modeled on the language it passed overwhelmingly in 2012 in the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act in support of the “efforts made by the people of Iran to promote the establishment of basic freedoms that build the foundation for the emergence of a freely elected, open, and democratic political system.” It again should condemn the government of Iran’s “massive, systematic, and extraordinary violations of the human rights of its citizens.” Update the language and get 535 members of Congress to endorse it.
Third, the White House, with an assist from the Republican and Democratic leadership in Congress, should use authorities in bipartisan statutes to target the regime for corruption through the Global Magnitsky Act and for human rights abuses through the many executive orders and statutes on the books. The ongoing crackdown on the peaceful protests will provide additional targets for designation. Make no mistake: Iranian regime officials don’t like being the target of travel bans, the loss of access to the global financial system or the infamy that comes with being named and shamed. In this regard, our European allies are particularly well positioned to support us given their impressive track record in calling out Iranian government repression, and their countries’ more extensive business ties in Iran. To increase the impact on those designated, they should deny the access to Europe that many representatives of the regime desire.
Finally, the Trump administration, with bipartisan backing, should use sections 402 and 403 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act, passed with overwhelming support in 2012, to threaten sanctions against global entities that supply the Iranian regime with tools of repression and censorship. The White House should seek to ensure that companies like Telegram, Twitter and Instagram are not complying with Iranian regime requests to block channels used by protesters to organize and communicate. These companies can be on the right side of history by doing all they can to give Iranians the access they need to evade regime surveillance.
No matter what we say and do, the regime will seek to blame the United States for the protests. It is already happening. That is a reason for being smart by keeping the Iranian people at the forefront to avoid inadvertently weakening their initiative, but not for doing nothing. As a further measure to debunk the regime’s claims and proving our support for the people, the Trump administration should consider ending the blanket travel ban on Iranian citizens
This is an important moment. The Iranian protests could contribute, one day, to a peaceful Iran leveraging the initiative of its remarkable people to build a free and prosperous society, at peace with its neighbors and the United States. That goal—even as we still argue about the nuclear deal—should unite our fractious political elites, at least on one issue.
Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is an Iran sanctions expert at the foundation.Daniel B. Shapiro is distinguished visiting fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. He served as U.S. ambassador to Israel and as senior director for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Security Council during the Obama administration.
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5)
NO ONE BELIEVES SENIORS ANYMORE!
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