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NATO TRUMP BUDGET BUMP!
https://www.facebook.com/
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Shifty Schiff parses words. What a snake. (See 1 below.)
Shifty Schiff parses words. What a snake. (See 1 below.)
The President Agrees to Delay the State of the Union. Now He Must Win the Shutdown Fight
With Nancy Pelosi telling the President he is not welcome on the House floor to give the State of the Union while the government is partially closed, President Trump originally suggested he would go elsewhere.
But now President Trump is announcing he will postpone the State of the Union address until the government reopens...
Read More...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I am back from Athens and , it is evident,Trump got his face rubbed in it by Pelosi and the and the nation lost the first round. However, when you play with fire, as I believe Schumer and Pelosi, are, you eventually can get singed or worse, badly burned. Trump came forth with a reasonable proposal and is the only president in 30 years to try and resolve this terrible problem which has been foot-balled for decades. If he plays his cards correctly, as president, it is his responsibility to protect our nation and the fight over no border etc. could/should become a losing battle for Democrats if they keep pressing their battle to thwart him because it will become evident, in time, their hatred for him transcends their responsibility to govern, prove their equal hatred for the country. and turn into a losing battle. In three weeks, time will tell. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ While I was driving Lynn was listening to Rush and he made a cogent observation. He was responding to The New York's Senate bill that makes abortions constitutionally protected and even allows them to be performed as lat as one's due date. Rush pointed out that we do more to protect turtle eggs than human beings. My liberals friends hate Rush even though they have never actually listened to him. They simply are listening to those who also hate him and who have never actually listened to him. These are the same ones who hate FOX for the same illogical reason. As for myself, I believe liberals began attacking religion in order to lay the groundwork for considering fetuses not human so they could then justify legislation that resulted in their destruction.
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Oh Ocasio, the face/voice of the Radical Democrat Party? (See 2 below.)
So far the five or so Democrat candidates who have announced they want to be president began by apologizing for past comments, offered nothing that is constructive or solves our many problems but all favor socialism or socialistic solutions. Our economic system offers one the ability to move up or down the economic scale, challenges entrepreneurship and is more likely to reward one's creative efforts whereas socialism generally allows one to share misery in an equal manner. All of these candidates need to go to Cuba, and/or Venezuela and starve for a few weeks and then return to America. They honestly believe taxing the rich is the solution to disparity. Like Steve Martin, who played in the movie where he was raised by a black family and his adoptive father said, when asked about their white son responded, "he does not know s--- from Shinola."
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This link from my son, Daniel:http://www.citylab.com/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I received this from a very dear and long time friend and fellow memo reader. (See 3 below.) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Another Ross Rant! (See 4 below.) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dick |
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1)
Dem Rep Admits to Leaking Trump Jr.'s
Testimony
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and anti-Trump Representative Adam Schiff has admitted that he is the one who leaked details of Donald Trump Jr.'s testimony.
According to The Daily Caller:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff defended himself Tuesday against Donald Trump Jr.’s accusation of leaking by stating he didn’t “leak” testimony, but rather he exposed it.
“That’s not a leak, it is exposure of his non-cooperation and his stonewalling of our committee,” Schiff responded when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer confronted him about Trump’s allegation.
“He’s been making this claim all along. What upsets Don Jr., and I can understand why he’s upset, is he was saying publicly, ‘I’m fully cooperating with Congress, I’m answering all their questions,” Schiff said. “Then he goes before our committee and refuses to answer a whole host of questions, making completely fallacious claims of privilege, and we called him out on it as we have done with other witnesses.”
2
How demented is the American left? Ocasio-Cortez is their Pied Piper
To the media and to the left, facts are no longer relevant or remotely important. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says so; facts have no relation to morality! This woman's muddled thinking could be a danger to us all because, even though she was selected by only 16,000 voters out of 691,000 in her district, the leftist media adore her and she has become their shooting star.
If she were not so ignorant of all things American, historical, economic or so lacking in common sense, she could well be dangerous. Despite her many shortcomings, the MSM is intent upon making her the face of the Democratic Party. She is more politically illiterate than almost any other member of Congress, but she and her supporters think she is an oracle of wisdom. She is very confident in her ability to take over the House, to rid it of the old people in her party and in her cosmic right to subpoena her critics! She has not a clue what our Constitution says; it is a safe bet she has never read it, studied it or taken a class in American history that was not taught by an anti-American Marxist.
Her millions of Twitter followers no doubt think she is smart as well. How depressing is that? They love her punish-the-rich- for-being-rich rhetoric. She is advocating confiscating 70% of the income of high earners. She is offended by the very existence of billionaires. She was apparently never taught anything about economics even though that is the discipline in which she has a degree from Boston U. What she got in university was what nearly all college students get these days: Marxist/socialist, anti-American nonsense that makes fools of them once they venture out into the world (like the feminist who produced that odious man-hating Gillette ad). Bernie Sanders advocated Venezuela's brand of socialism not so long ago and he was old enough to know better. How has that worked out? AOC envisions the kind of socialism Sweden enjoys! Sweden has billionaires, she will be surprised to learn.
Caricature by Donkey Hotey
Who does AOC think created the lifestyle Americans enjoy today, the vast choices we have when we walk into any place of business, from grocery and department stores to online shopping? She objects to personally-owned helipads (Michael Bloomberg) but seems to have no knowledge of what it takes, who it takes, to build helicopters and helipads (or yachts, or luxury cars, or mansions, the designer clothes she loves). Rich people, as Mark Levin has long and regularly reminded us, invent things, they change the world for the better. Most of them have worked hard and earned their wealth. They create millions of jobs. Soros and Steyer are exceptions to that rule: they manipulate currency and use their wealth in an attempt to impose their brand of fascism upon us all.
Ocasio-Cortez, like Kirsten Gillibrand of NY, speaks with a voice and self-assured knowledge of a nine-year-old child, is perhaps the best media creation to happen to the Republican Party in ages. If this person does not wake up Americans to the lunacy of the left, we are over as a nation; we cannot be not over. Ocasio-Cortez is a wake-up call if there ever were one. She says that the world is going to end in twelve years because of climate change. Al Gore is a laughingstock for making such dire predictions thirty years ago; none of them have come true. His film, An Inconvenient Truth, has been thoroughly discredited. It's a safe bet that she has never read the volumes of dissenting opinions on climate change. She most likely never took a class in energy production. She is a walking, talking advertisement for the disintegration and the dumbing-down of higher education and by extension the Democratic Party as currently constituted.
Sane liberals who are aware of Trump's remarkable accomplishments on the economy, bringing manufacturing back the US, the lowest unemployment ever for blacks and Hispanics, the revival of small businesses thanks to de-regulation, and making the US the number one oil producer in the world, will not fall for an ill-educated lightweight like Ocasio-Cortez.
Only those who hate Trump more than they love America will support a moonbat like this woman. She is not so much a shooting star but a "withering blade of grass." Do read Dov Fischer's column at American Spectator. Nancy Pelosi is doing her best to destroy her party but Ocasio-Cortez is leading it off the cliff like the Pied Piper did the children of Hamelin.
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3)
Davos Chattering
By Andrew Ross Sorkin
New York Times
The circulation of a letter from the investor Seth A. Klarman is likely to add to the typical hand-wringing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The letter says mounting debt since the financial crisis could lead to a panic. Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
DAVOS, Switzerland — As business and political leaders arrive in the Swiss Alps for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, a surprisingly alarming letter from an influential investor who studiously eschews attention has already emerged as a talking point.
The letter, written by Seth A. Klarman, a billionaire investor known for his sober and meticulous analysis of the investing world, is a huge red flag about global social tensions, rising debt levels and receding American leadership.
Mr. Klarman, a 61-year-old value investor, runs Baupost Group, which manages about $27 billion. He doesn’t make the annual pilgrimage to Davos, but his words are often invoked by policymakers and executives who do. His dire letter, which is considerably bleaker than his previous writings, is a warning shot that a growing sense of political and social divide around the globe may end in an economic calamity.
“It can’t be business as usual amid constant protests, riots, shutdowns and escalating social tensions,” he wrote.
He made the remarks in a 22-page annual letter to his investors, which include the endowments of Harvard and Yale and some of the wealthiest families in the world. It was being passed around ahead of the Davos gathering, which draws business leaders like Bill Gates and Sheryl Sandberg, social and cultural figures like Bono, and elected officials like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
Mr. Klarman expressed bafflement at how investors often shrugged off President Trump’s Twitter outbursts and the retreating American role in the world during the past year.
“As the post-World War II international order continued to erode, the markets ignored the longer-term implications of a more isolated America, a world increasingly adrift and global leadership up for grabs,” he wrote.
Mr. Trump and the United States delegation canceled plans to attend the Davos conference because of the government shutdown, which will leave Ms. Merkel and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan with an opportunity to fill the leadership void.
Citing the “yellow vest” marches in France that spread throughout Europe, Mr. Klarman said, “Social frictions remain a challenge for democracies around the world, and we wonder when investors might take more notice of this.” He added, “Social cohesion is essential for those who have capital to invest.”
Mr. Klarman, sometimes called the Oracle of Boston, is one of the few financiers ever praised by that Omaha oracle, Warren Buffett. His views are so sought after that an out-of-print book he wrote about value investing sells for as much as $1,500 on Amazon.
The circulation of his letter is likely to add to the hand-wringing that typically takes place in Davos during a week of panels and conversation over Champagne and canapés.
For one thing, he details the way virtually every developed country has taken on mounting debt since the financial crisis in 2008, a trend that he says could lead to a financial panic. He cites the increasing ratio of government debt to gross domestic product from 2008 to 2017, to a point exceeding 100 percent in the United States and nearing that figure in France, Canada, Britain and Spain.
“The seeds of the next major financial crisis (or the one after that) may well be found in today’s sovereign debt levels,” he said.
Mr. Klarman is especially worried about debt load in the United States, what it could mean to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency and how it could ultimately affect the country’s economy.
“There is no way to know how much debt is too much, but America will inevitably reach an inflection point whereupon a suddenly more skeptical debt market will refuse to continue to lend to us at rates we can afford,” he wrote. “By the time such a crisis hits, it will likely be too late to get our house in order.”
Mr. Klarman believes that the public, almost irrationally, has become too blasé about all these risks and that investors have been lulled into taking on even more risk.
“Individuals, professional investors and financiers are prone to project their own recent experiences into the future,” he wrote. “So when adversity is absent, investors become complacent. They assume good times will continue, and they grow careless about risk, perceiving it through rose-colored lenses.”
In 2017, Mr. Klarman returned some of his fund to his investors, saying he didn’t see enough good investment opportunities. Yet he also acknowledged in his letter that even if he expected an eventual crisis, “since the worst does not frequently happen, you cannot let the fear of a monster storm completely paralyze you.” He seems to wrestle in his letter with how to continue investing profitably while protecting himself and his firm against his fatalistic expectations.
Mr. Klarman, a registered independent, was a donor to Republicans for years but has become a critic of Mr. Trump and has sought to elect Democrats to neutralize him. He said in his letter that he was particularly worried about the social and economic implications of Mr. Trump’s efforts to paint accurate information as “fake news.”
“This post-truth moment is quite dangerous,” Mr. Klarman wrote. “Imagine an incident that threatens national security. Will Americans see eye to eye on the seriousness of the threat? If our leaders are truth-challenged, will Americans believe the official explanation of the threat and the wisdom of the proposed response? Should they?”
The many technology companies in Davos — Facebook, Google and Amazon among them — may also want to take note of Mr. Klarman’s anxiety that “more and more people are choosing to only seek out information from those who share their views” and his blame that “technology and social media have made it increasingly easy to do so.”
Whether a crisis is around the corner or still years away, Mr. Klarman seems relatively convinced that it is coming and that it will manifest itself not just in a market downturn but potentially in more violence as well.
“It is not hard to imagine worsening social unrest among a generation,” he wrote, “that is falling behind economically and feels betrayed by a massive national debt that was incurred without any obvious benefit to them.”
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4)China has now made it official and public- their economy is the slowest in almost 30 years. They reported 6.6% growth, but everyone knows the real number is far lower. The growth number that matters is the private sector growth, if it is separated out from the provincial make work infrastructure projects, and the state subsidized manufacturers which hire and produce just to keep labor employed. It is possible the private sector is much slower than the official number. The government will be pumping up bank liquidity and spending on infrastructure to juice growth. However, that means the effort to reduce excessive debt will be badly set back. The problems in China are not recent. They have been building for several years as the economy shifts to more consumer driven, and as all of the massive project construction and debt financing has finally come back to bite them. Chinese growth has been debt fueled for decades, and they simply cannot keep doing that. Part of the problem is the corruption in banking. Loan officers often get a 10% kickback share of the loan to approve it. So they make many loans that would never get made in the US. Many provinces way over spent because the officials got paid off out of the project funding, and Beijing was pushing growth. Meantime the number of elderly has grown by tens of millions with little way to pay for their healthcare. China has a real debt problem long term.
The whole world is way over levered now, which means there cannot be high interest rates maybe for decades, or the world economy will crash. US rates may be capped at around 3.5% by the Fed, or we will see severe consequences. The US government cannot afford it, nor can many states and companies. The ECB is trying to end QE, but they may have to restart it this year as the EU economy slows. If there is a hard Brexit, and if there is no deal with the US on trade and then high US tariffs, the EU will crash. Bottom line, interest rates and Fed raises will flatten for now. It is unclear if the Fed will raise at all in 2019. With the shutdown impact there is zero chance it will raise first half.
The real issue in trade talks is IP theft and investing rules being changed are still to be resolved. The pure trade issues are relatively easy and seem to be far along to fixing. It will be March before we know if the IP issues really get worked out, and if there is a mechanism to penalize China when they cheat- which they will surely try to do. They not only steal IP to try to catch up on civilian products, but they have stolen military tech which they are now using to dramatically upgrade their capability. So the real issue in the trade talks has far more to do with national security and military dominance than it does with balance of trade. China is a far more critical threat than Russia which is much smaller and far less wealthy. If China and Russia ever teamed up in a war it would be very ugly and deadly for the world. I doubt that will ever happen, but who ever thought in 1935 that Germany, and Japan would both launch world war at the same time. It could happen in a similar fashion. Russia attacks somewhere in Ukraine or the Baltics, or tries to expand outside of Syria to save Iran, and China then says -now the US and NATO are tied up in Europe so what better time to unleash N Korea on S Korea, and we attack Taiwan at the same time. None of this is likely to happen, but who knows what Putin might do. All the talking heads and economists who blather on about the trade issues are missing the real issue. Luckily Trump has reversed the near devastation of the US military, so the chances of war are far less today than if Hilary and the Dems had been elected. This is also why it is so important to keep the far left out of power where they would again vote to severely reduce military spending. Wars start when one side builds up, and the other side cuts back its military and relies on pure wishful thinking diplomacy. The Obama foreign and military policy was naïve wishful thinking which led to ISIS and Iran being such a threat today.
The market is up and down a little again because there is talk of a world slowdown at Davos. That is not new news. We have been hearing about a worldwide slowdown for several months. That China is slowing, and Brexit may blow up, is also not news. Nothing really changed this week. The IMF still is forecasting over 3% growth. It is unclear how the IMF has any confidence that any projection has reality. In the US, with all its sophisticated data collection and data analysis, cannot provide firm assurance that its GDP numbers are wholly accurate, and we know the numbers always get revised. Everyone knows China lies materially about its growth numbers. Most countries do not have accurate methods to collect data. So how much confidence can the IMF have to really predict world economic growth other than trend. Corporations are lowering forecasts so they can still meet projections in case the insanity in DC, or the geopolitical issues create a slower economy. Beating projections is more important to CFOs than accuracy of the projections. So be careful not to get too focused on these reduced numbers. They might turn out to be correct, but the uncertainty is creating a lot of CYA. If you listen to the real adults who are economists or in Wall St, who do not have a political cast to their comments, you realize the US economy is fine and will grow 2.5% or so this year and into 2020. While there could be a recession in the US in 2020 due to black swan events here or abroad, it is unlikely to happen, but it is way too early to really predict next year. There are so many swans circling the future is very cloudy. If China deal happens, Brexit gets dealt with one way or the other but gets over with, and Mueller essentially clears Trump, then the economy and the markets will do well. Unfortunately we will have to put up with the Dems doing everything they can to impeach and tear down Trump. It will be obnoxious for the next two years, but so far the economy seems to keep pushing ahead.
You might have noticed that airlines and others have cut out peanuts as more people these days are suddenly allergic. How did so many people suddenly get allergic in just the last few years? Here is the medical research answer. Because parents got ingrained with-- protect your kid against any and all things, starting several years ago kids were not allowed by their over protective parents to eat peanut butter, or anything peanut. It turns out, little kids need to eat peanuts to develop immunities from peanut allergy. So if the parents kept them from any kind of peanuts, they never developed the natural immunity, and as they grew older they were then allergic. That is a scientific fact, but more importantly it demonstrates clearly that the overprotective actions by modern day parents are detrimental in all sorts of ways, and leaves the kids even more at risk to all sorts of things today then when we were kids running free, getting into fights and getting hurt, taking dumb risks, and eating peanuts. Peanuts is just a metaphor for kids today getting to college feeling that they need “safe spaces” because they were over protected from everything growing up. It is that over protection that is why kids in college today feel they need to be protected from speech they find conflicts with their narrow, uneducated way of thinking. They can’t deal with a challenge to their protected thoughts because they never had a real challenge growing up. They never got hurt. Their lives were directed and protected. They never had to deal with a bully in the school yard. It is the same as the peanut allergy.
Refusing to all ow the state of the union speech is a new disgusting low. The Dems are denying the president (regardless of who that is) the constitutional obligation to report to the people on the state of the union. That is historically terrible. Do we now have one or the other party deny a state of the union because they do not want the president to give his views in the formal setting of the congress. Now we have the kid from Queens on all the TV shows demanding no funding for border security. And that is just the start. You can be sure she and her radical left cronies will demand massive cuts in military spend, confiscatory taxes, free everything, a minimum guaranteed income of $6,000 a year, and on and on. I have always thought voters are basically idiots, but recent polls make that clear. A majority supports 70% tax rates and free everything. There are even around 25% or so who think the kid from Queens should be president. It all sounds good to the vast majority who pay no tax or minimal amounts, and think the rich can and should support them. 20% of millennials think socialism is better than capitalism. This is where we have come. This is the result of no history being taught in schools anymore, liberal media attacking Trump and Republicans, and the entitlement generation where many think they are owed a living. There is no understanding that socialism has failed everywhere over history. Recent polls show half think the US economy is only doing fair when the fact is it is doing better than at any time in 50 years, and minorities have it far better than ever. There is no understanding that when you raise taxes to confiscatory levels, revenue declines and new business formation slows and the economy slows. The top 10% already pays 80% of the taxes so there is no understanding that the rich already are mostly paying for everyone else. We also have anti Semites in Congress now in the person of the two Muslim women who seem to think it is fine to spew their vitriol because Pelosi and Schumer say nothing about it. This is right off what is happening on campus where the BDS movement is protesting anything Israel. All of these far left trends come from campus ideology which is anti free speech, anti-Trump, anti-Israel, and anti white male. It is a very dangerous trend that could lead to bad things in elections in the future.
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