https://www.youtube.com/watch?
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Another paper dies. (See 1 below.)
The "fourth estate" has played a critical role in our nation's welfare. Newspapers served as our society's ombudsman. They performed a valuable function, protected our freedom and exposed corruption etc. Then they, along with TV, became the mass media through which virtually every American received their news. Then newspapers went through a consolidation and corporate America became their owners. Now social media technology is replacing our news sources and entertainment has become the main focus.
This is a very unhealthy condition and America is paying a very heavy price as we become increasingly divided and fractured.
Radicals within our society are interested in challenging every established norm and orthodoxy for the sole purpose of creating conflict and active dissent among our citizenry. A nation in constant turmoil is vulnerable.
And:
Civility. (See 1a below.)
While I am on my high horse and pontificating I will throw out another thought for memo readers to ponder.
Trump has proven he is more than willing to confront the way things are if he believes they are detrimental. By challenging the status quo he obviously creates many enemies which we can call the establishment. During his 2016 candidacy, he was vocal about the need to curb China's trading activity and theft of our intellectual property. He met resistance from members of the Obama Administration, namely "Doofus" who stated did not believe China was a threat.
Over time, even the Democrats have climbed aboard and now Doofus resides in the China is a threat camp.
Whether Trump's use of tariffs will prove effective remains to be seen but he is sending a not so subtle message Obama's acquiescence is no longer the model America will employ.
I mention this because those who challenge a comfort zone generally find the reaction initially harsh and the fact that Trump was supposed to lose makes him even more vulnerable.
Because Trump is combative in his style, a street fighter brawler type and a counter puncher who is not the most eloquent speaker and often shoots from the lip he provides his detractors with ammunition.
On the other hand, his many detractors and haters go overboard in their expressed contempt and we are currently witnessing a period of character assassination which Democrats love to use because they believe if you repeat something incessantly, no matter how outlandish, if will stick and be effective. Painting Trump with a racist,white supremacy brush is their "vogue de jour." It's basis is some ill chosen commentary Trump used but the facts do not support these outlandish charges except in the minds of those who want to destroy his presidency.
I suspect the mass media's concurrence is also based more on bias and hatred than solid evidence and these personal attacks will eventually boomerang.
As I have repeated time and again, Americans are a generally fair minded people and they eventually tire of blatant attacks that lack credibility.
George Packer, The Atlantic
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Two Middle America states. (See 2 below.)
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Another Rant. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)
Click here for the full story.
Click here for the full story.
China is clearly trying to attack the farmers as retaliation. Trump can mitigate that with subsidies. The Fed will cut another 25 BP in September, maybe 50 BP depending what happens at the China/US meeting in Sept. Meantime production moves out of China, capital is flowing out, and the small manufacturers and service companies are very short of cash to carry on. $717 billion of various Chinese entity bonds are US dollar denominated so depreciating the Yuan becomes problematic. It also creates inflation. It also probably causes the Chinese stock market to decline further as investors bail out of Yuan based securities. Bottom line, both sides still need to do some sort of deal. My assumption is both sides back off now and find a new basis to talk. Chances are the tariffs will not go into place in Sept., but who knows. The US markets now assume there will not be a deal until 2021. The Chinese said publicly they will not go back to the 150 page agreement on enforcement they had agreed to when they then reneged. So it is hard to understand how there will ever be a real deal on IP.
The new tariffs are at most $30 billion spread over a vast array of products over a full year. This assumes the same volume of imports as last year. So far this year imports from China are down 12%, and dropping fast as more producers move out of China. It may be that if the tariffs do go into place they will only amount to maybe $22 billion, or some number like that. Not very meaningful in the US economy. In addition, there is so much production moving out of China, and the dollar remains strong vs the Yuan, that the real impact will not be much in terms of retail prices. One thing I have heard is producers in China have said they are no longer going to eat part of the tariff because they cannot afford to. The offshore unofficial Yuan is now at 7.08 to the dollar and dropping, so the retail price of the tariff by the time it reaches store shelves may be even less than $22 billion in impact.
The real impact is psychology. Making long term investments by corporations is now far less certain as nobody knows where things go from here. A full scale trade war and currency battle harms corporate confidence, and that is the issue that matters most right now. Consumers do not seem bothered as there is no inflation, and wages continue to rise at over 3.2%. Gas prices remain low and will go lower as the summer ends and oil prices decline further. Another boost for consumers. Housing is not affected by China tariffs. It seems clear, Xi intends to play it out, and not agree to any real issues on IP until the election. The more the Dems ramp up impeachment babble, the weaker hand Trump has in negotiating with China. It is really damaging the whole negotiation process, but the Dems do not care.
Watch Hong Kong. This may become the spark that sets off protest inside China. With the Chinese economy becoming slower and more uncertain, and many companies moving out, the people will become more insecure and more unhappy. The security systems now in place in China, where your every move and action is recorded and graded, and that determines where you live or work, is going to become a major issue for people over time. It is George Orwell for real. Combine a declining economy with a massive security regime, and activists will start to protest, and that is what Xi is most concerned about with Hong Kong.
However, the real issue between the US and China is existential and strategic. Who controls the Asia Pacific region. China is ramping up its military at a speed that is greater than we are. The Belt and Road program is designed to give them economic and political control of many other nations by loading them with debt and obligations to China. It also provides ports where the Chinese navy can base and deny the US navy of bases. The US is now installing medium range missiles with the end of the treaty with Russia that banned deployment of them. China realizes the US is now positioning our military deterrence around them, and that is what they fear most- containment. It stops them from carrying out their plan to control the region by 2030 as it gives us a formidable deterrent in addition to the carrier force which is now more vulnerable to attack. I am assuming there will be no deal with N Korea as a result of all this as it is in China's interest to keep Kim as a threat to the US and Japan and S Korea. Xi might even have Kim start some crisis, just to keep us off balance. Trade is not the issue. Who controls the world with the preeminent military and economic power is what is really at stake. What is going on now will determine the history of the world for the next 50-75 years. We are engaged in WWIII without bullets. If Trump had not forced the rebuilding of the US military to repair the damage Obama did, the Chinese would own the world in a few years. One cannot underestimate how essential the rebuilding of the military was to have peace through deterrence. There is no way to predict where all this goes from here.
The other major trade battle is with France taxing big US tech. The EU has completely lost the war for tech to the US, and now they think they can cash in with these new taxes. Macron is going to learn a costly lesson when Trump retaliates. A lesson France cannot afford.
The 30 year bond in Germany actually went to negative rate last week. That is stunning. The 10 year in the US is at 1.7%. The good news on this is that there is little pressure on most corporations or consumers as to debt service, other than high credit card rates which are likely to decline a little over time. There is some indication that small businesses that used a lot of shadow market debt are facing pressure now, such as hotels, restaurants, and some others. It is nowhere near a real crisis, but needs to be watched. While there is little transaction volume in real estate due to ultra-low cap rates, there is strong incentive for owners to refi and sit with an ultra-low cost mortgage for the next several years, and collect their 8%-12% cash flow. Some will even be able to pull out cash on the refi. There are a bunch of investors sitting and waiting for the downturn in real estate to be able to grab bargains. It is going to be a very long wait. So many owners are doing a refi at these low rates, that a default is less likely, even in a moderate recession, than we might have seen in other downturns. Lenders could modify terms to interest only in a recession, and keep the loans current in that way at these low rates. The other good news, is at these low rates, the debt coverage ratio makes proceeds higher by a material number than if rates were higher.
Further to my previous comments about Baltimore, and the solutions needed for helping blacks achieve a better community and opportunity. Amy Wax has been a leading voice about the real issue, which is, it is culture, and the need for a bourgeois mentality, meaning family and a good education. More entitlements and more making racial bias excuses, is the wrong answer. Making people responsible for themselves is what is needed. 70% of black kids today are of unwed mothers, and live in a single mother home. Much research has made it clear that kids do better, especially boys, if there is a full family with the father living in the home full time, and with a legitimate job. The other issues are education and entitlements. Instilling a culture of education, hard work, and sacrifice to get to success, is key, but is not happening now, so a culture of failure remains, and the charge is racism from the left, instead of imploring blacks to take charge of their own lives and being self-reliant instead of dependent on entitlements and government.
The teachers unions have been a destructive force in the education of young black kids. They define what real racism is by not instilling the right cultural norms in school. They mainly care about pay and pensions, and minimizing work effort, and not the kids. They do not let young teachers work extra time helping kids, they do not encourage teachers to make the extra effort. I know this from young teachers who tried in the NY school system and quit after two or three years out of frustration with the union rules. They keep failed teachers on payroll sitting in the "rubber room" doing nothing but collecting a paycheck. Discipline in class is not fully enforced because it is deemed racially insensitive to suspend or otherwise remove disruptive kids from class, so instead all the kids lose out. The union fights any charter school program. There is little effort to get parents to be involved to the degree they need to be. Pre K is not the solution. If the elementary school is not of quality, then any good that pre K may have done, is quickly dissipated by second grade. NYC schools were making progress under Bloomberg and his chancellor, but DeBozo has blown it all. The current chancellor is detrimental, and is more concerned about having unqualified minority kids in the elite schools and ruining those, than in really reforming the system. When DC schools had a really great superintendent, she was driven out of office by the politically correct and union crowd. She proved it is not money that makes a difference. It is all about leadership, and instilling a culture of discipline and success. It is about teaching math and English, and basic subjects, not politically correct garbage. Black kids in these schools are so far behind by third or fourth grade, that they are doomed to fail in life. That is why charter schools and vouchers make a major difference. They get kids into a far better leaning environment. DeBozo and other Dem mayors have done all he can to stop charter schools at the urging of teachers unions. Now the NAACP, which has been allied with the teachers union, is fractured with many wanting charter schools.
The other major issue for minority communities is still entitlements. Democrats still think that the solution is more and more entitlements to create a culture of dependence on the Democrats who keep supplying more money. It has become addictive. So now we have all these local poverty, activist and other groups, and government bureaucrats who have made an industry out of poverty, but have all failed miserably. Congressmen like Cummings push funds to all these groups, and it just gets corruptly spent and wasted. It is how Cummins and the others retain power and control. They control who gets money. Under Obama, activist groups got money from the feds funded by various programs, which were really ways to pay people to make believe they were doing something by being activists. There have been countless job training programs that have almost all failed. Yet these stay in place. The real answer is apprentice programs run by private enterprise which teaches real usable skills and offer the opportunity for real jobs, advancement and good wages. Thanks to the shortage of labor today, many companies are undertaking these sorts of efforts, and are even hiring ex-cons. The real issue is culture. Getting the unemployed and barely employed to understand they need to stay off drugs and show up every morning for work. A continued strong economy and ending the wasteful government training and welfare programs is how to resolve these issues, assuming the education system can be fixed and the teachers unions can be crushed. Without a good education, these kids have no chance to really achieve success. It is no longer possible for a kid with only a tenth grade education to make it big in today's world the way guys in my generation were able to do.
A friend of mine who owns workforce apartments, said he has those tenants that live paycheck to paycheck, and who cannot pay the rent if the car has a major repair, or gets into an accident, or they get sick and are missing work for several days. He cuts them a break for a month, or maybe reduced rent for a short period. These are the people the Dems refer to, but it is the private sector, not the government, that is dealing with it, like my friend through reduced rent. Raising minimum wage actually will harm these people because they will have hours cut or the job eliminated as is now happening in NYC and Seattle. The only answer is a continued strong economy where business can raise wages, or employees can learn skills so they can be more productive and paid more. More entitlements as the Dems propose has been tried for decades, but has never really worked other than earned income credit, or Section 8 housing. Some people are simply not well educated and cannot ever earn much more money. It comes back to education and the teachers unions.
Yale employs, full time, 150 people to deal with diversity, sex, professional standards that comply with politically correct teaching, and the "healthy environment" of the campus situation, plus holding the hands of the snowflakes to keep them from melt down. That is 150 people looking for trouble to justify their existence. When I was in school we had a dean of student affairs, and maybe he has a small staff. That was it. Somehow a giant university like U of Penn managed, and we all managed to graduate having learned a lot more than they do today. The girls in the Women's College managed to graduate and go on to very successful careers in a time when women had far fewer opportunities. I wonder how that was possible when there was no dean of sex abuse, and diversity and wellness, and of snowflakes protection. Somehow the women managed to get through without suffering trauma from sexual encounters with us drunk, white, frat guys. They made it without filing charges against some guy they slept with and lived to have happy lives. Amazing that we all managed to graduate without the nanny state, and without being told what we were allowed to think and say. We actually learned to think, and for ourselves, and to deal with whatever our own personal drama was at the moment. We graduated as adults, and with self- esteem, expecting to have to deal with life ourselves. What an amazing thing- we were told we had to learn things like history, math, economics, and political science, and to actually be able to listen to various viewpoints, and reach our own conclusions. The result- a class of highly successful people-both men and women. Those 150 useless staff at Yale, are paid high salaries, plus overheads, and you wonder why student debt is so high, and the education so poor. There is a direct correlation between all this wasted spend and student loan burdens. It is an industry now akin to the poverty industry of activist groups. What a giant waste of money all of these people are, and what a terrible use of your tax and college tuition money that otherwise could be used to actually educate, instead of indoctrinate the kids. If not for the 150 useless staff, student loans could be far less without all of this cost, and the kids would graduate with the sense that it was their personal responsibility to make it on their own effort, and the world is made up of a lot of people who are not nice. The other thing to be upset about today is if you want tenure, you better adhere to the politically correct line, or you may as well find another profession. That is outright intimidation of thought. You may recall Hitler, Stalin, Orwell, and now Xi, and many others. At least in academia they do not kill you, they just kill your career and livelihood, and kick you out on the street. This is how academia maintains ultra-left wing teaching as the only thing kids hear.
Two Middle America states. (See 2 below.)
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Another Rant. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)
The death of a local newspaper rocks America to its core
By Salena Zito
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — When the press stops rolling at The Vindicator this month, a lingering question will once again taunt the residents of the Mahoning Valley: How much collapse can one region take?
The family-owned newspaper announced in June — just days after celebrating its 150th anniversary — that it is permanently ceasing production on Aug. 31. The paper, which started in 1869 just months after Ulysses S. Grant was sworn into office, has been run by the descendants of William F. Maag ever since he purchased the paper midway through Grover Cleveland’s first term.
The closure will cost 144 employees and 250 carriers their jobs and comes just weeks after the GM Lordstown plant down the road turned out the lights, leading to thousands of job losses.
It is one of a series of gut-punches that has dented this area’s spirit since the collapse of the steel industry in September 1977. But losing a local newspaper feels like a bigger blow than most.
“Newspapers are the watchdogs who hold our civic institutions accountable and act as a cheerleader for the unique fabrics in our society,” Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tim Ryan, the congressman who represents this region, told The Post.
As a young high-school football star, Ryan said he enjoyed glowing coverage in The Vindicator and as an elected official, he has felt the sting of its criticism.
“We’ve had our share of tensions and they certainly have held me accountable, but that is their job — to be that check on government — and I cannot imagine our community without them,” he said.
Click here for the full story.
1a)
Civility is dead — except in real life
YUMA, COLORADO — Dressed in white slacks, a blouse, and an oversized hat—the kind you wear when the sun and heat are insufferable — Diana Bray walks up to U.S. Senator Cory Gardner along Albany Street with a broad smile on her face and a clipboard in her hand.
Like just about everyone in this town, she extends her hand. Then she introduces herself, which is something just about nobody in this town does. That's because Gardner knows almost all 3,000 people in his hometown.
Click here for the full story.
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2)TWO STATES IN THE MIDDLE OF AMERICA!
Illinois & Oklahoma:
I thought these two states, made for an interesting contrast. The first part about Illinois and the second part is about Oklahoma!
PART 1 - Illinois
"A State with No Republicans"!
Some interesting data on the 'state' of the State of Illinois. There are more people on welfare in Illinois than there are people working. Chicago pays the highest wages to teachers than anywhere else in the U.S. Their average pay is $110,000/year. Their pensions average 80-90% of their income. Wow, are Illinois and Chicago great or what? Be sure to read till the end. I've never heard it explained better. Perhaps the U.S. should pull out of Chicago?
Body count:
In the last six months, 292 murdered in Chicago. 221 killed in Iraq AND Chicago has one of the strictest gun laws in the entire US.
This was Chicago's chain of command :Senator: Dick Durbin. From 1996 23 years House Representative: Jesse Jackson Jr. 1995 to 2012.
Governor: Pat Quinn. House leader: Mike Madigan. Atty. Gen.: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike). Mayor: Rahm Emanuel. The leadership in Illinois - all Democrats.
Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago
Of course, they're all blaming each other.
Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!
Let us get ALL the facts out while we are at it:
Chicago school system rated one of the worst in the country. Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!
State pension fund $78 Billion in debt, worst in country.
Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!
Cook County ( Chicago ) sales tax 10.25% highest in country. Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!
This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois. And he was going to 'fix'Washington politics for us
George Ryan is no longer Governor, he is in prison
He was replaced by Rob Blagojevich who is, by the way, also in prison
And Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned and, that's right, he and his wife are both in prison.
The Land of Lincoln, where our Governors and Representatives make our license plates. What? As long as they keep providing entitlements to the population of Chicago, nothing is going to change, except the state will go bankrupt before the country does
"Anybody who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the Government take care of him better take a closer look at the American Indian."
Don't forget Detroit, another great example of a Democratic empire.
With all the bad news, there is hope, so let's go to:
PART 2- Oklahoma
OKLAHOMA- may soon have plenty of new residents!
Oklahoma is the only state that Obama did not win even one county in the last election... While everyone is focusing on Arizona's new law, look what Oklahoma has been doing!!!
An update from Oklahoma:Oklahoma law passed, 37 to 9 an amendment to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. Hey this is a conservative state , based on Judeo-Christian values . HB 1333
Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.
Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants andship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB1804. This was against the advice of the Federal Government, and the ACLU, they said it would be a mistake.
Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.
Recently they passed a law to include DNA samples from any and all illegal's to the Oklahoma database, for criminal investigative purposes. Pelosi said it was unconstitutional SB1102.
Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway.
Several weeks ago, Oklahoma passed a law, declaring Oklahoma as a Sovereign state, not under the Federal Government directives. Joining, Texas, Montana and Utah as the only states to do so.
More states are likely to follow: Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia, Mississippi and Florida. Save your confederate money, it appears the South is about to rise up once again.
HJR 1003
The federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns. Oklahoma, a week ago, passed a law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. I'm sure that was a setback for the criminals. The Liberals didn't like it-
But…Guess what... Oklahoma did it anyway
Just this month, the state has voted and passed a law that ALL drivers' license exams will be printed in English and only English and no other language. They have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is that ALL of the road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma, you must read and write English. Really simple.
By the way, the Liberals don't like any of this either.
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3) The big black swan has arrived. Threatening to raise tariffs right now was a really bad idea right now. He should have waited to see if anything happened at the September meeting. Navarro seems to be the one who convinced Trump to do it. Navarro has always been known among the economics profession as not very smart, and this proves that. My sense is Trump and Xi suddenly realized this could go over the edge very easily, and they are likely going to quietly back off until Sept. The stock market will settle out now, and stabilize around these levels until the next Fed meeting in Sept.
China is clearly trying to attack the farmers as retaliation. Trump can mitigate that with subsidies. The Fed will cut another 25 BP in September, maybe 50 BP depending what happens at the China/US meeting in Sept. Meantime production moves out of China, capital is flowing out, and the small manufacturers and service companies are very short of cash to carry on. $717 billion of various Chinese entity bonds are US dollar denominated so depreciating the Yuan becomes problematic. It also creates inflation. It also probably causes the Chinese stock market to decline further as investors bail out of Yuan based securities. Bottom line, both sides still need to do some sort of deal. My assumption is both sides back off now and find a new basis to talk. Chances are the tariffs will not go into place in Sept., but who knows. The US markets now assume there will not be a deal until 2021. The Chinese said publicly they will not go back to the 150 page agreement on enforcement they had agreed to when they then reneged. So it is hard to understand how there will ever be a real deal on IP.
The new tariffs are at most $30 billion spread over a vast array of products over a full year. This assumes the same volume of imports as last year. So far this year imports from China are down 12%, and dropping fast as more producers move out of China. It may be that if the tariffs do go into place they will only amount to maybe $22 billion, or some number like that. Not very meaningful in the US economy. In addition, there is so much production moving out of China, and the dollar remains strong vs the Yuan, that the real impact will not be much in terms of retail prices. One thing I have heard is producers in China have said they are no longer going to eat part of the tariff because they cannot afford to. The offshore unofficial Yuan is now at 7.08 to the dollar and dropping, so the retail price of the tariff by the time it reaches store shelves may be even less than $22 billion in impact.
The real impact is psychology. Making long term investments by corporations is now far less certain as nobody knows where things go from here. A full scale trade war and currency battle harms corporate confidence, and that is the issue that matters most right now. Consumers do not seem bothered as there is no inflation, and wages continue to rise at over 3.2%. Gas prices remain low and will go lower as the summer ends and oil prices decline further. Another boost for consumers. Housing is not affected by China tariffs. It seems clear, Xi intends to play it out, and not agree to any real issues on IP until the election. The more the Dems ramp up impeachment babble, the weaker hand Trump has in negotiating with China. It is really damaging the whole negotiation process, but the Dems do not care.
Watch Hong Kong. This may become the spark that sets off protest inside China. With the Chinese economy becoming slower and more uncertain, and many companies moving out, the people will become more insecure and more unhappy. The security systems now in place in China, where your every move and action is recorded and graded, and that determines where you live or work, is going to become a major issue for people over time. It is George Orwell for real. Combine a declining economy with a massive security regime, and activists will start to protest, and that is what Xi is most concerned about with Hong Kong.
However, the real issue between the US and China is existential and strategic. Who controls the Asia Pacific region. China is ramping up its military at a speed that is greater than we are. The Belt and Road program is designed to give them economic and political control of many other nations by loading them with debt and obligations to China. It also provides ports where the Chinese navy can base and deny the US navy of bases. The US is now installing medium range missiles with the end of the treaty with Russia that banned deployment of them. China realizes the US is now positioning our military deterrence around them, and that is what they fear most- containment. It stops them from carrying out their plan to control the region by 2030 as it gives us a formidable deterrent in addition to the carrier force which is now more vulnerable to attack. I am assuming there will be no deal with N Korea as a result of all this as it is in China's interest to keep Kim as a threat to the US and Japan and S Korea. Xi might even have Kim start some crisis, just to keep us off balance. Trade is not the issue. Who controls the world with the preeminent military and economic power is what is really at stake. What is going on now will determine the history of the world for the next 50-75 years. We are engaged in WWIII without bullets. If Trump had not forced the rebuilding of the US military to repair the damage Obama did, the Chinese would own the world in a few years. One cannot underestimate how essential the rebuilding of the military was to have peace through deterrence. There is no way to predict where all this goes from here.
The other major trade battle is with France taxing big US tech. The EU has completely lost the war for tech to the US, and now they think they can cash in with these new taxes. Macron is going to learn a costly lesson when Trump retaliates. A lesson France cannot afford.
The 30 year bond in Germany actually went to negative rate last week. That is stunning. The 10 year in the US is at 1.7%. The good news on this is that there is little pressure on most corporations or consumers as to debt service, other than high credit card rates which are likely to decline a little over time. There is some indication that small businesses that used a lot of shadow market debt are facing pressure now, such as hotels, restaurants, and some others. It is nowhere near a real crisis, but needs to be watched. While there is little transaction volume in real estate due to ultra-low cap rates, there is strong incentive for owners to refi and sit with an ultra-low cost mortgage for the next several years, and collect their 8%-12% cash flow. Some will even be able to pull out cash on the refi. There are a bunch of investors sitting and waiting for the downturn in real estate to be able to grab bargains. It is going to be a very long wait. So many owners are doing a refi at these low rates, that a default is less likely, even in a moderate recession, than we might have seen in other downturns. Lenders could modify terms to interest only in a recession, and keep the loans current in that way at these low rates. The other good news, is at these low rates, the debt coverage ratio makes proceeds higher by a material number than if rates were higher.
Further to my previous comments about Baltimore, and the solutions needed for helping blacks achieve a better community and opportunity. Amy Wax has been a leading voice about the real issue, which is, it is culture, and the need for a bourgeois mentality, meaning family and a good education. More entitlements and more making racial bias excuses, is the wrong answer. Making people responsible for themselves is what is needed. 70% of black kids today are of unwed mothers, and live in a single mother home. Much research has made it clear that kids do better, especially boys, if there is a full family with the father living in the home full time, and with a legitimate job. The other issues are education and entitlements. Instilling a culture of education, hard work, and sacrifice to get to success, is key, but is not happening now, so a culture of failure remains, and the charge is racism from the left, instead of imploring blacks to take charge of their own lives and being self-reliant instead of dependent on entitlements and government.
The teachers unions have been a destructive force in the education of young black kids. They define what real racism is by not instilling the right cultural norms in school. They mainly care about pay and pensions, and minimizing work effort, and not the kids. They do not let young teachers work extra time helping kids, they do not encourage teachers to make the extra effort. I know this from young teachers who tried in the NY school system and quit after two or three years out of frustration with the union rules. They keep failed teachers on payroll sitting in the "rubber room" doing nothing but collecting a paycheck. Discipline in class is not fully enforced because it is deemed racially insensitive to suspend or otherwise remove disruptive kids from class, so instead all the kids lose out. The union fights any charter school program. There is little effort to get parents to be involved to the degree they need to be. Pre K is not the solution. If the elementary school is not of quality, then any good that pre K may have done, is quickly dissipated by second grade. NYC schools were making progress under Bloomberg and his chancellor, but DeBozo has blown it all. The current chancellor is detrimental, and is more concerned about having unqualified minority kids in the elite schools and ruining those, than in really reforming the system. When DC schools had a really great superintendent, she was driven out of office by the politically correct and union crowd. She proved it is not money that makes a difference. It is all about leadership, and instilling a culture of discipline and success. It is about teaching math and English, and basic subjects, not politically correct garbage. Black kids in these schools are so far behind by third or fourth grade, that they are doomed to fail in life. That is why charter schools and vouchers make a major difference. They get kids into a far better leaning environment. DeBozo and other Dem mayors have done all he can to stop charter schools at the urging of teachers unions. Now the NAACP, which has been allied with the teachers union, is fractured with many wanting charter schools.
The other major issue for minority communities is still entitlements. Democrats still think that the solution is more and more entitlements to create a culture of dependence on the Democrats who keep supplying more money. It has become addictive. So now we have all these local poverty, activist and other groups, and government bureaucrats who have made an industry out of poverty, but have all failed miserably. Congressmen like Cummings push funds to all these groups, and it just gets corruptly spent and wasted. It is how Cummins and the others retain power and control. They control who gets money. Under Obama, activist groups got money from the feds funded by various programs, which were really ways to pay people to make believe they were doing something by being activists. There have been countless job training programs that have almost all failed. Yet these stay in place. The real answer is apprentice programs run by private enterprise which teaches real usable skills and offer the opportunity for real jobs, advancement and good wages. Thanks to the shortage of labor today, many companies are undertaking these sorts of efforts, and are even hiring ex-cons. The real issue is culture. Getting the unemployed and barely employed to understand they need to stay off drugs and show up every morning for work. A continued strong economy and ending the wasteful government training and welfare programs is how to resolve these issues, assuming the education system can be fixed and the teachers unions can be crushed. Without a good education, these kids have no chance to really achieve success. It is no longer possible for a kid with only a tenth grade education to make it big in today's world the way guys in my generation were able to do.
A friend of mine who owns workforce apartments, said he has those tenants that live paycheck to paycheck, and who cannot pay the rent if the car has a major repair, or gets into an accident, or they get sick and are missing work for several days. He cuts them a break for a month, or maybe reduced rent for a short period. These are the people the Dems refer to, but it is the private sector, not the government, that is dealing with it, like my friend through reduced rent. Raising minimum wage actually will harm these people because they will have hours cut or the job eliminated as is now happening in NYC and Seattle. The only answer is a continued strong economy where business can raise wages, or employees can learn skills so they can be more productive and paid more. More entitlements as the Dems propose has been tried for decades, but has never really worked other than earned income credit, or Section 8 housing. Some people are simply not well educated and cannot ever earn much more money. It comes back to education and the teachers unions.
Yale employs, full time, 150 people to deal with diversity, sex, professional standards that comply with politically correct teaching, and the "healthy environment" of the campus situation, plus holding the hands of the snowflakes to keep them from melt down. That is 150 people looking for trouble to justify their existence. When I was in school we had a dean of student affairs, and maybe he has a small staff. That was it. Somehow a giant university like U of Penn managed, and we all managed to graduate having learned a lot more than they do today. The girls in the Women's College managed to graduate and go on to very successful careers in a time when women had far fewer opportunities. I wonder how that was possible when there was no dean of sex abuse, and diversity and wellness, and of snowflakes protection. Somehow the women managed to get through without suffering trauma from sexual encounters with us drunk, white, frat guys. They made it without filing charges against some guy they slept with and lived to have happy lives. Amazing that we all managed to graduate without the nanny state, and without being told what we were allowed to think and say. We actually learned to think, and for ourselves, and to deal with whatever our own personal drama was at the moment. We graduated as adults, and with self- esteem, expecting to have to deal with life ourselves. What an amazing thing- we were told we had to learn things like history, math, economics, and political science, and to actually be able to listen to various viewpoints, and reach our own conclusions. The result- a class of highly successful people-both men and women. Those 150 useless staff at Yale, are paid high salaries, plus overheads, and you wonder why student debt is so high, and the education so poor. There is a direct correlation between all this wasted spend and student loan burdens. It is an industry now akin to the poverty industry of activist groups. What a giant waste of money all of these people are, and what a terrible use of your tax and college tuition money that otherwise could be used to actually educate, instead of indoctrinate the kids. If not for the 150 useless staff, student loans could be far less without all of this cost, and the kids would graduate with the sense that it was their personal responsibility to make it on their own effort, and the world is made up of a lot of people who are not nice. The other thing to be upset about today is if you want tenure, you better adhere to the politically correct line, or you may as well find another profession. That is outright intimidation of thought. You may recall Hitler, Stalin, Orwell, and now Xi, and many others. At least in academia they do not kill you, they just kill your career and livelihood, and kick you out on the street. This is how academia maintains ultra-left wing teaching as the only thing kids hear.
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