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The two previous articles I posted were premature. (See 1 below.)
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Another Rant. (See 2 below.)
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Are the Saudi's and Iran careening towards a conflict? (See 3 below.)
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Think what you will about Steve Bannon. When it comes to China he is clear eyed. (See 4 below.)
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Corey Lewandowski testified again before the Nadler committee and in his dismissive way he answered all the questions and when given a chance to characterize his thoughts about the event he said: 'Democrats hated Trump more than they loved America." Shades of Israel's Prime Minister "Golda." (See 5 and 5a below.)
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Dick
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1)
Netanyahu-Gantz stalemate: No clear winner in super-tight Israeli election
By GIL HOFFMAN
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to carry on his dynasty with a historic victory in Tuesday's Israeli election and to be tasked with forming a government for the sixth time remained up in the air late Tuesday, after exit polls predicted a stalemate.
The final unofficial results were only expected on Wednesday afternoon, but according to an exit poll on Channel 13, whose pollster Camil Fuchs had the most accurate exit poll in the April election, Netanyahu’s Likud party won 31 seats, and his Center-Right bloc a total of 54 seats. The Center-Left bloc of Blue and White leader Benny Gantz won 58 and his party won 33.
Turnout in the race was higher than expected, even though Israelis went to the polls for the second time in five months. Arab turnout was up significantly from the 49% in the April 9 election.
The exit poll gave 13 seats for the Joint List, eight each for Yisrael Beytenu, Shas and United Torah Judaism and six each for Yamina, the Democratic Union and Labor-Gesher. Otzma Yehudit did not cross the threshold in any of three polls aired Tuesday night on the three networks.
The other two polls gave the Center-Right bloc an advantage, 57-55 in Channel 12’s poll and 56-54 in Channel 11’s.
An exit poll on Channel 12 predicted 34 for Blue and White, 33 for Likud, 11 for the Joint List, eight each for Yamina, Yisrael Beytenu, Shas, and UTJ and five each for the Democratic Union and Labor-Gesher.
Channel 11’s poll gave 32 each for Blue and White and Likud, 12 for the Joint List, 10 for Yisrael Beytenu, nine for Shas, eight for UTJ, seven for Yaimina and five each for the Democratic Union and Labor-Gesher.
Netanyahu, Gantz and other candidates spent the day pleading with voters to leave their homes and the beaches and malls to cast ballots. All the party heads except for Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, warned constantly that their voters’ turnout was too low and that the results would be a crisis tor their party.
"If this will continue we will lose these elections," Blue and White’s co-candidate for prime minister Yair Lapid said. "We need to vote or we are heading to disaster."
Lapid, Gantz and Yamina leader Ayelet Shaked went to the beach to ask sunbathers to vote. Gantz went to the Grand Canyon mall in Haifa. Netanyahu went to the Jerusalem bus station and the Mahane Yehuda market.
“The turnout in Tel Aviv is sky high and in Jerusalem it has hit the floor,” Netanyahu told vendors at the market.
Netanyahu even gave interviews to radio stations that are prohibited by law from interviewing politicians on Election Day. When he cast his ballot, Netanyahu invoked the name of US President Donald Trump.
"President Trump said yesterday that these are close elections, and I can reaffirm to you this morning that these are very close [elections]," said Netanyahu.
The prime minister warned his voters at an “emergency meeting” with Likud politicians at his official residence in Jerusalem that the Joint Arab List would win 15 seats. Netanyahu based his prediction on data presented in English at the meeting by his American pollster, John McLaughlin.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avi Dichter, who is a fluent Arabic speaker, reported to Netanyahu at the meeting that the Palestinian Authority is actively encouraging Israeli Arabs to vote for the Joint List in official PA media.
A spokeswoman for the Joint List said "Netanyahu and the Hebrew press are purposely inflating reports on Arab turnout to present a false impression that will keep Arab voters at home."
Joint List head Ayman Odeh said that when he voted in Haifa that he "felt energy" from his sector.
"We can bring about a historic achievement," he said.
The final unofficial results were only expected on Wednesday afternoon, but according to an exit poll on Channel 13, whose pollster Camil Fuchs had the most accurate exit poll in the April election, Netanyahu’s Likud party won 31 seats, and his Center-Right bloc a total of 54 seats. The Center-Left bloc of Blue and White leader Benny Gantz won 58 and his party won 33.
Turnout in the race was higher than expected, even though Israelis went to the polls for the second time in five months. Arab turnout was up significantly from the 49% in the April 9 election.
The exit poll gave 13 seats for the Joint List, eight each for Yisrael Beytenu, Shas and United Torah Judaism and six each for Yamina, the Democratic Union and Labor-Gesher. Otzma Yehudit did not cross the threshold in any of three polls aired Tuesday night on the three networks.
The other two polls gave the Center-Right bloc an advantage, 57-55 in Channel 12’s poll and 56-54 in Channel 11’s.
An exit poll on Channel 12 predicted 34 for Blue and White, 33 for Likud, 11 for the Joint List, eight each for Yamina, Yisrael Beytenu, Shas, and UTJ and five each for the Democratic Union and Labor-Gesher.
Channel 11’s poll gave 32 each for Blue and White and Likud, 12 for the Joint List, 10 for Yisrael Beytenu, nine for Shas, eight for UTJ, seven for Yaimina and five each for the Democratic Union and Labor-Gesher.
Netanyahu, Gantz and other candidates spent the day pleading with voters to leave their homes and the beaches and malls to cast ballots. All the party heads except for Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, warned constantly that their voters’ turnout was too low and that the results would be a crisis tor their party.
"If this will continue we will lose these elections," Blue and White’s co-candidate for prime minister Yair Lapid said. "We need to vote or we are heading to disaster."
Lapid, Gantz and Yamina leader Ayelet Shaked went to the beach to ask sunbathers to vote. Gantz went to the Grand Canyon mall in Haifa. Netanyahu went to the Jerusalem bus station and the Mahane Yehuda market.
“The turnout in Tel Aviv is sky high and in Jerusalem it has hit the floor,” Netanyahu told vendors at the market.
Netanyahu even gave interviews to radio stations that are prohibited by law from interviewing politicians on Election Day. When he cast his ballot, Netanyahu invoked the name of US President Donald Trump.
"President Trump said yesterday that these are close elections, and I can reaffirm to you this morning that these are very close [elections]," said Netanyahu.
The prime minister warned his voters at an “emergency meeting” with Likud politicians at his official residence in Jerusalem that the Joint Arab List would win 15 seats. Netanyahu based his prediction on data presented in English at the meeting by his American pollster, John McLaughlin.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avi Dichter, who is a fluent Arabic speaker, reported to Netanyahu at the meeting that the Palestinian Authority is actively encouraging Israeli Arabs to vote for the Joint List in official PA media.
A spokeswoman for the Joint List said "Netanyahu and the Hebrew press are purposely inflating reports on Arab turnout to present a false impression that will keep Arab voters at home."
Joint List head Ayman Odeh said that when he voted in Haifa that he "felt energy" from his sector.
"We can bring about a historic achievement," he said.
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2)Look how fast sentiment has shifted on the economy and stock market. A couple of weeks ago many were running around screaming recession, parroting the Dems party line which the press dutifully touted over and over. The yield curve inverted slightly for a short time and, yikes, recession was just around the corner they claimed. The pundits were going on TV pointing to the yield curve, and we need to position for the coming recession. There were pundits forecasting a 50 BP cut by the Fed. Clearly a few weeks ago I also said there were a lot of unknowns and black swans circling, but I also said stay in equities and ride it out. So here we are just a couple of weeks later, and the ten year is back up to almost 2.0% and the S&P is within a few points of a record high. Now there is doubt of any rate cut. Investors who fled to bonds lost money. Investors who stayed in equities made good profits. The take away is this: there are always uncertainties in the world. 9-11, the 2008 crash, dot com bubble, S&L crisis of 1989, flash crash, etc. If you look back and take history for a lesson, the greatest profits are earned when you invest when everyone else if running for the hills. I went all into equities with everything I had in March, 2009, and have stayed fully invested. It has been wonderful. Warren Buffet said in 2012, Withholding investment when confidence is shaky is a recipe for being unprepared when everyone's confidence returns. Bezos said "All of my best decisions in business and life have been made with heart, intuition, and guts, not analysis.." And this is a guy who believes in gathering the max amount of data and mathematic analysis. At the end of the day, it is his gut made more informed by the data.
For several years I have been preaching, listen to all the pundits, but then just use that along with lots of other data, and your gut, and make your own decisions. As we saw in December, and now in September, the pundits were almost universally wrong. Most were wrong in summer of 2008, when most "experts" failed to see the crash coming, including Greenspan, but many of us old guys in the capital markets day to day saw it clearly as early as 2007. Uncertainty is a fact of life constantly. If it is not a trade war, it is yield curves, subprime loans, or oil prices, or wild claims about climate change and the world ending shortly. The secret is to look past the uncertainty, and the media and political hype, take all the data you can collect, and make your own decision for long term investment. Stay optimistic. It is never bad forever. It always reverts to the upside, and almost always a higher upside than before. The really bad periods are moments of great opportunity to get into whatever the investment might be at a very low cost basis, and then ride the wave up to make real wealth increments. It is simply waiting to try to figure out when is the bottom, or near the bottom. You will rarely time it just right, but that is not important. Timing it around the bottom is just fine. If you wait until the wave has crested, when the pundits are all glowing and optimistic, you likely have missed the boat. In the end, it is a combination of data, and your gut feel based on a lifetime of experience. You just need the courage of your own convictions, and not let the media and pundits, or investment advisors, cause you to veer off what your gut says is right, whatever that might be-buy or sell. Keep in mind most investment advisors want to do the safe thing, and not lose money and get sued, so they approach portfolios from that perspective. If they just do about as good as the market averages they can say, see we did as good as the market. You do not need to pay an advisor just to do as good as the market. That is why I use Schwab.
The oil refinery attack shows the critical need for fracking having completely changed world geopolitics and energy markets. Fracking means the US can easily provide oil out of the reserve, and keep prices under $60. Other oil countries also have excess supply to bring to market. The attack means nothing to the world or US economy. It does mean the chance of an attack on Iran oil refineries and infrastructure is far more likely. We can't allow them to get away with this. Standby for much more issues in the Mideast. The real question is how did they get thru defenses, and what does the US need to do to make sure there are adequate defenses in Saudi. Possibly Israel will provide Iron Dome to the Saudis. Note that the impact on stocks and oil prices is minimal, and the Dems want to end fracking and all oil and gas production. Just imagine if that happened. The Dems simply do not seem to understand why fracking is key to world power and geopolitics.
Hong Kong is not getting better. This is becoming a major issue for China, and is now a real problem for Xi. Trump so far is playing it just right. He warned Xi not to send in the tanks, but still was supportive of the demonstrators. The Chinese apparently think Bannon and Bolton represent the real agenda of Trump because they want regime change. It has created confusion in China as to what is the end game for the US. Firing Bolton may have been partly motivated to let the Chinese know he is not representative of Trump thinking or intentions. That may help to move discussions ahead. Now the Chinese are sending vice premiers to DC on the trade talks. This is very good news.
For those selling a company, I have seen so often over the years, owners sell for an earnout, and then get screwed. I am not suggesting never do an earn out, but I do say, from long deal experience, get as much as you can up front in cash, and assume they will try to screw you on the earn out. Make sure the earn out language is written in very clear, plain, simple English, with easy and clear formulas, and not lawyerese that might be subject in some way to intentional reinterpretation. Having been an expert witness or a plaintiff in 21 cases, it is amazing how a good litigator can reimagine what a contract says when there is real money on the line, and the judge often does not know they are being conned. The buyer does not really want to pay the earn out, even if the asset or company is doing well. Don't depend on your lawyer to say it is written right. If you cannot understand it perfectly, and if you think a judge and a layman will not very easily understand it, then you rewrite it in plain English, and test it out. That was how I won my major lawsuit. It all came down to a single sentence of maybe ten simple English words triggering the payment. That was the whole case in the appeal court. In fact, it was a single word (refinance) in that simple sentence that the three judges relied on. I can't emphasize enough the number of deals where the earnout was never paid because of a formula, or wording, that was not clear. The other absolute rule, never reinvest in the company, or the buyer, once you sell. It rarely works out well. You sold out of that investment, so now redeploy that capital. Move on.
Carl Icahn is moving out of NYC to FL. It is a major inflection point. About 15 hedge and private equity funds already moved to Palm Beach, and around the same number are in process. Icahn puts the stamp of public approval on moving out of NYC. Now a bunch more will move. Cuomo and DeBozo do not get it yet, nor do the other Dems. When you raise the cost thru tax and regulation, rich guys and companies move out. Next year, NYC and state will have budget shortfalls as a result, and they will wonder how this happened. Because the real payers of taxes left town. The same happened in NJ already when a single large hedge fund moved to FL. The state budget got crushed when the $3 billion net income of the fund was not there to pay taxes on the profits, nor on the added taxes of the incomes of the partners. CA is going to have the same issue. People below the very top can no longer afford San Fran and Santa Clara, and they are moving out to Denver, TX, Boise, Vegas and other cities where the cost of living is far less, and taxes are nil, but the lifestyle these days is good. Californians are flooding to NV and TX by the hundreds of thousands over the past few years, and they all have a good paying job waiting. Recruiters are having a field day moving people out of CA. There are no third world homeless encampments in these other places. Many of these people can work digitally, and many are employed to travel in their job, so where they headquarter does not matter. Secondary cities like Denver, Dallas, Boise, Raleigh, are all redoing their main downtowns to be urban centers with restaurants and other amenities. The top Tech and VC guys will stay in CA for now because money is no object, but the lower level people cannot deal with the costs long term, and CA politicians do not get it that high taxes, high home costs and excessive regulation make people leave. They get replaced with people who crossed the border in many cases, and so the average skill set declines, and the ability to pay high taxes diminishes. San Francisco is now so bad that people choose LA instead where cost of living is a lot less than San Fran, even if far higher than most other places. A computer scientist just told a prospective employer, "if I stay in LA, I will accept $100,000 salary, but if you want me to be in San Fran, I need $150,000 to be equal." That is a true story that just happened last week. Outside of CA, the cost of living is 30% less than LA in many very nice places. And the Dems want to raise taxes further as the coastal cities become like third world countries with homeless and crime rises.
In NYC, DeBozo and city council passed a policy that cops can no longer arrest people for minor crimes, like shop lifting, urinating in public, fare beating etc. So now shop lifting has become a real issue. I recently witnessed it firsthand. So now Walgreens locks a lot of merchandise behind a shield that can only be opened by staff, and this is in a good neighborhood. They come from the projects a few blocks away. Instead of an arrest they get a summons which they then ignore. After the Garner case decision to fire the cop, the rest of the cops have sat back. Arrests are way down in NYC. Why risk your career if you might have to get physical to make an arrest. This was exactly what happened under Dinkins, and why Rudy was so key to cleaning up the mess with his broken windows policy- minor crime leads to major crime if not prosecuted aggressively. The squeegee guys were the first to get arrested, and that changed the game. Now homeless are back on the streets of NYC and minor crime is on the rise. And with the new rent control laws, the housing stock will revert back to the bad old days as landlords stop maintaining multifamily buildings. It is a wonder why the Dem mayors and govs do not get it. There is more than ample evidence what happens when you have high taxes, little enforcement of misdemeanors, rent control, and over regulation. Montgomery County MD is a perfect example of what happens when you have sanctuary cities. People die, and more women get raped. That is not a political statement. Just go look at the actual data for Montgomery County rapes by illegals who the police refused to turn over to ICE. Look at Chicago and Baltimore, and the murder rate (8 more shot to death this weekend ) when cops are restrained by ACLU agreements. Calling cops racist, and imposing ACLU restraints like in Chicago, is very counterproductive. Just look at the numbers.
I watched 5-6 minutes of the Dem debate. I could not stomach any more than that of the nonsense of higher taxes, more regulation, free everything, and open borders, breaking up companies and massive deficits. It was like listening to a Russian candidate group. If there is a China deal that lets farm exports go to China, and if USMCA passes, it is hard to conceive how Trump loses. In the end, are the moderate Dems and independents really going to vote for Pocahontas. More likely they do not vote. O Rourke is the gift that keeps giving to the GOP. That clip about taking away guns will be replayed all through the south and Midwest. He may have just won back the House for the GOP. By jumping on the new false claim against Kavanaugh, the Dems just obtained a lot more votes for Trump from those afraid of who a radical left president would appoint, and what a Dem controlled Congress would do to pack the court. It also destroyed whatever scraps of credibility the NYT and most of the press still had.
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3)
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4) Bannon’s interesting 10 minute talk is on point and very much worth listening to. He notes that Jack Ma, the founder of AliBaba, “retired” a week ago. Ma did not “retire”; he was told by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders to step down. Reasons unknown obviously. Ma is only 55, in good health, worth $40 billion and is not known to play golf. From Ma's recent speeches and writings, you’d never suspect he would soon retire. Neither did he ...
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Saudi Arabia and Iran Careen toward Conflict
by Seth Frantzman
The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post
Less than 24 hours after a major attack by at least 10 drones or cruise missiles on key Saudi oil facilities, the rhetoric in the Middle East is heating up, and the region appears to be on the brink of conflict.
After US President Donald Trump spoke to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said there was "no evidence" the large attack came from Yemen.
This now means that Saudi Arabia, which is investigating how the attack happened, is positioned to defend itself, but must choose wisely how.
The kingdom's oil production and exports have been disrupted. The facility at Abqaiq, which was struck, is one of the world's largest processing facilities. According to Reuters, the attacks have reduced production by five million barrels per day.
Iran has been behind 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia, said Pompeo, adding that Tehran "has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply."
At first, the Houthi rebels appeared to take credit for the attack, which was some 1,200 km away from Yemen. This is improbable as there is little evidence that their drones or cruise missiles can fly that far.
It now appears that the attack on Saudi Arabia came from somewhere else. In May, a similar long-range attack was said to have come from Iraq. That Pompeo said there was no evidence the September 14 attack on Abqaiq came from Yemen appears to mean the US has evidence it came from somewhere else. Otherwise how could he rule out the Houthis?
The US has strongly condemned the attack. It sees the oil facility as essential to the global economy. The context here is that since May, Iran has been accused of striking at oil tankers in the Gulf to show that if the US sanctions continue with what Tehran says is economic war against it, then others will suffer as well.
A rising chorus of voices are now pointing to Iran as the major culprit. Senator Lindsey Graham even says that it is now time for the US to put an attack on Iranian oil refineries on the table. He has an "if" in that argument though: "If they continue their provocations." But there is a threat to Saudi Arabia and other US Gulf allies now.
Riyadh in the past has called on regional states for support, such as after a May 14 drone strike in Saudi Arabia. But this one is more serious and has major ramifications. US bases in Bahrain were just 100 km from the attack. It is clear what happened to anyone looking at radar signatures of what carried out the attacks, whether they were drones or cruise missiles.
An escalation has already happened, but Riyadh and Washington must weigh what a response could mean across the Gulf and in neighboring countries.
With many arguing that US-Iran tensions might be reduced with recently fired national security adviser John Bolton's exit, it appears that Tehran just handed the US a big decision-making question mark – and the Saudis will be in the driver's seat to manage the crisis, one that has developed and percolated for years, particularly since May when the US warned of emerging threats. At Abqaiq, the threat finally emerged.
But most of those astride the Gulf don't want a conflict. Trump has been reticent as well, eschewing air strikes in June after a US drone was shot down. Yemen has been an easier proxy war. But Abqaiq is not Abha or Jizan, it is a major strategic asset. Even though it was threatened in the past by terror attacks, this appears to be wholly new in the sophistication of the drone or missile technology used.
Seth Frantzman, a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum, is the author of After ISIS: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East (2019), the op-ed editor of The Jerusalem Post, and a founder of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis.
4) Bannon’s interesting 10 minute talk is on point and very much worth listening to. He notes that Jack Ma, the founder of AliBaba, “retired” a week ago. Ma did not “retire”; he was told by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders to step down. Reasons unknown obviously. Ma is only 55, in good health, worth $40 billion and is not known to play golf. From Ma's recent speeches and writings, you’d never suspect he would soon retire. Neither did he ...
https://youtu.be/9Bw5wjVK5mUMost up-to-speed observers know that President Trump is trying to severely limit the potential 5G activities of Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant, on national security grounds. Few know that the CCP recently decreed that all Chinese companies must now comply with government demands for data and info on “national security” grounds. Huawei portrays itself as independent of the Chinese government and thus would not do so. Wrong. They are lying and they must lie. Huawei is what I call a non-owned subsidiary of the CCP and will instantly turn over any and all info the government wants.My point? Modern China is a mercantilist/fascist society where all corporations can fairly be described as extended shadows of the Chinese government. China has the distinct advantage of having a long-term strategic outlook. Trump is taking a long-term structural and strategic view on America’s future relationship with China and thus is precisely on target in his trade negotiations.
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