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"If some idiot complained about your blog, its a good sign you're doing a good job. Keep up the good work!jam"
And:
"I am glad they could not shut you down.
Everything is under attack under the Democratic Party (most not socialiste, but communiste and nobody talksabout it!).
I am so happy to read your mail, so much sense.
Be well and my best to Lynne and all our landings friend.
Best
R---"
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Wead had authorized access to an un-named"deep throat" foreign policy expert in Trump's White House who openly revealed Trump's relationships with foreign leaders. The comments were up front and unmistakable. Trump used golf to break any initial distance between Japan's Abe and Mar-A- Lago to host China's, Xi. He also feted France's Macron at the administration's first elegant State Dinner. Trump's relationship with Germany's Merkel started out well but he later cooled after she insisted on continuing a close energy relationship with Russia's Putin and basically rejected our offer of supplying her nation with more of their and safer energy needs. Furthermore, Trump feels Germany, considering her wealth and power, has not been generous when it comes to meeting their NATO obligations.
What most disturbs Trump is the way we have allowed foreign nations, particularly allies, to sponge off America. In the case of Saudi Arabia, Trump brought the matter up with their monarch and learned we never asked so they never gave. Trump broke the mold. He not only asks but expects and foreign treasuries have opened. Right or wrong, Trump believes our lack of initiatives in the realm of foreign policy and tilted trade agreements have hurt middle class America.
He has a good relationship with Britain's new P.M and he and Bibi have a long relationship. I previously noted his correspondence with Kim.
In all of these instances, Melania has served our nation well and because she speaks 6 languages and is so beautiful and stylish she has been one of America's greatest ambassadors and assets.
In return, what has been the response of the mass media? Little positive reporting when it comes to Trump's relationships and foreign policy successes. In fact, it has been mostly derisive criticism.
As for Melania, most everything has been not only critical but in too many instances downright mean spirited. She has been attacked for the shoes she wore to the way she dresses, to not holding the president's hand, for having a stiff smile and the way she even has raised their handsome and tall son, Baron.
By comparison, Michele received nothing but fawning praise from the mass media, even when her attire was bizarre considering she represented our nation at formal state occasions.
Hatred and animosity towards the entire Trump clan runs deep and wide when it comes to the mass media's attitude and reporting. Why? One has to assume they are innately biased. First, because the vast majority of their membership are registered Democrats and contributors to progressive causes. Second, they obviously have been told what to say and lack personal opportunities for objective reporting. Bezos, I suspect, did not acquire WAPO to educate America but to protect his business and personal interests and to manipulate congress to do his bidding.
As for The New York Time's, the once proud "gray lady" and standard of American journalism, they might as well re-locate to New York's Fulton Fish Market.
Finally, I find it interesting how FOX and, often, the Wall Street Journal are attacked by the Trump Haters and mass media dolts when they report something positive. As I often note, The Fourth Estate has a significant role to play in protecting our nation as ombudsmen. There was a time, before they were acquired by corporate America, where they cared, were jealous, even zealous about their role. They served our nation reasonably well. However, once they became entertainment vehicles, with a bottom line responsibility, they changed radically and America has suffered accordingly.
Their rejection by the public and their low ratings should be of concern but the mass media seem comfortable in their cocoons notwithstanding the fact they are purposely and increasingly wrong in their reporting and forecasts. You would think they would care and take the opportunity of looking inward and re-set their sails because, if only from a financial standpoint, they are heading toward more and more rocky shoals and possibly taking our treasured republic with them.
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I did not watch the debate debacle last night but I understand Bloomberg looked like a deer staring into headlights. If so, that comes to $150 million or more for each headlight and possibly all down the drain.
It looks as if Sanders has the necessary momentum to continue scaring the "beejesus" out of disarrayed Democrats. Apparently what you sow eventually comes around to bite you. Democrat radicals have moved the party so far left it is beyond recognition. They have no catchy slogan, they have nothing to offer the nation and thus, entice voters, they seem to have spent the past three years trying to find plausible reasons to cut Trump down to size and he just keeps pressing forward on his mission to "Make America Great Again."
Worst of all their candidates come across as sour and forlorn rather than upbeat. Except for the former Indiana Mayor and Senator Klobuchar, they all look tired, and aged and come across angry, mean spirited and frustrated.
The contrast between them and Trump, who remains upbeat and funny, is chilling.
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Another Rant:
The US just keeps rolling along. The virus has seemingly been locked out and no new cases are being detected for the past few days. While some companies are being affected, most are not. The fast food companies operating in China have implemented delivery procedures to protect staff and customers by having no human contact on delivery. Those with factories there may soon start to run out of some parts that are supplied by China, but so far that seems not to be a major issue to the overall US economy. The boost form the trade deal will be slower starting but since we are shipping to them it is not likely to make a lot of difference by spring. The real drag from foreign sales is the EU which is teetering on recession. German, which is the primary economic power, is not using its surplus to stimulate demand and so is not helping the matter, and they are chastising the ECB for negative rates and other monetary stimulus. We don't know what is really happening with the EU trade talks, but preliminary reports suggest that the EU is unwilling to give any ground on agriculture, which has always been the real problem. Autos may be possible issue to resolve, although, not easily. Autos are a huge part of German manufacturing and exports to the US. It is unclear if the ag issue can be resolved without the US imposing heavy tariffs as was done with China. The EU cannot afford a trade war with the US after Brexit. . It would send them into real recession, and would then create serious political problems for the current leaders. With the German leadership now undetermined, and uncertain, that would really start problems for the center/left coalition. 2020 is going to be a very tough yar in the EU, and not a place you want to have any money invested. The risks and uncertainty are very high. Unfortunately, the economic slowdown in the EU does impact the US by keeping exports lower than they would be, but the US is not heavily dependent on them for economic growth.
A recent report on housing trends in the US suggests that there are social, demographic, and culture changes in the US which will limit the growth of housing and value of homes in the long term. .As a result of the housing crash in 2007-8, millennials are no longer believing, correctly, that owning a home is the path to retirement wealth. They realize that they may be better financially to rent, and put their savings into the stock market or a 401K. Others just spend more today and seem not to realize one day they need retirement savings. They seem to believe either that the government will take care of them as Bernie says, or that they can start to save later, or they conclude they will inherit money, and so don't need to save. That was never an option before current times with stock markets and home prices making their parents able to have money to leave them. Likely they came to this belief because they were given money in college, and after by their parents, and did not have to work and struggle as hard for it the way we did. . Or they continued to live at home, and did not have to fend for themselves as many of us did. It is a whole culture change. My generation had to sacrifice, scrimp and save to get where now are. We were given little or nothing. That is a whole different culture than today. Our success has made it too easy for the millennials and their kids. On a relative basis this new culture has led to less savings by millennials than by their parents at the same age. In addition, the birth rate is declining and is negative, they are postponing marriage and babies to later, and student debt has crimped the ability to get a down payment saved. This is one of the real negative outcomes created by universities hiring all those costly diversity staffs and pushing up tuition to pay for them, then encouraging the students to borrow to finance all this waste. Getting a mortgage has been made more of an issue by the much tighter credit requirements and student loans has had a major negative impact. The entire student loan situation, created by huge wasteful spending by universities, has had huge ramifications for society and the economy. This is another wonderful thing the push for diversity in college has brought us. What has made things even worse, is now 40% of entrants never graduate, but they still have the debt. The schools seem not to care as they have become a lucrative business that pays very high wages to faculty and excess staff, and to the president of the school.
Lastly, young people are mainly coming to urban settings to live and play. The internet, and ability to work and communicate instantly remotely, has changed everything. The ability to sell your product online or thru Amazon has meant you can work and produce products at home, and have access to the whole world market. Modern logistics thru Fed Ex and UPS means you can ship to anywhere from anywhere easily. Think about how that has changed the world. There is a hollowing out in many older, small factory towns and cities. As we move to a brain driven economy, vs using manual labor, the location of jobs is in bigger urban areas if you want to earn a good living in the future. Now there are cities such as Raleigh, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Austin, Denver, Boise, Nashville and several others where the start-up tech companies have fled from CA and the insanity of housing costs and the low quality of life due to homeless on the streets has driven out growing numbers. These other cities have taken the initiative and have worked to make themselves business friendly, and entertainment centers with all sorts of gentrified areas of downtown with no homeless ruining the streets. As these other cities grow and become even bigger tech centers, they will attract more young people. In fact, the problem now happening is housing prices in these places are rising very fast, and construction is not keeping up with demand. However, the cost of living and the cost of running a business in these places is still far less than in CA or Seattle, or Portland, and the absence of homeless makes life far more pleasant. While the big tech companies are not leaving CA, and that is a draw to others, these other cities are pulling away thousands of young people who work remotely or start their own company. The big problem, however, is the small cities and towns are shrinking around the Midwest. No new business is coming to replace those that have closed or moved. Result is drugs have become a massive problem that is very hard to contain. Now that opioids are recognized as a major issue and controls are in place, the drug problem has seemingly peaked, but is far from solved. This just leaves these towns on a path to nowhere and house values in decline.
Older homes and massive estate homes, as in Greenwich, are no longer in demand. Young people seem to be quite happy to rent, and now they even rent clothes, car rides, and everything else. That means as boomers retire in many older cities and towns, there are no buyers for their house. You almost cannot give away a big house in Greenwich today. Nobody shows up to even look. The SALT tax law has put the final nail in the coffin in NJ, CT and NY. If you are retiring and moving to a condo, or to FL, you can barely even find a charity to take away your beautiful furniture. There is no market for it. Nobody wants it today. The point of all of this is that the trend is to urban, smaller, rental, and mobility. While millennials are now finally marrying and having babies, and some are moving to suburbs, the price of housing and massive shortages of lower cost housing is stopping them. The huge increase in regulation regarding zoning and construction, has raised the cost of a basic house in many places to a point that the combination of shortage of inventory and cost to build, has driven up prices. That has meant that with ultra-low interest rates, the monthly mortgage payment has become much more affordable, so now demand is far above supply, and will be for years to come so long as mortgage rates remain below 4%, which has become the magic level below which demand grows. For homebuilders, especially in the cities that are booming as named above, this is the golden era. Home construction will be a boom business for several years. In these growing areas. The other impact is that as selling older homes in many places becomes harder, people are choosing to stay in the home and to do some renovation and to age in place.
Softbank has another massive bad deal in real estate-hotels. They backed Oyo in India where it was a rerun of We Work. Oyo was another outlandish supposed growth fiasco where they were going to build and develop 1 million hotel and apartment rooms in one year. Ludicrous on its face. Myoshi Son was not fit to run the giant fund and that so many gave him so much capital to invest just shows how out of control the whole venture world had become before We Work blew up. It was a classic case of a promoter and a bunch of foolish young investors at institutions who had never done a real estate development and had never run a company. It is the same stupidity and arrogance we saw in the Dotcom era and in the lead up to 2008 in RMBS and CMBS. .Ignorance and greed make bad combinations for investing every time.
The medical schools and hospitals have decided that the exam that tests new grads from medical school on their knowledge and ability at graduation, and is used by hospitals to weed through residency applications, is excluding too many minority students from selection for top quality residency programs because their test grades were not good enough to be accepted by the top hospitals for residency positions. Apparently the hospitals get hundreds, or more applications and need a way to sort through them objectively in order to narrow the numbers of applicants to those deemed good prospects to interview. The medical associations and hospitals, along with the students, have determined it is "too stressful" for the students to have to take these tests knowing it will determine where they get residency. The snowflakes are unable to deal with stress. And too few minorities score high enough to be considered for positions at top hospitals. Research has shown, however, that high scores are linked to good outcomes in clinical settings and other measures. In short, high scorers make better doctors. As a result of the stress and the perceived failure of minorities to score well, it has been decided to use pass/ fail, which tells nothing about skill level, and to use instead "holistic" measures. In summary, we will have residents chosen not for proven ability as doctors, but for some airy fairy holistic way to get more minorities into top hospitals-result- patients lose -maybe their life, on the alter of diversity. Just in case you wondered what the benefits of diversity really are. This same race to the least common denominator is behind pushing for more minority students getting accepted to STEM graduate programs, and the elimination of SAT scores, which are now claimed to be discriminatory even though it has been well demonstrated that high scoring kids have better school outcomes, and graduation rates. China has no such stupid selection process. They go for the best talent. Merit is what they measure, like we used to do.
If you want to see an example of what is occurring on elite college campuses today, the link is just one example of what is going on at some other universities across the country.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/b
The Dems have a growing mess. Now Bloomberg is in serious trouble with the left wing for his past comments even though much of what he said was correct and spot on, especially about stop and frisk. It is just that now everything one says is misconstrued to be racist and terrible, so he likely just lost. I watched 20 minutes of the debate. They let everyone dump all over Mike then did not call on him other than for his very brief rejoinder. The rest was like watching a debate in Alice In Wonderland. The stuff some of them are promoting is so absurd and lacking in any understanding of economics, it is amazing to realize this is a debate for candidates for president, and not for some campus left wing organization. If this is what the Dems offer against Trump it is a joke. I could easily destroy their positions, and Trump can do it much better than me. Bernie's army is going to dig up anything they can and seek to stop Mike. They are succeeding. Just makes Klobachar more viable as the only one left standing. Bernie has never held a real job, lived off welfare and wives of which he had 4, he never had any bill passed in Congress other than 2 post office names. Nobody likes him. He is basically a Communist and early on had Castro and other communists as his heroes. And now he wants to destroy the economy. Yet he is the leader???? What is going on? Warren is a yelling, arm waving lunatic. Buttaboy is the gay mayor of a tiny city that has only a small number of residents when Notre Dame is not in session, and he promotes that as making him the best candidate. Wow. S Bend is not dealing with mullahs or Xi or Kim. Putin would chew him up and spit him out. What we see is the direct result of what is happening on campus where the kiddies are indoctrinated by the far left professors who think Bernie and his policies are great. Makes you wonder what the hell kids are being taught in university these days. Bernie should make you very worried about what is being turned out of the schools and what the politics will be going forward. You need to try to educate your kids and grandkids about capitalism and about how they have been mislead in college. If we don't run this around soon, the country is in big trouble as these kids get out in the working and political world. Just look at Bernie to see what has happened. .
Now they are intensifying attacks on Barr since impeaching Trump failed so badly. If you think the 2000 person DOJ former employee petition and the judges "emergency meeting" is not an orchestrated and staged effort, you need to move back to a cave. Roger Stone was being unfairly charged and sentenced as payback to Trump. Barr was right to step in and correct and massively unfair situation. Real felons get much lesser sentences and all he really did was lie and try to get his friend to lie. Bad things, but not 9 years. The real people who should be admonished are the four prosecutors, two of whom were Mueller alumni who probably need to get someone to justify the Mueller investigation. The lead prosecutor for Stone said the sentence was far too harsh, but the other 4 threatened to quit if he prevailed. That was well before Trump said anything. This is like the Ukraine-the Dems take something out of context and run for impeachment-this time of Barr. And the press piles on. It is all a script. Trump was right to be angry, but he needs to keep his mouth shut and let Barr handle things. Flynn was horribly mistreated. The false FISA warrant was a travesty. The Dems are terrified of what is coming from Durham, and so they are trying to destroy Barr for nothing factual, so they can try to blow off Durham's indictments. They forget Holder being called Obama's wingman, and who was blatantly doing Obama's bidding. Barr is not going to resign. Trump will keep quiet. In the end everyone gets pardoned after the election.
There is a prize for any man who can certify that he has been to the supermarket three times in a row, and when arriving home with the groceries he was NOT told he had bought the wrong brand, wrong size, wrong thing, or forgot to buy something. In short that he had done nothing wrong three times in a row.
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