Regulations

One of the things that really does need to be looked at is how many regulations we have vs how many we need.

Having dealt with them my whole life, it is clear that they tend to get worse over time.

There is a simple reason for this, human ingenuity.

Once you create a regulation that prohibits or punishes profitable behavior, the people who would profit study it to determine how to avoid it.  Let take the war on drugs.

Illegal drugs are tremendously profitable and many of them are also quite illegal.  Of course some just try not to get caught, or if caught have less on them then any thresholds established for greater punishment.

A more ingenious group has another approach, creating new drugs not covered by the existing regulations.  This allows them to sell drugs with similar or better effects but no risk until the regulations are expanded to cover the new drugs.

You can see how this works in things like sports where every year rules committees have to tweak rules for games that haven't generally changed except that certain rules get exploited or clarifications are required because of flaws that were discovered.

That's the problem with regulations, the people who write them are people.

Take things like traffic rules.  I for various reasons often drive late at night.  At some intersections there are restrictions like no turn on red which make sense when the street is busy but are silly when no other cars are anywhere near.  Now at many of these intersections the risk of an accident is non-existent at certain times, but the people who make these rules don't care, or don't care enough to review all the intersections and adjust the signs.  It could also get expensive since whatever times they post is likely to be wrong, one way or the other.

There is though a clear tendency to continue to revise regulations clarifying the regulations already issued.  Having been through a number of reform attempts, I know that the pro and anti regulation forces can't agree so we generally are left with a worse situation than we had before.

Of course simple saying things like eliminate two regulations for every new one issued only results in longer regulations.

People are clever that way.

Saturday Ramblings

The dotard is so predictably saying that the cold weather in the northeast disproves climate change, duh!

Guess the increased hurricane activity and record heat in the summer was just weather.

He is putting conditions on letting people who effectively lived their whole life here since childhood stay.  Why is this even an issue?

Republicans are somehow convinced that Americans are going see the extra $5 or so from the tax measure and be all enthused.  Of course whatever that might be, it will probably be eclipsed by the increase in health care cost they are creating.

I can't decide if they actually believe the stuff they say?  It's often so idiotic but then you have to consider the speakers.

Of course businesses are seeing the big reduction they got and I'm sure their executives and stockholders are appreciative.

Taking care of the 5% isn't the smartest political move, of course we have a lot of people who aren't paying attention.

Our system doesn't achieve one person one vote is any significant way.  If you live in a small state you have a bigger voice.

One of the things that bothers a lot of "evangelicals" is how many young people are more socially liberal than they are.  They consider this a bad thing but you can't make people think the way you do.

They find things in the old testament that justify denying some people the right to love who they want.  This judging others instead of fixing your own faults pretty much ignores the life of Jesus.

The New Year is about to start and maybe the best resolution would be to let others live their lives the way they see fit and focus on being a better person?

Why not?

Please Provide Incriminating Evidence

After a number of years of unsuccessful investigations, it seems like the newest tactic is simply to say that the DOJ, the FBI, the DNC and anyone else they can think of is withholding the "real" evidence that would prove guilt.

Of course one way to conduct an investigation is to make up your mind first and look for anything that would confirm it.

Having made up you mind, the evidence has to exist, and failure to turn it over means you are engaged in a cover up and a deep state conspiracy to hide the "real: facts.

Then you find two people, who work in the FBI who express political views to each other on their phones which aren't favorable to the dotard.

Never mind that they, like all Americans have the right to these views and the right to express them privately, it is clear proof of bias and should have been turned over.

Well the fact that they, like a majority of Americans, felt the dotard was unqualified to be President is an indication of an opinion not bad behavior.

Not to the conspiracy monkeys in the House!

They do everything based on pure partisan motives so of course so does everyone else.

Never mind that most civil servants actually do their jobs no matter what their personal beliefs are.

Everybody is like us, everybody is biased and everybody lets partisan beliefs cloud their judgment.

The ongoing efforts to prove a crime happened when clearly none did is a tremendous waste of taxpayer money but it keeps the base interested.

It will continue as long as they can milk it and try to distract the public from the real investigation about the election.

One where there has already been a criminal indictment.

Tick Tock on Entitlements

Having passed a bill that will undoubtedly raise the deficit significantly we are soon going to here the Republicans calling for entitlement reductions.

Now with the mid terms coming in November, they may hold off our of political expediency, not human decency.

Many Republicans aren't in favor of things like Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, Food Stamps, etc. since they take money from people who have it and give it to people who don't.

A lot of people think Social Security is self funded and it looks that way on paper, but it is progressive, meaning the very poorest get a lot more than they paid in while the wealthiest don't.

So similar to the recent health insurance attack, Republicans simply talk about making it optional, let people put the contributions into savings or investments.

We know that doesn't work since if you struggle to buy groceries and pay the rent, you aren't investing in BITCOIN.

Social Security isn't going to make anyone wealthy but it does provide a bit of a cushion to those who need it the most, as well as a sense of dignity.

These are two things that Republicans simply don't care about.

In the normal course of human activity, left to a pure capitalist system or anything like it, some will get very rich but most will just get poorer.

So is Government supposed to protect the rich from the poor, or the poor from the rich?

In the first scenario you stop the idle poor from robbing the rich.  If they are poor they are of course idle, even if they work multiple jobs.

Let them work harder or depend on charity.  In a Christmas Carol the ultimate Republican is typified by Scrooge's attitude about the poor or his clerk, who used a holiday to rob him of a half day of wages.

Tick Tock, if we re-elect these folks, watch out.

Make a Wonderful Life

In the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" we see the story of a supposedly ordinary man who was never able to do the great things he dreamed about but did sacrifice for his family and his neighbors while standing up to the evil bully.

In the middle of the movie, after we get a review of his life he is brought to despair because of an event that wasn't his fault but which threatens to ruin him and everything he has worked for.

He is saved by a Guardian angel who shows him what the town would have been like if he had not been in it, and of course all the "little" things we saw him do weren't done and everything was a lot worse.

In the end it all works out but of course the message is our actions have more impact than we can know.

If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend it, although it is a bit dated.

Its hard non to see it as a fight between the little people and the evil rich person, and there is a message of populism built in where the Building and Loan is helping average folks lead a better life while the rich villain only cares about profits.

Oddly we live in a bit of a topsy-turvy time where a wealthy person  has convinced at least some average folk think he is their champion and the Building and Loan would be the enemy preventing the monied person from putting the money to better use.

Of course the scenario we see in the second half shows a town where slums are prevalent, prostitution and wild living are rampant and people we met in the first half living good lives are now forced to be, well evil, by their circumstances.

In an episode of Seinfeld, a character who had never seen the movie is made to watch it and his conclusion is that the "bad" town looked like a lot more fun than the "wholesome" town and the heroes were reversed.

Its a bit like our current situation with the dotard in charge, Mr. Costanza would be happy.

However, the vast majority of us prefer the town where the average folks live a more wholesome life so do everything you can to help, not hinder is the real message.  It may not seem like much but it may be more than you know.

Wealthy People

F. Scott Fitzgerald said about the rich "They are different then you and me".

If you read the full quote it goes on to say that they, because of their early advantages, are convinced they are better than the rest of us, because from a very early age they were treated better.

This of course applies to those born into wealth who never wanted for anything.

Look at the dotard.  He expects to be appreciated and loved and when he isn't he doesn't understand why not.

He has no real feeling for what most of us understand about the world we live in, In large part he is more of an outside observer than a participant.

If you have enough people and are as shallow as he is, you will always find people who tell you how smart and great you are, how nothing is your fault, how others tell lies about you.

It explains a lot of his behavior and those who think he is on their side are mistaken.

You are either on his side or you don't matter.

Yes he tells people he needs something from whatever he thinks they want to hear, why does he care if they actually believe him.

If you simply look at the life he lived, he was never faithful to anyone, changed his views frequently and was at best a so-so businessman.

He was never an A-lister in either business or the entertainment industry and was tolerated because he had money and some fame.

Of course for the people who voted for him, whether because of abortion, or racism, or even because he promised to get government off their backs (this was to his wealthy friends), you threw your lot in with someone who has never demonstrated that he is dependable or reliable.

Old dogs and all that.

Christmas

Merry Christmas to all.

I didn't need the dotard's permission to say that.

Also Happy Holidays to all.

Not everyone celebrates Christmas.

The politics of exclusion would have us believe that wishing non-Christians a happy holiday is somehow wrong.

We are a country with a majority of Christian citizens but that shouldn't mean that others aren't welcome.

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ, if not the actual day.  He said there were two great commandants, love God and love thy neighbor.

Pretty much covers it all, lets give it a shot.

Immigrants R Us

There was a report by anonymous sources that the dotard said all Haitians have aids and Nigerians live in huts.

The White House is denying he said those things, but I think even his most loyal supporters are probably pretty sure he did.  In fact they are happy he did.

The fact that he has a low opinion of people from those and many other countries is not surprising, he sort of shouted it out during the campaign.

I'm not even sure it qualifies as news at this point.

There have always been people in this country who didn't like immigration, even when they themselves had recently immigrated.

Of course without immigration we wouldn't actually be a country.

The opposition to immigrants is part of a syndrome that happens to new homeowners.  You bought a house after most likely a lot of consideration and want the neighborhood to stay the way it was when you decided to live there.  Obviously if you move into a well established neighborhood, there's a chance that might happen, but don't forget, you yourself was a change for the older residents.

If you move into a development that is still expanding, of course some of the views and open spaces are likely to go away.

Change happens whether we like it or not.

Generally we are suspicious of people who don't seem to be like us.

Of course ultimately everybody is pretty much the same, no matter how they look or how they dress.

Just consider the second and third, maybe fourth generations of those immigrants who came here in the late 1800s, escaping famine, religious oppression and tyranny.

Of course, at the time, they were gong to destroy this country, lived like animals and spread crime.

People are people and no group is better or worse than any other.  Some are just more recent.

Protesting Democrats Instead of Republicans

The end of year Government extension was what is called a clean bill, meaning it didn't include any additional provisions, including any changes to DACA.

Now enough Democrats supported this extension that it passed and the Government continues into January.

Some interest groups that wanted the bill held up unless something about DACA was done are now protesting the Democrats who voted for it.

That is fine but of course the reason a clean bill was used was to avoid long debates and a Government shutdown.

It should be noted that extending or replacing DACA isn't supported by many Republicans although it is supported by nearly all Democrats.

It was revoked by a Republican president and it would be pretty simple to pass a law that recreated DACA if the Republican majority introduced something reasonable.

However, shutting the Government down over DACA wasn't going to work.

Clearly many Republicans would be fine with shutting it down if it could be blamed on the Democrats.

The point is that protesting Republicans isn't effective, they may be voting against you anyways.

So direct your anger at your supporters, because they should shut down the Government instead of trying to get a compromise bill passed.

I find this the sort of logic results in Republican majorities and a dotard as President.

You are on my side but not enough on my side so I'll let someone who is against me win by not voting, or maybe even voting against you.

Politics is tough and I understand having an issue that is critical to you,

However, an all or nothing strategy often gets you nothing.

If you were happy that Hillary lost because Bernie was better, are you still happy?

Are you?

Fun With Statistics

So yesterday the administration released a report that said half of prisoners in federal custody were in the country illegally.  Sounds sort of bad but it turns out that's because they were arrested for being in the country illegally.

Remember the federal Government handles immigration cases and a few other types of crimes while most crimes including the vast majority of violent crimes are prosecuted at the state and local level.

Because of the nature of federal crimes you will find people who were guilty of things like bank fraud among others, so I'm sure that there is a higher percentage of people like say Bernie Madoff in federal prisons than in the general population.

Its one of the fun things you can do with statistics and with the dotard in charge I don't know if he is manipulating them or simply sees a number and uses it.

Its like the way they try to distort the impact of the tax bill.

There are a lot more people who aren't rich than who are so if you give everybody an increase in their standard deduction while taking away personal and other deductions you can say more middle class people are getting tax breaks than rich people are.

Most of the benefits accrue to business and wealthy people but others do get a small tax break.  Of course its temporary but maybe it will get extended.

More likely though because the deficit is now going to be worse you will see an attack on entitlement programs that they depend on.

Growth statistics are another fun thing to play with.  If you increase the growth rate by a percentage point or two, the numbers are very nice.

Will the tax cut do this?  No one thinks it will except the dotard and his ilk and even his own economists don't.

You can however do it on a chart and since the future isn't here yet, you can show the chart and say things like, we can do that!

Well, probably not, but some will believe you.

When to Sell

There's a very good chance the market will sell off fairly soon now that the tax law has passed, since stocks had a big run up waiting for it.

However it will probably be after the New Year because if you sell now you probably have taxable gains at a time when you can't do much about them.

Of course the stock market is always a balance between the short term and the long term so if you are willing to watch your value go down for a while, it still has good long term prospects since corporate profits will get a shot in the arm as the tax reduction hits.

We do have that pesky increased debt but in the short term we might see a bit of a boost.

The one thing we do know is that the tax law improves corporate profitability and how they use that money is going to depend largely on the corporation's goals.

Generally profits can be used in a number of ways increased dividends, increased stock buybacks, increased capital investment, increased bonuses or used for acquisition and mergers.

They can also retire debt, but at the current interest rates not sure they will do much of that.

Further looking forward the future increase can also result is some of the same things, but you might see a percent diverted to salary increases.

Each company will decide the best way to use the money.  Some of those uses will have a bit of a stimulus impact, others will not.

The trouble is that the capital expansion investment will tend to reduce jobs as facilities are modernized to be more automated.

Of course stock buybacks and acquisitions also tend to have little impact on main street.

Increased bonuses and wages do, but it is question of how much of an impact this will have.

The small business, pass-thru companies may actually hire.  There is so much variation there its just hard to tell and we don't have a lot of surplus labor right now.  Guess retirees may be coaxed back.

Housing is the big unknown since owning has become less desirable depending of where you live and housing is the one area that impacts local employment directly.  If housing values drop, as many are likely to, the loss of wealth may exceed any tax stimulus but it might not.

If everyone runs out and buys imported goods with that extra money well, the people building smartphones in China will have jobs.

Economics is the sum of millions of individual decisions when you come down to it and maybe the capital will be used to finance domestic things, like solar or wind based technology that will create local jobs.

Maybe not.

Cash is looking pretty attractive in the New Year.

I expect greatly increased volatility, of course I'm frequently wrong.

Boring Economics

It looks like this so called tax and jobs bill is going to pass and be signed even though there are no jobs in it.

Don't get me wrong, some people will be able to afford additional domestic help around the mansion, but as far as jobs that help working class Americans its all smoke and mirrors.

Of course the monkeys in the monkey house buy into a concept that America can achieve the type of growth it did in certain past periods including a number of notable economic eras.

There was a lot of growth during and after the world war with the amount spent to fight the war and afterword's with the veterans education and interstate highway as well as the fact that American manufacturing had a bit of a monopoly while the other industrial powers rebuilt.

You then had the baby boom generation entering the workforce and a increase in defense spending that continues to this day.

So what inspires growth?

Spending, by Government or Consumers.

Businesses don't make products they can't sell or expand facilitates to make products no one needs.  The supply side premise is based on the supply and demand chart, but the concept that supply can drive the chart is a conservative concept that is a mathematical construct, not a real one.

While decreasing the cost of items (supply) theory will have an impact on demand, limits exist.

Agriculture is a good example since years when crops exceed demand are not generally very good years for farmers, in fact it makes them lose money.

Simply reducing the cost of production doesn't mean there will be more production, unless there is more demand.

More demand is driven by more consumers since any one consumer can only consume so much.

Further, as our demographics age you have baby boomers leaving their peak earning years and consuming less.

Will the boost to corporations bottom lines somehow change all this?  Well since the people who run businesses aren't generally monkeys and dotards, the answer is only if customers appear.

It might have some impact on exports but as far as greatly increasing our GDP, by itself, its just going to make rich people even richer.

Stocks or Bonds or ?

Its getting pretty close to Christmas and like many of us the congress is about to give a present they can't afford, meaning they will have debt they have to pay off.

Luckily with all the debt they pile up the interest rates have been very favorable.

If they had to pay Credit Card rates or anything close the nation would be in deep trouble.

Of course interest rates are likely to go up, how much is the question?

The Fed has raised them modestly and is planning additional hikes.

So far, based on the promised additional profits the stock market hasn't reacted negatively, but if the old stock advice is still valid, buy on the rumor, sell on the news, when the tax law gets passed, it might react negatively.

Expectation often exceeds the reality so that advice is pretty sound, although none of it is always right.

If interest rates are expected to rise, you expect the price of bonds to go down since they have to equal the current going rate.

So anticipating a fall in bond prices you keep your money elsewhere.

Stocks are the logical choice.

The move in interest rates has been slow though so the question becomes at what point are Bonds better than stocks?

Probably best to wait until next year to avoid the tax bite.

Scams and Tax Reform

As I was scanning the news headlines today one was about how a man stole $100 million from his clients and now is living in luxury.  I would think that would be the point although the story reveals a complicated possible con of wealthy people in Europe where the number of jurisdictions may have allowed the scammer to get off with a minor sentence and a lot of money.

Of course financial scams are tricky things, most of them fail, as this one did, when one of the victims wants some or all of their money.  Of course the question is how many scams don't get discovered?

One of the interesting things about this is how wealthy well educated people seem as easily tricked as everyone else.

Even maybe worse is how many companies, like the Swiss firm that was ruined by this person's actions, hire people who have the right background and connections, but no real qualifications.

Generally its possible that his luxurious life in the South of France may yet be disrupted, some of his victims are pretty determined, but for the last 15 years or so he has lived a lifestyle that eludes the vast majority of people and at worse he well end up in some European equivalent of a Club Fed.

What does any of this mean?  It seems that crime does indeed pay, it just depends what sort of crime.

Of course this week we are going to see a travesty of a tax bill probably pass which will put a trillion dollars into the coffers of business and add that amount to the debt we as a nation have to pay.

The biggest part of this con is that the dotard will lie and say it is a tremendous middle class tax cut, citing some numbers that are based on half the equation, the reduction in the tax rates and the increase in the standard deduction, ignoring the reduction in personal exemptions and itemized deductions.

Still, there are enough people who use the standard deduction that it is a net decrease, not much per capita, but a net decrease while of course all businesses and pass thru corporations get the full benefit of the corporate rate deduction.

One of the biggest scams is eliminating the requirement to get health insurance which appeals to certain people who don't want to pay their fair share now, but will cost many significantly in increased premiums. 

These are bills that will come due in the future folks, and like the financial scam above, they end up costing a lot in the end.

Quid pro Qou

Coincidentally the senator changed his mind around the same time a provision was added to the tax bill that is going to make him a lot of money.

In order to maintain his innocence he admitted that he hadn't read the bill, just relied on what otherstold him was in it.

Corker Doesn't Read

Now I believe he didn't read the entire bill, I'm pretty sure few of the monkeys did and I know the dotard didn't, but it just seems off that not one told him that they were expanding the pass thru provision to include his type of company.

I'm pretty sure none of his fellow party members will see anything suspicious here even though if someone involved in any criminal investigation of the Clintons were even at the same event as one of them years ago it is clear evidence of collusion and conspiracy.

Of course if they are actually investigating the Russian connection, it seems pretty irrelevant.

The Clintons were as ubiquitous in politics as Kevin Bacon was in movies so if you put a little effort you can probably find a link to just about anybody who's anybody is well under seven steps.

What does that mean?

Well its pretty simple, nothing, nothing at all, unless you watch Fox or are a conspiracy theorist.

Then it becomes an obsession.

Meanwhile pretty straightforward connections aren't believed because he denies it.

Lesson learned, at least for now, is just say it wasn't you.

Shaggy, It Wasn't Me

Saturday Ramblings

Sadly, John McCain's condition seems to be worsening.  He was a hero, despite being captured and a decent and honest person, who's politics I didn't always agree with, but still, I wish him the best.

Chances of the tax bill passing seem higher, Although the majority in the Senate is razor thin.  See if anything develops over the weekend.

Business has been pushing to get the corporate tax rate lowered for quite a while and the whole act is really designed to do that.  The rest of it is just give and take to make it seem like something and some will be winners, mostly very wealthy people and everyone else will be about the same.

The debt will increase, and it is worth discussing if reducing revenue with such a large deficit makes sense?

The entire Republican agenda is predicated on concepts that develop out of conversations you hear at cocktail parties and they accept the conclusions blindly.

Certain truths are simply accepted, regulation is bad, less government is good, wealth trickles down.  Of course, those things are worthy of discussion although its never as clear cut as that.

The real issue in this country is pretty simple, our demographics.

The baby boomer bulge is moving into retirement and the number of replacement workers is not enough, but that's probably a good thing since so many jobs have been automated out of existence.

The problem it creates is that without that pyramid where there are more workers on the bottom paying in than on the top taking out, social security is not sustainable.

We need more young people and instead of welcoming them we are trying to kick some of them out.

Suppose for an instant that the corporate tax reduction does result in some sort of expansion, although I don't think it will.  Where are the workers?  They happen to be overseas so the hiring isn't going to be in the rust belt.  Economics dictate what you pay and for low skilled workers this country's workers want too much.  Skilled workers are actually in short supply already, so that's not going to lead to much.

The companies will use the money to reward their executives even more since profits will be up, and maybe buy back their own stock or acquire other companies.  Those things don't create jobs, generally they end up reducing them as redundancies are eliminated.

What would create good paying jobs for people with basic skills would be infrastructure investment to fix our roads and bridges.  There are years of work in those projects but now, with the reduction in income, we have less money to pay for them.

Oh well, they are going to celebrate passing something, hope the people figure out its just a scam.

Winners and Losers

As I was thinking about the differences between the two major parties it occurred to me that one party was focused on winners and the other was focused on, well, losers for lack of a better word.

Take the republican viewpoint which is generally forged by middle to upper middle class backgrounds.

In this world if you do what you're supposed to do, go to school, stay out of serious trouble the odds are that you will end up living a middle class lifestyle.

The ones who don't succeed generally have some sort of flaw, drug addiction, inability to conform or other that results in them falling in status.

The other factor is that the people who fail to succeed actually disappear, either moving to poor neighborhoods, going to jail or just vanishing so to speak, while successful people from the lower classes who succeed end up joining the neighborhoods.

Their world view is that whether you do well or don't, its pretty much up to you and they ignore the fact that in their world, success is almost guaranteed to those born and raised in it.

The Government is in fact more of a problem than a help, taxing you and using those taxes to help undeserving needy people.

On the other side you have people born in lower to poor areas where in general the expectation is similar in that you expect to emulate your parents, its just a much lower bar.  Schools are worse, affording higher education is difficult, you might have to help pay some bills around the house, and when anything goes wrong, financial support is not available.

Of course some of these people succeed, meaning they ignore the widely available temptations around them, study, go to college and get a good job.  Of course one of the first things they do is move to a better neighborhood.

So for the majority of these people the norm is a struggle to survive with many becoming addicts, criminals or homeless and failure is all around while success isn't.

If you are lower middle class and see what happens when you lose your job to you and even worse your family, you are fearful.

In this world you need some help from the Government,  health care, unemployment insurance, food stamps, student loans to give you a chance.

Success is hard and requires some help, at least sometimes.  Yes, some can succeed on their own, but many live on the edge and are in real danger of falling even further.

The divisions are getting worse, not better and you either want to help the less fortunate do better or you want to help the successful stay that way.

Bad Dream

It looks like there are going to be significant changes in the White House staff going into next year.

Its reported that Omarosa was forcibly removed from the grounds but she officially resigns as of January 20.  I was never quite sure what her job was supposed to be outside of being a token, but guess she wasn't good enough at it.

Of course the staff is taking a lot of blame from the dotard since he can never be at fault for anything that doesn't go right.

Lots of things aren't going right, and the odd thing about it is he could have coasted on the tails of his predecessor who left him a strong economy and rising stock market.

Instead he decided to attack the environment, attack our allies, attack lots of random people and spend less time doing his job than any recent president.

Considering his lack of staff, incompetent cabinet members and general dysfunction in his party, if it is even his party, you would expect him to be there more.

He has his propaganda channel  that he watches and calls everything honestly critical of him fake news.

If I was reading this in a novel, I would get a lot of chuckles but probably dismiss it as too ridiculous to believe.

Sadly I'm pretty sure I am actually awake and this isn't a bad dream I'm having right before the election of 2016.

However, it would certainly be nice to wake up in a world that wasn't as crazy as this one.

One Less Sex Offender In Congress

The vote in Alabama is encouraging in that we aren't sending a sex offending crackpot to the Senate, which is better than the alternative.

It certainly is a little less encouraging in the fact that it was as close as it was, when we had a candidate who clearly was both unqualified and a child molester.

Still, small steps are better than no steps so we see an uptick in quality come January.

The bigger issue as we move into 2018 is how do progressive issues which are designed to help all Americans get communicated.

Part of the problem is that when you talk about the people who need the most help, it sounds a bit like favoritism.

Take Affirmative Action which is simply designed to provide an equal opportunity to groups that in the past have not had the same opportunity as others.

Well if in the past 99 out of a 100 successful candidates were majority candidates and you decide to reduce that to 90 out of a 100, you somewhat disadvantage 9 previously successful candidates.

If it is a zero sum game, you have winners and losers.

There is clearly still a long way to go in this country to level the playing field and I'm not sure everyone even wants to.

The best predictor of how your children are going to do is to look at how you are doing.

Yes we have some upward and downward mobility, but not as much as one would think so change is a very slow process.

We still have an obligation to try.

BITCOIN?

If you are interested in finances at all, or by now just read the news, you have to be aware that BITCOIN has had an amazing run up.

The reason for this is simply demand since it has no intrinsic value at all.

I looked at BITCOIN a few years ago, decided that trying to mine it was beyond my computers capabilities and thought it was already overvalued.

Of course since then and especially in the last year or so, it has exploded in value so I guess I was wrong.

However, looking at it now I would draw the exact same conclusion, its overvalued because the only value it has is how much someone else is willing to pay for it.

Now that in itself isn't unusual, pretty much everything is valued that way.  The problem with BITCOIN is that it is either a fad (bubble) or is isn't.

It looks, smells and acts like a bubble, so its hard to believe it isn't.

Bubbles, like Ponzi schemes reward early investors but ultimately harms the majority of investors.

Was I wrong back when I thought it was overvalued (think it was under a $1,000) a few years ago?

Well the market says I was, but I'm not sure I was.

Am I wrong now to think its overvalued when its selling over $15,000?

I might be, but there is still nothing about it that tells me it has any real value at all.

Of course the more it goes up, the more it will tempt people to buy it, until at some point it stops.

Bubbles pop and when they do they deflate very quickly.

Also very painfully.

Social Issues

One of the reasons Democrats can make little headway in certain parts of this country is the social issues they are associated with.

Two big ones are abortion and gay rights (marriage).

If you consider one or both of these things as a sin, you aren't going to vote for anyone who supports them.

That puts Democratic candidates at a big disadvantage to start in many areas.

Generally, with a few exceptions, people who support freedom of choice and freedom of sexual preference, don't vote for a candidate because they support these issues, they tend to consider other factors.

This is partly because for many of us the issues are considered determined, except there is a large segment of the public who wants to change that.

Take abortion.

While I support a women's right to choose, I would never want anyone I knew to have one unless it was medically necessary.  Ideally we would eliminate the need for most abortions via education and availability of birth control.

Similarly I support the right of people to love whoever they want to and to have that love recognized as valid in the same way that heterosexual love is.

This is however more of an intellectual position than an emotional one, while those who view it as an abomination are much more involved.

This is the situation for many issues and one side uses it as a pass fail criteria and the other isn't.

Empty Promises

Has the first snow of the season here, makes it seem like the holiday season.

So the current tax bill is going to make the deficit worse at which point the monkeys are gonna chatter about cutting entitlement programs.  So less for the old and poor and more for the rich, old and young.

It amazes me how many people walk around believing complete fabrications. Unfortunately one of them is our dotard.

A large number still believe our prior president was born in Kenya and that the Government staged the moon landing.

When a tax bill or health bill is formulated in secret by small groups it certainly leads to some distrust.

The less we know the better for them.

A lot of us don't seem to care until we don't like what happens and then want to know who let it happen?  Well we did.

What the Government does impacts you more and more every year.

We live in an interconnected world where rejecting the Paris accord leads to more future storm damage.

Letting the public lands be mined makes a few people rich but diminishes the rest of us and hurts wildlife.

Its our future and we need to insist on certain actions that are good for everyone, not just a few.

If you vote for the best liar, well you will be lied to a lot.

How you vote is less important than knowing why your voting.    Empty promises don't mean much unless people just accept them.

Where's the Slap On the Faces?

When I read some of the accusations coming out about inappropriate sexual or imagined sexual behavior, I find some very credible but a bunch that just don't ring true.

For example you pose with someone in public to take a picture and he grabs your ass.  No reaction?  Really?  Wouldn't you at the very least ask what are you doing?  There were a lot of other people around and no one noticed?

Now apparently there are a bunch of women who don't react like every other person in the world when something totally unexpected and unwanted happens to them.

There are certain elements to these type of stories that would make them easy enough to fake if there was some motivation to do so.  No one can deny it happened except the accused. Easy enough to get a few people to say you mentioned it to them at the time, but regardless, I never met the person who gets their ass or breast grabbed in public and didn't react somehow.

There are some elements that are common is some of the Hollywood incidents that also seem troubling, almost as if from a script.

First something inappropriate has to be alleged, something of which there is no record.  Then a bunch of unnamed but important people have to warn you not to report it at the time because it will ruin your career.

This bring me to the third element that bothers me.  Were some of these incidents, even if they happened, anything at all?

Someone kisses you in rehearsal in a way you consider "wrong".  Well it was supposed to be a rehearsal, was it really anything?

In some cases the stories include allegations that the perpetrator ogled the victim.  Maybe, maybe not but not actually anything either way.  One persons ogling is another's glance.

There are victims out there and I would like to think that we are not seeing an attempt to discredit certain allegations by creating a bunch of unverifiable ones that will make it seem, well almost normal.

I fear however that we have people either with malicious or other motivation coming forward with allegations that are simply nothing really.

I suspect that pretty much every women in the world has received some sort of unwanted attention or possibly touching during their lives.  Should we put every teenage boy on the registry who tries to cop a feel during a date?  I hope not.  He deserves a good slap on the face not a lifetime sentence.

The ones who don't stop when told are the real problems.  I guess we can just classify all men as sexual predators and move on.

The Long Wait

There are people who think the world is very different from what most of us think.

If you listen to the faux news channel you get the idea that America can do whatever it wants to because we are the strongest nation in the world.

We certainly are militarily but realistically, we are stretching our forces pretty thin, as do all countries in situations like ours.

Its not a contest between globalism and some misguided America first policy, we live in a world where we represent a fraction of the total.

As rich as we are, we are not able to be the arbiters of everything everywhere.

That's where diplomacy and joint initiatives come into play.

Of course we have the embarrassing dotard who clearly doesn't understand things like that and thinks his only real concern is pleasing some constituent base.

People voted for him because they didn't think he was a politician, but he is.

In fact he is the most political of them all, since he will say whatever he thinks will go over well with the crowds he likes to play to.

He's reminiscent of old movie politicians who only cared about themselves, because he only cares about himself.

He has no desire to serve the public, he wants to make gestures and take credit.

The Affordable Care Act is an example of how he believes some propaganda with no concept of the actual truth of the matter, it is sort of working.

This tax package which is a big Government giveaway isn't what he thinks it is, but if they pass something he'll take credit for a historic tax cut for the middle class, those earning between 1 and 100 million I guess.

Let make an announcement that plays well to the pro Israel and evangelicals although it accomplishes nothing and hurts any peace efforts, which might be a pipe dream anyway.

The people who thought the mines were gonna open and the factories were coming back are still waiting.

Making the World More Dangerous

The US recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel may seem like a non-event to many, I really don't care myself, except it clearly adds to the risk of retaliation against Americans.

The other problem is that we seem now to be unable to extract ourselves from the wars in the Middle East that we have been at for longer than any others.

Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria seem to be places where American support and American troops (advisers) are going to be for the foreseeable future.

With additional unease caused by this move, the enemy will have additional recruitment resources.

These wars are costly, both in money and the lives they affect.  While the number of casualties is down from its high point, it is by no means safe and the money diverted to pay for these wars is adding to our growing deficit and national debt.

The one lesson that the past teaches us is that no nation can continue to overextend themselves indefinitely.  It's disruptive at home and costly and in general has led to the fall of all of them.

Its even worse considering that there is no offsetting benefits.

What can we possibly gain fighting these wars?  They increase the risk of terrorist attacks and increase overall resentment against us.

We aren't planning to seize their resources or enslave their people.

I only mentioned the Middle Eastern countries but as the radicalization grows our presence is expanding.

We recently lost American troops in Niger and not so long ago Libya.

We are overextending and over deploying our troops and it results in shattered lives with little to show for it.

We now have to deal with the North Korean situation and no one knows that outcome.

We have created a world, over the last twenty years of crisis diplomacy.

We had some allies, not friends that fought with us in the Arab world.

Is it really desirable to make it even harder for them to work with us?

Government Shut Down?

You would think that knowing the money runs out on a certain day would enable the monkeys to do something about it.

I suspect they will avoid a shut down, although the argument seems to be over two weeks versus three weeks for an extension which seems inadequate.

Still they are still recovering from the celebration after they got a tax bill passed in the Senate although they have to get it reconciled with the House bill.

This shouldn't be that hard except they made promises to pass it that aren't what the House signed up for, at least not all of them.

Also, at some point the House members representing States with high tax levels may wake up and realize they are going to be screwing their constituents.

Assuming the constituents are paying attention.

Time will tell if enough representatives realize they are both hurting the public and driving up the deficit.

I doubt they will since they buy into the idea that somehow the technology is going to go away and millions of jobs will be created.

It was a little surprising to me how many Americans accept the lies about what is going on in this country, when they don't actually see it happening where they live.

Of course there are isolated incidents of things, its a big country, but one incident of say a school board doing something stupid only means there are stupid school boards out there.  It doesn't mean that some great conspiracy is undermining American values.

The dotard buys into these theories and he got elected, so it goes to show that many people have a pretty tenuous grasp on reality.

Great America

The American people have to decide what kind of Government they want, one that recreates the robber baron age and says maybe you can get a job or one that guarantees certain standards for all.

During the age of industrialization you had the growth of slums and ghettos and millions of people living in abject poverty, working for survival wages and often at risk for deadly diseases that killed or crippled millions.

There were some periods of prosperity but those periods did not help everybody, just the more fortunate.

This was during a time when manual labor was the only real way to get things done and still wages were barely sufficient to sustain life.

Of course some bettered themselves, but many couldn't until the Unions and the new deal led to a period where the working person started to earn a living wage and had a bit of a safety net that provided some support in periods of unemployment and a small pension in old age.

This is the period that most people envision when they hear the slogan, "Make America Great Again" and the dotard promises to bring back those jobs and open those mines.

Of course his policies do the very opposite as they rip apart the social safety net and endanger social security and Medicare.

He say they don't but they do.

America of the future is going to be very different from the America of the past, but to achieve that future we need to accept that its training and skills which lead to success.

Automation is replacing the unskilled and semi-skilled labor.

Its continuing and giving business more profits will only allow the pace to pick up.

Address the world of tomorrow or fantasize about the past, the choice is ours and while fantasy is easy, it just lasts a little while.

Read and Think

I wish people would take the time to understand what some of the stuff they read or post actually says.

The main thing I see is stuff that attacks a position that no one is pursuing.

For example, they are coming to take your guns if you don't stop them.

Now this type of thing is always based on a sort of hinted conspiracy of people who are trying to take away American values and rights.

However, the one case where we know that to be true is when the Russians influenced the election and told lies and exaggerations to poison the well.

They get away with this because we have media that is will to allow these sort of weird theories air time to get viewers and ad revenues.

Another example is the so called attack on Christian values.

Millions of Americans are convinced that someone is trying to undermine their religious beliefs.  No one is, in fact the main intolerance seems to be the other way around.

Trying to make this country promote a single set of beliefs is clearly a violation of our constitution and a betrayal of our heritage, yes most everyone was a Christian but we promoted freedom of religion, not religious conformance.

So much of this is passed on without actually thinking about what it is saying.  For example. no one cares if you go around saying Merry Christmas.  You just don't have to.

Happy Reindeers!

The Republicans buy into the idea that if you reduce the cost of supply, prices will get cheaper and more items will be bought.  This increase in economic activity will lead to more jobs, more income and a better economy overall.

There is a certain validity to this, especially when the economy is sluggish and there are available idle facilities.

However, businesses invest money where they can get the most profits and as we have seen over the last few decades, the main returns are in overseas manufacturing and automation.

To the extent that people are suffering in this economy it is the people who were replaced by cheaper overseas labor or robots.

Statistics on income inequality generally focus on the top end and point out how the top 1% have a large percentage of the wealth.

As true as this is, the inequality is much more basic and visible.  Few people get to see the very wealthy on a regular basis.  However the economy now pays its well educated technical and business people quite well, although they don't think so and these people live in safe suburbs, with children in good schools and they eat at good restaurants and generally enjoy what is middle to upper middle class life.

I'm not talking about the heads of the company, just the talent that demands good pay and bonuses.

Meanwhile in the next town we have our displaced factory worker where both parents are working at low paying jobs, or government benefits, kids in private school and struggling to afford a few presents at Walmart, where they may get an employee discount.

The one group gets paid in the hundreds of thousands and the second group in the tens of thousands.

The first group may very well buy another new car if the prices go down, the second group may have to replace the used car they drive if it breaks down.

Not too long ago, the lesser paid group had jobs that bordered on the higher paid groups pay scale in auto plants and steel mills.  They were however not a good investment and so they lost most of those jobs and find themselves working in the service industry or not at all.

There is nothing in supply side theory that is going to restore these jobs.  It looks like the business tax cuts are going to happen and the odds of any dramatic changes in the economy are slim. However, in fairness, predicting the economy is pretty much a crap shoot so while a recession is more likely than a boom, stock prices will rise since profits are looking brighter.

What happens to those Walmart Happy Reindeers when the season is over?

Better Profits Tax Act

It seems pretty certain that business tax rates are going to be reduced since that reduction is in both the House and the Senate versions.  The idea behind this is that by reducing the rates the US companies will have more earnings to invest and expand.

Of course they don't have to use the money that way and to the extent that many businesses are already rolling in cash and interest rates are still historically low, if there were profitable investments, I think they would have been taken.

The other possibility is that a new venture is profitable enough at a 20% rate than a 35% rate leading to start ups that didn't pass a return on investment criteria at the old rate.

Republicans act like this increase is going to be significant but most economists don't agree and see a very modest impact.

Still I suppose a modest impact is better than no impact except for the fact that we can't pay our bills already and this money is being borrowed by the Government.

So deficits and the debt will increase and these create a drag on the economy as the debt payments aren't used for things like infrastructure improvement or other productive uses.

Further, if interest rates rise, which inevitably they will, the debt payments get significantly worse.

The final piece of this puzzle is that business when it does invest, creates more efficient factories meaning more automation and less jobs.

So most of the increased activity won't actually be new jobs, just more profits.

Swampy Tax Bill

The Senate GOP tax bill would slash the corporate tax rate to 20 percent starting in 2019. It would also create incentives for multinational companies to bring foreign earnings back to the United States. And it encourages businesses to invest more, allowing them to immediately expense the cost of things such as new equipment and machinery.

The bill would temporarily cut taxes on families and individuals, lowering tax rates and expanding the amount of income that isn't subject to taxation. It would also, temporarily, expand the child tax credit for families earning less than $1 million. But it would also cut back on many tax breaks, prohibiting people from deducting the taxes they pay to states and localities.

Of course this bill would have to be reconciled with the house bill if it passes, and they really want to pass it, so expect some band aids to be applied.

The bill is going to make the deficit worse and if the same group of alligators continue to occupy the swamp they will go after Social Security, Medicaid and other programs while propping up defense contractors and Wall Street.

Its inevitable and since we now live in what I used to think of as a fictional world created in 1984, we have big brother telling us what is real and what is fake, even though the reality is different.

This is the greatest middle class tax cut ever would be sad if true since it hardly touches middle class taxes.

It plays games and seems to lower tax rates and increase the standard deduction but it eliminates the personnel deduction and many other deductions that people use.

I saw an estimate that for people earning less than $100,000, 60% might see a reduction of more than $100.  The other 40% would see less than $100 or an increase.

Its not like if you are in the lucky 60% its going to be thousands, just more than $100.  Maybe $500, but remember it expires so spend it carefully.  Your probably going to have to live with less Social Security or pay higher health care premiums soon enough.

The swamp continues to grow and that sinking sensation you feel is because the quicksand is sucking you down.

The companies can use the extra money to build bigger and better robots to replace you, so kindly step aside and except their word about how great America is for them.

You thought that slogan was about you?  Well PT Barnum is so proud.  This way to the egress.