Monthly Archives: March 2018

The Donald’s Blind Squirrel Nails An Acorn, by David Stockman

Posted on March 30, 2018 | Leave a comment

Would Amazon stock trade anywhere near $1000 a share in a world of honest money? David Stockman says no. From Stockman, at davidstockmanscontracorner.com:

It is said that even a blind squirrel occasionally finds an acorn, and so it goes with the Donald. Banging on his Twitter keyboard in the morning darkness, he drilled Jeff Bezos a new one—or at least that’s what most people would call having their net worth lightened by about $2 billion:

I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!

You can’t get more accurate than that. Amazon (AMZN) is a monstrous predator enabled by the state, but Amazon’s outrageous postal subsidy—-a $1.46 gift card from the USPS stabled on each box—-isn’t the half of it.

The real crime here is that Amazon has been exempted from making a profit, and the culprit is the Federal Reserve’s malignant regime of Bubble Finance. The latter has destroyed financial discipline entirely and turned the stock market into the greatest den of speculation in human history.

That’s why Bezos can kill established businesses with impunity. The casino allows him to run a pernicious business model based on “price to destroy”, rather than price for profit and a return on capital.

Needless to say, under a regime of sound money and honest capital markets Amazon would be a far more benign economic creature. That’s because no real investors would value AMZN’s money-loosing e-Commerce business at $540 billion—-nor even a small fraction of that after 25-years of profitless growth.

As we observed a few weeks ago,

AMZN is allegedly a tech company owing to its cloud business (AWS). But that’s exactly the skunk in the woodpile.

When you set aside AWS’ sales and operating income during 2017, Amazon’s e-Commerce business generated $160 billion of sales, but posted operating income of negative $200 million.

That’s right. The monster of the retail midway posted no profit whatsoever last year!

And it’s getting worse. During 2016 the e-Commerce business posted $1.1 billion of operating income on $124 billion of sales; and the year before that (2015) operating income was $2.6 billion on e-Commerce sales of $99 billion.

Stated differently, incremental annual sales of $61 billion over the past three years resulted in a $2.8 billion reduction in operating profit.

There you have it. As the third great bubble of this century has accelerated towards its blow-off top, the robo-machines and momo traders have turned absolutely rabid, thereby enabling Bezos to go flat-out berserk in pursuit of growth at any cost.

To continue reading: The Donald’s Blind Squirrel Nails An Acorn

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Investing, Technology

Tagged ,

Why the Environmental Left Is Secretly Petrified by Truly Renewable Energy, by Justin Haskins

Posted on March 30, 2018 | 2 comments

Truly renewable energy from nuclear fusion would allow more people to live, and live better. That, believe or not, has environmentalists worried. From Justin Haskins at americanthinker.com:

The hypocrisy of the environmental left is well documented: Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, and the other Hollywood eco-saints travel far and wide in their gas-guzzling limos and private jets to preach the importance of riding bicycles and to spread the gospel of wind and solar power.  However, perhaps more astounding than their “green life for thee, but not for me” lifestyle is the reality that environmental radicals, despite all their hollering to the contrary, don’t actually want truly cheap and renewable energy.  In fact, the creation of affordable, clean, widely available energy is one of their greatest fears.

On March 9, a team from MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced in the academic journal Nature that they are closer than ever to making nuclear fusion a reality.  If successful, nuclear fusion would provide incredibly cheap, environmentally friendly energy to the world – and the researchers believe that the technology could be ready for a commercial rollout in as few as fifteen years.

As Fox News noted in a recent report on the potential discovery, “[n]uclear fusion is the be-all and end-all source of energy because, in theory, it’s practically unlimited and has almost no downside.  It doesn’t put carbon into the atmosphere like the burning of fossil fuels or generate radioactive waste like nuclear fission, which is the technology in current nuclear power plants.”

If nuclear fusion is achieved, it will in relatively short order render much of the existing energy market useless.  Many traditional power plants would close.  Carbon dioxide emissions would be cut dramatically in countries with enough wealth to build nuclear fusion plants.  Billions of people would have access to affordable energy that they never had before.

This scenario might sound as though it’s every environmentalist’s paradise, but there’s more to leftist environmentalism than obsessing about global warming.  For many on the left, growing human population sizes and their effect on the environmental is also a very serious concern.  For instance, in his population control book Ten Billion, environmentalist Stephen Emmott wrote, “Only an idiot would deny that there is a limit to how many people our Earth can support.  The question is, is it seven billion (our current population), 10 billion or 28 billion?  I think we’ve already gone past it. Well past it.”

To continue reading: Why the Environmental Left Is Secretly Petrified by Truly Renewable Energy

 

2 Comments

Posted in Energy, Environment, Government, Politics

Tagged , ,

Syria: Is Trump Finally Putting America First? by Thomas Knapp

Posted on March 30, 2018 | 1 comment

President Trump said the US would be exiting Syria. We’ll believe it when we see it. From Thomas Knapp at antiwar.com:

During a visit to Ohio to promote his infrastructure plan on March 29, US president Donald Trump dropped one of the bombshells that Americans have become accustomed to over the last year and a half: “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon …. Let the other people take care of it now.”

If he’s serious, if the more hawkish members of his administration don’t dissuade him, and if he follows through, Trump will be taking a giant step in the right direction on foreign policy. The US never had any legitimate business in Syria. Its military adventurism there has been both dumb and illegal from the beginning.

Yes, illegal. Congress has never declared war on, or against any force in, Syria. For that matter, it hasn’t even offered the fig leaf of an extraconstitutional “Authorization for the Use of Military Force.” Former president Barack Obama just decided to go to war there, did so … and got away with it.

And yes, dumb. The rise of the Islamic State in Syria was a direct consequence of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. American military intervention in Syria using the Islamic State as an excuse simply doubled down on that previous mistake.

While I carry no brief for the Ba’athist regime headed by Bashar al-Assad, that regime has never offered the US or its allies anything resembling a legitimate casus belli. US calls for “regime change” and backing for anti-Assad rebels (many of whom seem to be foreign jihadists rather than domestic dissidents) remind one, as they should, of similar calls regarding the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. After nearly two decades of “war on terror,” following through on those calls would just add a third quagmire to the set.

Then, of course, there are the Russians. Russia and Syria have been allied since the days of Assad’s late father. Syria provides Russia with its only naval base on the Mediterranean (at Tartus), and the two states have been linked by a “Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation” since 1980. Among areas where the new Cold War could turn hot in a hot minute, Syria stands out.

To continue reading: Syria: Is Trump Finally Putting America First?

1 Comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, Military, War

Tagged ,

Gun Control in America Has Always Been About Disarming Black People, by Carey Wedler

Posted on March 30, 2018 | 2 comments

Guns can even the odds between the weak and the strong. It’s no surprise that gun control has often been targeted at the most historically oppressed group in America—blacks. From Carey Wedler at theantimedia.org:

Americans calling for gun control in 2018 often argue that a cursory glance at history proves there was never meant to be an unrestrained right to own firearms — that there were always meant to be restrictions on gun ownership. In at least one respect, they are correct: United States history shows there has always been an element of racism underpinning gun control. From the colonial era to the post-civil war era to the 1960s, laws have sought to disempower African Americans by limiting their ability to protect themselves.

Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor who has written extensively on the history of gun control in America, has explained the long legacy of gun control as it relates to this country’s long legacy of racism (though not all gun control measures were racist in measure, the institutional racism inherent in many policies is indisputable).

“In the colonies before the Revolution and in the states right after, racially discriminatory gun laws were commonplace,” he wrote in an article published by the New Republic in 2013.

“Fearing revolts, lawmakers enacted statutes barring slaves from possessing firearms or other weapons. That ban was often applied equally to free blacks, who otherwise enjoyed most rights, lest they join in an uprising against the slave system. Where blacks were allowed to possess arms, as in Virginia in the early 1800s, they first had to obtain permission from local officials.”

After the civil war, Southern states passed the Black Codes, which banned black Americans from owning guns. Acknowledging that gun control laws are not always effective, Winkler explained:

“You can draw up any law you like, but people don’t necessarily comply. To enforce these laws, racists began to form posses that would go out at night in large groups, generally wearing disguises, and terrorize black homes, seizing every gun they could find. These groups took different names depending on locale: the Black Cavalry in Alabama, the Knights of the White Camellia in Louisiana, the Knights of the Rising Sun in Texas. In time, they all came to be known by the moniker of one such posse begun in Pulaski, Tennessee after the war: the Ku Klux Klan.”

To continue reading: Gun Control in America Has Always Been About Disarming Black People

2 Comments

Posted in Civil Liberties, Government

Tagged , , ,

Leaked Texts Suggest Coordination Between Obama White House, CIA, FBI And Dems To Launch Trump-Russia Probe, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 30, 2018 | 2 comments

The noose draws ever tighter around the necks of the CIA, the FBI, the Democratic party, and yes, even Obama. From Tyler durden at zerohedge.com:

Congressional investigators looking into the origins of Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia probe believe they’ve found a smoking gun that could justify the appointment of a special counsel to investigate whether the Obama administration exerted undue influence over the FBI.

A series of text messages between FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ lawyer Lisa Page have revealed the involvement of Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff, John Brennan, Obama’s CIA director, and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in helping create an atmosphere of paranoia that gave them the political cover to launch the Russia probe back in the summer of 2016.

Dennis McDonough

The investigators who leaked the information to Fox said the texts between Strzok and Page “strongly” suggest coordination between the White House, two independent intelligence agencies, and a Democratic Congressional leader. That would “contradict” the Obama administration’s claims of non-involvement.

The texts tell of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe being concerned with “information control,” and suggest a plot to leak details of the FBI’s incipient investigation to both the White House and Reid. Brennan also became involved in agitating for an investigation, though his agency was supposed to be operationally separate from the FBI.

Page texted Strzok on Aug. 2, 2016, saying: “Make sure you can lawfully protect what you sign. Just thinking about congress, foia, etc. You probably know better than me.”

A text message from Strzok to Page on Aug. 3 described former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe as being concerned with “information control” related to the initial investigation into the Trump campaign. According to a report from the New York Times, Brennan was sent to Capitol Hill around the same time to brief members of Congress on the possibility of election interference.

Days later, on Aug. 8, 2016, Strzok texted Page: “Internal joint cyber cd intel piece for D, scenesetter for McDonough brief, Trainor [head of FBI cyber division] directed all cyber info be pulled. I’d let Bill and Jim hammer it out first, though it would be best for D to have it before the Wed WH session.”

In the texts, “D” referred to FBI Director James Comey, and and “McDonough” referred to Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, the GOP investigators said.

To continue reading: Leaked Texts Suggest Coordination Between Obama White House, CIA, FBI And Dems To Launch Trump-Russia Probe

2 Comments

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Investigations

Tagged , , , ,

Sessions Names Prosecutor To Investigate FBI Misconduct Claims, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 30, 2018 | 1 comment

Attorney General Sessions is naming a prosecutor, but not a special prosecutor, to investigate the FBI’s behavior before and after the 2016 election. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed Thursday that John Huber – Utah’s top federal prosecutor, will be paired with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz to investigate a multitude of accusations of FBI misconduct surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The announcement comes one day after Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed that he will be investigating allegations of FBI FISA abuse.

Sessions’ decision stops short of formally appointing a special counsel to investigate – noting in a lengthy letter written to Chairmen Grassley, Goodlatte and Gowdy, Sessions that regulations recognize “the Attorney General may conclude that the circumstances do not justify such a departure “from the normal process of the department,” and that he may instead determine that other “appropriate steps” can be taken…”

That said, Sessions says he will rely on Huber’s review to determine the need for a special counsel.

“I am confident that Mr. Huber’s review will include a full, complete and objective evaluation of these matters in a manner that is consistent with the law and facts,” Sessions wrote.

“I receive regular updates from Mr. Huber and upon the conclusion of his review, will receive his recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of a special counsel.”

Huber has also been looking at whether the FBI should have more thoroughly probed Hillary Clinton’s ties to Uranium One, a Russian nuclear energy agency. Still, it is worth noting that it was Barack Obama who appointed Huber to his position in 2015.

To continue reading: Sessions Names Prosecutor To Investigate FBI Misconduct Claims

1 Comment

Posted in Crime, Government, Investigations, Law, Politics

Tagged ,

You Know The U.S. is Losing, We’re Willing to Talk, by Tom Luongo

Posted on March 30, 2018 | 2 comments

The US generally calls for talks in military situations when the talks can be used as a military tactic—for delay and regrouping. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

How do you know when a politician is lying?

Their lips move and words come out.

How do you know when the United States is at a disadvantage in a geopolitical quagmire?

Our diplomats and Presidents want to ‘open up talks.’

Multiple times in the past four years the U.S. has used negotiating ceasefires in Syria and Ukraine to rearm and regroup those we’re backing or get our opposition (the Syrian Arab Army, the Russians) to let their guard down and then attack within 24 hours.

We’ve used the U.N. Security Council as a bludgeon to brazenly lie about on the ground facts in Syria to attempt to save our pet jihadists in places like Aleppo and now eastern Ghouta.

And in each of these instances the Russian counterparts have documented the U.S.’s mendacity, patiently building up an international file of such incidents for future use.  As I’ve pointed out so many times, the Russians rightly feel we are “Not Agreement Capable” either from a short-term or long-term perspective.

Winning Looks like Losing

So, why do I think the U.S. is in a losing position right now, despite the pronouncements from President Trump and his most ardent supporters that he’s winning on everything?

Because on the two most important issues of 2018, Korean denuclearization and strategic arms control, Trump is ready to sit down and talk.  And we have not been willing to do that on either of these issues at the Head of State level for most of this century, if not longer.

I wrote recently that the Neoconservative cabal in D.C. is in its final push for war with Russia.  The catalyst, for me, was President Putin’s state of the union address on March 1st where he unveiled new weapons that conjured up images from the finale of Dr. Strangelove.

I said, and still believe …

The neocons are cornered.  All of their major pushes to destroy Russia and Iran and control central Asia are collapsing.  The EU is fast approaching a political crisis.  The U.K. is still a loyal subject but the White House has a cancer at its center, Donald Trump. The window has nearly closed on regime change in Russia.  In effect, it’s now or never.

 

To continue reading: You Know The U.S. is Losing, We’re Willing to Talk

2 Comments

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, History, Military, War

Tagged , , ,

He Said That? 3/29/18

Posted on March 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

From Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer, The Rambler (1952):

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for, however absurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act which shows that it was conferred without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want of virtue than of importance.

Leave a comment

Posted in Morality

Tagged

Review: ‘What’s Up, Deplorable?’ Roseanne Barr’s Rebooted Sitcom Embraces Trump’s America, by Rebecca Mansour

Posted on March 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

It shouldn’t be headline news when one of the TV networks runs a comedy show that actually portrays a character whose views are representative of about half the US population in a sympathetic light. But that’s how far Hollywood has deteriorated. From Rebecca Mansour at breitbart.com:

ABC

“What’s up, Deplorable?”

That’s how self-described “proud Deplorable” Roseanne Barr’s title character was greeted by her pussy hat-wearing sister (two-time Emmy winner Laurie Metcalf) in the first episode of her rebooted sitcom Roseanne.

A record-breaking 18 million viewers tuned into ABC Tuesday night to watch the return of the 1990s queen of sitcom. After a 20-year absence, Barr revived her award-winning role as the matriarch of the working class Conner family of Lanford, Illinois. And Trump’s America found a champion.

After the 2016 election, Hollywood executives realized how ridiculously out of step they were with their audience. If the box office collapse and network television implosion wasn’t proof enough, the election of Donald Trump left no doubt they were clueless about life outside their media bubble.

Hillary’s loss came as a complete shock to them because, to paraphrase Pauline Kael’s infamous (and probably apocryphal) quote about Nixon’s 1972 victory, they didn’t know anyone who voted for Trump.

Well, actually, they did know at least one Trump voter: Roseanne Barr.

For a brief time following the election, Hollywood’s top brass tossed around the idea of  reaching out to Trump’s forgotten men and women with targeted programming. Most of those early conciliatory gestures gave way to pussy hat protests, Russian conspiracies, and mass “un-friend-ings.” The #Resistance furthered the divide.

But one project did break through the political noise, as the entertainment industry turned to an old pro for guidance.

Unlike Hollywood executives and their counterparts on Wall Street and Capitol Hill, Roseanne Barr knew exactly why she and the rest of America voted for Trump. Last night’s Roseanne reboot gave a simple and honest answer to the befuddled studio execs and the finger-wagging #Resistance scolds.

To continue reading: Review: ‘What’s Up, Deplorable?’ Roseanne Barr’s Rebooted Sitcom Embraces Trump’s America

 

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Entertainment, Media

Tagged

Treasury Admits It Lost $1.2 TRILLION in 2017, by Mark Nestmann

Posted on March 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

The US is broke, and the Treasury’s own report admits it. From Mark Nestmann at nestmann.com:

In 1971, President Richard Nixon told an ABC News reporter that he was “now a Keynesian in economics.”

Nixon’s statement was an acknowledgment that he agreed with the ideas of John Maynard Keynes. Keynes was an economist whose theories once underpinned the economies of every major country.

Nixon’s endorsement of Keynesian economics was shocking. To understand its impact at the time, consider how the world would react today if the leader of ISIS converted to Christianity. Or if the National Rifle Association endorsed a ban on semi-automatic weapons.

Nixon’s statement was astonishing because one of the fundamental precepts of Keynesian economics is that governments must intervene in the economy to ensure “optimal outcomes.” To economic conservatives, this was dangerously close to socialism or even communism.

Keynes believed that business cycles – periods of expansion followed by recessions – are the inevitable consequence of capitalism. Free-market economists believe governments should not intervene in the business cycle support economies in recession. Keynes thought intervention was a fundamental duty of government.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Keynes advocated for governments to reduce taxes and increase public spending to spur employment. Keynes acknowledged that this policy might require deficit spending. But he believed budget surpluses when prosperity returned would make up for the deficits.

Once Nixon embraced Keynesianism, resistance by economic conservatives – and the Republican Party – faltered. The last Republican president who didn’t endorse Keynesian economics was Dwight Eisenhower, who left office in 1961. Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., George Bush Jr., and now Donald Trump have all embraced cutting taxes to spur the economy.

That brings us to 2018. February 15, 2018, to be exact. That’s the day that Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin signed off on a report with the mind-numbing title Fiscal Year 2017 Financial Report of the United States Government.

To continue reading: Treasury Admits It Lost $1.2 TRILLION in 2017

Leave a comment

Posted in Debt, Economy, Financial markets, Government

Tagged , , ,