Wikileaks

The

Democratic

Party

Self Destructs

Julian Assange

 Why the Democratic Party is doomed:

1. The Democratic establishment has vortexed the party's narrative energy into hysteria about Russia (a state with a lower GDP than South Korea). It is starkly obvious that were it not for this hysteria insurgent narratives of the type promoted by Bernie Sanders would rapidly dominate the party's base and its relationship with the public. Without the "We didn't lose--Russia won" narrative the party's elite and those who exist under its patronage would be purged for being electorally incompetent and ideologically passé. The collapse of the Democratic vote over the last eight years is at every level, city, state, Congressional and presidential. It corresponds to the domination of Democratic decision making structures by a professional, educated, urban service class and to the shocking decline in health and longevity of white males, who together with their wives, daughters, mothers, etc. comprise 63% of the US population (2010 census). Unlike other industrialized countries US male real wages (all ethnic groups combined) have not increased since 1973. In trying to stimulate engagement of non-whites and women Democrats have aggressively promoted identity politics. This short-term tactic has led to the inevitable strategic catastrophe of the white and male super majorities responding by seeing themselves as an unserviced political identity group. Consequently in response to sotto-voce suggestions that Trump would service this group 53% of all men voted for Trump, 53% of white women and 63% of white men (PEW Research).

2. The Trump-Russia collusion narrative is a political dead end. Despite vast resources, enormous incentives and a year of investigation, Democratic senators who have seen the classified intelligence at the CIA such as Senator Feinstein (as recently as March) are forced to admit that there is no evidence of collusion [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BS5amEq7Fc]. Without collusion, we are left with the Democratic establishment blaming the public for being repelled by the words of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment. Is it a problem that the public discovered what Hillary Clinton said to Goldman Sachs and what party elites said about fixing the DNC primaries against Bernie Sanders? A party elite that maintains that it is the "crime of the century" for the public and their membership to discover how they behave and what they believe invites scorn.

3. The Democrat establishment needs the support of the security sector and media barons to push this diversionary conspiracy agenda, so they ingratiate themselves with these two classes leading to further perceptions that the Democrats act on behalf of an entrenched power elite. Eventually, Trump or Pence will 'merge' with the security state leaving Democrats in a vulnerable position having talked up two deeply unaccountable traditionally Republican-aligned organizations, in particular, the CIA and the FBI, who will be turned against them. Other than domestic diversion and geopolitical destabilization the primary result of the Russian narrative is increased influence and funding for the security sector which is primarily GOP owned or aligned.

4. The twin result is to place the primary self-interest concerns of most Americans, class competition, freedom from crime and ill health and the empowerment of their children, into the shadows and project the Democrats as close to DC and media elites. This has further cemented Trump's anti-establishment positioning and fettered attacks on Trump's run away embrace of robber barons, dictators and gravitas-free buffoons like the CIA's Mike Pompeo.

5. GOP/Trump has open goals everywhere: broken promises, inequality, economy, healthcare, militarization, Goldman Sachs, Saudi Arabia & cronyism, but the Democrat establishment can't kick these goals since the Russian collusion narrative has consumed all its energy and it is entangled with many of the same groups behind Trump's policies.

6. The Democratic base should move to start a new party since the party elite shows no signs that they will give up power. This can be done quickly and cheaply as a result of the internet and databases of peoples' political preferences. This reality is proven in practice with the rapid construction of the Macron, Sanders and Trump campaigns from nothing. The existing Democratic party may well have negative reputational capital, stimulating a Macron-style clean slate approach. Regardless, in the face of such a threat, the Democratic establishment will either concede control or, as in the case of Macron, be eliminated by the new structure.

DYI

The

Pension

Time Bomb!

Pension Crisis Reaching a Tipping Point

With several states and local governments across the country facing insurmountable public pension obligations, and a few cities having already declared bankruptcy to cope with the problem, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the current system is unsustainable and will have to change. 

The short answer is, yes, we’re likely at the beginning of a crisis. From a national perspective, all state and local government pension debt amount to $4.7 trillion, McQuillan stated. 

Ultimately, very generous assumptions on expected investment returns of around 7.5 to 8 percent or more helped enable the crisis. 

“The bottom line is that if they use the same pension fund assumptions to calculate the unfunded debt in the private sector that they do in the public sector, the private sector pension fund managers would be in prison because you can’t get away with making the same rosy assumptions in the private sector that you can in the public sector,” McQuillan said. “There are federal laws that prevent that sort of cooking the books.”

DYI:  The State’s pension crisis’ is nothing more than pure vote buying.  Vote as a block – State workers, police, firemen, teachers – and we will promise you the moon for pension benefits.  Well the chickens have come home to roost as the surging Boomers enter and nearing retirement.  If this was in the private sector administrators and politicians would have handcuffs on for cooking the books.  But alas this is not the private sector but the Wild West public sector. Pensions are going to be cut back along with city and State budgets plus more borrowings to fill in the remaining gaps.  Many cities over the next 10 years are going to file for bankruptcy as well; no matter how many judicial mandates come to pass.  You simply can’t get blood out of a rock.  Add on an overvalued stock and bond market, an out of control medical, military, and university complex, budget deficits for Federal and State governments as far as the eye can see; what could go wrong??? 

DYI

Financial

Independence

Is

Machiavellian War

UPS to Freeze Pensions for 70,000 Workers toReduce Costs

UPS joins companies including DuPont Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. in freezing pensions, which means that some or all participants may stop accumulating benefits. UPS’s retirement obligations are on top of a $1 billion jump in capital spending being planned for this year to handle a surge in e-commerce shipments.

DYI:  The moral of the story is never become dependent on an old style retirement (defined benefit plans) as they are controlled at a whim by the underlining corporation.  If you are working for one of these mega corporations or as a State employee that still has a defined benefit, just say to yourself “that’s nice,” and plan as if you will never receive a dime (or significantly reduced) as most of these plans are so underfunded that could very well be the case!

Some call this the money game.  I call it Machiavellian War!  No one cares if you lose the war and go from one financial crisis to the next during your working years or live in poverty when working becomes impossible.  To put it bluntly “No one gives a $hit and those that do are unlikely to help.”  You are on your own.  As Boomer’s (attempt) to retire many find this impossible as they continue to work well past age 65 full time and only drift into part time in their early to mid 70’s.  That’s great if you have a job that is so enjoyable you tap dance every morning to work.  But alas we all know that is reserved for a tiny minority and not for the masses.

Millennials

The size of your net worth is inversely proportional to your mortgage (or rent) along with car notes, student loans, and credit card bills.  Simple, larger the debt payments, there is less money or no money for the purchase income producing assets.  As simple as that!

Why the purchase of income producing assets?  If you put money into retirement plans such as 401k, Roth IRA, etc. they are tied up until age 59 ½ however if you purchase items such as utility stocks (not in a pension plan) as an example those dividends can be used to offset many of your basic bills.  Plus, you have additional monies to draw upon when those emergencies that arrive all at the wrong time.

 

First things first.  If you are in debt make that your highest priority to have it paid off and paid off fast.  Too much truck or car, sell it and move down to something more reasonable; same for a house or if you are renting above your means.  Time to get real and stay super motivated. 

Once you are debt free, including the mortgage if you have one, build savings at the one to two year level necessary to pay your bills.  Remember you are debt free so these numbers are not as difficult due to your modest lifestyle.  Then begin buying income producing assets, stocks and bonds to increase your spendable income.  Only after you have established yourself then begin moving dollars into retirement plans.

This is my short version of this process.  I’ve written in the past far more in detail and will again in due course.

 DYI

"If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life." Senator John Sherman - Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890

It’s

Trust

Busting

Time

Amazon Is Trying to Control the Underlying Infrastructure of Our Economy

It's not just that Amazon does many things besides sell stuff—that it manufactures thousands of products, from dress shirts to baby wipes, produces hit movies and television shows, delivers restaurant orders, offers loans, and may soon dispense prescription drugs. 

Jeff Bezos is after something so much bigger than any of this. His vision is for Amazon to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy. 

Amazon's website is already the dominant platform for digital commerce. Its Web Services division controls 44 percent of the world's cloud computing capacity and is relied on by everyone from Netflix to the Central Intelligence Agency. And the company has recently built out a vast network of distribution infrastructure to handle package delivery for itself and others.

Amazon is hiring people to break into the multibillion-dollar pharmacy market

Companies that want to reach the market increasingly have no choice but to ride Amazon's rails. With Prime and digital assistant Alexa, from GE appliances to Ford cars, Bezos has lured a majority of households into making Amazon the default provider of everything they order online. Most Prime members no longer comparison shop. This has forced competitors of all sizes—from major brands like Levi's and KitchenAid to small-scale producers, e-commerce innovators, and independent brick-and-mortar stores—to abandon the idea of reaching consumers directly. Instead, they have to rely on Amazon's platform to sell their goods. 

Amazon exploits this dependence to dictate terms and prices to suppliers, and it uses the data it gathers from companies selling on its platform to weaken them as competitors. A company that designs a popular product and builds a market for it on Amazon's site can suddenly find that Amazon has introduced a nearly identical version and given it top billing in search results. One study found that, after a retailer becomes a seller on Amazon, it's only a matter of weeks before Amazon brings the merchant's most popular items into its own inventory. 

Investors are fully aware of the implications of this. As Silicon Valley venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya put it last year, Amazon is "a multi-trillion-dollar monopoly hiding in plain sight." That assessment explains why Wall Street has bid up Amazon's stock value to a level that bears little relationship to its current profits. 

Investors are eyeing a future of spectacular, monopoly-style returns.

Amazon's bid to buy Whole Foods should be a wake-up call. Our anti-monopoly policies have fallen into disuse and today's big tech monopolies have used that opening to seize too much power. As Senator John Sherman, co-author of the Sherman Antitrust Act, declared as his bill came up for a vote in 1890, "If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life."

DYI 

Medical Industrial Complex’s

Dream Machine

Unlimited

Taxing, Debt, and Printing Power!

Elizabeth Warren: ‘The next step is single-payer’ health care

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Tuesday that opposing the Republican health-care bill wasn’t enough and the Democratic Party should start running on a new national single-payer plan. 

“President Obama tried to move us forward with health-care coverage by using a conservative model that came from one of the conservative think tanks that had been advanced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts,” she told The Wall Street Journal. ”Now it’s time for the next step. And the next step is single payer.”

DYI:  President Donald Trump if you do not take on the Medical Industrial Complex our citizens will be saddled with untold costs through our financial system dragging the economy into perpetual slow growth all to the benefit of the few by means of a single payer system.  You have the tools, one hundred year old plus laws – Robinson-Pattman, Clayton, and Sherman Anti-Trust Acts, if enforced will drop health care from 20% of our economy to 5%!  These companies collude in order to price fix and forming regional monopolies all to the determent of those receiving health care.  If implemented, this will cause a severe two year recession as health care adjusts to the rigors of competition.  However, the new found money will seek higher returns moving the economy back into solid growth a condition our citizens have not experienced for over eight years. 

Have the Attorney General enforce these laws NOW!  Recession is coming soon anyway and just as the Democrats state: “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste.”  An excellent opportunity to push through many of your items through Congress; To Make America Great Again. 

  Make America Great

7

Sisters

Of

Institutional Change

1.)   End the Federal Reserve

2.)   Repeal 17^th Amendment – Reinstate Federal Senators chosen by State Legislators.

1. Term Limits – Constitutional Amendment

A. Two six year terms for Senators

B. Three terms House of Representatives

3.)   Repeal 16^th Amendment – Income tax replace with value added tax.

4.)   Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment

5.)   Exit the United Nations

6.)   Reign in the Medical Industrial Complex

a. Enforce Anti-Trust Laws

b. Pass Legislation for re-importation of ethical drugs

7.)   End Federal and Private Student Loans

DYI

        

Bubble

News

Anxious Investors Try to Hedge Against a Big Selloff, Even as Good Times Roll

Stock volatility is near an all-time low and corporate profits have bounced back from a year ago, but investors are increasingly moving to protect themselves from big swings in financial markets. 

Long-term U.S. government bond yields, which move opposite to price, fell to fresh lows for this year on Monday, the latest sign of investors’ skepticism about economic growth. Meanwhile, utility stocks, often a refuge for nervous investors, have rallied this year, with another move up Monday helping to lift the broader market. 

Other signs of anxiety abound: A measure that shows investors expect big swings in the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, rose to an all-time high this month. The VIX, known as Wall Street’s fear gauge, has been stuck near an all-time low. The cost of insuring against a drop in the S&P 500 has climbed steadily since the beginning of the year. And currencies typically considered havens, such as the Swiss franc, have appreciated against the dollar since last month.

 

DYI

The

Out of Control

Medical Industrial Complex

Opioids could kill nearly half a million people across America over the next decade as the crisis of addiction and overdose accelerates. 

Deaths from opioids have been rising sharply for years, and drug overdoses already kill more Americans under age 50 than anything else. STAT asked leading public health experts at 10 universities to forecast the arc of the epidemic over the next decade. The consensus: It will get worse before it gets better. 

There are now nearly 100 deaths a day from opioids, a swath of destruction that runs from tony New England suburbs to the farm country of California, from the beach towns of Florida to the Appalachian foothills.

If that prediction proves accurate, the death toll over the next decade could top 650,000. That’s almost as many Americans as will die from breast cancer and prostate cancer during that time period. Put another way, opioids could kill nearly as many Americans in a decade as HIV/AIDS has killed since that epidemic began in the early 1980s. The deep cuts to Medicaid now being debated in Congress could add to the desperation by leaving millions of low-income adults without insurance, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

DYI Quick Comment:  Here we go again addressing the symptom and not the cause of America’s overpriced medical system.  As I have stated the Medical Industrial Complex colludes in order to price fix and are now moving to form local and regional monopolies.  If these companies were brought under the Robinson – Pattman, Clayton, and the granddaddy Sherman Anti-Trust Act prices will fall from 20% of our economy to 5%!  That’s not a typo….5%!  The majority of doctor bills would easily be paid out of pocket; including the poor! 

 It’s already so bad that once unthinkable scenes of public overdose are now common: People are dying on public buses and inside fast-food restaurants. They’re collapsing unconscious on street corners and in libraries after overdosing on prescription pain pills, heroin, and fentanyl. A customer in Anchorage, Alaska, hit the floor of a Subway while trying to order a sandwich. A mom in Lawrence, Mass., sprawled in the toy aisle of a Family Dollar as her little girl screamed at her to wake up. A grandmother in East Liverpool, Ohio, slumped in the front seat of an idling car, turning blue, while a toddler in dinosaur pajamas sat in the back. 

There are so many deaths, some coroners are running out of room for bodies.

On this, all the experts agree: Fatal overdoses will not even begin to level off until sometime after 2020, because it will take time to see whether the federal government’s efforts to boost drug enforcement and push doctors to write fewer prescriptions for opioid pain pills are effective. 

DYI:  All drugs should be legalized.  As a Libertarian we’ve battled the temperance movement since the 1970’s only until recently has minor positive movement been achieved regarding marijuana and only within a few States.  Drug wars only make the problem worse.  I’m not going to write about this as I’ve done so over the past 40 years – I’ll let others to the writing and talking….So here are a few links, here, here, and here.

Simply put; The Medical Industrial Complex is TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL.

 Address the real issue  (third link provided above)  For too long policy makers have used prohibition as a smoke screen to avoid addressing the social and economic factors that lead people to use drugs. Most illegal and legal drug use is recreational. 

Poverty and despair are at the root of most problematic drug use and it is only by addressing these underlying causes that we can hope to significantly decrease the number of problematic users.

 DYI 

The

Illinois

Tax & Spend

State

Illinois in danger of entering financial 'death spiral'

Illinois' budget crisis has become so dire that the state is in danger of entering a financial "death spiral," as a prominent ratings agency threatens to downgrade the state's credit score to "junk" status. 

Doing so would increase the cost of borrowing, worsening the deficit and making it even harder for taxpayers to dig out of the hole. 

“We’re in a death spiral—Illinois has the worst pension crisis in the nation and needs the boldest reforms,” Ted Dabrowski, Illinois Policy Institute’s vice president of policy, told Fox News. “There is no doubt that junk bond rating is on its way.”

DYI:  Who is kidding who?  Illinois is already at junk status alongside Puerto Rico only a year or two when the politicians and rating agencies finally get around to admitting the reality.  The realities are already known as business owners plus enlighten Illinois citizens pack up and LEAVE!  Over promising pension benefits that anyone with a minor amount of math skills would have known to be impossible to attain became standard method to vote buying among State employees.  Chicago or soon to be $hitcago is the epicenter along with a long history of fraud, corruption, and gross mismanagement.  Austerity is coming soon as there will be no other way for the state and cities to dig themselves out of the hole.    

DYI

Bubble

News

June 26, 2017

Two Supports, Already Kicked Away

John P. Hussman, Ph.D.

With no material change to our investment outlook, I’ll keep this comment brief. On the basis of the most reliable valuation measures we identify (those most tightly correlated with actual subsequent 10-12 year S&P 500 total returns),

current market valuations stand about 140-165% above historical norms.

No market cycle in history, even those prior to the mid-1960s when interest rates were similarly low, has failed bring valuations within 25% of these norms, or lower, over the completion of the market cycle.

On a 12-year horizon, we project likely S&P 500 nominal total returns averaging close to zero, with the likelihood of an interim market loss on the order of 50-60% over the completion of the current cycle.

Put simply, with market internals unfavorable and interest rates off the zero bound, the two main supports that made the half-cycle since 2009 “different” have already been kicked away.

From here, we expect the dynamics of this market cycle to resemble other periods when offensive valuations and extreme overvalued, overbought, overbullish syndromes were joined by deteriorating market internals (particularly when interest rates were off their lows). Short term market outcomes are anybody’s guess, but across history, that overall combination has typically defined crash dynamics.

Retail Apocalypse Engulfs US Economy

The retail apocalypse grows: Not even halfway through 2017, closures of retail stores have doubled last year’s closures as of this time and already exceed the last peak in closures during the crash of 2008. The bottom line is simple here. Commercial real-estate investment trusts (REITs), malls, mortgage-backed securities (remember those), and their bankers are in a lot of trouble. The anchor stores are closing up the worst, which will pull others down in the wake by reducing traffic to malls. “Thousands of new doors opened and rents soared. This created a bubble, and like housing, that bubble has now burst.” 

According to Credit Suisse, 20-25% of US shopping malls will shut down within the next five years. 

While this is due to a paradigm shift in how people do their shopping, not just an overall reduction in retail sales, it will send shudders and close shutters throughout real-estate-based retail economy, having a huge impact on construction, land sales, banking, jobs, etc.

Harry Dent points out that this was predictable because of his central thesis that baby boomers are moving out of the boom stage when they spend big; then moving into the fixed-income stage where they have to cut back significantly. 

Others have pointed out that retail stores are closing because millennials, who are replacing the boomers, prefer to shop electronically. 

Some stores are closing because they are dinosaurs who didn’t keep up with fashion or who ran bad business models. And some of the retail collapse is due to people just not having expendable income in a world saturated with towering debt and long-stagnant income and declining benefits. Still others are collapsing because rents are back to being insane. All of those reasons are true, and all of them are why there is nothing Trump or the Federal Reserve can do to stop the retail apocalypse that is already all around us.

DYI:  Sub prime for car and trucks sales that have appeared to be rolling over; student loan debt defaults are leaping; retail brick and mortar stores slated for a reduction biblical in size; the continuing military and medical industrial complex chewing up ever increasing percentage of our nations economy; political, economic, and social unrest increasing in our cities; international debt bubbles across a spectrum of countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China, EU countries especially the U.K. and Switzerland.  All of these appear to be coalescing at the same time that has the potential to drive down the high flying U.S. stock market by 55% to 70% (DYI’s projection). 

So hang onto your hat and your cash as better values await!

Updated Monthly

AGGRESSIVE PORTFOLIO - ACTIVE ALLOCATION - 6/1/17

Active Allocation Bands (excluding cash) 0% to 60%

78% - Cash -Short Term Bond Index - VBIRX

22% -Gold- Precious Metals & Mining - VGPMX

 0% -Lt. Bonds- Long Term Bond Index - VBLTX

 0% -Stocks- Total Stock Market Index - VTSAX

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Use this site at your own risk.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS.

DYI 

The

Medical Industrial Complex

&

Obesity 

How to live to 100: Secrets of the world’s healthiest village revealed

A doctor has revealed the secrets behind the “world’s healthiest village”– and there it all comes down to eating less sugar.

DYI:  Ever hear the term “slop the hogs?”  Any pig farmer will tell right up front to fatten up the pigs is to feed them grains – CARBOHYDRATES – their preferred grain is sweet corn.  High fructose corn syrup that is in one pre packaged product after another.  Our government along with doctors has been recommending a diet high in grains (carbs) and low in saturated fats all to the determent of our population creating a nation – oh hell I’ll just state the obvious – of FAT ASSES.

Type II diabetes is now 11% of society causing misery and early death all caused by massive over consumption of refined carbohydrates and yet doctors along with the organizations they work for continue to recommend 6 to 8 servings (or more) of grains along with a regimen of low fat – a guarantee of obesity.  What is worse is this linkage between refined carbohydrates and obesity has been known for decades – as highlighted by the book shown below written in 1972.           

 

I’ve become so cynical only a conspiracy to produce more and patients for the medical industrial complex.  These are the best patience as they require on going monitoring and maintenance plus future maladies such as amputations, joint damage, back issues, hip replacement, stroke, heart attack, all to the benefit of the medical industrial complex.  Think I’m kidding or just full of $hit.  Switching gears a bit one out of four Medicaid – medical care for the poor – receives a prescription for opiates.  That right one out of four….Are these doctors drug dealers for the pharmaceutical industry??  This industry to state the obvious is TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL!

No sugar, no white flower, no pre-package pre-made (food from a box such as pasta) no starchy vegetables (potatoes, onions, carrots) high fat, moderate protein (sorry guys no 2 pound New York strips) and very, very low carb.  75% fat – 20% protein – less than 5% carbs.  The weight will just fall off over time.

       

Of course this goes without saying that Arby’s, Wendy’s and McDonalds are NOT the three main food groups along with all other fast food.  High Impact Flix has a great video regarding McDonalds after watching you will never eat fast food again!

DYI