Friday, August 30, 2019
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Trump's in denial when he says we're great again, Democrats are in denial saying we were never great in the first place
Flashback to one year ago this month when Andrew Cuomo, Democrat Governer of New York, said it plainly.
Both sides are in denial, which is one reason why little is changing for the better.
Back when America was great, Q2 real GDP used to average 4.4%, under Trump it averages 2.6%
From 1982 to 2000, coincident with the great Reagan bull market in stocks, the average report of real GDP for the second quarter was 4.4%.
Trump was going to make America like that again.
At an average report of 2.6% so far, he has no grounds for saying America is back, let alone greater than ever before. He's doing better than Obama at 2.3%, but that's about it.
The economy shrank dramatically after 2000, and no one has figured out how to fix it.
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
US crude oil production in 2019 is at record high levels never before experienced in the post-war
all time high of 12162 BBL/D/1K in April of 2019 |
U.S. Oil Production Hits 12 Million Barrels a Day for First Time
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
US on its way to becoming a net exporter of oil, dominating global oil market and securing the dollar as global reserve currency
Note to Chris Irons: This is not bullish for gold.
The US is about to send a lot more oil into an already oversupplied world market:
“It will be 4 million barrels a day by six or eight months. Four million barrels a day is a lot bigger than the North Sea as a whole. That crude oil is going to go everywhere. It goes to Asia, Europe, to India,” said Edward Morse, Citigroup global head of commodities research. “If the U.S. gets to 6 million barrels a day in three years, it will be hands-down the world benchmark.” ...
“Add on the amount of petroleum products that are exported and add on the amount of natural gas that is exported. The U.S. becomes the biggest hub for energy trading in the world,” said Morse. “It has dramatic implications for the U.S. dollar.”Morse notes there are those who doubt the dollar’s future as the global reserve currency. But in a scenario where the U.S. grows into an energy powerhouse, “the dollar becomes more entrenched.”The U.S. had been the world’s dominant oil producer, prior to World War II. “This will be back to the future for the Gulf Coast,” said Daniel Yergin, IHS Markit Vice Chairman. Yergin said the U.S. would not have had the opportunity to increase production as much, were the law not changed in 2015 to allow for U.S. oil exports.
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Sunday, August 25, 2019
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Black Dems in PA admit revulsion for Hillary made them not vote in 2016
More than a dozen African Americans who said they usually vote Democratic - but didn't vote at all in 2016 - blamed unease with Clinton's candidacy. They also expressed support for Biden, frequently citing his past as Obama's vice president as a major positive, and occasionally others. ... Jason Saffore, 43, an African American Democrat working in Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market, said he couldn't bring himself to vote for Clinton in 2016 and so didn't vote at all. Next year, he said, will be different. "The guy we have in office now is not serving our country and it's time for a change," he said, as he arranged a stack of onions in a crate. "We need a president who is for all Americans. Last time I didn't really care for the Democratic field at all, so I stayed out of the mix. I think a lot of people did."
The growth in retail was a one-off in late 2017, early 2018, and the long term trend remains down
At 1.6% year over year in July 2019, we're still nowhere near the high 2s of last year which actually still disappoint because those failed to match previous more robust growth spurts even under Obama.
The Trump tax cuts went to the wrong folks. Too bad they weren't really his, but his Republican handlers'. Think of them as NeverTrump's revenge: "We'll sandbag this guy with tax cuts which will help our friends but hurt his re-election chances".
The consumer is running on empty and emptier.
I'll tell you exactly what would have happened, Joe
Obama would have been buried, and beer sales would have gone through the roof from all the people celebrating and filling up to piss on his grave, that's what would have happened.
Friday, August 23, 2019
Clueless AP article calls US economy resilient when it's been in the rut they fear is coming since 2007
The compound annual growth rate of real GDP since 2007 has been WORSE than for the same time frame of the Great Depression, yet AP is completely oblivious. The upside is when things really go to hell they'll still be.
Barely a year after most of the world’s major countries were enjoying an unusual moment of shared prosperity, the global economy may be at risk of returning to the rut it tumbled into after the financial crisis of 2007-2009. ...
The U.S. economy, now enjoying a record-breaking 10-year expansion, still shows resilience. American consumers, whose spending accounts for 70% of U.S. economic activity, have driven the growth.
Retail sales have risen sharply so far this year, with people shopping online and spending more at restaurants. Their savings rates are also the highest since 2012, which suggests that consumers aren’t necessarily stretching themselves too thin, according to the Commerce Department.
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Current allocations to retail and institutional money funds are up 22.2% vs. the 2012-2018 average
Current allocations come to $3 trillion vs. $2.454 trillion on average 2012-2018.
Foreign holdings of US Treasury securities hit $6.636 trillion in June 2019, driving down yields
Nobody asks why US debt securities are so popular.
People like Jeffrey Snider of Alhambra know why, but nobody listens to him.
The logic of thorough-going materialism: Since humans are nothing but animals, we might as well eat each other
Now that all objections to organ transplantation as a form of cannibalism have been effectively silenced, we're going all the way.
As Ann Coulter likes to say, Our new country's going to be great!
Meanwhile benchmark revisions to the quick and dirty monthly Establishment Survey indicate 501,000 jobs have to be SUBTRACTED through March 2019
That is expected to bring down 2018 job creation to roughly 181,000 monthly instead of 223,000.
I say, so what? 223,000 monthly wasn't indicative of a jobs boom anyway.
Jobs numbers under Trump are like Trump Steaks, overcooked.
Jobless claims in today's report are lower in all three categories than a year ago
Not by much but they are, so no evidence of a reversal this week as seen previously, which would be concerning during the high season for jobs.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
That's funny, that's what Jesus said
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
-- Matthew 15:24
More climate BS: July 2019 hottest month ever recorded
If that were true we should at the very least have felt the residual effects of that even if local conditions were not record breaking, but we didn't.
Here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, maximum temperature in July 2019 never even reached the mean maximum, which is 94 degrees F. We had zero, zip, nada days at or above the mean max.
Contrast that with the hottest July on record here going back to before the year 1900: July 1921. Maximum temperature that month hit 100, which was the 9th highest maximum on record and one of the ten days that month when maximum temperature was at or above the mean max.
Average temperature was a record 79.7 in July 1921, with cooling degree days setting a record at 465. July 2019 didn't even come close to these records. Average temperature ranked 15th at 75.4, and cooling degree days ranked 14th at 332.
The July with the highest maximum temperature in Grand Rapids was July 1936, when a record 108 was recorded, one of nine days that month at or above the mean max of 94. That month ranked 5th for cooling degree days at 390, and 5th for average temperature at 77.3.
Apparently everyone has already forgotten July 2012, the second hottest July on record here in Grand Rapids. It ranked 2nd for cooling degree days at 449, 2nd for average temperature at 79.2, and second for maximum temperature at 104, with eleven days that July at or above the mean max of 94. But July 2019 couldn't hold a candle to July 2012 for hot conditions, yet somehow it was the hottest ever . . . everywhere else.
The fact of the matter is the hottest Julys in Grand Rapids are a phenomenon of the distant past, with nine of the top fourteen for cooling degree days occurring before World War II. July 2019 ranked merely 14th in that list.
Ten of the top fifteen for average temperature also occurred before World War II. July 2019 ranked merely 15th in that list.
For maximum temperature July 2019 ranked tied for something like 72nd position.
Hottest July evah. Give me a break!
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
The author of Bronze Age Mindset and its review by Michael Anton both seem to miss its thesis actually unfolding in our time
To paraphrase Woody Allen (whom, I hasten to add, BAP does not
quote), life wants what it wants. What does it want? At the upper
reaches, among the higher animals (BAP is relentlessly hierarchical),
what it wants is mastery of “owned space.” “Owned space” is the most
important concept introduced in Part One and the key to understanding
the rest of the “exhortation,” if not necessarily the rest of the book.
BAP argues that life, fundamentally, is a “struggle for space.” All life
seeks to develop its powers and master the surrounding matter and space
to the maximum extent possible. For the lower species, this simply
means mass reproduction and enlarging habitat. For the higher animals,
it means controlling terrain, dominating other species, dominating the
weaker specimens within your own species, getting first dibs on prey and
choice of mates, and so on. BAP sees no fundamental distinction between
living in harmony with nature and mastering nature. All animals seek to
master their environments to the extent that they can, and the nature
of man, or of man at his best—the highest man—is to seek to master
nature itself. Not in the Aristotelian sense of understanding the whole,
nor in the Baconian sense of “the relief of man’s estate” via
technology and plenty; more to assert and exert his own power. Indeed,
BAP posits an inner kinship between the genuine scientist and the
warrior; he calls the former “monsters of will.” ...
Early modernity actually offered the higher types vast opportunities to
explore and conquer new space. Thus bugdom is not caused or defined by
science and technology. To the contrary: science and tech at their best
can form a kind of frontier that allows for man’s higher motives to find
vent when and where space is constrained. For BAP, science in modern
times is, or should be, a manifestation of the will to conquer space.
Sheesh, ever heard of SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic? The highest men are already there, diligently working to master heaven itself.
Stop the preening and get with the program.
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