TrimTabs: 1Q2018 pace of corporate stock buybacks and deals outstrips pace of wage increases by 85%

For the five years previous to the Trump corporate tax cuts, buybacks and deals outstripped wage increases $4.9 trillion to $2.3 trillion. The pace increased in the first quarter to a projected five-year level of $6.1 trillion to $2.6 trillion, meaning the pace of stock buybacks and deals is up 24% but only 13% for wage increases. The difference between those two rates of increase is nearly 85%.

The CNBC story, "Tax cut riches have gone to execs and investors over workers by nearly 3-to-1 margin", is here. The headline exaggerates the 1Q2018 ratio of buybacks of $305 billion to wage increases of $131 billion, which is actually 2.3:1.

Liberal math, but still. The Trump tax cuts are going to top managers and stockholders overwhelmingly compared with the masses of ordinary wage earners.

This explains the resilience of the stock market indices near their record highs. The tax cut cash is flowing into stocks, boosting and supporting prices.

Piers Morgan: James Comey's a snivelling, egotistical worm, an incompetent, inept, self-aggrandising gossip-mongering drama queen, not to mention a treacherous, useless, money-grabbing weasel

Here.

Gee Piers, why don't you tell us how you really feel?

Congress may end up getting rid of Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein if Trump won't

The window for that, however, closes if Republicans lose the House in November. Reps. Jordan and Nunes ought to consider that the Department of Justice will continue to slow-walk this just enough to get them there.

From the story here:

Although the DOJ cooperated with the lawmakers Wednesday, the department has still failed to fully comply with congressional subpoenas for thousands of documents. Thus, Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed U.S. Attorney John Lausch of the Northern District of Illinois to speed up efforts to deliver documents lawmakers have been seeking for months. But if the process drags out too much longer, [Rep.] Jordan said there would be severe consequences for Rosenstein, Wray and Sessions.

"My attitude is just like [Nunes']. If things don't change dramatically — and I'm talking days, not weeks or months — if they don't change dramatically, then impeachment and contempt and resignations should all be on the table," Jordan warned. "Because we're tired of it, and more importantly the American people are tired of it."

Two US guided-missile destroyers never fired a shot, Syria attacked instead from three other directions

Bloomberg reports here in "Warship Ruse and New Stealth Missiles: How the U.S. and Allies Attacked Syria":

While both vessels carry as many as 90 Tomahawk missiles -- the main weapon used in the Friday evening strike on Syria -- neither ship in the end fired a shot. Instead, according to a person familiar with White House war planning, they were part of a plan to distract Russia and its Syrian ally from an assault Assad’s government could do little to defend itself against.

The Laugh of the Day: Trump 2013 says Obama must get Congressional approval b4 attacking Syria

Miloš Forman has passed away at 86

The Czech director of Amadeus (1984, won 8 Academy Awards) and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975, won 5 Academy Awards) had made his American home in Connecticut. 

The LA Times has the obit, here.

SECDEF Mattis has called the joint missile strike on Syria a "single shot", not an opening salvo in a war

Reported here:

Mattis said the strike was a “single shot” aimed to deter the Syrian regime from using chemical weapons. Whether the United States and its allies will pursue further action in Syria would “depend on Mr. Assad should he decided to use more chemical weapons in the future," the secretary said. 

Critics will no doubt say the April 2017 missile attack was a one-off, too. How many one-offs does it take before we're at war?

US, France and Great Britain attack Syrian chemical facilities after 6th Russian veto at the UN on Tuesday

From the veto story here:

Washington (CNN) -- Russia vetoed a US draft resolution at the UN Security Council Tuesday that would have established an independent investigation into the suspected use of chemical weapons in Syria. ... In November, Russia blocked the renewal of the independent panel investigating chemical weapons in Syria, and British Ambassador Karen Pierce reminded the council that Tuesday's vote marked Russia's sixth veto related to chemical weapons in Syria. Seven nations -- including the US -- voted against a Russian resolution that would have set up an investigation overseen by the Security Council. According to Haley, that draft was designed to give Russia a chance to approve the investigators who were chosen for the task and allow the Security Council to assess the findings of the investigation before any report was released. A second Russian resolution that only supported the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons fact-finding mission in Syria also failed to pass. The organization is made up of an international team of investigators but it cannot on its own determine who was responsible for the attack.

If we really had full employment in America, we wouldn't be missing 7.6 million working

The difference between 63.2% working before 2009 and 60.2% working in March 2018 is 7.6 million.

China has 350,000 students in the US, many of them spying and reporting to 100 "Confucius Institutes" at US universities

Bill Gertz reports here.

Former British Ambassador to Syria says first responders to gas attacks on which the West relies are themselves Islamic fanatics who beheaded their enemies

Watch here.

He says the video evidence is unverified and probably staged and that the West should get inspectors in there.

It's April 12th but snow remains in the forecast for Grand Rapids, Michigan

John Boehner joins board of marijuana company

These people don't care about anything except cashin' in.

Here.

Dershowitz meets with Trump, accuses Mueller of laundering info he's not allowed to pursue to SDNY

Reported here.

150 big spending House Republicans gave away the store in December 2015 in exchange for lifting the oil export ban

The Roll Call vote is here.

Since the vote on Dec. 18, 2015 what we got in return is US debt to the penny increasing by $2.33 trillion through 4/9/18, or 12%, and the price of a gallon of gasoline climbing by 65-cents, or 33%.

Way to go, Brownie!

Hungary completes second border fence with Serbia in less than two months for 120m Euros

The second fence was begun in late February, according to Politico here.

The 3-meter high 155km barbed barrier is already finished, according to Reuters here.

That's 96 miles in two months for the equivalent of $149 million.

That would come to $3.1 billion for the equivalent of 2,000 miles of US barbed barrier with Mexico. To match the Hungarian pace the US would need to finish the 2,000 miles in 3.5 years.

Somebody tell Trump the election is 2.5 years away.

Fine, Mueller's had bupkis all along, but unscrupulously rummaging through information privileged between client and attorney might lead elsewhere

That's why someone has to stop Mueller.

Law and order costs money, which implies taxation and government

And that's this morning's reason why I'm a conservative, not a libertarian.

We wouldn't need to increase law and order if men were increasingly demonstrating that they were angels, but because they are not, we do. Simple as that.

Now, on to my coffee.

Violence on the right: Takimag author floods the zone with the bilge of his own irrationality

He's no different than Antifa. Giving up on reason is never the answer.

Here:

Anyone who, like me, has spent a lot of time in discussion and argument with other people can easily see how little the rational avails. ... And that is precisely why we need a civil war. ... There are so many bad ideas, and such moral rot, that only war can rid us of the many pathologies that obviate culture and democracy alike. Only war can bring us to a state of affairs in which people, having serious problems to face, will have a more reasonable perspective and stop griping about safe spaces, white supremacy, toxic masculinity, and all the tiresome rest. Only war will send our politicians the message that Americans will not abide their cynical manipulations and refusal to do what is best for us.

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, But down in the bilge, and with just one foot, Pumping away was Chris DeGroot, says Johnny.

Levin calls for Sessions to step down as AG in wake of FBI raid on Trump's personal attorney

Says Trump "can put Dershowitz in there for all I care."

Dershowitz for his part called the raid dangerous for the future of attorney-client privilege.

The whole thing makes us want to puke. The affair is completely out of control, and there's no one in the amusement park to turn off the ride.