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Post by michcusejoe5 on Oct 14, 2018 21:24:31 GMT -5
JUST FOR JOE: YOU might be able to relate to this article...the folks mentioned in this article are PROBABLY all Donald Followers; yes Tequila, you can LAUGH. -10-14-18: www.cbsnews.com/news/the-flat-earth-movement-a-society-of-disbelievers-in-scientific-fact/ If you picture Earth as a ball spinning through space. the folks who recently gathered at a park in Arcadia, California, are eager to argue: you're wrong! Earth is actually "flatter than a pancake," said Nathan Thompson, part of a movement of people who call themselves Flat Earthers. They insist the Earth is, well, flat.
We're living, these folks say, on a disk floating through space, with a tiny sun hovering just overhead. But what about the Earth's curvature? "I don't know. No one's ever seen it," said one man.
"The perimeter of Flat Earth is a wall of ice," said Thompson.
"That's what's holding in the ocean?" asked correspondent Brook Silva-Braga.
"That's what's containing everything," he said. And what's underneath? "Well, you know, we haven't dug that deep," said a Flat Earther named Rene. Netta Hagler, who arranged the meet-up of the Flat Earthers, questioned the fact that Earth is spinning through space at 1,000 miles per hour. "But we can't feel it. I don't believe I'm spinning right now. No," said Hagler. Patricia Steere, who is one of what you might call the "stars" of today's Flat Earth movement (which mostly orbits around YouTube), told Silva-Braga, "Probably most people who hear of it will laugh at it, think we're idiots. But we're not idiots; we're intelligent people from all walks of life and all ages." Flat Earthers have brought levels onto planes (to prove they are flying level), and zoomed in on the moon and "found" clouds supposedly drifting behind it. "Moon is only a few miles up," said one Flat Earth YouTuber. "We've been lied to on such a massive scale!"Steere agreed to play a game of "20 Questions: Cosmic Edition" with Silva-Braga. Photos of the Earth from space? "Completely and utterly false," she said. Is the sun 93 million miles away? "No, the sun is not as far away as we've been told, nor is the moon. They're probably about the same size." Pictures of astronauts floating around on the space station? "Completely fake. Harnesses, wires." Did we really go to the moon? "No. We didn't go to the moon," said Steere. "And we don't have a rover on Mars. And we didn't do a fly-by of Pluto. We've never been to space. Period. End of." In short, Flat Earthers don't believe much of anything unless they see it for themselves. They believe NASA is just part of a broad conspiracy.According to Steere, "It's a giant game of chess. We, all of us in humanity, are the pawns. Part of the whole Flat Earth thing is keeping us locked down, not knowledgeable about who we are, who we really are as people, and what we're capable of." National security expert Tom Nichols, who teaches at the Harvard Extension School, takes a dim view of Flat Earth. He told Silva-Braga he thinks something new is happening: "People have really become obsessed with the idea that, if it's not part of their direct experience, it can't be true. Hmm, curious DoMe. Polling shows that its actually young folks (millennials - the same group that hate Trump and support socialism) who are skeptical about the Earth being round. Seems that the older folks get, the less likely they are to be "flat earthers." Guess its actually the YOUTH who have the Dark Age Beliefs? Still laughing? www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/04/only-two-thirds-of-american-millennials-believe-the-earth-is-round/#3665c1817ec6 |
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Post by inger on Oct 14, 2018 21:58:21 GMT -5
Just think, when the perimeter ice wall that’s thawing due to global warming, instead of the oceans levels rising, they’ll disappear...Will that give us more land, or is the water all the way down to the bottom of the earth? So many questions, never enough goofballs to ask them...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 14, 2018 23:22:12 GMT -5
As my good buddy in Miami always says whenever the subject drifts to the 25-35 year old crowd, while shaking his head, "fucking millenials."
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Post by domeplease on Oct 15, 2018 6:39:14 GMT -5
SHOWS HOW STUPID & INCOMPETENT DONALD IS:
10-02-18
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-01/trump-booted-foreign-startup-founders-other-countries-embraced-them?cmpid=BBD100118_BW&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=181001&utm_campaign=businessweek I refer to this (as others have) ‘A BRAIN DRAIN ON AMERICA’. So Sad & So Stupid…but no surprise = It Is A Donald Move.
A master’s degree from Yale and angel investments in his startup weren’t enough to protect Mezyad AlMasoud from Donald Trump. A little more than a year ago, Trump moved to kill a nascent visa program meant specifically for company founders with capital in hand, such as AlMasoud.
The Kuwaiti’s immigration lawyer called his Wall Street office to tell him that without the startup visa, which could have been granted under a plan known as the International Entrepreneur Rule, he had two weeks to leave the U.S.
That afternoon, AlMasoud spent hours sitting by the East River, looking out at the Brooklyn Bridge. The thought running through his mind: “How do I tell my 5-year-old daughter I failed?”
As it turned out, he didn’t have to. Flair Inc., his financial technology startup, incorporated in June and is starting to hire engineers who can develop its money-management web services for pro athletes.
It’s just not in the U.S. Flair is hiring in Vancouver, where AlMasoud was one of the first people accepted to a startup visa program that looks a lot like the fast-track Obama plan Trump blew up.
In the past 18 months, similar programs with a range of perks have sprung up in at least a dozen countries, including the U.K., China, Japan, Israel, Germany, Estonia, Australia, and New Zealand.
As with many of his peers, the first choice was always America, says AlMasoud, whose startup is among 130 created by people admitted to Canada’s new visa program since February.
Immigrant founders and co-founders have a strong track record in Silicon Valley (see Google, Tesla, EBay, Stripe), as do the children of immigrants (Apple, Oracle, Amazon.com).
But the Valley’s fabled Sand Hill Road is no longer the center of the venture capital world, and as the Trump administration continues to increase restrictions on most forms of immigration, other locales are even more eager than usual to frame themselves as the next great innovation hub.
Startups are doing a lot more venue-shopping than they used to, says Merilin Lukk, who runs Estonia’s recruiting program and has brought at least 160 founders to the country since last year, creating about 440 jobs.
Countries have offered all kinds of perks to differentiate themselves. A new program in Israel throws in $20,000 relocation bonuses, a local accountant, Hebrew classes, yearly flights home, and paid cellphones.
Other offers include low-interest loans, six-day visa processing, and, most important, the equivalent of a green card.
“The fight over tech talent is not something that is coming in the future. It’s happening right now,” says Kate Mitchell, the founder of Scale Venture Partners in Foster City, Calif. “And we are losing.”
That’s a bit of an overstatement for the time being, but the U.S. certainly isn’t trying to match those offers.
The Trump administration derailed the legacy Obama program a week before its planned rollout last year, and although a lawsuit by the National Venture Capital Association managed to force the feds to eyeball an initial handful of applications, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says the program “does not adequately protect U.S. investors and U.S. workers” and that the agency intends to officially scrap the program as soon as it has finished reviewing public comments on the matter.
The move is part of a broader set of moves to restrict visa immigration, including the H-1B visas that have historically gone overwhelmingly to tech workers.
Critics of the program, including labor advocates as well as Trump-style nationalists, say the visas have too often been abused by outsourcers and companies that simply want to pay workers less. There may be some truth to that:
More than 50 percent of the country’s working science and engineering Ph.D.s are foreign-born. But another way to look at those numbers is that America needs immigrants.
Canada is one of many countries that seem less conflicted, says AlMasoud, who’s enjoying his weekend hikes in the Vancouver area without looking over his shoulder.
The Canadian immigration agency says it has approved 200 applicants for permanent residency since February, and AlMasoud is hoping he’ll be on that list soon, too.
For now, he’s trying to get Flair to a point where he can apply for approval from American financial regulators and start showing it off publicly.
Only occasionally, as when he reminisces about NBA games or his bygone ’67 Pontiac GTO, does he grow wistful about the opportunities he left behind. “It had always been my dream to start a business in the U.S.,” he says.
“Because of what Trump has done, now I have to hire Canadians.”
--WHILE CHINA HAS 12,000 NEW Start-Ups Per Day:
essayboard.com/2017/03/04/12000-startups-are-being-created-every-day-in-china-by-internet-loans/ AND: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QexL6F-W4Ss
--10-03-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nkorea-said-to-have-stolen-a-fortune-in-online-bank-heists/ar-BBNRWRA?li=BBnbcA1 While DONALD is raving about the Love Like Letters he is getting from the NK Leader…North Korea is STEALING Hundreds of Millions from Banks & ATM’s Globally; including America. Stupid be Stupid = DONALD!!!...
WASHINGTON — North Korea's nuclear and missile tests have stopped, but its hacking operations to gather intelligence and raise funds for the sanction-strapped government in Pyongyang may be gathering steam.
U.S. security firm FireEye raised the alarm Wednesday over a North Korean group that it says has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars by infiltrating the computer systems of banks around the world since 2014 through highly sophisticated and destructive attacks that have spanned at least 11 countries. It says the group is still operating and poses "an active global threat."
It is part of a wider pattern of malicious state-backed cyber activity that has led the Trump administration to identify North Korea — along with Russia, Iran and China — as one of the main online threats facing the United States. Last month, the Justice Department charged a North Korean hacker said to have conspired in devastating cyberattacks, including an $81 million heist of Bangladesh's central bank and the WannaCry virus that crippled parts of Britain's National Health Service.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned of the use of malware by Hidden Cobra, the U.S. government's byword for North Korea hackers, in fraudulent ATM cash withdrawals from banks in Asia and Africa. It said that Hidden Cobra was behind the theft of tens of millions of dollars from teller machines in the past two years. In one incident this year, cash had been simultaneously withdrawn from ATMs in 23 different countries, it said.
North Korea, which prohibits access to the world wide web for virtually all its people, has previously denied involvement in cyberattacks, and attribution for such attacks is rarely made with absolute certainty. It is typically based on technical indicators such as the Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses that identify computers and characteristics of the coding used in malware, which is the software a hacker may use to damage or disable computers.
But other cybersecurity experts tell The Associated Press that they also see continued signs that North Korea's authoritarian government, which has a long track record of criminality to raise cash, is conducting malign activity online. That activity includes targeting of financial institutions and crypto-currency-related organizations, as well as spying on its adversaries, despite the easing of tensions between Pyongyang and Washington.
"The reality is they are starved for cash and are continuing to try and generate revenue, at least until sanctions are diminished," said Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike. "At the same time, they won't abate in intelligence collection operations, as they continue to negotiate and test the international community's resolve and test what the boundaries are."
CrowdStrike says it has detected continuing North Korean cyber intrusions in the past two months, including the use of a known malware against a potentially broad set of targets in South Korea, and a new variant of malware against users of mobile devices that use a Linux-based operating system.
This activity has been taking place against the backdrop of a dramatic diplomatic shift as Kim Jong Un has opened up to the world. He has held summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and with President Donald Trump, who hopes to persuade Kim to relinquish the nuclear weapons that pose a potential threat to the U.S. homeland. Tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula have dropped and fears of war with the U.S. have ebbed. Trump this weekend will dispatch his top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, to Pyongyang for the fourth time this year to make progress on denuclearization.
But North Korea has yet to take concrete steps to give up its nuclear arsenal, so there's been no let-up in sanctions that have been imposed to deprive it of fuel and revenue for its weapons programs, and to block it from bulk cash transfers and accessing to the international banking system.
FireEye says APT38, the name it gives to the hacking group dedicated to bank theft, has emerged and stepped up its operations since February 2014 as the economic vise on North Korea has tightened in response to its nuclear and missile tests. Initial operations targeted financial institutions in Southeast Asia, where North Korea had experience in money laundering, but then expanded into other regions such as Latin America and Africa, and then extended to Europe and North America.
In all, FireEye says APT38 has attempted to steal $1.1 billion, and based on the data it can confirm, has gotten away with hundreds of millions in dollars. It has used malware to insert fraudulent transactions in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication or SWIFT system that is used to transfer money between banks. Its biggest heist to date was $81 million stolen from the central bank of Bangladesh in February 2016. The funds were wired to bank accounts established with fake identities in the Philippines. After the funds were withdrawn they were suspected to have been laundered in casinos.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, said in a report Wednesday that North Korea's cyber capabilities provide an alternative means for challenging its adversaries. While Kim's hereditary regime appears to prioritize currency generation, attacks using the SWIFT system raise concerns that North Korean hackers "may become more proficient at manipulating the data and systems that undergird the global financial system," it says.
Sandra Joyce, FireEye's head of global intelligence, said that while APT38 is a criminal operation, it leverages the skills and technology of a state-backed espionage campaign, allowing it to infiltrate multiple banks at once and figure how to extract funds. On average, it dwells in a bank's computer network for 155 days to learn about its systems before it tries to steal anything. And when it finally pounces, it uses aggressive malware to wreak havoc and cover its tracks.
"We see this as a consistent effort, before, during and after any diplomatic efforts by the United States and the international community," said Joyce, describing North Korea as being "undeterred" and urging the U.S. government to provide more specific threat information to financial institutions about APT38's modus operandi. APT stands for Advanced Persistent Threat.
The Silicon Valley-based company says it is aware of continuing, suspected APT38 operations against other banks. The most recent attack it is publicly attributing to APT38 was against of Chile's biggest commercial banks, Banco de Chile, in May this year. The bank has said a hacking operation robbed it of $10 million.
FireEye, which is staffed with a roster of former military and law-enforcement cyberexperts, conducted malware analysis for a criminal indictment by the Justice Department last month against Park Jin Hyok, the first time a hacker said to be from North Korea has faced U.S. criminal charges. He's accused of conspiring in a number of devastating cyberattacks: the Bangladesh heist and other attempts to steal more than $1 billion from financial institutions around the world; the 2014 breach of Sony Pictures Entertainment; and the WannaCry ransomware virus that in 2017 infected computers in 150 countries.
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Post by michcusejoe5 on Oct 16, 2018 7:34:55 GMT -5
Wow, big bombshell released yesterday. Elizabeth Warren revealed DNA test results showing that she is the whitest person in the entire Congress (maybe even the entire country).
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Post by rizzuto on Oct 16, 2018 7:58:43 GMT -5
And, then you have the likes of Mitch McConnell, who lacks any color at all. More like a jelly fish, but with less character.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2018 8:38:40 GMT -5
I’m not a fan of either of them, but at least Drumph can take the attention away from his milk toast criticism of his Saudi chums who think it’s Ok to murder US green card holders.. Hmmm, I wonder how much investment he and Kushner have in the benevolent kingdom or they have in his finances? We will know after the mid terms.
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Post by domeplease on Oct 16, 2018 11:57:29 GMT -5
I am going to start AGAIN, a Monthly Investment Post. This might drive Michcusejoe5 to the Crazy House (just joking = Since we have had such different thoughts/opinions on Stock Investing & Investing in general on the Old Board). But first, here is OUR Disclaimer:“The above is for your information only. We are not in any way recommending these stocks for you to buy/sell. If you decide to, it is your responsibility to do your own research, due diligence and/or seek the advice of a Financial Planner/Broker. You need to set your own invest goals, portfolio & diversification goals according to your age, lifestyle, income, etc. when it comes to selecting stocks/funds. Remember, investing is a risk, so do so at your own risk; you need to put the time in to do your own research. Our thoughts/opinions are for informational and educational purposes only. And, should not be construed to constitute investment advice. Nothing contained herein shall constitute a solicitation, recommendation or endorsement to buy or sell any security. What is good for Do Me & Tequila might not be good for you. So be responsible, (to yourself), for your investment decisions or lack of such. If any of what we say makes you uncomfortable, then do not read/listen to our thoughts and opinions. Neither, Tequila or I, are compensated in any manner by the company stocks we mention in our investment emails. Some of the time, we own stocks we mention in our investment email; however, other times we do not own any. I hope you all do realize that Tequila is a parrot (?)...even more of a reason, to do your own research & make your own decisions.” QUOTES WE FOLLOW:--“"The time to buy is when there's blood in the streets." -Baron Rothschild --"The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble . . . We want to buy them when they're on the operating table." -Warren Buffet --"Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful." -Warren Buffett We have luckily (or based on hard work???) out-performed the Market for Five Straight Years. What type of returns have you gotten Michcusejoe5, for the last five years? For 2018, we are CURRENTLY up, +17% as of 10-12-18; but that might be much lower before year-end. The Dow as of 10-12-18 was around 3% & the S&P is up around 4%. In December 2017, I predicted to my Friends that the Market would have 2018 returns as follows: Worst Case = Only a 3% to 5% gain. Medium Case = Around a 8% gain. Best Case = Around a 12% to 15% gain. WE used to have nearly 300 Stocks in our Portfolios. Since Donald has been in office, WE have been selling. We have sold nearly 72% of our Individual Stock Holdings and are down to a manageable number of stocks in our portfolios = 83 (not including a few Mutual Funds/ETFs). I have had to write some HUGE Tax Checks for OUR Capital Gains. But that is OK; for I have no problems in paying taxes; unlike Donald. WE do not always call the Bottom right. However, when the Markets drop down of over 200 points = It gets OUR attention, quickly. When it continues to drop to over 300 points down; Tequila is screaming “BUY, BUY, BUY…” When it drops to over 400-points, even I am screaming, “BUY MORE; BUY MORE; BUY MORE…” Every day, WE update our Buy & Sell List; even when I am traveling. Like Buffet says, “I do always know when to buy; but I always know WHAT to buy…” At times, the Markets might be up; but WE might buy anyway, if one of our stocks are down. WE spent hours every day, Reading Articles, Newsletters (Etc.) & Watching Business Shows, etc. Before I go to bed, I watch some International Markets open…when I get up around 4:00 am I watch International Markets’ Results, etc. CNBC/Bloomberg is on all Morning until the Markets Close on Tequila’s TV Set. She gets to watch cartoons, only in the Late Afternoon, Early Evenings OR if the Market is Flat for the day. WE believe we have invested in Great Companies; OR Companies that will be Great in the Future. ***OUR NUMBER OF STOCKS BY SECTORSFOOD & CONSUMER: 8 Stocks UTILITIES/GREEN RENEWABLES: 14 Stocks DEFENSE/CONSTRUCTION/MINING/AIRLINES: 13 Stocks INVEST. BANKS/ BANKS/REITS: 8 Stocks TECH: 25 Stocks HEALTHCARE/BIO: 15 *** WE own NO American Banks, nor will WE (only One Overseas Bank, that WE will sell in the near future) *** WE own only ONE Airline based in America = LUV *** Some of the above Stocks are Located in Mexico, China, Japan, Canada, Europe, etc. *** WE own zero Gas/Oil Stocks, nor will WE. ***WE hope to be down to 60-70 Stocks (if not more…); by Year-End and/or by the First Quarter of 2019. Unbelievably, Tequila has been an ASSET in picking Stocks. When I buy a New Stock, I explain everything I can to her first… --If she gives me her ‘Crazy Look’; I do more research & might not buy it. --If she replies ‘Shit’ see above. --If she gets all excited & gets puffed up and puts her wings in a flying motion; I know that WE got a stock to buy. --However, to be honest, most of the decisions that are made come from hours upon hours of research. HOWEVER, TEQUILA HAS PICKED SOME HUGE WINNERS FOR US:MTCH (Still hold, nearly a 45% Profit) GRUB (Sold made a Killing) TTWO (Sold made a killing) DPZ (Still hold, up so much, it is unbelievable) NKTR (Sold, made a killing) BABA (Still hold; sitting on huge profit. Stock is currently dipping, so WE are buying more on the Dips). And plenty more… However, She has had her share of losses…go figure. WE also follow Social Trends, Demographics, Consumer Trends, etc. very carefully, since they play a major role in what stocks WE buy. WE especially read/follow EVERYTHING WE can about the Millennials & Generation Z (THE YOUTH); for they will dictate the success/failures of companies shortly, with all their massive numbers & spending power, etc. Also, WE keep a close keen eye on National/Global Political Events, Crises, Extreme Climate Events, Economies, Trade Issues, Military Conflicts, etc. WE currently BELIEVE this DONALD ERA, will end = Real Ugly; more Ugly than you all or WE can possibly imagine.
So, WE have tried thru our Portfolios, to build a ‘Donald Moat’ to protect our investments to some degree when Donald goes off the Edge or his Policies/Actions/Decisions do so, etc.WE DO NOT HAVE THE MAGIC TOUCHWE have blown it on a number of stocks: --Should have Initially Bought MORE AMZN 20-years ago --Bought BABA at $59.00--$61.00; should have bought more at that price --Should have bought more GOOG so much earlier --Sold Costco at around $185.00/share = Thought because the Youth was not shopping there a lot (unless they own a Retail Store/Restaurant); well, it jumped even higher. --Had bought NVDA dirt-cheap and sold it at around $95.00; well it just took off from that point. Since have bought back into NVDA. --Had ADBE dirt cheap, sold it a little over $100.00; well, it too took off from there (We have bought back into ADBE). --Sold NOC under $300.00 (too early) --Bought CRM but then sold it for a profit in the $80.00 (should have held these shares) --Hesitated on UNH and missed out. --Etc. Etc. Etc. --10-11-18: seekingalpha.com/article/4211052-play-selloff-cramers-mad-money-10-10-18 The selloff on Wednesday showed panic by investors and when that happens, Cramer takes out his selloff playbook to give investors rules to play by to navigate it smoothly. "I don't see it ending any time soon unless we get some major concrete changes," said Cramer, as he saw sellers outweighing buyers 10-to-1. He gave the causes of the selloff and the remedies. Causes The Fed keeps talking about raising rates and a strong economy, while in Cramer's opinion there is weakness if one finds it. "I am sick and tired of a Fed that reverts to a non-rigorous, non-homework-oriented approach every time things look good. It's like they unlearned all the lessons of the Great Recession," he added. 1.Mortgage rates at 5% were the highest in years. Due to the slowdown in buying, the housing trade has gone down which will push home values lower. 2.Industrial companies like PPG Industries (NYSE:PPG) and Trinseo (NYSE:TSE) have signaled a slowdown and that auto sales have peaked. This also led to a decline in auto stocks like Ford (NYSE:F). 3.There is a slowdown in construction lending which will be seen in the bank earnings reporting Friday. 4.Basic building blocks of the economy like packing materials are dropping in price. "No one ever seems to notice this kind of telltale sign of a slowdown until it's too late," said Cramer. There is also a glut in supply of semiconductors. 5.The trade war with China is weighing on the economy and the stock market is collateral damage. 6.The strong dollar is squeezing into earnings. Selloff remedies 1.The Fed chair needs to go back on his comments and say that he will take a data-driven approach. The President keeps talking about the Fed's stance which makes Fed chair talk about the dangers of the hot economy. "Shame on them. I don't want 2007 again. You don't want it either," said Cramer. 2.The oil price needs to go down. The rise in price due to sanctions on Iran is creating a shortage. "If oil doesn't come down, there's no saving the industrials and the transportation companies from commodity inflation," said Cramer. 3.The transportation costs need to go down and for that, the country needs more truck drivers. The current regulations put a cap on working hours creating labor shortage. 4.There has to be reassurance that things are not spinning out of control in the trade war with China. "When the Fed tightens, you need to accept the fact that the stock market is going to go down if it tightens too aggressively. And it is going down. Then it makes sense to do some selling," said Cramer. It's worth taking a profit and buying the stocks of high quality companies in incremental amounts. There could be an oversold bounce but it won't last. Be patient and selective as full employment and life in the economy will make it worth buying stocks. --Our September Investment Newsletter will follow shortly… FINALLY, OUR DISCLAIMER AGAIN:“The above is for your information only. We are not in any way recommending these stocks for you to buy/sell. If you decide to, it is your responsibility to do your own research, due diligence and/or seek the advice of a Financial Planner/Broker. You need to set your own invest goals, portfolio & diversification goals according to your age, lifestyle, income, etc. when it comes to selecting stocks/funds. Remember, investing is a risk, so do so at your own risk; you need to put the time in to do your own research. Our thoughts/opinions are for informational and educational purposes only. And, should not be construed to constitute investment advice. Nothing contained herein shall constitute a solicitation, recommendation or endorsement to buy or sell any security. What is good for Do Me & Tequila might not be good for you. So be responsible, (to yourself), for your investment decisions or lack of such. If any of what we say makes you uncomfortable, then do not read/listen to our thoughts and opinions. Neither, Tequila or I, are compensated in any manner by the company stocks we mention in our investment emails. Some of the time, we own stocks we mention in our investment email; however, other times we do not own any. I hope you all do realize that Tequila is a parrot (?)...even more of a reason, to do your own research & make your own decisions.” |
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Post by domeplease on Oct 17, 2018 11:57:46 GMT -5
SEPT. 2018 INVESTMENT NEWSLETTER (Our SELL TRADES AT BOTTOM) DO ME’S & TEQUILA’S INVESTMENT THOUGHTS:“Tequila you ready to help me write the Sept. Investment Newsletter?” T--“No, Stressed…” “Tequila how can you be stressed? Everyday your cage is cleaned; you get fresh water, seed, fruits & veggies…plus treats. You live like you are as guest at The Four Seasons… so I do not understand?” T--Donald = Stress. “Oh Boy…Donald stresses out all the educated ones and yes we are trying to get him out of office; but I understand. Maybe you will help with October Newsletter???” ARTICLES:--09-10-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/amazon-to-usurp-walmart-as-top-apparel-retailer-in-2018-wells-fargo.html Amazon will dethrone Walmart as the no. 1 retailer of apparel this year, predicts Wells Fargo… •Wells Fargo says Amazon will be the No. 1 seller of apparel in the U.S. in 2018 and ups its price target on the Seattle-based retailer. •The e-commerce behemoth's apparel gross sales is expected to top $30 billion this year and leapfrog incumbent Walmart for the top spot. • Wells Fargo expects shares to top $2,300 in 12 months, more than 17 percent upside from Friday's close. --09-29-18 VERY IMPORTANT: www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/49-companies-amazon-could-destroy-and-1-it-already-has/ss- BBMSvFZ?li=BBnb7Kz#image=25 AMZN is BRILLIANT; why WE are buying more… --09-22-18: seekingalpha.com/article/4207581-alibaba-vs-amazon-simple-choice?ifp=0 WE keep buying AMZN & BABA. --09-11-18 A MUST READ: www.thestreet.com/markets/complacency-rules-as-investors-ignore-risks-from-china-to-trump-14707419?puc=_htmlicymi_pla4&cm_ven=EMAIL_htmlicymi&tstmem=70008502&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ICYMI&utm_term=Complacency+Rules+as+Investors+Ignore+Risks+From+China+to+Trump Suzanne Hutchins, a portfolio manager of the $1.5 billion Dreyfus Global Real Return Fund, gets paid to see global risks before they upend stock markets. And now, she sees lots of them -- from a potential trade war with China to impeachment talk in the U.S READ MORE… --09-26-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/man-behind-dollar1-trillion-wealth-fund-braces-for-trade-rupture/ar-AAADZAE?li=BBnbfcN --09-14-18 A MUST READ: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/opinion-these-4-called-the-last-financial-crisis-heres-what-they-see-causing-the-next-one/ar-BBNhE4n?li=BBnb7Kz --09-14-18 ANOTHER MUST READ: www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-14/ten-misconceptions-about-financial-crisis-on-10-year-anniversary?srnd=premium --09-20-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/09/19/the-great-bull-market-is-dead-and-heres-whats-next-bank-of-america-strategist-says.html?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cstory%7C&par=yahoo&yptr=yahoo The 'Great Bull' market is 'dead,' and here's what's next, Bank of America predicts •The "Great Bull" market is over as economic growth becomes less certain, interest rates rise and debt becomes an overhang, according to Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. •Hartnett advised investors to focus on "inequality, innovation and immortality," that would benefit pharma companies and technology disruptors, along with inflation plays. •Interest rate hikes from the Fed and other central banks will have a significant impact on growth that may not be anticipated in the markets. --09-29-18: seekingalpha.com/article/4208840-zto-express-another-gem-amid-battered-china-sector?ifp= WE own ZTO and buying more SLOWLY on the Dips… --09-11-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-china-trade-war-could-cause-a-bear-market-stress-test-shows/ar-BBNbZD4?li=BBnbfcN Donald Trump's continued push to level the global playing field when it comes to trade has done little to disturb the relentless bull market in stocks. But nothing lasts forever, and at some points investors will have to react if the tensions continue to escalate. Running a series of different scenarios in the U.S.-China conflict, experts at FactSet have come up with a worst-case trade war scenario, one in which most major economies would take a hit and the U.S., along with a few others, would see a bear market emerge. "In the case of the escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China, while financial markets still appear to be discounting the global impact of a trade war, our analysis shows that if/when the market does react, the effects will be widespread," Ian Hissey, vice president in FactSet's portfolio analytics group, said in a report. Hissey modeled three scenarios: a base case where the dispute continues along its current path and tensions and tariffs gradually escalate; an optimistic result where the U.S. and China reach broad agreements on the future but the newly imposed tariffs remain, and a "conservative" case that involves "rapidly deteriorating" relations and a more profound impact. In determining impact, Hissey used the market's Brexit reaction, following the 2016 vote that allowed the UK to leave the European Union, as a template. He came up with results that showed stocks globally dropping between 8 percent and 17 percent, with markets in the U.S., Canada and Israel faring worst and Japan being the only overall winner. Hissey did not provide a time frame for how long the market move would take. --09-13-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/jpmorgan-predicts-the-next-financial-crisis-will-strike-in-2020/ar-BBNgu58?li=BBnbfcN How bad will the next crisis be? JPMorgan Chase & Co. has an idea. A decade after the collapse of Lehman Brothers sparked a plunge in markets and a raft of emergency measures, strategists at the bank have created a model aimed at gauging the timing and severity of the next financial crisis. And they reckon investors should pencil it in for 2020. The good news is, the next one will probably generate a somewhat less painful hit than past episodes, according to their analysis. The bad news? Diminished financial market liquidity since the 2008 implosion is a “wildcard” that’s tough to game out. The JPMorgan model calculates outcomes based on the length of the economic expansion, the potential duration of the next recession, the degree of leverage, asset-price valuations and the level of deregulation and financial innovation before the crisis. Assuming an average-length recession, the model came up with the following peak-to-trough performance estimates for different asset classes in the next crisis, according to the note. A U.S. stock slide of about 20 percent. A jump in U.S. corporate-bond yield premiums of about 1.15 percentage points. A 35 percent tumble in energy prices and 29 percent slump in base metals. A 2.79 percentage point widening in spreads on emerging-nation government debt. A 48 percent slide in emerging-market stocks, and a 14.4 percent drop in emerging currencies. --AND 09-15-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/next-crisis-could-look-a-lot-like-last-crisis-but-its-a-long-way-off.html For DiMartino Booth, the exotic financial instruments that helped cause the calamity a decade ago and brought down those two venerable institutions, along with many more, are still lurking in the system, threatening a deadly repeat unless the issue is corralled. "We never addressed the root cause of derivatives in the first place," she said in an interview. "We still kind of operate in the dark as it pertains to the transmission mechanism of derivatives." Derivatives refer to instruments that package bonds into blocks that are then sold off to investors. Warren Buffett famously called them "financial weapons of mass destruction." Flash forward to 2018. The total notional level of derivatives now sits at $11 trillion, the lowest since 2007, according to the Bank for International Settlements. New regulations are aimed at preventing banks from taking big risks and the old no-document loans that created the subprime meltdown are far less abundant than they once were. Yet the market for some products, particularly collateralized debt obligations and leveraged loans, has increased dramatically in recent days. CLO volume was up 51 percent year over year in the first half, according to Dealogic, while Thomson Reuters reports that volume for loans used in leveraged buyouts has surged 33 percent. Covenants, or protections for investors in bonds, particularly high-yield junk, are close to record lows, according to Moody's Investors Services. Meanwhile, the federal government keeps ringing up more and more debt — $21.4 trillion and counting — and interest rates are on the rise. In an investing world that continues to clamor for yield, the debt bomb is always ticking. Trouble from abroad "The search for yield has been spread across the globe once again, and now we're seeing it crop up again in different countries every week," DiMartino Booth said. "You wake up and wonder who blew up today." Indeed, a series of mini-explosions has been happening around the world, in countries like Turkey, the Philippines and India. Currency trading has gotten increasingly volatile, sparking worries that the U.S. may import its next crisis. "I'm concerned about the transmission mechanism," DiMartino Booth said. "Even if the initial catalyst to set off the next downturn does not come from within the U.S. financial system, that does not mean that the U.S. financial system is not just as vulnerable as it was before to be the conduit to spread systemic risk." Such an event, though, seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. The countries experiencing fiscal and currency issues pose little global risk, and most central banks remain vigilant against contagion. However, tightening financial conditions, the Fed continuing to raise rates and the sheer volume of debt instruments rising almost certainly means that while an earthquake may not be looming along the financial system's many fault lines, tremors are almost certain. "A lot of markets are going to reprice, but it won't be systemic," said Christopher Whalen, head of Whalen Global Advisors, an investment bank consultancy. "A lot of illusions will get broken, but spreads are still quite tight in the credit markets." READ MORE… --09-15-18: finance.yahoo.com/news/7-great-vanguard-funds-buy-144052208.html --09-17-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/the-state-of-housing-confidence-in-2018/ar-BBNdMIC?li=BBnbfcN Owning a home was once a time-honored life milestone. Buying real estate was simply what you did as an adult in America, and for many people home ownership was the ultimate indicator of life success and social status. But, times have changed. Today, fewer people are buying houses. According to Fannie Mae, a mere 24 percent of Americans feel like now is a good time to buy a house. Looking back to 2013, when 54 percent of consumers were confident in the housing market, it feels like a lot has changed in a small amount of time. It's clear that the certainty of prospective homeowner is waning. The housing market is far from a perfect science, but there are some trends that could be influencing homeowner behavior and confidence such as: Rising house prices Salary stagnation Generational trends Record high interest rates Generational trends: One of the greatest threats to the housing market is the consumer habits of young people. Millennials have already ruined Applebees and golf, and some experts predict the housing market could be the next victim of emerging consumer trends. According to Business Insider, Millennials are buying homes at a slower-than-usual rate. In the past, 25 – 34 was the typical age to start shopping for houses, but it seems Millennials are lagging behind. Data shows a major deterrent for young people is saving enough money for a down payment. Financial inhibitors aside, there is a more universal reason Millennials aren't buying houses: young people simply have a different set of values. They are holding off on marriage, having kids older, and moving frequently. Millennial value systems cannot be traced to a single factor but the following points likely contributed to their shifted priorities: Distrust in the housing market: Childhood during the Great Recession has made first-time homeowners skittish of the market — 78 percent of Millennials consider the recession a factor in their decision to buy real estate. A lack of job security: Millennials are known for job hopping. In fact, 91 percent of Millennials expect to stay at one job for less than three years. Record high student debt: The student debt total has reached $1.4 trillion. With most graduates entering the workforce saddled with $30,000, or more, in student debt, buying a house is likely not a top priority. AND: 09-17-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/a-decade-after-the-housing-crash-a-new-story-emerges/ar-BBNsS5U?li=BBnbfcN --09-01-18: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-31/wto-head-warns-u-s-exit-would-mean-chaos-for-american-business?srnd=premium The head of the World Trade Organization has responded to President Donald Trump’s threat to leave the institution by warning such a move would cause chaos for U.S. companies operating around the world. In an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Trump warned that he would withdraw from the WTO “if they don’t shape up.” The president also called the 1990s agreement establishing the body “the single worst trade deal ever made.” Roberto Azevedo, the WTO’s director general, told Bloomberg on Friday that he was already working with the U.S. and other members to address some common complaints. But he warned that a U.S. exit from the WTO would have chaotic consequences for the global economy and the U.S. itself. “The scenarios are not going to be good for anyone,” he said. "The U.S. is about 11 percent of global trade. So leaving the organization would be a blow to the organization. But it would be a blow to the U.S. as well.” In particular, he said, such a move would leave U.S. businesses vulnerable to commercial discrimination and new tariffs around the world if non-U.S. members were no longer bound by the WTO’s rules. --09-07-18 IMPORTANT: www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/rental-glut-sends-a-chill-through-the-hottest-housing-markets/ar-BBMZCrT?li=BBnbfcN Seattle-area median rents didn’t budge in July, after a 5 percent annual increase a year earlier and 10 percent the year before, according to Zillow data on apartments, houses and condos. While that’s the biggest decline among the top 50 largest metropolitan areas, it’s part of a national trend. Rents in Nashville and Portland, Oregon, have actually started falling. In the U.S., rents were up just 0.5 percent in July, the smallest gain for any month since 2012. “This is something that we first started to see two years ago in New York and D.C.,” Aaron Terrazas, a senior economist at Zillow, said in a phone interview. “A year ago, it was San Francisco and most recently, Seattle and Portland. It’s spreading through what once were the fastest growing rental markets.” Tenants are gaining the upper hand in urban centers across the U.S. as new amenity-rich apartment buildings, constructed in response to big rent gains in previous years, are forced to fight for customers. Rents are softening most on the high end and within city limits, Terrazas said. Landlords also have been losing customers to homeownership as millennials strike out on their own, often moving to more affordable suburbs. Realtor Roy Powell last month was helping his clients, two women in their mid-20s find an apartment in Seattle. They looked at seven places and narrowed it down to two -- a five-story building with a rooftop dog park and an air-conditioned gym, and a newly remodeled seven-story tower that won their business by throwing in a year of free underground parking, normally $175 a month. Even condo owners with just one or two units to rent are offering concessions to compete with new buildings, Powell said. “A lot of them are going from absolutely no pets to allowing pets. That’s a big deal in Seattle, where everybody has a dog or cat.” Strong Competition Batik, a new 195-unit Seattle apartment building, has views of the downtown skyline and Mount Rainier, a giant rooftop deck with a garden where tenants can grow fruits and vegetables, a community barbecue and an off-leash pet area. New tenants can receive Visa gift cards worth as much as $6,000, with half paid at signing and the rest a month later. “There is tremendous competition for tenants,” said Lori Mason Curran, spokeswoman for landlord Vulcan Real Estate, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s company, which launched Batik in March. “Over time, we think long-term demand is solid. But there is so much supply tamping down rent growth right now.” In Seattle, another factor contributed to the glut of rentals. While the city is in the midst of a building boom -- with more cranes dotting the skyline than any other in the U.S. -- much of the residential multifamily construction has been apartments. Developers have shied away from condos because of state laws that allow buyers to more easily sue if there are defects in the construction. --09-04-18: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-04/there-s-a-plug-free-way-to-fill-the-world-with-electric-vehicles?srnd=premium Keep your eyes open, for if this Company ever goes public (IPO)…WE are. --09-04-18: seekingalpha.com/article/4203757-nutanix-continued-growth-story?ifp=0 WE own NTNX; at our Share Allotment, but WE keep buying more, very slowly. --09-14-18: www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-14/tax-cuts-are-costing-the-u-s-treasury-money?srnd=premium WE SOLD:VOD (all our remaning shares) GRUB (hated to; but a great profit, all our remaining shares) SBUX DWDP SYN EMHTF CANN JD REDU GELYF GSFVF BBVA LRCX LPSN LIT OROCF VBIV SGMO TTOO ADXS TTPH EEI CERS TGTX "The time to buy is when there's blood in the streets." -Baron Rothschild "The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble . . . We want to buy them when they're on the operating table." -Warren Buffet "Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful." -Warren Buffett “The above is for your information only. We are not in any way recommending these stocks for you to buy/sell. If you decide to, it is your responsibility to do your own research, due diligence and/or seek the advice of a Financial Planner/Broker.
You need to set your own invest goals, portfolio & diversification goals according to your age, lifestyle, income, etc. when it comes to selecting stocks/funds.
Remember, investing is a risk, so do so at your own risk; you need to put the time in to do your own research.
Our thoughts/opinions are for informational and educational purposes only. And, should not be construed to constitute investment advice.
Nothing contained herein shall constitute a solicitation, recommendation or endorsement to buy or sell any security.
What is good for Do Me & Tequila might not be good for you. So be responsible, (to yourself), for your investment decisions or lack of such.
If any of what we say makes you uncomfortable, then do not read/listen to our thoughts and opinions.
Neither, Tequila or I, are compensated in any manner by the company stocks we mention in our investment emails. Some of the time, we own stocks we mention in our investment email; however, other times we do not own any.
I hope you all do realize that Tequila is a parrot (?)...even more of a reason, to do your own research & make your own decisions.” |
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Post by domeplease on Oct 18, 2018 6:54:23 GMT -5
MISC. TID-BITS: --09-24-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/6-things-other-governments-provide-that-americans-still-have-to-pay-for/ss-AAApoj3?li=BBnb7Kz#image=1 Why cannot WE do the same??? READ MORE… --10-14-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/10/12/roadie-app-is-turning-average-drivers-into-makeshift-delivery-people.html The next time you drive to work, you could be making money before even clocking in — just by dropping something off that was already on your way. That's the premise behind Roadie, a new app that's crowdsourcing package delivery. The Atlanta-based company launched in 2015, currently has more than 90,000 drivers on the platform, and is backed by investors like Google Chairman Eric Schmidt's TomorrowVentures, the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund and even rapper Ludacris, to name a few. "It's essentially people already on the road heading in the right direction," Roadie founder Marc Gorlin told CNBC's "On the Money" in an interview. "There's 250 million cars on the road that's almost a natural resource of delivery, if you just give people a chance to use it." Roadie helps make those connections. To become a driver, you need a vehicle, a valid driver's license, and will be subject to a motor vehicle and background check. Roadie drivers can expect to earn anywhere from $8 up to $650 per job, depending on the size of the package and the delivery distance. As for senders, Roadie's founder says using the app is "as easy as ordering a pizza." Senders choose a size, for example "fits in a shoebox" or "fits in the front seat," enter where it needs to go and Roadie determines the price. The sender can review it and then post what Roadie calls a "gig." Roadie makes its money by taking an approximate 20 percent cut of each gig. And to think Roadie came about because of a box of broken tile. Gorlin was doing a renovation project on his condo, and found out the tile he ordered for his bathroom arrived broken. But a new shipment wouldn't arrive until the following week. The tile he needed was less than two hours away by car, and he started to think that surely someone was in a car right now heading in his direction, and wouldn't mind taking the box of tile. The company is not only working with individual senders, but with companies like Home Depot, Macy's, and Delta, just to name a few. 10-14-18: www.cbsnews.com/news/studio-54-cofounder-ian-schrager-what-happened-at-studio-54-is-still-an-embarrassment/ 09-26-18 BRILLIANT: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-25/this-24-year-old-built-a-5-billion-hotel-startup-in-five-years This 24-Year-Old Built a $5 Billion Hotel Startup in Five Years. Finding clean, affordable hotels in India can be a traveler’s nightmare. Too often, what looks good on a website turns out to be a roach-infested room in a crumbling building where water has to be schlepped to the bathroom in a bucket. Ritesh Agarwal’s solution is a booking app that promises truth in advertising and branded hotels that don’t deliver unpleasant surprises. The chain he started in 2013, Oyo Hotels, has already become the largest in India, a chaotic market worth $4.5 billion, according to New Delhi-based researcher Hotelivate. Now Agarwal is going overseas with his franchise model, which combines a reservation site with a full stack of services for small hoteliers who want to up their game. Yesterday the company said it’s raising $1 billion from SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital and other investors to fund expansion in countries including China, where Oyo opened in November. Last week it started service in the U.K., bringing the business to a developed market for the first time. “By 2023, we will be the world’s largest hotel chain,” the 24-year-old founder said in a recent interview at an Oyo hotel in a suburb of New Delhi, where the company is based. “We want to convert broken, unbranded assets around the globe into better-quality living spaces.” OYO’s Expansion Isn’t the Best Use of Unicorn Funds: Tim Culpan Oyo employs hundreds of staffers in the field who evaluate properties on 200 factors, from the quality of mattresses and linens to water temperature. To get a listing, along with a bright red Oyo sign to hang street-side like a seal of good-housekeeping approval, most hoteliers must agree to a makeover that typically takes about a month. Oyo then gets 25 percent of every booking. Rooms usually run between $25 and $85. --09-29-18: www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/the-deadliest-infectious-disease-is-becoming-drug-resistant/ar-BBNGjCm?li=BBnb7Kz The UN General Assembly held its first high-level meeting on tuberculosis. Tuberculosis (TB) isn’t a disease Americans hear about much about these days, but that’s not true for the rest of the world. TB is currently the deadliest infectious disease, responsible for 1.6 million deaths last year, most of them in the developing world. And that’s not the scariest part. A rapidly growing number of patients are developing drug-resistant tuberculosis, which kills more people than any other drug-resistant pathogen. The persistence of TB is the reason the United Nations General Assembly held its first high-level meeting on tuberculosis Wednesday, which experts hope will trigger an influx of cash and attention for the treatment and diagnosis of a neglected disease. “In the developed world, people weren’t seeing it, and that’s where most research occurs,” says Dr. Eric Goosby, the United Nations special envoy on TB, on why the disease has received comparatively so little attention. “It was something you taught medical students but didn’t really see in the United States or Canada.” Another reason for the neglect is that other diseases grabbed much of the research community’s attention in recent years. HIV, which was responsible for approximately 1.3 million deaths last year, has seen a lot of attention and resources channeled its way for decades, and has already been the subject of three of these high-level meetings (the first of which was held in 2006). Only now are people starting to recognize just how significant of a threat TB is. READ MORE… 10-15-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/10/12/kevin-oleary-and-barbara-corcoran-on-their-favorite-splurges.html?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cstory%7C&par=yahoo&yptr=yahoo --09-30-18: www.msn.com/en-us/health/nutrition/the-30-healthiest-foods-you-could-ever-eat/ss-AAmqzoh?li=BBnb7Kz#image=31 --09-29-18 A GOOD READ: www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/voices/im-an-american-who-moved-to-canada-%e2%80%94heres-why-ill-never-move-back/ar-BBNeUNm?li=BBnbcA0 --10-02-18 IMPORTANT: www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/these-are-the-best-countries-to-be-retired-14729558 --10-02-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/my-parents-grew-up-poor-but-i-retired-early-at-age-28-with-dollar2-million-%e2%80%94-here-are-the-6-best-pieces-of-advice-i-can-give-you-about-making-money/ss-BBNOfOH?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=U147DHP My parents grew up poor. Eight people living in a one-room apartment poor. Food stamps poor. "You're a bus boy and maybe one day if you work really hard, you'll move up to being a waiter" poor. When I was a kid, my parents constantly emphasized how important financial freedom would be, and what one must be willing to do to achieve it. I eventually retired early at age 28 with a little over $2 million. My entire career totaled less than seven years before early retirement. Here are six building blocks that helped me get to multi-millionaire status quickly. READ MORE… --10-01-18: www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/surfer-dies-from-brain-eating-amoeba/ar-BBNMpcR?li=BBnba9O These AWFUL deaths will ONLY increase as the Waters ONLY get Warmer & more Polluted. I personally have stopped swimming in Lakes, Rivers, Other Pools, Seas & Oceans. My pool is treated and CLEANED Daily… Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are testing the water at a surf resort in Texas for a brain-eating amoeba after the tragic death of a surfer who visited the site. Fabrizio Stabile, 29, visited the BSR Cable Park's Surf Resort in Waco where he had been using the park's wave pool at the extreme water sports park. He died in New Jersey on September 16 after falling ill with a naegleria fowleri infection. A GoFundMe page has been set up in Fabrizio’s name to raise awareness about the dangers of the amoeba infection that has only been diagnosed 143 times in the last 55 years in the United States. The page explains that Stabile had started to suffer from a headache that would not go away and which left him unable to speak. His symptoms matched those of bacterial meningitis and he did not respond to medication. After more tests, he tested positive for a naegleria fowleri infection, which has a 98 percent fatality rate, the gofundme page stated. Kelly Craine, a spokesperson for Waco-McLennan County Public Health District, said officials are trying to find the source of the amoeba. "The CDC collected water samples and are currently investigating to find the source. We hope to have results by the end of the week," CBS affiliate KBTX-TV reported. The CDC says the infection can occur in people who swim or dive in warm freshwater places. Infection passes into the body if contaminated water enters the nose. An obituary in the Press of Atlantic City described Stabile as someone who loved the outdoors, including snowboarding, surfing, and socialising with friends and family. The owner of the resort, Stuart Parsons, voluntarily closed the park on Friday for inspection and said he would comply with the inquiry. He said: “Our hearts and prayers are with his family, friends and the New Jersey surf community during this difficult time," CBS reported. The same amoeba has also been detected in part of the water system in Louisiana, with the Shreveport Times reporting how it had been found in south Bossier Parish. The operator, Sligo Water System, has since disconnected the supply from Bossier City water. -- 09-27-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/inside-a-secret-bunker-where-only-billionaires-can-afford-to-live/ss-BBNbh50?li=BBnbfcN#image=22 --10-02-18 BRAVO: www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazon-to-raise-minimum-wage-to-dollar15-for-us-employees/ar-BBNPv0B?ocid=U147DHP Amazon.com Inc said on Tuesday it would raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour for its U.S. employees from next month, as it faces criticism for pay disparity from lawmakers and labor unions. The move comes at a time when the "Fight for Fifteen" movement — a union-led push for a $15 minimum wage — has been gaining traction in cities across the country. Amazon, which became the second company to cross $1 trillion market value last month, on average paid employees $28,446 last year. The company is led by Jeff Bezos, who is the world's richest man with a net worth of $150 billion, according to Forbes. "We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead," Bezos said. "We're excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us." Retailer Target Corp raised its minimum hourly wage last year to $11 and promised to raise it to $15 an hour by the end of 2020, while the world's largest retailer Walmart raised its minimum wage to $11 an hour earlier this year. Workers have been protesting against fast food chains like McDonald's Corp and demanding wage increases since 2012. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist, has been vocal about the pay disparity at U.S. corporations and has proposed a bill aimed at making large corporations pay workers more. Amazon said it would increase its minimum wage for all full-time, part-time, temporary and seasonal employees. The new minimum wage will benefit more than 250,000 employees in the United States, as well as over 100,000 seasonal employees who will be hired at Amazon sites across the country this holiday, the company said in a statement. Amazon's public policy team will also begin advocating for an increase in the federal minimum wage. AND MORE AMAZON: --09-24-18 A Good Read: www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/want-to-see-what%e2%80%99s-up-amazon%e2%80%99s-sleeve-take-a-tour-of-seattle/ar-AAAz1tJ?li=BBnb7Kz WE have own Amazon Stock for years & yes, buying more. READ MORE…AND: -- 09-29-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/49-companies-amazon-could-destroy-and-1-it-already-has/ss-BBMSvFZ?li=BBnb7Kz#image=25 09-26-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/80000-people-died-of-the-flu-last-winter-in-us.html The U.S. government estimates that 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications last winter — the disease's highest death toll in at least four decades. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, revealed the total in an interview Tuesday night with The Associated Press. Flu experts knew it was a very bad season, but at least one found size of the estimate surprising. "That's huge," said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert. The tally was nearly twice as much as what health officials previously considered a bad year, he said. In recent years, flu-related deaths have ranged from about 12,000 to — in the worst year — 56,000, according to the CDC. Last fall and winter, the U.S. went through one of the most severe flu seasons in recent memory. It was driven by a kind of flu that tends to put more people in the hospital and cause more deaths, particularly among young children and the elderly. The season peaked in early February. It was mostly over by the end of March, although some flu continued to circulate. Making a bad year worse, the flu vaccine didn't work very well. Experts nevertheless say vaccination is still worth it, because it makes illnesses less severe and save lives. READ MORE… --09-25-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/who-fears-perfect-storm-in-congos-ebola-outbreak/ar-AAAC6qm?li=BBnb7Kz IF it ever goes Airborne; WE ARE ALL SCREWED… The World Health Organization said Tuesday it's worried that an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is about to spread further within that country. Dr. Peter Salama, WHO deputy director-general, said in a press conference Tuesday that troubling factors in the region "may be coming together over the next weeks to months to create a potential perfect storm." The area is plagued with violence, people have been actively running away from health workers who try to vaccinate and treat them, and politicians in the North Kivu province have been spreading conspiracy theories that the government is causing Ebola to spread. "We can see this situation deteriorating very quickly," Salama said. Healthcare workers are using an experimental vaccine on patients, but they face difficult circumstances as they try to reach those who may have been infected. The latest outbreak is in a war-torn region that borders Uganda and Rwanda. Roughly 1 million people who live in the area have been displaced and are still on the move, which makes it difficult for medics to vaccinate people and then monitor them for three weeks, an effective strategy they took earlier this year in another region of the Congo. Though 11,700 people have received the vaccine, at least 150 people are infected and 100 people have died. Unsafe burials in which people touch infected bodies leads to continued spread of Ebola, and at least one case has been detected in a village in Uganda. --09-24-18: www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/these-us-cities-have-lowest-life-expectancy/ar-BBNwFLg?li=BBnb7Kz Throughout the United States, life expectancy varies, with people in some states living far longer on average than people in others. In a newly released project, researchers from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics partnered with the National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to determine just how different life expectancy can be in one nation. The groups created the U.S. Small-area Life Expectancy Estimates Project, called USALEEP, to measure the health of areas in the country. “This is the first measure of health at a neighborhood level for every neighborhood,” Don Schwarz, the senior vice president at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation told Newsweek on Tuesday. “It represents the measure of opportunity for a long life that we give every child in every neighborhood in this country.” The researchers were able to determine the life expectancy at birth from 2010–2015 with the National Vital Statistics System. They gathered death records of U.S. residents from 2010 through 2015 in each state except for Maine and Wisconsin, who didn’t have enough years of geocoded death records. The scientists then assigned the deaths to different areas of the country based on their residential addresses. “We’ve known for some time that people with higher education or higher income have higher life expectancy, lower mortality, and generally better health than persons with lower resources, such as lower education and lower income,” Elizabeth Arias, director of the U.S. Life Table Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an author on the study, told Newsweek. Overall, the life expectancy in the U.S. was 78.7 years, according to the final data. The life expectancy differed between men and women: Nationally for men, life expectancy is 76.3 years while women live an average of 81.2 years. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation created a calculator, which can be found here, in which a location can be entered to determine the life expectancy of that area. The area with the lowest life expectancy was Stilwell, Oklahoma, where the average expectancy was 56.3 years old. Compared to the national average, that is 22.4 years earlier. Stilwell has the highest concentration of Cherokee people in the country. In Stilwell, 42.2 percent of people are Cherokee and 49.0 percent of people are Native American. Places that were in the bottom 25 percent of life expectancy had four things in common. The majority of the people were less educated, incomes were in the bottom 25 percent, populations were predominantly black, and locations were in the south. READ MORE… --09-28-18: www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/rat-disease-worlds-first-human-case-discovered-in-hong-kong/ar-BBNEY8Q?li=BBnbfcL For the first time, a case of rat hepatitis E has been discovered in a human in Hong Kong. A 56-year-old man has been diagnosed with the disease, researchers from the University of Hong Kong said. It was not previously known the disease could be passed from rats to humans. "Previous laboratory experiments have found that rat hepatitis E virus cannot be transmitted to monkeys, and human hepatitis A virus cannot be transmitted to rats," said Dr. Siddharth Sridhar, clinical assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, explaining that monkeys are very close to humans when it comes to disease susceptibility. The risk of rat hepatitis E affecting humans has been underestimated, Sridhar said during a news conference. READ MORE… --09-24-18: www.msn.com/en-us/health/fitness/if-your-workouts-last-longer-than-13-minutes-science-says-youre-wasting-your-time/ar-BBNeYrU?li=BBnba9O Unless you have unlimited time and an unnatural enthusiasm for exercise, chances are you want to work out as little as possible to reap all the benefits. To get a sense of how much time and effort you have to put in to get the job done, a team of researchers put 34 fit dudes on one of three fitness routines for a study that was recently published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Although everyone performed the same seven exercises, like leg and chest presses, using weights heavy enough to exhaust their muscles after eight to 12 reps three times a week for eight weeks, the first group did just one set of each move while the second repeated the routine three times per session, and the third completed the entire workout five times during each gym visit. The length of each workout varied: The single-set participants spent just 13 minutes working out, while members of the three-set group took 40 minutes to get through their exercises, and those who were prescribed five sets went at it for 70 minutes. At the end of the eight-week period, researchers were surprised to see little variance in strength gains: Those who performed just one set of each exercise benefited just as much as those who did five times as much work. The only difference was muscle mass: Although everyone bulked up a bit, participants who did more than one set (i.e., three or five) of each move got bigger. In sum, the more reps subjects did, the larger their muscles got. The takeaway: Unless your fitness goal is to, say, build out your booty-in which case, more sets are better-three 13-minute lifting sessions per week will probably do the trick if you're setting out to get stronger. READ MORE… --09-22-18: 7 out 10 humans globally die from Heart Disease, Lung Ailments, Cancer & Diabetes: us.cnn.com/2018/09/20/health/chronic-disease-sustainable-development-goals-study/index.html READ MORE... --09-26-18 IMPORTANT HOME JOBS: www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/the-10-highest-paying-jobs-you-can-do-from-home.html --09-28-18 A MUST READ: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/opinions-five-myths-about-capitalism/ar-BBNEGr4?li=BBnbfcL --09-26-18: www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/the-35-most-frequently-banned-books-of-the-past-5-years/ar-AAAFn1G?li=BBnb7Kz A MUST READ…
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Post by domeplease on Oct 19, 2018 11:08:07 GMT -5
THE RAGE, ANGER OF COURSE MORE LIES = DONALD:
--10-16-18: slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/anger-in-america-trumpism-incivility.html
Recent events have provoked a similar feeling, but in a sizable portion of the American population.
The tricky thing about anger is that once it’s fully activated, it will not disperse. There are varietals of anger, of course—entitled people have eruptions of ill-temper all the time—but those spoiled outbursts have nothing on the power of anger provoked by humiliation.
That kind—the kind blossoming right now in response to systemic injustice and needless cruelty—is a slow, slow burn. It does not go away. It does not dissipate.
And I grieve its rising tide in this country more than I celebrate it, because it testifies to the harm that has made it bloom.
The only true rule of Trumpism: be the sorest winner imaginable.
Here’s my other concern: Anger might be dangerous to those in power, but it can be even more dangerous to people who aren’t socially licensed to express it, and who pay a high price when they do.
Donald Trump is an anger troll.
Rage is the one thing he capably nurtures and grows. He stoked anger in people horrified by Kavanaugh’s confirmation and is now turning it against them.
This is an old tactic: drive people crazy, then call them so. As projects of government go, this one is as familiar as it is contemptible. He wants to make his followers feel threatened.
To achieve this, he needs his opponents to seem irrational. So he sets about making them angry.
He insults them, railroads them, calls people protesting for justice liars and profit-seekers even as he openly enriches his friends.
He gives them offensive nicknames and mocks their pain for fun, and to get them to lose control. He’s doing this in plain sight—it’s pretty obvious why people are angry—but his goal is to make their reaction look inexplicable, beyond the pale.
After leading angry crowds to yell abuse at anyone he points to, he turns around and marvels at how irrational and dangerous his targets are.
As tactics go, this one is dumb and transparent, but it’s worth describing it because it works. It works a lot. Trump is not a genius. But he instinctively understands the dynamic of provoking and then delegitimizing someone else’s pain.
As Adam Serwer wrote, he’s energized by the suffering he causes others and—secondarily—by the bond that ritualized cruelty forges with his base, which has been connected by fear of others.
From Trump’s perspective, it’s kind of fun that people feel compassion for the families he separated. It’s delightful that women are worried about rights he has expressly said he wanted to take from them.
And, after insulting and belittling people he’s supposed to be governing, he enjoys acting surprised that they mind.
It’s a silly and ugly game, but it’s the only true rule of Trumpism: be the sorest winner imaginable. Aspire to nothing but power and status. Hold no principle sacred.
Withhold justice and insult those who object. Yes, the effects of this are predictable. It doesn’t take a genius of social engineering to be the “why are you hitting yourself?” guy. All it takes is a willingness to be him.
The total effect of this robs anger of some of its dignity. It’s doubly humiliating to know the bully enjoys watching his target get mad.
I remember the precursors to my anger all those years ago: the agonized deliberations I made in that car as I tried to work out whether I was being unfair or uncharitable—perhaps I’d misread or misunderstood.
I went through a thousand possible explanations until his actions whittled any misunderstanding down to the plain and ugly truth. That’s what living feels like in a society like this one:
There’s a constant search for reasons your fellow citizens act the way they do that don’t reduce to sadism.
There’s a certain relief, then, in crafting your own test for what constitutes the point of no return—the red line that, once crossed, confirms to you that the assault on your autonomy and dignity is overt and intentional.
Here’s one possible test. A recent poll asked the multiple-choice question: “If the charge of sexual assault during a party in high school by Christine Blasey Ford against Brett Kavanaugh is true, do you think Brett Kavanaugh …”
Fifty-four percent of Republicans filled in that blank with “should be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.” READ MORE…
--10-19-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-praises-us-congressman-from-montana-who-body-slammed-reporter/ar-BBOA9h3?li=BBnb7Kz MORE DONALD HATE…
President Donald Trump on Thursday heaped praise on a U.S. congressman from Montana who body-slammed a reporter during a campaign for a special election in 2017.
Trump, who has called the media the enemy of the American people and regularly derides journalists as "fake news," made his latest remarks during a campaign rally in Montana.
Representative Greg Gianforte, who made brief remarks at the rally with Trump, was ordered to perform community service as part of his sentence for attacking Ben Jacobs, a correspondent for Britain’s Guardian newspaper, on May 24, 2017, the day before a special election to fill Montana’s sole congressional seat.
"Any guy that can do a body-slam ... is my guy," Trump told supporters at the rally, adding that he was concerned at first that the incident would jeopardize Gianforte's campaign.
"I said: 'Oh, this is terrible, he's going to lose the election.' Then I said: 'Well, wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him,' and it did," Trump said.
Gianforte, who won the election, pleaded guilty to assaulting a reporter.
--10-19-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/conservatives-mount-a-whisper-campaign-smearing-khashoggi-in-defense-of-trump/ar-BBOA6kY?li=BBnb7Kz
Hard-line Republicans and conservative commentators are mounting a whispering campaign against Jamal Khashoggi that is designed to protect President Trump from criticism of his handling of the dissident journalist’s alleged murder by operatives of Saudi Arabia — and support Trump’s continued aversion to a forceful response to the oil-rich desert kingdom.
In recent days, a cadre of conservative House Republicans allied with Trump has been privately exchanging articles from right-wing outlets that fuel suspicion of Khashoggi, highlighting his association with the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth and raising conspiratorial questions about his work decades ago as an embedded reporter covering Osama bin Laden, according to four GOP officials involved in the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.
Those aspersions — which many lawmakers have been wary of stating publicly because of the political risks of doing so — have begun to flare into public view as conservative media outlets have amplified the claims, which are aimed in part at protecting Trump as he works to preserve the U.S.-Saudi relationship and avoid confronting the Saudis on human rights.
Trump’s remarks about reporters amid the Khashoggi fallout have inflamed existing tensions between his allies and the media. At a Thursday rally in Montana, Trump openly praised Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for assaulting a reporter in his bid for Congress last year.
“Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my kind of — he’s my guy,” Trump said.
Hours earlier, prominent conservative television personalities were making insinuations about Khashoggi’s background.
“Khashoggi was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood,” Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner asserted on Thursday’s highly rated “Outnumbered” show. “I just put it out there because it is in the constellation of things that are being talked about.” Faulkner then dismissed another guest who called her claim “iffy.”
The message was echoed on the campaign trail. Virginia Republican Corey A. Stewart, who is challenging Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), told a local radio program Thursday that “Khashoggi was not a good guy himself.”
While Khashoggi was once sympathetic to Islamist movements, he moved toward a more liberal, secular point of view, according to experts on the Middle East who have tracked his career. Khashoggi knew bin Laden in the 1980s and 1990s during the civil war in Afghanistan, but his interactions with bin Laden were as a journalist with a point of view who was working with a prized source.
Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, left his home country last year and was granted residency in the United States by federal authorities. He lived in Virginia and wrote for The Washington Post.
Nevertheless, the smears have escalated. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son and key political booster, shared another person’s tweet last week with his millions of followers that included a line that Khashoggi was “tooling around Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden” in the 1980s, even though the context was a feature story on bin Laden’s activities.
A Tuesday broadcast of CR-TV, a conservative online outlet founded by popular talk-radio host Mark Levin, labeled Khashoggi a “longtime friend” of terrorists and claimed without evidence that Trump was the victim of an “insane” media conspiracy to tarnish him. The broadcast has been viewed more than 12,000 times.
A story in far-right FrontPage magazine casts Khashoggi as a “cynical and manipulative apologist for Islamic terrorism, not the mythical martyred dissident whose disappearance the media has spent the worst part of a week raving about,” and features a garish cartoon of bin Laden and Khashoggi with their arms around each other.
10-17-18: www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-10-17/trump-and-kushner-put-saudi-arabia-s-money-ahead-of-khashoggi?srnd=premium Donald claimed on 10-16-18; that he has no financial ties with the Saudi’s…well, well, well = See below.
By Tuesday evening, that line became more complex to defend after the New York Times reported that at least four suspects in Khashoggi's disappearance had ties to the crown prince. A fifth was “of such stature that he could be directed only by a high-ranking Saudi authority,” the newspaper said.
Complexity has never deterred the president, however. In an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, he blamed critics of Saudi Arabia for holding it “guilty until proven innocent.” Lest anyone doubt his motives, Trump took to Twitter to talk about his finances:
That statement would be easier to digest if Trump hadn't bragged publicly in the past about how much Saudis have spent buying his condominiums – and if he wasn't the steward of the most financially conflicted presidency of the post World War II era.
Trump is playing word games, of course. He says he has no investments in Saudi Arabia or Russia. But that doesn't mean money from those countries hasn't flowed into his coffers. In Saudi Arabia's case, that has meant very different things over the years.
In the early 1990s, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bought Trump's prized yacht on the cheap from the property developer’s creditors when he was on the cusp of personal bankruptcy. A few years later, one of Trump's lenders forced him to sell the Plaza Hotel, a New York City landmark also mired in debt, to Alwaleed.
As David Fahrenthold and Jonathan O'Connell noted in the Washington Post recently, this was a period when Trump was trying to dig himself out of $3.4 billion of debt, about $900 million of which he had guaranteed personally.
But Alwaleed was a bargain-hunter at the time, not someone trying to ensnare a failed developer on the unlikely chance that he might someday become president.
Still, Alwaleed, who once described Trump on Twitter as a “disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America,” kept those early deals in mind. When Trump made fun of him on Twitter two years ago, Alwaleed responded by tweeting, “I bailed you out twice; a 3rd time, maybe?”
As Trump climbed out of his debt hole in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he courted Saudi condo buyers.
The Saudi Arabian government bought the entire 45th floor of the Trump World Tower in 2001, and, before running for president, Trump was apparently contemplating doing business in Saudi Arabia – he incorporated eight limited-liability companies with names suggesting he planned to do business there (they were later dissolved).
After becoming president, Trump flouted tradition by declining to authentically separate himself from the Trump Organization and its hotel and golf properties. The Trump International Hotel in Washington has been a favorite venue for Saudi diplomats who have spent lavishly there, as well as at other Trump hotels.
The president and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also decided to make Saudi Arabia a linchpin of their policy in the Middle East. Kushner, lacking full security clearance and any diplomatic experience, lobbied the crown prince directly in early 2017 to secure what was fancifully and inaccurately touted as a $110 billion arms sale – most of which had been agreed a year earlier, and the bulk of which still hasn't been completed.
Shortly after that transaction was arranged, Trump visited Saudi Arabia. And soon after that, the Saudis announced they would invest $20 billion in an infrastructure fund managed by Blackstone Group LP.
The New York-based firm had financed several of the Kushner family's deals and its chairman, Stephen Schwarzman, sat on the president's business-advisory council. The private equity firm told Bloomberg News that the Saudi investment had been contemplated long before Trump was even the Republican nominee.
Kushner's forays alarmed members of the intelligence and national security communities, as Bob Woodward outlined in his book, “Fear.” At the very moment Kushner was throwing himself into these diplomatic adventures, he was coming under scrutiny for his own financial conflicts – in particular, his efforts to secure funding for 666 Fifth Avenue, a troubled Manhattan skyscraper his family owned.
Although the family has since sold off the property, Kushner had tried unsuccessfully to secure funding for it from a Chinese investor. His intersection with a prominent banker and diplomats from Moscow during the Trump campaign's transition into the White House raised questions about whether he was courting Russian investors (which he denied).
Inevitably, the Kushner family also courted a prominent Saudi investor to bail them out of 666 Fifth, as detailed by my Bloomberg News colleagues David Kocieniewski and Caleb Melby.
Late last year, Kushner made another secretive trip alone to Riyadh. He later described the visit as an effort to “brainstorm” Middle East strategies with Mohammed bin Salman.
Not long afterward, the crown prince placed dozens of prominent businessmen and political rivals under house arrest in what was described as an anti-corruption drive. Among them was Alwaleed, the man who once snatched the Plaza Hotel and yacht from Kushner's father-in-law.
Earlier this year, leaked intelligence reports revealed that diplomats in Mexico, Israel, China and the United Arab Emirates had decided to target Kushner because they believed he could be easily manipulated due to “his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.” READ MORE… AND: --10-18-18: www.huffingtonpost.com.mx/entry/trump-saudi-money_us_5bc79d1be4b055bc947d1d3a
WASHINGTON ― As President Donald Trump defends maintaining close ties to Saudi Arabia, he has repeatedly exaggerated ― by 700 percent ― the value of U.S. weapon sales to Riyadh, yet he has not mentioned the amount of money Saudis have put into his own pocket.
From the first days that Saudi involvement in the disappearance of U.S. resident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi became clear, Trump has attempted to downplay it based on pending arms sales to the kingdom: “$110 billion worth of military,” he said again Thursday. “Those are the biggest orders in the history of this country, probably the history of the world.”
That number, though, is nowhere near accurate. In reality, only $14.5 billion in weapon sales have been approved by the Trump administration and Congress. The remainder is largely aspirational and years away from fruition.
What Trump does not talk about is a different potential explanation for his repeated defenses of Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: The many tens of millions of dollars the royal family and its friends and allies have spent on Trump condominiums and at Trump hotels.
“This is a case where conflicts of interest can kill,” said Walter Shaub, who resigned as director of the Office of Government Ethics after Trump and White House officials refused to accept his guidance. “The autocrats of the world are watching what the United States does next.”
Shaub said that if Saudi Arabia’s ruling family can get away with the alleged murder of a Virginia-based journalist for a major American newspaper for the relatively small price of soliciting Trump properties, other dictators would see it as a green light.
“If nothing happens, what’s next? An American citizen gets murdered abroad? Dissidents in exile get killed on American soil?” Shaub wondered.
Trump appeared to try to head off suggestions his personal financial interests are influencing him with a Monday Twitter post: “For the record,
I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!”
But that statement ignores the bigger question of how much Saudis have invested in Trump, Shaub said, adding that evidence suggests the answer is quite a bit.
From the sale of his 291-foot yacht to a Saudi prince in 1991, when Trump was facing personal bankruptcy, to the sale of the entire 45th floor of one of his New York City buildings to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the hosting of large entourages of Saudis at his hotels in New York and Chicago over the past year, Shaub said, Trump has more than an incidental relationship with the country and its leaders.
“They’re clearly a valued customer of his,” Shaub said. “Possibly his most valued customer.”
“It was a bald-faced lie even by Trump’s standards,” said Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and a National Security Council spokesman under President Barack Obama.
“Further, he’s even been clear that this massive income colors how he thinks of the country, asking rhetorically ‘why wouldn’t’ he like the Saudis, given how much money they direct his way.”
Tim O’Brien, the author of a 2005 book about Trump’s finances and wealth who on Wednesday published a detailed recitation of Trump’s Saudi connections, said it is clear why Trump wants to protect the Saudi royal family, and it has nothing to do with arms sales.
“I think he’s loyal to them because he cares about them as a business opportunity,” O’Brien said. “And he doesn’t care at all about human rights abuses or murdering journalists.”
How much money Trump is personally making from the Saudi government and Saudi nationals cannot be known with precision because Trump has refused to release his tax returns ― even though he once promised he would.
His failure to do so broke established precedent followed by every major candidate since the Watergate era.
Shaub said those tax filings would let Americans see who is buying his properties, who is leasing his name, how much they are paying him, who his business partners are for various projects and how much they are investing, among many other details.
None of that information is divulged in the cursory financial disclosure form Trump files annually, Shaub said. “The disclosure form was never intended to cover this situation.”
--10-17-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/no-trumps-tax-cut-isnt-paying-for-itself-at-least-not-yet/ar-BBOv9gi?li=BBnbfcN THE TAX CUTS ARE NOT PAYING FOR ITSELF AS THE GOP & DONALD PROMISED---ANOTHER DONALD/GOP F-U.
The Treasury Department released figures on Monday showing the federal budget deficit widened by 17 percent in the 2018 fiscal year, to $779 billion.
That’s an unusual jump for a year in which unemployment hit a five-decade low and the economy experienced a significant economic expansion.
But the increase demonstrates that the tax cuts President Trump signed into law late last year have reduced federal revenues considerably, even against the backdrop of a booming economy.
Some conservatives don’t see the rising deficit numbers that way. They note that the Treasury reported that federal revenues rose by 0.4 percent from the 2017 fiscal year to the 2018 fiscal year, and view that as a sign that the tax cuts are “paying for themselves,” as Republicans and Mr. Trump promised.
That’s not the case.
There are several ways to ask the question, “Are tax cuts paying for themselves?” Based on the data we have right now, they all arrive at the same answer: “No.”
Federal revenues are falling well short of projections — even with strong economic growth
The issue here is not whether the government spends too much money, or whether tax cuts have buttressed economic growth, or even whether it’s advisable to run such high deficits in flush economic times.
The issue instead is: Have the corporate and individual tax cuts that went into effect in January generated so much additional growth that tax revenues are as high, or higher, today than they would have been if the tax cuts never passed?
That’s how all scorekeepers — be they independent congressional staff members or researchers from think tanks that lean liberal or conservative — assess the “pay for themselves” question.
One way to think about it is from the perspective of a small-business owner. Let’s say you run your own bakery. You sell bread for $4 a loaf. Today, you sold 90 loaves, for $360 in revenue.
You expect that, because it’s a busier day at the bakery tomorrow, you’ll sell 100 loaves then, earning $400. But you’d like to sell even more than that, so you lower the price to $3 a loaf to encourage additional purchases.
Congratulations! You sell 125 loaves. Your revenue goes up, to $375. That’s more than you brought in the day before. Your price cut, though, has not “paid for itself” — because you ended up bringing in less revenue than you would have otherwise.
In other words, you brought in more money than the day before. But it’s less than you would have made if you hadn’t cut the price.
That’s what we saw in the 2018 fiscal year with the tax cuts. A few months before they passed, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the government would take in $3.53 trillion in revenues for the fiscal year.
On Monday, the Treasury reported that revenue was actually $3.33 trillion for the year — $200 billion short, even though economic growth has outpaced the budget office’s forecasts.
That’s the equivalent of selling more loaves, but earning less money.
By several measures, post-tax-cut revenues have not grown at all
By the Treasury’s numbers, total revenues grew 0.4 percent from the 2017 fiscal year to the 2018 fiscal year. That’s weak, historically speaking, for an economy growing as fast as it is; in the 2015 fiscal year, when growth was comparable to what it is today, revenues grew 7.5 percent from the previous year.
The weak growth brought revenue as a share of gross domestic product down, something that typically happens in — or around — a recession, not deep into a robust expansion that the Fed has described as a “particularly bright” moment.
But revenue is definitely growing after the tax cuts, right?
Well, no.
The fiscal year runs from the start of October to the end of September. The tax cuts mostly took effect in January 2018. That means three months of the 2018 fiscal year included a period without the tax cuts in place.
If you look only at the nine months after the cuts took effect, you’ll see that revenue is ever so slightly down, year over year: From January through September 2017, revenues were $2.57 trillion.
For the same period in 2018, they were $2.56 trillion. Which is to say, they’re down by $10 billion, in a direct comparison after the tax cuts started. Personal tax receipts are up on their own, but corporate tax receipts are down by about a third from a year ago.
That overall drop looks worse when you consider inflation. A dollar today buys about 2 percent less than it did a year ago, according to the inflation index used by the Federal Reserve to set monetary policy.
So the government brought in slightly less money year over year, and that money was worth less than the equivalent amount a year ago, which means it buys fewer meals for troops, materials for highway construction or any of the other goods and services that tax dollars go toward.
This is exactly what most forecasters predicted
When the tax law passed, members of Congress had all sorts of evidence suggesting it would accelerate America’s growing budget deficits. The Joint Committee on Taxation and the Tax Policy Center predicted that the new law would add at least $1 trillion to deficits over the next 10 years, even after accounting for additional economic growth.
The Penn Wharton Budget Model predicted it would add $2 trillion. The most optimistic mainstream model that analyzed all the provisions of the new law, from the Tax Foundation, predicted it would add about $450 billion to the deficit after accounting for additional growth.
Republicans dismissed those warnings. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he expected the new law to more than pay for itself — it would help to reduce future deficits.
It’s possible that optimism could turn out to be right, but only if the tax cuts unleash a sustained boom in productivity and economic growth, and with them, much higher revenues than we saw this past fiscal year. In other words, we’re going to need to make — and sell — a lot more loaves.
--10-17-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mueller-ready-to-deliver-key-findings-in-his-trump-probe-sources-say/ar-BBOvb0s Muller’s Hounds getting ready for FIRST REPORT on Donald & His Cartel Of Corruption. READ MORE…
--10-19-18: www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/gen-z-activists-target-youth-ahead-midterms-whydoyouvote-campaign-n920801 NOT GOOD FOR DONALD & THE GOP…
Youth voter turnout has been historically low. A new online public service campaign starring fifteen Generation Z activists from across the country is jumping on a recent surge in political activism to urge young people to vote in the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
The #WhyDoYouVote PSA teamed up March For Our Lives organizers such as Parkland shooting survivors David Hogg, Delaney Tarr and L.A. high school student Edna Chavez with other young leaders in the immigrant rights, LGBTQ, racial equality and environmental movements.
In the video, each young person explains why they're casting a ballot.
"I'm not voting for Republicans or Democrats, I'm voting for gun safety," says Hogg in the PSA.
Only 17 percent of voters between the ages of 18 to 24 voted in the 2014 midterm election; among young Latinos it was less than 13 percent, according to the Census.
Yet the number of young people who have attended a demonstration or march, or have engaged in other advocacy efforts such as signing petitions has tripled since 2016, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), which studies young Americans’ political engagement.
In fact, civil engagement among people ages 18-24 went up from 5 percent to 15 percent in less than two years.
Turning youth activism into political action
An analysis by TargetSmart, a Democratic polling firm, found that youth voter participation is on the rise ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Young people ages 18-29 are registering to vote at a higher rate since February following the Parkland school shooting, where 17 people, a majority of them students, were killed at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
By July, “the share of youth registrants nationwide had increased by 2.16 percent,” according to available data.
An updated analysis suggests that the spike in youth voter registration has persisted since then, especially in key battleground states like Arizona and Florida.
--10-18-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-threatens-to-call-us-military-to-close-southern-border-as-4000-strong-migrant-caravan-pushes-north/ar-BBOxZmE
President Trump warned Thursday he will “call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER” with Mexico if officials there don’t stop the northward flow of a growing migrant caravan that's swelled in size to about 4,000 people.
The president’s latest threat against the caravan that originated in Honduras — and which is heading to the U.S. in a bid to escape Honduras’ poverty and violence — comes as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to Central America to talk with leaders about the issue.
“I am watching the Democrat Party led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whose leaders are doing little to stop this large flow of people, INCLUDING MANY CRIMINALS, from entering Mexico to U.S.,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
He added: “In addition to stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population, I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught — and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!”
The caravan, estimated to contain around 4,000 people, is inching Thursday toward the Mexico-Guatemala border, where Mexican officials have sent 500 additional federal police officers ahead of its arrival, NBC News reported, citing U.S. government documents.
Mexico has said anyone with travel documents and the correct visa will be allowed to pass and others can apply for refugee status, but also warned that those who try to cross in an “irregular manner” could be detained and deported, according to the Associated Press.
The news agency added that none of the migrants it spoke to who are making the journey were carrying passports, signaling a looming showdown with Mexican border officials in the coming days.
One of the Honduran migrants, Henry Tejeda, told the Associated Press that he left his wife and four children behind to join the caravan. He said his mother was murdered four years ago and his brother was shot.
"I am carrying the documents to prove I'm not lying," Tejeda said. "I want to seek political asylum (in the United States) and help my family. READ MORE…
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Post by inger on Oct 19, 2018 17:47:02 GMT -5
Does Donald Trump really evoke hate in all of America? I think not. I get to communicate with a lot of people. I don’t mess with their politics or religion, I just let them talk. I’m hearing more positive things about him than negative. Again, I just let folks talk. Everybody wants to be right. In sales, you just nod and tell them your happy they’re getting what they want. I’m a bit different here. I let my guard down more. Sometimes I say things people like, and sometimes I say things people don’t like.
That doesn’t make Trump, or me or Dome right, nor wrong. I see some good and some bad in him and what he’s doing, pretty much like I’ve felt about each POTUS since LBJ, and even JFK postmortem. I think what evokes hate in America more than anything else is frankness. Frankness is not always truth, nor is it always lies. It generally expresses a point of view. We’ve become unaccustomed to our leaders using plain talk. It’s become controversial any more. Political correctness owns our every word. The government hasn’t weakened our freedom of speech. We’re doing it for them. All the leaders need to do is sit back and watch...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2018 23:23:05 GMT -5
Ok, inger, but being frank connotates honesty. Trump may be a lot of things, but honest isn’t one of them. I have no use for liars or bullies in my life and he is both.
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Post by inger on Oct 19, 2018 23:51:05 GMT -5
Ok, inger, but being frank connotates honesty. Trump may be a lot of things, but honest isn’t one of them. I have no use for liars or bullies in my life and he is both. As a person, he stinks. Damn right. I hate bullies too. Who wants to deal with a liar? Has he lied? Yeah, I believe so. Has he told nearly as many lies as he’s accused of? No. A lot of that is propaganda propped up by his opposition that twist wrong statements into intentional lies, and promote their own positions by doing so. Lying is apparently required in politics. Also demeaning your opponents. In the end, most campaign rhetoric turns out to be lies, so the entire premise of our political system would appear to be based more on lies and inaccuracies represented as lies to the point that each candidate sullies his own bed into a pig pen. If each side coukd politely argue the issues under Robert’s Rules of Order, we might get something near to the truth. Negative political adds “endorsed” by the candidates are so tiresome and disgusting that they make me believe that no one deserves their office. It used to be called mudslinging and was frowned upon. Now it’s business as usual. Swamp indeed. The problem is that when we drain that swamp, we tend to refill it with vermin just as bad as those we pulled out. And it matters not which party is in office, or who the POTUS is. We have become what we used to fear, and it’s now the norm... |
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Post by domeplease on Oct 20, 2018 9:34:00 GMT -5
Ok, inger, but being frank connotates honesty. Trump may be a lot of things, but honest isn’t one of them. I have no use for liars or bullies in my life and he is both. As a person, he stinks. Damn right. I hate bullies too. Who wants to deal with a liar? Has he lied? Yeah, I believe so. Has he told nearly as many lies as he’s accused of? No. A lot of that is propaganda propped up by his opposition that twist wrong statements into intentional lies, and promote their own positions by doing so. Lying is apparently required in politics. Also demeaning your opponents. In the end, most campaign rhetoric turns out to be lies, so the entire premise of our political system would appear to be based more on lies and inaccuracies represented as lies to the point that each candidate sullies his own bed into a pig pen. If each side coukd politely argue the issues under Robert’s Rules of Order, we might get something near to the truth. Negative political adds “endorsed” by the candidates are so tiresome and disgusting that they make me believe that no one deserves their office. It used to be called mudslinging and was frowned upon. Now it’s business as usual. Swamp indeed. The problem is that when we drain that swamp, we tend to refill it with vermin just as bad as those we pulled out. And it matters not which party is in office, or who the POTUS is. We have become what we used to fear, and it’s now the norm... WOW...
Tequila, Inger is at it again; must be dropping LSD or something even better (just joking). Go figure.
Besides reading the Fact-Checkers; ONE can watch him on Video/Live Media and/or READ his Tweets; as he speaks AND just Goggle his statements = Majority of Statements are LIES.
It is as plain as Daylight and NO the Media/Opposition, etc. doesn't twist his LIES (they do not have to, since Donald LIES so much about EVERYTHING).; only the Fox Channel does
What is SADLY LACKING in America today = The Truth, The Facts, Reality.
We have not only forgotten what these terms mean, and we as Citizens are afraid to inform other Citizens: "No that is not the Truth and/or a Fact; nor is it Reality..."
So many Citizens are AFRAID to call other Citizens on this, because they do not want to Hurt Folks' Feelings.
They have forgotten = That The Truth, The Facts, Reality more often than not will HURT. That is WHAT they are suppose to do... it HURTS folks to AWAKEN them to REALITY (not some Dark Age Belief System).
I on the other hand, when I speak with, debate with others, etc. Use Facts, The Truth, Reality AND I demand that they do too (nicely). If I am NOT sure of the Fact/Truth, I will state such, and/or state, "That might not be the exact figure, but it is in the Ballpark..."
I am Polite, Professional, etc. I do not raise my voice or use curse words or HATE language. However, I refuse to allow folks, especially the uneducated HATERS & also the educated ones, to try and slip in LIES or even Dirty Crap Facts (where they have to reach up their ASSES real deep to pull out a Dirty Fact (not a Fact, just Crap).
ONE OF EXAMPLE OF THOUSANDS: I have had numerous debates with Haters, who insist WE (humans) lived with the Dinosaurs and made them our Farm Animals (Labor to plow the fields, etc.).
I allow them to speak and than I reach in my Black Male Shoulder Bag that I have carried with me 24/7 for over two decades) and with a smile on my face and in a very low polite tone of voice I:
1. Pull out some toilet paper and tell them, "You should WIPE after reaching up your ASS for that Dirty Crap Fact..." 2. I than put on a Medical Face Mask to protect myself from the forming 'Feces Cloud'; I also offer them one too. 3. I offered them Hand-Wipes to cleanse their hands (like I said I am very polite) 4. I next, take out a small spray bottle (filled with bleach and vinegar) and immediately spray the air to kill the 'Feces Cloud' = It is the Humane thing to do; especially for other innocent folks whom are sitting nearby... (told you, I was POLITE). 5. Finally, I offer the Hater(s) a pair/or two of Medical Gloves; so the next time (probably very shortly), when they reach up their ASS again for a Dirty Crap Fact = They will have protection.
Yes, Inger, You are damn right about 'It is your Opinion'. However, as from a Famous Quote:
One is entitled to their own opinion; but NOT to their own FACTS.
I have lost over the last few decades so many 'So-Called Friends'; who in REALITY were never REALLY my friends...instead they were only friends with their Dark Age Beliefs/Tribalism, etc.
Folks, that know me, know better than to pull a 'Dirty Crap Fact' out of their ASS and lie; for I than have to use my Bag's Contents; followed by a Polite Incoming Barrage of FACTS, TRUTH, REALITY...that in crowd situation will just _____________________ them, (fill-In-The-Blank).
I hope to visit you & other posters sometime in the Future. I will bring my Black Shoulder Bag (well-stocked) when I visit America.
P.S. I use the Bag here a lot too.
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