Jamie Dimon says we’ll have no growth this quarter if the shutdown continues.
The current government shutdown is now the longest in American history. It affects 800,000 federal employees.
Of those, about 380,000 have been furloughed, meaning that they cannot work or get paid. The rest, whose positions are categorized as essential, are working without pay.
That’s just ducky.
Someone said Washington is eight square miles surrounded by reality. That’s not physically accurate.
But you get the message.
The Chinese have had the world’s longest wall for over 2,000 years. It’s been very successful.
In all those 2,000+ years, not one Mexican has scaled it.
Meantime, FAANG stocks and MSFT are rising. Especially Netflix which announced it’s sharply raising its prices. (And everyone will pay.)
I’ve eased back into these stocks.
I suspect getting out and then later getting back in was the dumbest thing I’ve done in eons.
There is a good argument for ignoring BubbleVision and the financial press. Their job is to sell viewership and subscriptions.
Their best marketing tool is angst.
Angst about it going to hell and a hand basket.
Angst about it going through the roof and me missing all those delicious profits.
We have rules when it goes down — stop loss orders.
I need a new rule when it goes up. How about;
+ Sell a quarter of what I own when it’s risen 50%.
+ Sell another quarter when it’s risen 100%.
+ Keep the rest and play with the bank’s money.
Last time — October 2018 — I sat there watching my good fortunes increase daily. Until they no longer did.
But I wasn’t smart enough to figure the music was about to stop.
Thoughts?
I’m getting good at saying NO.
It’s the most important — and hardest word — in the English language.
Figure it this simple way. Every time you say YES, you’re probably about to lose money.
Better: Take a nap. Play tennis. Go for a walk. Hug the grandchildren. Mull your idiocy.
Don’t do stupid
From BottomLine:
What’s deadlier than stroke, diabetes or Alzheimer’s yet almost completely preventable?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the answer is accidents and unintentional injuries!
Year after year, accidents are the third most common cause of death behind heart disease and cancer. In 2016, there were 161,374 deaths from falls, auto accidents, poisonings and other unintentional events. For men and women ages one to 44, unintentional injury is the most common cause of death!
BottomLine’s tips:
+ Wear proper footwear.
+ Get the darn step stool from the closet. Don’t use an unstable chair.
+ Get your eyes checked. Better to see your stupidity before you do it.
+ Don’t shuffle. Tripping is not fun.
+ Ask for help. Young, strong men will help you lift your heavy unwieldy bag into the overhead bin.
+ Pay a trained professional to do it for you. Like cleaning your gutters.
+ Use the handrail. That’s what it’s there for.
Read these explained here.
Fun cartoons
Harry Newton, I revel in my grandchildren and bore you with pictures of them. From left: Peter, Sophie, Eleanor and Zoe.
Economic progress depends upon three individual liberties: The pursuit of self-interest, the division of labor, and the freedom of trade, from Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations. These three foundational ideas are at the economic root of everything that is good about the United States. The free market, individualism, personal liberty, personal responsibility, hard work and free speech are the values of
western civilization. Capitalism delivers the best utopia possible and raises the standard of living for all in the society. Capitalism creates a bigger tax base that feeds the “want something for nothing crowd”, the “hate the rich crowd” and those who suffer from envy. Because of that capitalism build, the World wants to live in our country. Politicians grab the opportunity to service these voters for more power, control, votes and contributions. Thus there is a mixing of politics with economics as in socialism with many bad consequences such as the growth of an elites ruling class, a welfare state, government picking winners and losers and an unelected bureaucracy. Socialism is against individual liberties. Socialism takes the incentive out of wealth building and becomes a “dead end road”. History is full of fails by socialism. Rule by man serves the rulers. Rule by law serves the country.
The solution is to repeal the 16th Amendment that enables direct taxation and gives government the power to take from us with the present income/payroll tax system. Repeal of the 16th would also require a new tax system. How to do both are address with the FAIRtax bill HR 25. Learn more and contribute to
the cause at bigsolution.org
Adam Smith was the actor who played Batman.
Suggest you learn about the Adam Smith that published The Wealth of Nations in 1776. This book, along with the Declaration of Independance is also about freedom in that it awoke the world to the notion that wealth can be created instead of pondering and stealing.
I don’t care about the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. I am a Trump supporter.
That was Adam West…but you got the Adam part right.
Hey Paul, Adam Smith also cautioned the shortcomings of “invisible hand” but many like your mindset ignores that part. I suspect you are a wealthy person and I have nothing against that. I am against a person who thinks his/her achievements are solely their own making and when times comes to pay up their share, they start complaining about taxes. By the way, there is plenty of “socialist” countries doing quite well actually and some even have better GDP (I know it is not the only measure ..look at Saudi Arabia but still for starters) than the US. I personally think one of the good things about Trump’s presidency has been the fact that it has been showing how fragile US leadership has become. We may not see in our lifetime, I assume you are 50+, but there is wave coming whether you like it or not, powered by broken healthcare system and income inequality (along with gender income inequality). I don’t know how much longer people will put up with these problems. One thing you wrote made me laugh “Thus there is a mixing of politics with economics as in socialism with many bad consequences such as the growth of an elites ruling class, a welfare state, government picking winners and losers and an unelected bureaucracy” for a moment I though you are describing the current US politics. BTW, US never been a true capitalism because of ruling elites. They never want to lose. In a true capitalism, your skin would be in the game all the time. You heard the “to big to fail” right?