[bubba99]

In the early 2000’s we saw recession on its way. Piggingtons was a great source for the fundamental economic forces pushing the country toward a recession. The excesses in housing and lending put us on a very unstable footing. The out of sight leveraging of banks and RE investors cemented the natural deline. When the cost of SFR exceeded what the median income could support it was clear that a recession was on the way. Although it took a few years to really take hold, it came and devastated the American economy, along with the rest of the world. This time around it looks different.
The talking heads are saying we are headed for a recession, but the only real indicator of recession is the inverted yield curve, and that is so manipulated by 10 years of artificially low interest rates it may be meaningless. Other economic indicators like employment and GDP at least on the surface point to a solid economic future. I am thinking that we are not ready for a real recession, and that if any we get a mild fear induced stock market sell off. But . . .

[bubba99]

Implied in the blue wave arguments is that the democratic party is a cohesive group with shared ideals. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Kavanaugh confirmation may illustrate that point. Many democrats are pro abortion, but many will vote to confirm pro life Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh is very pro business, while the democrats are supposed to be pro worker – but many will vote for confirmation because it is good for their election, not the party. We see the same in immigration, banking, et. al. Even if the democrats get the house, my guess is that they will squander the majority with infighting.

[bubba99]

The statement that “the housing recovery has been strong, and prices continue to increase. It is almost boring now” I think sets the stage for 2018. No one is really talking about a turn around in housing prices – which may be a sign that the market is about to reverse!!
The stock market, and housing are flying high and could be hurt easily by interest rates, or N.K. or . . . Median income has not kept pace with housing prices(although not as bad as 2005) and a few percentage points in interest rates could make housing even more unaffordable. Plus as t-bills start to pay 4 or 5 percent, a lot of us will flee the stock market.
All in all, 2018 may be a very exciting year.

[bubba99]

In reading the various comments about the damage from the new tax bill I notice a glaring omission!!

The deficit will grow dramatically- by a trillion or so. Expect the deficit hawks to start complaining as early as the first or second year. When the trickle down stimulation fails to materalize, the only place to get the money is the entitlement programs. They will not touch the military budget which leaves only social security and medicare. The liberatrian plan is spelled out pretty well in the book “Democracy in Chains”. The destruction of higher education and elimination of social security and medicare are all priorities in the new Republican Party.

[bubba99]

sdduuuude

I really enjoyed reading this post. Please continue to update. Like many I have considered building, but never had the courage.

[bubba99]

spdrun,

You are dead on. For years the unwritten rule for Law Enforcement was if you run you get a beating. Cops do not like to chase suspects – it is dangerous for them and the public, and many are just not up to it. What we see today is that many LEOs don’t recognize that the rules have changed because of cameras. You cannot lie your way around an unnecessary beating or mistreatmemnt of a suspect – the camera will show your lies. In (c) the video shows the officer lied about the chase, the weapon, CPR and anything else he thought would help. The camera proved him a lier. I have heard a thousand times from my SGT. “remember there are cameras everywhere”

[bubba99]

You are right, I lumped assault weapons with the “other fringe” weapons because of size alone. The elephant in the room is Handguns – three times the deaths as rifles and assault weapons. A shooter with a 10 round magazine handgun (not high capacity) can do a lot of damage – with a mag change a lot more.

And even if we could outlaw all assault weapons, I don’t think it would save lives, only change the choice of murder weapon.

And yes I see mental health as a problem. We used to do a much better job of managing the lunatic fringe. But since the early 70’s, mental health has been losing funding and managed by incarceration rather than treatment. More money might help give options to patients and their families, but avoiding the next homicidal rage – I doubt it. Even if 4.3 million walking “psychotic” is over estimated by a factor of 10, it still leaves 430 thousand possible rampage killers walking around waiting to make themselves famous. If its societal pressure driving these horrors, we are lucky that we only see 1 of our 311,000,000 citizens going homicidal per year

And if the rumored connection between psychotropics (Prozac, Zoloft, et. al.) and murder/suicide is real, more access to mental health facilities and prescription treatment might raise the number of murderous rampages. The only comfort I can take is that statistically the chances of being the victim of one of these horrors is 1 in hundred thousand range.

[bubba99]

Each year we loose about 30 thousand people to gun deaths. The first 17 thousand are suicides, then 9 thousand or so to hand guns, and around 3 thousand to rifles, shotguns, and assault weapons. Assault weapons are less than 10% of the murders by gun.

Other weapons like knives kill about 3thousand people/year and blunt objects about 800/year. An assault weapon ban would appear to be targeting one of the smaller groups of dangerous weapons. A group that is on par (size wise) with knives, as far as the big picture goes, it addresses the wrong guns. It’s easy to target military weapons as the villain, but practically they are not the big killer they are advertised to be. The real threat I see is from the 17000 annual suicides.

Each of those highly depressed, highly disturbed people has the potential to pick up a gun, or car, or mix up some amfo, or . . . and bring us the next murderous rampage. I saw on article that estimates 4.3 million Americans walking around with an untreated serious psychosis that makes them a real threat to be the next nut job that kills children.

[bubba99]

California retirements that give 3% per year of employment with no cap or age penalty for police and fire are just not sustainable. Military pay, and retirements come no where close to this. Even Federal law enforcement get only 1.7% per year of service with a penalty age of below 55.

California is almost double Federal pension calculations.

[bubba99]

shadowstats.com has some interesting articles on inflation and the risk of hyper-inflation. You can view the basic charts and papers without a subscription. Shadowstats is showing inflation averaging over 6%/year for the last 5 years (calculated with the formula used up until 1990) Much closer to what most of us see in real world prices.

The section “Primers on Government Economic Reports” lets you drive down to CPI for an analysis of what is really happening and why it is so different than headline CPI.

[bubba99]

Another type of corporate welfare rarely discussed is the copyright and patient protection. That is how Apple can sell a product that costs $100 to produce for four times that much. We (US Taxpayers)fund hundreds of millions to run CBP Trade Operations. These Trade groups work tirelessly interdicting anything that resembles an Iphone, or Microsoft logo, or any other copyrighted name or product that does not have “Permission” to use the name or likeness, or technology.

The imitation Windows 7 disk can be made and sold at a profit for less than a tenth of the Microsoft price, but most of the “illegal” copyright infringing copies are seized at the border. Without CBP protecting the overpriced prices of corporate giants, the consumer could have the same product for 10 cents on the dollar. Microsoft leaves billions in profits offshore to avoid taxes, and the US taxpayer protect their overpriced sales strategy with legions of public servants.

Sure overtime, the producer would stop producing leading technology or be forced to develop a better sales strategy. But for now, the taxpayer foots the bill.

[bubba99]

Congratulations. I hope you and your family enjoy your new home.

If the “Exploding Inflation” thinkers are right, the mortgage will disappear quickly. And if not, you now have a home that the wife likes, and has good schools, and is still for a lot of us, the American dream.

[bubba99]

Arraya writes “Israel is a 19th century, ethno-supremacist colonial project creating an apartheid. It’s an anachronism and it’s very own actions are going to make itself self-destruct.

Reality on the ground in occupied territories is a million miles from common US perception. The internet, now, pierces that bubble and the sands are shifting under Israel’s feet.”

All true, and it should scare the whole world. Israel is not just a back water government that will rise and fall like so many others in the mid-east. Israel has a significant nuclear capability. Last count was in the neighborhood of 200 nuclear devices. Recently Israel has added a second strike capability with German made attack submarines.

What happens when a dogmatic theocracy on a mission from god comes under attack from all sides and has the ability to strike with the un-think-able.

[bubba99]

Arguing that Israel controls American foreign policy misses much of the real dynamic. America relies on munitions manufacturing for much of our industrial base. We cannot sell to “bad” countries, so it is in our best interest to sell to anyone we can call “friend”. Believing that the AIPAC is the single driver for American aid to Israel misses that it gives the Military Industrial Complex a foreign market for state of the art weapons systems. Not to mention that it also drives hi-tech weapons sales to Israel’s neighbors – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran (for a while). All bringing back petro-dollars.

Sure Israel benefits from weapons sales, but so does Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Teledyne, et. al. It is mostly corporate welfare.

But I agree that Ron Paul looks OK compared to the rest of the Republican line up. But if a Collin Powell, or the next Saint Reagan were running, he would not even be a mentionable. Why he can’t get air time is still a mystery to me.

As to money supply, M3 would probably tell the real story if the FED still published it. But an estimate from shadowstats.com is still available, and it shows that the velocity of money has so slowed that the increase in M1 and M2 are not yet a big factor in inflation. (Currently M3 2.9% increase, still off pre-recession highs) We just trade one financial instrument for another. Net result of almost zero to real consumer inflation. The consumer never gets the money to start the inflationary spiral. More likely is a deflationary spiral. Which is driving the FED to create money supply in every way it can.

[bubba99]

I was also expecting a period of hyper-inflation because of the rate that the FED was increasing their balance sheet. But from this graph borrowed from shadowstats.com, we can see that even with the additions, we are still below peak levels for M2 and M3. M1 is growing, but . . .

http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs-m3.gif?hl=ad&t=1321044430

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