Housing Data & We Call-out Hollow MAGA Talk

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First thing out of the hopper today is the Housing Start report from the Census Bureau:

“Building Permits Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,298,000.

Housing Starts Privately-owned housing starts in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,297,000. This is 3.3 percent (±9.1 percent)* above the revised October estimate of 1,256,000 and is 12.9 percent (±11.7 percent) above the November 2016 rate of 1,149,000.

(Continues below)

 

This didn’t hurt the futures, which are now predicting the Dow to open up 60-more points:

Then we have the latest “Current Account” report.

The U.S. current-account deficit decreased to $100.6 billion (preliminary) in the third quarter
of 2017 from $124.4 billion (revised) in the second quarter of 2017, according to statistics
released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The deficit decreased to 2.1 percent of current-
dollar gross domestic product (GDP) from 2.6 percent in the second quarter.

The $23.8 billion decrease in the current-account deficit reflected decreases in the deficits on
secondary income and goods and increases in the surpluses on primary income and services.

Last, but not least, we continue to eye the widening reality gap between the Fed (supposedly raising rates) and actual market in things like the 10-year US Treasury.  Which, though up 1.39% Monday, continues to be stuck in the 2.4 percent range.

What’s the old saying?  “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Mueller Probe to Drag Out

We have two items in the political category – both Trump-related:  First is this report in the Washington Post that the Mueller investigation may drag out for another year.  In case you missed it, this is consistent with the view that there never was a “Russian plot” to elect Trump.  Even an idiot should be able to see by now that “she-of-whom-we-don’t-write” would have been a much more likely Putin-pick, especially after the Uranium One deal she was hip-deep in.

Another Sideshow: Disney Added a Talking Robotic Donald Trump to its Hall of Presidents.

The other point – important since Mueller’s team hasn’t put anything but picky process violations on the board, is this opinion piece that says yes, the Mueller grab of emails from the GSA probably was illegal.

But legal doesn’t stop the “Lynch mob” (if I can use that label on anti-Trump DOJ officials who are so deathly down on Trump).  So far, there have failed to indict a Russian surnamed perp or track money back to the Kremlin.

Still, fanned by the embeds of you-know-who before Trump, this political sabotage act will drag out, pissing away public money, and boring us to tears with assertions and innuendos, which is all “news” seems to be, anymore.

Near as we can figure it, the anti-Trumpers in the probe will likely roll out the “indictable ham sandwich” just ahead of the 2018 Congressional election cycle and then Democrats will paint Republicans as filth and slime.

When  then pick up a few seats in the House – a foregone conclusion – the pundits will blame Trump (who seems personally responsible for everything lately).  Though here in Grown-Up Land the alt.reality is that the Dems will pick up some R seats because the R’s have turned into (still more of)  a pack of lying, non-performing sleaze.

Clones of their counterparts across the aisles.

Commies in the Media?

Oh, sure… We’ve been telling you this for a long time – it’s the real work-out of Détente and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Get us slow, get us sure, get us with our media.

Communism’s gone global…but you should be able to see it.

Still: Just in time prevent my being labeled a right-wing nut, here comes a story exactly as claimed: Communism-loving journalists shaping our news accidentally outed.

Oops, don’t you hate it when there’s a Truth Leak, comrade?

America Great Again?  No Way

MAGA’s a mess.  Pure marketing hyperbole.  Hence, a respectful note to the President this morning:

“DJT:  If you really want to demonstrate, rather than just ‘talk the game’ of Making America Great Again, might I suggest?

Appoint a Commission on National Self-Sufficiency to put together a shopping list of what makes America so damn co-dependent on the Asia countries already under China’s shadow.  Publish the list.  Then fix it.

Just for example, I have been doing a bit of ham radio restoration lately (more in an upcoming Coping section).  But the MAJORITY OF PARTS I need to restore EMP-resistant tube-type radios is coming in from China and a few other countries.

Since we don’t make electronics much here, time to bring resistors, capacitors, inductors, magnetics, chips, wire, and multi-layer boards back home where most were invented.  Same thing in clothing:  Where are American textile mills, shoes…you know manufacturing jobs….”

Reference:  Some John Maynard Keynes on point here.

“We are pacifist today with so much strength of conviction that, if the economic internationalist could win this point, he would soon recapture our support. But it does not now seem obvious that a great concentration of national effort on the capture of foreign trade, that the penetration of a country’s economic structure by the resources and the influence of foreign capitalists, that a close dependence of our own economic life on the fluctuating economic policies of foreign countries, are safeguards and assurances of international peace.

You can see in this, how Keynes pointed the way toward the left/corporate/globalist alliance.

More details are available (if the WH cares), but until someone says “OK, we have this vulnerability (we think), so let’s see how big and how real it is – and fix it.

Then, let’s pass incentives so that critical parts, critical electronics, consumer necessities along with critical machinery (and software code) is returned to American shores.

I want to buy an American-made flat screen, for example.  Where is it?  Not assembled – I mean ground up made here.

Failing this, while much of fly-over country thinks the MAGA slogan is nice,  the rubber meets the road as we track-back all components to source…and then announce where our Achilles’ Supply Chain problems are.  Then fix it.

Sadly, Trump has been so busy defending himself (and we thank the lefties of the NE establishment (a/k/a The Network or PowersThatBe) for this) that he hasn’t mounted a positive-action offense.

This needs to change because Globalists, by sucking out our manufacturing base, have seized not only supply chain control, but they also own the clown posse that calls itself Congress.

Sad…. but as a result, Trump is not moving the ball down field.  That’s what he’s supposed to be doing…and I’m not seeing it, yet.  I just keep ordering 630 Volt polyester caps and 600V electrolytics from China….

Nuclear Manufacturing Woes

Keep an eye on the Hanford atomic works which has  a leak of plutonium over in Eastern Washington.

Speaking of which, here’s a better idea than Bitcoin:  How about a plutonium-backed currency?

That idea came up when I spied the article “World running out of Plutonium – NASA spacecraft like Voyager 1 at risk.”

Would that be great, or what?  Since plutonium is priced somewhere between rarium and unobtainium, seems to me the perfect substance to back a currency.

More durable (and lethal) than backing with “mined nonsense” or oil, wheat or any of the other currency backings proposed by lesser economists than Ure’s truly.

Unfortunately, nothing has come of our gunpowder-backed currency proposal either, or the C-4-backed currency plan that followed, either.  But we keep trying…

If government claims life and death powers, then let’s monetize that, right?

Warfare on the Web

The U.S. Blames North Korea for the ‘WannaCry’ Ransomware Attack.

Nut Neutrality?

Net Neutrality’s impact on free porn could be significant, experts say…

Sticks & Stones May Break…

Facebook makes German marketing push as hate speech law bites… but we remain, as always, skeptical of the long-term usefulness of social media. Jawohl?

Another 2018 “Trouble Lies Ahead” Forecast

Central banks, trade and bubbles threaten the 2018 status quo.  Gosh, where have we heard that outlook before?  Hmmm…no hints, now……

Brother Alexi is Back

And making fresh charges against Putin: Vladimir Putin’s Challenger Says He Would Win if Russia’s Elections Were Fair.

Maybe Russia should appoint a special prosecutor to see if the US interfered….no, bad idea.

Well, off to breakfast, then.

Tomorrow’s Peoplenomics.com will focus on The Third Matrix… which should be useful if Ure into collecting tools to spur creative thinking and solutions.

Remember, Peoplenomics is a dandy stocking stuffer. If you have someone who might find it useful, send a note to george@ure.net and I’ll tell you how to set it up…

Surely, you have some friends worth $40 bucks?

22 thoughts on “Housing Data & We Call-out Hollow MAGA Talk”

  1. We called it strategic thinking. Now all the politicians worry about is their next corporate donation. We couldn’t even cloth an army today. We have lost control of rare earths, electronics and any number of crucial items needed if we had to defend ourselves from the very people making our goods. It’s not that our factories lay empty, they have been dismantled and moved out of the country. The people who knew how to run them are gone along with the historic memory. Our country has been sold out by both sides and we will be left holding the bag. Preppers are the only people trying to hold on to needed supplies and skills that sustained us in the past.

    • Run for office, Ida. We’ll vote. In fact, maybe we’ll pick up some foreign surnames and vote often…

      • Are you not forgetting that the United States of America was overwhelmingly founded by ‘foreign surnames’ and descendants of same?

        Our great country is kept healthy and full of vigor when people want to come here, and not flee in desperation like from so many other lands. You can’t have it both ways . . .

  2. George, As some “wise guy” said long ago “everything is a business model” I would think small compressors that generate power would be an opportunity waiting to expand as we see the power of hurricanes,earthquakes, terrorists and fires(here in California as well as Atlanta Airport) cripple our society of mega sprawl. See L.A. I think you wrote about all this a few months ago. All the parts would have to be imported of course!

  3. Why would anyone want America to be great again? So the world can have more torture, genocide, printed money, corrupti government and disproportionate consumption?

    It was a campaign slogan used by a morally corrupt politician. Get over it. It is what is required to get elected in the USA.

    • For friends who constantly push the resurgence of Israel from a Biblical standpoint I point out that they’re confusing the historic religious prophecies and ideals with the political entity that country is today. There’s a huge difference between a political state and the underlying ideology that people live by that Christ, even in His day, had to differentiate between.

      The same goes for America. The political animals that inhabit the political arenas in America rarely reflect the ideals expressed and codified by our founders. There is a growing knowledge base of how America is supposed to work given the vast amount of information available now vs. the somewhat cloistered state our country existed in up until the advent of the Internet. This change really started with the World Wars when different populations were made aware of each other due to the draft and other military service and has been building even to the present day.

      The “freedom” you’ve evidently found in another country, parasites and all, is the same I find in our unincorporated West Texas hamlet of which I defend against the control freaks that wish to organize us into something that reflects their view of “civilization” – and profitability. We have our problems but really, still, don’t need to lock our doors – as yet.

      Despite the propaganda about White Supremacy, racism, this, rights for that, yadda, yadda, yadda the underlying fact is that our poorest people are rarely starving and often the beggars on the sidewalks have a car stashed a few blocks away that they can get around in when they leave wherever they’re living. My daughter’s seen their tax-free bank accounts. Our ancestors may have abused the Native Americans but what were they doing to each other every day of the year that was any different? America is slow to wake up to the laziness that has kept the Harry Reids and John McCains in Congress for way too long but as bloated and confusing as the U.S. political system is change comes slowly. For a large, complicated nation this is often better than a revolution that destroys 241 years of human history.

  4. I’m with you George on bringing manufacturing
    “on-shore”. I’ve never figured out why we as a nation would outsource the manufacture of so many items critical to our infrastructure to China, a supposed “enemy”. For example when the Bay bridge was rebuilt, it couldn’t be done without using Chinese steel because U.S. production is minuscule.

    • Well, we made the light poles that went on that bridge and I know for a fact that was US steel. Damn near everything we make for US infrastructure requires US steel.

  5. George,
    If we decide to move to a Plutonium-backed currency, we’d better choose the right isotope. Pu-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years while Pu-241’s half-life is a mere 14.4 years. Pu 241’s half-life would offer a more dynamic money market while Pu 239 would add some serious long-term stability, assuming its not stored directly on top of ICBMs inside silos in Kansas. BTW – great symbol for currency – “P-u!”

  7. Hmmm, I know PRC and Texas Components make resistors, and SoZo makes caps, all “Made in USA.” AB makes some of their resistor products here. Except for the AB carbons, they’re all boutique components, and breathtakingly expensive. Micron still has a semiconductor fab in the U.S., but I believe it has been exclusively for memory chips since about 1999 — can’t think of anyone else since Fairchild went away and I can not think of any U.S. manufacturer that still winds wire.

    I’d love to be able to source American components again. Component manufacture shouldn’t be any less-attractive or more expensive here than anywhere else, ‘cept “everywhere else” doesn’t have the reams of paperwork they have to push through their compliance and legal departments before the CEO can sneeze, let alone have the company start building something…

  8. Communism or Nazism seem to be our only choices, (after all is said and done ;-)). The elites pick either one for their own advantage. What else is there to say??
    Happy Holidays to everyone of any color.

  10. “boring us to tears”

    Boy that’s an understatement of network news… And tonight we have a comprehensive report on blah blah blah.
    Nothing new repeat repeat..the bad part is that’s marketing..the first time toss it out the second time take a glance then toss it out.. The third time..hey I heard about this..

  11. Housing going to take a hit. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2017/12/01/realtors-predict-tax-bill-will-cause-housing-prices-to-drop-in-every-state/#6d5b704930fb

    And of course dent the doom porn site also says oil gold and real estate will fall 50 percent.

    I read 2018 will be the start of trade wars with China. No,wonder frank my neighbor packed up rented his newly built house and moved back into his condo in Beijing

    Me I am getting more skittish on jumping into a larger home

    I looked at the building permits here and all the hot spec
    Builders of 2 plus mil homes have pulled in their horns and stopped completely

  12. Pits- you cant trust them. Several years back a guy in Santa Fe who was big on TV and print about how sweet and great the Pits are. He had about 10 of them. He was playing with his favorite in front yard and she mauled him to death and the others didnt even get off the porch. Oldest son had an old bitch for about 6 years was playing with her as was there usual and she clamped down on his arm and he spent over 2 weeks saving his arm in hospital. Professional dog training daughter in law early in career working with pit and she clamped down on leg. Took over 2 hours to get loose. Didnt want to hurt the pit.

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