Rough weekend for the USA. Mass shootings of innocent people is always sad. Everyone likes to impart their view, points fingers, gives thoughts an prayers, etc. Some people get sad, some people get angry, some people are indifferent (which is also sad). There are not very many correlations between the belief's of the shooters, which is not surprising that both sides of the political spectrum are very angry right now. Also last week, a mass shooting was prevented in Texas.
1. What can we do to reduce, eliminate, etc. these mass shootings? The two bills that passed the house would not have stopped either shooter as both would have passed back ground checks. The shooter in El Paso used a 50 bullet clip and the shooter in Dayton used a 100 bullet clip. I think you could start there. The 1994 Assault Weapons ban federal law had a magazine limit of 10 bullets. That expired in 2004. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont all have capacity limit laws. I think most were passed after tragedy, like Connecticut was passed after Sandy Hook. I think California is the only state to have a mass shooting with over 8 people killed after enacting the magazine law (the Thousand Oaks shooting). So if you want to push a law that would make a positive change, maybe start with magazine capacity limits. @VP can just take more clips to the gun range.
2. The market is going to go badly. China didn't follow through on Agriculture purchases, which btw, really wouldn't have mattered (IMO). I really thought Trump was pushing these tariffs to forced Powell to cut rates again and again. Maybe that is just a side benefit. It's going to be a rough year for farmers. Now if Powell cuts rates a couple more times and devalues the dollar, then Farmers should reap the reward if they can just hang on. Now I was concerned about this and bought leveraged gold about 9 Days ago. It is up, but not much. Gold is actually up more, I think up 3 or 4% versus my leveraged up only 2%. Today should be a good day for the leveraged though. Also, Cryptos went up a lot this past weekend, about 15-20%. Reasoning is that currently the plan for multiple countries is to devalue their currencies. You have the German Bonds, ALL OF THEM with negative yeilds. You lose money just by saving it. That just seems crazy. If you are buying a house or want to refinance, now would be a good time. I think 30 year mortgages are now around 3.5% fixed. But I don't think we are done. When has Trump ever admitted failure? You currently have two sides who never want to look like they failed and they are fighting. In my experience in litigation, the only solution to end the madness is a mediator's recommendation or a Court decision. Neither are going to happen here. In addition, Hong Kong is in upheaval right now. Japan and Korea are fighting. Might have to increase my crypto positions. Full disclosure, even my hedge positions are not going to protect me from the fall that is happening in stock market right now.
3. Spending the week with fam in 30A. The area is nice, really quiet actually and the beaches were not crowded at all. The bad stuff is that the water had a lot of algae that was pretty disgusting and several days, we did not go into the water. I may be mostly fiscally conservative, but I do recognize that global warming is happening, that environments are being destroyed, that human survival will become more challenging. I noticed when playing in the sand with kids and when snorkeling for shells that there is an oil layer in the sand, everywhere down there. On the beach, on the bay floor, etc. This is pretty damn sad. Additionally, the plant life in the bay is now almost non-existent. I expect this to get worse, not better. Most people see warm weather and run to Twitter. Most dem politicians want to pass the GND, which is laughable. The only candidate that said the truth was Andrew Yang. He's right, even if we cut all emissions in US today, we aren't stopping this train. We would need China, India, Northern Africa, etc. to stop today as well and that is not happening. Even when the world banned CFCs, several countries (CHINA) still used them. People cheat and violate these world economic and environmental agreements all the time. Iran is still shipping oil to china and avoiding sanctions. North Korea was shipping coal to China. SO we should focus on the worst outcomes and start innovating to combat the problems that come with it.
4. These shootings just highlight the sh!tshow that is our national media. The El Paso shooter was anti mexican. CNN and MSNBC pushing a ton of stories about El Paso shooter. I can understand that there was more victims in El Paso, but still, I think you get where this is going. The Dayton shooter was a leftist, so of course it is the top story on Fox News. I don't fault anyone for thinking that FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC are biased. I really just fault anyone who doesn't think that all 3 are ridiculously biased. For example, I think Trump ripping on #FakeNews is dangerous. BUT, I think Liz Warren calling FoxNews a hate for profit machine while doing interviews on CNN and MSNBC is just as dangerous. If she called all 3 hate for profit machines (which they are), then I could support her position, but again, it is also dangerous. We need good journalism, but it is going to fail, because good journalism is not what we want, nor is it what we deserve. The NYT had a great series on how North Korea got a $500K limo and avoided sanctions. They also showed how Iran is avoiding them. Both stories were very in depth and dangerous and yet I bet they didn't even get a blip of readers. Pretty brutal.
5. 2020 update:. I watched part of the debates, more of night 2 than night 1. I think Liz Warren benefited from the set up again. I think Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard had the best of night 2. Harris got destroyed by Gabbard. Joe Biden kind of seemed like a tired old man by the end of night 2, but he survived. There were only 2 polls released since the debate, but I'm not sure they would have had debate reaction. Both were interesting though. Both had Biden in first by a bit and Bernie Sanders in 2nd. Then Liz Warren in 3rd. I found that surprising as I would have thought Warren would hold lead over Bernie. In one poll, Warren wasn't even double digits, but still 3rd. Harris continues to fade, I expect a good drop after last debate, back to single digits across the polls for good. I laughed my butt off at the Pharma ads during the debate. hilarious.
Here are the candidates who have qualifed for next debate (sept 12 and 13) so far:
BTW, Emerson released national H2H polls for several dem candidates and Trump. The polls have Biden and Sanders beating Trump by 2 points. They had Warren tieing Trump and Harris and Mayor Pete losing by 4 points each. I think these are all losses. To win, the Dem candidate needs to win by 5% to feel any bit of safety.
1. What can we do to reduce, eliminate, etc. these mass shootings? The two bills that passed the house would not have stopped either shooter as both would have passed back ground checks. The shooter in El Paso used a 50 bullet clip and the shooter in Dayton used a 100 bullet clip. I think you could start there. The 1994 Assault Weapons ban federal law had a magazine limit of 10 bullets. That expired in 2004. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont all have capacity limit laws. I think most were passed after tragedy, like Connecticut was passed after Sandy Hook. I think California is the only state to have a mass shooting with over 8 people killed after enacting the magazine law (the Thousand Oaks shooting). So if you want to push a law that would make a positive change, maybe start with magazine capacity limits. @VP can just take more clips to the gun range.
2. The market is going to go badly. China didn't follow through on Agriculture purchases, which btw, really wouldn't have mattered (IMO). I really thought Trump was pushing these tariffs to forced Powell to cut rates again and again. Maybe that is just a side benefit. It's going to be a rough year for farmers. Now if Powell cuts rates a couple more times and devalues the dollar, then Farmers should reap the reward if they can just hang on. Now I was concerned about this and bought leveraged gold about 9 Days ago. It is up, but not much. Gold is actually up more, I think up 3 or 4% versus my leveraged up only 2%. Today should be a good day for the leveraged though. Also, Cryptos went up a lot this past weekend, about 15-20%. Reasoning is that currently the plan for multiple countries is to devalue their currencies. You have the German Bonds, ALL OF THEM with negative yeilds. You lose money just by saving it. That just seems crazy. If you are buying a house or want to refinance, now would be a good time. I think 30 year mortgages are now around 3.5% fixed. But I don't think we are done. When has Trump ever admitted failure? You currently have two sides who never want to look like they failed and they are fighting. In my experience in litigation, the only solution to end the madness is a mediator's recommendation or a Court decision. Neither are going to happen here. In addition, Hong Kong is in upheaval right now. Japan and Korea are fighting. Might have to increase my crypto positions. Full disclosure, even my hedge positions are not going to protect me from the fall that is happening in stock market right now.
3. Spending the week with fam in 30A. The area is nice, really quiet actually and the beaches were not crowded at all. The bad stuff is that the water had a lot of algae that was pretty disgusting and several days, we did not go into the water. I may be mostly fiscally conservative, but I do recognize that global warming is happening, that environments are being destroyed, that human survival will become more challenging. I noticed when playing in the sand with kids and when snorkeling for shells that there is an oil layer in the sand, everywhere down there. On the beach, on the bay floor, etc. This is pretty damn sad. Additionally, the plant life in the bay is now almost non-existent. I expect this to get worse, not better. Most people see warm weather and run to Twitter. Most dem politicians want to pass the GND, which is laughable. The only candidate that said the truth was Andrew Yang. He's right, even if we cut all emissions in US today, we aren't stopping this train. We would need China, India, Northern Africa, etc. to stop today as well and that is not happening. Even when the world banned CFCs, several countries (CHINA) still used them. People cheat and violate these world economic and environmental agreements all the time. Iran is still shipping oil to china and avoiding sanctions. North Korea was shipping coal to China. SO we should focus on the worst outcomes and start innovating to combat the problems that come with it.
4. These shootings just highlight the sh!tshow that is our national media. The El Paso shooter was anti mexican. CNN and MSNBC pushing a ton of stories about El Paso shooter. I can understand that there was more victims in El Paso, but still, I think you get where this is going. The Dayton shooter was a leftist, so of course it is the top story on Fox News. I don't fault anyone for thinking that FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC are biased. I really just fault anyone who doesn't think that all 3 are ridiculously biased. For example, I think Trump ripping on #FakeNews is dangerous. BUT, I think Liz Warren calling FoxNews a hate for profit machine while doing interviews on CNN and MSNBC is just as dangerous. If she called all 3 hate for profit machines (which they are), then I could support her position, but again, it is also dangerous. We need good journalism, but it is going to fail, because good journalism is not what we want, nor is it what we deserve. The NYT had a great series on how North Korea got a $500K limo and avoided sanctions. They also showed how Iran is avoiding them. Both stories were very in depth and dangerous and yet I bet they didn't even get a blip of readers. Pretty brutal.
5. 2020 update:. I watched part of the debates, more of night 2 than night 1. I think Liz Warren benefited from the set up again. I think Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard had the best of night 2. Harris got destroyed by Gabbard. Joe Biden kind of seemed like a tired old man by the end of night 2, but he survived. There were only 2 polls released since the debate, but I'm not sure they would have had debate reaction. Both were interesting though. Both had Biden in first by a bit and Bernie Sanders in 2nd. Then Liz Warren in 3rd. I found that surprising as I would have thought Warren would hold lead over Bernie. In one poll, Warren wasn't even double digits, but still 3rd. Harris continues to fade, I expect a good drop after last debate, back to single digits across the polls for good. I laughed my butt off at the Pharma ads during the debate. hilarious.
Here are the candidates who have qualifed for next debate (sept 12 and 13) so far:
- Former Vice President Joe Biden
- Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
- Sen. Kamala Harris of California
- Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
- South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg
- Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas
BTW, Emerson released national H2H polls for several dem candidates and Trump. The polls have Biden and Sanders beating Trump by 2 points. They had Warren tieing Trump and Harris and Mayor Pete losing by 4 points each. I think these are all losses. To win, the Dem candidate needs to win by 5% to feel any bit of safety.
