Yes, Some Republican Senators Really Are Talking Openly About Social Security Cuts

If a Republican-controlled Congress comes for your Social Security benefits in the next few years, don’t say they didn’t warn you.

They did.

Link here.

Survey finds alarming trend toward political violence

The survey questions focused on three areas: beliefs regarding democracy and the potential for violence in the United States, beliefs regarding American society and institutions, and support for and willingness to engage in violence, including political violence. Some key findings from those surveyed:67.2% perceive there is “a serious threat to our democracy.”

• 50.1% agree that “in the next several years, there will be civil war in the United States.”
• 42.4% agreed that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy.”
• 41.2% agreed that “in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants.”
• 18.7% agreed strongly or very strongly that violence or force is needed to “protect American democracy” when “elected leaders will not.”
• 20.5% think that political violence is at least sometimes justifiable “in general.”

Link here.

Barron's - Retired? Here Are 3 Things You Need to Get Right.

"Jennifer Bellis, private wealth advisor at US Bank Private Wealth Management, is even more conservative. She advocates an equity portion that’s closer to 20% to 30% of the retiree’s portfolio, with an emphasis on dividend-paying stocks. She also puts her clients in real estate investment trusts and preferred stocks because of their income streams."

Link here.

What a Stock Market Bottom Looks Like

"There is just no way to tell when this will happen ahead of time.

This is the joy of investing in risk assets.

Sometimes you simply need to have a little faith and a lot of patience."

Link here.

U.S. Army recommends food stamps for soldiers struggling with inflation

“Based on the Pentagon’s own data, 24% of enlisted personnel are food insecure,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.

Thank goodness we have unlimited funds to give to Ukraine and shovel to MIC contractors.

Link here.

Caitlin Johnstone: Making Kissinger Look Sane

“Mr. Kissinger sees today’s world as verging on a dangerous disequilibrium. ‘We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,’ he says.

That about sums it up.

Link here.

Small cap PEs - August 2022

We'll see . . .

 

Good advice from Barry Ritholtz - Capitulation Playbook

1. Begin Humbly: We never know how far these drawdowns will go or how long they will last. Is this a shallow 20% pullback? A 30% crash? Worse? (We don’t know). 2020’s 34% crash barely lasted a month, the 2008-09 GFC ran for 18 months, and 1966-1982 bear market was 16 years long.

Begin your plan by acknowledging you are venturing into the unknown. Never bet the farm or assume so much risk that an entire portfolio can be destroyed if the underlying premise turns out to be wrong (aka “early”).

2. Seek Asymmetry: Look for opportunities that have much greater upside than potential downside. Traders never know which of their positions will work out or not in advance. There is value in creating a potential for net gains, even if you only bat .300.

3. Automate: The best-intentioned bottom buyers often fail to execute trades (despite their own desires) out of fear and emotion. Remove your limbic system from the process by deciding upon a series of entries, and then automating them.

4. Buy Over Time: Rather than guessing a specific “ideal” entry date mid-sell off, consider spreading out your purchases across months. Pick six dates over the next year with chunks of your discretionary trading capital. This guarantees you will be both early and late – but it also creates a high probability your average purchase price will be considerably lower than where the market is six months into the recovery.

5. Buy Across Prices Levels: Another approach to avoid guessing the bottom is to make multiple purchases at different price levels: Example: Set GTC limit purchase orders to buy a broad index down 19%, 26%, 33%, 42%, even 53%. (I like to avoid round numbers). If only half of your orders get executed it means markets avoided matching some of the worst downturns of the past 20 years – but you were still a buyer at advantageous prices.

6. Favorite Stocks: As much as I like broad indices, some folks have their favorite companies. Consider the ones that may have run away from you last cycle that you would like to own long term. Whether its Nvidia or Apple or whatever your personal fave, follow the same strategy of making multiple purchases across different price levels.Link here.

Which Generation Has the Most Influence Over U.S. Politics?

The Changing Face of the U.S. Voter

Younger generations have very different perceptions on everything from cannabis to climate change. This is starting to be reflected in legislation.

2016 was a watershed moment for politicians vying for the vote—it was the last election in which Baby Boomers made up over a third of U.S. voters. Collectively, Boomers’ voting power will decline from here on out.

Link here. 

WATCH: Mearsheimer and McGovern on Ukraine

"Prof. John Mearsheimer and ex-C.I.A. Russia specialist Ray McGovern discuss the Ukraine conflict and U.S. policy towards Moscow, presented by the Committee for the Republic in Washington."

Link here.

Extending Russia - Competing from Advantageous Ground

The Ukrainian military already is bleeding Russia in the Donbass region (and vice versa). Providing more U.S. military equipment and advice could lead Russia to increase its direct involvement in the conflict and the price it pays for it. Russia might respond by mounting a new offensive and seizing more Ukrainian territory. While this might increase Russia’s costs, it would also represent a setback for the United States, as well as for Ukraine.

Link here.

I was there: NATO and the origins of the Ukraine crisis

Was this crisis predictable?

Absolutely. NATO expansion was the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. In 1997, when the question of adding more NATO members arose, I was asked to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In my introductory remarks, I made the following statement:

“I consider the administration’s recommendation to take new members into NATO at this time misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed.” Indeed, our nuclear arsenals were capable of ending the possibility of civilization on Earth.

Link here.

YouTube Video - Professor Mearsheimer: The Situation in Russia and Ukraine | King's Politics

"This interview was recorded on Tuesday 15th February before Russia invaded Ukraine. 

Professor John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He has published six immensely influential books on international relations theory. In 2020, he won the James Madison Award, which is given once every three years by the American Political Science Association to 'an American political scientist who has made a distinguished scholarly contribution to political science.'”

Video link here.

Biden’s CIA Director Doesn’t Believe Biden’s Story about Ukraine

Two years ago, Burns wrote a memoir entitled, The Back Channel. It directly contradicts the argument being proffered by the administration he now serves. In his book, Burns says over and over that Russians of all ideological stripes—not just Putin—loathed and feared NATO expansion. He quotes a memo he wrote while serving as counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Moscow in 1995. ‘Hostility to early NATO expansion,” it declares, “is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.” On the question of extending NATO membership to Ukraine, Burns’ warnings about the breadth of Russian opposition are even more emphatic. “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” he wrote in a 2008 memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

Link here.

Ben Franklin really said this?

23. In fine, A Nation well regulated is like a Polypus; take away a Limb, its Place is soon supply’d; cut it in two, and each deficient Part shall speedily grow out of the Part remaining.4 Thus if you have Room and Subsistence enough, as you may by dividing, make ten Polypes out of one, you may of one make ten Nations, equally populous and powerful; or rather, increase a Nation ten fold in Numbers and Strength.5

And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply’d and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.

24. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

Link here.

Be present

When one lives vitally
In the present moment
Without being pressured
Toward the past or future,
One lives as the present itself.
One actually becomes
The present unfolding.
No other place is so vast and broad…

- Ji Aoi Isshi