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The 35% Import Tariff

It's really sad that most people don't know economics.

D. Trump will impose a 35% tax on products made overseas and imported to the United States. The reason is "America First!", which is a big part of what he promised in order to get elected. This import tax will protect American jobs, so that the products will not be farmed-out to cheaper labor.

OK, sounds great, but how does this play out then? Now, even though General Motors can produce a car in Mexico for $10,000, it is forced to produce it in Michigan, USA for $13,000. Who wins from that?

The Michigan auto worker wins, but you and I who buy the car lose. That is a zero-sum gain for the United States. Or put another way, you are "robbing Peter to pay Paul". You are just "pushing the marbles around the table", but in the end, you have the same number of marbles.

But there is more: you also start a trade war, because other nations slap a 35% import tax on our products that we ship to them. So that becomes a zero-sum gain as well. Nobody wins from that either.

So what's the point of all this? I think some people just like the be the boss, the big marble pusher. It's all about power and control.

But one fact remains: the rich keep getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. If economics is too confusing, measure the process by its product.

It is said that Africans have an expression, "When the elephants are fighting, it is always the grass that suffers."

What to make of the political unrest

From my thoughts while sitting here this morning (and checking a few references). 

What to make of the political unrest, the seeming injustice and the ongoing trampling of the weak and the poor by the powerful and the rich. 

The advantages taken by the liar, the cheat and the thief, over the honest, the fair and the just. 

What will become of it all? Will good triumph in the end? 

Donald Trump is clearly not wanted by the majority of Americans. And the Filipino people had no idea what they are truly voting for when they put President Duterte in office. Hillary Clinton won 2.9 million more votes than Trump, but because of the way states vote through the Electoral College, he technically won the presidency. 

But he clearly does not represent the feelings and beliefs of the American people. We are disgusted and horrified by the man, everything he stands for and what comes out of his mouth. 

And yet there is something great happening here, and that is a free democratic process. In real freedom, there is real debate, there are real differences of opinion. The reason it gets nasty is that we don't have any other recourse. 

In dictatorships, you win by killing your political opponents (before they kill you.) We are not (yet) in a full scale civil war, like we fought in 1861-1865, in which a million people died. No other war in our history comes close to that number. 

After 911, the nation pulled together. The world stood with us. That is called uniting against a common enemy. But then, after the terrorist crisis lost steam, we went back to fighting amongst one another. 

It is the great tradition and great sign of the health and strength of democracy. People are fighting out in the open, for everyone to see, rather than under the table, in the dark corners, and in the smoke-filled rooms. Don't get me wrong, that stuff still goes on, and we are working on that. As President Obama said, "It often seems we take two steps forward and one step back, but the long-term trend is up." 

The Greek philosophers, who invented "democracy" questioned whether it would ever work. They, as did the Founding Fathers of the United States, limited voting to the "landed", upper class citizens, who in somebody's opinion were qualified to vote. No slaves, women, convicted criminals, children, the elderly or the mentally ill, of course, could vote. 

The question that looms large to us again is, whether we as a people, are intelligent enough, well-enough educated, and morally sufficiently grounded, to make democracy work. 

But, in any case, democracy is a messy process, compared to dictatorship. Fascism always gains a temporary upper hand over freedom; it is more organized and focused on its goals. Democracy, with all its freedom, is less efficient. 

Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." It was true in his time, and it is no less true today. When politics does not go our way, the people never surrender their social, civil, personal or religious beliefs. 

In fact, history shows that persecution tends to make the opposition group stronger. Examples are the Roman persecution of Christianity following Christ's passing. Christianity grew more rapidly than it ever has. 

Great Britain's persecution of India gave rise to Mahatma Gandhi, who led them to shake off being a British colony and to freedom. 

The United States war in Viet Nam made the Viet Cong stronger and stronger until they threw the United States out, in a stunning defeat of the most powerful nation on earth by a tiny nation. (Granted, they were backed up by Russian and Chinese aid.) 

The black population in the United States was persecuted and repressed for 300 years until finally in 2008, we elected our first black president. 

And I know on a personal level, cruelty does not make me cry, but kindness often does. 

Donald Trump is a power-crazed narcissist who won a temporary victory, but he will not last, and will not have a lasting impression on the United States and the American people. 

All throughout the world, there are about 1 good ruler in 5 bad ones, 1 great ruler in 10 disasters. But we the people survive, because we are the community, we are the society, we are the world. 

We could erect a matrix of laws against the president's faults. We could make it illegal to spread hate, make it against the law to have questionable conflicts of interest, make it a crime to comb your hair over your bald head ... But that is too restrictive of the freedom we value so much. 

We fight a constant battle trying to balance two inconsistent values in democracy: freedom and equality. Too much freedom threatens equal opportunity and equal rights for the people; too much equalization of benefits and rights threatens our freedom. 

We walk a tight rope. Society is a balancing act, just like personal life itself. Life is not a straight course; we tack like a sail boat, correcting the course constantly. George Santayana said, "Those who do not learn from history, will be forced to repeat it." We must look at our mistakes and learn from them. 

This particular president is showing us a whole new range of learning material. I hope we can absorb it. But we will, because we have survived a lot worse than him. 

This nation was born in revolution when we fought England, the most powerful nation in the world, to win our independence from them. Fought them again in 1812. Fought our Civil War, fought slavery and racism, fought World War I and World War II, survived our Great Depression, lived on into the age of nuclear bombs and missiles. 

Survived every type of scandal at every level of the society and the government. 

Adolf Hitler overran all of Europe because of a couple of things: his willingness to think ruthlessly, his massive preparations for war, the nation’s desire for peace, and his rapid assimilation of new technologies. Nobody could imagine his new brand of evil and were thus unprepared to defend against it. 

He took a momentary advantage, and then in his greed and megalomania, greatly overextended himself, attacking the Soviet Union and declaring war against Britain and the United States. 

The same dynamic took place for the Japanese in the East. China was not prepared for their treachery and brutality, and the Japanese slaughtered them. But dictators are limited: Emperor Hideki Tojo greatly overextended himself by attacking Pearl Harbor. It was their mistake to “waken the sleeping giant”, the moral and economic power of a free people. 

Mr. Trump, despite his momentary advantage, will fail as well. In his pride and mercilessness, he cannot see what really matters in life. He fights, but be cannot ultimately win against the people. And who survives? We the people survive. 

Jesus says in Matthew 26:52 NIV "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." 

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10:4 NIV, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds." 

Yes we fight for our rights, values and beliefs, but God determines our course. 

All these things just indicate to us that the spirit of the people will survive and achieve the ultimate victory, because God's spirit lives in those who believe. 

And God will never abandon us, even though we abandon Him.

Top of Form

How to crack Wall Street’s earnings code

How to crack Wall Street’s earnings code
7 terms to listen for when CEOs and CFOs talk business
July 06, 2012 | Matt Andrejczak, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Executives at Research In Motion Ltd. were “extremely excited” in March 2011 about prospects for the Blackberry smartphone and PlayBook tablet, according to the company’s quarterly earnings release.
Their tone changed over the short course of a year. In subsequent earnings releases, RIM used phrases like “challenging start,” “slightly below our forecast,” and “market challenges” to describe the pace of its business.
As its struggles mounted, RIM (US:RIMM) eventually stopped providing financial targets to the investment community.
By now, investors know RIM’s predicament. The Canadian company is selling fewer Blackberrys and losses are piling up. Its shares have plunged 72% over the past 12 months. And recently, RIM delayed its much-anticipated Blackberry 10 — again.
Let RIM be a lesson for decoding corporate earnings-speak as investors gear up for this year’s second-quarter earnings updates, which are slated to kick-off July 9 with aluminum maker Alcoa Inc. (US:AA)Read more: Alcoa faces low bar after Street cuts profit views.
This time, more companies are likely to dispense disappointing news, or worse, reveal dim second-half prospects. Blue-chip companies such as Ford Motor Co. (US:F) , Procter & Gamble Co. (US:PG) and United Technologies Corp. (US:UTX) have already issued financial warnings.
So far, 94 of the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index (US:SPX) have made negative earnings announcements for the second quarter. That compares with 26 positive announcements, according to Thomson Reuters data as of June 29.
Word play
With growth for the rest of 2012 looking suspect, investors need to be mindful of corporate management trying to sugarcoat business conditions. To help, MarketWatch asked money managers and market analysts which key phrases perk their antennae when reading an earnings statement or listening to a conference call.
“We get suspicious when corporations talk about a ‘strong’ or ‘solid’ quarter but revenues disappoint,” said Oliver Pursche, co-portfolio manager of the GMG Defensive Beta Fund (US:MPDAX).
Here’s a sampling of what management might say — and what they really mean:
1) Conditions were challenging
Translation: We’re getting killed by the competition is another way to interpret this statement, according to Dallas-based money-manager Charles Sizemore, who pens the Sizemore Investment Newsletter.
2) Sales and earnings are poised to reaccelerate
Translation: Forget the bad quarter we just announced and maybe even our current business period, said Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst at New York’s NBG Productions, which runs the website decodingwallst.com.
3) Weather affected sales
Translation: The company sells a product or service no one really wants or they are losing market share, said Tim Gramatovich, chief investment officer at Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Peritus Asset Management, which runs AdvisorShares Peritus High Yield ETF (US:HYLD)
4) Right-sizing inventory
Translation: Sales are slipping or falling off a cliff, said Sandy Villere III, a portfolio manager for New Orleans-based Villere & Co., which runs Villere Balanced Fund (US:VILLX) .
5) Macro-environment was weak
Translation: Our market share is under pressure.
Blaming the economy could obscure market share losses or the company’s decision to step up discounts, NBG’s Sozzi said. This is often heard when profits are less than a company’s internal projections.
6) We face uncertainty
Translation: We lost sales this quarter. In this case, companies are certain business is slowing, Gramatovich said.
7) Seasonality affected sales
Translation: Business is weaker than usual.
Companies are prone to doing more business at certain times of the year. But if a company’s sales typically slip 10% in the fourth quarter and the company reports a 25% decline, then beware if management tries to spin this as nothing out of the ordinary, said Dan Mahoney, head of CFRA Research, which does forensic accounting and quality of earnings research.
Anatomy of a conference call
In “Detecting Deceptive Discussions in Conference Calls” published in May’s Journal of Accounting Research, Stanford University business professors David Larcker and Anastasia Zakolyukina found that when it comes to language, deceptive CEOs and CFOs use more references to general knowledge and fewer references to shareholder value.
In addition, deceptive CEOs use significantly more extreme positive emotion and fewer anxiety words, their research concluded. Watch for excessive use of words like “strong” and “great.”
Quarterly conference calls are a highly planned event, in which top executives read from a script of carefully chosen words. CEOs usually start with an executive overview, followed by the CFO summarizing the company’s profit or loss, sales, and performance by business unit.
Then they offer an outlook before opening the call to analyst questions.
During the call, it’s important to listen to how executives are communicating their message, said Chris Terry, a senior analyst at Hodges Capital Management in Dallas. For instance, is management emphasizing something different than three or six months ago?
Moreover, listen closely to detect if management’s tone has changed about sales growth or product pricing. This could impact profit margins. Do they sound less aggressive? Better yet: Match their comments against a rival company. If there’s a disconnect, there might be a problem.
Also, determine if management ducks questions.
“At the end of the day, it’s about managing expectations and the best teams provide as much information and explanation as possible to assist analysis,” Terry said. “Others lose credibility fast and the stock suffers as a result.”
Take luxury goods retailer Tiffany & Co (US:TIF) , whose shares are trading near a 52-week low after its guidance seesawed in a span of six months. Tiffany on Nov. 29 raised its 2011 outlook, only to cut its forecast Jan. 10.
Then on March 20, the retailer said demand had picked up. In late May, Tiffany brought down those expectations. Shares have stumbled 19% year-to-date.
“We and everyone else like companies which under-promise and over-deliver,” said investment chief Bill Smead of Smead Value Fund (US:SMVLX)  in Seattle. His fund doesn’t own Tiffany shares.
Earnings meets, beats or misses
An earnings miss may be a prelude of things to come.
“A miss usually leads to another miss,” said John Del Vecchio, co-portfolio manager of the AdvisorShares Active Bear ETF (US:HDGE) , which bets on company share prices to decline.
“Very rarely does a business have a one-quarter bump in the road,” he added.
Research in Motion is a good example. Dating back to June 2011, the company missed the consensus profit estimate of analysts in four of those quarters, FactSet data shows. Another example was Juniper Networks Inc. (US:JNPR) , according to Del Vecchio, who profited from shorting the stock last year.
Juniper, a maker of telecommunications networking equipment, missed sales expectations from the second quarter of 2011 through the fourth quarter. Juniper later cut its quarterly financial projections and also issued a below consensus sales outlook for its 2012 first quarter.
Watch inventory — especially at consumer-products makers. In the past, companies have been known to speak optimistically about future sales even as current inventories are growing much faster than revenue.
Inventory tripped up Deckers Outdoor Corp. (US:DECK) , maker of Ugg boots and Teva sandals.
The company’s fourth-quarter report Feb. 23 showed sales up 40% while inventories had ballooned 103%. Yet Deckers’s brass spoke of “compelling growth prospects across our entire business.” Come April 26, the company cut its outlook after missing first-quarter estimates. During the quarter, sales growth had slowed to 20% while inventories rose 95%.
No surprise, Deckers shares have been squashed. The stock is down 63% from its November 2011 52-week high of $118.90.
A string of profit or sales misses is never good. To money-manager Sizemore, it can mean “management has underestimated how bad the company’s situation is. Industry or market conditions are changing faster than management believed and their firm is getting left behind.”

Where the Power Really Lies

If you really want to know where the power (and the truth) is in American, ask yourself how in the middle of the "Great Recession" when mega-millions are unemployed, when 2 million people a year declare personal bankruptcy, when two million people a year have their homes foreclosed on them, when most personal bankruptcies include unaffordable medical expenses,

… when all these things are hammering away at our middle class, … with all this going on, … American's largest corporations are producing record profits, all-time records: Caterpillar, Apple, Microsoft, MacDonald’s ... Read on  

Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter. By CATHERINE RAMPELL

The nation’s workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever. The New York Times Economix Blog: Visualizing Booming Profits (November 23, 2010)

American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.

Top companies: Most profitable

Rank    Company    2010   $ (millions)

1          Exxon Mobil

            30,460.0

2          AT&T

            19,864.0

3          Chevron

            19,024.0

4          Microsoft

            18,760.0

5          J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

            17,370.0

6          Wal-Mart Stores

            16,389.0

7          International Business Machines

            14,833.0

8          Apple

            14,013.0

9          Johnson & Johnson

            13,334.0

10        Berkshire Hathaway

            12,967.0

11        Procter & Gamble

            12,736.0

12        Wells Fargo

            12,362.0

13        Coca-Cola

            11,809.0

14        General Electric

            11,644.0

15        Intel

            11,464.0

16        ConocoPhillips

            11,358.0

17        Citigroup

            10,602.0

18        Hewlett-Packard

            8,761.0

19        Google

            8,505.0

20        Goldman Sachs Group

            8,354.0

21        Pfizer

            8,257.0

22        American International Group

            7,786.0

23        Cisco Systems

            7,767.0

24        Philip Morris International

            7,259.0

25        Ford Motor

            6,561.0

26        PepsiCo

            6,320.0

27        General Motors

            6,172.0

28        Oracle

            6,135.0

29        Eli Lilly

            5,069.5

30        McDonald's

            4,946.3

31        Morgan Stanley

            4,703.0

32        UnitedHealth Group

            4,634.0

33        Amgen

            4,627.0

34        Abbott Laboratories

            4,626.2

35        Devon Energy

            4,550.0

36        Occidental Petroleum

            4,530.0

37        United Technologies

            4,373.0

38        Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold

            4,336.0

39        Kraft Foods

            4,114.0

40        3M

            4,085.0

41        American Express

            4,057.0

42        Walt Disney

            3,963.0

43        Altria Group

            3,905.0

44        Comcast

            3,635.0

45        Corning

            3,558.0

46        United Parcel Service

            3,488.0

47        CVS Caremark

            3,427.0

48        PNC Financial Services Group

            3,412.0

49        Home Depot

            3,338.0

50        U.S. Bancorp

            3,317.0

Investing guru Doug Casey on the morality of selfishness and money

Sunday February 12. I just ran into this (and I am a great lover of philosophy, logic, semantics and word games!) Investing guru Doug Casey on the morality of selfishness and money:

“Let me say one more thing about the issue of selfishness – the virtue of selfishness – and the vice of altruism. Ayn Rand might never forgive me for saying this, but if you take the two concepts – ethical self-interest and concern for others – to their logical conclusions, they actually are the same. It's in your selfish best interest to provide the maximum amount of value to the maximum number of people – that's how Apple became the giant company it is. Conversely, it is not altruistic to help other people. I want all the people around me to be strong and successful. It makes life better and easier for me if they're all doing well. So it's selfish, not altruistic, when I help them.”

I think there’s some truth to that, and yet selfishness and altruism are not the same, nor are dark and light, good and bad, up and down. It’s quite possibly not in my self-interest to give up my life for another, unless you redefine “self-interest”, is it? “Self-interest” is very close to “self-preservation”, and I can hardly be said to be “preserving myself” by giving up my life, without redefining “self”. If we consider self to be my human life, then it is not. We would need to say “self” is my eternal self. Then we could argue that it might be possible to “serve myself” by “denying myself.” But then we are dealt a paradox that it required Jesus to rectify for us.

May you enjoy your boredom!

I remember once I heard that there is an old Chinese saying that is said intending to be a curse on the person: MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES. Ooo. I guess the implication is that we should enjoy our boredom. Haha..

Wikipedia expands on the concept this way:

"May you live in interesting times", often referred to as the Chinese curse, is reputed to be the English translation of an ancient Chinese proverb and curse, although it may have originated among the English themselves. It is reported that it was the first of three curses of increasing severity, the other two being:

"May you come to the attention of those in authority" (sometimes rendered "May the government be aware of you"). This is sometimes quoted as "May you come to the attention of powerful people." (Alternately, "important people".)

"May you find what you are looking for." This is sometimes quoted as "May your wishes be granted."