It has been nearly three years since two weeks to flatten the curve. The Governor of New York Kathy Hochul had this to say:
We’re going to break out for us how many people are being hospitalized because of COVID symptoms, how many people are happening to be testing positive just while they’re in there for other treatments. I think that’s important.
This, among the slew of other issues, was pointed out years ago. See my comments on other issues here and here.
I am going to make a prediction about tax rates in the US. They are going to continue to go sideways/downward. It has been doing just that since the end of WW II. I think it will continue for the rest of my life.
Both the highest and lowest bracket have been trending downward.
The effective corporate tax rate has decreased more since 2011.
As a percentage of GDP, the US federal government has never collected more than 20% of GDP. It does not matter how high or low those tax rates go. They are capped at 20% since WW II.
President Obama and the Democrats had complete control over congress in 2008. The highest bracket went from 35% to 39%. They put the highest bracket right back to where it was in 2000. This is a marginal change if you are making a million dollars a year. Now there is a man in the white house that is clearly losing his cognitive ability. For liberty and freedom, this is a good thing. I do not like charismatic presidents. They tend to get things done. Conservatives and libertarians have complained for decades that the government does to much. Now we have a victory-Gridlock. The gridlock is due to the decentralization of information. No one can make a move without it being scrutinized. If a charismatic man like Obama, with complete control over congress, could only take the top bracket from 35% to 39%, I think we are in good shape going forward.
Further, why would the Democrats push such an agenda? In 2020, the US government financed 50% of every dollar spent. This is no more absurd than 60% or 70%. The US government borrows whatever is required. No one in the federal government gives a damn about the receipts coming in. It is inconsequential to the outlays if the US government collects 3.5 trillion in taxes or 4.5 trillion in taxes. This seems like a foolish battle to start.
Any raising of taxes will probably be marginal. I do not think any massive tax increases are coming in the near future.
Right wing reality check- Gun laws are getting more lax.
They are concerned that a senile old man that can barely digest a steak is going to take their guns.
Left wing reality check- Crime has gone down over the past few decades.
There are people on YouTube that have a larger audience than daytime CNN.
~Alex Stamos
The corporate press has identified the problem: The decentralization of information.
The bigger issue for them- A lot more people have identified them as the problem.
There are too many YouTube channels, too many blogs, too many alternatives. They keep popping up every year. Severe lock downs on these platforms will destroy the very platform. The more they push, the more decentralized the network becomes. I do not see how they could possible put this genie back in the bottle. Matt Taibbi post a warning to them all here. Will they listen? Nope. The people in the media are not very bright. They are not strategic at all. They lack judgment. It is a dying industry. It loses legitimacy every day. Good riddance. They never earned it.
Political analysis talk about the coming violent revolution. The civil war around the corner. At least once a week I read such an article. Both the left and right wing indulge in such fantasy talk. There are three questions that should be asked when you read such an article:
Who is going to fight?
Where will it be fought?
What weapons will be used?
If you ever read an article about the coming revolution or civil war, keep these questions in the back of your mind. If the author does not address them, you can safely disregard the article.
They believe social media and open source technology are paving the way to a revolution. It is not. The greatest political upheaval in the modern western world were the Revolutions of 1848. You can read about it here. It started in early 1848 in France. It spread through 50 countries in Europe. Some of them were nationalist in nature. Others were socialist in nature. It was a whole bunch of uncoordinated revolutions. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube did not exist in 1848. Revolutions are about centralizing power. This is true of every revolution, including the American Revolution. Even the clueless Fredrick Engels understood this. He wrote a paper ‘On Authority’ discussing this. You can read it here. Social media and open source technology are having a decentralizing effect. That is why there will be no revolution.
The revolutionary mindset existed since at least the 1780’s. Its origin is placed in the cafés of the Palais-Royal. Less than 10 years later, the French Revolution started. This philosophy died in the 1970’s. During this time there were full time revolutionaries. They were committed to violence. These revolutionaries were usually exiled to one of three countries: The United States, England, and Switzerland. Lenin was exiled to Switzerland for a time. Marx found his home in London where he died. It is an astonishing fact that these three countries were immune from the revolutionary faith and revolutionaries. They never gained any traction in these countries. Étienne Cabet led his followers to America in 1848 and settled in Texas. They then moved to Illinois. Cabet died in 1856 with virtually no followers left. The only series movement of revolutionaries to reach America was the First International. This did not happen until 1872. The First International fell apart in Philadelphia in 1876. Hardly anyone in America even noticed.
And now someone wants me to believe that a revolution is going to start in the USA? By whom? A bunch of coach potatoes that watch Netflix? The last remnants of the revolutionary faith is seen with Antifa. I can summarize these people in one word: Losers. They are exactly how you imagine them. Smoking pot in their mother’s basement. They do not have any power. They will never have power. Political movements need a face. Everyone in Antifa wears a mask. In short, they are a joke. Shayne Hunter is an ex-antifa member. He gave a fascinating interview here. He tells you how laughable they are.
Revolutions vs Riots
Revolutions are not riots. Riots are not revolutions. They are different. Very different. People point to riots and shout, “Look, the revolution has already started. The civil war is here”. Riots have always occurred. They are a common occurrence throughout history. You can read about the endless riots throughout history here. These are only the ones that we know about. Revolutions are centrally organized. People need to be organized politically. Revolutionaries are committed to risk everything. Revolutionaries cannot be bought off. They are ideologically committed. They are extremely disciplined. They are in it for the long haul. Consider the scene from the Godfather II.
The exact opposite is true of rioters. Rioters are not committed to any cause. They do not believe in anything deeply enough to sacrifice their life for it. They are easily bought off. They have no long term plan. Riots do not last very long. Eventually they burn out. Everyone goes home. They mount their new 55” flat screen TV they lifted from Walmart in their living room. They wait for the next opportunity to do it again. Rinse, wash, repeat.
The wave of the future is not a revolution. The decentralization of information is challenging the legitimacy of every institution. Blog by blog. YouTube video by YouTube video. Facebook post by Facebook post. The legitimacy of the media, the universities and central governments are being revoked. This is going to lead to one outcome: secession. Secession through non-cooperation with central governments.
The legitimacy of Washington DC will not be fully revoked until the money stops flowing. It does not matter how badly the federal government screws up. It does not matter how many boondoggles and scandals that are amplified by digital media. The internet has paralyzed Washington DC, but the public still shows up with their hands out. Over the past 100 years, Uncle Sam has become Uncle Sugar Daddy. Nobody likes to upset Uncle Sugar Daddy. Uncle Sugar Daddy provides all the goodies-Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. When Uncle Sugar Daddy’s checks start to bounce, he will lose legitimacy. Why would you listen to Uncle Sugar Daddy when the goods stop flowing? What leverage will Uncle Sugar Daddy have? At this point, politics will become radically decentralized. This is going to bring the greatest advancement of freedom across the entire western world. The trends are pointing toward freedom and liberty.
Every four years the American public loses its mind. I do not say this to be humorous. People lose their sense of reality. On January 20th, Joe Biden will be installed as President. On January 21th, we will all wake up and go about our day. No one’s life will be drastically affected except for about 10,000 people that live within the beltway of the Washington DC. Maybe 100,000 people if I was being generous. The president has almost no authority. Not even over the executive branch. We endured four years of the FBI, CIA and the Department of Justice attacking Trump. All of which are under the executive branch. He was powerless to stop this. That is because the various bureaucracies are in charge.
This is nothing new. President Kennedy is said to have remarked that dealing with the bureaucracy “is like trying to nail jelly to the wall,” and, in reply to an interlocutor, “I agree with you, but I don’t know if the government will.”
Truman said of his successor:
“He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ike-it won’t be a bit like the Army.”
Either way, there is bipartisan support for massive deficits, the welfare state and money printing. Let me give you an example. Two republican Georgia Senators, David Perdue and Keyll Loeffler, got ousted the other day. Every right-wing person thinks this is the end of the country. Both these senators voted for the 5,000 page boondoggle. Trump criticized it. He signed it into law anyway.
Even AOC realized how crazy it was.
She voted to pass it anyway.
This has been going on for a very long time. The fox news watching boomer-con will not believe you when you tell them this. They long for the good old days. “NONO, the system works!” In what sense do they use the word “works”, I do not know. I recommend they read the book by Senator Richardson, “What Makes You Think We Read the Bills?”
It was published in 1978. The only difference between today and 1978 is the visibility of it. This is due to the internet.
Every four years it is tempting to be roped into the madness. I recommend you keep your wits about you.
Most experts, including doctors, lawyers, and financial advisors, often misunderstand statistics, leaving the public misinformed. Gerd Gigerenzer wrote a book called “Risk Savvy” detailing this problem. I made a post about it here.
The COVID-19 tracking project post daily data about test, cases, hospitalization and deaths.
There is a huge problem with these charts. They provide no context whatsoever.
Chris Martenson gives a very good explanation about the PCR test and the cycle threshold (CT) for all of these positive COVID test.
Dr. Kary Mullis, the inventor of the PCR test, gives a simple explanation.
The COVID-19 tracking project post these charts, but no discussion is given to what the cycle threshold (CT) is for all of these cases. What does a COVID-19 death mean? What does a COVID-19 hospitalization mean? If I break my leg and show up the hospital, they will give me a COVID-19 test. If I test positive, does this count as a COVID-19 hospitalization? I have seen stories indicating this is what they are doing. Same things goes for deaths from COVID-19.
The NY times ran article discussing this problem of the CT being to high.
Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.
A more reasonable cutoff would be 30 to 35, she added. Dr. Mina said he would set the figure at 30, or even less. Those changes would mean the amount of genetic material in a patient’s sample would have to be 100-fold to 1,000-fold that of the current standard for the test to return a positive result — at least, one worth acting on.
Each flu season the CDC issues the number of illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths from the flu. Below is the data for the 2019-2020 US flu season.
The difference between 24K deaths and 62K deaths is massive. Even as a matter of historical record, it is hard to nail down how many people died last year from the flu. This is very tricky especially for the elderly. People above 70 years old have many health complications at time of death. It is difficult to point to one specific illness in each case.
State and local governments are using this data to justify ruining peoples lives for a virus where 80% of the deaths are for people above the age of 65.
I am in the camp that Trump is going to win in an electoral college landslide. I have a few reasons for this.
First, outside of the polls, what other metric do you see showing Biden winning? None. When you look at enthusiasm, crowd sizes, TV ratings, online comments, they all point to a much more energetic base coming out for Trump.
Second, when you do any deep dive into these polls you immediately see the problems. I am not a pollster, but it makes no sense to target just registered voters. Polls like this one are just garbage.
Third, Trump’s approval rating is right in line with a reelection.
Now the difficult question is this-how will the market react to a Trump win? I think we will see a small pop in the market. So for aggressive traders, here is what I would do. I would go long the SP500 now with a stop at 3200.
Additionally, I would go long the DOW now with a stop at 26K.
Update 11/3/20 3:10 PM :
Given the large move upward, I have moved all of my stops to lock in a small profit. This rally looks like the market is pricing in a Biden win. I say that because the healthcare stocks seem to be the big driver. Which makes me wonder if a Trump win will actually move the market upward.
It is election season in the US. You will read stories. Lots of them. Ninety nine percent of them will tell you that this election will be the most important in our life time. I am going to bring some balance to this discussion. I am going to show you that this is all nonsense. I start off with a discussion of the “untouchables”.
I found this graph on Wikipedia.
The untouchables account for almost 85% of government outlays. From president to president, from congress to congress, you see almost no change in the outlays. What observation can be made about the above chart? The welfare state from the 1960’s to present is consuming more and more. The warfare state is loosing its share of the pie. When it comes to the welfare state vs the warfare state, I assure you, the welfare state is going to win out. Grandma votes. She wants her paycheck. Telling Grandma she is going to get less of a piece of the pie, so that US soldiers can fight five hundred cave dwellers seven thousand miles away won’t pass muster.
Here are a few predictions I will make.
1-No matter who becomes president in 2020, the federal outlay chart will only change marginally, if at all.
2-No one in congress, the white house or during the presidential debates, will dare mention that any of these programs should be scaled back. This is political suicide.
3-No one in the MSM or the alternative media will mention any of this.
4- The bureaucracies, which account for the other 15% of federal outlays, will continue to publish unreadable laws. They do not care who wins the presidency.
The political divide in this country is over rhetoric. There is nothing of substance that people disagree on. There is nothing at stake. It does not matter who the president is or which party has a majority in congress. Congress doesn’t even pass that many laws. The administrative state pumps out unreadable laws. The only thing that is going to stop Leviathan is when the checks from Washington D.C. start bouncing.
Patrick Deneen, professor at the University of Notre Dame, has posted an article in which he states the following:
Indeed, as a school of thought, a pure form of philosophical libertarianism was not a significant presence in American history until its articulation as Social Darwinism in the early 20th century- including its attraction to eugenics- and did not appear as an economic school of thought until the mid-twentieth century under the influence of several foreign thinkers, F. A. Hayek and von Mises (and later, Ayn Rand).
I will put aside Ayn Rand because I have not read enough of her work. Von Mises rejected Social Darwinism and eugenics. Here is Mises on the subject of Social Darwinism:
Since Darwin we have been inclined to regard the dependence of human life on natural environment as a struggle against antagonistic forces. There was no objection to this as long as people did not transfer the figurative expression to a field where it was quite out of place and was bound to cause grave errors. When the formulas of Darwinism, which had sprung from ideas taken over by Biology from Social Science, reverted to Social Science, people forgot what the ideas had originally meant. Thus arose that monstrosity, sociological Darwinism, which, ending in a romantic glorification of war and murder, was peculiarly responsible for the overshadowing of liberal ideas and for creating the mental atmosphere which led to the World War and the social struggles of to-day. lt is well known that Darwin was under the influence of Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population. But Malthus was far from believing struggle to be a necessary social institution. Even Darwin, when he speaks of the struggle for existence, does not always mean the destructive combat of living creatures, the life or death struggle for feeding places and females. He often uses the expression figuratively to show the dependence of living beings on each other and on their surroundings. lt is a misunderstanding to take the phrase quite literally, for it is a metaphor. The confusion is worse confounded when people equate the struggle for existence with the war of extermination between human beings, and proceed to construct a social theory based on the necessity of struggle.
He devoted entire sections of some of his books to destroying this idea.
Here is Mises on eugenics:
It is vain for the champions of eugenics to protest that they did not mean what the Nazis executed. Eugenics aims at placing some men, backed by the police power, in complete control of human reproduction. It suggests that the methods applied to domestic animals be applied to men. This is precisely what the Nazis tried to do. The only objection which a consistent eugenist can raise is that his own plan differs from that of the Nazi scholars and that he wants to rear another type of men than the Nazis. As every supporter of economic planning aims at the execution of his own plan only, so every advocate of eugenic planning aims at the execution of his own plan and wants himself to act as the breeder of human stock.
The eugenists pretend that they want to eliminate criminal individuals. But the qualification of a man as a criminal depends upon the prevailing laws of the country and varies with the change in social and political ideologies. John Huss, Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei were criminals from the point of view of the laws which their judges applied. When Stalin robbed the Russian State Bank of several million rubles, he committed a crime. Today it is an offence in Russia to disagree with Stalin. In Nazi Germany sexual intercourse between “Aryans” and the members of an “inferior” race was a crime. Whom do the eugenists want to eliminate, Brutus or Caesar? Both violated the laws of their country. If eighteenth century eugenists had prevented alcohol addicts from generating children, their planning would have eliminated Beethoven.
Patrick Deneen has not done his homework. He offers no evidence for his statements. He offers no direct quotes or citations for his statement. He is a wind bag. Parents spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to send their kids to Ivy League schools. Why?
Update
It appears someone has called him out on his eugenics statement and he has edited his article to drop the phrase. He still has Social Darwinism.