Telling It Like It Is

THE ENTERPRISE: A NEW YEAR STARTS WITH BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS; AND SOME NEWS YOU JUST CAN’T CATEGORIZE BUT DO NEED TO KNOW (NOT "FAKE NEWS”)

 

 

READ PEGGY NOONAN’S GREAT, INSIGHTFUL MESSAGE TO START THE NEW YEAR 

She always hits exactly the right tone in these messages. I hope you will open and read this  WISDOM FOR 2020, first.

 

Download Warren Zevon’s Wisdom for the 2020s - WSJ

 

THE BAD NEWS—THE OHIO STATE BUCKEYES LOSE TO CLEMSON AMIDST CONTROVERSIAL OFFICIATING & RULES MIS-INTERPRETATIONS.

There was more the the game than the blown calls—especially the reversed call on a fumble run back for an Ohio State TD. Justin Fields knee injury clearly hampered him, and kept him from running as freely as usual. But injuries are part of the game. J. K. Dobbins was spectacular in the 1H running the ball, until he injured his ankle. (But, he did completely muff a screen pass catch that would have been an easy OSU TD.) 

 

Dobbins diving catch that was ruled "not a catch" by the 2nd worst rule in the book, the one requiring receivers to maintain absolute control of the ball "to the ground"—period. If a runner crossed the goal line in possession of the ball (like Dobbins did), and only when tackled the ball was knocked loose—it’s a TD. The NFLand NCAA have both been plagued by erratic interpretation of the "control a pass to the ground" rule for several years. 

 

BUT--The worst rule in the book is the "targeting rule." "One strike and you’re out"—period—even if the opposing player ducks his head down and causes the helmet to helmet contact (in a bang-bang play). (Soccer has it right: “yellow card” first time. Red card & out, next time.) 

 

Rules that can’t be applied fairly and consistently and are too often poorly enforced, are stupid rules.

 

As far as other points, it's easy to argue that if OSU can’t get a TD out of 3 trips to the red zone—maybe they don’t deserve to win. 

Who was the better team? Ohio State. But the better team doesn’t always win. That’s why they play the games.

 

Now we will root for another Ohio State Graduate—Joe Burrow—to cap a remarkable season by leading his team to a win.

 

THE BAD NEWS: 

PART I—NEWS BULLETIN: THE VENDETTA AGAINST TRUMP WILL CONTINUE UNABATED

Pelosi, Schiff, Schumer, et. al. now want to stall while they "cook up” or at least "witch-hunt" for additional accusations/fabrications upon which to feed the liberal media their failed case. IT WILL NOT END…UNTIL THE SENATE STOPS IT! WHICH THEY SHOULD DO VERY QUICKLY. WHY? The results of Trump's policies (and not his irresponsible personal behavior & Tweets) are working far too well.  No viable Democrat candidate is emerging. What else to do? “SLING MUD” BECAUSE SOME OF IT MIGHT STICK.

 

PART II—DANGER!: I’VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR 20 YEARS: A CYBERWAR IS THE MOST AWFUL KIND OF POSSIBLE WAR & COMBINING IT WITH THE EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) FROM A  NUKE IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST POSSIBLE COMBINATION

As rogue states like Iran and North Korea (and others less publicized like Pakistan) grow in their ability to use one or both of these cataclysmic forms or warfare—the people of the earth are in greater danger than ever. The US Electric Power Grid is just one of the secondary casualties of such attacks. These would take us back to the “Dark Ages” —before widespread electricity and communications even existed. 

Identify your elected representatives in both the House and the Senate and vigorously communicate with them. Meet with them. Write, call and email. Only with concerted efforts by the US government, and the help of US technology companies to devise solutions, can this danger be averted. MAYBE.

 

NEW NEWS:

1. TRAINS RUNNING AT 150-220 MPH IN THE USA?

I grew up, and lived just two blocks from the Santa Fe RR main line, I later worked on the Santa Fe RR while in college.  Back half a century ago, the Santa Fe Chief— "Chicago to LA" passenger trains would often go by at 60-90 mph. If you’ve ever stood near (not too near) a train going that fast, you WILL remember it. The ground shakes, the wind swirls, and the noise is fearful. Now the Federal Railroad Administration is planning to allow trains in the US to run at up to 220 mph, but in the near term—2021—speed will be limited to 160mph due to track limitations. These trains are being built in a 160 year old factory in NY by Alston SA, a French company—28 are due to be finished by next year. Track limitations were problems when I worked on the Santa Fe as a youth almost 60 years ago; so were errors of controls, signals and drivers (engineers was what we called them. Be careful with these high speed trains.

2. "BUY IT AND RETURN IT" HAS BECOME EPIDEMIC AS ON-LINE SALES BOOM: 
Talk about wasteful: UPS estimates it will handle 1 million return packages per day in December. This pace is expected to set records as it continues into early Jan., peaking Jan. 2. That’s up 26% from last year. If you’ve ever shaken you head it dismay when the box you get from amazon.com is about 4-5 times as large as needed to contain what you ordered—you are not alone. Now multiply that waste and add the wasted human effort (time to ship, restock or dispose) and fuel, wear and tear on highways, air pollution and on and on. Maybe Congress should quit fighting about a phone call between two government leaders, and do its job, (based on common sense) to reduce waste, save energy, improve productivity, etc.

 

3. WHILE I’M ON “WASTE”— IF ANY PART OF GOVERNMENT ACTUALLY AUDITED THE FRAUD AND WASTE IN MEDICARE AND MEDICAID — THE NUMBERS WOULD BE STAGGERING.

There are medical companies and people (doctors, and other medical service providers) who are purposely defrauding the system of billions each year. Some of it is criminal and malicious; some of it is purely stupid systems and processes, and some of it is driven by the fear of legal actions.

 

4. YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD THE TERM “SPENDING LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR.” THAT’S DEMEANING TO SAILORS…IT SHOULD BE “SPENDING LIKE A DEMOCRAT PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL”

It’s hard to believe that aa bunch of supposedly intelligent candidates to lead the USA do not realize the total lunacy of the spending levels required by the programs and policies they are espousing… Or am i alone is seeing and thinking this?

 

SHORT TAKES:

—The answer given by someone on an expedition if he brought a med kit? He said yes, Aspiring, Whiskey and Duct Tape—one of mankind’s greatest inventions.

—Chocolate is a $161 billion industry growing at 7%/year, and it relies totally on farmers. Love that Chocolate!

—Nancy Pelosi and her Democrat accomplices are trying to create a “Potemkin Impeachment.”  A Potemkin village is any construction (literal or figurative) built solely to deceive others into thinking that a situation is better than it really is.

—What could slow or derail the US economy? Slowing in growth of wages & income. Less income (wages & salaries) means less money to spend, and with consumer spending at about 70% of GDP, the whole economy could slow down. Also low unemployment (fewer available workers) and/or lower productivity could exacerbate the effect of such a slowdown.

—What’s happening to music genres? The are blurring so much, the age-old categories mean little. One performer might perform kin 3-4 different types of music. (e.g., Kacey Musgraves in country, pop, disco, & psychedelic—whatever that is?)

 

INCREDIBLE NEWS!

1. MEDICARE FOR ALL, GREEN NEW DEAL, AND OTHER LUNACY….FUTURE LEADERS? REALLY? THEY MAKE OLD RE-TREADS LIKE JOE BIDEN, OR HIGHLY EDUCATED (BUT LIGHTLY EXPERIENCED) CANDIDATES LIKE PETE BUTTIGIEG LOOK GOOD.

Bernie Sanders (78), (has never seen someone else’s money he wouldn’t like to spend), Elizabeth Warren (70) (has never seen anything she wouldn’t like to tax or regulate) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (30) who has never seen anything but wild ideas to be responsible for (the youngest woman to serve in the United States Congress, at age 29). All three are self-avowed Socialists who believe in taking money from people who earn it and either wasting it on insane, hopelessly expensive projects, projects, projects, or giving it away to others who will waste it in even more ridiculous ways. 

Ocasio-Cortez advocates a progressive platform that includes Medicare for all, a federal jobs guarantee, a proposed Green New Deal, abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, free public college and trade school, and a 70% marginal tax rate for incomes above $10 million. 

Their ideas and plans are so outrageously expensive that no serious study can pinpoint just how high is up? Warren’s $20-$35 trillion, $40 trillion, Sanders at $97 Trillion … and AOC's at a number so big most people cannot even calculate (or comprehend) it. (Thank God she’s not running for President too.)

2. HAVE THESE CANDIDATES, (SOME OF WHO CLAIM DAMAGE TO THE CLIMATE IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE), NEVER MENTION CHINA’S ROLE?

As Beijing struggles with its weakening internal growth, and spending on infrastructure, and US trade worries, it continues to foul its own atmosphere, soil and water. This problem is so severe, it may never be possible to remedy it. China is literally allowing polluters to poison its people. After a short-lived (3 year) effort to “clean up” its coal based power plant emissions, China has resumed development of coal fired plants and the coal needed to fuel them. The "trade war” with the USA over its anti-competitive practices  (e.g., stealing intellectual property from American companies), China’s drive for energy independence is back to reliance on coal. And despite claims to the contrary, there is no such thing as “:clean coal.” (It’s just a less dirty version of coal!)

3. I’LL SAY IT AGAIN: "WHAT THE HELL WAS BOEING’S MANAGEMENT—NOT JUST THE CEO—A BUNCH OF THEM, THINKING AND DOING" (OR "NOT THINKING” & NOW PLAYING “CYA”)

Getting fired is insufficient. If a terrorist brought down a couple of airliners full of people, what punishment would they get? 

You know the answer. Criminal penalties, prison time, and huge fines—both company and personal.  . Otherwise, why should anyone be responsible if they can just say “OOPS” and walk away. RESPONSIBILITY MUST BE ASSIGNED AND SEVERE CONSEQUENCES SUFFERED.

 

4. RATS BEING TRAINED TO DRIVE? REALLY?

In a new experiment, scientists (at the U. of Richmond, VA) actually taught (conditioned) rats to drive a sort of wheeled vehicle. The rats steered by touching different parts of a copper wire and were rewarded with Froot Loops. YES, Froot Loops. After months of training (conditioning) the rats became fairly adept at “driving” and seemed to enjoy the experience. So many inappropriate comments are flying through my mind now, I have to stop writing on this one. 

 

NEWS TO WATCH FOR:

1. HEADS UP: RETIREMENT SAVING & INCOME RULES ARE GOING TO CHANGE—TAKE TIME TO STUDY THIS AS IT HAPPENS

Typical large 401(k) fund investment managers/administrators charge very low fees, of around 0.25%. Ideally, retirees with such investments would be able to set them up as annuities that pay set amounts regularly over a person’s lifetime. These are typically offered by insurance companies, who charge between 2% and 4%—10-15x as much cost—taken out of retirees funds. New rules are coming, but it’s not clear exactly when or what the will require. Some likely changes: will allow retirees/employers 401(k) plans to save more, set aside 15% of pay, vs. 10%, the current maximum and much higher than the 8% most annuities allow. Required distribution age (now 70-1/2, and taxed then) could move up to 72. Inheritance rules will also likely change. Do your homework on these changes as they become law.

 

2. HOW BIG IS TOO BIG part I—ASK CARNIVAL CRIUSE LINE

It’s latest ship, the Mardi Gras, will weigh in at 180,000 TONS, and carry 6,641 passengers. The show lounge will hold 600-800. Interior walls will be curved to give a more open feeling. Of course it will be divided into “neighborhoods!”

 

3. HOW BIG IT TOO BIG part II—ASK THE AMERICAN DREAM (MALL) ENTERTAINMENT CENTER IN EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ

450 Stores, an amusement park, an ice rink, a theme park (Nickelodeon), a water park (Dream Works), and aquarium, two mini-golf courses, a ski slope are just a few of the attractions. Cost estimate is $5 Billion. (Next door is the NFL Stadium)

 

4. BUYING TRASH ON AMAZON? SURE, WHY NOT? (CAVEAT EMPTOR: Let the buyer beware)

This has been all over the news. Dumpster divers and reclaim artists, grab things out of the trash, and “recondition” them for sale on amazon.com. Of course amazon doesn’t monitor or control what it sells, it just gleefully takes its share of the sale to the bank. https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-might-be-buying-trash-on-amazonliterally-11576599910

 

5. NO, YOU’RE NOT CRAZY—part I: WOMEN’S CLOTHING SIZES HAVE NO STANDARDS 

A size 8 means nothing in terms of how own brand or garment compares to another in how it fits.  Men are stuck with dimensions like waist/inseam in inches and chest size in inches. Not for the ladies. Whatever the marketers think will sell, that’s how they size the garments. This has been all over the news too, including in the Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/its-not-you-clothing-sizes-are-broken-11576501384

Finally—NOT “FAKE NEWS” AND NO, YOU’RE NOT CRAZY—part II—YOU’RE JUST “SAD"

It’s time for SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder: I recall the old Mamas & Papas song that went, “Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.” Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a form of depression and the symptoms typically emerge during the fall and winter months when there is less sunlight, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Here are facts that SAD is real, and a problem in many areas of the USA on grey winter days.  

 

People with SAD often experience mood changes and symptoms similar to depression that typically emerge during the fall and winter months when there is less sunlight, according to the American Psychiatric Association. For those with SAD who live in central Ohio, it’s not easy: Columbus is ranked the seventh gloomiest city in the United States, according to the website BestPlaces.net. Pollard has a harder time doing everyday activities because of SAD. “My inclination is to stay home, to stay in bed, just try to hide from the world, so I really have to motivate myself to get up and do the things I have to do, especially when it’s cold,” she said….

 

...People between the ages of 20 and 30 are most likely to struggle with SAD, McCutcheon said. It’s almost like a bear going into hibernation,” McCutcheon said.

Seasonal affective disorder is estimated to affect some 10 million people, with January and February usually being the hardest months, according to Psychology Today. It’s different from the winter blues, however. Winter blues typically refer to a condition in which people notice “that their mood dips a little bit or they may have lower energy or they sleep a little bit more, but it’s not to the point where they are having a whole constellation of symptoms that are causing significant impairment and distress,” McCutcheon said.

 

SAD is more complicated and can be more serious than wanting to hunker down and stay in for the night, she said. The disorder can be debilitating. There are three main treatments for SAD: antidepressants, psychotherapy and light therapy, McCutcheon said.Light therapy involves using a 10,000 lux lightbox that mimics natural outdoor light, at the same time every day, typically in the morning for about 30 minutes.

 

“In Ohio, we have so many months where you don’t have great daylight,” Baughman said. If someone is unsure if they have SAD, McCutcheon recommends consulting a health-care specialist. “I think the most important thing to remember is it’s very common,” she said. “You’re not alone if you are experiencing it.

From: [email protected]

 

OK…THAT’S PLENTY TO GET YOUR MIND CHURNING AS WE ENTER THE NEW YEAR.  

HERE’S another of PEGGY NOONAN’S brilliant columns. 

Read it all because she see things too many of us miss—and explains them so well:

 

Download The Century of the Postheroic Presidency - WSJ

• THINK ABOUT SUCH THINGS AS NOONAN EXPLAINS—in TWO COLUMNS! 
• DISCUSS THEM WITH LIKE MINDED FOLKS YOU TALK TO (including a generation younger ones) 
• THEN RAISE ISSUES WITH YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES. 
• ASK/TELL THEM—QUIT THE (WASTEFUL) POLITICKING & ACTUALLY DO WHAT THEY WERE ELECTED TO DO… GOVERN 
• REMEMBER: WE ARE "A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE”…
• AND THE GOVERNMENT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK FOR US, NOT VICE VERSA.

 

PLEASE DON’T GET MAD.  GET PROACTIVE.

 

(I’M JUST RAISING ISSUES YOU ALL KNOW ABOUT, SO THINK CONSTRUCTIVELY ABOUT HOW TO BRING ABOUT POSITIVE CHANGE.)

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR,

JOHN

 

PS: IF IT DOESN’T ALARM YOU THAT THE US GOVERNMENT IS BY FAR THE LARGEST EMPLOYER IN THE US, IT SHOULD! 

(EVEN WALMART, WITH NEARLY 2 MILLION EMPLOYEES ISN’T EVEN CLOSE.)

Have you read my book, ROCKETSHIPS & PARACHUTES ? 
It can change your life, and the lives of everyone you share it with.  https://tinyurl.com/mariottiR-P

AFTER A LONG WAIT, A YEAR END EDITION COVERS MANY TOPICS

 

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER, HERE ARE SOME OF THE TOPICS;

 

You’ll note the absence of many political topics—except this one. The (fabricated) impeachment proceedings has overshadowed the real work of government. Whatever Trump said or did, it is clear to any (non-Democrat/liberal not afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome) that until they convince the American people, and the US Senate to alter the entire meaning of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” that nothing impeachable happened.  The one GOP witness, Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, testified on Wednesday that he didn't see any proof that President Donald Trump committed a crime and that Trump therefore should not be impeached. He was right.Why? 

 

Anyone who doesn’t think that ”horse trading” during negotiations hasn’t and doesn't go on between heads of state for decades, is living in some imaginary world. The failure of any crime having been committed is simply the “icing on the cake.” If everyone who talked about anything “inappropriate” in the world of high level politics or who discussed doing something illegal (as long as it was not actually planning a violent crime) were indicted, tried and found guilty, there wouldn’t be enough prisons in the world to hold them all. Yes, it appeared Trump stalled making a payment to gain some leverage, but in a short few days, the payment was made as planned.  

 

Here’s the problem when one party is so extremely determined to unseat a legally elected president that it will go to any extreme—and it is supported by 90% of the mainstream media—a lie told often enough can be accepted as the truth by too many people. There are countless scientific studies that support this principle. Tell a lie often enough, broadly enough and with enough vehemence, and it therefore becomes the truth—but it is not the truth—it is an often repeated lie. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161026-how-liars-create-the-illusion-of-truth

 

COULD PLANTING MORE TREESS HALT CLIMATE CHANGE?

YES, but it will take another 50-100 years to fully do the job. Tree’s absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And there is plenty of land on which to plant a trillion trees and let them grow. This is not a new discovery. It’s just the first time it has been modeled on a global scale. Industrial plants (like AK Steel in OH) surrounded its facilities with green belts for just this effect, on a much smaller scale. Instead of imposing crippling taxes and fees or penalties (the bureaucrats first choice), or spreading subsidized windmills (that are unsightly, wear out fast and have harmful secondary effects)—plant trees…thousands of them. Meanwhile use the best available technology to minimize carbon dioxide emissions while the forests grow

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions

 

IS THE “GREEN NEW DEAL” EVEN REMOTELY PLAUSIBLE?

NO…not a chance. The economic impacts would be crippling to society, and the effectiveness is grossly unproven. This is an immature, amateur’s “pipe dream.”  Any responsible scientist or economist or even a smart 7th grader can prove that the Green New Deal is a “Bad Deal” fo everyone.

 

DOES THE PUBLICITY OF SUICIDES ACTUALLY CAUSE MORE SUICIDES?

YES…and this has been known since the 1980’s. Robert Cialdini’s 1981 book, Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion contained evidence from the 1970’s so persuasive that mass media collectively agreed to downplay and not publicize suicides, because each time they did, another 35 suicides quickly followed. The more coverage in the media, the larger than number became. (Chart 4.1 p.148).

 

ARE BIG COMPANIES (LIKE IBM) ACTUALLY PURGING OLDER WORKERS?

NOT EXACTLY, BUT SORT OF… In general, older workers are more highly paid, less up to date technically, and more set in their ways/resistant to change and new ideas. This makes a compelling case for trading their costly and inflexible experience for a less costly, more up to date, and younger replacement. Some claim it’s “ageism;” other simply call it “pragmatism.” In an era where most developed countries and markets are growing at 2-3%/year, and human (people) costs are one of the largest expenses. One way to lower those expenses is replacing older, more expensive (and less healthy) people with younger, less expensive (and more healthy) people. Plus the growth of automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence replaces people, and younger, more up to date people are more likely to accept and use these new technologies.

 

WHY ARE TEENS SO SLEEPY—AND WHOSE FAULT IS IT

SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS MOSTLY…but also parents, teachers, teacher’s unions, and everyone but the teens. There are few compelling reasons for school to start so early, and then get out so early. It might be justifiable if the extra time were put to use for more learning—but that’s not what happens. Everyone gets out mid afternoon, leaving time for everything else they want to do—except helping create better educated youth. It just creates sleep deprived youth, who have been proven to underperform academically and in other ways too.

 

AMERICA’S OBESITY EPIDEMIC IS REAL—AND SERIOUS. WHOSE FAULT IS THAT?

LOTS OF BLAME TO SPREAD AROUND: First the terribly flawed, misstated information that created a “sweetness”/sugar-depended society, by blaming everything else for obesity and bad health. The the bureaucrats made matters worse by creating dietary plans that are way to heavy in carbohydrates. The companies who sell food discovered that sweet, fattening, unhealthy foods, heavy in simple carbohydrates sell really well—especially to time stressed workers and students (e.g. Twinkies!). Healthy foods are not as sweet and tasty to palates trained for decades to crave sweetness. Everything has more sweetener in it than needed.  Why? because it sells and tastes good. But it makes us obese, unhealthy, and prone to lifetime diseases like Type 2 diabetes. Add the increased sedentary lifestyles of both youth (video games!) and adults (office work at desks/computers and at home TV) and you have perfect setting for obesity. Changing these behaviors will take decades—only after some crisis drives a large group to decide that change is a good idea (which has not yet happened very widely).

 

IS AMAZON AND JEFF BEZOS TOO POWERFUL?

YES…WITH TOO GREAT REACH INTO TOO MANY INDUSTRIES. Amazon controls about 40% of e-commerce, and a like percentage of books sold (and owns the Washington Post newspaper) About 2 million small businesses use amazon’s services; and amazon does more searches than Google (many of them to find one of the millions of items it sells). Amazon Web Services is now one of the largest (maybe actually the largest if there was data to measure it) cloud computing and storage companies too. It’s growing ability to sell and deliver everything faster and cheaper than competitors, actually runs many companies out of business... and into amazon’s arms as parr of the huge group of amazon secondary “Sellers.” Amazon’s clout allows it to create or “seize” brands, and control entire market segments.  Monopolistic practices and privacy violations may ultimately be amazon’s Achille’s Heel, as it comes under growing government scrutiny. Time will tell, how big is too big!

 

HOW COULD BOEING’S CEO KNOW SO LITTLE AND BE BLAMELESS?

EITHER PURPOSEFUL IGNORANCE OR GROSS NEGLIGENCE are two likely reasons. Plausible deniability is the popular term used, but when planes full of people fall out of the sky—someone should have been MORE responsible. There is growing evidence that the very top of Boeing was in deep denial and didn’t want to know just how bad its problems were. As more and more information comes to light, it’s clear that many people knew, but those at the top, chose to “not know” most likely, on purpose. The organization flaw of insulating top management from the dirty secrets widely known at lower levels has always been a problem. This time, it was a “fatal flaw."

 

IS AN MBA WORTH WHAT IT COSTS  THESE DAYS—ESPECIALLY FROM THE BLUE CHIP COLLEGES

NO, UNLESS YOU WANT TO BUY PRESTIGE OR INTO A POWERFUL NETWORK. Not only are MBAs declining in value and credibility, but demand for them is dropping. The cost far exceeds the value as measured in simple dollars and cents. At $75,000/year for a Harvard tuition, it’s likely that the diploma will come with $100,000-$150,000 in student loan debt. There are many quality universities at half the cost. The MBA, as prestigious as it might be, can only convey second hand knowledge via cases, and professors. As a credential if might be more valuable than for what was learned. There is a lot to be said for “the school of hard knocks” and learning via OJT (On The Job training).

 

IS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE OBSOLETE?

NO—IT’S MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER, FOR DOING WHAT IT AS INTENDED TO DO—AVOID CONCENTRATION OF POWER IN A FEW LARGE CITIES/STATES. The big cities, located heavily on both coasts, are filled with low-income/poor folks, and immigrants (legal or illegal). Those dense population centers could use a direct popular vote to elect a president, and elect the one who would ”take from the value creators” and give to the "value destroyers.” Ayn Rand’s classic novel, Atlas Shrugged, described the situation that results when the value creators are driven away. “Where is John Galt” is a famous line from that book. If you are willing to slog through a great 1000 page novel, (good for winter reading) you will be amazed and appalled at how eerily familiar it sounds, more than a half-century later.

 

SHOULD WE BE WORRIED THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS BY FAR THE LARGEST EMPLOYER IN THE USA?

YES…BUT IT APPEARS UNLIKELY TO CHANGE. Not only is the government the largest employer, but contractors who work for the government make up an even large bloc of people. Worst of all, the government has no money except that it collects in taxes. It creates no wealth. It only spends taxes and fees collected from wealth others create/earn. When the largest employer creates no wealth, the country is in a perilous place. But nobody want to rein-in the government. Even Donald Trump, who reined in regulations, still spent enough to increase the budget deficit. Only wealth creating profitable growth can solve this huge problem.  And it seems that the members of both political parties  would rather spend (and run up debt) instead of being frugal. (Democrats worse than Republicans—but only in how they go about it)

 

ARE NEW HOME BUYERS BEING FORCED OUT BY HOME PRICES AND STUDENT LOAN DEBT?

YES—TO BOTH…And no solution is in sight. Hence the explosion of apartments. Those who can’t afford to buy, rent. Shortages of construction workers runs up wages, and adds to housing costs, making the problem worse.

 

OK, THAT’S PLENTY FOR THIS EDITION. THE TOPICS SEEM TO PILE UP…BUT HOPEFULLY THERE WAS SOMETHING USEFU IN THIS BUNCH.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

JOHN

 

 

THE ENTERPRISE--A LONG TIME COMING, AND HARDER THAN EVER TO WEIGH IN ON ISSUES

THE ENTERPRISE--A LONG TIME COMING, AND HARDER THAN EVER TO WEIGH IN ON ISSUES

 

FIRST SOME NOTABLE THOUGHTS—I MET A LEGEND TODAY: JERRY LUCAS

Lucas was a basketball player back when I was much younger—he went to Ohio State, and was a year older than me.  I went to Bradley (too short to play forward at 6’1/2”. Lucas was 6’9”). In those days top 3 teams in the NCAA were Ohio State (notables:Lucas, John Havlicek, and Bobby Knight), Cincinnati (Oscar 'Big O' Robertson, and Bradley (Chet “the jet” Walker) Why is he a legend? 

• he won 2 state championships at Middletown; OH HS, 
• he won the national NCAA College championship at Ohio State, and 
• was the first student athlete to graduate OSU with a straight 4.0 GPA; 
• he went to the NBA and won a NBA Championship with the NY Knicks; 
• he then won an Olympic Gold Medal in basketball for the USA, 
• and was the first athlete to be chosen for Time Magazine’s cover as Man of the Year.

 

I’VE STALLED WRITING THIS EDITION FOR WEEKS

Hoping that some renewed sense of perspective and sanity would permeate our American society.  It hasn’t and I fear is unlikely to do so. Polarization between left and right, liberal and conservative and Republicans and Democrats just grows worse and worse. Now all I hear is “impeachment,” for what seem like normal give & take between country leaders when Trump is doing it, but was no big deal when Obama was exposed doing the same or similar things (he cleverly added some layers for deniability, but was caught tell Putin to wait unless he was reelected and he’d have for flexibility in what he could do for him.  

 

Unlike our President who calls it all “fake news,” when it is a coordinated campaign of the mainstream media and the Democratic party to flood the media with lies and spin until the America people think it must be the truth because so many news organizations are reporting it. But—not the WSJ or Fox New, or most of conservative (Limbaugh, et. al.) talk radio! FAcebook has even banned Prager U. posts because they are too conservative (translation: “not liberal or socialist).

 

With this media hype and the normal human tendency to read and reinforce what we want to believe—instead of keeping an open mind and weighing the issues and actions on a balanced, logical and rational basis—like people who want to collaborate to find solutions instead of making the problems worse and yelling louder about them.

 

OUR LEADERS ARE MAKING IT WORSE

I voted for Donald Trump and I’d do it again over the awful opponent, Hillary Clinton. Now as the GOP had 4 years ago, we have a circus act of candidates. Are they all clowns? Heck no. Most of them are fairly smart people, who have a very different idea about what America’s direction should be from what it currently is. Is Trump part of the problem? Absolutely! But he’s also part of the solution. 

 

Somehow, amidst if incendiary and narcissistic Tweets, he has managed to use a parade of his own choosing, to craft policies that have made America more prosperous, stronger abroad (albeit less well liked than the articulate, yet apologetic, pacifist Barack Obama that preceded him.) Congressional leaders are making it worse too. 

 

The Democratic leaders seem to inherited Trump’s disregard for factual evidence and choose demagoguery and incendiary obstruction—of almost everything GOP/Trump proposes. The GOP leadership is only a little better, because they are letting Trump roil the waters and keeping their heads down as much as possible (Mitch McConnell excluded—he’s doing his best Harry Reid impression, blocking anything and everything the opposing party wants the Senate to debate.)

 

WHAT BECAME OF ELECTED LEADERS WHO COLLABORATE TO DO FIND CONSENSUS AND DO WHAT’S BEST FOR AMERICA—ALL AMERICANS?

Trump’s behavior ranges from sort of tolerable to totally intolerable. Ironically, his policies and how they impact the USA, and its government are mostly effective, usually much more moderate than this Tweets and speechifying, and in the view of most moderates of the GOP brand, doing the right things.  

 

Of course the liberals are beside themselves. First they don’t accept that Trump should even be president, after all, he was only elected by the Constitutionally mandated Electoral College (not by the popular vote, distorted by huge California and big city Democratic votes—of course these people like the Democrats,  because their representatives promise (and try to deliver) "free everything" to all those who reject the old-fashioned idea of earning a living and abiding by the laws of the land.

 

I’M CONVINCED THAT IF THE ISSUE OF WHETHER THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST AND SETS IN THE WEST WERE A POLITICAL ISSUE…

The political polarization would continue into gridlock—debate on what “rises and sets” means. GOP would form a committee to study and observe it, then publish factual results

Dems would investigate the GOP committee for bias, then craft a bill to spend trillions to allow government control of which way the earth rotates, but all “free” except higher taxes on the rich.

 

CONSIDER FOR A MOMENT WHO TRUMP BEAT IN 2016

What Could have been the BEST EVER HILLARY EMAIL 
I'm still trying to figure out how I lost the election.
I thought we had the thing bought and paid for!
Was it the Russian Uranium Deal? 
Was it Wikileaks?
Was it Podesta’s Emails?
Was it Comey’s Was it having a sexual predator as a husband?
Was it Huma Abedin’s sexual predator husband Anthony Weiner?
Was it because the Clinton Foundation ripped off Haiti?

Was it subpoena violations?

Was it the congressional testimony lies?
Was it the corrupt Clinton Foundation?
Was it the Benghazi fiasco?
Was it pay for play?
Was it being recorded laughing when I got a child rapist off when I was an attorney?
Was it the Travel Gate scandal?
Was it the Whitewater scandal?
Was it the Cattle Gate scandal?
Was it the Trooper-Gate scandal?
Was it the $15 million for Chelsea's apartment bought with Clinton Foundation money?
Or my husband's interference with Loretta Lynch & the investigation?
Or when I happily accepted the stolen debate questions given to me by CNN?
Or my own secret server in my house and my disdain for classified information?
Or deleting 30,000 emails after I was told not to?
Or having my cell phones and computers destroyed with hammers and Bleach-bit?
Was it the Seth Rich murder?
Was it the Vince Foster murder.
Was it the Gennifer Flowers assault & settlement?
Was it the $800,000 Paula Jones settlement?
Was it calling half the United States deplorable?
Was it my underhanded treatment of Bernie Sanders?

Was it Bill's impeachment?

Was it the lie I told about being under sniper fire in Bosnia?
Was it the $10 million I received for the pardon of Marc Rich?
Or the $6 BILLION lost while I was in charge of the State Dept.?
Or was it because I’m perceived as a hateful, lying, power-hungry, overly ambitious, greedy,
and nasty person?

Gee, I just can't seem to put my finger on it!

 

NOW CONSIDER THE CURRENT CAST OF CHARACTERS AND UNDERSTAND WHY THE DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO PUT IMPEACHMENT FRONT AND CENTER.

IF THIS IS THE BEST ASSORTMENT OF LEADERS WE CAN FIND—GOD HELP US!

Consider the three Democratic front runners gracing the debate stage to vilify Trump and come up with every form of Big Government freebie imaginable. (I’ve excluded the irresponsible “AOC” and her “Squad" who seem like a group of high schoolers, who finally escaped from detention, after reading all the works of Karl Marx and assorted other Socialist extremists, and now grabbed the PA system microphone to spout their unique brand of revolutionism. In this case, the liberal mainstream media (90% of the big media are liberal left-leaning) are providing the PA microphone and video to the entire country and world. 

 

What the saner part of American must think of this, I have no idea. Everybody loves news about disasters, and that’s what the Democrats (with an boost from President Trump’s jibes) are providing. 

 

THE FRONT RUNNER—EGAD

Here are our three: 

1) Raving and ranting Bernie—make everything free, a right no matter that there isn’t enough money to begin to pay for it. His outrage is palpable, and for all those poor gullible youths and socialists, they must be in his thrall. Can his heart hold up?

2) The strict, grimacing academic schoolmarm Warren, lecturing us on all the new policies, programs and ideas she’s dreamed up while waiting to lay down the her new rules. No idea how to pay for it? Of course not. Do you really want her as President? NOT ME!

 

The two of them would have Americans sign over their paychecks and the Socialists provide everything—until “somebody else’s money” runs out—which it will—FAST.

 

3) Sleepy, almost moderate sounding, placid Joe, who’s said so many things over his long career, he can no longer keep them all straight. So he mixes and matched those that sort of serve his purpose. He plays slow and loose with the facts every bit as well as Donald Trump—just in a much calmer, soporific presentation. (Including his stern rebuke about getting a Ukrainian out of a key spot or getting no Aid $$

 

ARE WE LIVING IN “BEING THERE” THE OLD PETER SELLERS MOVIE?

This movie featured middle-aged, simple-minded Chance, who lives in the townhouse of a wealthy old man in Washington, D.C.. Chance has spent his whole life tending the garden and has never left the property. Other than gardening, his knowledge is derived entirely from what he sees on television. 

 

Elements of Donald Trump’s research methods (watch Fox news—really?) and Joe Biden’s quiet and error filled recitation of his old positions (fill in the blanks, don’t worry about facts).  OMIGOD.  

 

Now the demagogues are actually attacking President Reagan posthumously for flaws no one saw back then, but are re-interpreted  to be heinous by the finger pointers. He’s a racist, because he said something 40 years ago that sounds bad now. The more the radical critics dig, the more dirt they can find.  That leads to Brett Kavanaugh and the popular approach to anyone in any office that is not deemed suitable—IMPEACH them.

 

READ WHAT A COUPLE OF DISTINGUISHED COLUMNIST SAID ABOUT THE KAVANAUGH DEBACLE

Download The Democrats’ Ritualistic Stoning of Brett Kavanaugh - WSJ Download Why They’ll Never Stop Targeting Kavanaugh - WSJ

 

OK—I HAVE THAT ALL OUT OF MY SYSTEM NOW… ON TO OTHER TOPICS.

Here’s one I can understand only too well—I am part of it.

THE GRAYING OF AMERICA

https://theweek.com/articles/859185/graying-america 

The number of Americans 65 and older is projected to nearly double by 2060. Here's everything you need to know:

Why does this matter? 
America is in the midst of a profound demographic transformation that will render its population significantly older in the years to come. In 2014, the percentage of Americans ages 65 and older was 15 percent — already an all-time high. By 2030, that will rise to 21 percent, and by 2060, a remarkable 24 percent of Americans will be in their golden years. 

By 2035, the number of those 65 and older will surpass Americans under age 18 for the first time in the country's history. This graying is already well underway. In 1970, the median American age was 28.1 years. Forty-six years later, in 2016, the median age was 37.9. 

As the median age continues to advance, it could have transformational consequences for large swaths of American life, including the workforce, the economy, the solvency of the social safety net — even the way sidewalks are engineered.

What's driving this transformation? 
A confluence of factors. Americans are not only living longer — one born in 1900 could expect only 47.3 years — but fewer of them are being born. In 2018, the crop of newborns was the lowest since 1986 — about 3.78 million, continuing a downward trend that some are now labeling "the baby bust.” 

The dramatic birth-rate decline is occurring at the same time that America's second-largest generation — the 77 million–strong Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 — are moving into old age. Boomers are now turning 65 at a rate of between 8,000 to 10,000 a day; by 2030, all of them will be older than 65. In the face of these statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau has sounded the alarm, calling 2030 a "demographic turning point" for the country.

Why else is 2030 significant? 
It's the year when America's so-called dependency ratio — or the percentage of nonworking citizens who rely on those who are employed — will exceed 70 percent. This will have profound consequences for Social Security and Medicare, the former of which is now projected to exhaust its $2.9 trillion reserve by 2035. (At that point, unless Congress increases taxes or cuts benefits, only payroll taxes from a shrinking workforce would finance the program, and benefits would likely be reduced by 20 percent.) 

Employers have mostly eliminated pensions, and Boomers have an average of only $152,000 in retirement savings — far too little for a 20-year retirement; 45 percent of Boomers currently have no retirement savings. A Gallup poll found that 74 percent of Americans plan to work past 65, with some Boomers becoming "workampers" who combine work and retirement by buying an RV and touring a seasonal rotation of places to work. You might see them logging hours as a NASCAR usher in Florida, a security guard at a Texas oil field, or taking tickets for whale-watching tours in Maine.

Will this affect the economy? 
As the percentage of Americans with full-time jobs drops, so, too, will GDP. Researchers from Har­vard's Med­i­cal School and the RAND Corp. recently compared the growth rates of states that are aging at different paces. Their findings were startling. 

For every 10 percent jump in the portion of a population over 60, economic growth fell 5.5 percent. Nationally, the group estimated, the aging of America's workforce has already lopped 1.2 percent off GDP this decade; this may explain why the average rate of growth has been a meager 2.3 percent since 2009. Another vexing question is how well America's consumer-driven economy will hold up when so many of us are living frugally on fixed incomes.

How about health care? 
American spending on health care is expected to rise from about $4 trillion a year to $6 trillion, or 19.4 percent of GDP, by 2027. By 2025, U.S. health-care providers believe they will face a collective shortage of about 500,000 home health aides, 100,000 nursing assistants, and 29,000 nurse practitioners. Some are also bracing for a shortage of up to 122,000 doctors by 2032. This problem was complicated by Congress capping Medicare reimbursement to teaching hospitals for each resident in 1997, when there was talk of a doctor glut.

 

What other problems are ahead? 
Cities will need to adjust their infrastructure for older people: Crosswalk timers will have to be reset to give them more time to get across the street, and far more curb cutouts for walkers and wheelchairs will need to be installed. The number of homebound, isolated seniors will dramatically rise, contributing to an existing loneliness epidemic. 

The isolation, ironically, will be worse in the sidewalk-less, car-oriented suburbs America created to make Baby Boomer childhoods so utopian. What happens to tens of millions of suburban residents when they're 85 and unable to drive or walk to stores, community centers, or doctors? "In the '60s, a majority of people weren't living past 70, or 75," says Hilde Waerstad, research associate with the MIT Age Lab. "We're entering into this new era that we just have not seen before."

 

Well, I better stop writing on this and send it.

 

JOHN

 

 

Here are some great hints, and some very
interesting things to know:
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ENTERPRISE—WHAT’S HAPPENED ... AND IS HAPPENING

 

 

EBOLA OUTBREAK IN CONGO—A SERIOU GLOBAL EMERGENCY

I think most readers know how serious Ebola is. The mortality rate is usually over 80% (death). It is easily spread by contact with bodily fluids. This is scary stuff. Read as much as you want, but  if you are a world traveler—be very careful where you go and how you interact with other travelers. 

 

Download Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern

 

MEANWHILE…POLITICAL INSANITY IS UPON US.

 

A DC-BOLA: OUTBREAK OF FOOLISHNESS, IGNORANCE AND LACK OF GOOD SENSE

This seems to afflict elected officials a short time after they arrive in Washington, DC, and it often lingers for years and recurs over and over, typically on 2 year (election) cycles. DC-BOLA is marked by outbreaks of wildly questionable statements, reversal of prior positions,  (also known as flip-flopping), extremely polarized political behavior and in general, a loss of good sense, civility and a desire to govern responsibly. 

 

SIDE EFFECTS ARE PARTICULARLY TROUBLESOME

Side effects of DC-BOLA seem to be the inability to compromise and reach collaborative, effective outcomes, needed for the good of the country.  The most notable victims of DC-BOLA are either very high ranking, long-time elected officials or very new elected officials, seeking to gain more publicity than their experience, contribution and opinions warrant. One side effect that continues unabated is to spend taxpayer money (whether the US has it or not) at the slightest provocation. Another is the unusual form of verbal tantrums, often exhibited during interviews, at speeches, and on cable and network TV.  

 

Warning: This side effect seems to be more contagious than most, spreading to large groups of followers with only visual or audible contact.

 

DC-BOLA seems to have a particularly high level of infection in places where people congregate such as rallies and college campuses. Suspicions that media/journalists, talk-show hosts, faculty members and many politicians are “carriers” has been theorized, and evidence continues to grow in support of this premise.

 

THE NUMBER OF DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT CONTINUES TO GROW

Many researchers have questioned whether a widespread mental condition often referred to a “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is a contributing factor to the growing number of people who are under the illusion (or delusion) that they are qualified for election to the most difficult job know to exist—being President of the United States.  This aberration was first seen as the “Hillary Effect", during the prior election, when an unusual number of candidates emerged, but then fell by the wayside during the campaign. 

 

MYSTICAL, MAGICAL, IMPOSSIBLY CONFUSING

A "Sorting Process," as mystical as the one used at Hogwarts (of Harry Potter fame), seems to be required to resolve this issue. In the "sorting process" a group of elderly wizards and witches weigh in on the various candidates, in hopes of reducing the number and increasing the quality of a few who remain.  One side effect of this unusual process is to inflame the media magicians, who report the process and attempt to cast evil spells over voters, using strange incantations, and (allegedly) evil trances and potions.

 

THE MOST CHALLENGING TASK FOR CANDIDATES

Candidates from both sides face daunting tasks. One side must convince voters that impossibly expensive ideas they have are somehow affordable in a kingdom facing a mountainous debt already. The other side has an equally arduous chore, illustrating how the promised things claimed by opponents to be “FREE” are actually an impossibility. Everything worthwhile has a cost to it—and is not FREE. The only question from "who else’s money" will that cost be paid. 

 

IT APPEARS MAGIC IS TRULY THE ONLY SOLUTION

Magicians promise that "taxing the rich" will make all the "free things" possible. However a detailed study done by the wisest of wizards (The financial accounting wizards) has proven that even if ALL the money of the rich were taken and used, it still wouldn’t begin to cover the fiscal debt and mounting deficits. Even great Magic, cannot make something out of nothing, it seems. 

 

Further, the mystical council has revealed that even though the poor of the kingdom are given more and more money and help, they remain poor, and indeed, actually waste what they are given and become poorer.   With this disappointing report, the council recessed to seek even more powerful, (and more expensive), and magical ways to make lies into truths and truths into lies.

 

======================

 

BACK TO THE WORLD OF REPORTING FOR A MOMENT—UPCOMING ELECTIONS.

A few Excerpts From Kiplinger (A serious source)

2020 elections—expected to be the most expensive campaign ever—$7B plus —in U.S. history, surpassing 2012's record $6.86 billion…  Outside groups' outlays will again be dwarfed by that of candidates and party campaign committees. … The 20 PLUS Democrats seeking to challenge Trump have collectively raised $270 million so far ...(Hillary Clinton spent $768 million in her 2016 races.)  Political campaigns are big business... witness their billion-dollar price tags... 

What is driving up costs so dramatically? Presidential candidates foregoing public funding... and its spending limits...and a Supreme Court ruling that allows unlimited spending on political speech from outside groups such as corporations, labor unions, super PACs and nonprofits.

Also contributing: New tech. Massive candidate fields. Social fragmentation. Social media is now a major line-item on campaigns' budgets. Advertising on Twitter, Facebook and Google is a must. It's cheaper than TV airtime, but you need more of it.

Campaigns are investing in analytics, data mining and marketing tactics to find every like-minded and uncommitted voter eligible to participate in their races. Such expenses were small...a decade ago. Driving these costs higher: The unprecedented number of contenders.

Political digital ads already cost more than last time, campaign folks say. Some candidates have spent more than $35 to get $1 back in donations via Facebook because the competition is so fierce. Others are spending six figures to rent donor lists from other campaigns and outside groups. Trump has spent $35 million to find donors online. His campaign says it will have found "40 million to 60 million" potential donors by Election Day, whereas a "good candidate might have four to five million" by then.

Americans' media consumption habits are also driving up campaign costs. Buying local airtime in a congressional candidate's district isn't enough anymore. Fewer and fewer voters watch broadcast TV. But you can't drop TV advertising either. Candidates must spend across all platforms. 

 

======================

 

A BULLETIN FROM THE MYSTICAL COUNCIL OF OIL, GAS AND HOT AIR

After the USA striving for decades to become energy independent, it was discovered that energy producers drilling for oil, are actually causing enormous waste of an equally valuable resource—natural gas. Every day, $1.8 million worth of gas (in one area alone—Texas) is simply burned off, polluting the atmosphere, and wasting the energy, because oil companies do not want to pay for pipelines to transport it, or find alternative uses for this valuable energy. 

 

AN INTERIM RESOLUTION DOESN’T SOLVE ANYTHING—AS USUAL

These wasteful events are due to a process called Fracking. The council finally decided that the best interim step was to change that name to Fricking. Then it would decide what to do with all the Fricking energy it is wasting foolishly.  The wizards suffering from DC-BOLA argued into the wee hours of the morning about what to do with this valuable substance besides just setting it afire.

 

WHAT DID THE MEGA DEBATES TELL US?  THEIR CONCLUSION

After two separate debates, spanning two evenings each, with ten candidates on stage each night we have learned several important things. With this group of candidates, they would prefer to give illegal immigrants the full benefits that US citizens have—and then some—like free health insurance, and a lot of free other things. The wisest wizard of all it seems, was the esteemed Milton Friedman who published the collection “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch: Essays on Public Policy” which printed the maxim on its back cover. In fact “somebody” pays for anything that seems “free” because everything created requires either time, or energy, or effort, or money from the creator.

 

Only the charlatans who claim it’s “free” are getting something “free,”—they are getting publicity for being liars, and scam artists of the highest order. The twenty candidates on the debate stage all, at times, sounded like intelligent, reasonable people. That gave me hope for America. Until, that is they started bickering about whose “fee stuff was better,” and who could offer a rationale that that wasn’t ludicrous about why their plans were better. Ironically, the more sane the rationale seemed, the more vigorous the attack by their fellow candidates.

 

Give it to the politicians, seeking FREE stuff, to give everyone, to pay for all the FREE stuff, which isn’t really FREE after all.  Let the Fricking Energy pay for it.  Then the wizards retired to the local Inn & Pub to quaff some ale and figure out how else to fool the people into leaving them in charge. You have entered the Kingdom of Make Believe and a tousle-haired, yelling wizard named Bernie Sanders seems to be the loudest voice in the kingdom. It also appeared that one candidate, named Warren, and bitten down on bitter and bad tasting biscuit. Why else would she have that expression on her face?

 

The coolest head on the stage, stumbled at times, but he kept referring to how well he had served the make-believe former President whose approval rating at 97% among fellow Democrats threatens to defy science and logic and exceed 100% (but then Democrats often exceed that number in election registrations, so perhaps we are in the land of make believe after all.  Meanwhile, at another place, the reigning golden-haired Grant Wizard Trump ranted about how great he is for almost as long as the ludicrous debate went on. His followers loved it.

 

NOT THE END—JUST THE MUDDLE—and an election is still 15 months away.

 

JOHN

 

Odds are the next debate for the Dems will only require one night and a stage of ten or less—all of whom agree on only one thing…Grand Wizard Trump the is evil spirit/person “who shall not be named.” (Donaldemort?)

THE ENTERPRISE: A FATHER’s DAY SMORGASBORD OF TOPICS—USEFUL and/or RADICAL

PEOPLE ALWAYS THINK A GOOD BOSS ONLY MAKES DECISIONS
That’s not the case. The best bosses gather the best information to help them make the best decisions.  People usually know what’s right & wrong with the places where they work. More often a good boss helps them validate what they instinctively know—or not. To do that the people must trust the boss to make good, wise use of their answers & input. How? By asking them good questions, then better questions. Only then, make decisions in which the people have input and ownership.

To Be a Better Boss, Ask Better Questions 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-be-a-better-leader-ask-better-questions-11557426294

======================

PEGGY NOONAN IS A VERY ASTUTE OBSERVER...READ & HEED
Peggy Noonan gets it right! She usually does. Read on, click on the link.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/overthrow-the-prince-of-facebook-11559862145

======================

BIG DATA IS IN BIG TROUBLE—why?
In a word, privacy violations, big, flagrant ones, revealing way too much info derived from users private data.  Do you know what GDPR stands for?  Look it up! It’s law in Europe and spreading fast in the USA. Penalties for violators are huge—Billions of dollars (or Euros). Google, Facebook, amazon & others who rely on their big data could be in big trouble!

======================

QUID PRO QOU
Here’s an idea for a rule change in basketball & football & hockey that will help eliminate a lot of the rough, dirty play:
If a foul/penalty results in the opposing player being injured and unable to play, ...then the opposing player in a comparable* position (and importance) must also leave the game. Only if or when the injured player can return is the opposing player allowed to return.
* matching position on depth chart or lineup

======================

LEADERSHIP MEANS BEING DECISIVE AND SETTING PRIORITIES...doesn’t it?
Democratic Party now has over 20 prospective presidential candidates.  And they’ll leave it to primary voters to sort out who’s best to lead! 
“When everybody is leading, nobody is leading!”
If choosing priorities is a key role of the president, the Democratic Party sure seems to have trouble deciding & choosing who should lead it!
https://www.wsj.com/articles/democratic-national-committee-names-20-candidates-for-first-debates-11560462288
Will primaries be “circular firing squads” or just be a contest of who can vilify president Trump the most outrageously.

======================

WHATS WRONG WITH THIS BUSINESS MODEL?
UBER News item from WSJ: 

“In last month’s IPO, Mr. Khosrowshahi and his executives sought to take the attention off Uber’s losses—which totaled about $1 billion in the first quarter—and instead tout the company’s long-term future as a platform for all-things in transportation. “

“Instead, Uber’s red ink became a big focus among investors, as the company reported the biggest-ever loss—$3.8 billion—by a U.S. startup in the 12 months before going public, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.”

Wow...who are the biggest fools? The management — or lenders —or investors?

 

======================

 

Preparing to Say Goodbye
A Fathers Day tribute to the person who entertained us all, helped build Pebble Beach Golf Course (where the US Open is being played as I write this .... and to a guy who played characters and behaved like a man who stood by his convictions & didn’t take crap from anybody!  (I don’t know if Clint actually wrote this all,  but he may have.  It is inline with his political philosophy.)
 


 
My Twilight Years at 88
If you realize each day is a gift, you may be near my age.  
As I enjoy my twilight years, I am often struck by the inevitability that the party must end. There will come a clear, cold morning when there isn't any "more." 
No more hugs, no more special moments to celebrate together, no more phone calls just to chat.

It seems to me that one of the important things to do before that morning comes, is to let everyone of your family and friends know that you care for them by finding simple ways to let them know your heartfelt beliefs and the guiding principles  of your life so they can always say, "He was my friend, and I know where he stood." 
 
So, just in case I'm gone tomorrow, please know this:

I voted against that incompetent, lying, insincere, narcissistic, double-talking, socialist hypocrite And fiscally irresponsible moron who spent eight years in the White House trying to destroy our Military, our Homeland Security Department, our Treasury Department, our Justice Department, and turn our wonderful country into a Muslim loving, socialist shit hole like the one he came from, and I don't mean Hawaii! 

Regards, Clint

Make My Day – Forward it

========================

Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers and sons & daughters of fathers. Love and appreciate fathers (& mother’s). They are our greatest treasure in life!

John

 

THE ENTERPRISE--I'M BAAACK...WITH A DIVERSE COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS

WHERE HAS THE ENTERPRISE BEEN?

To Florida for 7 weeks until mid-April and back to Ohio for 7 weeks since, of course coming back to  a calendar full of postponed Doctor’s appointments, tests, graduations, spring time chores, tax stuff, client meetings and Zoom teleconferences and the busiest part of the Rotary volunteerism year—(and possibly a one-time rejuvenation of the Reunion Conference—for those who have no idea what that is, ignore it—or those who do, stay tuned.) Whew.

 

I’VE BEEN COLLECTING THINGS TO INCLUDE, SO HERE WE GO.

 

FIRST—HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY—REMEMBER WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT, AND BE THANKFUL FOR THOSE WHO SERVED.

 

AFTER ALL THE PUBLICITY ABOUT WHERE AMAZON’S SECOND HQ WAS GOING, ONE OF THE TWO WASN’T SO WELCOME AFTER ALL (NY CITY/LONG ISLAND AREA)

A huge influx like amazon promised, of people, jobs, offices, and benefits didn’t strike the Long Island natives are being worth the massive tax abatements being given. You can read more about it in the link to a WSJ story. My observation is that many of the financial incentives offered to attract companies and jobs, DO NOT PAY OFF for the localities granting them. WHY? Because they are based on inflated projections of what MIGHT happen in the future. (Racine, WI is dealing with one right now, for a plant to make cell phone components that has stalled under the harsh light of investment by the Asian company.)

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/welcome-to-new-york-amazonnow-go-home-11550795261?shareToken=stb1dc6cc9552b4a168ba174ca7bdd0ec9&reflink=article_email_share#print

 

NFL—A LITTLE GOOD NEWS THANKS TO AARON RODGERS OF THE PACKERS

The past few years have been filled with controversy and bad or at least questionable behavior of NFL players—and for that matter by the too highly paid “King Roger Goodell @$31.7 million, head of the NFL. Well, Aaron Rodgers is not only a terrific quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. He’s also the actually highest paid player in a list of highly paid players at a total package of $76 million. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2018/09/20/the-nfls-highest-paid-players-2018-aaron-rodgers-leads-with-76-million/#1f78ac98117b

BUT—Maybe Rodgers has more to him than just the ability to lead the Packers and win. He has his patriotic priorities in order too… Read this letter from him about Wounded Warriors, etc.

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/aaron-rodgers-packers

 

THE BRILLIANT (LATE) PETER F. DRUCKER ONCE SAID “DEMOGRAPHICS ARE DESTINY”

What he was referring to is that the makeup of the population of a country, an area or the entire earth, has a profound and largely predictable, mostly unchangeable outcome (barring war, pestilence, or other apocalyptic events). People, once born live, age and then die in “waves" which we can measure with census tracking information. The US Baby Boomers, previously the largest wave, are still retiring (or at least turn 65) at the rate of 10,000/day. This has created all kinds of economic upsets, mostly because these were the primary and most productive age groups. 

 

THE MOST INFLUENTIAL AGE GROUPS

Why? Typically the 35-54 age group is the primary working age for people who have progressed to higher earnings and more influential jobs. Now there are new waves coming, notably the “Millennials,” which is larger than the Boomers, but not nearly as successful or productive. Why is subject to many arguments. If you read a bit of the attached article, you’ll find most of them. Agree or not…they are valid points.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/playing-catch-up-in-the-game-of-life-millennials-approach-middle-age-in-crisis-11558290908

 

THE NEWEST AGE GROUP AND RELATED CHALLENGES

Now comes Gen Z, the younger, and very large group. Perhaps this will turn out to be the best and brightest, or maybe not. This is a generation that was coddled and taught to think they are better than they are and thus are entitled to more, albeit contributing less. No doubt there are brilliant, entrepreneurial people in the Gen Z population. If we can get more of them off their mobile devices, and (off their) streaming everything, we might find that to be true. So far, the outlook is not so great. Thanks to the idiocy of government backed, unlimited student loans, part of the Millennials and the first part of Gen z will arrive in the world of work with massive debt loads—many of which they can never imagine how to repay.

 

THE BABY BUST—THE NEXT PREDICTABLE CRISIS

For years China had a one-child national policy,  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/one-child-policy.asp and it was strictly enforced to encourage the procreation of male (primary workers) children to be favored,  and to hold down explosive population growth.  After 36 years, it was believed to have prevented about 400 million births. It also resulted in a preponderance of males, with far too few females for mates. In 2015 the policy was ended. What happened then was typical of government planned matters. Too few babies, which meant that in the future, too few workers. (NOTE: This kind of perverse incentive was well known in many areas of Ag/animal husbandry, leading to cycles of boom and bust for meat from animals, and other crop related produce with the associated price fluctuations.)

 

THE LOW BIRTH RATE PROBLEM IS NOW BECOMING GLOBAL, HITTING THE US HARD

When birth rates drop far below 2.1 (the nominal replacement rate to sustain a stable population), several things happen. There are fewer workers (Unless immigrants are introduced). With fewer workers a country's economic growth slows dramatically, as does its consumption. The population ages, and over time, fewer workers are asked to support (via social programs) a growing number of older people. The USA is heading rapidly toward the point where 2 workers will be working to “support" each aged (assumed retired) person. This is clearly a big problem. 

 

SHRINKING POPULATION IN MANY MATURE COUNTRIES

The US birth rate is now well below the 2.1 replacement level, but immigration has helped prop it up. Nearly all of the mature economies globally have this problem. All the major European countries are down in the 1.5+/- range as is Japan. Nobody has a good solution for this. However, the places where birth rates are highest are the areas where most immigrants are trying to come from—the Middle East, Latin America, etc. 

 

THUS DEMOGRAPHICS ARE DESTINY AND IMMIGRATION IS BOTH A PROBLEM AND A SOLUTION

The only question is how smart are we, if we manage immigration as only a humanitarian problem. it’s far more than that. It's economic problem too.

 

=========

LET’S SHIFT TOPICS WITH A SERIES OF QUESTION:

 

—What if Green Energy falls far short of meeting global needs, and what if its cost doesn’t come down as advocated have predicted? 

Back to choosing the best fossil fuels, and continue to pollute? or Better yet, go after the enormous potential of Nuclear Energy—and address its concerns.

 

—What if (as happened in the Mueller (2 year, $35 million) investigation, all of the succeeding investigations are inconclusive?  Are we better off as a country: to continue endless investigations (fueling still more polarization) or to stop fighting over political differences and collaborate, cooperate, and compromise—work together to solve problems we know exist? Infrastructure? Immigration? Deaths due to Opioid? 

 

—What if instead of spending millions advertising a plethora of very expensive drugs (with litanies of adverse side effects), the pharmaceutical industry was forced to redirect that spending: half to new research for cures and remedies and half for price reduction of these very expensive drugs?

 

—Why can’t the government stop issuing reports each month and quarter, which generate reactions on Wall Street and Main Street, only to be revised (by a lot) just a month later, often triggering the opposite reaction. Talk about FAKE NEW? How about FAKE STATISTICS? 

 

—How on earth will the Democratic primary elections sort out the 20+ Presidential candidates? Will they default to old reliables: Biden, Sanders, etc.) Or to the “newbies"—too numerous to list. And will it be “hard left," liberal or Socialist, or moderated? And is Trump an easily defeated target, or a difficult to beat incumbent?

 

—Can the trend to require Food Stamp recipients do work or training for 20 hrs. /wk. spread? Or not. Is it better to require able-bodied people to “earn” welfare (funded by those who do work), or to just “give it to them free,” because of humane concerns.

 

—Why can’t the government figure out that Wage Stagnation is a MYTH. There is negligible recognition in its calculations that over the past decades, the “poor” now have many hugely better amenities: air conditioning, smart cell phones & tablets, more durable & better clothing, improved food & medicines, microwave ovens, dramatically better TV sets, free WiFi, better & cheaper eyeglasses, and a host of other things…that somehow, never get calculated into the government statistics than show “wages” (alone) have not improved.

 

—Can the student debt bubble ($1.5 trillion) every be resolved “fairly.” The students actually signed up to repay the loans, and creditors put up the money (only the schools who kept increasing the costs made out, by charging/receiving/using the borrowed money). Look at the explosion of spending on facilities, non-teaching staff, athletics and amenities at US universities. Much of that is funded by student loan money

 

—Can the country (and the liberal Democrats) ever understand that “taxing the rich” will not fund impossibly expensive “free everything” programs. Take the national deficit, which was at over $1 Trillion when Obama was President and is now “down” to only $500-750 Billion. If ALL THE INCOME OF THE TOP 1% were collected, it wouldn’t begin to retire even one year’s deficit! 

WATCH THIS VIDEO—PLEASE?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jboTeS9Okak

 

AND FINALLY….

—WHY CAN’T SOMEONE COME UP WITH A BIODEGRADABLE SHOPPING BAG THAT SLOWLY DISSOLVES IN SEAWATER? Instead of encouraging a switch to paper bags which cost three times as much, and deplete forestry resources, and still create waste. Or pushing a switch to reusable bags made of a different plastic (cost more, and that also last forever too) or bio degradable cloth (cotton bags) that must be used over 100 times to accomplish a carbon footprint less than a plastic bag?

 

OK—THAT’S TOO MUCH —BUT IT HAS BEEN ALMOST 3 MONTHS PILING UP.

 

THANKS TO THOSE WHO READ AND RESPOND.  SUMMER IS ALMOST HERE. THE ECONOMY IS GOING WELL.  AND HOPEFULLY, THE RHETORIC AND THREATS THAT INCLUDE THE WORD “WAR” ARE JUST THAT—RHETORIC.

 

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND THOSE WHO SERVED TO KEEP US FREE.

 

JOHN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ENTERPRISE—THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION: A $25-30 MILLION & 2+YEAR TRAVESTY

Subject:THE ENTERPRISE—THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION: A $25-30 MILLION & 2+YEAR TRAVESTY

 

WHAT IS NOT BEING REPORTED (IMPORTANT STUFF)

Consumer confidence has rebounded. Consumers are still shopping and buying. Companies are investing (in the USA) and hiring people to work. Wages are increasing. Unemployment in all demographics is near historic lows. The economy is humming along. Talks continues with DPRK (North Korea). Are they productive? Not so much) Russia continues to meddle, while the USA stiffens sanctions against Russia, DPRK, & Iran, whose economies continue to decline.The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) continues to find in favor of Trump’s contested actions

BUT REALLY—$25-30 MILLION AND 2+YEARS (INITIATED BASED ON A PHONY DOSSIER PAID FOR BYT CLINTONS AND DNC)

 

After about two years, countless taxpayer expenditures and more contentious news coverage, at least Special Counsel Mueller reached a conclusion—there was: no evidence of a Trump election meddling conspiracy with Russia. Mueller “punted” on the legally dubious claims of obstruction of justice, and Trumps Attorney General Barr took that as a conclusion—there’s no concrete basis to pursue such charges. Cost is expected to top $30 million. 20 Lawyers, 40 Federal agents, plus countess support government staff digging out a half-million pages of discovery info/requested.

 

WILL THE FOOLS NEVER SHUT UP—I’M AFRAID NOT.

Still the Congressional “shill"—whoops—Schiff, continues to stall, obfuscate, accuse and recriminate about his collusion theory. Facts don’t matter in the Democrats world anymore. It is all about fabricating sensational lies and allegations that the biased reporters (not all are biased!) in the mainstream media ((CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, et, al. can pump out there to get blown across the Internet by sympathetic liberals on blogs, web sites, podcasts and the like salivate over.

 

SOMEHOW HE MUST THINK IF HE KEEPS TALKING SOMEONE WILL THINK HE IS CREDIBLE (HE’S NOT)

Read what the WSJ has to say about this embarrassment of a Congressman. Of course, he is not worse than Chuck (Two-faced) Schumer and Nancy (Clueless but clever) Pelosi—just different. All are shameless in their pursuit of Trump Derangement Syndrome. HOUSE BIAS & MEDIA FABRICATIONS

 

Of course the Democrat controlled house will investigate every possible charge it can find against Trump. Then the liberal mainstream media will blanket news of Trump’s alleged misdeeds via its captive media: NYTimes, WashPost, CNN, MSNBC, etc.,creating the aura of truth by repeating thinly veiled fabrications as the news and the Truth.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/schiff-and-the-media-11553710482?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb

 

HOW THE DEMS STALL THE INSTALLATION OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION—AND A REMEDY

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-rule-to-speed-up-confirmations-11554247060?mod=MorningEditorialReport&mod=&mod=djemMER_h

If you read this, you’ll be appalled at how partisan politics is crippling our Democracy. Write your Senators and urge them to fix this.

 

A BRILLIANT REPLY TO A SNOTTY PRESS INQUIRY

During a recent press conference, a reporter with MSNBC hollered from the press corps, "Where is President Trump hiding his tax returns?"
Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, astutely responded, "We've found a very secure placeand I'm certain they won't be found."
"And just where is that?", said the reporter, sarcastically.
Mrs. Sanders grinned sardonically and said, "They are underneath Obama's college records, his passport application, his immigration status as a student, his funding sources to pay for college, his college records, and his Selective Service registration."

"Next question?"

THE INVESTIGATION OF THE WRONG PRESIDENTIAL MISDEEDS: THE BIG QUESTION FOR OBAMA’S REGIME—what right did you have to spy on political opponents! How many other laws did you and your administration break? Countless!

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mueller-and-the-obama-accounting-11553534271?emailToken=4222d2b43b2f12a945d2549f2bfdd788l84ZoONf/jAnFQZs8qaDwzNYvtUKbenO1LuZhVyonX/5zzp247UqbLC+IzhwNJ/UKtpSFxzwaiJ4JveWF09G5A%3D%3D&reflink=article_copyURL_share

THE CHARGE THAT DIDN'T STICK (but AVOIDED THE REAL COLLUSION CASE vs. Clinton & Dems)
The Democrats must be beside themselves. They parlayed the entire Clinton-driven, bogus accusations into a FISA warrant—clearly a mistake. Worse yet there is a herd of socialistic-liberal presidential candidates already declaring for the 2020 run against all things Trump! The total number of lies coming up will eclipse all reasonable imagination.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/2020-democratic-presidential-candidates-list/

Best, JOHN

 

PS: Here’s your bonus for such a long delay in this edition

PRIMARY CIRCUS
The primary season for Dems will be “a circular firing squad” as they take turns blasting at the legally elected President Trump and try to find points of Democrat Differentiation that will appeal to everyone who is even a little anti-Trump. Click on the link to see them all—at least until more jump in.... https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/2020-democratic-presidential-candidates-list/

 

 

THE ENTERPRISE: THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE SEEN, BUT NEED TO READ

MANY OF YOU KNOW I WROTE THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY  TO EXPOSE THE LOOMING THREAT OF CYBER ATTACKS.
There attacks continue today, using many of the same techniques I described in the novel almost a decade ago. For those who have not read the book, here’s the amazon link to it.  

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Conspiracy-John-Mariotti-ebook/dp/B07932Z9YC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550679264&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Chinese+Conspiracy+++mariotti 

WE WORRY ABOUT CONVENTIONAL TERRORIST ATTACKS—SHOOTING, BOMBING, CHEMICAL WEAPONS, ETC. BUT IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO:
What Happens When Nothing Works? That was the theme line I used for THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY  . Imagine that none of our computer-based systems work at all: no email, no cell phone, no Internet, no GPS, no WiFi, no TV or radio, no Planes, no Uber, no Wall Street, no Stock Exchanges, no ATMS or bank account access, then add NO ELECTRICITY!  

CAN YOU IMAGINE A RETURN TO THE TECHNOLOGY OF A CENTURY OR MORE AGO?
This is all too possible. It is more than scary. What good would hospitals be without power or computer technology? The absolute worst event would be a low level nuke, causing an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) which essential kills all but “hardened” electrical devices, including the Power Grid.  If you want to worry about Nukes, that’s their ugliest use. Once an EMP has destroyed electrical devices, they are dead forever—unrecoverable.


THIS FROM WSJ EXPLAINS WHY AMERICA’S GOVERNMENTAL RESPONSE TO CYBER ATTACKS IS SO IMPORTANT

Download Strike Back Against Every Cyberattack - WSJ

THIS IS A LONG, BUT VERY INSIGHTFUL ARTICLE ABOUT THE RISK OF AMERICA’S POWER GRID TO BEING ATTACKED BY NATION STATES’ HACKERS. IT’S ALMOST LIKE READING A WORK OF FICTION

HERE IS THE LINK 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-electric-grid-has-a-vulnerable-back-doorand-russia-walked-through-it-11547137112

America’s Electric Grid Has a Vulnerable Back Door—and Russia Walked Through It

A Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the worst known hack into the nation’s power system reveals attacks on hundreds of small contractors 

By Rebecca Smith and Rob Barry

Jan. 10, 2019 11:18 a.m. ET

 

One morning in March 2017, Mike Vitello’s work phone lighted up. Customers wanted to know about an odd email they had just received. What was the agreement he wanted signed? Where was the attachment?

 

Mr. Vitello had no idea what they were talking about. The Oregon construction company where he works, All-Ways Excavating USA, checked it out. The email was bogus, they told Mr. Vitello’s contacts. Ignore it.

 

Then, a few months later, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security dispatched a team to examine the company’s computers. You’ve been attacked, a government agent told Mr. Vitello’s colleague, Dawn Cox. Maybe by Russians. They were trying to hack into the power grid.

 

“They were intercepting my every email,” Mr. Vitello says. “What the hell? I’m nobody.”

 

“It’s not you. It’s who you know,” says Ms. Cox.

 

The cyberattack on the 15-person company near Salem, Ore., which works with utilities and government agencies, was an early thrust in the worst known hack by a foreign government into the nation’s electric grid. It set off so many alarms that U.S. officials took the unusual step in early 2018 of publicly blaming the Russian government.

 

A reconstruction of the hack reveals a glaring vulnerability at the heart of the country’s electric system. Rather than strike the utilities head on, the hackers went after the system’s unprotected underbelly—hundreds of contractors and subcontractors like All-Ways who had no reason to be on high alert against foreign agents. From these tiny footholds, the hackers worked their way up the supply chain. Some experts believe two dozen or more utilities ultimately were breached.

 

The scheme’s success came less from its technical prowess—though the attackers did use some clever tactics—than in how it exploited trusted business relationships using impersonation and trickery.

 

The hackers planted malware on sites of online publications frequently read by utility engineers. They sent out fake résumés with tainted attachments, pretending to be job seekers. Once they had computer-network credentials, they slipped through hidden portals used by utility technicians, in some cases getting into computer systems that monitor and control electricity flows.

 

The Wall Street Journal pieced together this account of how the attack unfolded through documents, computer records and interviews with people at the affected companies, current and former government officials and security-industry investigators.

 

The U.S. government hasn’t named the utilities or other companies that were targeted. The Journal identified small businesses such as Commercial Contractors Inc., in Ridgefield, Wash., and Carlson Testing Inc., in Tigard, Ore., along with big utilities such as the federally owned Bonneville Power Administration and Berkshire Hathaway ’s PacifiCorp. Two of the energy companies targeted build systems that supply emergency power to Army bases.

 

The Russian campaign triggered an effort by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security to retrace the steps of the attackers and notify possible victims. Some companies were unaware they had been compromised until government investigators came calling, and others didn’t know they had been targeted until contacted by the Journal.

 

“What Russia has done is prepare the battlefield without pulling the trigger,” says Robert P. Silvers, former assistant secretary for cyber policy at Homeland Security and now a law partner at Paul Hastings LLP.

 

The press office at the Russian Embassy in Washington didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. Russia has previously denied targeting critical infrastructure.

 

Early victims

In the summer of 2016, U.S. intelligence officials saw signs of a campaign to hack American utilities, says Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity and communications program. The tools and tactics suggested the perpetrators were Russian. Intelligence agencies notified Homeland Security, Ms. Manfra says.

 

In December 2016, an FBI agent showed up at a low-rise office in Downers Grove, Ill., less than an hour west of Chicago. It was home to CFE Media LLC, a small, privately held company that publishes trade journals with titles such as “Control Engineering” and “Consulting-Specifying Engineer.”

 

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

 

In cyberattacks against U.S. power utilities, Russian hackers stole employee credentials to gain access to corporate systems, U.S. officials say.

 

Source: Department of Homeland Security

According to a CFE email, the agent told employees that “highly sophisticated individuals” had uploaded a malicious file onto the website for Control Engineering. The agent warned it could be used to launch hostile actions against others.

 

Steve Rourke, CFE Media’s co-founder, says his company took steps to fix the infected site. Before long, though, attackers laced other CFE Media trade publications with malicious content, according to security researchers at Accenture ’siDefense unit and RiskIQ, a San Francisco cybersecurity company, who later analyzed details of the attack.

 

Like lions pursuing prey at a watering hole, the hackers stalked visitors to these and other trade websites, hoping to catch engineers and others and penetrate the companies where they worked. The Russians could potentially take down “anybody in the industry,” says RiskIQ researcher Yonathan Klijnsma.

 

By planting a few lines of code on the websites, the attackers invisibly plucked computer usernames and passwords from unsuspecting visitors, according to government briefings on the attack and security experts who have reviewed the malicious code. That tactic enabled the Russians to gain access to ever more sensitive systems, said Homeland Security officials in industry briefings last year.

 

Mr. Vitello of All-Ways Excavating has no idea how the hackers got into his email account. He doesn’t recall reading CFE’s websites or clicking on tainted email attachments. Nonetheless, the intrusion was part of the Russian campaign, according to the security companies that studied the hack.

 

On March 2, 2017, the attackers used Mr. Vitello’s account to send the mass email to customers, which was intended to herd recipients to a website secretly taken over by the hackers.

 

The email promised recipients that a document would download immediately, but nothing happened. Viewers were invited to click a link that said they could “download the file directly.” That sprang the trap and took them to a website called imageliners.com.

 

The site, registered at the time to Matt Hudson, a web developer in Columbia, S.C., was originally intended to allow people to find contract work doing broadcast voice-overs but was dormant at the time. Mr. Hudson says he had no idea Russians had commandeered his site.

 

 

The day the email went out—the same day Mr. Vitello’s office phone lighted up in Oregon—activity on the voice-over site surged, with computers from more than 300 IP addresses reaching out to it, up from only a handful a day during the prior month. Many were potential victims for the hackers. About 90 of the IP addresses—the codes that help computers find each other on the internet—were registered in Oregon, a Journal analysis found.

 

SNEAK ATTACK

Hackers sent bogus emails from the account of Oregon construction contractor Mike Vitello to herd recipients to a website they had secretly taken over, called imageliners.com. Hackers then used the site to seek access to contractors that do business with U.S. power utilities.

 

 

 unique IP addresses

400

Visits to imageliners.com on March 2, 2017 

From IP addresses registered in Oregon

300

200

Several contractors receive Mr. Vitello's emailIt isn’t clear what the victims saw when they landed on the hacked voice-over site. Files on the server reviewed by the Journal indicate they could have been shown a forged login page for Dropbox, a cloud-based service that allows people to share documents and photos, designed to trick them into turning over usernames and passwords. It also is possible the hackers used the site to open a back door into visitors’ systems, giving them control over their victims’ computers.

Once Mr. Vitello realized his email had been hijacked, he tried to warn his contacts not to open any email attachments from him. The hackers blocked the message.

 

Malicious link to imageliners.com created

100

0

11

2

1

12 p.m.

11

10

9 a.m.

10

9

3

4

5

6

8

7

EST

 

All-Ways Excavating is a government contractor and bids for jobs with agencies including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates dozens of federally owned hydroelectric facilities.

 

Some two weeks later, the attackers again used Mr. Vitello’s account to send a barrage of emails.

 

One went to Dan Kauffman Excavating Inc., in Lincoln City, Ore., with the subject line: “Please DocuSign Signed Agreement—Funding Project.”

 

HACKING THE GRID

 

RUSSIAN HACKERS

DAN KAUFFMAN EXCAVATING

2 OREGON POWER COMPANIES

Sources: documents; interviews with people at the affected companies, government officials and security-industry investigators

Office manager Corinna Sawyer thought the wording was strange and emailed Mr. Vitello: “Just received this from your email, I assume you have been hacked.”

 

Back came a response from the intruders who controlled Mr. Vitello’s account: “I did send it.”

 

Ms. Sawyer, still suspicious, called Mr. Vitello, who told her the email, like the earlier one, was fake.

 

The attack spreads

One company that got one of the bogus emails was a small professional-services firm in Corvallis, Ore. That July, FBI agents showed up there, telling employees their system had been compromised in a “widespread campaign” targeting energy companies, according to the company owner.

 

After receiving Mr. Vitello’s first bogus email on March 2, a subsequent Homeland Security investigative report says, an employee at the Corvallis firm clicked on the link leading to the hacked voice-over site. She was prompted to enter a username and password. By day’s end, the cyberoperatives were in her company’s network, according to the report, which hasn’t been made public but was reviewed by the Journal.

 

They then cracked open a portal in the company’s firewall, which separates sensitive internal networks from the internet, and created a new account with broad, administrative access, which they hid from view.

 

“We didn’t know about it or catch it,” says the company’s owner.

 

HACKING THE GRID

 

 

RUSSIAN HACKERS

CORVALLIS, ORE.-BASED FIRM

3 U.K. COMPANIES

2 U.S. COMPANIES

MASSACHUSETTS POWER COMPANY

Sources: documents; interviews with people at the affected companies, government officials and security-industry investigators

In June 2017, the hackers used the Corvallis company’s systems to go hunting. Over the next month, they accessed the Oregon company’s network dozens of times from computers with IP addresses registered in countries including Turkey, France and the Netherlands, targeting at least six energy firms.

 

In some cases, the attackers simply studied the new targets’ websites, possibly as reconnaissance for future strikes. In other instances, the investigative report indicates, they may have gained footholds inside their victims’ systems.

 

Two of the targeted companies had helped the Army create independent supplies of electricity for domestic bases. 

 

On June 15, hackers visited the website of ReEnergy Holdings LLC. The renewable-energy company had built a small power plant that allows Fort Drum in western New York to operate even if the civilian power grid collapses. Fort Drum is the home of one of the Army’s most frequently deployed divisions and is under consideration to be the site of a $3.6 billion interceptor system to defend the East Coast from intercontinental ballistic missiles.

 

ReEnergy, owned by private-equity investor Riverstone Holdings LLC, suffered an intrusion but its generating facilities weren’t affected, says one person familiar with the matter. The Army was aware of the incident, said a spokesman, who declined to provide additional details.

 

That same day, the hackers began hitting the website of Atlantic Power Corp. , an independent power producer that sells electricity to more than a dozen utilities in eight states and two Canadian provinces. In addition to downloading files from the site, the attackers visited the company’s virtual private network login page, or VPN, a gateway to the firm’s computer systems for people working remotely, the report says.

 

Atlantic Power said in a written statement it regularly encounters malicious acts but doesn’t comment on specifics. “To our knowledge, there has never been a successful breach of any of the company’s systems,” it said.

 

Around midnight that June 28, the hackers used the Corvallis company’s network to exchange emails with a 20-person carpentry company in Michigan called DeVange Construction Inc. The emails appeared to come from an employee called Rick Harris—a persona fabricated by the attackers.

 

HACKING THE GRID

 

RUSSIAN HACKERS

DEVANGE CONSTRUCTION

POWER COMPANIES IN NEW YORK AND WISCONSIN

Sources: documents; interviews with people at the affected companies, government officials and security-industry investigators

DeVange Construction’s systems already may have been compromised. Applications to energy companies from nonexistent people seeking industrial-control systems jobs came from DeVange email addresses, according to security experts and emails reviewed by the Journal. Bogus résumés were attached—tweaked to trick recipients’ computers into sending login information to hacked servers.

 

The Journal identified at least three utilities that received the emails: Washington-based Franklin PUD, Wisconsin-based Dairyland Power Cooperative and New York State Electric & Gas Corp. All three say they were aware of the hacking campaign but don’t believe they fell victim to it.

 

A DeVange employee says federal agents visited the company. The company’s owner, Jim Bell, declined to discuss the incident.

 

That June 30, the hackers sought remote access to an Indiana company that, like ReEnergy, installs equipment to allow government facilities to operate if the civilian grid loses power. That company, Energy Systems Group Ltd. of Newburgh, Ind., a unit of Vectren Corp. , declines to say whether it was hacked but says it has a robust focus on cybersecurity.

 

The company’s website says one of its customers is Fort Detrick, an Army base in Maryland with a complex of laboratories that defend the nation against biological weapons. Fort Detrick referred questions to Army officials, who said they take cybersecurity seriously but declined to comment further.

 

As the summer of 2017 wore on, the attackers took aim at companies that help utilities manage their computer control systems. On July 1, the attackers used the Corvallis company to attack two English companies, Severn Controls Ltd. and Oakmount Control Systems Ltd. Next, they attacked Simkiss Control Systems Ltd. also in England, and accessed “account and control system information,” according to the government report.

 

Simkiss’s website says it markets tools that allow technicians to have remote access to industrial control networks. Among its customers are big electrical equipment makers and utilities including National Grid , which runs electric transmission lines in Britain and parts of the U.S., where it owns utilities in New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

 

Oakmount, Severn and Simkiss declined to comment, and National Grid says its cybersecurity processes are “aligned with industry best practice.”

 

By that fall, the hackers returned to Dan Kauffman Excavating in Oregon, breaching its network on Sept. 18, according to the firm. They appeared to lurk quietly for a month. Then, on the night of Oct. 18, emails blasted out to roughly 2,300 of the company’s contacts. The message said, “Hi, Dan used Dropbox to share a folder with you!” and contained a link that said, “View folder.”

 

Among the recipients: employees of PacifiCorp, a multistate utility; the Portland, Ore.-based Bonneville Power Administration, which runs 75% of the Pacific Northwest’s high-voltage transmission lines, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

 

Federal officials say the attackers looked for ways to bridge the divide between the utilities’ corporate networks, which are connected to the internet, and their critical-control networks, which are walled off from the web for security purposes.

 

The bridges sometimes come in the form of “jump boxes,” computers that give technicians a way to move between the two systems. If not well defended, these junctions could allow operatives to tunnel under the moat and pop up inside the castle walls.

 

In briefings to utilities last summer, Jonathan Homer, industrial-control systems cybersecurity chief for Homeland Security, said the Russians had penetrated the control-system area of utilities through poorly protected jump boxes. The attackers had “legitimate access, the same as a technician,” he said in one briefing, and were positioned to take actions that could have temporarily knocked out power.

 

 

PacifiCorp says it takes a multilayered approach to risk management and that it wasn’t compromised by any attack campaigns.

 

Gary Dodd, Bonneville’s chief information security officer, says he doesn’t believe his utility was breached, though it appears to have received suspicious emails from both All-Ways Excavating and Dan Kauffman Excavating. “It’s possible something got in, but I really don’t think so,” he says.

 

The Army Corps says it doesn’t comment on cybersecurity matters.

 

Going public

The U.S. government warned the public about the hacking campaign in an October 2017 advisory. It attributed it to a shadowy group, sometimes called Dragonfly or Energetic Bear, that security researchers have tied to the Russian government.

 

In March 2018, the U.S. went further, releasing a report that pinned responsibility for the hostile activities on “cyber actors” working for the Russian government, saying they had been active since at least March 2016. Governments generally have shied away from naming countries involved in cyberattacks, not wanting divulge what they know.

 

SHORT CIRCUIT

 

Russian hackers targeted utilities' control-system computers.

 

Sources: Department of Homeland Security (hacking); Department of Energy (Scada network) 

 

In April 2018, the FBI notified at least two companies by letter that they appeared to have received malicious emails from All-Ways Excavating’s Mr. Vitello. 

 

One was Commercial Contractors of Ridgefield, Wash., which helped renovate an office for the Bonneville Power Administration. Eric Money, the company’s president, says employees thought they had resisted the tainted emails. But the Journal found that a computer with an IP address linked to the company visited Mr. Hudson’s hacked voice-over site the day of the attack.

 

The other company notified by the FBI, Carlson Testing of Tigard, Ore., has done work for utilities including Portland General Electric, PacifiCorp, Northwest Natural Gas and the Bonneville Power Administration.

 

Vikram Thakur, technical director of security response for SymantecCorp. , a California-based cybersecurity firm, says his company knows from its utility clients and from other security firms it works with that at least 60 utilities were targeted, including some outside the U.S. About two dozen were breached, he says, adding that hackers penetrated far enough to reach the industrial-control systems at eight or more utilities. He declined to name them.

 

The government isn’t sure how many utilities and vendors in all were compromised in the Russian assault.

 

Vello Koiv, president of VAK Construction Engineering Services in Beaverton, Ore., which does subcontracting for the Army Corps, PacifiCorp, Bonneville and Avista Corp. , a utility in Spokane, Wash., says someone at his company took the bait from one of the tainted emails, but his computer technicians caught the problem, so “it was never a full-blown event.” Avista says it doesn’t comment on cyberattacks.

 

Mr. Koiv says he continued to get tainted emails in 2018. “Whether they’re Russian or not, I don’t know. But someone is still trying to infiltrate our server.”

 

Last fall, All-Ways Excavating was again hacked.

 

Industry experts say Russian government hackers likely remain inside some systems, undetected and awaiting further orders.

 

—Lisa Schwartz contributed to this article.
—Graphics by Joel Eastwood and Angela Calderon
Write to Rebecca Smith at [email protected] and Rob Barry at [email protected]
Appeared in the January 11, 2019, print edition as 'Russian Hack Exposes Weakness in U.S. Power Grid.’

 

AS SOCIALISTS DOMINATE THE DEMOCRAT PARTY, WANTING TO TAX THE RICH, READ THIS

Download Here's how much wealthy Americans pay in taxes | Fox Business

 

TO FINISH WITH SOMETHING POSITIVE 

READ ON…

 

BEST, JOHN

      

 

HERE'S A BONUS TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER ABOUT PRO ATHLETE

 

 

Aaron Rodgers

GREEN BAY PACKERS

 

JAN 15 2019

Sharpie and The Players’ Tribune have partnered to create a series around Uncap the Possibilities, which shows how a Sharpie gives people the power to unleash their imaginations — and to express how they’d like the world to be. Here, Aaron Rodgers explains the origins of his passion for working with veterans, which led him to team up with the Wounded Warrior Project.

---

A few years ago, I was in Carlsbad, California, getting fitted for new golf clubs. Just before I went out to the driving range, somebody told me that I would be sharing the range that day.

“Great,” I said. “Who’s coming?”

“The Wounded Warriors.”

I’ve always had an appreciation for the men and women who serve in our military. My grandfather, Edward Rodgers, was active duty in the Air Force in the Second World War. His plane was shot down and he was a prisoner of war for nine months. He came home with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star.

He passed away in 1996. I had just turned 13, so I never really got a chance to spend time with him on an intellectual level, when I would have been able to understand the gravity of the stories he told or the sacrifices he and others had made while they served. But from what I know, I think that in his opinion, serving was one of the greatest achievements of his life. And I know that my family has always had a strong sense of pride about his service. 

So as far back as I can remember, an appreciation for the military is something that’s always been part of me.

It’s one of the reasons why I was so excited when I found out I would be sharing the range with the Wounded Warriors that day, and it turned out to be an incredible experience. 

I remember standing there, watching them hit balls. One warrior was a double-leg amputee. Others had lost an arm, or an eye, or were overcoming various other disabilities and challenges. And while I found myself marveling at their ability to hit the ball, what really struck me was the joy that these men and women took in getting back to doing something they had loved to do before they were in the service — before their injuries. 

 

What I took from that experience was the idea of perspective. How special the little things are — simple things, like the ability to hit a golf ball. 

Things many of us take for granted.

There are a lot of folks out there who have given their lives or their livelihood for a cause that they believe is bigger than they are. 

I think back to 2004, when I was still playing at Cal. We were in San Diego for the Holiday Bowl and some of my teammates and I visited a military hospital there and met with men and women who had been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some had suffered gunshot wounds. Others had been caught in grenade explosions.

I obviously admired them for their courage and sacrifice. But what really struck me was that despite their injuries, some of them couldn’t wait to get back to active duty. They were pleading with their doctors to help them so they could rejoin their units and continue fighting.

The strength of the bond they had with their fellow soldiers was something that really stuck with me. I was just amazed by the selflessness they displayed and their complete devotion to — once again — something bigger than themselves.

---

The idea of being a part of something much bigger than yourself is something I have always gravitated toward. Football is the ultimate team sport. That’s one of the things I love most about it. And I think that everybody — regardless of their faith, background or whatever — is searching for something like that.

Something bigger than themselves that they can give themselves completely to.

When the opportunity presented itself to partner with the Wounded Warrior Project, for me it was a no-brainer.

 

What the WWP tries to do for veterans is give them the opportunity to live life on their own terms, take control of the narrative of their lives and allow them to get back to doing the things they enjoy doing. With all the stuff some of these veterans have to deal with — from injuries, to post-traumatic stress disorder, to potential disability, to getting back on their feet and getting a job and getting assimilated back into society — the WWP helps them achieve it.

I play in a celebrity golf tournament in Tahoe every year, and a couple of years ago I had the opportunity to play with Chad Pfeifer, a veteran who had his left leg amputated above the knee after the vehicle he was driving hit a roadside bomb in Iraq. He learned how to play golf in 2007 while he was rehabbing at an Army hospital.

Today, he’s a three-time Warrior Open champion, which is an annual tournament for veterans who have been injured in combat.

Getting to play golf with Chad for a round was fantastic. He’s a great golfer and an even better human being. Just sharing the course with him was truly inspiring.

There are a lot of Chad Pfeifers out there, I think — people who have gone through a terrible trauma, who have made such an incredible sacrifice for our country, and now they’re back out in the world doing something they love and enjoying life.

I saw a number of them that day on the driving range in Carlsbad.

But there are countless others who are struggling to assimilate back into society. They’re having difficulty finding jobs, or they’re suffering from debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder.

To me, when it comes to taking care of our veterans and helping them not just assimilate back into society, but to actually thrive, I don’t think there’s any limit to what we can and should do. 

Veterans make the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of us can enjoy the freedoms we so often take for granted. The least we can do is work to create an environment in which they can come back after serving and experience those same freedoms to the fullest and live their lives on their own terms.

I think that’s a great way to show our appreciation.

THE ENTERPRISE: INFORMATION YOU NEED, INSIGHTS YOU CAN USE

THE ENTERPRISE: INFORMATION YOU NEED, INSIGHTS YOU CAN USE 

NEWS FLASH: CHINA’S GROWTH RATE CONTINUES TO SLOW, NOW HEADING UNDER 6.5% AND LIKELY TO DROP FURTHER
Bad news for the global economy? Probably so. The real question is what it does to trade with the US and vice versa. When an economy this large has slow growth, it impacts every other trading partner—somehow.

THE US GOV’T SHUTDOWN IS COSTING AMERICA A TENTH OF A PERCENTAGE POINT IN GDP GROWTH EVERY MONTH
Will it throw American into recession? Probably not by itself, but with help from the meddling Fed—raising interest rates so they can then ride to the rescue, and lower them, hoping to prevent a recession they helped cause (too late?). Maybe.
"To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer." —Paul R. Ehrlich

TWO STEPS TO HELP YOURSELF AND OTHERS
1)Buy a copy (or two or more) of ROCKETSHIPS & PARACHUTES and READ SOME OF IT—It’s available on amazon.com. Here is a link to order: https://tinyurl.com/mariottiR-P —and please post a review if you like it. (If you have already read some of it and like it, please post a brief review too. Thanks. 

2) Read this edition of THE ENTERPRISE and share it with your contacts.

=====================

This lead article is not mine.It appeared in the WSJ. The main point is that while we are arguing like schoolyard kids about whether Climate Change is real, and how bad it is, we are “fouling the planet.” Of course India, China and other less developed countries are doing it worse, but no matter. 

IT’S TIME TO TAKE ACTION, SHUT DOWN THE PANICKY ANTI-NUCLEAR CROWD, AND QUIT ARGUING ABOUT FOSSIL FUELS FOULING THE CLIMATE—SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT WHILE THERE IS STILL TIME

Only Nuclear Energy Can Save the Planet

Do the math on replacing fossil fuels: To move fast enough, the world needs to build lots of reactors

 

By Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist

Jan. 11, 2019 11:57 a.m. ET

Climate scientists tell us that the world must drastically cut its fossil fuel use in the next 30 years to stave off a potentially catastrophic tipping point for the planet. Confronting this challenge is a moral issue, but it’s also a math problem—and a big part of the solution has to be nuclear power.

 

Today, more than 80% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels, which are used to generate electricity, to heat buildings and to power car and airplane engines. Worse for the planet, the consumption of fossil fuels is growing quickly as poorer countries climb out of poverty and increase their energy use. Improving energy efficiency can reduce some of the burden, but it’s not nearly enough to offset growing demand. 

 

Any serious effort to decarbonize the world economy will require, then, a great deal more clean energy, on the order of 100 trillion kilowatt-hours per year, by our calculations—roughly equivalent to today’s entire annual fossil-fuel usage. A key variable is speed. To reach the target within three decades, the world would have to add about 3.3 trillion more kilowatt-hours of clean energy every year.

 

Solar and wind power alone can’t scale up fast enough to generate the vast amounts of electricity that will be needed by midcentury, especially as we convert car engines and the like from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources. Even Germany’s concerted recent effort to add renewables—the most ambitious national effort so far—was nowhere near fast enough. A global increase in renewables at a rate matching Germany’s peak success would add about 0.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year. That’s just over a fifth of the necessary 3.3 trillion annual target. 

 

To put it another way, even if the world were as enthusiastic and technically capable as Germany at the height of its renewables buildup—and neither of these is even close to true in the great majority of countries—decarbonizing the world at that rate would take nearly 150 years. 

 

Even if we could develop renewables much faster, huge problems would remain. Although costs have dropped dramatically for solar and wind energy, they are not a direct, reliable replacement for coal and gas. When the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow, little or no energy is collected. And when nature does cooperate, the energy is sometimes wasted because it can’t be stored affordably. Bill Gates, who has invested $1 billion in renewables, notes that “there’s no battery technology that’s even close to allowing us to take all of our energy from renewables.” If substantially expanded, wind, solar and hydropower also would destroy vast tracts of farmland and forest.

 

What the world needs is a carbon-free source of electricity that can be ramped up to massive scale very quickly and provide power reliably around the clock, regardless of weather conditions—all without expanding the total acreage devoted to electric generation. Nuclear power meets all of those requirements. 

 

When Sweden and France built nuclear reactors to replace fossil fuel in the 1970s and 1980s, they were able to add new electricity production relative to their GDPs at five times Germany’s speed for renewables. Sweden’s carbon emissions dropped in half even as its electricity production doubled. Electricity prices in nuclear-powered France today are 55% of those in Germany.

 

So why isn’t everyone who is concerned about climate change getting behind nuclear power? Why isn’t the nuclear power industry in the U.S. and the world expanding to meet the rising demand for clean electricity? The key reason is that most countries’ policies are shaped not by hard facts but by long-standing and widely shared phobias about radiation.

 

Nuclear power is the safest form of energy by far, especially compared with coal, which continues to cause hundreds of thousands of premature deaths a year from air pollution in addition to contributing to climate change. 

 

Over six decades, nuclear power has experienced only one fatal accident, Chernobyl in 1986, which directly caused about 60 deaths and is blamed for thousands more over time from low-level radiation. That’s a serious accident, but other nonnuclear industrial accidents have been worse. A hydroelectric dam failure in China in 1975 killed tens of thousands, and the 1984 Bhopal gas leak at a Union Carbide plant in India killed 4,000 initially and an estimated 15,000 more over time. We don’t stigmatize those entire industries as a result. 

 

The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island killed no one. In Japan in 2011, the fourth largest earthquake in recorded history and a 50-foot tsunami together took almost 20,000 lives—and damaged the Fukushima nuclear facility, which leaked radiation. Exposure during the incident contributed to one worker’s 2016 death, according to the Japanese government; the badly handled evacuation of the area, by contrast, is blamed for much hardship and many deaths. 

 

Nuclear power is regulated as though any amount of radiation is extremely dangerous. Yet we all walk around in a soup of background radiation, giving us an average of about 3 millisieverts (mSv) per year but ranging up to 200 in some places, with no demonstrated harm. The occupational and medical recommendations are to stay below 50 per year. At Fukushima, only 12 individuals at the plant received more than 200 mSv, and nobody outside the plant exceeded 50. It’s possible to measure and track very low levels of radiation, but those levels are harmless. 

 

Nor is nuclear waste the insurmountable problem that the public has been led to believe. The volumes are tiny, unlike the vast quantities of equally toxic waste from coal and other fuels. An American’s entire lifetime of electricity use powered by nuclear energy would produce an amount of long-term waste that fits in a soda can. All spent fuel from U.S. reactors over the past 60 years would fit on a football field, stacked 20 feet high. Today we store spent fuel at reactor sites in concrete casks (radiation does not escape the concrete) that will be safe for a hundred years. After that, the waste can be burned in reactors that are currently being designed, or it can be buried permanently.

 

All the reasons put forward to oppose nuclear power amount to over-hyped fears that in no way stack up to the real dangers facing humanity from climate change.

 

Nuclear power, if scaled up in a way that has already been shown possible, would easily compete on price with fuels that pollute far more. South Korea, which has built 10 of its reactors based on the same design, already produces nuclear power at or below fossil-fuel prices. Recent American and European efforts to build first-of-a-kind reactor designs in a hyper-regulated environment have led to large cost overruns and delays. But in the coming years, the world can build reactors centrally, at factories or shipyards, using standardized designs, and achieve costs below other fuels. We can create hundreds of reactors per year world-wide and meet the world’s enormous need for clean energy. 

 

It is a win-win strategy, giving humanity its only viable path to stop a climate catastrophe while providing poorer countries with the energy they need to grow. It’s the only strategy that adds up.

 

—This essay is adapted from the authors’ new book, “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow,” published by PublicAffairs. Mr. Goldstein is a professor emeritus of international relations at American University; Mr. Qvist is an energy engineer and consultant.

 

=====================

APPLE HAS TROUBLE SELLING THE iPhone XR. 

IT’S THE IDEAL COMBINATION OF FEATURES AND TECHNOLOGY

And its the cheapest of the new iPhone releases. It’s battery lasts longer.It’s functionality is all there. And did I say, it’s cheaper? Why is it not selling best of all. Nobody seems to know. It’s a no-brainer best buy of current models. Apparently, Apple users who blindly follow and buy the latest and most expensive model don’t care.

 

NEW, INDEFENSIBLE ADDON FEES TO EVERYTHING YOU BUY

Caveat Emptor—Latin for “buyer beware” applies when you look at your cable TV bill, your phone bill, your airline ticket price detail, your rental car contract, your hotel bill, and almost anything else you are buying. Hotels may have taken the award with their “Destination Fee.” a $25-50 feel because you got to your destination—What? Find these bogus fees. Challenge them. Maybe even make a scene. Some are negotiable. Some are not. You won’t know until you complain.

 

A SECOND WSJ PIECE—AN EDITORIAL—SHOULD FRIGHTEN ALL AMERICANS

Stealing votes is a long standing tradition in America dating back to the old days in Chicago where the motto was “vote early and vote often,” as the Richard Daley the elder Democratic party would flood ballot boxes with votes for people long deceased, and name found in many other places.

 

SHOULD WOMEN SERVE IN COMBAT UNITS? NO MATTER HOW TOUGH OR WELL TRAINED CAN A 130 LB. WOMEN RESCUE A 220 LB. FELLOW SOLDIER WHO IS INJURED OR INCAPACITATED?

 

A WSJ OpEd piece written by a woman, says NO. The response has been immediate. Here’s a link to the counterpoint to this statement about women not serving in combat units. I guess it depends on what they are asked to do. Genetically, men are stronger, have stronger more dense bones (other than in their heads!), men are more muscular, designed by nature to hunt and fight and protect families. So if women (know as the weaker sex for years) want to be part of Army combat units—shouldn’t they have to pass all the same tests? Even those that “discriminate against them” because of their gender.

 

https://taskandpurpose.com/veterans-women-combat-units

 

Here’s a link to the original article. Read it and form your own opinions.

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/women-dont-belong-in-combat-units-11547411638

=====================

 

THIS IS SCARY, AND CAN CHANGE THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC VOTING PROCESS IN THE USA

 

Harvesting Democratic Votes

Liberals want to impose the California voting model on all 50 states.

 

By The WSJ Editorial Board Jan. 18, 2019 7:09 p.m. ET

 

Democrats in Congress are making election reform their top legislative priority, and we’ve criticized it as a majority protection act. To understand why, consider that Democrats are trying to do for the country what they’ve done with election laws in California. 

 

The Golden State is where Republican candidates went to bed on election night in November with leads in most of their competitive House races, only to lose in the ensuing weeks of vote counting. In Orange County, Young Kim was poised to become the first Korean-American woman in Congress, with a sizable lead on Election Day over her Democratic opponent. She lost by three percentage points. Republican Rep. Mimi Walters’s 6,074-vote lead on Nov. 6 turned into an 11,866-vote loss to Democrat Katie Porter.

 

 

The GOP wipeout came after the Democrats who dominate Sacramento passed laws aimed at greasing their voting machine. The project started in 2015 when California became the second state after Oregon to move to automatic voter registration. 

 

Can’t be bothered to register? California does it for you, automatically adding to its rolls any person who has any interaction with its Department of Motor Vehicles. The system is already a threat to ballot integrity, with the DMV acknowledging in September it had incorrectly registered 23,000 voters.

 

In 2016 California passed the Voter’s Choice Act, which allows counties to mail every voter a ballot. Lots of Californians use mail voting, though previously they had to request it. Now ballots arrive automatically, whether voters want one or not. Thirteen million California voters received ballots in the mail last year, compared to about nine million in 2014.

 

The biggest score for Democrats is a separate 2016 law pushed heavily by unions that legalized what’s known as ballot harvesting. This allows any person—union activists, canvassers, community organizers, campaign staff—to show up at homes and collect mail ballots on behalf of voters. 

 

California law also allows counting mail ballots postmarked or delivered on Election Day, as well as same-day registration and liberal use of provisional ballots. This year the Democratic vote totals piled up long after the polls closed. Fred Whitaker, chairman of the Orange County GOP, has estimated that an extraordinary 250,000 mail-votes were dropped off on Election Day thanks to harvesting.

 

All of this is carefully designed to enhance Democratic turnout. Media stories have detailed a sophisticated operation that pinpointed Democratic voters and deployed volunteers to harvest door-to-door. Republicans struggled to get conservatives to hand ballots over to strangers, and Democrats can’t be blamed for better organization.

 

But California law also creates opportunity for fraud and coercion. Voters in a 2017 special election for an open seat in the California state Assembly reported activists harassed them at their doors to fill out ballots for specific candidates and hand them over. 

 

This creates opportunities for harvesters to “help” voters complete their ballots, or even pay to finish them, and it’s easy for the unscrupulous to lose ballots they think may go for the wrong candidate. This is why ballot harvesting is illegal in many states, or at least limited to drop-offs by family members.

 

House Democrats are now moving to impose much of this on the other 49 states. Their For the People Act, or H.R.1, would require all states to adopt automatic voter registration based on names in state and federal agency databases. This means anyone receiving federal food stamps in, say, Ohio, would be automatically registered to vote. 

 

The bill also requires states to allow same-day and online voter registration. It mandates looser rules on provisional ballots, requires every state to provide two weeks of early voting, prohibits restrictions on mail voting, and limits states’ ability to remove voters from rolls. Oh, and it will require that the United States Postal Service deliver ballots for free. Vote harvesting isn’t in H.R.1 but give Democrats time.

 

All this is an affront to the American tradition of letting states set their own election rules. Few states have automatic registration, on the principle that voting is voluntary. Even liberal Slate magazine, in suggesting that the House bill would “Save American Democracy,” acknowledged that some of the bill might not survive Supreme Court scrutiny.

 

California has become a one-party state, and Democrats have used their dominance to make it even harder for Republicans to compete. Now they want to use their new House majority to do the same for the rest of America. The Senate can stop them for now, but look out in 2021.

 

Appeared in the January 19, 2019, print edition

TO ROBOT OR NOT TO ROBOT?

What country has the most robots power 10,000 manufacturing workers? USA? NO WAY…it is 7th. South Korea with 710, followed by Singapore with 658, Germany with 322, Japan with 308 and after Sweden and Denmark, the USA with 200. This from the International Federation of Robotics. Do robots cost people jobs? At first YES, while the displace workers. Later, NO, as they improve quality and lower costs. Replacing workers with robots and automation in general is a good idea when people costs (wages and benefits) are high. Watch for more robots in the future—some where you least expect them—in your grocery stores—checking for safety hazards (slip, trip and stumble) and checking stock to see that the right things are in the right places with the right prices on them. Coming soon to a store near you.

 

LONELINESS—THE NEXT EPIDEMIC?

People don’t join clubs like they used to. Then don’t congregate and talk to each other as much either. Now their noses are in their cell phone or tablet or streaming TV set. Loneliness causes many sed effects. it gets worse with older folks too—but it isn’t limited to the elderly. Young people are getting lonelier too. Loneliness and shorten a person’s life by as much as 15 years!So get out there and join a club, meet some people, do some good, gather and interact. You’ll be happy you did.

 

All the best

JOHN

 

 

 

 

THE ENTERPRISE--THE NEW YEAR 2019...ARE YOU READY FOR WHAT IT BRINGS?

STOCK MARKET VOLATILITY AND DEMOCRATS TAKING OVER THE HOUSE (PELOSI IS BACK)

2019 started out not with a bang, but with a whimper. If you are invested in the stock market, you have at least 10% less wealth than you did just a month ago. Depending on which stocks you held, it might be 20% less wealth. If you are on fixed income from investments, or no longer are earning much money, this is big hit. The natural reaction is SELL…which is exactly the wrong reaction. 

 

THE STOCK MARKET CONTINUES TO FLUCTUATE WILDLY, DRIVEN BY ECONOMIC NEWS AND ELECTRONIC PROGRAM TRADING

The US economy is still doing OK. Christmas was a good one. Consumers were confident and spending—wisely, but aggressively. However, the huge decline in the stock market, driven by myopic Fed policy, and computer driven program trading, has and will further dampen optimism.  When will it bottom? Will it rebound, or will it trigger and consumer pullback and threaten the long postponed recession.  The next few months will tell that story. The recession alarms are wailing, but business conditions are too good for them to overcome—for now!

 

FOLLOW THE BUFFETT RULE:

Warren Buffett had it right:buy low and sell high(in stocks and investments that is). Selling after the market plummets is doing just the opposite. Selling low locks in your decline in value and gives you less money to buy back when you think the market is beginning to rise again. When will it begin to rise? Nobody knows. Sooner or later it will, because the value underpinning these stocks didn’t evaporate. It was just believed to be overstated. Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t. Like driving through bad weather, rain or snow, a steady hand on the wheel will more likely get you through safely—but it’s very hard to sit there and do nothing.

 

ONE INVESTMENT IS A SURE THING: BOOKS, FOR YOURSELF AND ESPECIALLY AS GIFTS—THEY JUST KEEP ON GIVING!

ROCKETSHIPS & PARACHUTESCAN CHANGE THE LIVES AND CAREERS OF EVERYONE YOU GIVE A COPY.

Order multiple copies now: https://tinyurl.com/mariottiR-PA gift for that hard to buy for person—or for all those you care about. When the Christmas cookies or wine or fruit baskets are all gone, a good book will remain, and be even more valuable as time goes on. Spend 30 minutes with a cup of coffee or tea and read pieces of ROCKETSHIPS & PARACHUTES—You will find idea after idea to help you in your career, business and life.

 

NOTE: IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ ROCKETSHIPS & PARACHUTES,PLEASE POST A BRIEF REVIEW ONAMAZON.COM

Reviews matter, and the more good ones (5-star), the more likely the book will move up the popularity charts.

https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_wr_but_top?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=1545316406

 

THIS YEAR SIGNALED THE DEPARTURE OF TWO LEGENDARY AMERICAN RETAILERS: TOYS R US & SEARS. 

Sears has been declining for years. When the stores are all be gone Sears will join other legendary retailers as a chapter in America’s development as a consumer society. A trip to the now deserted stores will tell you all you need to know. It is the classic story of “creative destruction” written large, and strung out for a decade while Eddie Lampert’s ESL “picks the bones clean.” Everyone in retail is scrambling for pieces of the toy business. Walmart and amazon.com are likely winning that one based on their sheer size and scope.

 

WALMART AND AMAZON ARE BATTLING IT OUT EVERYWHERE

In case you haven’t noticed, Walmart is acquiring boutique store chains (Bonobos, Eliquis, ModCloth, et. al. and some larger product lines (most recentlyArt.com, the largest seller of framed art in America). While Walmart's iconic stores remain much the same, an upgrading is occurring—and faster than would be expected. In e-commerce, Walmart.comis still far behindamazon.comas thefirst choicefor on-line shoppers, butWalmart is now the dominant second choice and growingeveryday. While concentrating on keeping its stores and merchandise appealing to customers, Walmart is barreling into e-commerce going after the digital realm, and growing fast—maybe faster than amazon.com would like.

 

BIG BOX STORES ARE GETTING SMALLER—AND SO ARE MANY OTHERS.

Macy’s is rolling out smaller stores within stores. The amount of space needed to display goods is shrinking, because the other display—on the Internet—takes no real estate and offers a nearly infinite assortment, with competitive prices. One of these days, retailers will reinvent retail again, so the stores don’t need to be so large and full of merchandise that may or may not sell.

 

WORKERS CONTINUE TO BE IN SHORT SUPPLY (Especially truck drivers)

It seems that many recent graduates are still “underemployed,” but given their choices of what to study in college and their helicopter-parent coddled upbringing, they are learning that they are not “owed an opulent lifestyle.” Gen Z workers will have a disruptive effect on employers too. To save space I have included only the link to this article.It is a must read for anyone concerned about how this new generation will change so much in the American landscape. READ IT NOW! https://www.wsj.com/graphics/genz-is-coming-to-your-office/

 

DO YOU KNOW WHAT “GHOSTING” MEANS—IT WILL SOON BE MORE WIDELY DEFINED

Ghosting was a term invented to describe “no shows” on the dating scene. Now it is also becoming the term to describe missed interviews, or unannounced disappearing from jobs, work and even careers. People just don’t show up for their job. (or interviews), no contact, no warning, no notice—poof! They are just gone. Frustration is one cause. Failure to live up to (inflated) expectations is another. Restlessness due to any number of other causes (roommate “ghosted" on them and they can’t afford the rent alone) including thereal world expectation that workers must show up, on time for work, all the time, and actually work once they get there. Shocker!

 

WE ARE ON THE CUSP OF AN ERA WHEN RADICAL, DISRUPTIVE INNOVATIONS ARE EMERGING FASTER AND FASTER

Companies how fail to keep up or lead in the use of Artificial Intelligence, predictive analytics forecasting, and a endless variety of on-line, mobile devices to access, shop, and order and track goods. Soon a visit to the Dr. will be replaced by a virtual visit, on line, enhanced video visit with diagnostics done on smart phones and medications ordered electronically and delivered the next day. Full service Doctors will be in short supply, but Physician’s Assistants and Nurse Practitioners will be more numerous, and work under the direction (perhaps on-line, not in person) of a Doctor to consult on more complex cases and patients.

 

REMEMBER ROADMAPS? AND CARDBOARD BOARDING PASSES FOR AIRPLANES, AND MOVIE TICKETS, AND A HOST OF OTHER OLDER WAYS

Count how many people show their cell phone screen to the scanner to get into movies or board planes. Card swipes have morphed into insert or bump or scan.

 

LET’S GO GLOBAL TO DISCOVER STILL MORE 2019 ISSUES:

1) The US National Debt is headed for $20+ Trillionandand nobody in any position of importance is doing anything about it. Entitlements are eating the US budget alive. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid (fastest growing one, full of waste and fraud), Pension promised that cannot be funded or fulfills, and someday soon, Interest on the debt which will double from $500 billion to $1 trillion/year if interest rates jump to historic levels like 5%!Nobody in elected office dares suggest that there are only two solutions: 1) lower the costs by tightening and reducing benefits and changing the qualifying age and income levels and 2) raise taxes to pay for it all, which will have a dampening effect on the economy overall.WHILE TRUMP AND CONGRESS ARGUE OVER A FEW BILLION FOR “THE WALL,” THE ECONOMY IS “BURNING.”

 

Download ‘Means Tested’ Welfare Means Nothing in Practice - WSJ

 

2) CHINA WILL MISS IT’S ECONOMIC TARGET (+6.5% GROWTH) AGAIN. It is becoming serious about continuing to raise levels of debt to prop up economy that simply is running out of room to grow. Twenty percent (20%) of those big apartment buildings you see in pictures of Chinese cities are VACANT!The threat OF US-CHINA trade conflicts will further worsen China’s challenges. As it spends to clean up its air, water and land pollution that is killing its people, it struggles with more and more problems of developing countries. China’s is also continuing to be found culpable in hacking cyber-crimes, the latest involving chips & circuits hidden in products it makes to sell around the world. This is the latest insult piled on China’s theft of Intellectual Property for the US and other trading partners.

 

Yet China continues to spend on military and expansionist efforts to become the dominant country in the world—claiming vast swaths of the South China sea, dredging up and building islands fo military bases, building the “Great New Silk Road” (see map), and vying for routes across the Arctic, clears of ice by global warming (caused by China & India’s continued pollution). 

 

 

3) A 2000 year old religious institution is rocked to its foundation: The Catholic Church.The granddaddy of religions (which spawned most of the Protestant religions) has a moral problem of epic proportions—clergy, priests and even higher ranks, in huge numbers who are being found guilty of sex abuse of young males going back decades. Church hierarchy buried this problem by moving priests around, concealing their transgressions. Even Cardinals and Bishops, the church’s upper levels were guilty themselves of hiding or committing these heinous acts. This is especially troubling to the millions of Catholics around the world who were subject to some of the harshest rules and restrictions about their religious and personal lives. They now are leaning that the forced celibacy on members—priests and higher—and terrible unintended consequences. No simply solution is in sight and even the Pope and Cardinals, the Church top leaders, cannot agree on what to do next. Meanwhile Catholics leave the church in disgust. Sad.

 

ON A POSITIVE NOTE: TRUMP IS REVILED AND HATED BY MEDIA AND OPPONENTS, HIS ACTIONS HAVE HELPED AMERICA COMPETE AGAIN.

 

Download America Is Competitive Again - WSJ

 

OK, THAT’S PLENTY FOR NOW. 

I WANT TO WISH EVERYONE A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

 

NO MATTER HOW MANY OUR ISSUES AND PROBLEMS,THE USA IS WHERE EVERYONE WANTS TO COME,TO ENJOY THE FRUITS OF THEIR LABOR AND HAVE A GOOD LIFE.APPRECIATE WHAT WE HAVE. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

 

JOHN

 

THE ENTERPRISE--THE NEW YEAR 2019...ARE YOU READY FOR WHAT IT BRINGS?

STOCK MARKET VOLATILITY AND DEMOCRATS TAKING OVER THE HOUSE (PELOSI IS BACK)

2019 started out not with a bang, but with a whimper. If you are invested in the stock market, you have at least 10% less wealth than you did just a month ago. Depending on which stocks you held, it might be 20% less wealth. If you are on fixed income from investments, or no longer are earning much money, this is big hit. The natural reaction is SELL…which is exactly the wrong reaction. 

 

THE STOCK MARKET CONTINUES TO FLUCTUATE WILDLY, DRIVEN BY ECONOMIC NEWS AND ELECTRONIC PROGRAM TRADING

The US economy is still doing OK. Christmas was a good one. Consumers were confident and spending—wisely, but aggressively. However, the huge decline in the stock market, driven by myopic Fed policy, and computer driven program trading, has and will further dampen optimism.  When will it bottom? Will it rebound, or will it trigger and consumer pullback and threaten the long postponed recession.  The next few months will tell that story. The recession alarms are wailing, but business conditions are too good for them to overcome—for now!

 

FOLLOW THE BUFFETT RULE:

Warren Buffett had it right:buy low and sell high(in stocks and investments that is). Selling after the market plummets is doing just the opposite. Selling low locks in your decline in value and gives you less money to buy back when you think the market is beginning to rise again. When will it begin to rise? Nobody knows. Sooner or later it will, because the value underpinning these stocks didn’t evaporate. It was just believed to be overstated. Maybe it was; maybe it wasn’t. Like driving through bad weather, rain or snow, a steady hand on the wheel will more likely get you through safely—but it’s very hard to sit there and do nothing.

 

ONE INVESTMENT IS A SURE THING: BOOKS, FOR YOURSELF AND ESPECIALLY AS GIFTS—THEY JUST KEEP ON GIVING!

ROCKETSHIPS & PARACHUTESCAN CHANGE THE LIVES AND CAREERS OF EVERYONE YOU GIVE A COPY.

Order multiple copies now: https://tinyurl.com/mariottiR-PA gift for that hard to buy for person—or for all those you care about. When the Christmas cookies or wine or fruit baskets are all gone, a good book will remain, and be even more valuable as time goes on. Spend 30 minutes with a cup of coffee or tea and read pieces of ROCKETSHIPS & PARACHUTES—You will find idea after idea to help you in your career, business and life.

 

NOTE: IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ ROCKETSHIPS & PARACHUTES,PLEASE POST A BRIEF REVIEW ONAMAZON.COM

Reviews matter, and the more good ones (5-star), the more likely the book will move up the popularity charts.

https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_wr_but_top?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=1545316406

 

THIS YEAR SIGNALED THE DEPARTURE OF TWO LEGENDARY AMERICAN RETAILERS: TOYS R US & SEARS. 

Sears has been declining for years. When the stores are all be gone Sears will join other legendary retailers as a chapter in America’s development as a consumer society. A trip to the now deserted stores will tell you all you need to know. It is the classic story of “creative destruction” written large, and strung out for a decade while Eddie Lampert’s ESL “picks the bones clean.” Everyone in retail is scrambling for pieces of the toy business. Walmart and amazon.com are likely winning that one based on their sheer size and scope.

 

WALMART AND AMAZON ARE BATTLING IT OUT EVERYWHERE

In case you haven’t noticed, Walmart is acquiring boutique store chains (Bonobos, Eliquis, ModCloth, et. al. and some larger product lines (most recentlyArt.com, the largest seller of framed art in America). While Walmart's iconic stores remain much the same, an upgrading is occurring—and faster than would be expected. In e-commerce, Walmart.comis still far behindamazon.comas thefirst choicefor on-line shoppers, butWalmart is now the dominant second choice and growingeveryday. While concentrating on keeping its stores and merchandise appealing to customers, Walmart is barreling into e-commerce going after the digital realm, and growing fast—maybe faster than amazon.com would like.

 

BIG BOX STORES ARE GETTING SMALLER—AND SO ARE MANY OTHERS.

Macy’s is rolling out smaller stores within stores. The amount of space needed to display goods is shrinking, because the other display—on the Internet—takes no real estate and offers a nearly infinite assortment, with competitive prices. One of these days, retailers will reinvent retail again, so the stores don’t need to be so large and full of merchandise that may or may not sell.

 

WORKERS CONTINUE TO BE IN SHORT SUPPLY (Especially truck drivers)

It seems that many recent graduates are still “underemployed,” but given their choices of what to study in college and their helicopter-parent coddled upbringing, they are learning that they are not “owed an opulent lifestyle.” Gen Z workers will have a disruptive effect on employers too. To save space I have included only the link to this article.It is a must read for anyone concerned about how this new generation will change so much in the American landscape. READ IT NOW! https://www.wsj.com/graphics/genz-is-coming-to-your-office/

 

DO YOU KNOW WHAT “GHOSTING” MEANS—IT WILL SOON BE MORE WIDELY DEFINED

Ghosting was a term invented to describe “no shows” on the dating scene. Now it is also becoming the term to describe missed interviews, or unannounced disappearing from jobs, work and even careers. People just don’t show up for their job. (or interviews), no contact, no warning, no notice—poof! They are just gone. Frustration is one cause. Failure to live up to (inflated) expectations is another. Restlessness due to any number of other causes (roommate “ghosted" on them and they can’t afford the rent alone) including thereal world expectation that workers must show up, on time for work, all the time, and actually work once they get there. Shocker!

 

WE ARE ON THE CUSP OF AN ERA WHEN RADICAL, DISRUPTIVE INNOVATIONS ARE EMERGING FASTER AND FASTER

Companies how fail to keep up or lead in the use of Artificial Intelligence, predictive analytics forecasting, and a endless variety of on-line, mobile devices to access, shop, and order and track goods. Soon a visit to the Dr. will be replaced by a virtual visit, on line, enhanced video visit with diagnostics done on smart phones and medications ordered electronically and delivered the next day. Full service Doctors will be in short supply, but Physician’s Assistants and Nurse Practitioners will be more numerous, and work under the direction (perhaps on-line, not in person) of a Doctor to consult on more complex cases and patients.

 

REMEMBER ROADMAPS? AND CARDBOARD BOARDING PASSES FOR AIRPLANES, AND MOVIE TICKETS, AND A HOST OF OTHER OLDER WAYS

Count how many people show their cell phone screen to the scanner to get into movies or board planes. Card swipes have morphed into insert or bump or scan.

 

LET’S GO GLOBAL TO DISCOVER STILL MORE 2019 ISSUES:

1) The US National Debt is headed for $20+ Trillionandand nobody in any position of importance is doing anything about it. Entitlements are eating the US budget alive. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid (fastest growing one, full of waste and fraud), Pension promised that cannot be funded or fulfills, and someday soon, Interest on the debt which will double from $500 billion to $1 trillion/year if interest rates jump to historic levels like 5%!Nobody in elected office dares suggest that there are only two solutions: 1) lower the costs by tightening and reducing benefits and changing the qualifying age and income levels and 2) raise taxes to pay for it all, which will have a dampening effect on the economy overall.WHILE TRUMP AND CONGRESS ARGUE OVER A FEW BILLION FOR “THE WALL,” THE ECONOMY IS “BURNING.”

 

Download ‘Means Tested’ Welfare Means Nothing in Practice - WSJ

 

2) CHINA WILL MISS IT’S ECONOMIC TARGET (+6.5% GROWTH) AGAIN. It is becoming serious about continuing to raise levels of debt to prop up economy that simply is running out of room to grow. Twenty percent (20%) of those big apartment buildings you see in pictures of Chinese cities are VACANT!The threat OF US-CHINA trade conflicts will further worsen China’s challenges. As it spends to clean up its air, water and land pollution that is killing its people, it struggles with more and more problems of developing countries. China’s is also continuing to be found culpable in hacking cyber-crimes, the latest involving chips & circuits hidden in products it makes to sell around the world. This is the latest insult piled on China’s theft of Intellectual Property for the US and other trading partners.

 

Yet China continues to spend on military and expansionist efforts to become the dominant country in the world—claiming vast swaths of the South China sea, dredging up and building islands fo military bases, building the “Great New Silk Road” (see map), and vying for routes across the Arctic, clears of ice by global warming (caused by China & India’s continued pollution). 

 

 

3) A 2000 year old religious institution is rocked to its foundation: The Catholic Church.The granddaddy of religions (which spawned most of the Protestant religions) has a moral problem of epic proportions—clergy, priests and even higher ranks, in huge numbers who are being found guilty of sex abuse of young males going back decades. Church hierarchy buried this problem by moving priests around, concealing their transgressions. Even Cardinals and Bishops, the church’s upper levels were guilty themselves of hiding or committing these heinous acts. This is especially troubling to the millions of Catholics around the world who were subject to some of the harshest rules and restrictions about their religious and personal lives. They now are leaning that the forced celibacy on members—priests and higher—and terrible unintended consequences. No simply solution is in sight and even the Pope and Cardinals, the Church top leaders, cannot agree on what to do next. Meanwhile Catholics leave the church in disgust. Sad.

 

ON A POSITIVE NOTE: TRUMP IS REVILED AND HATED BY MEDIA AND OPPONENTS, HIS ACTIONS HAVE HELPED AMERICA COMPETE AGAIN.

 

OK, THAT’S PLENTY FOR NOW. 

I WANT TO WISH EVERYONE A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

 

NO MATTER HOW MANY OUR ISSUES AND PROBLEMS,THE USA IS WHERE EVERYONE WANTS TO COME,TO ENJOY THE FRUITS OF THEIR LABOR AND HAVE A GOOD LIFE.APPRECIATE WHAT WE HAVE. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

 

JOHN