HALF-FULL REPORT 08/02/19

(Mike Ryan is covering for Jack Wheeler while he attends the funeral of TTPer and dear friend, Alex Alexiev.)

What does a lefty yell when Russia! Russia! Russia! No longer works? How about Racism! Racism! Racism!

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Racism is the new Russia

The Mueller testimony unchained Trump, and he is letting loose on the lefties from all directions.

We are watching the Donald J. Trump we love, the master of the chessboard and maestro of human motivation herd the democrats off one cliff after another.

For example, Trump pointed out rats, trash, and crime in Baltimore and called it one of the nation’s largest heroin and fentanyl trafficking regions.

The past three democrat mayors were each charged with corruption. The 2018 federal budget gave Baltimore  $16 Billion in HUD housing grants. Where did the money go?

Elijah Cummings has represented about half of Baltimore and most of Howard County since 1996. He chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (Hah!) and is the ranking minority member on the cover-Dems-Butts Select Committee on Benghazi. Cummings is in Trump’s crosshairs.

Where did the money go? Maybe we should ask his wife, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings. She chairs the Maryland Democrat Party and owns the non-profit Center for Global Policy Solutions and the for-profit firm, Global Policy Solutions, LLC.

Her non-profit received millions in donations from organizations impacted by Rep. Cumming’s committee work. For instance, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical family was a substantial contributor until 2018.

Rep. Cummings took a hardline stance against Johnson & Johnson after the cash stopped flowing to his wife.

So how did the left respond to Trump’s observations and comments? Why they began to yell RACISM. They called everything racism from white toilet paper to Elmer’s School Glue. They spread that racism charge on everything like ketchup on fries.

Racism is being thrown around so much that it is rapidly losing meaning. Outrage Dilution is a disaster for the left.

Racism was the theme of both Dem debates. It was more prominent than healthcare.

 

Big Game Hunting

President Trump understands branding; he knows how to build a brand and how to destroy one. By taunting the left with tweets about Baltimore, and by ridiculing the incompetence of the “Squad,” Trump is whipping the left into a frenzy. According to postmodernist theory, a white man may not criticize the performance of a minority. If this rule is violated, then postmodernism loses its magic powers.

Trump is stampeding the herd. The man has balls of steel and appears to know precisely what he is doing when stepping on the racism third rail.

Archeologists claim that variations of stampeding herd animals over cliffs have been low-tech hunting methods for at least 6,000 years; maybe as long as 12,000 years. For years, conservatives have recognized the herd mentality of the left. Trump might be our first president to consider techniques to destroy entire herds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuyItiWes0U

Older “progressives” tend to see the world in terms of social class. Younger postmodernists are steeped in transformative theory from birth; they see the world in terms of participation. They believe every organization, all of government, healthcare, and private property should operate as cooperatives. Anything preventing the absolute equal input of opinion and distribution of results is racist.

Racism, per their world few, is anything outside the global social mean. Skin color, gender, income, skill, education, and everything else are homogenized.

So how is Trump jacking the herd into a frenzy? He is tweeting challenges to the new left’s world view regarding no criticism of performance. Conservatives read the tweets with barely a shrug, maybe a smirk. However, the left loses its collective mind.

 

Hey! Look at the Shiny Thing Over Here!

What is even better? While the left over rats in Baltimore, Mitch McConnell maneuvered the approval of 13 more Trump Federal judges. A very stable genius managed media while securing those nominations.

We also have an official Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper. He served as acting Secretary since 2017. Esper served as a Lieutenant Colonel with a background in Airborne and National Guard Infantry units before becoming chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation and later vice president of Raytheon.

Today, we begin Trump’s first joint House and Senate recess. Let the Recess Appointments Begin! August is going to be fun!

 

The Fed Lowered Rates

Jerome Powell announced a reduction of 0.25 basis points in the Federal Funds rate on July 31. The target range is 2.00 to 2.25%.

Second-quarter M2 was flat or indicated a slight decline in the money supply, an interesting phenomenon in a growing economy. The basis point adjustment should stabilize the M2 money supply.

I own a chemical engineering firm servicing heavy industrial clients in 38 countries. My observations:

Industrial production is exceeding 80% of theoretical throughout North America. North American mines, mills, and factories are effectively at full production, and marginal, less efficient production assets restarted and are online.

New steel-making capacity is under construction in the Midwest. Commodity steel prices are at the breakeven point for the least efficient producers, and they are deferring maintenance to try to make a profit. More productive firms lack pricing power because the mills running with minimal maintenance are temporarily attracting the market’s incremental demand.  The effect is sort of a tail wagging the dog, but it won’t last. The inefficient firms will not be able to force lower production costs for long. They are consuming their physical capital.

Payment terms have slipped. The standard INCO terms of 2/10 net 30 have moved to net 45 and net 90 days. It appears as though the large banks are attempting to slow the economy ahead of the 2020 election by pinching credit lines.

The last five industrial plants I visited had low inventories. Goods are moving from production lines directly to railcars. Avoiding small-lot orders allows production lines to stay on the run as long as possible. Economic lot size maximizes productivity but reduces the average market price.

There will be some industrial plant closure, and this will confuse people. Less efficient producers attempting to stay in the game by deferring maintenance will run out of cash. Prices for commodities will increase as a result. Already a pulp mill in Camus, Washington and another in Crossett, Arkansas have pulled the plug.

 

So No Chinese Steel, But it is Junk Anyhow

Let’s be blunt. Chinese steel is awful stuff. Falsified certifications of grade and purity are common, and contamination levels approach Russian steel. Their mills are as modern as anywhere else, but they have broad quality tolerances.

President Trump, as a builder, would know this. The United States has not lost much by restricting Chinese steel. The manufacturing efficiency and quality control within the American automobile industry improved by moving from cheap steel to more uniform steel.

Trump mentioned the low quality of Chinese “sand steel” during his rally in Cincinnati on Thursday. Over 12,000 people were inside the US Bank Arena with perhaps another 6,000 were outside. The huge crowd and the 98 degrees/high humidity ambient conditions overwhelmed the air conditioning, but people had that fire in the belly right through the end.

 

A Mega Maga Rally in Ohio

Trump spoke at length about urban problems; he took on the big blue cities and their democrat overlords. Fantastic!  Trump is not writing off the metropolitan areas.

He is forcing the left to defend decades of failure. His 2020 campaign is on the offense. We are watching permissionless innovation in action.

 

Putin is Scoring Sales

India purchased Russian S-400 missiles. These are Russia’s premier antiaircraft and antimissile SAMs. Presumably, they are to defend against Pakistan, China, and Iran, but they take India off the list of potential F-35 customers.

Putin also signed a contract with Bolivia to provide arms and assistance with a cross-continental railroad. Bolivia is being forced to open up their lithium flats to large scale mining. The lithium salt dry lake in southern Bolivia is the world’s largest deposit of raw material for batteries. It is interesting to see the Russians getting the deal and not the Chinese. Chinese engineers are all over Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Venezuela, but their workmanship is considered to be third-tier.

 

This Social Credit Thing? It Is Worse Than We Thought

https://nypost.com/2019/07/07/facing-the-facts-about-venezuelas-death-squads/

As many as 9,000 people have been shot, mostly men, and thousands of women and girls raped in Venezuela by Maduro’s death squads. He is using Google-designed social credit software, provided by China, to identify political dissenters. Don’t think for a minute that China’s social credit system is meant to make life better for Chinese citizens. The real face of Google and its plans to restructure societies is on display in VZ.

Thousands of protestors clashed with government forces in Hong Kong recently over the extradition of Hong Kong citizens to the mainland. They know how the new social credit system is a political control tool. Chinese troops are presently massing outside Hong Kong. Taiwan knows that they could be next.

 

Google Is Planning to Grab the Narrative

Our betters are holding a summer camp sponsored by google at the Verdura Resort in Sicily. About 400 “influencers” are in attendance to discuss global warming. There will be a tremendous effort by Google to sway voters against Trump using climate change and imminent disaster argument.

 

Hey, I Know That Beach

Verdura’s beach is over one mile long and has significance to my family. My grandfather, as a ten-year-old boy, was collecting seaweed on that beach in 1898 and packing it into baskets on the family donkey. Tunisian pirates kidnapped him and sold him to Moslems as a slave.

My grandfather was forced to work as a stevedore before encountering a sympathetic American ship captain that smuggled him to New York.

The captain turned him over to a Sicilian business organization on the New York Docks where they put him to work as a fresh fruit cart vendor. He eventually owned several railroad ice cars and brokered produce between California and the Midwest. His business is now part of Sysco Foods.

He never learned to read, and yet he made it in America. Up from slavery in one generation.

My grandfather was an actual slave. All this talk of reparations for the children of generations of non-slaves living in this most magnificent land of opportunity is pure bunk. There is nothing in America holding people back beyond their attitude.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PRZiFzonUo

 

Pete is Getting Inside Information

Pete Buttigieg, Obama’s horse in the race, is investing heavily in the climate crisis argument. While other candidates debate healthcare and racism, Buttigieg is all about climate. Trump is nullifying racism, making climate change the overwhelming argument for the Dems.

Social media has already begun a massive deplatforming of people and videos with views contrary to a climate change catastrophe. If Google is unable to defeat Trump, Google stands to be regulated or broken up. If they can beat Trump, then their social credit system will give them the power of life and death over billions of people. The stakes are enormous, as they are for control of the world.

Tulsi Gabbard is perhaps second to Pete Buttigieg in long-term grooming for her run for president. She served as a medical records technician in Iraq, earning a combat medical badge. She has moved purposely through her career. If you missed it, below is the exchange between Gabbard and Harris during the second debate. She landed some severe blows but will not be part of further dem debates. You see, she is not the chosen one.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfp_IIdVnXs

Tulsi Gabbard could be the new Ron Paul. She does not fit with the Dems, and her Hindu faith and social perspectives are problematic for Republicans. Ron Paul and other Libertarians have spent many millions attempting to win the presidency, but they never get the brass ring. Their greatest strength is influencing the national debate and not running the country.

 

Trump Looks After the Home Team

President Trump negotiated the release of A$AP Rocky from a Swedish jail. His real name is Rakim Athelaston Mayers, and he is a rap singer who was involved in a street brawl with Moslem migrants June 30^th in a Stockholm no-go zone.

The case is not dismissed, but Trump drew attention to the charges filed against A$AP instead of charges filed against the Moslem perps. The Swedes might have feared social unrest by charging migrants.

Trump makes it difficult for the Racist! Racist!  Racist! Screams of the Dems to stick.

President Trump ordered the release of Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher from pretrial detention in his court-martial hearing a few months ago so that he could organize his defense against charges of murdering a captured ISIS fighter.

He is a two-time Bronze Star recipient. Gallagher was acquitted of murder charges this week but convicted of unlawfully posing for photos with a dead body. He received a demotion in rank and pay.

President Trump chastised his prosecutors for overreach and misconduct. Obama’s holdover JAG Corps has some ‘splaining to do.

We near the end and conclude that this was an excellent week for the good guys. The bad guys are sticking to a predictable script and have yet to show much innovation.

 

To Know the Enemy is to Defeat the Enemy

We can beat a static foe in the general election if we understand their buttons, levers, and tactics. So let us look at one of the new left’s core assumptions:

They believe in the validity and superiority of MMT. Modern Monetary Theory over other economic theories. In summary, it is bul#sh#t, but they believe in it because it supports the transformative approach of maximum social participation.

George Soros is financing Cenk Uygur’s group, The Justice Democrats, to promote MMT through the Squad. It is also Buttigieg’s underlying theory suggesting coordination between Uygur and Buttigieg.

MMT posits that spending equals income and if a sovereign nation prints its own fiat currency, then debt does not matter. The treasury can print unlimited money without Federal Reserve involvement and without the need to balance credits with debits.

The economy becomes “unchained” by printing money as far and wide as possible with a few caveats. No one, for any reason, is allowed to save money under MMT.

All income must be spent or returned to the government as a tax. Wealthy persons should expect 99% income tax rates. Hyperinflation is avoided by taxation and by having the “correct” people in Congress.

Congress, not the Executive, and especially not the individual, will direct all economic activity. MMT is for the good of all, doncha see?

Hipsters call this Democratic Socialism. It is not the same socialism of the progressives.

The new lefts believe themselves entitled to upper-middle-class lifestyles and expect to achieve it by having their accounts credited monthly with as much money as they can spend.

MMT is why the Dems stood before the world during the debates and seriously proposed a $130 Trillion annual budget.

They believe they can achieve their utopia by ending double-entry accounting.  After all, the white man invented double-entry accounting to keep the third world down.

They believe in MMT as a cult. They can’t be reasoned with because they believe rationalism is an artificial construct like double-entry accounting.

If they win the White House and Congress, then Soros will short government bonds and become a trillionaire. The same action that cost him a fortune the night Trump won.

We are winning.

 

Mike Ryan is an engineering consultant to the primary metals, fibers, and chemicals industries.