Tuesday, February 06, 2018

This is Taiwan right now after a 6.4 magnitude earthquake.

I am sure China and the region is beginning a response. Let's hope the casualties continue to be few, but, this level of devastation means the issues of food, water and shelter are an emergency priority. There will be many displaced people.

The Pacific rim has been extremely active. With any of these earthquakes, there is always worries for tsunamis. I can't see where one has been issued for Taiwan, so perhaps it was a minor disturbance at sea.

Several high-rise buildings sustained severe damage, with this one tilting heavily

Aftershocks (click here) continue to rattle Taiwan after a strong earthquake that killed at least two people and injured more than 200 others.

The powerful 6.4-magnitude tremor struck at 23:50 (15:50 GMT) about 20km (12 miles) off the island's east coast.

Residents in the city of Hualien have been told to stay away from their damaged homes, and about 800 have taken shelter in community buildings.

Hualien, a popular tourist hub, is home to about 100,000 people.

Images from the city showed tilted structures, scattered debris and extensive damage to roads in the area. Among the several badly damaged buildings was a hospital, local media said....

This is less than a day of activity. Alaska just had a 7.4 at the end of January. The tsunami was 4 to 5 feet high.
The only (click here) military parade ever conducted in Washington, DC is that of a flag-draped caisson. I fully expect that never to change!
Rep. Chris Stewart drank the Cool-Aide. There is nothing anyone can do about that. There is nothing anyone should want to do about that. "The Memo" is an interesting document because the Republicans are lost without a Hillary effigy. 

Do you know Chelsea Clinton is a millionaire many times over. I can't understand who the Republicans are more afraid of Hillary or her daughter if Chelsea turns to politics.

Look, if a FISA court is handing down decisions for surveillance because of political affiliations or not then we are really in trouble.

Once again. US Senator John McCain and Mr. Steele are people that carry brevity in the FISA Court. There is no issue of politics if the court is making a decision. Senator McCain's name alone is going to get a FISA judge's attention. So, if the FISA court was given the facts that Steele had information that Senator McCain valued, then, OF COURSE, the warrant had to be issued.

There is a missing piece here. US Senator John McCain would not go to the FBI with a Steele document because he wanted to play politics. Either one believes in the integrity of John McCain or not. Obviously, Rep. Stewert is one of the Trump minions that doesn't think John McCain should have been a POW, okay?

I still want to know from Comey who leaned on him to go to the media about the Weiner laptop? Anyone know? I find it odd that Comey would simply bypass standard agency policy and override the directions of the then Attorney General Lynch. I found the entire episode strange and my initial gut reaction was, "Who leaned on Comey?"

Either Comey was possessed by Nunes demons or he is a real idiot. I cannot believe Comey simply acted without authority because he could. Something had to motivate him or the USA simply believes tall white men make batter FBI Directors.

If Comey acted on his own for personal political preferences, then the USA has a far bigger problem than Wall Street.

Ambition to space travel is useless, if there aren't real answers to protect human life and the biosystems that support it.

Watching those Space X boosters land is pretty darn exciting. Congrats, Space X. Another will land at sea. Amazing.

Space X has a really incredible and unique mission. Wow.

I hate to burst the bubble for Elon about his Mars delivery of his car. The intensity of sunlight is less than Earth. A new form of solar panel to intensify available sunlight will be needed to charge it and drive it. Think about it.

My understanding is Elon's car will slingshot around the sun to gain acceleration to speed up the trip to Mars. Very exciting stuff. 

The late Gene Roddenberry helped launch Elon's dream. Fantastic. I hope all goes well. If I remember correctly, it was Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home (click here) where slingshotting around the sun engaged time travel.

While I think this is a very interesting venture, it still needs specifics about human space travel. One of the biggest concerns of scientists out of the Goddard Space Center was the radiation met in space by human beings unable to live through it's intensity and speed. Slingshotting around the sun has to raise that intensity as well. 

Elon needs to mimic the Ozone Layer when travelling outside the safe life giving Earth. It probably can be done. A manmade Ozone Layer to encircle space travelers. Even travel to Earth's moon is somewhat safer than the solar wind of Sol. 

An Ozone Layer surrounding a planet that has none is a very different animal. The physics are completely different.

Morally, if humans are serious about space travel to far away places, the first step is to create a ship that is safe and supports human life all by itself. A ship that can conduct it's own research into events that could destroy their lives. If space travel is to venture to living on other Earth-like planets there needs to be a moral retreat in the way of a space ship that sustains their lives when nothing else does. The ambition has to be tamed by a morality that values life over adventure.

Regardless, the low interest rates for the past ten years, the average American is still suffering from 2008.

Housing Starts (click here)

U.S. Bureau of the Census and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Housing Starts: Total: New Privately Owned Housing Units Started [HOUST], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; February 6, 2018.

If one recalls, the financial sector declared they recovered less than a year after the Great Recession of 2008, but, the actual economic return to the average American never arrived. The unemployment rate does not prove there is an end to the recession of the American people. The ONLY thing the unemployment rate reflects is a far less paid labor market that finds it necessary to work more than one job to sustain their families.

Other than Seattle, Washington where the minimum wage reaches to $15 per hour, the purchasing of homes is anemic. One place the Democrats can investigate with guaranteed worries, "Who is actually purchasing USA land that drive prices in areas where the middle class if failing?"

Unions have never been more important. They need to dig in and cause Wall Street a great deal of stress. The ONLY way the USA is going to fully recover from the 2008 Great Recession is for Unions to demand greater wages and increase Middle Class wealth to purchase homes and afford mortgages.

The idea housing is expensive because there is a housing shortage is an odd reality, whereby the DEMAND is not there because Americans can't afford to purchase a home. First Time Homeowners are not coming to the surface. Americans continue to lack financial equity and they are ageing every day.

January 30, 2018

Washington — U.S. home prices rose sharply in November, (click here) with Seattle once again leading the way with the nation's steepest price increase.

A shortage of homes on the market is fueling the rapid rise in housing costs, experts say.


Standard & Poor's said Tuesday that its S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national average home price index increased 6.2 percent in November from a year earlier after climbing 6.1 percent in October.

Seattle saw a 12.7 percent price increase, followed by Las Vegas at 10.6 percent and San Francisco at 9.1 percent. Washington, D.C., prices rose just 3.3 percent, lowest among the 20 metropolitan areas measured.

The national housing index has registered annual gains of 5 percent or more for 16 months, and Seattle has seen the steepest increases for most of that period....

USA home sales are tumbling, but, Ryan receives record half a billion for 2018 elections for the policies the Republicans are passing. There is something very wrong with this picture. The people's government is no longer benefitting them.

January 24, 2018
By Josh Boak

Washington — U.S. home sales slid 3.6 percent in December, (click here) as rising prices and a declining number of available properties stifled purchases.

The National Association of Realtors said Wednesday that sales of existing homes fell last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million units. Despite the monthly setback, sales totaled 5.51 million in 2017. That was the highest level since 2006, yet it marked a slight 1.1 percent gain from 2016 as the months’ supply of properties on the market fell to the lowest level ever recorded by the Realtors.

The housing slump is more than fear of 2008, it is about the working poor and abandoned generation of "Occupy Wall Street." At the very least Democratic lawmakers should be trying AirBNB to find the story behind the people renting their homes. It is an eye-opener. They are good people; that is not the issue; but, if they are the Millenials there are multiple incomes into the household to achieve the American Dream.

The strengthening U.S. economy helped to lift home sales last year, but homeowners are choosing not to list their properties despite the rising prices and relatively low mortgage rates. The lack of homes for sale speaks to the lingering aftershocks from the 2007 housing crisis.... 

The American Dream is dying or already DOA. In addition to the stagnation of housing sales are our senior citizens using reverse mortgages to make ends meet. These homes are not available for sales. There are a lot of interesting financial tools within the housing market and it is hurting the American people.

...Just 1.48 million homes were listed for sale at the end of December, a 10.3 percent drop over the past year. There were just 3.2 months’ supply of homes on the market, the lowest level since the Realtors began tracking the figure in 1999....

Forbes has noted the financial sector benefits from government shut downs.

The government shutdowns are more than an inconvenience. The shutdowns effect the USA economy which extends into international economies and in turn to the reliability of the USA at all as a financial partner. The current shutdowns place the USA in the column of "banana republics," except with the financial sector that enjoys the lapse of time the government can audit their wrongdoing. What good are laws if they are a joke in the final analysis? The markets don't shutdown because the USA government can't conduct the people's business.

When the financial sector wins against the governance of a country, it impacts the reliability of doing business. The Plutocrats believe they can provide the only governance needed in any country; in the USA Trump's Plutocratic regime is proving Wall Street can't govern.

The Democrats have a very difficult role in these shutdowns in the USA because they are charged with the priority of protecting the people of the USA. I think pointing to the fact the Republicans have a majority in both the Senate and House and the Executive Branch is their best defense. The Democrats will not participate in passing laws that will harm the people of the USA. "The Dreamers" are important to the USA and it's best future. There is no reason for the Democrats to surrender to Republican politics when it harms real people living their lives as best they can. The Democrats have to place the people of the USA first in their own priorities.

The Republicans are not living in the real world, that was validated by "The Memo." The Republican hubris is taking over the party as it's governance and it is very dangerous. It is the obligation of the Democrats to end the hubris of the Repubicans and govern. The USA is not about happy Plutocrats skimming their financial cushion from the USA Treasury, it is and always has been about responsible governance of the majority of people. That governance includes the innocent that find themselves confused about the intentions of the only country they know as their own.

January 22, 2018
By Jacob Frenkel

...Yet other extremely important (click here) but not defined in the “performing emergency work” category functions either slow or get shelved during a federal shutdown.

In the financial services industries, that includes banks and brokerage firms, there are ongoing audit functions entirely unrelated to enforcement programs. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent bureau within Treasury, as well as the Federal Reserve, for example, will have auditors or examiners conducting regularly scheduled audits and examinations of the banking institutions they supervise. Similarly, the SEC’s Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations conducts inspections and examinations at broker-dealers, mutual funds, hedge funds and investment advisors.  One collateral yet immediate downstream effect is active audits, inspections and examinations last week – whether at the beginning, middle or end – may have come to a screeching halt, absent an emergency scenario associated with the work. Active conference rooms this past Thursday and Friday may be or soon be dark, with auditors, inspectors and examiners absent, possibly for weeks....

Child deaths have increased during this Flu Season. This is not the time to shut down the CDC or FDA. The shutdowns are costing lives.

... And a Washington Post story explained that the effect of a federal shutdown on the Department of Health and Human Services includes the Centers for Disease Control suspending its flu-tracking program and the National Institutes of Health not admitting new patients to clinical trials relating to life-threatening illnesses.  Similarly, the Food and Drug Administration will stop routine inspections and laboratory research.

In 2017, as the USA dollar was losing value, the Chinese yuan was gaining value.

When national Reserve Banks are bringing on the Chinese yuan, there is plenty of room for worry about the lost reputation of the USA's international profile.

January 16, 2018

...For the past 70 years, (click here) the US dollar has been the world’s dominant currency. Two-thirds of the world’s $6.9 trillion allocated foreign exchange reserves are held in US dollars. The yuan took a major step towards broader international adoption in 2016 when the IMF decided to include it in the basket of currencies that make up the Special Drawing Right, an alternative reserve asset to the dollar.

Still, as of the third quarter of 2017, just over 1% of foreign exchange reserves were held in yuan, according to the latest data from the IMF. Now, there are signs that this is about to increase....

...The Chinese yuan hit a two-year high against the US dollar this week, after the German Bundesbank said that it would include the yuan in its reserves for the first time. “The notable development from the European point of view over the past few years has been the growing international role of the renminbi in global financial markets,” Andreas Dombret, a member of the central bank’s executive board, reportedly said at a conference in Hong Kong (paywall). The decision was made last year and no investments have been made yet, as preparations are still in process. The French central bank then revealed that it already held some reserves in yuan....

Quid Pro Quo

Ryan admitted the half a trillion is a payment for the tax legislation. Minority Leader Pelosi needs to file ethics violations for every member of the US House that accepts the "dirty money."

Ryan needs to donate the 'pay off' to charity as soon as possible. That has to be a record donation to any political party. It is highly unethical. The Kochs donated the monies with the intention of corrupting the US House Republicans to continue to deregulate and fund Koch Wealth so the Republicans can receive more of the same.

It is blatant corruption. The only such power players are put back in their place among "the people." The Kochs do not own the USA unless the Republicans hand it to them. There is no need for an investigation. It is already done and it is already admitted.


January 28, 2018
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee

Indian Wells, Calif. — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) (click here) credited the network of billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch for being “such a critical part of our historic success in 2017,” highlighting its support for the tax code overhaul.

“Your network has been instrumental for allowing us to reach so many milestones that have long been talked about, but until this year, have not been achieved,” Ryan said in a three-minute video message aired to hundreds of Republican mega-donors attending a three-day meeting here.

“And because of your help, we have been able to take the ball and run with it,” he said.

Ryan rattled off policy priorities for 2018 that align with the influential Koch network’s goals, including deregulation and an overhaul of the criminal-justice system....

Part of the criminal-justice agenda of the Republicans is legalising racial profiling. There are reasons the FBI is in the cross hairs of the Republican Party. They are zealots. The acceptance of monies for legislative favors to donors proves that statement. The power to reform any aspects of the USA federal government is completely in the wrong hands.

December 30, 2017
By Mary Papenfuss

Former Sheriff David Clarke (click here) abused his authority when he ordered the mistreatment and intimidation of a fellow passenger on a flight to Milwaukee in January, according to a newly revealed FBI search warrant affidavit, because Clarke assumed the man was showing disrespect toward the right-wing Donald Trump booster.

The affidavit, which had requested a search of Clarke’s private email account, was revealed as part of a filing in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin on Thursday. It’s unclear if it indicates continued interest by the FBI or just details information from months earlier.

In May, federal prosecutors informed Clarke’s attorney that they weren’t going to pursue charges against him over his encounter with passenger Dan Black. But according to the affidavit, filed in March, investigators for the Audit Services Division of the Milwaukee County controller’s office determined as part of its own investigation that Clarke had “used his official position as sheriff of Milwaukee County in excess of his lawful authority to direct his deputies to stop and question Black without legal justification.”...

Why is the Republican legislative agenda wrong? Because there is no research to back it up. It is all populism for no reason except to have the Republican Party exist. The Republican Party are beneficiaries and not fiduciaries of the public trust.