Keeping consumer spending alive and well

Consumer spending is 70% of American GNP.  That's a lot and it is what keeps the US economy humming.  And consumer spending has its ups and downs.  When it is up, things are good all over.  When it is down people are thrown out of work, business profits disappear and gloom covers the land.  The financial pundits at least understand this, and they have devised theories to account for swings in consumer sentiment and even indexes of consumer sentiment that claim to predict consumer behavior. 
   Most things consumers spend money on are discretionary.  They don't have to buy a new car, at least not this year.  They can postpone buying a new house.  They can put off home maintenance projects like new siding, remodeling the kitchen, or reroofing.  They can skip back to school buying and send the kids to school in hand-me-downs.  They can put Santa in the closet and put the Grinch in charge of Christmas buying.  About the only things consumers absolutely have to buy are groceries, utilities, and the rent.  When consumers feel stressed, they cut back spending as much as they can, which sends the larger economy into a tailspin. 
   A powerful driver of consumer spending is the job market.  If the consumers fear loosing their jobs, they will cut back everywhere they can.  If they feel their jobs are safe and secure, then they are willing to spend on stuff.  Obama and Obamacare made everyone fear layoffs which kept GNP growth down around 1%.  With Trump everyone feels secure in their jobs and we have GNP growth up around 3%. 
    Not to panic the American consumer.  Bad things happen if you do.

Effective new car advertising

They been running this one on Fox News several times a day.  Beige SUV pulls up a steep driveway and stops at the front door.  Scene has the color canceled out for a nice arty black and white look. Woman gets out, opens front door , enters her house to find it is a mess.  All the children are in the living room playing mess making games.  Room is super untidy.  Woman backs out the front door, gets back in her SUV and reclines the driver's seat. Closes eyes.
Message to us car buyers, our SUV interior is more comfortable than your child infested house.  And, you Mom get little pleasure from your children and you don't like keeping house.  So buy a Lincoln SUV to get away from it all parked in your driveway. 
   I think it might have been a Lincoln Navigator but they never mentioned the product name on air. 
   This ad is REALLY going to motivate me (a guy) or any chick I ever knew to buy a Lincoln Navigator.  Or any other Lincoln SUV. 
   Can you say "Turnoff"?

Bipartisan means everybody gets lots of money.

The house needed both Democratic and Republican votes to pass the federal budget and avoid yet another federal government shutdown.  So, the Republicans got a big boost (maybe $100 billion) in defense spending, and funding for the Mexican border wall.  Democrats got $75 million (chicken feed really) for a gun control study group.  At least that is all I have heard about.  I daresay a good look at the budget will find more spending and a good helping of pork.  But the newsies are all hypnotized by the Great Impeachment Show (GIS) so we don't really know what all got slipped into the humongous federal budget.  Plus the entire budget is so big and complicated that the newsies would not understand it.  Few newsies can do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, even with a smart phone to help out. 
   We should not be passing great big fund everything bills.  Those are just to big and complicated for anyone the understand what is really going on.  We ought to pass one funding bill for every Federal department, defense, state, treasury, homeland defense, education, health and human services, and so on and so on.  The smaller one department spending bills are small enough for one person to understand and tell us voters what is really going down. 

Not impressed with Democrat debate

Timing was not ideal, coming as it did while the smoke was still settling from the Trump impeachment.  They were all eloquent, spoke well (except maybe Biden).  They all supported far left ideas, of the more free stuff sort.  Free college, forgive college debt, medicare for all, and a bunch of other stuff that I forget.  Some of 'em even talked about new taxes on "the rich" to pay for all that free stuff.  All of 'em claimed that the US economy was unfair to just about everybody while the Trump boom is in full swing.  At least the PBS anchors doing the questions were pretty good, the questions were tough and relevant. 
   Side issue.  Where does the impeachment go from here?  They say the Senate cannot deal with the issue until the House (Nancy!) submits the paperwork.  Which sounds reasonable.  Nancy adjourned the House, won't be back until after New Year.  So The great Impeachment Show (GIS)  goes on, and gets yet more TV coverage.  Could this be Nancy's plan, drag things out as long as possible?  Certainly the Senate would try to finish the impeachment off as quickly as possible.  Then it's gone and we could move on to real public business.

The gravitational constant is increasing

Gravitational Force F = G * (m1 * m2) / r squared.   In plain English, gravitational force is equal to the gravitational constant times the product of the two masses involved divided by the square of the distance between the two masses.
  When G increases, gravitational force increases. 
   Which is the only explanation I have for the increased number of thing I drop.  Must be the increased gravity is sucking them right out of my hands to crash on the floor.  Couldn't be that I am loosing my grip.

US House changes rules of debate on every single bill

The "Rules Committee" is doing the great impeachment show on Fox today.  The voice over explains the rules committee make up a new and different rule for every bill going to the floor of the House.  This ain't right.  Every bill ought to be treated the same, which means the same "rule" on every single House bill.  No Rules Committee greasing the skids for or against a bill.  Treat them all the same, that's fair.  This special-rule-for-every-bill scheme is clearly unfair. 

Representatives are supposed to vote their district

Discussion on Fox TV of all places about some 17 odd democratic reps elected from districts that Trump carried in 2016.  The tone of the anchor person implied that any true blue democrat ought to vote with the party, to impeach Trump.  Heaven forbid that they ignore the Congressional party and vote for what their district wants.  This from a Fox anchor person.  In case you are not following the great impeachment show closely, 17 House votes is probably enough to defeat impeachment in the House. 
   Speaking as an elected NH senator, I under stand my job to be voting for what my constituents want.  And if I don't vote my district, I expect my voters will vote me out of office, with the election just a year away.  Fortunately, in most cases, my own views match the views of my constituents.  That must have something to do with my getting elected in the first place. 
   Anyhow, the great impeachment show will probably run thru Christmas and into next year.

Democrats release 659 page "Impeach Trump" document

Ayup.  I am really going to read all 659 pages.  And should I do so (not likely), what will I know after reading that much lawyer gobble-de-gook.  I think the Democrats have missed something here. 

FISA court[s] is/are rubberstamps

The the cops, the FBI and the intelligence agencies submit thousands of requests to snoop on citizens and foreigners every year.  The FISA court[s] approve all but a half dozen or so.  In short, the cops and intel agencies get to snoop anyone they please, anytime they please.  And a FISA snooping license allows them to tap your phone, intercept your email,  see your Facebook page, and do other  stuff that we don't even know about.
   Since the FISA court[s] approve nearly all snooping requests why have them at all.  Just let the cops and the intel agencies get on with it.  The results are the same as we have right  now.
   What we really ought to do is require the cops and the agencies submit their snooping requests to real courts, the kind that do business five days a week and try real criminal cases, in front of real juries, and sentence real criminals.

I'm not impressed. Is anyone impressed???

The Democrats invented a new one "Obstruction of Congress" to throw at Trump.  First time I ever heard of this what-cha-may-callit.  They asked the administration for pounds of paperwork and live witnesses to grill in front of the TV cameras.  The administration refused the requests, probably citing executive privilege.  I did not catch just what reasons the administration gave for refusals.    For the other count they are going for "Abuse of power".  They cite the famous Ukraine telephone call. 
   No real crime (like breaking and entering) was cited.  Both counts are essentially government infighting counts.   When the US is passing out foreign aid we often ask the lucky recipient to do a few things.  If you want a handout from US taxpayers you need to be responsive.  The Congress always asks for a ton of documents, it's easier than doing their own investigating.  The administration always refuses to deliver papers except under court order.  Things have worked this way in the federal government for a long time.  I don't think we have enough here to impeach a president.  I'm thinking there are a lot of people out there who feel the same way.  I wonder if there are enough to stop it. 

Do-Nothing US House claims "Progress" on USMCA

The Democrats are saying they have made progress on the USMCA agreement. This is a NAFTA enhancement or replacement that the Trump administration managed to negotiate with Canada and Mexico last year.  It has been sitting in the US House for a year while the House plays around with fun and games and impeachment.  Everyone, even AFL-CIO, thinks it ought to pass. 

   The Democratic claim to have amended the bill and made it better sounds like fake news to me.  This is an international treaty, agreed to by Canada and Mexico.  I don’t think the US house has the power to modify a treaty without getting Canada and Mexico to say OK.  Which they probably won’t.  Any changes dreamed up by Democrats in the US House will make things better for the US and worse for our trading partners. 

   So to show that the do-nothing House is actually doing something, the Democrats now say they are "making progress".  I say they are do-nothings until they actually vote to pass the USMCA.  Which they should have done a year ago.

Origin of Species. House cats are a species.

Those small furry carnivores who chase mice really ought to be classified into two distinct species.  House cats have taken up with humans and get food and shelter from the humans, and alley cats who live out of doors.  Anyone can see that the house cats are doing better than the alley cats.  House cats are well fed, fur is nice and clean, they stay indoors, warm and dry during bad weather.  Alley cats are skinny and ill fed, their coats are in terrible condition, and they have to survive out of doors in snow storms. 
   We used to think that house cats adopted their first humans back in ancient Egyptian times, say 5 to 6  thousand years ago.  Lately a grave was excavated on Cyprus with a cat buried along with its human.  This site was dated to 9000 years ago.  But  either date is not all that long ago, compared to dogs who have been domesticated for 50,000 years. 
   House cats, in addition to having the right attitude about people, have a couple of things that endear them to us humans.  First of all, purring.  We find  a purring cat, sitting in our laps, creates a wonderful feeling of peace and warmth.  And cats have the finest, silkiest coats of any common animal.  It is a pleasure to stroke a cat, far more so than to stroke a dog which has a much coarser coat.  Just how cats managed to evolve both purring and their silky coats, thousands of years before they adopted their first human, is a mystery that evolutionary theory fails to explain. 

Pearl Harbor was a massive Japanese screw up

The United States was solidly isolationist in the 1940's.  We were determined not to get sucked into overseas wars, ever again.  Even Franklin Roosevelt, perhaps the strongest US president of the 20th century, could not move the country toward intervention.  He tried, and he could not do it. 
   Nothing the Japanese were doing in China and Southeast Asia could have caused America to do more than send them diplomatic nastygrams.  No way were we going to do anything of a military nature about Japanese aggression in China.  After the Germans defeated and occupied  the Netherlands and France in 1940, the French and Dutch colonies were pretty much up for grabs.  Japan could have kept on going after the American oil embargo by getting oil from the Dutch East Indies where the crude oil was so pure that it could be pumped into the tanks of warships without any refining. 
   Type 1 less provocative method, send a fleet of tankers with a strong (like really strong) naval escort and some bank guys with a good strong checkbook.  Send the bankers ashore to negotiate a sale of oil. 
   Type 2 more provocative method, send a fleet and land marines and take over the place.  We would have screamed and cried and threatened to hold our breath, but we would not have intervened militarily to save a Dutch colony.  We did not approve of colonies.  We still don't.
   As long as the Japanese did not mess with American possessions like the Philippines or the US Navy, they could have done pretty much anything they liked in China and Indonesia.  Japan's diplomats and intel people failed to clue the Japanese government into the real state of affairs in America at the time.  (Or the government failed to listen to their diplomats and intel people.)
   As it was, Pearl Harbor total destroyed American isolationism, we got good and mad, smashed the Nazis, and nuked Japan, after sending her fleet to the bottom.  Total defeat and occupation.  War outcomes don't get much worse than that.

"Identity Politics" is divisive and destructive of liberty.

A Democratic party speciality.  Appeal to any kind of minority group you can think of (or invent). Do pitches aimed at blacks, Hispanics, gays, men, women, union workers, Indians, non-union workers, anybody.  The essence of these tailored pitches is always "We will do nice things for you, at the expense of everybody else."  and "You deserve some nice things to make up for past inequities."  Identity politics violates Jefferson's statement "All men are created equal".  Identity politicians are advocating unequal treatment of each little identity group.
   Proper politicians advocate for things that improve life for everyone, not just some identity group.  "We are all Americans together" is a better thing to say.