Trump Slump

The last handful of days have been a little bit of heart-in-mouth time for some traders on today's market, as record sell-offs have been occurring, causing as of just today the largest drop in points in the Dow's history--which is not really saying a lot, yet. This probably is reminiscent for some of the point drop in September 2008, but that had been building for some time, and had a lot of other poor indicators--I don't know if this is the same thing at all. I don't think it's directly ascribable to Trump, although he likes to take credit for the economy, so...

Job creation has slowed here in the US--but that's not surprising as we are nearly at full-employment, and wages are going up, which did not just start happening in the Trump era, thanks, but when labor starts to have an edge, capital worries. As a wage earner myself, I like stronger wage and employment figures, and prefer my investments and pension plan to be about the long-term index, and I don't yet see a problem there...

Except the deregulation thing. See, I have noticed that Trump is trying to pry the brakes off what he sees as "the economy" because he and Republicans in general seem to think that rules make the game harder, and then nobody wants to play. However, what they do is fuss about currency and capital, and make stupid choices like tax plans that favor the rich. Companies like to take profits and pay dividends. This doesn't go into the hands of the people who will turn around and spend it--labor.

I don't know. This is a little correction. The dollar is weaker in anticipation of inflation, but the job market is still strong and the consumer confidence is there, but I feel like there is a certain level of volatility that might be political in nature.

The market doesn't like instability or insecurity. I feel like our US leadership is just a beehive of instability and insecurity, not because of the fundamentals, but because of the intangibles. Like, the current president of the US does not understand why nuclear first strikes are bad or why you invest in disease control or why sowing racial animosity here or abroad is stupid.

I'm bullish on anxiety and bearish on returns. Keep your money where it is if you are in a conservative fund. But day traders are going to be falling out in this mess at least this week.


EDIT: The Nikkei and tomorrow's futures do not really make one feel confident though.

Welcoming 2018 With a Boom!

There is no greater sign that the President is back at work than his having a sustained Twitter rant (of the type I refer to as "going Boom!") that included kind of "negging" the Iranian people for "finally" acting against their government (because he has no idea what's going on there other than what he sees on Fox News, despite being, you know, POTUS), and slagging his predecessor's foreign policy, and also takes the time to mentally convict a top aid(e) of his political rival in the last election while calling his own Justice Department headed by his appointee "Deep State".

Because he's watching Fox and Friends, again, he feels good about the past year's accomplishments, like keeping planes in the sky with the power of (checking notes) strictness. And regulations. He doesn't like regulations, usually. He's back to calling North Korea's leader "Rocket Man" because this is obviously very mature.

Also he is still mad at journalists for not kissing his presumably orange peel-like bottom. And Democrats because they are Democrats.


In other words, 2018 is shaping up to be more of the same, only more so.

A Little Economics Lesson

DOE Rick Perry at coal plant:"Here’s a little economics lesson: supply and demand. You put the supply out there and the demand will follow."

— Taylor Kuykendall (@taykuy) July 6, 2017

Just to use coal as an example, if I had a gas furnace, I could have several tons of coal at my disposal at a very low price, and want exactly none of it, because my heat does not depend on coal. I would have to consider whether it would be worth it to me to switch from a city utility to a coal delivery scheme where I get a coal burning furnace for some reason. But coal being available and cheap isn't necessarily going to sell me if it isn't a reliably-priced, environmentally-better choice than what I'm already using. I suppose you could find a market for condom-vending machines in Vatican City if you had the gumption to try it, but I think there are a lot of problems with a model of "supply creating demand".

Farm Dust and You--a Bullshitters' Guide to The Deregulate Everything Movement

I'm on a kvetch about the anti-regulation jihad the GOP has been about lately, and I just remembered this story I saw at Steve Benen's blog:

Following up on an item from the other day, House Republicans are still hard at work, tackling imaginary concerns.

The House on Thursday approved legislation Republicans said was aimed at ensuring the EPA cannot regulate so-called “farm dust.”

The House on Thursday afternoon approved legislation Republicans said was aimed at ensuring that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot regulate so-called “farm dust.”

The Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, H.R. 1633, which would prevent the EPA from issuing any new rule over the next year that regulates coarse particulate matter, or “nuisance dust,” passed in a 268-150 votes.

Here’s the final roll call — the bill enjoyed unanimous Republican support, as well as the votes of 33 House Democrats.

Just to refresh some memories, the legislation intends to stop proposed regulation that hasn’t, in reality, been proposed.

As Tim Noah explained this week, “It’s political bullshit. There is no pending farm-dust regulation. What there is, is an attempt by Republicans to persuade everybody that there is a pending farm-dust regulation so they can pass a new law exempting the agricultural industry … from an existing clean-air regulation that hardly ever affects farms (but, when it does, addresses a legitimate health issue).”

The House of Representatives just passed a bill to stop regulation that wasn't even being proposed.  Why?  Because someone was "thinking about it"?  Because any and all regulation, to the Republican mind, is at any rate all the time wrong and bad?

I dunno.  I'm just a small and slackerish blogger, but my perusal of denialist blogs (you can do a search on this yourself, if you'd like) suggests that for some reason (:cough: global warming :cough cough:) more rural dust might be expected as a consequence of drought conditions prevailing in certain areas.   It's almost as if certain deregulation bodies anticipate the fruition of outcomes that only occur if global climate change was a real thing! Imagine that!!!! So the farming community might be advised that their misfortune will be used against them (because let's face it, if your corn, sorghum, or alfalfa was buried under a haboob, that shit is seriously undermining your profitability) in order to pre-emptively strike against the overreach of a regulatory agency--the EPA--

When in all seriousness, the farmers should be looking at the industries that are historically anti-regulation and are banking on their misfortune via some negative weather effects.  In other words--Big Fossil Fuels.

Hmm.. It would strike me that maybe, just maybe, if I was a farmer I'd want to investigate how global warming and shit impacted my long-range profitability and act to strengthen any agency that stood against that job-killing bullshit. And instead of hearing propaganda, I want to hear more about how my area was supposed to be affected by climate change.  And I'd want to roast the M.F.-ers that were trying to convince me to support combating the EPA--when naturally, if the EPA knew which side their bread was buttered on, they'd be concerned above all with issues that ensured water was safe to drink and irrigate with, and that the environment did not poison produce or livestock. Just so that as a farmer, I'd be sure that we are producing healthful food, not spreading a problem.

Just a thought.

Don't want any person, place or thing, trying to pull the REINS in on me--

The House passed something called the REINS (or Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny) Act today. The idea behind the bill is that the controlling party of either chamber gets veto power over any new regulations of the federal government over industries. As far as these things go--it's so very, very Republican.  It's unlikely to clear the Senate, and even if it did, President Obama would surely veto the heck out of it. But just listen to this kind of rhetoric:

"Who do the regulators answer to? No one," said Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) in debate on the House floor. "When the regulators go to work every day, like most people go to work, their work assignment's a little different," Poe said. "In my opinion, they sit around a big oak table, sipping their lattes. They have out their iPads and their computers, and they decide, 'Who shall we regulate today?' And they write a regulation and send it out to the masses and make us deal with the cost to that."



Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), argued that if Congress can stop rules in their tracks, businesses will flourish. "Poll after poll of small business owners, of medium-sized business owners -- they will show you and tell you that major regulations are holding back their expansion and the ability of them to hire more workers," Quayle said.

That is just fabulous--the regulators are "sipping their lattes". I bet they go on to have an arugula salad for lunch after a hard half-day of regulatin'--so unlike the red meat job-creators, who probably take their coffee black and sweetened with the tears of widows.  You know, I'm not a government regulator, but I bet they probably consider other stuff, like employee deaths, possible dangers to consumers, the despoiling of the environment, and other bummers that serious people might think about after reviewing and considering pages and pages of data including heart-wrenching anecdotes about the victims of corporate abuses in the pursuit of profit--but that's just how I think. But no, really. Oak tables, lattes. Also--I'm not really sure what polls Ben Quayle is talking about. I don't really think the link between regulation and job growth has been all that conclusively proven.


I'm sure many informed people might be saying to themselves, "But I thought Congress already did have oversight over this stuff--and wouldn't this lead to gridlock in a climate where even pro forma stuff like judicial appointments and debt ceiling raises are subject to blocks and filibusters and all that?"  Yeah, you totally have that right.  It's a stupid bill--the big deal is trying to override presidential veto and basically weakening the government's effectiveness at regulating businesses overall. In that way, the road is made smooth for more fracking, and mountaintop removal, and arsenic in the apple juice, and deep-sea drilling disasters, and all the other kinds of stuff that sometimes remind us why a government should not, actually, be small enough to be drowned in a bathtub, but might actually play a protective role for its citizens.

In other words--such total crap.  But thanks, House Republicans, for really showing us what you all stand for. For the very next industrial disaster, I will surely be thinking of you.

Massey Energy (Alpha Natural Resources) to pay largest settlement in Blast that Killed 29 Workers

Just to follow up on a matter that I had posted about a while back, Alpha Natural Resources, which took over Massey Energy, will be paying $209 million in civil penalties and restitution as a result of the mine explosion that killed 29 men.

Although this is a record settlement, the systematic and pervasive violation of mining regulations is probably not going to be handled by monetary penalties alone. Unfortunately, it seems that businesses consider the price of getting around regulations, via fines, lobbyists to undo regulations, and the deaths of workers, as being a part of the overhead of doing business. Some say only criminal penalties will be sufficient to persuade the industry to change its ways:

Under the federal mine act, safety violations, with the exception of falsifying records, are categorized as misdemeanors. That limitation that could make it hard to build a case against senior managers, like Don Blankenship, the former chief executive of Massey, lawyers said.



In all, 18 Massey executives have refused to be interviewed by federal investigators, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights.


“Until someone goes to jail, there will be no justice done here,” said Cecil E. Roberts, president of United Mine Workers of America International.

I'm highlighting this story in part because it serves as an example of the ways in which businesses don't even follow such regulations as actually exist, even in the face of severe financial civil penalties. This is a far cry from any suggestion that in the vein of enlightened self-interest, such industries would ever self-regulate.   In the absence of regulation, I only suspect things would be worse,  and am therefore very leery of politicians who imply otherwise.