Getting Closer....

Trump's presidency is living on borrowed time.

See here...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/mueller-is-said-to-expand-probe-to-trump-business-transactions

The key is this..."Agents are also interested in...the efforts of Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and White House aide, to secure financing for some of his family’s real estate properties."

I think they are negotiating this financing with the Russians even now. Cut rate loans in return even for access to the Office of the President of the United States is grounds for impeachment.

And a follow up. Is it really potential "treason", as noted in my last post? Doesn't the USA actually have to be at war for such a charge and conviction?  We may want to ask Julius and Ethel Rosenberg about this. Of course, we can't because they were executed for treason for passing secrets to the Soviets when the USA was not at war with that country.

Trump is now thinking about how to pardon his friends, family, and himself, while undermining the Special Prosecutor.

They are finally asking the right questions. This is about to explode.

The Market and Math

This Stock Market is relative - basically, low interest rates mean the market should be higher, as P/E ratios should reflect a willingness to accept less return than normal with ultra-low rates.

But with rates rising, by the same logic, the market will fall.

And because rates are starting so low, they relative rate of increase is massive - a rise from 1% to 1.25% is a 25% increase!

The only way for the market to keep up is for earnings to increase by a similar amount...or for share prices to fall by that amount, and we know earnings will not be rising by anything like 25% any time soon.

This market may still have some room to run, but with every interest rate rise, the long run gets shorter. It comes down to math...

Add in a small recession, and this adjustment will be very significant indeed.

Trump....Bye Bye

I've been predicting that Trump will be caught using his public office for personal gain and will be impeached based on that conflict by the end of the summer. Most people think it will be "Russians". So what is the conflict that will bury him?

I think I get it - it is both.

Trump's son-in-law is now apparently under investigation, not only for talking to Russians, but for talking to Russian banks. I think this is very significant.

Trump has famously refused to release his tax returns. Most people think the reason is that he did not want anyone knowing his income, or lack of charitable contributions. What if the real reason is that he did not want anyone knowing how much debt he and or his companies have?

Trump recently filed a financial statement with the ethics watchdogs in Washington. He claims to be $315 million in debt, with about $1.4 Billion in assets. No, he is not worth $9 Billion.  

His lawyers have previously claimed that he has no debt owed to Russians. OK - but what about his companies?  If he has hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, his companies presumably have way more.

But wait! Did I say he was $315 Million in debt? Um...how about almost $1 Billion in debt?

http://fortune.com/2016/03/23/donald-trump-debt/

If this is accurate, Donald Trump may be worth no more than a few hundred million dollars. This is a man who may actually have lost money since his bankruptcies in the 1990's. More than that, if these numbers are right, then he has way less money in real terms than what his father left him when he started out as a young man. He may be, as even he would say, a "loser"...and a complete charlatan.

Translation - he had every reason to look for every possible angle for making money in his new gig, and the trips to Mar-a-Largo are actually about him earning more cash.

So here it goes....

I think we may soon learn that Trump's stooges were negotiating with Russian banks about re-financing his real estate and business empire with some cut-rate loans during the campaign and after he became President, which would save those companies, and him indirectly, tens of millions of dollars in interest payments each year. I don't think this is about "Russian hacks"; it is about "Russian bucks". I think this the real reason why his real estate developer son-in-law is in the White House.

We shall see.

Comey Trails!

His Congressional Confluence of Confusion Continues!

What to make of Comey's recent testimony before Congress?

The Trump stuff is well-known.  It is also irrelevant - there is, as yet, no accusation that this man committed any crimes whatsoever while in office, or as part of his run for office.  He isn't even under investigation.  It is obvious that he did not order Comey to stop investigating Flynn.

On that, I think Alan Dershowitz is wrong.  Trump can stop any FBI investigation he sees fit to stop as an extension of his constitutional power, except an investigation that could conceivably lead to him, personally.  If POTUS can stop investigations that could lead to himself as a 'person of interest', then he is not a president bound by law, he is a monarch who is above the law.  Put another way, the President can pardon anyone, but not himself.  Alan D misses this essential point. But I digress....

Trump may not have done anything illegal as yet, but Hillary certainly committed crimes.

In the USA it is illegal for a government official to use a personal e-mail for government business.  It is especially illegal for a government official to send or receive classified or secret information by way of a personal e-mail.  And it is illegal for a government official to delete e-mails rendering them incapable of being put into the national archives.

There is no dispute that Clinton did all of this.  In fact, this was the only way she used e-mail while in government service - every single e-mail and deletion she send and initiated was an illegal act.  The only issue was whether or not she could be convicted, and Comey, as Director of FBI, concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction, so the investigation was dropped.

Set aside for the moment that the suggestion that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction in a situation where a government official NEVER used the government's secure e-mail server is asinine and idiotic.  What did we learn yesterday from Comey that should, in normal times, blow this issue wide open?

We know that just before Clinton was let off the hook by Comey, Bill Clinton had a secret meeting with the Attorney General of the United States - Comey's boss at the time - on a private airplane on the tarmac in Phoenix, Arizona.  The investigation into Clinton was called off shortly after that meeting.

What we didn't know until yesterday was that Comey not only thought that this put the Attorney General in a conflict of interest situation vis a vis the investigation, but that this also prompted him to go public with the results on the investigation.  In short, the meeting appeared to have affected the investigation.

The establishment of a link - any link - between the secret meeting that Bill Clinton had with the AG of the USA, and any decision regarding the investigation to Hillary Clinton, including the decision to go public, should warrant a complete and thorough airing of everything that transpired leading up to Hillary Clinton's effective exoneration.  This reeks of possible obstruction of justice, which was surely the real reason why Bill Clinton met Loretta Lynch.

This is important...from Zero Hedge...

"When Comey testified on May 3 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was asked about the Lynch meeting.  He told lawmakers 'a number of things had gone on which I can’t talk about yet, that made me worry that the department leadership could not credibly complete the investigation and decline prosecution without grievous damage to the American people’s confidence in the justice system.'"

What were those "things"?  Why was America's confidence in the justice system under threat?  This man is no longer the Director of the FBI.  He is just a citizen now, and he needs to be compelled to tell all regarding how the investigation into Clinton actually came to be dropped.  The Special Prosecutor may want to consider re-opening this investigation.

And Trump?  He'll be impeached this summer.  The cause will be a little bit of "Russians", but a whole lot of good old "greed and graft", as I think he'll be caught using the Office of the President of the United States as a stepping stone to increased private wealth.

'

Le Pen? Well, no....

Le Pen lost!

She ran a great campaign in week 1, taking one percent from Macron each day, and adding to the abstentions, which all came from his potential support.  Then...?

She appointed a replacement to head up the National Front who was a Holocaust denier; she was caught plagiarizing a speech; she lost the debate badly, and was even criticized by her father - reminding everyone that she was the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen!

Macron also benefited from the release of a treasure trove of e-mails the day before the election, handing him a large sympathy vote.

In short, when you run a bad campaign in any election, you don't win.  She had a terrible last week, and paid the price.

What now?

What about those Macron e-mails?  They are out there....and not a word. from anyone reputable  If they come out, and show that he is anything other than the next saviour of France, the June legislative elections could turn out very badly for en Marche!

And Melenchon?  He did not endorse Macron.  One would think that, in a deeply anti-Establishment era, his party - la France insoumise - stands to gain the most once the potential fraud of en Marche as a rebel option is exposed.  So far, en Marche is in the lead in polling.  We shall see.

French Toast, Le Pen Wins!

In Macron v Le Pen, the latest polling has Le Pen at just under 40%, and Macron at just over 60%. The polls have narrowed a bit over 3% since the first round.

But....

Odds makers have Le Pen 2 out of 7 to win the presidency, and Macron with only a 1 in 6 chance. The odds makers were right about Trump and Brexit.

Macron, et al, are repeating the same mantra that Democrats/Clinton and the anti-Brexit folks spewed recently - a vote for the other person/idea is a vote for chaos and the devil! When the Establishment tries to frighten people, it doesn't work.   

Le Pen is very crafty. She knows that a huge portion of Melenchon's vote is more worried about responding to the liberal agenda/capitalism and the plight of working people in France, then about, for example, the plight of Muslim immigrants and Greeks in Greece, and about Europe. She is going all in on the "people of France" mantra to try to get this vote - the retirement age will be lowered, small business will be helped, taxes will be lowered, the 35 hour work week and civil servants will be protected.

Macron, on the other hand, is focused on furthering the very liberal world agenda that is now tied, almost 100%, to the perception of a corrupt elite. Where he gets specific, it may only cause worry - he will cut the civil service, slash labour costs (he says through a reduction in payroll taxes), cut corporate taxes to help the conglomerates, engage more internationally, and he has promised to not raise the retirement age (...which is what you promise when you are thinking about raising it...), all of which for many workers means insecurity.  

He also speaks in term of capitalist ideology, while Le Pen is speaking far more directly to the actual interests of voters (those chickens in pots....cars in garages...the state not in your bedroom that get you elected.) She is also much stronger on security, which is a very real concern, and where there is a real perception that the elites dropped the ball badly. If I were a shareholder of Goldman, Sachs, I'd be very worried...

And what about Europe - Macron's trump card? Melenchon was not a supporter of Europe as it is now.  The people who voted for him did not vote for the present European experiment. He would have wanted to stay in Europe, but also wanted to renegotiate the EU treaties, as if that could be done without massive upheaval.  Combined, Round One was at least a 40% + vote against Europe as it is now - that vote showing up en masse in May gives Le Pen the presidency. There is also a very powerful anti-elite bent underpinning to both the Le Pen and Melenchon camps that Macron cannot respond to. Again, 75% of voters in the first round voted against the parties that they knew.

Forget Melenchon, isn't this in the bag? Macron was the socialist economy minister under the despised Hollande - I think this will cause many conservatives to stay away. He is also loudly proclaiming that he is not a socialist now - which I think will cause many socialists to stay away. He may cunningly fall between two stools here, meaning he may not pick up much of the conservative/socialist vote he thinks he has in spades.

And so, I think Macron's vote is the one with the least potential to show grown next month, not Le Pen's. Here it is...

Le Pen - 54%

Macron - 46%

The workers really liked Hitler too.

MACRON!!!!

The Meaning of Macron

A member of the Establishment brands himself as an outsider and wins an election. Does this sound familiar?

When Trump did it he was a lifelong member of the Democratic Party who engineered a take-over of the Republican Party to become President of the United States.  He sold himself as a populist, anti-Establishment outsider.

When Macron did it, it was as a former Socialist minister of the economy who branded himself a centralist, and who has ridden the coats of "En Marche!" which is a new party that he has created to victory.  He beat a despised outsider and populist in the first round of the French presidential election by ALSO branding himself as an anti-Establishment outsider.

So far, so good, but please consider carefully what just happened.

The French people just rejected the purported Establishment in a way that the Americans did not even come close when they elected Donald Trump. On Sunday, the French Republicans - conservatives, and the party of Chirac and Sarkozy - got less than 20% of the popular vote. The Socialists, who are in power now in the form of President François Hollande - got slightly over SIX percent of the popular vote! What just happened in France is absolutely unprecedented - it is the equivalent of a non-Democrat and non-Republican winning the US presidential election.

Macron is being sold as the salvation of Europe. In fact, his victory may turn out to be far more disturbing than Trump's. It signals that those who have run Europe's second most important country since the end of the Second World War are trusted by only slightly over 25% of the French population (...the most important country is, of course, Germany.) It also suggest that those people may support a brand new French policy regarding Europe.

And what may that new policy be?

Macron says he supports "sugar, and spice and all things nice". As a "free range" politician, not bound to any particular party or tradition, I suggest that he may be a complete wild-card, with a very strong French nationalist bias that no true Frenchman could oppose, especially as he will have to respond to Le Pen. He is from the Establishment, but he is not actually beholden to anyone.

The key issue here is obviously the future of the European Union. Marine Le Pen wants to take France out of the European Union in order to preserve the French nation outside of that organization. Macron wants France to stay in - but the price may be that Europe has to largely become the French nation in order for France to stay.

For example, Macron is on record complaining about Germany's unfair trade surplus within Europe. Questioning this is the equivalent of questioning what is almost Germany's entire rationale for being in the European Union - it is the equal of Trump's questioning of NAFTA. Pushing this issue can only lead to very significant tension between the two countries that are absolutely essential to the union itself. Those who expect "sunny ways and sunny days" from a President Macron may be in for a rude surprise.

Macron is also on record demanding a European Commissioner who would run Europe, the European Parliament and a common budget. That's all good and well, but did he implicitly mean that this person would obviously have to be a Frenchman? The French see the Germans as the economic power behind Europe, where they are the defacto political power behind it. Implicit in this is a very powerful French nationalism - in other words, an appreciation that Europe IS France. What if Macron represents, not a laissez faire attitude to European membership, but what may become a French power-grab within the Union as the obvious answer to its chaos, especially Greek bankruptcy and Brexit?

Finally, he is very liberal on immigration and the question of Muslims in France. But he has also clarified, on many occasions, that obedience to the law of the French Republic is not optional. In other words, you can be Muslim in your home, but when you are in public, you must be French! Implicit in this is a very deep chauvinism.

He has been compared to Napoleon by some Frenchmen. Would a Napoleon play second fiddle to anyone? Would a Napoleon not try to entirely dominate EVERY situation?

Demanding that Europe become France may be even more disturbing than demanding a Europe without France. As Le Pen rises in the polls in the next week with her rabidly pro-nationalist/anti-Establishment message, I think Macron will have to respond with some traditional French chauvinism of his own. Stay tuned...we are in entirely uncharted waters here.