Congress Goes on a Spending Spree

The Government deadline at midnight or 9 PM our time but Congress still hadn’t voted out a spending bill.  Rand Paul was doing a last minute filibuster saying he can’t support this bill.  I wouldn’t support it either.  It contains too much spending on all sides and we can’t afford it.  It contains more for everybody including the military and the veterans and also CHIP programs and all of the domestic stuff the democrats want.  But the topic of DACA is left for another day, as is discussion on whether to fund the Wall.  So all of that argument and moralizing proved to be a big bunch of nothing.  The motto is “When in doubt, spend like there’s no tomorrow”.  I wouldn’t have voted for this bill.  As it happened the government was shut down but for only a couple of hours when they could get a bill voted out and the president signs it.  It contains spending for two years, which is encouraging.  We won’t have to worry about it.  They had predicted years ago that the government deficit would continue to go down till about 2018 and then it would begin rising again.  What did they know back then that now we all know?   Why couldn’t the government deficit continue to go down just like it did with Clinton when it went to zero and on into the surplus category?  It wouldn’t kill us to have a surplus once in a while. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday marked its second-worst point decline in history as the stock market continued to convulse lower, pushing the blue-chip gauge and the S&P 500 into correction territory. The Dow DJIA, -4.15%shed 1,032 points, or 4.2%, to 23,860. The flurry of selling late in the session took the blue chip benchmark into correction territory, defined as 10% drop from its recent peak on Jan. 26. Shares of Dow component Boeing Co. BA, +1.01% led losses. The S&P 500 index SPX, -3.75% closed off 3.8% at 2,581, also pushing the broad-market index into a 10% decline from its recent peak in January. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -3.90% finished the brutal session down 274 points, or 3.9%, at 6,777. Worries about inflation weighed on the market's psyche as bond yields bounced around.   This paragraph will no doubt end up in a posting.  Needless to day if you own any common stocks you should sell them now if you haven't already done so.  It makes no difference whether prices go up or down from here.  This week long drop is too big of a danger signal to ignore.  It shows a basic instability in the markets. 

Yesterday Deputy Chief of Staff, Rob Porter resigned over this spousal abuse scandal he's been involved in.  Both of his ex wives have accused Porter of physically abusing them.  To complicate things further Porter is now dating a member of Trump's staff.  President Trump said today that he wished Porter well.  John Kelly the chief of staff knew about all of this misconduct months ago but raised no objections.  Now there are hints that Kelly might resign, too.  Kelly stepped in and restored order out of the chaos the Trump administration was in the first few weeks by severely limiting access to the President, which is what a chief of staff does. Of course all of Trump's supporters have "limited access" to the real facts if all they listen to is FOX news, and that includes the President himself.  

On “Days of our Lives”, John Black is turning into a killing machine.  He is busy poisoning Steve.  When Will says he knows he is poisoning Steve, John takes him to the cemetery and pulls out a gun and shoots him.  Then Paul, his son shows up and John says “You shouldn’t be here” almost as if he intended to kill him too.  Why is John even paying attention to people who say they want personal friends killed?  Then I went out and had vanilla wafers and red punch from Rico in the courtyard.

Most of the rock song compilations we did in the early year or so of blogging- - - are said to be the brainchild of the late Brian Jones.  As you know there was an explosion of these starting in September of 2004, or over thirteen years ago.  The only compilations that Brian Jones wasn't involved in between September of 2004 and July of 2007 (Analog Ghost Chatter) are the ones from late 2006 and in January of 2007.  These compilations (during this period) have since been reorganized in a major way.  The generation which listens to "Classic Rock" is getting older and older and are in their fifties and sixties and even seventies now.  This isn't the up and coming demographic.  Even the milenials are "maturing" and the oldest of these is now 36 years of age.  The first milenials turned eighteen when they graduated from high school in 2000.  They certainly aren't "kids" any more but a sizable and influential block of voters in this year's election.