State of the Global Economy, October 2018

GE as predictor for the economy. The reason is that when companies want to grow they are going to go to a company like GE for the supplies they need while doing construction. This means that General Electric will be one of the first companies in America to feel the effects of the recession.

This is also what happened in 2007-2008. General Electric's stock crashed just prior to the Great Recession. The reason for this is because companies stopped doing new construction, and stopped ordering from GE. 12 months after GE tanked, the economy went into recession. This did not happen in 2000 because the stock market crash was isolated in tech stocks, it was not a systemic problem like we had in 2007-2008 with the housing bubble crash or the massive trade war which Donald Trump has started over the last 12 months.

When Obama left office on 20 January 2017, we had a very healthy yield curve. Our yield curve is changing at one of the fastest rates in American history. Canada is not looking good, and neither is Mexico. I am fairly certain we will have a recession before the next Presidential election with everything I am reading.

Japan right now has an extremely healthy yield curve. China is becoming steeper (which is good). India has a negative yield curve at the moment. Australia looks healthy. In Europe, Germany and France are both healthy, and the United Kingdom is about to feel the full brunt of Brexit with the uncertainty their stupidity has brought them. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have an opportunity to make the Tories irrelevant for the 2020s. There is no nice way to say it. Russia's economy is unhealthy. On the bright side, it looks like Greece is finally starting to recover from Austerity. Norway looks fine.

Indonesia doesn't look good.

I agree with the EIU that there will likely be a regime change in Venezuela within 2 years. Their yield curve is an absolute horror show.

Colombia's yield curve is steadily improving. Brazil is finally coming out of the darkness from the recession they had last year. Argentina is going to finish the recession they have been going through.



Optimistic

• China
• Japan
• Germany
• France
• Australia
• Colombia
• Brazil
• Vietnam

Confused

• India

Pessimistic

• United States 
• Russia
• Canada
• Mexico 
• 
  

Apocalyptic, the combination of political events and extremely negative bond yield curves make these countries look doomed in the short run.

• United Kingdom
• Venezuela
• Argentina

Finally, when reading these, it is good to take into account that China, the United States, India, Japan, Germany, and Russia account for over half of all global GDP. Only 7 countries, China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and Nigeria contain half of the global population.

The United States and United Kingdom are in very similar situations right now. Heavily isolationist policies by their governing Republican and Conservative Parties (yes, yes, I know Brexit was a referendum, but the people were misinformed on what it means) have led their countries to ruin. The Republican Party has stood by their President as he burns our trading relationships, and with their political trifecta they have led us to ruin. This is exactly what happened the last time they had a Trifecta, they were kicked out in 2006, at which point the housing bubble was imminently going to pop. GE crashed the next year. The Conservative Party has stood by "Brexit means Brexit" which has dissuaded investment in the United Kingdom with the needless uncertainty which is destroying their economy right now.

When it comes to Canada and Mexico, I think they are responding to the policies of the United States government due to being so heavily intertwined economically. The recession will likely not be as bad as it will be here in the United States, but it is not going to be good.

India is suffering high unemployment, which is nothing new, and corruption has been improving somewhat (they have improved their ease of doing business index) yet for some reason they have a negative bond yield curve, which is a change from a year ago. They have rather high inflation, but is below where it used to be. Be wary of India, but I see no reason for panic.

Argentina has had a fairly severe recession and their government has adopted a pro-cyclical approach to their economic policy by instating austerity. Decades of poor economic mismanagement is catching up with them. It is very sad.

But not nearly as sad and aggravating as how the criminal syndicate United Socialist Party under Maduro and Chavez has led Venezuela to ruin. They have trampled the human rights of their country, turned themselves into an oil state, mismanaged those funds (as is so fucking common) and now their economy is crashing, with little hope of recovery before a revolution or coup kills him. Hopefully it comes soon so that Venezuelans can recover from the travesty they have caused. The inflation and depression is Weimar Republic levels. Their yield curve reflects it. There is no good reason anything should have anything but disdain for what they have done to their country.

There you have it. I don't know if my theory about General Electric is correct or not, but given everything else it seems likely. There are some parts of the world with reason to be optimistic, others less so. Hopefully politicians will make decisions to improve overall wealth and health of nations, and that those who have not will get the punishment they deserve proportional to their crimes.

Yield curves are available at www.investing.com

Mueller needs to tells us what happened

Inspired by:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/19/mueller-investigation-findings-914754

There are two possibilities with the release of the Mueller probe:

• either the Mueller Report does not include damning information on Donald Trump, hence would not effect the election and there is no reason to wait until afterwards,
• The Mueller Report in its full context includes a smoking gun with proof of Russian influence in our election to the point of swinging the most important election in the second largest economy in the world, information which would impact the American people's decision in November.

What we know

This is not opening a fraudulent congressional investigation days before the election which  is closed as soon as the target of the investigation loses.

This is an investigation spanning over 30 years of very complex relationships between the President of the United States and the President of Russia, the evidence of which is undeniable.

This is an investigation into whether a foreign power hacked into American elections in an attempt to swing the election in full.

We know for a fact that the counties which Russia targeted in 2016 turned out to be pivotal for the Presidential election.

James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, claims “It stretches credulity to conclude that Russian activity didn’t swing voter decisions.”

We know for a fact that the Russians changed voter rolls across America.

Conclusion

There are now two potential options of what happened 2 years ago:

• The Russian government developed a long, deep, and complicated relationship with the Republican Candidate for President of the United States, swung voter decisions in key states, going through enormous expense and energy, but not to impact the election when they had a very clear preference.

Or:

• The Russian government successfully groomed an American multimillionaire, helped him become a billionaire, effectively targeted voters filling our social media feeds with lies masquerading as news stories in order to get a President who will do what they want.

It think it is pretty obvious no one would ever go to the extent and lengths Russia went through. I believe the numerous national security advisors.

I believe it is now Robert Mueller's duty to his country with the immense amount of evidence he has done, to present it to the American people in time for us to make our decisions with full information proving (or, however unlikely, disproving) the immense suspicion millions of Americans like myself have that the Russian government did.

This is not the same thing as opening a Kangaroo court days before a major historic election against one of the candidates, with absolutely no intention of finishing it. This is presenting the American people with facts which we can use to make our decisions so we can get the right people elected as governor, legislators, representatives, and senators in three weeks. The consequence of withholding important information from the election is itself a political ploy which protects those who have (possibly) deeply harmed the United States of America, keeping them in power. That would be unpatriotic to allow such criminals off the hook and let them stay in positions of power to do even more damage to our democracy. It is downright cruel to the People of the United States for us to keep having a government which does not represent us, and keep us in the dark when there are elected officials who have very likely harmed us. Information is one of the most valuable and important pieces in an election, as important as the way you count the ballots. More information (as long as it is accurate) is always better for democracy.

We deserve to know.

America needs to know the truth to protect ourselves.

This is a the biggest national security issue of my life.

Release the probe.

Previous articles I have personally written:

• https://stidmatt-views.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-putin-hates-obama.htm
• https://medium.com/@matthewstidham/swing-counties-9e0444e8cece?fbclid=IwAR04vs5_9p-Dns2ntzms1HdyLdm8P7XVV3xD-9nfPbrlVjZoZWJUQ8TSUOw

References:

• https://www.wired.com/story/did-russia-affect-the-2016-election-its-now-undeniable/
• http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html
• https://www.vox.com/2018/5/31/17384444/james-clapper-trump-russia-mueller-2016-election?fbclid=IwAR1zTtpuihMsvLXu0H98Vtloeio0-bLpQELQbXOw1TJuVU8DAs4tbAPc7_I
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/without-the-russians-trump-wouldnt-have-won/2018/07/24/f4c87894-8f6b-11e8-bcd5-9d911c784c38_story.html?fbclid=IwAR1s8RdqXur4z8Uk4wnXUujyVOylRpinB3RxiR-XpybqzjXcwIACKjncXfY&utm_term=.2ccf30b18888

Random musings, week 3 of October 2018

• Native Americans are being denied the vote in South Dakota
• African Americans are being pulled off of buses on their way to vote
• Elizabeth Warren announces her DNA test at the same time as Native Americans are being denied the right to vote.
• Trump is under trial in New York State for tax evasion
• There is a pending case in front of the Supreme Court to give the President the ability to pardon state level crimes
• After racking up hundreds of billions of dollars in debt, the Republicans are now targeting Medicare and Medicaid.
• The Mueller Probe is ongoing.
• Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, is under investigation.
• US banned visas for same-sex partners of diplomats
• Hundreds of voting polls have been closed before the upcoming election, mostly targeting minorities. https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kz58qx/how-the-gutting-of-the-voting-rights-act-led-to-closed-polls
• Washington State Legislature is held by the Democrats by a thread, this election could significantly increase their advantage after record primaries with people voting for Democrats. Democrats have a 25-23-Sheldon majority in the Senate and a 50-48 majority in the House.
• Republican Governors are up in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. They will be able to approve or veto redistricting maps which will impact their state legislatures and about 100 representatives in the US house from the 2022 to 2030 elections.
• The Colorado Legislature is the closest legislature in America today, and half of the Senate is up for election in three weeks, and every seat in the House. Republicans have a 18-16-1 seat majority in the Senate right now. Democrats have a 36-29 majority in the House.
• The US representative seat from Alaska is essentially a toss-up, among many other traditionally Republican seats.
• The way we name our house districts is the way the French do it (State - #), Commonwealth countries and Germany call their districts by the name of their location (Abbotsford).

Republican State governors projected to flip by Nate Silver:

• Iowa
• Michigan
• Illinois
• Maine
• New Mexico

Republican Governors in toss-up territory:

• Nevada
• Kansas
• Wisconsin
• Ohio
• Florida
• Georgia

Every Democratic Governor is safe.

This would mean that the governorships will be divided 50/50 with 25 governorships being held by each party. More Americans will be in Democratic states though, so more seats in the House during the 2020 redistricting will be signed or vetoed by a Democratic Governor. Having more favorable legislature maps for the Democrats will have impacts on every issue in America, and effect everybody's lives.

There is a lot going on. It is easy to get overwhelmed.

But, when you get your ballot, remember to vote. That is how we are going to fix the problems this article starts with.