Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has spooked investors in Turkey by trying to dictate policy to the country's central bank. With the currency plummeting, his meddling in the central bank process is only making things worse. The Wall Street Journal's editorial board writes: Turkey’s lira fell as much as 5% on Wednesday, and it’s lost more than a fifth of its value this year, adding to a long decline that is forcing extreme monetary measures to compensate. Much of the blame lies with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as Turkey has been running a current-account deficit that Meanwhile, … [Read more...]
Prophetic Statements to be Studied: Investors be Warned
“If ye are prepared ye shall not fear,” is from the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is quoted in Prophetic Statements on Food Storage for Latter-day Saints, by Neil H. Leash. In the forward to Leash’s book, Duane S. Crowther, author of Inspired Prophetic Warnings, advises to avoid fear and anxiety by making sound preparations, and to approach the subject with an “urgent calm” rather than anxiety and alarm. Leash and Crowther aren’t simply talking about food storage. They’re talking about preserving your well-being beyond food, including money … [Read more...]
The Good News Continues for Dividend-Centric Investors
There’s a certain discipline required of the stock investor whom adheres to a dividend-centric investment strategy. It’s not for the FOMO (fear of missing out) crowd that talks up their latest stock heroics at cocktail parties—a never in doubt but often wrong crowd if I’ve ever seen one. At the end of the day, it’s the dividend investor whom usually has the last laugh. Looks like a truckload of cash from the recent tax cut will be paid out in the form of dividends. Young Research's Retirement CompoundersSM Portfolio, a dividend-centric stock portfolio, has outperformed the DJIA and the … [Read more...]
Big Government and Globalism: Small Town America in Despair
Small-towns are the casualties of globalism. Industries have been shuttered. Big government, meaning both sides of the aisle, have failed America. Just take a look around on your next road trip. Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, explains in the WSJ’s Weekend Interview why he had students visit a failed middle America town: “I wanted the students to go to a place that had experienced industrial decline,” he says. “And they came back with a clear sense that there’s no silver bullet to our problems, but that people there had real points—that a lot of what you read about their … [Read more...]
Can Crypto-Currencies Ever be Safe?
After hackers stole digital currency assets from South Korean currency exchange Coinrail recently, the question must be asked, can bitcoin and other crypto-currencies be safe? The problems don't seem to lie in the blockchain technology, but instead in the exchanges that provide servicing to crypto-currency users. This isn't the first time an exchange has been hacked, or even the second or third time. So users must take into account the idea that the place housing their crypto-currencies may not be altogether safe. Can you imagine a rash of bank robberies in your town, but without any FDIC … [Read more...]
John Brennan: The Truth was Irrelevant
Kimberley Strassel, writing in her column at The Wall Street Journal, slays the narrative pushed by former CIA Director John Brennan as only she can. She writes: Mr. Brennan has taken credit for launching the Trump investigation. At a House Intelligence Committee hearing in May 2017, he explained that he became “aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons.” The CIA can’t investigate U.S. citizens, but he made sure that “every information and bit of intelligence” was “shared with the bureau,” meaning the FBI. This information, he said, … [Read more...]
“Robert Mueller, You’re Fired”
Imagine your summer just ended. It’s time for Americans to get back to work. Picture yourself on that Tuesday night after Labor Day watching President Trump deliver the following speech from the White House including the words “Robert Mueller, you’re fired.” Angelo M. Codevilla senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, professor emeritus of international relations at Boston University writes the speech: President Trump’s September Surprise: My fellow Americans, Traditionally, this is the day when the country ends summer fantasies, gets back to work and to school—when we get serious. And … [Read more...]
Facebook: “A Giant Blood-Engorged Tick Hanging off Your Frontal Lobe”
“Designed to be addictive, Facebook feels like a giant blood-engorged tick hanging off your frontal lobe,” writes Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. You may recall, Taibbi coined Goldman Sachs as a “[G]reat vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” In his piece on Facebook, where the median salary is $240,430, Taibbi makes a case for breaking-up the band which is more like a cult. What is it like to be on the inside of Facebook’s corporate walls? Former senior Facebook worker Antonio Garcia Martinez wrote the book, Chaos Monkeys, in a way that Michael Lewis did about his time … [Read more...]
Will Tech Elite Crush the Heartland in 2018?
An army of the elite Silicon Valley tech workers with extra time on their hands are fighting hard to impose their political views on the heartland of America. The group, known as Tech for Campaigns, is carpetbagging its way into elections all around the country to back candidates approved by the West Coast liberal orthodoxy. After watching Brad Parscale of the Trump campaign trounce the high-powered, big spending Clinton campaign with his tech savvy, Democrats in Silicon Valley decided they needed to get involved to help candidates who can't help themselves. When in Ohio, and … [Read more...]
In Rural Georgia, Teachers are the First Responders
In rural Georgia, school administrators are encouraging teachers and other school employees to arm themselves. With schools spread far and wide in the sparsely populated county of Laurens, it could take a long time for police to engage an intruder at the schools. Those minutes could equate to many lives. School personnel are being asked to be the first responders to any threat. Arlinda Smith Broady writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Laurens is a rural county with a population of less than 50,000, with about 25 percent of those under 18. The spread of the county — its 807 square … [Read more...]