THIS IS MY 109TH BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY
TOOLS
There has been quite a bit of news lately on “fake” or false
news. What can we believe? The media reports and I will include
information from Facebook and Twitter may have very distorted facts. The simple answer is that we can no
longer trust what we hear and read, and unfortunately it is only going to get
worse.
Along with misinformation, stands “half truths” to slant the
results of the news. In light of
this I want to bring attention to the news that came out around December 3rd from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics. As I
write commenting on what I believe to be accurate facts to assist people in
better understanding of money, this is duly warranted. The main employment headlines were that
new hires accounted for 170,000 new jobs, thus lowering the unemployment rate
from 4.8% to 4.6%. I don’t mind
giving Mr. Obama kudos as he leaves office, but let’s tell the American people
the whole truth.
Just before this release of new jobs it was reported that
268,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment claims. Then, added to this discouraging news
was that Americans who are working age between 18 and 63 and “not working” went
up from 94.600,000 million to 95,050,000.
I like to use the word “wow” so I will again here. 2 plus 2 is adding up to 5! If the media is going to report, report
accurately and the whole facts. Another
material fact to note is that wages went down, not up. This indicates part time service work
at lower hourly wages. Don’t forget that if you have two or three part time
jobs to make a living you are counted as two or three employees in this
statistic.
As I have said before I think Mr. Trump will do as good a
job as any businessman or politician.
What he can’t do is realistically improve the employment rolls without
reaching into the environmental concerning industries like coal and oil. Why? We may build new factories, and place a higher tax as a
penalty for those companies leaving, however factories in the future are going to
be very automated and robotic requiring few employees. What are we going to do with all the
people? What is the world going to do with all the people? No one has any ideas, especially good
ones. History recounts the ways we have eliminated people in the past with wars
and disease…..not good.
Our unions and lawyers have created a very difficult
situation and not what we refer to as “business friendly”. Our corporate liabilities are sky high
as with unemployment and workman’s compensation insurance. Doctors will concur
that the main reason people don’t go back to work after an injury and remain in
therapy or out of work is they prefer to continue collecting money from
disability insurance. The system is broken. In corporate lawsuits lawyers many times tend to go for
neurological injuries as they are very difficult to prove in medical testing
and in court.
Our educational system is abominable and needs
revamping. The results of
international academic testing was released this week. This included 70 countries. We scored 37th in the world
in mathematics. Reading and
science were a bit better. Now
pause, and try to think of 36 countries that scored better than us. Tough to think of 36 countries, isn’t
it? As we all know, our children
were born with average or better intelligence, however look what our
environment has done with their mentality!
One last point for this blog.
Here is my opinion on investments:
Stocks:
Insanely overpriced. Has not made any sense for a couple years. Investment firms like BlackRock and
Wells Fargo Money Management are tending more to automation for investment
decisions versus human analysis.
The reason being no rationale; market based on momentum theories and
trading. The markets went higher
recently because Mr. Trump was elected president, this is not substantial
reasoning and does not reflect improvement of corporate earnings.
Bonds: When the
Federal Reserve raises interest, perhaps this month, market values for bonds
will come down to equate to market interest rates. If you can hold on to bonds
for the duration of the bond, okay.
Real estate:
Most markets are very high or close to a bubble. Mr. Trump being a real estate
businessman may favor real estate which would include protection in tax law.
Gold: Current price has been pretty stable around
$1,200/ounce. It is a hedge
against inflation, or bought during trying times.
Cash: Perhaps the place to be. The dollar has strengthened from it’s already strong
position.
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