Swamp Things
2017 2nd Quar ter
The Retirement Planner Financial Planning and Investing for Retirement
2001 Midwest Road Suite 107 Oak Brook, IL 60523 Telephone 630-495-9700 Web site www.rpiinc.com
Written by
Norman P. Chiodras MS, CFP, RFC, President
Exclusively for RPI Clients
W ell that didn’t take long. Pres-
ident Trump discovered that it
is hard to get things done in Wash-
ington. Who knew? The first prom-
ised repeal and replacement of
Obamacare was dead on arrival,
mainly due to his own party’s inept-
ness. These are the folks led by Paul
Ryan who had seven years to come
up with an alternative plan but never
did. The best they could do was to
keep everything the same but stop
the mandate forcing people to buy
insurance and eliminate the penalty
for not having insurance…which, by
the way, were pretty much the only
revenue streams holding up the
whole wobbly mess.
With the second attempt, Trump did
not leave it up to the hapless Repub-
licans and worked the phones him-
self. The replacement bill passed the
House along party lines but will un-
likely pass the Senate, where bills
usually go to die.
In the meantime, the stock market
just continues setting one record after
another. It has been on a tear since
Trump got elected seemingly due to his
platform of economic growth, less gov-
ernment and regulations and lower taxes.
But the apparent ineptness of his own
party and the strong opposition from the
Democrats for anything Trump does have
many of his supporters concerned about
the success of his agenda. Should inves-
tors be concerned too? What if he can’t
fulfill his promises, will the market erase
the gains since the election?
While the Trump administration has been
successful in already removing many reg-
ulations and consolidating or eliminating
some 150 government departments that
were redundant or unnecessary, there are
potential setbacks that could upset inves-
tors. Upon passing the recent budget to
keep the government open, Dave Brat (R-
VA) summed it up this way on Fox Busi-
ness News, “The Congress deal funds
sanctuary cities, Obamacare, EPA,
Planned Parenthood; doesn’t fund the
wall. Where’s the Trump agenda? He just
won the presidency!” Rush Limbaugh’s
question to Vice President Pence was, “If
this is what happens, why vote Republi-
can?”
Inside This Issue
Swamp Things 1
• when stocks become a safe
haven
• what could go wrong?
• conclusion
When Governments
Go United Airlines 6
• protect our care
• health freedom
• conclusion
Potpourri 12
Page 2
Yet the stock market
just shrugs it off.
Which begs the
question. Is there
some other dynamic
at play here that is
levitating stocks?
2017 2nd Quarter
I myself was puzzled by his pick of
former Goldman Sachs executives
Steven Mnuchin for Treasury Secre-
tary and Gary Cohn as his top eco-
nomic advisor. For decades, Gold-
man Sachs has been infiltrating gov-
ernments around the world for their
own benefit, aptly earning the moni-
ker Government Sachs. They are the
very definition of the swamp.
Trump’s decision to enlist his daugh-
ter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kush-
ner and Dina Powell as close aides
left many supporters scratching their
heads as well. Influential radio host
Mark Levin warned on Twitter,
“Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn, Dina
Powell: the three big-government lib-
erals tightening their hold on the
White House.” The promotion of peo-
ple who represent the antithesis of
Trump’s platform has not only led to
infighting within his administration,
but has left voters wondering if they
will be left behind once again. Is
Trump draining the swamp or refill-
ing it?
Yet the stock market just shrugs it
off. Which begs the question. Is there
some other dynamic at play here that
is levitating stocks? Perhaps a look at
European markets might give us a
clue.
When Stocks Become a Safe Haven
The German DAX just hit an all-time
high in May. The French CAC-40
shown below has broken through a
downtrend line on the monthly level.
Are all these markets in the US and
Europe soaring because economies
are so solid? Hardly. First quarter
GDP for the US grew at an anemic
annual rate of 0.7%.
“France is suffering from tremendous
high unemployment, little to zero po-
tential job growth, cursed by stagfla-
tion, and security worries that are the
greatest among the European states,”
notes well-known international econ-
omist Martin Armstrong of Arm-
strong Economics. “The unilateral act
of Merkel accepting refugees suppos-
edly from Syria that ended up being a
wholesale invitation for anyone from
all Islamic countries has devastated
France who was never asked by Mer-
kel in advance to accept these refu-
gees.” And it was announced recently
that the ECB (European Central
Bank) is working on a new bailout
plan for France’s banks.
Even worse news for France was re-
SWAMP THINGS
Page 3
How can stock
markets head
north while
economies head
south?
SWAMP THINGS
cent election of Emmanuel Macron
as their next President. Did France
forget that Macron served briefly
under the disastrous socialist gov-
ernment of Hollande? Macron was
a member of the Socialist party that
substantially hiked taxes on high-
income earners. The result is 25%
unemployment amongst the youth.
However, the elites in Brussels
must be wiping their brow. Emman-
uel Macron’s victory promises no
change for Europe and it has been
the blessing Brussels so badly
wanted to further advance the feder-
alization of Europe. “Macron will
surrender far more French sover-
eignty to Brussels than anyone sus-
pects based upon reliable sources,”
concludes Armstrong.
How can stock markets head north
while economies head south?
Armstrong says history shows that
when people lose faith in govern-
ment they buy private assets such as
stocks and gold. When you think
your government could default on
their bonds and your currency could
plunge, you hedge against it.
As we have reported before, even
central banks are getting in on the
act. They are in the dire position of
holding mainly their own countries’
bonds which in the Eurozone are at
an especially high risk of default.
Armstrong, who advises institutions
worldwide, notes that “the Swiss are
buying US equities as a hedge against
the Euro and political unrest… Their
total equity holdings have now
reached $80.4 billion, up $17 billion
from the $63.4 billion at the end of
2016.”
Remember, once loss of confidence
takes place it snowballs in that direc-
tion and eventually turns into panic. It
is unimportant whether what was wor-
ried about ever comes to fruition.
Facts don’t matter, confidence does.
And when economic growth is slow,
corporations use their money for buy-
ing their own stock rather than ex-
panding their business. “In November
2016, Goldman Sachs’ chief equity
strategist David Kostin estimated that,
in 2017, S&P 500 companies will
spend $780 billion on buybacks — a
new record,” an article in Forbes not-
ed.
According to CNBC, US corporations
are hoarding $2.5 trillion of cash over-
seas. If they bring back that money
into the US, it will be taxed at 35%. So
the Trump administration wants to en-
tice them with a one-time offer – a
10% tax. If part of this money finds its
way back to the US, once again it will
likely be spent on stock buy backs
which could add further fuel to the ral-
ly.
Page 4
They could care
less if Trump found
the cure for cancer.
They only care
about themselves
and will do
everything within
their power to stop
Trump’s success.
2017 2nd Quarter
SWAMP THINGS
These are likely reasons why the stock
market could continue to decouple
from underlying economies. But dete-
riorating economic conditions will
continue to fool many investors and
cause them to miss out. Money will
always seek geopolitical and currency
safety.
What Could Go Wrong?
So let me get this straight. The worse
the economies get, the deeper govern-
ment swamps get and the worse the
situation in Eurozone becomes, the
better for US stocks? Yeah, that about
sums up where we are today.
However, it is not quite that simple.
As we have been alluding to in past
issues, the swamp people (establishment
Republicans, Democrats, Intelligence
and media) in Washington do not want
to see Trump succeed at anything as it
would then embolden his entire agen-
da -- an agenda that leaves them with
less power and could even end their
careers. They could care less if Trump
found the cure for cancer. They only
care about themselves and will do
everything within their power to
stop Trump’s success.
Trump does not appear to have the
ability to self-edit and continues to
give the swamp additional fodder
with his own self-inflicted wounds.
These are huge and very welcome
distractions for those hoping he
fails.
It would be naïve to assume that
this won’t upset our markets at
some point down the road. The dan-
ger is that all of the distractions
postpone the promised tax cuts
which our stock markets have al-
ready built in. This will likely be
the catalyst for the 5-10% correc-
tion we have been expecting. Yet it
is remarkable that the stock market
has held up so well in light of re-
cent political turmoil.
We believe the march to Dow
30,000 will begin in earnest as soon
S&P 500 Price to Sales Ratio
Page 5
SWAMP THINGS
Confidence is a frag-
ile thing and the loss
of it can lead quickly
to panic…panic buy-
ing just as it can pan-
ic selling.
as the Dow can penetrate 23,000. But
this may not be until 2018.
Conclusion
Hardly a week goes by that I don’t
receive a phone call or email about a
“guru” predicting a dollar or stock
market crash. Yet, not only does it
not occur, the opposite takes place.
It is “experts” on the Internet who
will keep many people out of the
markets and awaiting the big crash.
That said, the markets are not without
some concerns. Nothing moves in a
straight line. Healthy markets always
have pullbacks. The sharper the
downturn, the sharper the rebound.
Charts like the one on page four do
give us some pause in the near term
and have us expecting a pullback in
prices. The chart shows the S&P 500
price to sales ratio which measures
the sales of the 500 corporations
listed in the index against the price of
the S&P index. Currently the S&P
500 is priced at a higher level when
compared to sales than it was at the
top in 2007.
As for gold, we have been saying that
in 2017 it could still plunge down to
the $1000 level one more time and
then begin a sling-shot move up to
$2000 and beyond over the next few
years.
Just like these pendulum balls, the
more you move to one side the more
energy available to go to the other
side. The sharper the plunge in gold
prices the more energy it will build
and the higher the prices should go on
the upside.
It is the loss of confidence in govern-
ment that will act as the catalyst be-
hind the eventual higher stock and
gold prices. It doesn’t have to be a
major country’s government bond
default that sends everything in mo-
tion. Take a look at this YouTube
video of a tiny domino eventually
toppling a 100 pound one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=y97rBdSYbkg
This is a great example of how a
small event can set off a contagion.
This is exactly how it works within
the global economy. Confidence is a
fragile thing and the loss of it can
lead quickly to panic…panic buying
just as it can panic selling. ■ NPC
Page 6
No longer taught at
our major
Universities or
believed by our
political leaders,
free market
economics and the
incentive system
work, whether
applied by the
government or a
private business.
They work because
human nature never
changes.
2017 2nd Quarter
WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES
They work because human nature nev-
er changes. Should we be surprised
that people respond well to financial
motivation?
Often we see instances where incen-
tives should have been applied better.
United Airlines, for example, could
have applied some simple free market
principles before it dragged the doctor
off the plane. At the gate they offered
passengers $800 to give up their seat.
There were some takers but they need-
ed to make room for one more of their
employees. Instead of increasing the
incentive to $1500 or more until they
found another taker, they decided to
randomly pick a Chinese doctor and
drag him off the plane. The video went
viral, causing millions of Chinese to
cut up their United frequent flyer
cards. Later, the bloodied and embar-
rassed doctor settled out of court with
United.
Unbeknownst to most travelers, denied
passengers number around 40,000 per
year these days according to airline
industry figures. It was back in the
1970s, though, when the Department
of Transportation (DOT) starting regu-
lating involuntary boarding denials.
Ill-fatedly, it was the DOT which es-
tablished regulations that set maxi-
mum required compensation for invol-
untary denied boarding -- in most cas-
es at four times the passenger’s fare
paid up to a maximum of $1350.
A major highway bridge burned
down in Atlanta in early April, caus-
ing an enormous disruption. “The
economic cost may run into hundreds
of millions when counting all the
wasted hours of people waiting in
traffic and loss of business to thou-
sands of firms,” writes Richard Rahn
for To The Point News. “Wisely, the
government offered highway contrac-
tors big bonuses for completing the
rebuilding in a matter of weeks, ra-
ther than months or years…
“Back in 1994,” continues Rahn,
“there was a big earthquake in Los
Angeles, which collapsed several
highway overpasses, including two
sections of the Santa Monica Freeway
(the world’s busiest at the time). The
highway contractors were offered big
bonuses for each day they could
shorten the construction time for the
rebuilding — and the incentive did
work — but could probably have
worked even better if the bonuses had
been much larger.”
Businesses use money to attract cus-
tomers through rebates and lower
prices and attract good employees
through higher pay. No longer taught
at our major Universities or believed
by our political leaders, free market
economics and the incentive system
work, whether applied by the govern-
ment or a private business.
Page 7
In a show of
solidarity against
Trump’s promise to
repeal Obamacare,
Democratic
representatives wore
Protect Our Care
buttons to his
inauguration. Did
anyone notice the
irony? None of these
people have
Obamacare.
WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES
As so often happens under bureau-
cratic direction, local employees are
not given the authority to make com-
mon sense decisions. During his testi-
mony before Congress on May 2,
United’s CEO admitted as much. In
hindsight, I am sure United execu-
tives are wishing they could have of-
fered people at the gate as much as it
would have taken to get one more
person to give up their seat. Whatever
it was, it would have been cheaper
than the tens of millions they could
lose going forward.
One of the major reasons the Soviet
Union collapsed was due to the coerc-
ing of people to perform tasks and
then not allowing them to be reward-
ed for them. Soon, people lost the in-
centive to work and they ended up
with a shortage of goods and long
bread lines even though Russia pos-
sessed one of the most natural re-
source-rich lands in the world. Vene-
zuela is presently experiencing this
same two-by-four to the head lesson.
There are hundreds of examples
throughout history…which remain
mysteriously unknown to our law-
makers.
Protect Our Care
Voters who elected Trump were ex-
pecting him to keep his promise of
repealing and replacing Obamacare.
But will the replacement be any bet-
ter?
In a show of solidarity against
Trump’s promise to repeal Obamac-
are, Democratic representatives wore
Protect Our Care buttons to his inau-
guration. Did anyone notice the iro-
ny? None of these people have
Obamacare. Congress stuck us with it
and voted in a much better plan for
themselves.
A major reason Obamacare is col-
lapsing is because it relies too much
on coercion and not enough on incen-
tives and free markets. When then
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said
they had to pass the bill to find out
what is in it, one doctor quipped that
that was how they referred to a stool
sample. Well, it didn’t take long for
young people to find what was “in it.”
It was soon clear that the government
intended to exploit the young and
healthy to fund health care costs for
Page 8
But they forgot one
simple item: human
nature. There was
no financial
incentive for the
healthy to join
Obamacare. In fact,
there was a
disincentive.
2017 2nd Quarter
WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES
most of them to pull out of the
Obamacare exchanges altogether and
skyrocketing their rates, driving more
people away in a vicious downward
cycle.
Health Freedom
In an excellent article by Dr. Jack
Wheeler in his To The Point News
publication, he emphasizes what is
needed is “not phony-crony corporat-
ist medicine where Big government
colludes with Big Medicine, Big In-
surance, and Big Pharma to restrict
competition.”
In other words our health system
stands little chance of getting fixed
until we have term limits for those in
Congress. Yes, the same Congress
who pretend to be concerned about
our plight, enact laws that favor their
big donors and carry a completely
different health plan for themselves.
Dr. Wheeler outlines ten simple items
which could save our health care sys-
tem and greatly lower costs. I will
briefly quote a few of them.
Give Health Care Providers a Tax
Credit for Charity Work
One of the major sources of the
“health care crisis” necessitating
Obamacare, its advocates say, is the
tens of millions of uninsured Ameri-
cans who cannot afford medical care.
the sick and older generations. The
insurance companies, who lobbied
and bought off politicians with cam-
paign donations, were hoping to reap
the benefits from the $billions in pre-
miums from the young. Essentially, it
was designed to be one of the greatest
transfers of wealth from the younger
generation into the pockets of the in-
surance companies.
Except the youth would have none of
it. They joined only when they got
sick and were all too happy to pay the
much smaller fine in the interim. In
fact, according to the IRS, in 2015 at
least 7.5 million tax-payers chose to
pay the penalty. Some put the current
figure as high as 19 million tax-
payers. The insurers deluded them-
selves by being so in bed with politi-
cians. They were sure they would
make a fortune when the healthy
youth were forced to pay exorbitant
premiums with high deductibles. But
they forgot one simple item: human
nature. There was no financial incen-
tive for the healthy to join Obamac-
are. In fact, there was a disincentive.
And so, what those burdened with
common sense could have predicted,
it was mostly the unhealthy who
signed up.
No one feels any remorse for what
happened next. The insurance compa-
nies starting hemorrhaging red ink –
by the hundreds of millions – forcing
Page 9
Such legislation
would result in
physicians,
hospitals, and other
health care
providers fighting
among themselves
to provide free (to
charity patients),
tax deductible (to
them) health care.
WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES
Restore the 100% Deductibility of
Health Care Expenses
Throughout most of this century, in-
dividuals were not taxed on the mon-
ey they spent on health care. When
Congress eliminated the tax deducti-
bility of most medical expenses, it
made medical care and health insur-
ance prohibitively expensive for indi-
viduals to pay for on their own.
The solution is 100% deductibility for
medical expenses. One Congressman
consulted for this report estimates
that “this one simple reform will ena-
ble as many as 15 million Americans
who cannot now afford it to gain ac-
cess to healthcare and health insur-
ance.”
Reduce Malpractice Insurance
Costs
Malpractice insurance costs are a ma-
jor source of higher health care ex-
penses. The insurance premiums have
skyrocketed due to multi-million dol-
lar awards made for “pain and suffer-
ing,” which are orders of magnitude
beyond the plaintiff’s medical ex-
penses.
Health Freedom legislation would
eliminate “pain and suffering” mal-
practice settlements; limit malpractice
settlements to all costs of the patient’s
malpractice-related medical bills; and
They are regarded by the medical in-
dustry as “non-payers” to be “turfed”
to the county hospital and receive
minimal treatment.
The quality of their medical care
would be very different if they were
looked upon not as a liability, but as a
tax credit.
Health Freedom legislation would
allow health care providers — physi-
cians, nurses, medical technicians,
pharmacies, and hospitals — to de-
duct from their personal or corporate
income taxes an appreciable amount
of the income they would have de-
rived if their charity patients paid the
normal fees.
Such legislation would result in phy-
sicians, hospitals, and other health
care providers fighting among them-
selves to provide free (to charity pa-
tients), tax deductible (to them) health
care.
Such an incentive to provide free care
would dramatically reduce Medicaid
and Medicare costs — more than
compensating for loss of income tax
revenues. The ultimate savings to the
taxpayers would be astronomical.
Page 10 2017 2nd Quarter
WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES
press approval. No matter how truthful
and supported by scientific evidence
the health claims are, the FDA will at-
tempt to fine or imprison the manufac-
turer for making an “unapproved health
claim…”
Thus to this day it has managed to pre-
vent widespread dissemination through
nutritional advertising of how 400 i.u.
of E and 2,000 mgs. of C per day via
supplements can reduce one’s chances
of heart disease or cancer by over 40%
— which would save hundreds of thou-
sands of lives and save billions of dol-
lars in health care costs each year. This
is just one example with two nutrients.
The savings in lives and money applied
to all nutrients is far greater.
Eliminate State Mandates and Regu-
latory Barriers on Health Insurance
One primary reason for the high cost of
health insurance today is the monumen-
tal number of required benefits health
insurance policies must provide im-
posed by state regulators. Today there
are over one thousand mandates on
everything from hairpieces to marriage
counseling. As a result, insurers are
legally prohibited from supplying low-
cost basic health insurance.
Health Freedom Legislation would al-
low insurers to offer low-cost, basic
health insurance policies with no state
mandated benefits whatever. Such leg-
islation, according to a number of stud-
limit payment to patient attorneys to
normal fees, prohibiting attorney
commissions of a substantial percent-
age of the total settlement.
Allow Truthful Health Claims for
Nutritional Supplements
The evidence that such nutrients as
Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and selenium
can radically reduce the incidence of
heart disease and cancer — the two
diseases which cause more deaths and
are responsible for more health care
spending than anything else — is
simply overwhelming.
Yet the FDA has — let it be stated
candidly — a perverse bias against
nutritional supplements. The “knife-
and-fork” mythology prevails: that
“you can get all the nutrients you
need from a well-balanced diet.”
Getting three grams of Vitamin C dai-
ly (the optimal amount for reducing
risk of heart disease and cancer) from
oranges would require eating sixty
oranges a day — and be far more ex-
pensive than taking one or two cap-
sules. (Not to mention the diabetes
risk from so much sugar in the orang-
es.)
The FDA enforces this bias by threat-
ening a nutrient manufacturer who
supplies information about the health
value of his products with prosecu-
tion if he does so without FDA’s ex-
No matter how truth-
ful and supported by
scientific evidence are
the health claims, the
FDA will attempt to
fine or imprison the
manufacturer for
making an
“unapproved health
claim…”
Page 11
WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES UNITED AIRLINES
ies, would reduce health insurance
policy cost by twenty percent or
more. Needless to say, Obamacare
nationalizes the problem and makes it
far worse — requiring, e.g., that all
policies must include abortion cover-
age.
[End of Dr. Wheeler’s Quote]
Conclusion
No one should go bankrupt just be-
cause they get sick. There are plenty
of charitable health organizations and
government safety nets that will see
to that. Obamacare was sold under
the false ruse that there were 40 mil-
lion uninsured in America. But three-
fourths of those were young people
who didn’t want to buy insurance.
Evidence of this is that, according to
the Department of Health and Human
Services, only 12.7 million were en-
rolled in the plan in 2016. But just
like the “energy crisis” and the
“poverty crisis,” the government
needed a cause to expand itself.
Anyone who has ever dealt with hos-
pitals, doctors and especially Medi-
care knows the system is not patient-
oriented. It is based on accountants
and bureaucratic rules which are far
removed from the patient. It is one
size-fits-all like the DOT rules which
didn’t allow local United Airline em-
ployees to use common sense. And
the costs are crushing our economy.
“Forget Taxes, Warren Buffett Says.
The Real Problem Is Health Care,” is
the title of a recent New York Times
article. “About 50 years ago, he said,
‘health care was 5 percent of G.D.P.,
and now it’s about 17 percent…’ ”
“Mr. Buffett said our global competi-
tiveness had fallen largely because our
businesses were paying far more for
health care—a tax by another name —
than those in other countries.”
Congress, when left to itself, will never
opt for free market solutions because
they are outside their control and cut
off their gravy train. It is up to us to
demand it. ■ NPC
Anyone who has
ever dealt with
hospitals, doctors
and especially
Medicare knows the
system is not patient
-oriented. It is based
on accountants and
bureaucratic rules
which are far
removed from the
patient.
Page 12
MAGICAL Music from the
Movies
Legendary film music for chorus and
orchestra, from the 1920’s to today,
including melodies by:
• Williams for Amistad, Empire of
the Sun, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and
Home Alone
• Shore for Hobbit: An Unexpected
Journey
• Rodgers for Victory At Sea
• Elmer Bernstein for
The Magnificent Seven and Leonard Bernstein for West
Side Story
• Schwartz for Prince of Egypt
6.25.2017, 4:30 pm
at Wentz Hall, 171 E.
Chicago Avenue, Naperville
$24 general admission (senior/youth discount)
630.887.7464
westsubsymphony.org
2017 2nd Quarter
POTPOURRI
Church Bulletin Bloopers
• Don’t let worry kill you – let the
church help.
• Thursday night potluck supper.
Prayer and medication to follow.
• Remember in prayer the many who
are sick of our church and commu-
nity.
• For those of you who have chil-
dren and don’t know it, we have a
nursery downstairs.
• Tuesday at 4:00 pm there will be
an ice cream social. All ladies giv-
ing milk will please come early.
• Thursday at 5:00 pm there will be
a meeting of the Little Mothers
Club. All wishing to become little
mothers, please see the minister in
his study.
• This being Easter Sunday, we will
ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward
and lay an egg on the altar.
• The ladies of the church have cast
off clothing of every kind and they
may be seen in the church base-
ment Friday.
• A bean supper will be held on
Tuesday evening in the church
hall. Music will follow.
• At the evening service tonight, the
sermon topic will be “What Is
Hell?” Come early and listen to
our choir practice.
— pastors.com
WELCOME SHALA DENDLER
We are pleased that Shala joined Re-
tirement Planners in February as our
receptionist and a member of our Cli-
ent Services team. Time away from
work is spent teaching yoga, reading,
playing the piano and spending time
with her daughters.
Mexico's Sewage Warfare
After decades of being a good neigh-
bor and spending more than half a
billion dollars to build Tijuana's sew-
age treatment plants, Mexico has re-
paid the favor by intentionally un-
leashing 143 million gallons of stench
-filled sewage onto San Diego's
beaches over 17 days in February.
It's the biggest spill in two decades,
the San Diego Union Tribune report-
ed. San Diego officials say it was
done without warning, was deliber-
ately done, and still has garnered no
response from Mexican officials who
won't even take U.S. phone calls.
— americanthinker.com
Page 13
It is a paradoxical
truth that tax rates
are too high today
and tax revenues are
too low, and the
soundest way to raise
the revenues in the
long run is to cut the
tax rates.
– John F. Kennedy
POTPOURRI
Where Did the Money Go? - 78%
of former NFL players file for per-
sonal bankruptcy or suffer financial
stress within just 2 years of retiring
from the pro game (source: Sports
Illustrated).
— Foreside Funds Services
New Administration Needs to
Overhaul Economic Report-
ing • How Can Headline Real GDP
Be Up 12.1% from Its Pre-Recession
High, While Industrial Production Is
Down 1.1% (-1.1%), and Manufac-
turing Is Down 5.7% (-5.7%)? • How
Can GDP Be in Its 22nd Quarter of
Expansion, When Industrial Produc-
tion is in Its 36th Quarter of Non-
Expansion, Rivaling Its Great De-
pression Run of 37 Quarters?
— John Williams, Shadow Government
Statistics
Whether you’re for Trump or
against Trump, the White House is
under attack from elements inside the
Intelligence community which are
trying to elevate tensions between
Russia and the US. At the bottom of
that is money and an agenda to cash-
in on conflict. There’s a game going
on inside the Intelligence community
where there are those who want to
separate the US from Russia in a way
that would re-ignite the cold
war...Wake up America!
— former Democratic Congressman,
Dennis Kucinich
Obama’s Hidden Iran Deal Give-
Away
By dropping charges against major
arms targets, the administration infur-
iated Justice Department officials —
and undermined its own counterpro-
liferation task forces. When federal
prosecutors and agents learned the
true extent of the releases, many were
shocked and angry. Some had spent
years, if not decades, working to pen-
etrate the global proliferation net-
works that allowed Iranian arms trad-
ers both to obtain crucial materials for
Tehran’s illicit nuclear and ballistic
missile programs and, in some cases,
to provide dangerous materials to oth-
er countries…
— politico.com
Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore Lead
Nation in Population Loss; Mari-
copa County Has Biggest Gain
Between July 1, 2015 and July 1,
2016, Cook County [Chicago] lost a
net of 21,324 people to hit 5,203,499,
according to the Census Bureau.
Even while it was experiencing the
largest net population loss of any
county in the country, Cook County
was seeing an influx of migrants from
foreign countries and more births
than deaths…
— cnsnews.com
Page 14
A major food company has
recalled two types of frozen hash
browns because the potatoes may
contain pieces of golf balls. Doctors
say if you’ve already ingested
pieces of golf balls, the best thing is to just let them play
through.
— James Corden
2017 2nd Quarter
POTPOURRI
way, Sweden, Czechia, and France…
— lifezette.com
O’Driscoll: … some Fed officials
must be worried that they have created
asset bubbles… Here, they are be-
tween a rock and a hard place. The
history of asset bubbles is that, once
inflated, they are not easily deflated
gradually. They tend to burst, as evi-
denced in the last financial crisis…
A very large amount of global debts
are denominated in dollars. Countries,
especially emerging markets, firms,
and individuals have borrowed cheap-
ly in dollars. To repay that dollar debt,
governments, businesses and individu-
als must earn income or collect taxes
in local currencies. As the dollar
strengthens, the real burden of those
debts rises in terms of local currencies.
Borrowers will need to devote more of
their income to servicing the dollar
debts…
The Fed's fundamental problem is that
the dollar is global money and the Fed
is running a global monetary policy…
That stubborn fiction is what helps
produce global financial crises…
— cnbc.com
Violent Threats Against the Presi-
dent are Ok Now?
The media has largely glossed over
these serious threats with a shrug. A
Mendoza Criticizes Illinois'
'lawless' Fiscal Climate
Hospitals and doctors treating pa-
tients on the state payroll are now
owed a collective $4.3 billion, Demo-
cratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza
highlights in a new report that reflects
a "lawless fiscal climate."
The annual state report for the fiscal
year ended June 30 "paints a worsen-
ing outlook" for Illinois' financial fu-
ture, the comptroller's office said in a
statement…
In the 375-page report, Mendoza un-
derscored the budget crisis. Illinois'
net deficit grew about 5 percent from
June 2015 to June 2016, totaling
$126.7 billion last year. The bulk of
the liability is in a $116 billion pen-
sion shortfall.
— Crain’s Chicago Business
The Shadowy Extremist Group
Behind the Anti-Trump Riots
Antifa, which stands for “anti-fascist
action,” is a network of loosely affili-
ated far-left anarchist and communist
groups that orchestrate violent pro-
tests and attacks on populists, con-
servatives, and anyone else its mem-
bers deem to be “fascists” or
“Nazis.”…
It now has active cells across the
world, including in Germany, the
U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Nor-
Page 15
Golf is a walk spoiled – Mark Twain
POTPOURRI
War is like crack for presidents. It
confers instant gravitas, catapulting
them to respectability, bypassing all
station stops. They get to make
macho pronouncements on a topic
where every utterance is seen as au-
gust…
We have never succeeded at turning a
Third World dictatorship into a para-
dise. The history of these things is
that removing a Middle Eastern
strongman always makes things
worse -- for example, in Iran, Iraq,
Libya and Egypt.
We leap in, thinking we're helping the
poor devils under the thumb of a dic-
tator -- and then the new tribe takes
over and oppresses everyone else,
usually much more brutally, while
hating us even more than the old tribe
did…
Was America strengthened by the
Iraq War? The apparently never-
ending Afghanistan War? Vietnam?
This is how great powers die, which
is exactly what the left wants…
— anncoulter.com
Jerry Brown: California Taxpay-
ers are 'Freeloaders'
California Governor Jerry Brown re-
ferred to taxpayers as “freeloaders”
last week for objecting to his new gas
tax and car fee hikes…
— breitbart.com
simple Google search on Snoop Dog-
g’s assassination video, for example,
yields virtually no mainstream edito-
rials expressing disgust. It’s almost
as if there’s an overarching belief
among the media that Trump brought
this upon himself…
Political tensions are reaching a boil-
ing point and the mainstream media,
pundits, and “analysts” do nothing
but fan the flames…
— thehill.com
Then-Secretary of State John Ker-
ry, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the
Press” on July 20, 2014, asserted,
“With respect to Syria, we struck a
deal where we got 100% of the
chemical weapons out.”…
— nbcnews.com
Hillary Clinton Approved Deliv-
ering Libya’s Sarin Gas to Syrian
Rebels: Seymour Hersh
May 01, 2016 Hersh also said that a
secret agreement in 2012 was
reached between the Obama Admin-
istration and the leaders of Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a
sarin gas attack and blame it on As-
sad so that the US could invade and
overthrow Assad…
— globalresearch.ca
Page 16
2017 2nd Quarter
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pean political division into multiple com-
peting states were substantial: they in-
cluded almost incessant warfare, protec-
tionism, and other coordination failures.
Many scholars now believe, however,
that in the long run the benefits of com-
peting states might have been larger than
the costs. In particular, the existence of
multiple competing states encouraged
scientific and technological innovation…
In the closing chapter of The History of
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Em-
pire (1789), Edward Gibbon wrote:
‘Europe is now divided into 12 powerful,
though unequal, kingdoms.’…
— aeon.co
No Progress Made
After adjusting numerical data from the
past for the impact of inflation, the medi-
an household income today ($56,516) is
lower than the median household income
($57,909) from 1999 (source: Federal
Reserve Bank of St. Louis).
— Foreside Funds Services
2001 Midwest Road, Suite 107
Oak Brook, IL 60523
Phone 630-495-9700
Fax 630-495-9720
Toll Free 877-RETIREES
738-4737
www.rpiinc.com
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POTPOURRI
Former Asst. FBI Director:
‘Professional Team of Subver-
sives’ Out to Get Trump
Kallstrom says Left has plans laid
'for every hour of every day' to
thwart president, create 'outrage'.
— lifezette.com
How [Old] Europe Became So
Rich
In a time of great powers and em-
pires, just one region of the world
experienced extraordinary econom-
ic growth. How?
Europe’s political fragmentation
spurred productive competition. It
meant that European rulers found
themselves competing for the best
and most productive intellectuals
and artisans. The economic histori-
an Eric L Jones called this ‘the
States system’. The costs of Euro-