Musings on the Confirmation HEARings

Why HEARings?  The idea comes from my lovely wife, who is much more brilliant and witty than I (and a whole lot easier on the eyes).  She believes they're called "hearings" because the sole purpose is for the Senators asking the questions to be heard, to toss out sound bites that can be used to further their own political careers.

I wonder why we don't just give them five minutes each to pontificate, and approve all the nominees by acclamation.

My musings based on what I've heard thus far:

·         I'd rather have Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Gen. Mattis, Mike Pompeo, and Dr. Carson in their respective roles than any of the people lobbing questions at them.

·         On Rex Tillerson: why not a business executive as Secretary of State?  Speaking from experience, as a CEO you have to excel at diplomacy and negotiation - and Tillerson was CEO of a far larger organization than I was, with global reach, nearly 10,000 employees, a more knowledgeable board of directors, and more assets and income to manage.  He's had to make deals with heads of state, from both friendly nations like Canada and hostile ones like Russia.

·         I had to laugh when ranking member Ben Cardin tried to school Tillerson on what he'd face as Secretary of State: being in charge of a very large organization with some of the most talented employees in their field.  Yeah, I think he's got that role knocked, Senator.  Exxon Mobil has a few pretty smart engineers in its employ, and about three times the State Department's workforce.

·         When Tillerson was asked about his views on sanctions when he was at Exxon Mobil vs. now, I thought his answer was very good: appropriate sanctions, properly targeted and broadly supported by allies, can be effective.  His opposition was to the weak and one-sided sanctions that have been deployed over the past eight years, that served to harm U.S. business interests while benefitting the target nations.  But if I were him, I'd have simply pointed out that my views as head of one organization, with one set of priorities, might differ from my views as head of another with a very different set of priorities.  What, do they think that if he'd left Exxon Mobil to go to British Petroleum he'd continue to serve the interests of Exxon Mobil?

·         I had to cringe when Marco Rubio (who's apparently forgotten that he's not campaigning anymore - or maybe he is) tried to get Tillerson to label Putin a war criminal.  When Tillerson said he'd have to see the evidence, Marco basically said it can be found in news reports.  Yeah, Marco, that's a really good idea: an incoming administration labeling a foreign head of state a war criminal based on what the media says.  (For the record, he probably is, but if I were the Secretary of State nominee, I'd want to see the evidence - in the form of credible intel - before I applied the label.  Isn't diplomacy part of the job?)  If that's Marco's tack, thank goodness he lost the primary.

·         Cory Booker became the first sitting Senator to testify against another sitting Senator - Sessions - in a confirmation hearing.  We know this, because before deciding to testify, Booker's office researched the Senate records to make sure he was.  While his testimony was largely benign, only implicitly accusing the guy who desegregated schools in Alabama and bankrupted the KKK there of being a racist, it was clearly political opportunism.  Booker might as well have just announced his candidacy for President in 2020.

·         Mattis will be one hell of a Defense Secretary.  We want him on that wall, we need him on that wall.

·         Pompeo is a smart dude, and will bring a sense of humor and humility to a tough job.

·         Ben Carson at HUD is a head-scratcher to some, but smart people can figure out how to run divergent organizations.  Probably better than politicians can.

·         How can all those deranged nutbags get into a room where a bunch of our elected leaders are sitting (I mean the protestors, not the Senators)?  Was there some Democrat aide in the back of the room opening the door at opportune times?  I'm glad none of them was wearing a Semtex vest.  Sheesh, just close the hearings to everyone but the cameramen, for crying out loud.

The End of an Error

I'm not going to be watching President Obama's farewell address tonight.  I know what he's going to say, and I can parse that from the truth of the matter (this is not a specific slam against the outgoing POTUS per se; all politicians' speeches require - for those informed and not partisan - some degree of ability to parse truth).

I do feel somewhat vindicated that his Presidency turned out exactly as I expected it would when he first ran for the office in 2007.  I predicted that this was a candidate who lacked the requisite experience to fulfill his charge.  And his record has lived down to that expectation.

President Obama began his career as a community organizer - a somewhat nebulous job title.  Oh, I can study what he actually did in the role, but I struggle to see it as a solid foundation for taking on the role of leader of the free world some 24 years later.  (To be fair, I became a CEO at the age of 39, and 24 years earlier I was a high school student whose guidance counselor advised him to not waste his time on college prep courses, because he'd never go to college.  However, it's what I did in the interim -  including two college degrees and some very relevant job experience - that mattered in the end.)

So what did Mr. Obama do in the interim?  Well, after three years of community organizing, he went to Harvard Law School - quite an achievement in its own right.  He then taught at the University of Chicago Law School, another venerable institution, for 12 years, while remaining politically active.  So by the ripe old age of 35, his resume included community organizer, attorney, and toiling in the ivory tower of academia.

Then, he ran for the Senate in his home state of Illinois.  A consummate campaigner, he was elected in 1996 and re-elected in 1998 and 2002.  He took a detour to campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, but lost.  Even as he was gaining re-election in 2002, he had begun an exploratory campaign to seek a U.S. Senate seat, which he ran for beginning in 2003, winning election in 2004.

Eight years, five political campaigns.  Given the time required to devote to a political campaign, one is left to wonder how he had time to actually serve his constituents.

Two years after being sworn in as a U.S. Senator, he announced his candidacy for POTUS.  He missed 38% of Senate votes in 2007, and 64% in 2008.  But he gave a great speech as the keynote speaker at the 2004 DNC, which solidified his position as a rising star in the Democrat party.  And, he would be our nation's first African-American President, which was also compelling.

And thus my concerns back in 2007.  Like many Americans, I believed we were more than ready for an African-American President.  But I didn't want us to pick just any candidate to fulfill that place in history.  Let's have someone with the necessary experience, I silently pleaded.  Not someone whose greatest demonstrated abilities to date were public speaking and campaigning.

He's certainly good at both.  I recall listening to his inaugural address, thinking, "Maybe I was wrong."  It sure sounded good.  But after it was over, a nagging line from "Braveheart" crept into my head:  "Fine speech - now what?"

And the "now what" has exposed his inexperience.  Yes, the economy is stronger today than when he took office.  As I've noted previously, it's a fool's errand to assume a cause-and-effect relationship there.  Considering where the economy was when he took office, my dog Max could have been President for the ensuing eight years, and the economy would have improved (especially with the help of a Fed that held rates at zero for a period of time equal to the prior three interest rate cycles combined, and pumped three trillion dollars into the economy).

Obamacare?  A noble idea, horribly executed.  (As a former CEO, I know that's the clearest sign of inexperience: smart people - which Obama certainly is - coming up with great ideas, but screwing the pooch when it comes to execution.)

Foreign policy?  Feckless and lacking direction.  Again, a sure sign of inexperience:  "What should we do?  Hal?  Hal?" (another movie reference, by the way).

And on and on.

So, President Obama has proven to be everything I expected him to be, and disappointingly, nothing more: a compelling speaker (with a teleprompter), a consummate campaigner, but sorely lacking in the experience needed to lead, to manage, to execute.

I also expected him to be the most divisive President to date, and he's fulfilled those expectations as well.  We are more divided - left and right, black and white, rich and poor - than we've been since the '60s.

We the people should have known better than to commit this error (twice).  Mr. Obama's campaign refrains were even more vague than Donald Trump's, and that's saying something:

1.  "The failed policies of the last eight years."  (That one would be repeated throughout his first term, as President Bush was blamed for everything from the housing bubble to shooting J.R.)

2.  "Hope and Change."  (We hoped; nothing changed.)

3.  "Yes We Can."  (Borrowed from Bob the Builder.)

Mr. Obama began his presidency with the now-infamous apology tour, where he visited leaders around the world, apologizing for America being America.  Guys like Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, Kim Yong-Nam, and the ayatollahs began salivating.

He's ending it with a world tour of defending his record, trying to preserve his legacy.  Good luck with that.  Since the election, he's used the pen and the phone to do all he can to make it more difficult for the PEOTUS to unravel that legacy, but it's inevitable - and necessary.  That's what he'll be doing tonight.  I've heard it before, and I know better.

I heard today that a bunch of Hollywood celebrities have put together a video celebrating his presidency.  Stars like Ellen Degeneres talking about what a good dancer he is, and other substantive accolades.  And it gave me a thought.

President Obama has enjoyed rubbing shoulders with those celebrities during the past eight years.  He's relished appearances with everyone from Jimmy Kimmel to GloZell, the youtube vlogger who drank cereal from a bathtub and snorted cinnamon.  In fact, celebrities may be the only group in America that can look at President Obama and say, "Yeah, he's one of us."

That's when it occurred to me: President Obama used his presidency to become a celebrity.  Donald Trump used his celebrity to become President.  Thus far, that may be the greatest difference between them.

Let's hope and pray it doesn't stay that way.

U.S. Foreign Policy: A Primer

Just a few quick lunchtime thoughts on current American foreign policy, in a nutshell:

Russia invades Ukraine, steals Crimea.
U.S. response: give Ukraine $1 billion, threaten Russia with sanctions, say Russia shouldn't have done that.

Russia hacks into various U.S. government agency databases, including (possibly) the Department of Energy and the White House.
U.S. response: Obama tells Putin, "Cut it out."  (This wasn't effective diplomacy when my brother and I used to fight in the back seat of the car on vacation; I hardly believe it'll be effective when dealing with the likes of Putin.)

Russia allegedly hacks into the Democrat National Committee email servers, exposing the truth about the Clinton campaign, and resulting in the blame for her loss in the Presidential election being pointed at the alleged hack.  (I'll have more to say about the alleged hack and the reasons for the election results in a later post.
U.S. response:  "SANCTIONS!!  BY ALL THAT IS RIGHTEOUS AND HOLY, THERE WILL BE SANCTIONS!!!"

And there you have it, boys and girls.  Invade other countries, annex their lands, and we shake a finger.  Hack into actual government databases, and we say "cut it out."  But hack into our sacred party's cesspool of evidence of back-room plotting and dealing, and you'll get a reaction.

The Golden Globes

First, let me say I didn't watch the Golden Globes.  I never would.  I'm not into star-worship.  I don't care who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  I don't get all weepy when we lose a Carrie Fisher to cardiac arrest at age 60, or a Debbie Reynolds to intracerebral hemorrhage at age 81.  (I don't mean to sound insensitive; it's just that I'm more affected by losing unnamed children at the hands of a suicide bomber, or innocents waiting for their luggage in an airport baggage claim area, than I am by some celebrity dying of a natural cause at a ripe old age, having enjoyed a full and blessed life.)  I don't scream my angst at 2016 for taking so many stars from us, when so many other lives have been lost.  Think Chicago.

A few days ago, my wife and I watched an excellent film on Netflix, "Spotlight."  I had no idea that it had won Best Picture at the Oscars last year.  I couldn't care less.  Most of the Best Picture winners I've seen have been hot garbage, and I've seen a good many enjoyable films that the Oscars didn't sniff.

It's entertainment, after all, and, like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder.

However, perusing Facebook the morning after the Golden Globes, I did read of much of the hoopla that emanated from it.  So I feel compelled to opine.  First, with a message for Meryl Streep.  Then, with a message for Hollywood in general.  And finally, with a message for Alec Baldwin.

Ms. Streep: let me first say that more people watch football than have seen your films.  I'm sure that sticks in your elitist craw, but it's fact.  (By the way, you were a cheerleader, so at some point, football was important for you, if only in terms of getting you noticed; while the players on the field did the actual work, you got some attention for doing high kicks and shaking your pom-poms on the sideline.)

Second, let me say that what you do is not "art," it's entertainment.  You started your career in theater - that comes closer to art, and I say that as someone who's been involved in theater, and has seen some wonderful (and disappointing) shows on Broadway, the West End in London, and other venues.

However, you detoured into film - presumably for the money.  I don't hold that against you; greed isn't a bad thing, in my view.  However, if you insist on defending movies as "art," how do you justify "Waterworld?"  "Baseketballs?"  The Freddy Krueger movies?  The upcoming "Fist Fight?"

Ah, you say haughtily, but I would never participate in such films.  Okay, how about "The House of the Spirits?"  "Before and After?"  Or "The Bridges of Madison County," that tribute to the romanticism of marital infidelity?

Sorry, Meryl.  You're no artist.  You're a for-profit entertainer.

And on that note, this is how I feel about entertainers.  You make a ton of money pretending to do what the rest of us do, day in and day out, in real life.  Which you apparently don't have the skills or talent or knowledge to do yourselves.  Sure, you can play make believe.  We've all done that, as kids, when we were growing up.  But then we grew up, and made a positive contribution to our society and our economy, while you continued to play-act, to entertain.

That's okay.  That's your job.  It's what I and other hard-working Americans pay you to do.  So do it, already.  Get on that stage or behind that camera and do what I pay you to do: pretend to be something you could never be in real life, but that I and others can be.  Make us laugh.  Make us cry.  Inspire us.  Entertain us.  Give us an escape from the hard work that we do.

Then shut up.  Get back in your box until we're ready to bring you out again, for our pleasure, to entertain us once more.  Because, you see, you don't exist in our consciousness until we invite you to, by going to a theater.  And once the final credits have scrolled, you cease to exist in our consciousness once again.  You are as unimportant as a book that we'll read, enjoy, then sell in a garage sale for a quarter.  (And the book is always better than the movie.)  You are as forgotten as the popcorn we consumed.

If we want your opinion on world events, the political scene, or any other important issue, we'll be the first to let you know.  Until then, do the job we pay you to do, be thankful that we pay you to do it, appreciate that we forgive your occasional bombs as we enjoy your occasional successes, then keep your views to yourself.  We don't care.  You are our entertainers, like so many monkeys as we grind the organ, and you are otherwise inconsequential.

Finally, to Alec Baldwin.  You are unfunny.  You are at your best when you're in a serious role - Ghosts of Mississippi comes to mind - but apparently Hollywood isn't interested in that from you anymore.  Maybe you're washed up in that regard.  Now, you come across as one of those guys desperately trying to be funny, but missing the mark.  You've been relegated to such roles as providing a voice in a Spongebob Squarepants movie.  How proud of your "art" you must be.  You even sucked in those credit card ads, so much so that Jennifer Garner had to come in and replace you.

As you bash Donald Trump (with the worst Trump impersonation ever - Darrell Hammond was far, far better), we're reminded of those sordid recorded voicemails you left threatening your daughter.  At least Trump loves his kids, even if he's divorced from their mother.

Remember, Hollywood, you are my plaything.  I can take you out of your box and play with you - paying to do so, which provides you with a livelihood, for which I'd like some gratitude - or I can ignore you.  Either way, at the end of it, back in the box you go, until I'm ready to be entertained again, at the time of my choosing.  Not yours.  Why?

Because in the grand scheme of things, you are unimportant.

"No Hope"

First Lady Michelle Obama, appearing on Oprah recently, commented that "now we are feeling what not having hope feels like."

Really, Madam First Lady?

Were you not so out of touch with most of America, you might know that the first post-election print of the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index posted a 6.6-point jump from the previous reading.  The index reached its sixth-highest level since your husband was elected President in 2008.  Consumers sure look hopeful.

You might also know that the equity markets have been on a tear since the election, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average tickling 20,000 for the first time in history.  The Dow posted 17 record closes in the 32 trading days after the election, and is up nearly 9% since then.  Also, the Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index, which polls small investors, reached the highest point a week after the election since before your husband was elected President.  Investors - large and small - sure look hopeful.

I haven't been out Christmas shopping this year; recovering from hernia surgery tends to keep one house-bound.  However, a PwC poll covering the holiday shopping season found that consumers, on average, plan to spend about 10% more this year than last, and consumers with household incomes less than $50,000 plan to increase spending more than consumers overall.  So holiday shoppers sure look hopeful - even those of limited means.

Millions of Americans are hopeful that their health insurance premiums will go down, or at least not continue to increase at an astronomical rate.  Taxpayers are hopeful that they'll get to take home more of their hard-earned pay, and that the legacy of government over-spending may finally end.  Small businesses are hopeful that they won't continue to be strangled by regulatory excess.

If you really want to see what not having hope looks like, Madam First Lady, might I suggest you look at the footage coming out of Aleppo recently.  Tragically, most people there have lost hope, as your husband's "red line" disappeared like the scrawling on one of those Magic Slate things some of us had as kids, where you lift the clear plastic sheet, and voila, the lines you drew are gone.

Or pay a visit to Africa - not for a photo op, as your husband did when he visited his grandmother in Kenya, but to spend time among people living in impoverished conditions.  My own experiences in Africa have taught me that many people there do have hope, because they place their hope in God, not in some politician.

And that brings us to an important point: the sheer arrogance of someone actually suggesting that the people's hope derives from who occupies the White House is pretty amazing.  Just because you bandy the word about as a campaign slogan doesn't mean you've cornered the market on hope.

Especially when, after eight years, you've failed to deliver on the change that was supposed to justify that hope.

Beyond the self-serving silliness of Mrs. Obama's claim looms the question: why is she making the claim, at this moment in time, to begin with?  Her husband has publicly pledged to work to ensure a smooth and orderly transition of power, adding, "We are all rooting for [Trump's] success in uniting and leading the country."

But there's another message being transmitted, by Press Secretary Josh Earnest, who has made numerous public anti-Trump comments since the election, and then this from Mrs. Obama, who apparently isn't among those rooting for Trump's success in uniting the country.  Instead, her statements are working against those efforts.

Mrs. Obama claimed in a campaign speech for Hillary Clinton, "When they go low, we go high."

Indeed.

We've Been Jobbed!

The December 2016 jobs report - the last one that will print during President Obama's time in office - was a mixed bag: non-farm payrolls rose just 156k, less than expected, but there were upward revisions to the October and November gains.  The jobless rate edged up a tick to 4.7%, still very low historically.  The brightest spot was wage growth, which hit 2.9% year-over-year, the first decent number since the recession.

Yahoo Finance placed a different spin on the report.  It printed an article titled, "President Obama's Legacy Has Just Been Cemented."  Hmmm.  Rather than accepting at face value an attempt by a left-leaning internet "news" source to salvage one piece of the outgoing Democrat President's now-threatened legacy, let's look at the numbers and the facts, shall we?  Point by point, we'll debunk the Yahoo Finance (YF) puff piece.

"75 consecutive months of job gains."

Can't argue with that one.  However, read on.

"Wage growth acceleration."

To justify this assertion, YF presents a graph showing average wages since 1980.  They then unabashedly mine the data, showing that wage growth averaged just 0.1% per year from 1980 to 2007, but it's been 1.3% since 2012.  Sounds impressive, right?

Except the period from 1980-2007 included three full recessions and parts of two more, yet YF conveniently starts the recent growth trend well after the most recent recession ended.  Why not compare wage gains from the time President Obama took office?  Or compare the recent growth spurt to other periods of strong growth in wages?  The fact is that wage gains have been an anemic trouble spot for the labor market from the end of the recession until about 2014, and only then have they picked up.  When it comes to data mining, if you torture the data long enough, it'll confess to anything.

"Full-time job boom."

 Attempting to refute the claims that much of the job growth we've seen since the recession ended has been "lower-quality" jobs, YF presents a graph comparing growth in full-time vs. part-time employment.  They note that full-time jobs have grown by 13.7 million since December 2009 (again, conveniently excluding the decline in full-time employment from President Obama's inauguration until December), while part-time jobs have grown by only 420,000.

Not so fast.  Those who argue that the jobs we've added are of lower quality than those lost during the recession base that argument on the U6 rate, which by definition is "Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons."  In other words, it's not only those out of work plus those working part-time because they want full-time work but can't find it.  It's those that are flipping burgers at McDonald's when they'd rather be making mortgage loans, like they used to, which accounts for a large measure of job replacement and gains since the recession.

The U6 rate has definitely improved since the recession.  However, it remains at 9.2%, nearly double the headline unemployment rate (it was below 8% before the recession).  And, like the headline rate, a big part of why it's come down is that the labor force participation rate has fallen from 65.8% in February 2009 to 62.7% - the eighth-lowest level since 1978 - in December.

What does that mean, and why is it important?  It means that the percent of the population that is working or actively looking for work has declined by more than three percentage points during that span (that translates to about 7.3 million people).  Since the number of those working has increased, that means the number of those looking for work has declined precipitously.  Why?  Simple: they've given up looking, unable to find jobs.

Why is the number important?  It's a key determinant in any measure of unemployment.  The headline unemployment rate is those able and willing to, and actively looking for work, but unemployed, divided by all of those able and willing to work.  If you're not willing, you aren't counted in the participation rate, so you fall out of the jobless rate equation.  The same is true of the U6 rate.

In other words, as the number of discouraged unemployed - those who've given up looking for work - increases, driving the labor force participation down, both the headline unemployment rate and the U6 rate look better and better.  Statistics are like a bikini; what they don't reveal is often more interesting than what they do.

"Outpacing the rest of the developed world."

YF goes on to note that job growth in the U.S. has exceeded that in the rest of the G-7 combined (this point was also touted on CNBC Friday morning by the outgoing Labor Secretary).  Again, can't disagree.  However, it must be noted that the U.S. population is more than double that of the next-largest G-7 country, and is nearly equal to the combined populations of the other six members.  Still, it's true that even on a relative basis our job growth has outpaced countries like Japan, which remains depressed, and Italy and France, whose economies remain stagnant.  But it's a bit of a misleading argument without comparing the relative populations, labor force participation rates, and myriad other moving parts that influence one nation's job growth vs. another's.

YF led the piece with a statement that "Since the beginning of 2010, 15.8 million private sector jobs have been added to the economy."  "Since the beginning of 2010" - again with the data mining.  Let's look at some real numbers.

During the recession, a total of about nine million jobs were lost, counting only those months from July 2007 through September 2009 in which nonfarm payrolls declined.  During President Obama's tenure, the total gain in nonfarm payrolls was indeed about 15.8 million, counting only those months in which payrolls increased.  So we replaced the nine million jobs lost, and gained another 6.8 million.  That's very different from gaining 15.8 million jobs from a starting point of zero.  (The first 20 months of President Obama's tenure saw 16 months of job losses, totaling about 4.6 million jobs.)

If you average the net new jobs under President Obama's tenure over the 95 full months he's been in office, you get an anemic average monthly growth rate of about 71,000.  Hardly impressive.

However, none of my points above should be misconstrued as an argument that "President Obama hasn't created enough jobs."  Politicians don't create jobs, demand does.  There are three ways a President can foster job creation:

1.  Expand government employment, which brings with it a host of disadvantages, including larger deficits.  To his credit, federal employment has declined under President Obama - yet that actually makes him a job-cutter, not a job creator.

2.  Jawbone individual companies to hire workers or keep them in the U.S.  This is a pretty novel approach, and one that's been employed recently by President-elect Trump.  It's been somewhat effective, but it's a drop in the bucket.

3.  Foster an environment conducive to job creation.  Cut regulations, cut corporate and individual taxes, control health care costs, and otherwise get the hell out of the way of the private sector so it can do its thing.  Putting more money in individuals' pockets - whether from lower individual taxes or lower health care costs - will encourage them to spend, increasing demand, which increases jobs.  Cutting corporate taxes will make the U.S. more competitive relative to countries like Ireland, which has wooed away hordes of U.S. jobs since it slashed its corporate tax rate.  That's more employees in the U.S., with money to spend - again increasing demand, which creates even more jobs.  Cutting regulations (not to a ridiculous extent, just to a sane one) makes it easier for companies to do business, and if they can do more business, they'll need to create more jobs.

The first two means above are direct means, the third is indirect.  Regarding that point, has President Obama done any of those things?  Corporate and individual tax increases.  Increased regulation (Dodd-Frank, CFPB, etc., ad nauseum).  Obamacare, with its skyrocketing premiums.

Nope, nope and nope.

Can we really argue that the most business-unfriendly President of my lifetime has been the reason for any meaningful improvement in the business sector?

The bottom line is that it's fallacious to attribute job growth, stock market gains, GDP growth or any other economic metric directly to a President during his tenure.  There are too many moving parts, too many variables.  For example, do you think the Fed's zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing for nearly seven years might have something to do with economic and market performance under President Obama's tenure?

Also, there are lags between the implementation of policy (fiscal or monetary) and the effects of those policies.  The economy surged under President Clinton's watch, and the deficit turned into a surplus - in no small part due to the end of the Cold War under Reagan and Bush I, which paved the way for massive cuts in defense spending under Clinton.  It's taken several years for the Fed's low-rate policy to get the economy to the point where it can stand on its own, without life support.  And it's taken several years for the feared premium increases under Obamacare to rear their ugly heads.

So yes, we've seen considerable job growth since President Obama was sworn in, and a huge run-up in stock prices (even before the recent rally, which is a direct result of the market's hopeful expectations for a business-friendly administration).

But it's important to understand the distinction between coincidence and causation.  I've also gained weight since President Obama took office.  Does that mean he made me fat?  

The Return of the Curmudgeon

The curmudgeon is back, but not nearly as curmudgeonly - at least where the economy is concerned - as I was when I started this blog.  I'll let that story unfold in future posts.

As always, I will focus on speaking economic truth, because it's in short supply.  I find that understanding of economics is woefully lacking, including among some economists, as I've noted before.  And now more than ever, if you're getting your economic education from the media, you're only making matters worse in terms of your economic literacy.

I will also, as before, delve into politics, in part because economics and politics are bedfellows, and sometimes strange ones.

So a disclaimer is in order.  One, I'm not partisan.  In fact, I detest partisanship.  I'm a registered Independent, but have been registered in the past with both major parties, and voted across party lines when I was.  I do, however, lean conservative, especially on fiscal matters.

Two, I didn't vote for Donald Trump in the recent presidential election (I'll state why in an upcoming post).  Nor did I vote for Hillary Clinton (I'll address that too).  I wrote in the name of a third-party candidate who wasn't on the Kansas ballot, Evan McMullin.

So I'm likely to be an equal opportunity offender.  That's okay with me; at my age I've figured out that you can't make everyone happy, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.

If you are partisan, you probably don't want to read this blog.  But if you're open to civil discourse and witty repartee, I encourage you to visit, and even to chime in with comments or questions - but again, only if they're civil.  If you can't be civil, and refuse to hear a viewpoint that differs from your own, you're part of the problem, and should probably be reading Drudge or Occupy Democrats.  That will feed your bias, and prevent you from being exposed to the views of those who may think differently.

The next several posts will, in fact, likely be related more to politics than economics, because of the time we're in.  I've had a lot on my mind about recent happenings, so I've got a few particular posts teed up.  Stay tuned.

If you're new here, welcome, and if you followed before, welcome back (and sorry for the hiatus).  Here we go ...