Financial topics

[aeden]

'monetize' and buy everything for themselves because they've been given license to counterfeit money out of thin air.
if you voice a problem with that, you're 'anti-semitic', and in some countries can be thrown in jail for saying it,
not to mention that (((Ben Cardin))) has introduced similar legislation in the United States.

http://mondoweiss.net/2018/04/arrested- ... -killings/

After its establishment in Russia and its subsequent persecution in 1883, and in 1903, the Wandering Zionism toyed with the idea of setting up "artificially" exogenous settlements to the letter in the balkanization process of "the Plan".

Mr. Schumer is correct for the wrong reason at the wrong time for the right reason not to get "involved".

But hasn’t finance Zionism - a Zionism even deadlier than its irredentist version – already drawn all of the aforementioned countries into the Anglo-Saxon sphere of influence, in the course of the twenty-first century, through global banking deregulation?

The Office has another spill in isle four. The taxpayers are not amused. Can you send it back over the pond please.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04- ... sky-assets

buy all the things 4chan
/pol/ Know Your Meme

If you are thinking please read Sean Mcmeekin again and save the dialectics for the children.

Since 1973 the Shining Path members gained control and no, some have not forgotten the consequences.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04- ... deal-trump

There are two very important words repeatedly used throughout the Homeric epics: honor (timé ) and virtue or greatness (areté ). The latter term is perhaps the most reiterated cultural and moral value in Ancient Greece and means something like achieving, morally and otherwise, your greatest potential as a human being. The reward for great honor and virtue is fame (kleos ), which is what guarantees meaning and value to one's life. Dying without fame (akleos ) is generally considered a disaster, and the warriors of the Homeric epics commit the most outrageous deeds to avoid dying in obscurity or infamy (witness Odysseus's absurd insistence on telling Polyphemos his name even though this will bring
disaster on him and his men in the Polyphemos episode). The passage from Odyssey XI discussed above presents Achilles's final judgement on kleos and its value when he tells Odysseus that he would rather be alive and the most obscure human on earth than dead and famous.

Isaiah 55:8-9 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Footnotes: Isaiah 55:8 Although you are not soon reconciled one to another and judge me by yourselves,
yet I am most easy to be reconciled, yea, I offer my mercies to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn8a8Mwyz08

His Name was Maxim Borodin.
http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/ ... e/1643/814

[Higgenbotham]

As the skill of all the players in a game rises, luck increasingly influences who wins and who loses.

About the time this was posted on Saturday, lucky 26 year old Sarah Sellers was heading to Boston to run her second ever marathon. On Monday, Sarah had herself a second place finish at the 2018 Boston Marathon, a $75,000 check, and a possible shoe endorsement deal.

Weather conditions were cold and rainy. One of the favorites reported her teeth started chattering about mile 6. The eventual winner was reported to have said she was going to drop out of the race, but somehow persevered. If she hadn't persevered, Sarah would have won.

The Kenyans and Ethiopians usually dominate the race, but only one African woman finished in the top 15 this year. Sarah's time was 23 minutes slower than the African winner's time at last year's Boston Marathon.

Sarah said she will use the prize money to pay off student loans. She may not fully realize it, but this stroke of luck will likely dramatically alter her life course for the better. I think almost all Americans realize at least on a subconscious level that this is a "lottery economy" and luck matters more than ever.

[Higgenbotham]

Which brings me to another topic that I just became fully aware of in the past few days, after hearing a few sound bites in January. That is the story that broke about dozens of women testifying in January at the sentencing of the USA Gymnastics "doctor" Larry Nassar who sexually assaulted hundreds of young females in USA Gymnastics over many years. I wondered how hundreds of parents could have missed this. I don't have the answers for sure, but I do believe that one small piece of the puzzle is the prominence, once again, of the "lottery economy".

Every parent who pushes their kids into a program like this would like to be an eventual winner in the "lottery economy" with the gold medal and, at a minimum, the picture on the Wheaties box, but likely a whole lot more than that. And a lot of folks today need that whole lot more if they ever stand to be a winner in the "lottery economy". That's I think why we see 15 year old girls winning Olympic swimming medals who show obvious signs of steroid use. And I think why the parents of young girls in USA Gymnastics may have wished to not really believe perhaps subtle indications "doctor" Larry Nassar was a pervert, and those warning signs went unheeded by hundreds of people who should have known better. We could call it the "USA Gymnastics Bubble" and that bubble may have burst at just about the same time the "Bitcoin Bubble" burst. The stock market bubble can't be too far behind.

It used to be that middle class was good enough for just about everybody. But with a shrinking middle class, the choice may be between living in poverty or somehow, some way becoming a winner in the "lottery economy".

[Higgenbotham]

If you really want to see Gen-X'ers at their worst, just look at LinkedIn. The amount of time that Gen-Xers spend there promoting themselves is sickening. They spend so much time posting stories, personal anecdotes, etc, I wonder how any of them have time to work. I am amazed at how much self-promotion goes on there. In the past, we would have properly recognized it as narcissism, but today we call it, "personal branding".

I think the "lottery economy" feeds into this, too. If someone does enough shameless public self-promotion, maybe, just maybe there's a chance the right person will notice and that someone will "get lucky". In a world where great work will get most people a 3% raise at best and maybe a prescription for high blood pressure, insomnia, or acid reflux, many feel grasping at straws is their best option. For those who know they don't have any options left, opioids look good.

[Higgenbotham]

Licensed engineers are those who have passed the state licensing exam and are required to sign off on infrastructure projects. They are what I would call the "designated felons" if something goes wrong with a project. In our workplace, they get their own offices and the best offices. After I was there a few months, my manager called me in and asked if I had taken the licensing exam. He said he had a job in mind for me and would hold it pending the results of the exam. I told him I hadn't taken it. That topic was not discussed again.

After that, I got a succession of cube mates (whereas previous to that discussion I had my own cubicle, but not a great one), each worse than the previous one. The tactic was to keep making my life more and more miserable so that I would "see the light" and take the licensing exam so I could have my own office and become one of their "designated felons".

Pay for entry level "designated felons" was hiked 9% last week in my old workplace.

[thomasglee]

If you really want to see Gen-X'ers at their worst, just look at LinkedIn. The amount of time that Gen-Xers spend there promoting themselves is sickening. They spend so much time posting stories, personal anecdotes, etc, I wonder how any of them have time to work. I am amazed at how much self-promotion goes on there. In the past, we would have properly recognized it as narcissism, but today we call it, "personal branding".

I think the "lottery economy" feeds into this, too. If someone does enough shameless public self-promotion, maybe, just maybe there's a chance the right person will notice and that someone will "get lucky". In a world where great work will get most people a 3% raise at best and maybe a prescription for high blood pressure, insomnia, or acid reflux, many feel grasping at straws is their best option. For those who know they don't have any options left, opioids look good.

I do think you're right!

[aeden]

https://brassballs.blog/home/accepting- ... ty-florida

They are toxic and untruthful to events. Then they turn on anyone who they consider outsiders when they have all they want to ever know.
In 1974, Austrian-British economist Friedrich A. Hayek worried aloud that thinking of economics as a science might fuel what he called
“the pretense of knowledge” the idea that anyone could know enough to engineer society successfully.
Once they compromise themselves they spend the rest of their lives trying to compromise others no matter what the facts are in life
to actual realities. We used to call it mores. Nothing can be done since as we are warned the locusts will consume event the root.
Even when you have a license for your skill set you spend the rest of your life knowing the actual human condition since as you know they
look for the victims they already damaged to be replete omissions. The smoothing process is cluster node cash flow streams to
alleged profitability with the others. The uppers know it as the middle try to survive it and the bottom never seen it in percentages of change.

[Higgenbotham]

> The earnings period is going to start in earnest this week. The
> expectations are an astronomical earnings increase. If those
> astronomical expectations are not met, that could be the trigger.

Financial analysts are forecasting the strongest earnings growth in seven years for S&P 500 companies, partly because of a resurgent global economy, but also because of expectations of the effect that last year's corporate tax cut will have on corporate balance sheets.

Roughly 10% of the companies in the S&P 500 have released quarterly results so far. Most have reported earnings and sales that beat financial analysts' forecasts, but that hasn't necessarily translated into gains for shareholders.

On average, the S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street's expectations saw their share price decline 5% the day they released their results, Bell said.

"A lot of people had high expectations for the first quarter, as far as earnings results go, but it wasn't really reflected in stock prices, necessarily," Bell said, noting that investors appear to be unimpressed by the forecasts that management teams are giving for coming quarters.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-m ... story.html

This story hit the wires about an hour ago.

[aeden]

http://www.thedawn-news.org/2015/12/07/ ... m-in-mali/

Overall sifting past the actual nonsense and noise sideway was the call some time ago. May 17, 2014 11:10 pm

http://www.macrotrends.net/2577/sp-500-
In nominal terms we are rather close enough not to conflict on that area I would garner from the above date and data.

[Higgenbotham]

I was led to the story quoted above in a roundabout way. Today I noticed Altria Group stock was down about 8%. That was quite surprising to me because it hadn't reported earnings yet, and the stock is a favorite of dividend investors because of its high and reliable dividend:

21) Altria Group (MO)
Dividend Yield: 4.4% Forward P/E Ratio: 16.0 (as of 4/6/18)
Dividend Safety Score: 85 Dividend Growth Score: 46
Sector: Consumer Staples Industry: Tobacco
Dividend Growth Streak: 48 years

Altria was founded in 1919 and is the largest tobacco company in America.

Smokeable products accounted for close to 90% of Altria’s operating income last year, with cigarettes under the Marlboro and Middleton brands representing the company’s largest product offerings.

Altria’s yield shot higher in July 2017 when its stock price collapsed nearly 20% following a shocking announcement by the U.S. FDA.

The FDA plans to regulate nicotine levels in cigarettes so that they are no longer addictive, which could accelerate the decline in smoking and crimp Altria’s profitability.

Investors can learn more about this big news and what it means for the company’s future and dividend safety here:
Altria Drops Nearly 20% on FDA Announcement – What Dividend Investors Need to Know
Smoking has been in decline for many years, but Altria has remained one of the best dividend growth stocks on Wall Street thanks to its strong brands, excellent pricing power, continuous cost cutting, and large scale.

In fact, Altria’s market share in U.S. cigarettes and smokeless tobacco is above 50%. Marlboro’s market share is even greater than the next 10 largest brands combined!

The company’s supply chain, distribution system, and marketing network are unmatched, and its high market share and strong brand recognition provide Altria with excellent pricing power, which more than offsets the steady decline in volumes from lower tobacco use.

Altria has increased its dividend for 48 straight years, recording annual dividend growth around 8% to 9% during the past five years.

Given management’s 80% payout ratio target and Altria’s potential for upper-single digit earnings growth, the company seems likely to continue rewarding dividend growth investors with mid-single-digit payout growth going forward, at least until more information is known about the FDA’s announcement.

Read More: Altria High Dividend Stock Analysis

https://www.simplysafedividends.com/hig ... nd-stocks/