About team USA gold medal in hockey---follow the dam rules

 Team USA hockey beat Canada in a great exciting game.

And then Kash Patel and DJT and the team itself kinda screwed it all up.

I do know a thing or two about hockey---let me share some knowledge with you.  Team USA at the Olympics is bound by IIHF rules on the ice, and off the ice they are bound by Team USA rules.  Those rules include NO PHONES in the locker room and access to the locker room is limited to team members and staff (with safe sport certification).  Clearly these rules were not followed and the coaches should be fined and reprimanded.  More importantly is the example set by the top level Team USA team.  If they don't follow the rules regarding access to the locker room and cell phones why should Bantams or Team USA JRs?  

We have seen what happened with women's gymnastics when the governing body didn't follow rules re safesport.  Why the hell was Kash Patel allowed in the locker room.  Is he safe sport certified?  My daughter had to get safe sport certification just to play when she turned 16.  Can we please see Mr. Patel's current safe sport certification?  My son has to re up his safe sport certification every year to play at college (and coach in the summer).

Maybe with a little bit of time and distance the team could have enjoyed themselves in the locker room, and then thought about being used as a political tool at the State of the Union Speech.  Bottom line Team USA after their great win has done nothing but hurt hockey.  A private meeting with the president, fine.  Allowing themselves to be trotted out so that Trump could share in their glory at the SOTU not fine at all.  And chugging beers with Kash Patel and locker room banter with the president.  Really bad optics.  Guys your better than this. 

"the dow is above 50,000" Pam Bondi

 Ok, thanks Pam.  I am pretty sure that actually isn't relevant to the DOJ's activities or related to the question you were asked, BUT in the spirit of the Olympics lets take a look and see if DJT would be on the podium for equity returns over the past year.

Gold   medal           Korea KOSPI      127%

Silver  medal          Japan Nikkei        50%

Bronze medal         MSCI Emerging markets index 49%

                       Canada TSX        34%

                        MSCI world index ex us     33%

                       UK    FTSE                        23%

                      MSCI World                        19%

                       Hong Kong Hang Seng    15%

                        S&P 500                            15%

                        Dow Jones index                13%

Our president can post a video of him winning the gold medal against Canada but he sure can't claim that his economic policies are medal winning.  Canada TSX is doing 260% better than the Dow over the past year.  Emerging market are doing 372% better than our poor Dow.  The entire world stock market is doing 220% better than the S&P 500.  So when Trump claims tonight at the State of the Union that we should be thrilled with how good our 401ks are doing, you should realize that if your sold all your stocks when DJT was elected and bought the MSCI index ex US you would have done 220% better.  Let that sink in.

To add insult to injury (or at least poor performance) if you had invested overseas you also would have not lost 8% (DXY) as your currency our dollar depreciated.

Would Mr. Market give DJT a medal for our stock market performance.  Nope.  But one thing this administration doesn't do is let facts get in the way of a good story.  So Pam you go right ahead and shut up those evil socialist libtard dems with that devesating clap back that we should all be thankful for our crappy equity performance under DJT.

why I dislike Trump in $$$s

 The election of DJT has been very expensive for me and my wife.  How expensive?

increase health care costs                                    $26k

loss of solar tax credit                                             $30k

loss of business sales to Canada and Europe          $50k

on the plus side

extension of tax cuts                                                 $15k

total                                                                        -$91k

So the president who folks claim is good for business owners sure isn't good for this business owner.  Increasing tariffs by about 30% on my sales into Europe and Canada has.....hurt sales.  While Canada is not a main market for us, its not nothing.  

Health care is something I think many of the talking heads don't understand in a direct way, and for sure our elected leaders have no clue.  If you are employed by a large business you might find health insurance for a couple aged 50-64 costs you about $12k a year in premiums and has a 5k per person deductible.  You don't realize your employer is probably paying $10-15k a year for that plan nor the advantage of being in a more healthy insurance pool helping to keep costs down.  In 2026 thanks to Trump's BBB legislation if you are in the individual market place (and yes the preexisting condition is baaaack) you are looking at $22k in premiums for a husband and wife and an individual $13k deductible (ie before our insurance company pays a penny we pay $48k).  Unless you have a net worth of over $1m its just not worth paying that kind of money---better off to hope to be healthy and risk bankruptcy than pay that level of insurance to protect your assets.  Is it good for our country to have large numbers of people risking bankruptcy?  Probably not, but don't tell Donald that. He loves bankruptcy.  But lets be really clear, when someone doesn't pay the hospital those debts get socialized to the rest of us---which will drive up our costs.  The GOP's BBB will create a negative reinforcing spiral of rising health costs for all.

We are in the process of building an all electric house (our neighborhood isn't serviced by a gas utility).  We are using heat pumps and all kinds of highly efficient appliances along with lots of insulation and excellent windows.  Still the ROI (return on investment) of our solar system is ....4% A 4% ROI when money market rates are 3.5% is really bad.  Most investors would look for an ROI of 8-12%.   With the tax credits our ROI would be 7.8%.  Still a touch low, but in the right neighborhood.  4% is horrible, and only makes sense if you think the cost of energy is going to skyrocket---which I suspect it will.  So we are going to pay up for a solar system and if energy costs stay low hope that powers the US economy and if energy costs explode then our investment is wise.  Still discouraging people from adding energy production to the US seems profoundly stupid.

On the plus side extending the tax breaks is saving me $15k a year, while adding an estimated $2 trillion (CBO scoring) to the deficit over the next decade.  No surprise that our CEO in chief's various businesses have declared bankruptcy 6 times.

to my GOP friends a question from the way back machine

I have many friends who used to and many who continue to describe themselves as Republicans,  For you I have a quick thought experiment.  If I had asked you 11 years ago if you would vote for or support the following positions from the president

1.  ending the independence of the FED (in my money and banking class in 1988 this was sacrosanct and unquestioned, now not so much)---while at it fire the head of the BLS because they don't like the unemployment numbers

2.  being pro random universal tariffs to reward and punish individual countries and companies

3.  the government taking ownership stakes in companies and profit sharing

4.  a budget that added 3.4 trillion to the national deficit with dynamic scoring (and only 3 trillion without dynamic scoring---ie the president and his party managed to create a budget that cuts taxes and hurts growth--something I have never seen in half a century)

5.  a president who would put his image on our currency

6.  a president who would ignore the emoluments clause and watch his net worth grow by $3 billion in his first 10 months in office--including trading weapons and AI chips for businesses deals with his companies with Islamic state supporting countries

7. a president who would go to war with Venezuela for ...well its not clear either their oil reserves or because he doesn't like Maduro and blow up ships in the Caribbean because he says they have drugs on board

8.  a president who would increase the DHS budget (department of homeland security ) to over 100 billion per year.  Only the US, China and Russia have a defense budget larger than the US DHS budget--the DHS budget is now more than double the Israel defense budget

9.  would suspend habeas corpus.  Have masked unidentified agents arrest and deport people without due process

10.  would call out the national guard and the active military over the wishes of mayors and governors to attack peaceful protestors who disagreed with the suspension of habeas corpus

11.  would demand comedians lose their job, use the power of the federal government (FCC and FTC) to control the media

12.  would side with Russia in a hot war Russia started in Europe over Europeans

13.  would weaken NATO by questioning article 5

14.  would put an anti-vax tin foil hat leader as head of HHS and watch measles rates in the US hit the highest in 20 years 

15.  would demand/ expect tribute from companies (FIFA peace prize, Apple gold thing etc)

ok I am going to stop, but this list could go on and on and on.  Would a Reagan, Bush 1 or 2, Ford, Nixon Romney Republican vote for this?  NO.  No no.   GOP frogs please jump out of the boiling water and realize the current party leader is not someone you would have ever considered voting for a decade ago.

this just in ---Soros Open Society funds Antifa

 Stephen Miller found the receipts---Open Society Fund bought a dozen frog costumes and 100 bikes and sent to the war zone in Portland OR.

Frog Resistence  

about that censorship thing (no not Kimmel)

My daughter read Beloved in high school, and it remains one of the most powerful pieces of literature she has ever encountered. After finishing the book, she had a deep discussion with her mom about the heart-wrenching decision the main character makes: killing her eldest daughter and attempting (but failing) to kill her other children. The murdered child’s ghost becomes Beloved, a haunting presence that embodies the trauma of slavery.

Why would a mother commit such an unthinkable act? It was a desperate, horrifying choice made to save her children from a life of slavery when a slave catcher arrived to reclaim them.

My daughter struggled to comprehend this—how could a mother be driven to such an extreme? To help her understand, my wife showed her the infamous photograph of the "scourged back," the image of a man whose back was grotesquely scarred from repeated whippings. That single photograph brought the horrors of slavery into sharp, visceral focus. Sometimes, words alone cannot convey the full weight of history, but an image can make the pain and truth undeniable. Toni Morrison’s Beloved captures that same truth in fiction, forcing readers to confront the unimaginable cruelty of slavery.

And yet, there are those who would rather erase this history. The Trump administration and its MAGA allies have worked to expunge these truths from our collective memory. Beloved has been banned from numerous school libraries and is increasingly absent from required reading lists. The photograph of the scourged back has been removed from some national park museums (though it still hangs in the Smithsonian—for now). Even U.S. military bases are reverting to names that honor Confederate leaders, such as Fort Hood, Fort Pickett, and Fort Polk. Naming military bases after insurrectionist leaders was wrong to begin with, but denying the truth of our history is even worse. Slavery happened. Slavery was horrific. And we must never allow that part of our history to be erased.

Of course, when the President is Donald Trump—a man who seems incapable of admitting to any wrongdoing or mistake (despite his criminal and civil convictions, and numerous bankruptcies)—it’s no surprise that his followers would find the truth of slavery intolerable. To them, it’s easier to censor history than to confront it. Perhaps they’d also like to pretend Japanese internment camps never existed, or that women had the right to vote when the country was founded—or maybe that women shouldn’t vote at all. After all, the GOP’s support for the SAVE Act, which makes it harder for married women who change their last name to vote, suggests exactly that.

America has made mistakes—grave ones. That is part of our history. But we cannot learn from a history we refuse to acknowledge. Denying the truth only ensures we repeat the same injustices. Slavery happened. It was horrific. And we must never forget nor try to explain it away.

Getting Old, Getting Wise, and Getting Called a Communist

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that I am old. My body aches in new and exciting ways, I seem to gain weight just by looking at ice cream, and I genuinely don't understand most of what "kids these days" are up to.

But with age comes experience. I’ve lived through a bit of history. My wife was born less than 20 years after World War II. I remember a time in America when politics "ended at the water's edge," a time when Republicans and Democrats presented a united front to the world. We certainly didn't accuse each other of being communists.

That has changed. Now, it seems the MAGA wing of the Republican party doesn't just accuse their opponents of being communists; they state it as a fact. The irony is staggering, because if you look closely at how real-world communist states operate, it’s the MAGA platform that seems to be borrowing from their playbook.

What Does "Communist" Actually Mean?

To be clear, there are two main flavors of communism. First, there’s the theoretical, Marxist version: a utopian, classless society where everything is shared, and everyone contributes "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." It’s a nice idea where some people happily shovel manure while others design AI chips, and everyone gets paid the same.

Then there’s real-world communism, as practiced by regimes in Russia, China, and their ilk. This version is defined by centrally planned economies, state ownership of major businesses, and a deep aversion to free-market forces along with a heavy dose of kleptocracy.

Does that sound familiar? Let’s look at some recent trends.

The MAGA Playbook vs. Communist Economics

One hallmark of real-world communist countries is direct state intervention in the economy and the protection of domestic businesses from genuine capitalism. Consider these points:

• State Ownership and Influence: When the government takes a direct stake in a private company, like the US government's recent 10% stake in Intel, it blurs the line between state and market. In my 40 years of investing, I’ve never seen anything like it. This move gives a specific company an inside track on government contracts, regardless of whether they are the best supplier. That’s not capitalism; it’s a centrally planned decision.
• Protectionism and Tariffs: Communist countries don’t expect their domestic industries to compete and innovate on a global scale. Instead, they build trade walls to shield them. Raising the effective U.S. tariff rate from 1.5% to 18% is a classic protectionist move. It demands that their citizens/ comrades to bear the cost of protecting politically favored industries through higher prices and lower-quality goods.
• Autocracy and Kleptocracy: Finally, real-world communist states tend toward autocracy, where a single leader wields immense power and often enriches themselves. We’ve have a president who has reportedly made 3 billion while in office just 6 months, tells specific companies to absorb tariff costs, dictates how they should price their goods, and publicly praises CEOs who flatter him while attacking those who don’t. This style of leadership, where personal wealth and state power are intertwined, bears a striking resemblance to figures like Putin, who has amassed hundreds of billions, or Kim Jong Un, who effectively owns his entire country.

A Misguided Label

You might not agree with some in the Democratic party who believe in universal healthcare or a sustainable social security system, funded by higher taxes and closing loopholes for the wealthy. But those policies don’t make them communists. In fact, a strong argument can be made that providing healthcare and retirement security encourages consumer spending and allows businesses to focus on innovation instead of employee benefits.

What no true capitalist would support, however, is increased government ownership of private business, presidents accepting lavish gifts for preferential treatment, or walling off the domestic market from global competition.

So, the next time a MAGA supporter calls you a communist, perhaps the best response is a simple one from the playground: "I know you are, but what am I?"