AA New Mercedes

This posting is only to give you a laugh. It’s far better than the news that focuses on hate and killing.

You’re going to love this Mercedes Ad. Get in line to get the New Mercedes electric! Click on the link below and enjoy.

http://player.theplatform.com/p/NnzsPC/widget/select/media/guid/2410887629/3021121

Some Good News

The news is all about what bad things have happened during the day or all the way to yesterday. It’s time to write about some good things that have happened.

-Surge of new jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 287,000 new jobs were created last month (June). New jobs have been created every month starting March of 2010. The unemployment rate I 4.9%. All those new jobs were not high paying but that is a record worth advertising.

-The S&P 500 has almost reached it record set May 20, 2015 when the index reached 2134.72. Friday it was almost there again closing at 2129.90.

-JCPenney is adding 350 jobs in LA and Orange counties in California. That is a company that many expected to go out of business this year.

-When Sharay Santora and her two children first arrived in downtown Dallas on Thursday to join the Black Lives Matter protest, she said the interaction between marchers and officers was peaceful, loving. Officers lined the streets as a massive crowd marched past.

“They gave us high-fives, hugs, were taking selfies,” Santora, 37, told The Washington Post. “It was such an instance of love and understanding, that ‘I’m here for you.’ You could feel it. There was no animosity in the air. That was the feeling throughout.”

Santora said marchers noted “these people who came out to protect us, we’re going to be out there for them.”

She plans to take her children to memorials for the fallen officers, for the same reason she has taken her children to Black Lives Matter demonstrations: “You’re either part of the solution, or you’re part of the problem. Even if you don’t know what to do, you can do something, even if it’s showing love.”

Maybe, just may be, the tragedy in Dallas can bring all of us to our senses.

Are boycotts against Israel anti-Semitism or free speech?

Free speech in America means saying what you want to say no matter who is offended. That translates to the KKK and other extremist groups having the right to hold rallies in public places. That results in demonstrations in big cities by groups wanting to express their demands or frustrations.

Thus the above question posted on KPCC, the large audience NPR, FM station, in Los Angeles. following is their explanation of a proposed law in the California legislature. Although the intent might be pleasing to some people, the proposed law strikes me as unconstitutional. At the end of the article on KPCC’s web site there were comments both for and against the law.

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A California state bill that would punish companies participating in the boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement against Israel recently passed the California state Senate Judiciary Committee.

The controversial movement calls on individuals and companies to boycott Israel until it ends occupying “all Arab lands.” Rather than punish boycotts directly, AB 2844 targets “violations of existing anti-discrimination laws that take place under the pretext of a boycott or other ‘policy’ aimed at ‘any sovereign nation or people recognized by the government of the United States, including, but not limited to, the nation and people of Israel,’” according to a Los Angeles Times editorial. It also requires those seeking state government contracts to certify that they haven’t engaged in discrimination through such a policy.

There is disagreement about the strength of the current bill, as language directly referencing BDS has been removed in favor of more general assertions that reference the existing Unruh Civil Rights Act and California Fair Employment and Housing Act.

This has not mitigated the controversy surrounding the legislation.

Proponents of the bill seek to portray the BDS movement as anti-Semitic. Dillon Hosier, senior political adviser for the nonprofit advocacy organization Israeli-American Nexus, said that it has created an insidious anti-Jewish environment across California.

“Californians are being targeted who have zero connection to the government of Israel,” Hosier said. “What BDS has become is not ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions,’ [but rather] ‘bigotry, discrimination and anti-Semitism.’”

Opponents of the legislation argue the bill violates the First Amendment.

Estee Chandler is a founding member of the Los Angeles Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization that seeks to end Israel’s presence in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. She finds the California legislature’s actions against BDS “deeply troubling,” saying she sees what the Legislature is doing as punishing political speech.

“From the start, AB 2844 was introduced to single out, stigmatize and suppress the political speech of Californians who criticized … Israeli and U.S. policies,” Chandler said. “Denying state business to an otherwise qualified contractor based solely on their views about Israel and their participation in a legal boycott … goes beyond government exercising its speech, and it impedes on our constitutional rights.”

AB 2844 passed an initial vote in the Assembly, and last week it passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee. Next, it heads to a vote in the Appropriations Committee in early August.

Assembly Bill 2844

Could We be about to Inaugurate the last President of the United States?

Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton should be the two leading candidates for president of the United States. I find it appalling that both the Democrats and Republicans would select these seriously flawed people to lead the world’s most powerful nation.

Donald Trump has never held any elected office anywhere. His knowledge of the operations of the federal government is based upon what he has read or seen on television. His ideas about getting along with the rest of the world are a series of contradictions. In one breath he says that NATO is obsolete and in the next breath he talks about NATO forces being used to fight ISIS. Somehow he believes that a 35% to 45% tariff would bring jobs back to America. He says he wants to lower the national debt but he also wants to spend whatever it takes to enlarge our military, improve our educational system, and rebuild our infrastructure. All of these things, he says, will be done while lowering our income tax.

Hillary Clinton wanted to over throw Gadhafi in Libya (and we did) and now that country lacks a functioning central government. Her explanation about Benghazi is shrouded in a mist that cannot make that issue go away. She talks about being proud of her part in the Iran nuclear agreement and her solution to the Ukraine invasion by Russia. And Finally there is her use of a private email server that caused FBI Director James Comey to come very close to calling for her to be charged with a crime. Comey said, “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” In the end, Comey, a deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush, said Clinton’s careless conduct fell short of a crime because there was no evidence of “clearly intentional and willful mishandling” of classified information and no sign of “disloyalty” or an effort to “obstruct justice.”

Am I supposed to be reassured by either of these two candidates that they can carry out the duties of president without taking the nation into a financial collapse or a war?

I am not confident that either Trump or Clinton will be a capable leader. Rather I fear that the winner of the November election could mean we will be inaugurating the last president of the United States.

The United States is the Greatest Nation in the World Today

Donald Trump, What are you talking about?

The United States is the Greatest Nation in the World Today.

The proof is everywhere. People from every country are trying to find a way to migrate to the United States. They know that this is the land of opportunity. Immigrants in the United States and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 81 million people, or 26 percent of the overall U.S. population according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey (ACS).

The United States is the greatest innovator of any nation in history. Bloomberg.com recently examined more than 200 countries and sovereign regions to determine their innovation quotient. The final universe was narrowed down to 96. Innovation was measured by seven factors, including R&D intensity, productivity, high-tech density, researcher concentration, manufacturing capability, education levels and patent activity. The United States is Number 1.

2.South Korea

3.Germany

4.Finland

5.Sweden

6.Japan

10.France

14.Russia

17.Canada

18.United Kingdom

29.China

32.Israel

The names Amazon, General Electric, UPS, Fed Ex, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Walmart and Google stand out as just a few of the American successes. What other country has so many world famous companies?

Students from around the world come to American universities. One of the most common items in the news is criticism that our universities are favoring foreign student admissions over admission of American students.

So I am not buying the “Make America Great Again” theme.

America is great today!

Trump Killing NAFTA Could Mean Big Unintended Consequences for the U.S.

Donald Trump intends to renegotiate NAFTA. In a speech given today he laid out a seven-point plan to change U.S. ‘failed trade policies’, including withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and renegotiating NAFTA.

Following is an article that appeared on Bloomberg.com on October 1, 2015. This article points out the benefits of NAFTA.

by Eric Martin

Ending the deal would hurt American manufacturers. For consumers, backing out might mean price increases on everything from cars to fruits and vegetables.

Donald Trump has pledged to renegotiate or terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying that it’s been a disaster for the U.S.

And the billionaire front-runner for the Republican nomination isn’t the first presidential candidate to bash the deal: Since its inception (Ross Perot warned of a “giant sucking sound” pulling jobs to Mexico), Nafta has been a popular punching bag for politicians. Despite the idea’s popularity, pulling out of Nafta could have all sorts of unintended consequences for U.S. businesses and the economy.

1. America’s biggest export market would be jeopardized

U.S. goods exports to Canada and Mexico have quadrupled since Nafta took effect in 1994, rising to about $550 billion last year. That’s more than sales to China, Japan, the U.K., Germany, South Korea, Brazil, India, Russia and Hong Kong combined.

While critics have decried Nafta and other free-trade agreements for opening U.S. markets to foreign products, the deal actually lowered tariffs in Canada and Mexico even more than in the U.S. The American government applied an average tariff of just 4.3 percent to imports from Mexico and 5.1 percent to those from Canada before Nafta, while Canada had a 9.7 percent tax on imports from the U.S. and Mexico’s tax was 12.4 percent, according to a study last year led by Gary Hufbauer, an analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

A return to the tariffs pre-Nafta would mean “our exporters have more to lose in the immediate shock” than Canada and Mexico, Hufbauer said in an interview.

2. Jobs already gone wouldn’t return

As with any trade agreement, jobs were both created and destroyed after Nafta took effect as the workforce in each nation was realigned based on comparative advantage. In their search for lower costs for production chains, U.S. companies have moved jobs abroad—some to countries that have free trade with the U.S. and others to nations that don’t.

“If we didn’t have Nafta, would things like clothing and automobiles that are produced in Mexico be produced in the United States? No,” said David Gantz, who teaches trade law at the University of Arizona. “They’d be produced in China or somewhere that the labor costs are a lot lower. One needs to look at what the alternatives would be.”

3. The American economy overall would lose

Thanks to Nafta, U.S. consumers have enjoyed the benefits of cheaper imports from goods manufactured in Mexico. Scrapping the trade agreement might force Americans to stomach higher costs, from flat-screen TVs to Nissans to guacamole: Mexico is the world’s top producer of avocados.

Hufbauer estimates that Nafta trade growth makes the U.S. $127 billion richer each year, not only because of the boost to American exporters but also because of these benefits to U.S. consumers. That’s about $400 per person.

“It’s not always visible to people because much of the benefit is at the checkout counter,” Hufbauer said.

4. American drivers could pay more for gasoline

Canada and Mexico accounted for about half of U.S. oil imports in 2014, more than all the nations in OPEC combined and 84 percent of the oil the U.S. bought from outside the cartel.

While a supply glut has driven oil prices to near a six-year low, there’s no guarantee things will stay that way. Ending Nafta could make the U.S. more reliant on imports from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and other OPEC members when global demand rebounds down the road.

Nafta gives the U.S. preferential access to oil, limiting the scenarios in which Canada can restrict energy exports to the U.S. If the U.S. didn’t import oil from its Nafta partners, it could do so at higher cost from other countries, some of which aren’t as friendly to the U.S. as Mexico or Canada.

The Power of the of Barnum and Bailey

The naivety of the public is astounding. Look at how many “smart” people believed Bernie Madoff.

Have you ever been offered a free vacation at some highly popular place like Las Vegas or Cancun? There is a group of us that accept those offers even though we know that nothing is free. Those people accepting those free trips will find themselves in rooms with other people being pressured to buy something. Usually it’s a time share unit or other expensive luxury. The technique is used because it is very successful.

The people of the U.K. were told that money saved as the result of exiting the European Union would be $325 Million Pounds a month that would be directed to national health care. The individual who made that claim now denies that result would happen.

Immigration of eastern Europeans and Muslims would be dramatically reduced if the U.K. was no longer part of the EU. That ascertain is now denied too.

Here in the United States G.O.P. candidate Donald Trump has promised to build wall along the Mexican border from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. He has promised to bring millions of jobs that have left this country back. He said he would stop all Muslims entering the United States “until we find out what the hell is going on.”

Now, even before Donald Trump is the official candidate of the Republican Party he has changed some of his ideas. Muslims will only be banned from some countries he has yet to identify. He has not been repeating his intention to deport all illegal aliens.

Stay tuned for more of his changed ideas. Just remember the outrageous things he said before Paul Manafort became his campaign manager will be forgotten or reversed as he conducts his national campaign against Hillary Clinton.

Should we believe what he says now as he reads a teleprompter or the unscripted words he used in his fight to be the Republican Party nominee?

There is a growing list of highly respected Republicans who are saying they won’t support Donald Trump. Some have said they are supporting Hillary Clinton.

Actually Hillary Clinton has been part of the establishment since her husband became governor of Arkansas. The accusation that she has Wall Street ties has not been denied. She really is part of the “inside the beltway” crowd. She does represent the status quo and says so when she says she wants to continue the ideas of Barack Obama.

The two-party system so dominates the political spectrum that the Libertarian and Green Parties won’t be on the stage for the presidential debates. The rule is those minority parties must have 15% of recent polling data.

Donald Trump is the outsider with so many negatives that Americans favor Hillary Clinton in all of the national polls to date.

As it stand now we are likely to vote for Hillary Clinton as we hold our collective noses.

How Do I Move to Canada – Eh?

This move to Canada idea is starting to look like a real possibility with two of the most disliked candidates for president that I can remember. How did that happen?

Many Americans are threatening to move to Canada after the next election.

An article in the Los Angeles Times titled “Escaping to Canada?” brought to my attention something I have been saying for months to my family. “If Donald Trump is elected president we are moving to Canada. And it might be easy since I was born there.” After all, I have been saying “Eh” all of my life and few people have even noticed.

The Times article certainly did not make the move sound easy. As an expatriate of the United States but keeping your citizenship will require considerable paper work in the form of reports to the IRS. The rest of what was written in the article really isn’t a consequential issue. They have washrooms instead of restrooms. “Aboot” is not something to get excited about.

Just Google the title of this piece “How Do I Move to Canada?” and eleven links will appear. The first is a posting by Air Canada. They really only tell you the air fare and suggest you give it a try by spending a week or two there.

I have not been there in the winter and that is the real test. The temperature reached 10º below zero this past February in Toronto. That was in Fahrenheit.

The warmest part of the country is Vancouver and surrounding towns. The issue there is lots of rainy days.

Then there is the sales tax. A 13% value-added tax charged on most goods and services sold in Ontario province and 12% in British Columbia.

Vancouver skyline from Stanley Park. It looks just like another American city.

So how badly do you, will you, hate the next president of the United States?