ETFs are a collective grouping of securities where valuable knowledge at the extremes of opportunity or disaster is washed out into an average.

The previous financial crisis was precipitated by a trend where perceived value broke from reality. Then it was mortgage backed securities (MBS) breaking the link from a banker's knowledge of his customer and local real estate conditions and substituting it for a financial rating agency's grade. One could posit that today's market decline and impending crisis will be identified as coming from electronically traded funds (ETF) which break the link from an investors knowledge of an individual security and substitutes it with a description of a collective grouping, an index, of securities where valuable knowledge at the extremes of opportunity or disaster is washed out into an average.
Luring Investors into even Narrower Niches reports on a trend to a particularly wrongheaded assumption that results are enhanced  by focused rather than scatter shot investments in a new and upcoming field such as robotics.  What is the investor's hurry? Buying early into a group of companies dissipates the advantage of having bought early and inexpensively by mixing a possible winner among outright going out of business failures especially when time and analysis can cull out the losers and direct you to a real chance of finding the winner.
   

Can Connecticut afford The Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD)?

Reason Magazine listed as one of the five worst decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court, Kelo v. The City of New London, where the court approved the city’s use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another to further a developers idea for economic development. Pfizer, for whom the project was proposed, unfortunately for New London’s progress and the Supreme Court’s reputation exited from the deal made to make the hardship endured by Kelo and other property owners into a cleared waterfront now used as the city’s dump. Leaving well enough alone was the better course for economic development and it’s a lesson the DECD can never learn because of its mandate to meddle. And it continued. In 2015 they proposed to help move with a $100 million tax credit mega rich hedge fund Bridgewater Associates from its plush campus in Westport to a Stamford waterfront development. Thankfully Stamford residents rejected the project because it already had suitable buildings near its rail center and were not as concerned about the fund's chief yacht access. Talk about steal from the poor and give to the rich mind benders these economic development agencies go on.

 

What would amendment convention propose in a hundred words or less worthy of our Constitution and withstand the test of time?

It is a mistake to call a convention to propose an amendment on campaign financing reform to resolve the Supreme Court’s  “Citizens United” free speech decision because one man’s free speech is another’s big money influence. Partisans declare George Soros, Labor Unions, ACLU and the Sierra Club  of exerting undue influence on one side and the Koch brothers on the other. The Roberts court is correct to retrieve free speech from the litany of campaign reform laws testing the intent and clarity of the First Amendment. And it is clarity that is the issue.  What would the convention propose in a hundred words or less as an amendment worthy of our Constitution that could withstand the test of time?

Rod Hanscomb the @LibertarianCT candidate for governor honors conservatives versus the dishonor of affirming an amoral President

Among states Connecticut ranks among the most reckless for its level of unfunded pension liabilities. That GE moved its headquarters to what was formerly called Taxachussetts is an indication that it is more than taxes that ails Connecticut, rather miserable prospects for its economy because of cowardly and irresponsible Governors and legislature on both Democrat and Republican sides of the aisle. Connecticut will kick its economy down even further by electing a candidate from either of the major parties.

Democrats have nominated Ned Lamont who from his television ads appears not to care that Connecticut’s costly structure to educate, provide healthcare and maintain transport infrastructure needs reformulating. He is as beholden to municipal and teachers unions as the current Governor, Dannel Malloy and should he get his way would add to these unions membership and benefits and further aggravate Connecticut’s precarious position with unfunded pensions.

Republican Bob Stefanowski says he would cut programs, spending and taxes but is aligned with an amoral President who is destroying our democracy and the fiscally reckless national party that supports him, so it’s doubtful he can garner the political goodwill necessary to accomplish the necessary restructuring and bloodletting.

There are two other candidates currently petitioned validated as gubernatorial candidates: Oz Griebel an independent and Libertarian Party candidate Rod Hanscomb, with the same cut cut cut proposals as Stefanowski. But Libertarians are a full fledged party in the making with the fiscally conservative small government ideology the Republicans use to have before they lost their moral compass. Unlike the other minor parties that are solely dependent on a personality without coherent ideology, Libertarians have a core belief in Federalism, a system devised by our forefathers when writing the Constitution whereby the States share power with a carefully constrained central government. And its through Federalism that Connecticut could start disentangling itself from central government edicts that control our health and education and pare down expenses while improving services. Rod Hanscomb, the Libertarian Party’s first candidate for Governor of Connecticut can argue for a smaller less burdensome government unencumbered by crony deals and scandal of the of two major parties.  

Will he win? No, but his candidacy helps establish the Libertarian Party, a party worthy of being the loyal opposition to Democrats.  A party which nominated 2016’s most credible national candidates, Gary Johnson former Republican Governor of New Mexico and William Weld former Governor of Massachusetts as its team and unlike Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, people who had governed! William Weld, as governor redirected Massachusetts toward the vibrant economy that GE now wants to be a part of, is vying for the Libertarian Party’s 2020 top spot. A ticket which would attract honorable Republicans the likes of Mitt Romney, who followed Weld as Governor of Massachusetts, to peel away from their amoral party and begin the replacement of the lost GOP much like Lincoln replaced the Whig party. A vote for Rod Hanscomb will not be a wasted one for conservatives. Its one which they can build on because the legacy of Trump is dishonor and by affirming him and those that follow him dishonors conservatism.   

Sanctions are like a vaccine which when overly or misapplied lose their effectiveness

Sanctions are like a vaccine which when overly or misapplied lose their effectiveness. Trump's unilateral decision to discard the Iran Nuclear deal and reimpose the sanctions regime that Europe, Russia and China had agreed to bring Iran to the table to make the deal in the first place and with the full expectation they would be imposed again only with their agreement.  Now we have Russia in disagreement with sanctions altogether and Europe and China partially so. Europe’s disagreement will test U.S. based financial sanctions because they have the wherewithal and currency to counter them given a little time to tinker and develop workarounds just like a good microbe would. China can ignore the sanctions and buy oil at a discount from those rejecting it by blindly following U.S. demands to cease business dealings in Iran. And most dangerously for American power all three spheres of influence are aligned against the U.S.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin conferred privately in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday here is the Transcript

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin conferred privately in
Helsinki, Finland, on Monday, with only interpreters
present. Since then, speculation has been rife about the
content of their discussion. The New York Reporter
obtained a transcript of the conversation, published below.

President Trump: Vlad, thank you for taking this meeting.

President Putin:    You are welcome Donald. Now, what
can I do for you?

President Trump:  Its the Trump Tower project
in Moscow. What will it take to get it started? Come on Vlad,
it’s the showpiece project to make Russia really great
again, just like you want.

President Putin:    But those sanctions, Donald! Mike Flynn
told me they were gone the moment you took office.  You
promised they would be gone. Is that really you Donald,
big promise no result?

 

President Trump:  Whadda you mean no result! Look how
I pulled the Iran Deal to make France and Germany think
twice about those sanctions that Mike Pompeo says they
have to follow just because we say so.  All we need now is
that smiley frog Macron to man up and say no. Didn't he
mention anything about breaking the Iran sanctions
yesterday after France won the World Cup?

President Putin:    Nothing, what a dummy! You'd think he
would be looking out for his own like Total Petroleum and
Peugeot Auto and Airbus Aircraft instead of letting them
get pushed around by those stupid Obama sanctions. Let me
get LePen to wake him up.

President Trump:  And I'll do my chaos thing, maybe fire
Mueller. Another dummy. He knows we messed with other
people's elections so what is it those idiots want me to do?
Lecture you like that pussy, Obama!  Besides I always figured
all the top dogs like our NSA, you, China and Israel have all the
emails. Where is the collusion in my asking you in public to
release what you got?

President Putin:    Yeah, I didn’t like those pesky Panama
Papers the NSA released either.  I’ll tell you what. You send over
your hacks to interrogate those over reaching heavy handed
GRU morons who should have left well enough alone.  I mean
the FSB was already in undetected reading stuff like how
Wasserman was strangling Bernie’s campaign to help out
Hillary and they could have made it look like the NSA released
them. Imagine the mess that would have made. But nooooo those
morons. I am ready to string up the dozen of them right now.
Collusion! Why would I have ordered an alternate hack of an
office that was totally hacked already, for soviet sake, and don’t
talk to me about poisoning traitors!

President Trump:  Okay Vlad, I see I got you worked up so lets
tone it down and agree we had a really great meeting and that
you are a swell guy who can be trusted yadda da de da.

President Putin:    Alright, you keep it up with Pompeo, Bolton
and that weasel Mnuchin making the Europeans mad as hell
with irrational insistence to comply with those stupid sanctions.
Those Euro dummies! You don't see Xi kowtowing to
that stupidity. His people are in Tehran right now getting the best
possible deal on oil everyone else is staying away from because of
sanctions.

President Trump:  Yeah Xi is no dummy, really keeps his cards
close to the vest. Boy, Shanghai could really use a Trump Tower.
But first things first, right Vlad?

President Putin:    Get the sanctions lifted on Russia and you can
send Don Jr. over to make the Moscow deal, but not a moment
sooner!

President Trump:  Done. So hey, how about them Croats?

  

Considering United State’s support for Israel at least the withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council is honest.

That Donald J Trump is a thoughtless and cruel bully breaking old friendships, alliances, institutions and myths goes without saying but some of these plates needed breaking, such as an exceptional belief in our moral superiority. A belief which reached its zenith with the successful prosecution of a World War against the maximum terrorist Adolf Hitler.  In war, whether hot or cold, one exaggerates the moral turpitude of the other and with Hitler no nuance was required. Unfortunately the cold war that came after was one of ideas rather than deeds where a claim of goodness was neither clear nor relevant. By Vietnam the swing in our as well as the World's perception of our goodness reached the low remarked by Pogo, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”  Thank our President for making it clear that human rights is just an ancillary issue we are willing to include when it doesn’t conflict with our primary pursuit and exclude when not, such as defending Israel’s recent wanton shooting of Palestinians. Considering United State’s support for Israel at least the withdrawal from the United Nations Human Rights Council is honest.

When @Rodforctgov asks you to volunteer in the ballot petition drive, think of it as a contribution you can make that money can’t buy. @LibertarianCT

I believe that the LPCT is missing the opportunity to engage
new members by not immediately asking them to volunteer for
the ballot petition drive. Many won’t but the few that do are what
will grow the party, so use the hardship of having to get our
candidates on the ballot this year to to build relationships and
develop our narrative. I would suggest we reject the professional
petition gatherers and concentrate on volunteers to make our party
and its candidates viable.

My situation in Fairfield County where I grew up with and was
a commuter is to gather signatures at the railroad station in the early
morning hours.  My first question is to ask if they are registered to
vote in Darien, my hometown but when I start in Greenwich next week
it will be Greenwich. Eliciting a yes puts to you halfway there while
also qualifying the respondent. The rest is so easy that you can relax
and enjoy the experience. Rejection isn’t an insult so just say thank
you and move on to next. If someone expresses interest in the
candidate then pass a card of Rod’s campaign. Frankly, a couple of
hours of this makes my day especially where I meet friends who smile
at my whacked out politics but who sign anyway and think about it.  
And that’s the point. Its one’s active engagement which makes others
think that there is something worthwhile going on. It’s intriguing.

So when Rod asks as your point person to volunteer in the ballot
petition drive, think of it as a contribution you can make that money
can’t buy.  

Trump is managing to do the unthinkable, turn our allies away from us to China

My recent tweets are unAmerican as they go against Trump's interests. So be it but the G-7 meeting today in Quebec, Canada makes crystal clear the natural ally for the G-6 is not the United States which battling it on all diplomatic and economic fronts, but China. And instead of sitting helplessly by President Macron of France should stop playing the nice guy and convince China to drop Boeing and take up Airbus exclusively for the following reasons. First, Trump's arbitrary decision against the Iran Nuclear Deal exposed Airbus to sales limiting sanctions because of unauthorized technology transfers. Doubtful China would want to be hampered by the same so the pitch would be for Europe and China to develop workarounds to these exclusive to U.S. tech solutions.  Second, its economic hardball that will take the bloom off the likes of Boeing, United Technologies and GE, all Dow Jones Stocks, and Honeywell and other aerospace tech manufactures, starting a recession in the U.S. to show the American public our Smoot Hawley loving moronic leadership of King Donald.   

Iran decision is the tipping point which breaks the European alliance leaving long lasting blows to our relations

A primary impetus of a nation is to be autonomous, to resist the impositions of other nations on it,  so consider what President Donald Trump has done to France in particular and the European Union in general by his arbitrary decision to renounce the Iran Nuclear Deal and impose economic sanctions that the alliance never thought would be implemented arbitrarily by the United States.  France with a belief in the peace engendering effect of trade and having sensed an economic opportunity worked energetically to provide Iran the promised economic surge to bring the country back into the community of nations. Now it finds French industry forced to give up investments and opportunity in Iran despite President Emmanuel Macron’s most congenial efforts to persuade our President not too.  France is a proud country and as its former President Charles de Gaulle has proven a fiercely independent one as well. It’s not logical to believe that this insult will be swept under the rug.

Total, a French oil company equivalent to our ExxonMobil in national prestige, is now forced to give up its investment in Iran.  Peugeot, an auto company equivalent to our Ford in national prestige is now forced to give up its investment in Iran. Airbus, a European aircraft manufacturer equivalent to our Boeing and based in France, is now forced to take back aircraft with American technology that it has leased or sold to Iran.  Would our companies tolerate such an imposition from another? Trump in his Elkhart Indiana stump speech bragged that he was for the U.S.A. first just as Macron is for France. It is time for France to to put their business first.

The blunt economic trauma forced on our allies by the Trump Administration demanding adherence to the Iran sanctions will breakdown our alliance.  It will be felt first by American Aerospace Companies, Honeywell Corp. for example, as Europe develops workarounds to technology stopping European aircraft from freely being sold wherever Europe deems legal and appropriate.  Since China is a Iran Deal signatory it will see Europe’s pain and its reaction to it thereby inculcating in them the need for self sufficiency and develop competing technology.

On top of Trump’s Aluminum and Steel tariffs renouncing the Iran Deal might be the last straw that breaks the alliance’s back so that it’s no wonder that one European minister’s reaction was to tweet that Trump can count on only one helping hand in fulfilling the sanctions against Iran, the one attached to the end of his arm.  Once again a sane and rational China may be the preferred ally on trade matters as well.

Finally it’s Mr. Trump’s bad manners that will drive away the European Alliance.  He had a pugnacious upbringing which he further developed into an all consuming me against the world persona in later life. It’s a particularly poor background  for diplomacy he treats our allies and the linkages that bind us together as he does our foes. He is a brute, a brute who considers it sport to squash a nice guy like the President of France Emmanuel Macron down to the point of pleading irrelevance.  Under the circumstances it is logical for politicians in Europe to think of United States as an adversary because for their political life they can’t just take these insults lying down. Renouncing the Iran deal is the tipping point which breaks our European alliance leaving long lasting blows to our relations

If Trump believes he is for U.S.A. first then Macron should be for France and Peugeot, Airbus and Total and with Europe breakout of U.S. Sanctions over arbitrary decision

Total, the French oil giant, announced this week it is canceling planned contracts in Iran, and the top executives of other multinational companies have said, some publicly and others privately, that they have no choice. Iran is a relatively small customer, and the United States is its largest.

The Art of No Deal where Europe allies itself with Russia and China against Iran sanctions and works out a deal with China on tariffs

Donald Trump has been making good on promised unilateral

decisions, the latest being the exit from the Iran Nuclear deal,

without ever asking, now what?  He has no appreciation of

linkage or cultivating allies. Possibly his real estate

experience causes him to approach each deal as a local one

where as foreign affairs is about issues, nuclear proliferation

or tariff negotiation for example, so that proceeding in many

geographies at once he cedes negotiating power.

John Bolton, Trump’s latest National Security  Advisor, has

publicly declared that regime change is the desired result of

the break of Iran’s nuclear accord. Isn’t regime change North

Korea’s Kim Jong-un greatest fear?  It’s difficult to see how

Trump will successfully subdue the Kid into denuclearizing.
But he may drive him into China's fatherly embrace.

Trump taking on NAFTA, steel and aluminum imports, and trade

with China all at once is another example.  He has given

Europe an extension until June 12th, the same day he is due

to be in Singapore for the Kim Jong-un Summit, which won’t

change their irreconcilable treaty obligations with other

trading partners so that it is likely the tariffs will go into effect

just when we are trying to convince Europe to comply with

economic sanctions against Iran which they don’t agree should

be put in place.  On the other hand if Trump had chosen to just

go after China on tariffs then Europe would have gladly joined
in an effort as our ally.  Now they may decide to go with China and

Russia against our Iran decision and while they are at it possibly

work out a deal with China on tariffs as well.

Sunday 13 May: Just saw John Bolton on ABC where he expressed
Der Spiegel's opinion that the Trump Administration is driving a wedge
between the U.S. and its European allies as silly.
Wow, just received a like tweet over this comment of silly by a Trump
bot that misinterpreted it as a positive comment about Bolton. What a
perfect metaphor for the mindless Trump reign.

Progressives need to reject their central government heritage and embrace federalism. California's Jerry Brown has.

David Brooks' Future of the American Left misses the point about the current state of the flattened hierarchy structure. Giant top down one size fits legislation from Washington is doomed to fail. During FDR created central government using top down pyramids developed by the Robber Baron's using the telegraph as a means of communication to centralize business. Today's internet media does the opposite, it decentralizes and flattens so as to make elite one size fits all solutions unsatisfactory and local control necessary. Progressives need to reject their central government heritage and embrace federalism.  California's Jerry Brown has.

Presidency is strangled by too much actionable information combined with the hubris of the office that something good and effective can be done about it.

Michael Hayden's "The End of Intelligence" op ed revealed that the President's daily intelligence briefing before Trump was up to sixty pages long. What is a President to do with daily briefing that tells you what? What Putin had for breakfast? That combined with the Atlantic's The Hardest Job in the World make the case that the Presidency is strangled by too much actionable information combined with the hubris of the office that something good and effective can be done about it.    

Political debate suffers from argument that is valid but not sound

An argument form is valid if and only if whenever the premises are all true, then conclusion is true. An argument is valid if its argument form is valid. For a sound argument, An argument is sound if and only if it is valid and all its premises are true

Mixing religion and politics makes for poor religion and poor politics

       Here is the uncomfortable reality: I do not believe that most evangelicals are racist. But every strong Trump supporter has decided that racism is not a moral disqualification in the president of the United States. And that is something more than a political compromise. It is a revelation of moral priorities.

       If utilitarian calculations are to be applied, they need to be fully applied. For a package of political benefits, these evangelical leaders have associated the Christian faith with racism and nativism. They have associated the Christian faith with misogyny and the mocking of the disabled. They have associated the Christian faith with lawlessness, corruption, and routine deception. They have associated the Christian faith with moral confusion about the surpassing evils of white supremacy and neo-Nazism. The world is full of tragic choices and compromises. But for this man? For this cause? 
        It is difficult to see something you so deeply value discredited so comprehensively. Evangelical faith has shaped my life, as it has the lives of millions. Evangelical history has provided me with models of conscience. Evangelical institutions have given me gifts of learning and purpose. Evangelical friends have shared my joys and sorrows. And now the very word is brought into needless disrepute.

         This is the result when Christians become one interest group among many, scrambling for benefits at the expense of others rather than seeking the welfare of the whole. Christianity is love of neighbor, or it has lost its way.

The pieces will reassemble back to a two party system, Democrat and Libertarian, and the Grand Old Party withers off just as the Whig party from which it descended did in 1856

Michael Murphy in Politico predicts Trump will be primaried by moderate competent Republicans such as John Kasich or possibly Mitt Romney during the run up to the 2020 Presidential campaign. But Trump will prevail among his base and rupture all that ties the GOP together.  He will lose the national contest because Conservatives with real ideology and honor will split off, most logically to the Libertarian Party whose last two candidates in 2016 where successful Republican Governors, Gary Johnson of New Mexico and William Weld of Massachusetts.  The pieces will reassemble back to a two party system, Democrat and Libertarian, and the Grand Old Party withers off just as the Whig party from which it descended did in 1856.

@FederalismToday: Jeff Sessions is Bobby Kennedy and Jerry Brown is George Wallace

      There is a delicious irony in Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ lawsuit against
the State of California under Governor Jerry Brown for its Sanctuary Laws
meant to impede the deportation of illegal immigrants.  The irony is that today
the Progressive argues for States Rights and the Southern Obstructionist
argues for central government control very much like Governor of Alabama
George Wallace did resisting integration against Attorney General Robert
Kennedy’s insistence not to. While the issues of school integration and illegal
immigration are different the technical aspects of the argument on both sides
and times are the same.  Irony aside Progressives ought to reconsider States
Rights as a noble argument, despite a history of use to obscure and protect
racism, to promote local enhancement of the public good. Health care reform
was enacted in 2006 Massachusetts under Governor Mitt Romney with the
intention to provide insurance for nearly all of the State’s residents. It's a
beautiful example of Federalism, euphemistically called using the States as
laboratories of democracy.      

Federalism, the sharing of power between the States and central
government, was an invention of our forefathers when drafting the Constitution.
Federalism as a word though is confusing because it means State’s rights and
power or exactly the opposite of what you would think it means. But it was how
the unilateral power of the States under the failed Articles of Confederation was
reconciled with the need for some central power to make government
successful. Also it was the practical solution for governance over an expansive
geography with little communication. The Constitution formed a central
government that provided a point for diplomacy with other countries, an economic
free trade zone and a bill of rights leaving other matters for the States to figure
out for themselves. As communications improved so did the realization that
central command was possible. It was the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age
that first understood how communications made possible the command and
control organizational structures they formed to amass great fortunes. As usual
government came late to the same understanding and took forty years until
Franklin Delano Roosevelt organized government as a command and control
entity much as his forebears had done with business.  Ever since Progressive’s
have attributed to central government a god like beneficence and the
assumption that the levers of power would always be managed by good people.
Donald J Trump is the nightmare monster who has taken control of those levers
and destroyed those assumptions. Federalism can take power from that monster.
It is the reason Progressives should embrace it.
Another point to consider is that communication as it progressed from
modern to hyper connected has flattened command structures in business and
media. Today in business there is little profit in the physical, General Motors for
example, and incredible wealth in organizing the digital as in Google. Government
has only illusory markers, not the real sales and profit that guides the business world,
by which to direct itself. Local issues are powerful guides for local government to be
responsive to. Big government on the other hand requires illusions and in a world of
hyper connectivity the good ones are diminished and the bad ones stimy to the point
of chaos. Ron Chernow's Hamilton  and Henry Adam's History of the United States
show the political scene in our country's early years as rampant with fake news and
vain glorious individuals who make our current political debate look tame. The
difference is that central government was in its infancy with little influence and power.  
Today we should rejoice that our Blowhard in Chief has brought Washington's one
size fits all meddling to a halt so that the States will soon make relevant decisions for
themselves. It’s what will save our democracy from morphing into an autocracy.