BloggeRhythms

Now that it looks like Bill Clinton’s wife will be the only  candidate to lose the same presidential election twice, once at the polls and then via the ill-fated recount, she’s receiving another, far more subtle, insult. This one from investment bankers at Goldman Sachs who paid her $675,000 in speaking fees and backed her campaign wholeheartedly against Trump.

This morning, Julie Verhage @bloomberg.com, wrote: “After years of slowing earnings growth and little in the way of excitement for many Wall Street analysts, many are now hopeful that President-elect Donald Trump will finally make things interesting.

“When collating data for the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Analyst Index — a proprietary measure of growth across different sectors of the S&P 500 — the firm included a question this month on what the election of Donald Trump will mean for the industries covered by those surveyed. Turns out, they are rather optimistic.  

"This month, we asked analysts to comment on how the results of the U.S. election will affect companies in their respective sectors," the team led by Avisha Thakkar writes in the new note. "While their responses suggest that there is still uncertainty about the sector-level impact, the majority of sectors are anticipating favorable effects," they say, adding that expectations of lower tax rates and economic stimulus are among key reasons for the favorable outlook.” 

Meaning that after all of their supportive efforts, including paying more than half a million dollars to just hear her speak, she’s not only been forgotten by them, Goldman Sachs now believes that her rival will turn the nation’s economy around quite favorably. And after Trump’s economic recovery begins to actually take shape, those at Goldman Sachs will likely respond to questions about her by asking: “Hillary who?”

On another subject, it looks like OPEC may have made a huge mistake yesterday by deciding to curb oil production in order to raise prices. The knee-jerk market reaction to the agreement increased the barrel price from $46.00 to $51.00, a 9% jump.

By their actions, it’s quite possible that these OPEC members haven’t followed the presidential campaign too closely, or perhaps feel that Trump will simply be another Obama, and therefore do nothing to counter the higher costs to American citizens.  
Thus, it might be in their own best interests if the OPEC leadership read one of many articles regarding Trump’s intentions on the subject. 

This one comes from Heather Long @money.cnn.com, who wrote on Tuesday: “Trump wants to speed [the] time table up. In his first 100 days, he pledges to "lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion worth of job-producing American energy reserves." Translation: He wants more U.S. energy production. Fast. 

“To achieve his promised "energy revolution," Trump intends to open federal lands onshore and offshore to drilling and roll back President Obama's environmental restrictions on energy production. Even more worrying to OPEC is Trump's vow -- right on his website -- to stop importing energy from OPEC nations. 

“When Trump takes office, OPEC is "not going to be able to pull the same shenanigans with price and production wars," says Phil Flynn, senior energy analyst at PRICE Futures Group in Chicago.” 

So, while OPEC might make a few more bucks between now and Inauguration Day, January 20th, their long-range expectations will almost assuredly come up far short. Because Trump has already shown his intentions to deliver what his supporters desire, and he’s not the type to let foreign interests like OPEC pick the pockets of those who put him in office.  

And then, Trump and his entire party received good news yesterday as their political futures were insured significantly. 

Nancy Pelosi retained her post as House Democratic Leader, as she fended off a challenge by Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio. And what that means is, there’s little hope for any real change in the Democrat party’s continuing slide toward insignificance and a reducing constituency. Their only opportunity for relevance at the moment, appears to be doing all they can to block the Republican party’s attempts to rebuild the nation to its former presence, both here and abroad. Something voters obviously disagree with.  
 
In closing, in a meaningless article found @rollcall.com/news, Alex Roarty tried to explain how and why the presidential election was lost. After which, a reader’s comment stood out because of its poster's apparent unawareness of what the presidential campaign was all about. Making one wonder just how many others simply exist in mental vacuums, not knowing why they suffer or who’s at fault for their dilemmas. However the answer to that one’s simple: they themselves are.   

The article’s opening paragraphs are all that’s necessary to get the gist: “Democrats in rural America have a blunt message for the rest of their party: We saw the electoral disaster coming — and it’s your fault. 

“Strategists and party officials say their warnings about the party’s lackluster outreach to rural voters went unheeded by Democratic leaders for years, culminating in this month’s shock defeat to Donald Trump. A presidential candidate who actually performed poorly in many cities and suburbs nonetheless scored an upset victory because of a surge in support from small towns and rural areas.” 

From there the author provided confirming, repetitive backfill. And then readers comments followed, led off by this one: 

Reader Carl Nagas Bfc wrote: “How could so many Americans be so stupid as to elect Trump? They will pay most dearly in a crumbling economic future for themselves and their families. Higher taxes, lower wages, no health care, no education, no jobs. So stupid.”

And in that one short paragraph the reader listed the complete reverse of the goals of the Trump campaign. Significant tax reduction being goal number one, intended to stimulate better jobs at higher wages as American industry is incented to not only remain here, but to come back from elsewhere as well. Carriers already done that with the Inauguration yet to even take place. 

The objective for health care is to make it truly “affordable,” which for far too many it currently is not. The first step being a change that allows provider sales across state lines that alone will bring down prices via competition precluded at present. 

Changing education policy will ease the way for charter schools and other alternatives, helping break the stranglehold of teachers unions who have dumbed down the nation’s children for the past forty years. 

Which brings us right back to the comment’s author, whose lack of knowledge of Trump’s platform indicates a gross incapability to obtain and/or assimilate basic, readily available, information. Which clearly indicates that he must be a graduate of one of the schools Trump wants to force to provide acceptable levels of education, something the comment's author sorely needs himself. 

That’s it for today folks. 

Adios