Beet L. Jooz

On Christmas Eve, 1968, the Apollo 8 crew got to address the world via the most-watched television broadcast at the time. They read Genesis.

Authored Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

One of the challenges in looking at income and wealth data is getting a sense of how different demographic groups are affected.

It's relatively easy to find median income and wealth data over time for the entire population, for example. But then problems of interpretation immediately present themselves. For example, if the data is household data, what are we to make of things if the household compositions has changed over time?

And what if the demographics of the individuals within the households themselves have changed? For example, if a larger proportion of all households are now younger households, perhaps that could have an effect on the income and wealth data overall.

After all, younger heads of household tend to have lower incomes and less wealth than older heads of households.

This problem of measuring workers and incomes over time has been the challenge that presents itself to anyone trying to figure out if so-called millennials are richer or poorer — as a group — than other age cohorts.

To do this, researches must find some way to estimate wealth and incomes for different age cohorts at similar ages or at similar points in their careers. Otherwise, characteristics we think we are attributing specifically to Millennials may really be characteristics that are just common to people of a certain age.

Last week, the Board of Governors of the Federal reserve released a new report that attempts to address the issue of whether or not Millennials really are worse off at the same point that other age cohorts have been at similar ages.

This will no doubt be the first of many that attempt to answer this question. At this early stage, however, we can say that the data leans toward concluding that yes, Millennials are, in fact, less wealthy, and are lower-income than previous cohorts.

Some conclusions in the report include:

• "Specifically, the real average full-time labor earnings of a millennial male household head in 2014 were about the same as those for a comparable male Generation X household head in 1998 and over 10 percent lower than those for a comparable male baby boomer household head in 1978."

• "For female heads of all households, real average full-time labor earnings increased moderately between 1978 and 1998 and between 1998 and 2014, reflecting, in part, rising female educational attainment. However, the median labor earnings of female millennial household heads in 2014 were about 3 percent lower than those of comparable female Generation X household heads in 1998."

• "[A]verage real labor earnings for young male household heads working full time are 18 percent and 27 percent higher for Generation X and baby boomers, respectively, than for millennials after controlling for age, work status, and a n umber of demographic variables. For young female heads of household working full time, these generational gaps in labor earnings are in the same direction but somewhat smaller—12 percent and 24 percent, respectively. For family income, the regression shows that Generation X and baby boomer households have a family income that is 11 percent and 14 percent higher, respectively, than that of demographically comparable millennial households."

A popular narrative around Millennials has been that they have higher debt loads. The Fed report, however, concludes Millennial debt levels are slightly lower:

The real average total debt balance was around $49,000 for Generation X members in 2004 and about $44,000 for millennials in 2017.

Moreover, according to the report, "millennials also have significantly less credit card loans and miscellaneous other debt."

The problem we encounter here, though, is that the debt the Millennials do have is not connected to assets. For example, fewer Millennials have mortgages, which, given lower homeownership rates, suggests Millennials have less home equity as part of their net worth totals:

In 2004, 28 percent of Generation X members had a mortgage, well above the 19 percent share of millennials that had one in 2017. ... That said, the median mortgage balance for millennial mortgage borrowers in 2017 was somewhat higher than for Generation X mortgage borrowers in 2004 ($105,000 versus $94,000), reflecting, in part, the net in crease in real house prices during the same period.

Instead, debt seems to be more connected to student loans and to auto debt. For example:

For auto loans, contrary to the stories in the popular press th at millennials have a more subdued demand for cars than members of earlier generations, the Equifax/CCP data show that 40 percent of millennials had an auto loan in 2017, compared with 36 percent of Generation X members in 2004. The mean outstanding balances on auto loans in the two cohorts are similar at about $5,200.

And, as many suspected, student debt is higher for Millennials:

One loan category for which millennials in 2017 had a notably higher average balance than Generation X members in 2004 was student loans. While only 20 percent of Generation X members had a student loan balance in 2004, more than 33 percent of millennials had one in 2017. Moreover, the median balance among student loan borrowers was substantially higher for millennials in 2017 than for Generation X members in 2004 (over $18,000 versus $13,000). ... Accordingly, the average student loan balance for millennials in 2017 was more than double the average loan balance for Gene ration X members in 2004. The rise of student loan borrowing among young consumers reflects, in part, the rising real cost of higher education, the increase in college enrollment due to the Great Recession, and the increasingly limited capacity of parental contribution.

Thus, it's not surprising when the report concludes that Millennials have a lower net worth than other age cohorts at the same stage:

Turning to net worth, which puts together the asset and debt comparisons described above, we find that millennials in 2016 have substantially lower real net worth than earlier cohorts when they were young. In 2016, the average real net worth of millennial households was about $92,000, around 20 percent less than baby boomer households in 1989 and nearly 40 percent less than Generation X households in 2001.

The median total assets held by millennials in 2016 is significantly lower than baby boomers in 1989 and only half as big as Generation X members in 2001.

Overall, the report paints a picture of younger workers who have fewer assets, lower incomes, and more student debt.

A common response in the media has been to blame Millennials for buying "too much avocado toast," or for having too many other luxury tastes that render them incapable of building wealth. That may be true of the minority of Millennials who spend much of their lives on Instagram, but the Fed report itself concludes that the consumption patterns of Millennials are not significantly different from those of other groups when incomes and other factors are taken into account.

In other words, Millennials are not any more profligate than the Baby Boomers or Gen Xers who came before them.

The Role of Modern Monetary Policy

The report does not attempt to answer questions as to why Millennials might be unable to build wealth as quickly as those who came before.

But there is something different about today's younger workers: they mostly started their careers in the post-Great Recession world and have thus lived their working lives in the shadow of what Brendan Brown calls the Great Monetary Experiment.

First of all, these workers had to deal with the fall-out of the Great Recession itself which was widespread unemployment for a period of years. This meant slower income growth in the first several years of employment, which can have a long-term effect on wealth accumulation. Economists and other observers have been pointing this out since at least 2011, when it became clear that job markets and incomes were not going to just bounce back as many assumed they would at the time. Indeed, it has only been in the past few years that most measures of incomes and wages have returned to the levels we saw back in 2007.

And Millennials appear to have been hit especially hard by this, as noted in this report from the St. Louis fed.

All of this, of course, happened on the Fed's watch, and was just the latest example of how the myth of Fed-engineered economic stability has always been a myth.

So, we have a group of workers who start out their careers in a bad labor market, brought on by more than 20 years of money-pumping by Volcker (later in his term), Greenspan, and Bernanke. 

But once those Millennials were able to get jobs, they then were faced with a world that was particularly hostile to saving, home purchases, and investment for lower-income workers.

Our current situation is marked by endless monetary activism marked of near-zero interest rates and asset inflation which rewards those who already own assets, and have the means to access higher-risk investment instruments that offer higher yields. 

Meanwhile, banking regulations have been re-jiggered by federal politicians and regulators to favor established firms and the already-wealthy.

This was explored in some detail recently by banking-industry researcher Karen Petrou who concluded that thanks to post-2007 federal regulations, "it’s basically impossible for banks to make mortgage loans to anyone but wealthy customers."

Meanwhile, basic methods of saving, like savings accounts, offer interest rates that don't even keep up with inflation.

Combine this with rapidly climbing home prices, and we have a formula for an economic system where being an ordinary worker — who needs to build wealth from scratch — is facing low yields, less accessible debt, high housing prices, and lower incomes.

This, not surprisingly, has led to greater inequality, and its likely that as we look at growing  inequality statistics, part of what we're seeing is a growing gap between younger workers and older ones — a growing gap that was not as wide before.

In this environment, doing what the Baby Boomers did, or doing what the Gen Xers did, just isn't going to work very well. It may very well be that the only way for Millennials to get ahead in the current economy will need to either inherit wealth or engage in "extreme frugality" in which the Millennials will need to adopt a drastically lower standard of living compared to their elders.

This was not nearly as essential for previous generations. Of course, for those Millennials who do decide to go the route of extreme frugality, they'll then be attacked for ruining the economy by "not spending enough." The smart ones won't care.

Donald Trump‘s search for a successor to outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly reached a sad new low point Tuesday night when former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) became the latest candidate to publicly reject the post, and did so live on CNN.

On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s OutFront, host Erin Burnett noted that Trump aides had reportedly discussed Santorum for the post as recently as this past weekend, when Santorum and Trump were spotted at the Army-Navy game.

Burnett asked the former senator and current CNN contributor, “Did it come up at the game, would you take the job?”

“Look, it’s an honor even to be considered,” Santorum said, not an encouraging start.

“I think it’s a great job, and I know that there are a lot of good people out there. Bottom line for me is just really like Nick Ayers, my family situation doesn’t really allow me to do that right now. I would again be honored to do it at some point in time maybe, but at this point it just doesn’t fit for me and my family, and so I guess the answer right now will be no.”

Santorum’s rejection came as a surprise to literally everyone in the world who had not read 16 paragraphs deep into the Washington Post article that reported his candidacy, and is the latest development in the most desperate search since Rosanna Arquette went looking for Madonna.

Lucky for Trump, there’s always Mark Meadows, and if that doesn’t work out, Scott Baio.

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

Authored by Jose Nino via The Mises Institute,

James Bovard notes the threat to private gun ownership posed by the “deep state,” the “officials who secretly wield power permanently in Washington, often in federal agencies with vast sway and little accountability.”

While such laws were made by elected officials, it is unelected bureaucrats who are largely left in charge of enforcement, and that can cause big problems for gun owners. Just before press time for this issue, it was reported that a California farmer who was simply trying to meet the state’s ever-changing restrictive gun laws by registering his rifle is being charged with 12 felonies after the state DOJ determined his AR-15 to be “illegally modified.”

Questionable Federal Background Checks

Bovard’s observations should not come as a surprise. As government agencies — unlike lawmakers — are able to directly access databases that relate to gun ownership, the agencies themselves are often in a position to abuse this information. These databases are under the control of gigantic bureaucracies like FBI that face little to no accountability from voters.

The National Instant Background Check System (NICS) is the pillar of all background check systems for firearms purchases and was a part of the 1994 Brady Act. Any time a prospective gun owner wants to buy a gun from a federally licensed firearms dealer (FFL), they must go through a background check. Under this system, the FBI looks at certain factors such as criminal history and mental health to determine if an individual presents too much of a risk to own a firearm.

Although NICS is marketed as a speedy background check system, it comes with its own set of problems. NICS has gained notoriety for producing false positives. In other words, law-abiding citizens are mixed and matched with criminals who have the same name. In turn, these individuals are prevented from acquiring guns due to bureaucratic errors.

Particularly worrisome is the rate of initial NICS denials that turn out as false positives. Some estimates from the Crime Prevention Research Center indicate that in 2009 alone, 93 percent of initial NICS denials were false positives.

Regardless, NICS has remained intact even when evidence has shown that it is ineffective in combatting crime. For example, crime rates had already gone into steep decline by the mid-1990s, well before NICS went into effect in 1998.

Fear of Gun Registration is Warranted

Yet, the gun-control bureaucracy continues to grow. This was on full display when Fix NICS was recently signed into law— it was the largest gun expansion at the federal level since the Brady Act was enacted in 1993. Under Fix NICS, state governments are now being incentivized to share records with the federal government in order to streamline the background check process. Proponents of Fix NICS claim that these tweaks would have prevented the Charleston church and the Sutherland Springs mass shootings, in which both shooters supposedly fell through the cracks of the NICS system.

Certain gun owners worry that the federal government’s program to incentivize states to hand over their gun records could lead to the creation of a federal gun registry. And these fears are not without their merits.

After NICS came into effect in 1998, the federal government was eager to amass its own database. Even though the Brady Act prohibited the federal government from creating a gun owner registry, then Attorney General Janet Reno proceeded to keep gun owner records for 6 months — a clear violation of the Brady Act’s requirement to have all records destroyed immediately.

Bureaucracies are a Different Animal

The Reno incident shows yet again that bureaucracies have their own agendas. It is myopic to believe that bureaucracies will act in the public interest and abide by the rule of law when left unchecked.

Bovard thus raises an interesting concern:

“While such laws were made by elected officials, it is unelected bureaucrats who are largely left in charge of enforcement, and that can cause big problems for gun owners”.

Exercising control over this sort of legal abuse can be exceptionally difficult when dealing with unelected bureaucrats. In the book Bureaucracy , Ludwig von Mises contended that the “worst law is better than bureaucratic tyranny”. There is considerable truth behind this assertion. A solid citizen lobby can vote out anti-gun politicians, but they will have much more work on their plate in order to put the clamps on bureaucratic overreach. In some cases it may require a wholesale abolition or defunding of a government bureaucracy — a tall order in today’s climate of ever-expanding government.

A gunman on a security watchlist killed three people and wounded a dozen others near the picturesque Christmas market in the historic French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday evening before fleeing.

First it was the North Korean hackers that were accused of somehow hacking into Sony's unbreakable firewall. Then, for a period of almost three years, not a single computer, voting booth, or nuclear power plant appeared to be safe from the Russian hacking scourge, which according to much of the US press, singlehandedly won the election for Trump.

Well, step aside Russians and make room for the Chinese hacker army, because according to the NYT citing two sources, the recent cyberattack on the Marriott hotel chain that collected passport information or other personal details of roughly 500 million guests was part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering effort that hacked health insurers, other hotels and the security clearance files of millions more Americans.

And just like in the Russian narrative, these were no ordinary hackers, but the kind that worked on behalf of the Ministry of State Security.

The latest discovery comes at a very opportunistic time: just as the Trump administration plans a series of actions targeting China’s trade, cyber and economic policies. As reported earlier, even as the trade war between the US and China is supposedly in a tenuous ceasefire, the DOJ is preparing to announce new indictments against Chinese hackers working for the intelligence and military services. The Trump administration also plans to declassify intelligence to reveal concerted efforts by Chinese agents, dating to 2014 or earlier, to build a database containing names of executives and American government officials with security clearances.

Finally, as we discussed yesterday when we commented that the real reason for the US-China trade war is the US desire to halt or at least delay China from manufacturing its own high-tech semiconductors, the NYT also adds that the Trump administration is considering an executive order intended to make it harder for Chinese companies to obtain critical telecommunications equipment.

The coordinated moves against Chinese hackers are expected to be announced within days, and stem from the growing concern within the administration that "the 90-day trade truce negotiated between President Trump and President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires two weeks ago may do little to change China’s behavior — including coercing American companies to hand over valuable technology if they seek to enter the Chinese market, as well as the theft of industrial secrets on behalf of state-owned companies."

Meanwhile, the actual hack of Marriott’s Starwood chain, which was only revealed late last month after being discovered in September, is not expected to be part of the coming indictments.

But two of the government officials said it has added urgency to the administration’s crackdown, given that Marriott is the top hotel provider for United States government and military personnel.

The crackdown is in response to what has vexed the Trump administration as Russia China appears to have reverted over the past 18 months to the kind of cyber intrusions into American companies and government agencies that former President Barack Obama thought he had ended with a 2015 agreement with Mr. Xi.

And just like Russia, China has denied any knowledge.

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, denied any knowledge of the Marriott hack. “China firmly opposes all forms of cyberattack and cracks down on it in accordance with the law,” he said. “If offered evidence, the relevant Chinese departments will carry out investigations according to the law.”

“China is one of the major victims of threats to cyber security including cyberhacking,” he said.

Logically, the risk with the coming sweeping accusations, is that while top administration officials insist that the trade talks are proceeding on a separate track, the broader crackdown on China could undermine Trump’s ability to reach an agreement with Xi as American charges against senior members of China’s intelligence services — in tandem with the targeting of high-profile technology executives, like Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the communications giant Huawei and daughter of its founder — risk hardening opposition in Beijing to negotiating with Mr. Trump.

Over the weekend, China was infuriated by the arrest of Meng, who was detained in Canada on suspicion of fraud involving violations of United States sanctions in Iran. She was granted bail of 10 million Canadian dollars, or $7.5 million, while awaiting extradition to the United States, a Canadian judge ruled on Tuesday.

In response, American business leaders have been bracing for retaliation from China, which has demanded the immediate release of Meng and accused both the United States and Canada of violating her human rights. On Tuesday, the International Crisis Group said that one of its employees, a former Canadian diplomat, had been detained in China. The disappearance of the former diplomat, Michael Kovrig, could further inflame tensions between China and Canada. “We are doing everything possible to secure additional information on Michael’s whereabouts as well as his prompt and safe release,” the group said in a statement on its website.

Late on Tuesday, in an interview with Reuters, Trump said that he would consider intervening in the Huawei case if it would help serve national security and help get a trade deal done with China. Such a move would essentially pit Trump against his own Justice Department, which coordinated with Canada to arrest Meng as she changed planes in Vancouver.

“If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made — which is a very important thing — what’s good for national security — I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary,” Mr. Trump said.

Of course, now that cyberwarfare is the strawman to escalate any diplomatic feud, from the first revelation that the Marriott chain’s computer systems had been breached, there was widespread suspicion in both Washington and among cybersecurity firms that the hack was not a matter of commercial espionage, but part of a much broader spy campaign to amass Americans’ personal data; one in which Chinese crack hacker inexplicably left "fingerprints" confirming they were behind the attack.

Meanwhile, since the Marriott database contained not only credit card information but passport data, that particular intrusion would allegedly have given China access to confidential data belonging to hundreds of millions of Americans.  Specifically, according to the NYT, Chinese spies stole passport numbers for up to 327 million people — many of whom stayed at Sheraton Hotels, Westin and W Hotels and other Starwood brands. But Marriott has not said if it would pay to replace those passports, an undertaking that would cost tens of billions of dollars.

Lisa Monaco, the former White House homeland security adviser, noted at a conference last week that passport information would be particularly valuable in tracking who is crossing borders, what they look like, and other key data.

Why would China need this data?

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, said the Chinese have collected “huge pots of data” to feed a Ministry of State Security database seeking to identify American spies — and the Chinese people talking to them. “Big data is the new wave for counterintelligence,” Mr. Lewis said.

“It’s Big Data hoovering,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, the chief technology officer at CrowdStrike, who first highlighted Chinese hacking as a threat researcher in 2011 and who was also instrumental in launching the witch hunt targeting Russians in the summer of 2016, accusing them of hacking the DNC server which has yet to be investigated by the FBI. “This data is all going back to a data lake that can be used for counterintelligence, recruiting new assets, anti-corruption campaigns or future targeting of individuals or organizations.”

The effort to amass Americans’ personal information so alarmed government officials that in 2016 the Obama administration threatened to block a $14 billion bid by China’s Anbang Insurance Group to acquire Starwood Hotel & Resorts Worldwide, according to one former official familiar with the work of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, a secretive government body that reviews foreign acquisitions. Eventually, the failed bid cleared the way for Marriott Hotels to acquire Starwood for $13.6 billion later that year, becoming the world’s largest hotel chain.

As it turned out, it was too late: Starwood’s data had already been stolen by Chinese state hackers, though the breach was not discovered until this past summer, and disclosed by Marriott on Nov. 30.

Ironically, while it is unclear that any kind of trade agreement reached with China by the Trump administration can address this kind of theft, the Chinese regard intrusions into hotel chain databases as a standard kind of espionage. So does the United States, which has often seized guest data from foreign hotels.

Separately, since 2012, analysts at the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, the G.C.H.Q., have watched with growing alarm as sophisticated Chinese hackers, based in the Chinese city of Tianjin, began switching targets from companies and government agencies in the defense, energy and aerospace sectors, to organizations that housed troves of Americans’ personal information.

At the time, one classified National Security Agency report noted that the hackers’ “exact affiliation with Chinese government entities is not known, but their activities indicate a probable intelligence requirement feed” from China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s Communist-controlled civilian spy agency.

Of course, this is the same NSA which as Edward Snowden revealed several years ago, was just as busy spying on foreign targets as it was on America's own citizens.

On December 11, 2018, Breitbart News reported on our correspondence with the New Jersey State Police (NJSP), learning that they would not rule out going house-to-house, or door-to-door, to enforce the new "high-capacity" magazine ban.

Intense rescue operations failed to locate aircraft

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) will soon unveil a plan to legalize recreational marijuana in the state, his office announced Tuesday."The goal of this administration is to create a model program for regulated adult...

The Twitterverse collectively lost its mind on Tuesday after President Donald Trump‘s meeting with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spiraled way out of control.

The president met with the two Congressional Democratic leaders to discuss a new government spending package and possible funding for Trump’s Southern border wall. But the conversation became free for all as the three took shots at each other, bickered over the divided state of the government, and argued whether the wall is actually conducive to border security and not just a Trump campaign vanity project.

Some people were agape as they watched Trump promise to take responsibility for a government shutdown if he and Congress cannot reach an agreement on the wall.

Accepting full blame for a shutdown on camera to own the libs

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) December 11, 2018

The Christmas Prince never had a government shutdown

— Griswold Christmas Vacation (@HashtagGriswold) December 11, 2018

What.A.Dope. https://t.co/l3TfpAHGgH

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) December 11, 2018

In the oval @NancyPelosi warns of a “trump shutdown” and sets @realDonaldTrump off. This is must see tv.

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) December 11, 2018

Going to be really hard to blame the shutdown on Democrats now…https://t.co/QBNUiPAMrp

— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) December 11, 2018

Trump promised the American people that Mexico would pay for his wall. Now he’s willing to trigger a Christmas shut down because he can’t get his way. Childish. #TrumpShutdown pic.twitter.com/TDbPg0enVK

— Yvette D. Clarke (@RepYvetteClarke) December 11, 2018

And then, there were people who were just struck as they watched the entire conversation plunge into chaos.

When you put an entitled, overgrown adolescent into the Oval Office with no understanding of how to negotiate a deal beyond yelling and threatening, you get what we just had in that pool spray.

What a freaking circus.

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) December 11, 2018

Trump could’ve funded the border wall by making that meeting pay-per-view.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) December 11, 2018

Honestly makes me say it: The most statesman-like person in charge in that WH disaster was Pelosi. Second place to Schumer for baiting Trump into owning a shutdown. Honorable mention to Pence for willing himself to blend in with the furniture.

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 11, 2018

In case you missed it, here's a live look at the Oval Office meeting between Trump, Chuck and Nancy…. pic.twitter.com/zuQK1nthE6

— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) December 11, 2018

how i feel after watching the pelosi-schumer-trump exchange pic.twitter.com/hw0bRAfaLZ

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) December 11, 2018

They never have bickering fights like this in Wakanda.

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) December 11, 2018

I'm watching Trump, Pelosi, and Schumer bicker about the budget and the wall. This spectacle is beneath the dignity of this country.

— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) December 11, 2018

— —

>> Follow Ken Meyer (@KenMeyer91) on Twitter

But pro-choice groups sound notes of caution

Christmas dinner arrives at the International Space Station  KABC-TV

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have everything they need to celebrate the holidays following a Saturday delivery loaded with Christmas ...

Bethlehem is enjoying its busiest Christmas season on record, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism said on Monday, with hotels in the birthplace of Jesus almost fully booked for the holiday.

An elementary school principal in Nebraska has been placed on administrative leave after telling teachers not to celebrate Christmas in the classroom.Principal Jennifer Sinclair wrote an inter...

(FOX) — A poor woman in England suffered an epic Christmas fail when she fell through the ceiling while looking for festive decorations in her attic.

Stacielea Doran, 30, was wearing a “Beauty and the Beast” onesie when she got wedged in the hole, with her legs dangling down. After realizing she was trapped, her partner Nicki Ball, 34, dialed emergency responders on Friday morning.

Firefighters dashed to her home in Bloxwich, West Mids., and lifted Doran down before posing for pictures by the fire engine.

The post Woman falls through ceiling looking for Christmas decor appeared first on WND.

'It was thrown together and sh*tty.'

Authored by Damir Kaletovic via Safehaven.com,

Online spending on Thanksgiving day reached $3.7 billion, topped by Black Friday sales of $6.2 billion, and Cyber Monday sales of $7.9 billion - it’s a staggering amount of spending, but there’s another data set casting a cloud over the enthusiasm: Growing numbers of Americans plan to boycott holiday spending, entirely.

While shopping madness has many Americans feverishly trying to find the best gifts for everyone on their list, others are protesting the commercialization of Christmas. In fact, the 2018 Bankrate Holiday Gifting Survey showing that 13 percent of American shoppers are planning to completely boycott holiday spending.

That means they’ll be resisting all the sales gimmicks designed to pressure consumers into spending—and overspending, in the end. And if they’re going to drop all that cash on Christmas, some say they’d rather take a family vacation.

It’s a small percentage—for now. But it’s a piece of data that still should make retailers nervous.

“It's interesting to see that so many people aren’t participating in gift-buying,” noted Bankrate data analyst Adrian Garcia.

“I see it as a realization that people need fewer things, especially as they get older, and that it’s more important to spend time together, or donate to a charity.”

Despite growing consumer resistance, 45 percent of shoppers will still spend beyond their comfort zone, says Bankrate's survey. And in this race to show their love by gifts—where larger gifts apparently mean more love--Americans are prepared to plunge themselves into heavy debt.

(Click to enlarge)

“If you’re overspending to try and maintain a certain quality to a friendship or family relationship, then that’s not sustainable,” says Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick.

“Ultimately, if someone’s world is grounded in something that’s counter to the true spirit of the holidays, then there probably needs to be a reckoning for everybody.”

According to Gallup's poll, Americans will spend an estimated $885, on average, on gifts this year, which is a bit lower than the 906 recorded in October 2017, but still higher than any other October holiday spending projection by Gallup since the recession.

(Click to enlarge)

Source: Gallup

The same poll shows that 33 percent of Americans plan to spend at least $1,000 on Christmas gifts, while 22 percent will spend between $500 and $999, 29 percent will spend less than $500 and just 3 percent will spend less than $100. Only 8 percent are not planning to spend money on Christmas gifts, because they don’t celebrate the holiday.

According to data from market research firm eMarketer, Christmas holiday retail sales in the U.S. are expected to reach above $1 trillion—it’s strongest growth since 2011. In-store sales are forecast to rise 4.4 percent year-on-year, while e-commerce sales are predicted to grow by 16.6 percent, led by Amazon and eBay.

Half of all shoppers plan to spend the bulk of their holiday budget online. More than one-third of millennials and one out of four parents now spend more than six hours on their mobile devices, more than 500% more time than they spend watching television, according to the 2018 Consumer Holiday Shopping Reportby The Harris Poll and OpenX.

The consumers, then, are still far out-ranking the holiday protesters, but as pressure mounts on the money=love equation, something might give sooner rather than later. Or, perhaps travel agencies will find a new niche selling holiday vacation packages that end up replacing the traditional ribbons and wrapping under the tree.

If our founders could see what we have become they would be rolling over in their graves, because this is not what they intended.

After his impeachment for lying about an affair, Bill Clinton's approval rating hit 73 percent. This should be a warning to Democrats.

The father “flipped out” and hit the gunman so hard that he lost consciousness and suffered severe head injury.

Update: Insisting that he would be "happy" to force another government shutdown if Democrats don't accede to his demands that the next funding bill include $5 billion earmarked for construction of his border wall, Trump reiterated that he will make sure the wall gets built 'no matter what' following his Tuesday morning meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, which, as expected, yielded no discernible progress toward a compromise. However, as some analysts pointed out, Trump has risked a political backlash by openly courting blame for a shutdown, should one come to pass.

• TRUMP THREATENS U.S. GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN IF WALL DEMAND NOT MET

• TRUMP SAYS PELOSI IS IN TOUGH SITUATION FOR NEGOTIATING FUNDING

• TRUMP SAYS `I WILL BE THE ONE TO SHUT IT DOWN' IF NO WALL

• TRUMP SAYS HE'D BE PROUD TO SHUT DOWN GOVT OVER BORDER WALL

According to BBG's Jennifer Jacobs, an impromptu post-meeting press conference devolved into a 'wild scene' as Trump and his Democratic opponents engaged in some vitriol-soaked sniping.

Trump calls the White House pool reporters into the Oval Office for unscheduled comments as he meets with Dem leaders. Chief of Staff John Kelly is in room.

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 11, 2018

Trump, in Oval with Pelosi and Schumer, says they may not have an agreement today on southern border wall funding. "We probably won’t”

Pelosi: "The American people recognize we must keep government open.”

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 11, 2018

PELOSI: “I don’t think you should have a debate in front of the press."

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 11, 2018

WILD OVAL SCENE
PELOSI: He doesn’t have the votes in House for wall.
TRUMP: "Nancy, I do.” Adds we need border security.
PELOSI: Of course we do.
SCHUMER: WaPo gave you Pinocchios about how much of wall's built. You want to shut govt down.
TRUMP: If don’t get what we want yes.

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 11, 2018

Trump insisted that he has the votes for the Wall in the House, but the trouble is the Senate, where he would need 10 Democratic votes. Pelosi said, if he's so confident, why doesn't he go ahead and do it. Trump replied that he didn't want to waste his time in the House if the bill would be DOA in the Senate.

Trump tells Pelosi he would have the wall approved "in two seconds" if he had the votes in the Senate

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) December 11, 2018

Earlier reports said Pelosi and Schumer had planned to offer Trump $1.3 billion in funding for a reinforced 'border fence' as a counter to his demands for $5 billion in funding for the wall. Trump has apparently rejected that proposal.

Stocks appeared to break lower on the headlines, as anxieties about another shutdown are adding to an already long list of market-negative risks:

* * *

Lawmakers are furiously negotiating to try and strike a compromise that would avert a partial government shutdown (what would be the third since Trump's inauguration), but President Trump is digging in his heels and demanding that any funding bill set aside at least $5 billion for his promised border wall in what looks to be a last-ditch gambit to fulfill one of his most grandiose campaign promises before Democrats take the House in January.

And just in case Democratic leaders were hoping they could push through another compromise capitulation (like they did earlier this year), Trump issued a series of browbeating tweets Tuesday morning warning accusing Democrats of hypocrisy by reminding the world that both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer voted to fund the construction of a border barrier back in 2006 (they voted for a bill that, as Politifact reminds us, wasn't all that different from what Trump has proposed).

Between the Wall prototypes and the renovations that have already been approved by Congress and the Trump Administration, Trump said many Americans don't realize how much of the wall has already been built. And if Democrats don't give Trump what he wants, the president said he's prepared to do an end-run around Congress and order the military to build the wall.

Despite the large Caravans that WERE forming and heading to our Country, people have not been able to get through our newly built Walls, makeshift Walls & Fences, or Border Patrol Officers & Military. They are now staying in Mexico or going back to their original countries.......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2018

.....Ice, Border Patrol and our Military have done a FANTASTIC job of securing our Southern Border. A Great Wall would be, however, a far easier & less expensive solution. We have already built large new sections & fully renovated others, making them like new. The Democrats,.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2018

....however, for strictly political reasons and because they have been pulled so far left, do NOT want Border Security. They want Open Borders for anyone to come in. This brings large scale crime and disease. Our Southern Border is now Secure and will remain that way.......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2018

.....I look forward to my meeting with Chuck Schumer & Nancy Pelosi. In 2006, Democrats voted for a Wall, and they were right to do so. Today, they no longer want Border Security. They will fight it at all cost, and Nancy must get votes for Speaker. But the Wall will get built...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2018

....People do not yet realize how much of the Wall, including really effective renovation, has already been built. If the Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country, the Military will build the remaining sections of the Wall. They know how important it is!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 11, 2018

 

Trump is expected to meet with Pelosi and Schumer on Tuesday for face-to-face budget talks as the Dec. 21 deadline is less than two weeks away.

Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz argued if the circumstances were that the current controversy involving President Donald Trump was “President” Bill Clinton instead of Trump, the tack of the media and Democrats would be different regarding the issue of impeachment. Dershowitz said Democrats and the aligned media would refer to the current situation as a “witch hunt” if Clinton were involved and that Republicans would take the current position of Democrats and call for Clinton’s impeachment. “I want everyone out there to imagine the following scenario,” he said. “Let’s assume that when Bill Clinton was running for president, Paula Jones came up to him and said, ‘Unless you pay me $130,000, I’ll reveal our affair.’ And let’s assume that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton together did exactly what is alleged that Donald Trump and [Michael] Cohen did together. I guarantee you The New York Times, NBC, MSNBC would be railing against any prosecutor who dared to suggest that this was a violation of the campaign finance law. Everybody would be on the other side of this issue. There would be Republicans out there saying strip him of the presidency, impeach him, indict

Liberals see racism in everything ... except in themselves

U.N. members on Monday adopted a deal aimed at improving the way world copes with rising migration, but almost 30 countries stayed away from the ceremony in Morocco.

During an interview with “Life, Liberty and Levin” host Mark Levin, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) discussed the importance of securing the United States borders. Scalise noted the large number of criminals in the migrant caravans that are attempting to come into the country, applauding President Donald Trump’s efforts to strengthen border security. “It’s incredibly important that we secure our border, ” Scalise told Fox News Channel’s Levin. “I applaud President Trump for being willing to do it.” He continued, “[E]very single day in this country, at least ten known terrorists are captured trying to cross into America through our border. Why are we trying to secure the border? To keep America safe.” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

President Donald Trump defended hush money payments from private lawyer Michael Cohen to women on Monday, despite prosecutors claiming they were illegal campaign contributions.