Three Canaries in the Coal Mine of the American Economy. That's Two Canaries Too Many

 One day after the Easter holiday, the stock market is swooning. Is this the big sell-off--the start of a long decline, maybe this century's Great Depression?

Who knows? The market may rally tomorrow. If so, what will that mean--long-term stability in the equity markets or a dead cat bounce?

I see three gasping canaries in the coal mine of the American economy:

First, prices are falling in the Florida housing market as Floridians struggle with relatively high mortgage rates and the ballooning cost of property insurance. 

Florida real estate has long been the leading indicator for the American housing market.  Trouble in the Sunshine State may portend trouble nationwide.

Second, the yield on 10-year treasuries is rising due partly to investors' concerns about tariffs and President Trump's public criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. If rates keep heading north, it will eventually mean higher mortgage and corporate borrowing rates.

Third, investors' interest in private equity funds is souring, and fund managers are having trouble selling assets to meet payment obligations to their clients. These funds own a lot of businesses and real estate. It will mean trouble for the broader economy if the equity funds run into trouble.

These three canaries are related because tariff concerns and interest rates affect them all. The feds could be relied on in past financial crises to sweep in and bail out the big players. This time may be different.

The federal government is running an annual budget deficit of $2 trillion, which isn't sustainable even in the short term if interest rates rise significantly.  Remember that this year's budget deficit adds to the nation's accumulated national debt of $36 trillion.

Some Americans are doing fine and still buying luxury cars and high-end real estate. Others are obsessed with the deportation of one guy from El Salvador and indifferent to storms on the nation's financial horizon.

Overall, Americans have adopted the philosophy of the Beach Boys: We'll have fun, fun, fun 'til Daddy takes the T-bird away. 

By the way, who is Daddy? Some people think Daddy is Donald Trump. But they're wrong, Daddy is the Chinese.

When did the Beach Boys become our financial advisor?

Pope Francis is dead. God help the Catholic Church if the cardinals elect a pope who is harsh toward divorced Catholics

 Pope Francis, the man who shocked the world with his sympathetic comment about the gay community and his humility, is dead. A new pope will be elected soon. If you've seen Conclave, you know how that works.

Most Americans are aware of Francis's saintly modesty, but they don't know that Pope Francis tried to reunite the Catholic Church with divorced Catholics. 

In Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), Francis's lengthy Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Francis wrote that divorced and remarried Catholics "need to be fully integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible, while avoiding any occasion of scandal." 

Indeed, Pope Francis emphasized:

Such persons need to feel not as excommunicated members of the Church, but instead as living members, able to live and grow in the Church and experience her as a mother who welcomes them always, who takes care of them with affection and encourages them along the path of life and the Gospel. This integration is also needed in the care and Christian upbringing of their children, who ought to be considered most important.

Pope Francis recognized that divorced Catholics "have entered into a new union" that "should not be pigeonholeed or fit into an overly rigid classification leaving no room for suitable personal and pastoral discernment." Nor should the Church see itself as a "tollhouse," but as "the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems."

Some Catholic priests have embraced Francis's call for compassion and inclusion toward divorced Catholics, allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments. However, others have forced these individuals to undergo a rigorous annulment process that hearkens back to the spirit of the Inquisition. This haughty and judgmental attitude has alienated millions of Catholics and driven them out of the Church.

The cardinals will almost certainly elect a new pope who will be kindred in spirit to Pope Francis and the good Pope John XXIII.  Let us all pray that the next pope has the compassion and courage of these two saintly predecessors and will bestow the mercy of Christ on divorced Catholics and welcome them to partake of the sacraments. 

 

Photo credit: Children of the Inquisition

 

90-second Movie Review: Warrior is the Ultimate Fight Movie

 Fight movies are an enduring cinematic subgenre. Requiem for a Heavyweight (Anthony Quinn),  Raging Bull (Robert De Niro), the Rocky series (Sylvester Stallone), Cinderella Man (Russell Crowe), and Fight Club (Edward Norton and Brad Pitt) are the standouts. But let's not forget The Quiet Man (John Wayne) and From Here to Eternity (Montgomery Clift), in which boxing is the powerful subtheme.

These are all great movies, full of pain and heartbreak, but they are little more than animated Disney flicks compared to Warrior, Gavin O'Connor's ultimate fight movie, released in 2011.

 Nick Nolte plays Paddy, a ravaged and lonely old man who lost his wife and two sons due to his alcoholism and abuse. Joel Edgerton plays Brendan, Paddy's older adult son.  Brendan tries to build a sane life as a school teacher with a wife and two children, and wants nothing to do with his father. Tom Hardy plays Tommy, Paddy's younger son, hopelessly alienated from both his dad and older brother. We learn that Tommy and his mother escaped from Dad and fled to the West Coast when Tommy was a youngster. Mom died in degraded poverty, and Tommy joined the Marines.

Both of Paddy's sons are deeply traumatized by their childhoods and utterly estranged from their father. Filled with existential anguish and seething anger toward Paddy, the sons collide in a shockingly violent mixed martial arts tournament. 

Nolte, Edgerton, and Hardy all deliver outstanding performances, as does Jennifer Morrison, who plays Brendan's devoted wife. It is Hardy, however, who stands out. His face exquisitely conveys Tommy's rage, pent-up violence, and psychic pain.

Warrior may be Tom Hardy's greatest movie performance, and that's saying something. His character conveys a message we should all take to heart, which is this: People who survive abusive childhoods carry scars that never completely heal.

Pain

 

"Yes, we can read. A few of us can even write. " Yankees should reconsider Mississippi as a good place to live

Mississippi has been the whipping boy of the liberal media for decades. When the states are ranked in terms of education, healthcare, or quality of life, Mississippi is often ranked near the bottom.

Moreover, white Mississipians are often caricatured as narrow-minded, uneducated, and racist. Hilary Clinton would probably say the people of our state are at the very bottom of her "basket of deplorables." And the media elites might well point to Mississippi as the state where all those "white Christian nationalists" are clustered.

I think the widespread prejudice against Mississippi is unfair. Mississippi has a rich literary and musical heritage, which is too often disregarded.  The state has produced several famous writers, including Eudora Welty,  Tennessee Williams, Richard Ford, and Nobel Prize winner William Faulkner. The state is the birthplace of the blues and boasts such famous musical artists as Elvis Presley. Tammy Wynette, Jimmy Buffett, Sam Cooke, Muddy Waters, and Faith Hill. 

Even in the field of education, where Mississippi is almost universally disparaged, the Magnolia State is doing pretty well. A California organization recently pointed out that Mississippi's NAEP reading scores were slightly better than California's, even though California's per-pupil expenditures are twice as high as Mississippi's.

Of course, every region of America has distinctive attractions, but Mississippi's are often overlooked. The state's cost of living and housing costs are below the national average. The climate is benign, and the Mississippi legislature recently passed a law phasing out the state income tax. 

As housing and property taxes increase in Florida, people have begun to discover the Mississippi Gulf Coast as a good place to retire. Bay Saint Louis, on the Gulf Coast, is attracting retirees. The town has a vibrant arts and restaurant scene--every bit as quaint and inviting as Cape Cod.

Further north, Oxford is a classic college community and a good retirement spot. Oxford is the home of the University of Mississippi, which Architectural Digest listed as having one of America's most beautiful college campuses.

As widely reported, people are leaving California and New York in droves, and many leavers are resettling in Texas and Florida. In the years to come, refugees from the northern Blue states will also be choosing other Southern states as good places to work, raise families, and retire.

Mississippi's day in the sun is just around the corner. Get here early and avoid the rush.

In the Age of Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, The Center Cannot Hold

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ...

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

William Butler Yeats (1919)

"The Second Coming," Yeats's famous apocalyptic poem, has been cited in every era since he wrote it more than a hundred years ago. Now, however, things are really falling apart.

As reported in Barron's, our federal government's budget deficit is $1.3 trillion, driven higher by rising interest costs on our national debt--now more than $36 trillion. Interest rates on U.S. bonds are creeping higher, as foreign investors grow wary about financing America's spending spree.

Politically, the center cannot hold, or as Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett might phrase Yeats's observation, "The fuckin' center cannot fuckin' hold."

Progressive Democrats, full of "passionate intensity," are behaving like lunatics. Senator Cory Booker, the Sparticus of the U.S. Senate, has accomplished very little over his political career. Earlier this month, however, he broke the record for the longest Senate filibuster speech, achieving absolutely nothing other than demonstrating the strength of his bladder.

Democrats displayed more "passionate intensity" at a rally in Washington last February, organized to protest Elon Musk's cost-cutting activities. Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley called Musk a "Nazi nepo baby," and Congresswoman LaMonica McIver of New Jersey called for shutting down the U.S. Senate. "We are at war," McIver cried out. Congresswomen Maxine Waters and Jasmine Crockett were present as well, spewing profanity.

Our nation has lost all semblance of an orderly two-party political system. Progressive Democrats see themselves as guerrilla fighters, indulging in violent rhetoric and launching a blizzard of lawsuits in friendly federal courts. Critics view this malicious litigation as lawfare; indeed, it is a quasi-military form of sabotage against the nation's justice system. And many federal judges are complicit.

Will things calm down? Will our political process revert to a culture of civility and decorum? Will the nation get its fiscal house in order?

I don't think so. Unless our government addresses its fiscal crisis very soon, interest rates will rise precipitously, the housing market will collapse, and inflation will accelerate the destruction of the middle class. All that will happen shortly.

Is America slouching toward Bethlehem as Yeats envisioned? No, but we're definitely slouching somewhere, and the place we are slouching toward is dark and scary.

The center cannot hold.

Poison Ivy is God's Message to be More Careful

 I live off a gravel road in the floodplain of the Mississippi River. No levee protects my side of the river in southwest Mississippi, and floodwater inundates my property every spring with melted snow and rainwater from up north. 

When the Mississippi River is at flood stage in Cairo, Illinois, my neighbors tell me, my four-acre yard will be flooded ten days later. So far, my neighbors have been right.

However, my patch of earth was dry last February, and I decided to build a fire in the fireplace to ward off a slight chill rising from Lake Mary. I selected sticks and twigs from the kindling basket on the hearth and constructed a small pyramid of dry wood that became the foundation for a crackling fire of oak and pecan logs.

All went well, and my living room was soon suffused with a warm glow and the pleasant aroma of woodsmoke. Ah, the country life!

Unfortunately, my kindling basket contained a chunk of poison ivy. When I acquired my little corner of southern Mississippi two years ago, many of the trees on my property were strangled by poison ivy vines.  These vines can grow 15 feet high in the alluvial soil and are as thick as my wrist.

I severed these monstrous vines from their roots with my mini chainsaw, and all the poison ivy died. Problem solved, I told myself, and watched the dead vines drop from my trees over the coming months.

On the ground, however, these dead vines look like tree branches. I carelessly sawed them up for kindling along with branches from the oak, hackberry, and pecan trees that populate my woodlot. Then I put these noxious vines in my kindling basket along with the other sticks and twigs.

As I built my fire one winter night, a poison ivy branch brushed my right leg. By the end of the evening, my leg looked like it had sustained a second-degree burn. And my leg itched maddeningly, causing me to involuntarily scratch so hard that I broke the skin, which drew blood and made the poison ivy burn worse.

That was February 1st. The next day, I visited Our Lady of the Lake urgent care center, where an able doctor gave me a steroid shot and prescriptions for an anti-itching pill and a medicated ointment.

My problems are over, I told myself as I drove home. Indeed, the itching subsided, and the medications allowed me to sleep. 

I was wrong. The blistering spread to my left leg, and two months later, my poison ivy burn has yet to completely heal.

God made the world, and I'm ever grateful for the beautiful Lake Mary sunsets and the flocks of waterbirds that gather in the sloughs along Lake Mary Road--the great blue herons, snowy egrets, ibises, and the fantastic pink roseate spoonbills. 

But did God go too far? Did he have to create alligators, moccasin snakes, and poison ivy? If so, why?

As my poison ivy burn gradually fades away, I've concluded that God made poison ivy to remind us to be careful as we make our way through this troubled world.

Evil is everywhere, and the most vicious evils don't come from God. They come from the hearts of men and women driven by the lust for fame, power, and money.

I'm provincial enough to believe that a lot of the evil that plagues America comes from Washington, DC, and the urban lairs of the coastal elites. I'm not so naive as to think I can escape this evil by dwelling on Lake Mary Road in rural Mississippi.

No, evil can reach me anywhere. Thus, God left me a message in the form of poison ivy to watch my step.

Gene Lyons, Esteemed Columnist, Calls It Quits Over Trump: My Flyover-Country Response

In an op-ed essay that appeared in my local newspaper yesterday, Gene Lyons wrote that he is retiring mainly due to Donald Trump, whom Lyons described as an "incompetent sociopath and career criminal."

Lyons believes President Trump "will bring the American experiment to ruin," and he doesn't want to spend any more of his life writing or thinking about the President.

Although I disagree, I'm not shocked by Mr. Lyons's views about Trump. I have several friends who have gone further in denigrating the President--calling him an insurrectionist, a rapist, and a fascist.  Merely calling the President a sociopath and a criminal is mild by comparison.

However, I take umbrage at Lyons' description of the people who voted Trump into office. He quotes Amanda Arcotte, another columnist, who describes "median [American]voters," by which she means Trump voters, as having "a pathological aversion to reality" and an addiction to "BS".

Basically, Lyons is criticizing the millions of voters in the Heartland who cast their ballots for Trump last November. Whom does Lyons think they should have voted for?

Should they have embraced the presidential candidate that the Democratic Party hacks endorsed, the same hacks who pushed Joe Biden over the finish line in 2016, a brain-dead, geriatric grifter? Should the good-natured and practical people of Flyover Country have voted for Kamala Harris, an incoherent sluggard?

Lyons needs to understand that the people of Flyover Country no longer listen to the moribund legacy media about politics.  The media elites aren't respected, they're not trusted, and they're not believed.

So, Gene, you picked a good time to retire. I hope you take some of your buddies with you--all the self-righteous and arrogant blowhards who work at CNN, MSNBC, The View, WaPo, and The New York Times. Their time in the sun is over, and Americans are looking elsewhere for journalistic integrity.

Does Gene Lyons have Trump Derangement Syndrome?