I have no idea who Ross is, but his comments on recent topics are interesting.

I have been commenting on China for a while, but now it is becoming more clear that things have really changed there, and become much worse. The population is aging, and they are having relatively few babies due to the old one child, and young people do not want big families now. They are happy with one child so they can better afford their new found prosperity and modern lives. By 2050 there will be only 50% as many Chinese as today. In rural areas poverty is still common. Parents leave the kid with grandma and go off to the city to work for 2-3 weeks at a time. This is having a deleterious impact on the kids. Lockdowns now of major areas continue, and so the economy is suffering, and people are becoming angry at being forced to be locked away. Production is down, and so consumer spend is way down. The real estate disaster continues, and now the government is forced to bail out the lenders and the developers. It is very doubtful that condos and other real estate development and infrastructure spending will ever again become the main driver of the economic growth. It was 25% of GDP. China is totally dependent on oil imports, and in a war we could cut off oil ships and create real issues for China very quickly. It is possibly why they are building so many coal fired power plants, although they also have to import coal. Without trade with the west, China shrivels. In short, starting a real war with the US, Japan and Taiwan is making less sense as time goes on. Trade would stop, oil imports would be cut as well as coal, and the economy would collapse. This does not mean Xi would not try, but he is watching Putin in Ukraine and realizing he could put China in a similar bad situation. That is not in his interest to do that. It may be that Ukraine war may prove to be the key to China backing off military adventures and, it might prove to be what saves the world from WWIII. China is also faced with a rearming Japan to counter the China threat. That is a potential real problem for China if Japan really modifies their law and steps up military capability. Those who think we should not be supporting Ukraine to the greatest extent possible, are not understanding the worldwide geopolitical ramifications of what is really happening, and how much we may be benefiting.
 
As a result of all of the issues China now faces, and their potential confrontation with other nations, there is a growing shift to India as the future major Asian nation. It is a slow process as India has bureaucratic systems that inhibit the kind of rapid growth we saw in China over the past 15 years. India will become the next major nation for offshore production, and for geopolitical influence over the next few years. If Mexico was not so totally corrupt, they could become far more prosperous, but their culture is so imbued with the drug influence and corruption that it will never be what it could have been.
 
The current stock rally might last a little longer, but reality is, the economy is sliding, the Fed is continuing to raise, oil prices likely have bottomed, the EU is in recession and it is getting worse as is the UK, there will be debt defaults by sovereigns, and unemployment will increase. Due to the slow economy in China and the high US dollar, a lot of small countries are in economic crisis. The Conference Board economist believes we are already in recession, and it will get worse. I continue to believe the Street is living in one of its over optimistic phases where a comment by the Fed that it will reduce the amount of each raise has triggered an over optimistic view that inflation is over and all will be well again soon. That is classic Wall St over reaction to one bit of very slightly positive news. If anyone believes we are going back to minimal interest rates, they are dreaming. A 4% ten year is likely to be the norm again. There is a long way to go before inflation is back near 2%, and the Fed has been very clear it will continue to raise until they can see that getting possible. They also still have $9 trillion of assets to sell off, or allow to run off, and that crimps liquidity. M2 is near a record low. The economy continues to deteriorate, not grow. 2023 will be worse than 2022. The stock market will not continue to go up in the face of all this negative economic news. It will go down, and maybe down a lot back to 3300. Interest rates are staying steady or going up, not down. Home prices will continue down, although not by a lot. Rents are not going down. They may not go up a lot more, but not down materially if at all. Gas prices will rise again. Food prices will not rise much more if at all, but they are not coming down much. Savings are being used up, and the saving rate now is near record low. China is in serious economic difficulty and that is not changing for the better for quite a while. There is nothing positive in the near term for the stock market other than false hope for some miracle from the Fed. Goldman is still forecasting a 9% decline in the S&P from here and no growth in 2023.
 
In 2008, the S&P rallied in May and again in September only to crash starting in October, finally declining 53% from the peak. On October 9, 2007 the market had hit its all time high. Then it trended down from there with a couple of nice rallies in between as the Street as usual, refused to face reality that there was a massive undermining of the capital markets and housing underway since fall of 2007. The point being, these rallies as we are experiencing right now, are not uncommon in major bear markets. Then it gets much worse. Given the data as mentioned above, it would be normal for the market to have a major downturn again in January, and continuing after for a few months. Forecasting the market is a guessing game, and never scientific no matter who tells you otherwise. There are all sorts of charts and correlations pundits point to where they claim some correlation and that now they know what the market is going to do, but reality is, every time has a different economic and political fact set, and no two rallies or declines are the same. I remain a bear.
 
It is estimated that the “excess” savings now are $1.2-$1.8 trillion, but declining quickly. The bulk of those dollars are held by upper income people who already had savings and good incomes, so the amount held by the average family is materially lower, and that lower amount is what is going to impact spending. It is estimated that the excess will be mostly gone in 9-12 months, so let’s assume by mid to fall of 2023 at the latest. That means a big reduction in consumer spending is likely by summer. That means a much lower summer travel season than we have just seen. That should coincide with higher unemployment and higher rates. The strong labor market is unlikely to remain as strong, and real wages continue to be negative. When you take all of this combined with lower home values, losses in 401K plans and layoffs, you have to conclude the economy in 2023 will be worse.
 
The problem China now has is that their vaccines are not as effective as ours and by having lockdowns there is no herd immunity building up to the degree it has happened here and in Europe. The result is, when they lift a lockdown the variants spread very quickly again and the cycle starts all over. The lockdowns are probably counter productive for ending Covid, and they are killing the Chinese economy.
 
Some things to note. There is a shortage of medicines now. That is due to the lockdowns in China from where we get the vast majority of medications. That is a real vulnerability that the US needs to change quickly, but is not being addressed. Drug companies need to move that production back here. You may also be noticing that medical care is not the same now. Doctors now are often salaried employees of big hospital chains, even if they are in a group which may in turn be owned by the hospital. Thus docs now have to adhere to corporate edicts and procedures. Appointments are often limited to 15 minutes, and what the doc tells you may be constrained by hospital lawyers seeking to limit liability. Even getting an appointment in many places like New York has become a very long wait. Marcus Welby died. Medical care as we once knew it, and the cost, is now a problem even for the well to do. It is a real issue. A related issue of real concern is how the pandemic was handled by Fauci and CDC. It is now becoming clear that lockdowns were very detrimental, especially for kids, and that doctors who raised questions about what Fauci was preaching, or the teachers union was pushing, were shut down and ostracized. Fauci admitted masks were not effective under oath recently. Now it turns out the objectors may have been right about a lot of things, like lockdowns and masks, but the bureaucrats and the press pounded them into silence, or ridicule, when in reality they were right about several major things. Florida proved that the lockdowns were worse than no lockdowns for kids. The press did terrible damage to our health situation by conforming to their hero Fauci and CDC, instead of airing contrary scientific findings. CDC needs a drastic overhaul, and once again the press is guilty of pushing dangerous false narratives that fit their left wing agenda. Missouri is now showing through a lawsuit deposition that Fauci lied and did real damage.
 
Crypto continues to unfold as a major problem. It is unclear what the crypto world will be once the dust settles. We don’t know all of the losers, but we do know asset managers like Blackrock had big losses that are yet to be fully revealed. It is also unclear the full list of investors and losers in the private equity world. The losses are likely to be in the billions before this is over. Then there is the whole issue of which politicians got paid one way or another, and if any of the stories about Ukraine or drug dealers are true. Lots of rumors, little corroboration so far, but it is very early in the unwinding of what was really going on. This is going to be a massive scandal before it is all cleared up. DCG and its affiliate Genesis, which is supposedly backed by Goldman, are possibly suffering financial problems with rumors that Genesis might have to file Chapter 11. It now appears that there was a lot of inter-company lending and investing between crypto entities, but all of this is still unclear as there are few public filings. Blackrock has lost a lot of client money on crypto investments. This whole collapse of FTX has forced a rush by Binance and others to try to raise $1 billion, or more, to bail out the industry. If that does not scare you off crypto, then good luck.
 
Musk just keeps powering ahead regardless of the attacks by the left media and former employees who did not want to work hard to earn their excessive pay. Twitter was a mess, and sorting it all out will take time and many bumps in the road. The media pushing for his failure are now scared he will continue to have a successful platform to call out the lies the mass media spew. He has already done that with several who put out their usual false news stories and opinion pieces. Dems are on the attack since now there is a massive social platform that will not push their lies into the world. Having run companies, I know how hard it is to fix a broken company filled with employees who refuse to work hard, and in the case of Twitter, who are politically against your success. He did the right thing by cleaning house from the first day. My bet is he succeeds and becomes a true free speech platform changing social media in general. I expect the attacks from the press to increase as he continues to call out the false stories. Finally we have someone with a huge platform other than Trump who can possibly straighten out the media in this country.
 
Pay attention to Moldavia. Putin is working very hard to overthrow the government which would be a bad thing for the war. The EU needs to step up big and bail out Moldavia to prevent a much worse problem.

Hey, This is purty good and quick No slant.

I’ve been reading 1440, and definitely think you’d enjoy it as well. It has all of the day’s top news and info—sports, science, culture, politics, business, and more— in a concise and impartial (and free) 5-minute morning email. I learn something new every time I open it. Check out the #1 newsletter for unbiased news here:

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I’m so piping mad I can’t stand it! I realize I’ve got a bad temper and my husband realizes it, but DAMN! Screw you all and your damn close minded bigotry!

And now the mods have closed it!

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/i-don’t-even-care-anymore.140183/

Chinese company's purchase of North Dakota farmland raises U.S. security concerns


https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/01/chinese-purchase-of-north-dakota-farmland-raises-national-security-concerns-in-washington.html

Monkeypox? Probably wasn’t wearing his mask…😏😎


https://www.foxnews.com/politics/transportation-sec-buttigieg-latest-bidens-orbit-test-positive-covid-19

https://generalaviationnews.com/2022/05/19/near-miss-is-actually-a-strike/?utm_source=TPOA&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20220520

Near miss is actually a strike

By General Aviation News Staff · May 19, 2022 · Leave a Comment

This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.

Shortly after departing ZZZ, just past [a reporting point], tower pointed out traffic.

I spotted an inbound aircraft about a half-mile away that I thought was the traffic and called it in sight and tower told me to switch to CTAF.

About 30 seconds after that I saw the plane, which I assume was the aircraft they actually meant to point out to me, at the very last second just as it went under my aircraft.


The weather was clear and not a factor, however the light colored plane must have blended in with the snow-covered mountains in the background.

I pulled up to avoid the aircraft and had what I believed was a very near miss.

We continued to our destination without further issue and spent the night at a remote hotel without signal.

The next afternoon when we returned to ZZZ, tower gave me a phone number after landing. When I called in the controller explained that the other aircraft actually reported it as a strike and that after inspecting their plane he found a tire mark on the top of his wing.

At this time I have not been able to find out the pilots name, aircraft tail-number, or type. There was no damage whatsoever to the aircraft I was flying.

Primary Problem: Human Factors

ACN: 1836833

https://www.foxnews.com/us/gop-rep-illegal-migrants-pallets-baby-formula

Pallets of baby formula are being sent to holding facilities at the border amid a shortage that has seen many parents unable to find it at their local stores, according to a GOP representative. 

"They are sending pallets, pallets of baby formula to the border," Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said in a video posted to Facebook Wednesday. "Meanwhile, in our own district at home, we cannot find baby formula."