FYI: Cash Course - Investing & Stocks

Buying and selling stocks is an important part of a strong economy. Watch and learn with this quick video:
 

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Letter to LeBron James on his Birthday

pc: wikipedia

Happy Birthday (12.30.2018), 

Lebron James!

My bday gift to you is a wish that you not only be wealthy, but smart. Read the article below.

To:  Mr. Lebron James

The Los Angeles Lakers
2275 E. Mariposa Ave.
El Segundo, CA 90245

Dear Mr. James,

No one in my circles discusses French Modernist artists. That comforts me. Such a conversation would expose me as an illiterate on French Modernism, just as I am an illiterate on how to cook.

When I know nothing of subjects, my mouth stays closed. That's at least one difference in us. You are an economics illiterate. You prove it often. The dishonest "reporters" who cover you want to be your buddy. They won't embarrass you by being honest journalists and treating your words as economics illiteracy.

When you call Trump "a bum," none of them will tell you that statistics rank him as one of our best presidents for black Americans. His tax cuts and freeing us from absurd regulations have resulted in -- after only 18 months -- the lowest unemployment numbers ever for Hispanic and black Americans, and one of the lowest numbers for women.

DURING THOSE 18 MONTHS, TRUMP'S POLICIES CREATED ABOUT FOUR TIMES THE NUMBER OF MANUFACTURING JOBS CREATED DURING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S LAST 18 MONTHS. Remember when Obama mistakenly told us "Our lost manufacturing jobs are not coming back." Maybe manufacturing job growth depends on a president who knows what he's doing.

As a professional journalist, I cringe at some of Trump's buffoonery, like repeating sentences and wearing us out with "great," "fantastic" and other empty adjectives. He is often coarse. He was not my candidate. But there's no question his policies have helped many more minority Americans than Obama. It's not even close. Today, he's working to free many black and Hispanic prisoners who, in his opinion, have been in prison too long for relatively minor offenses. Are you aware of that effort?

You need to look up Gross Domestic Product, adjusted for inflation, and learn what it means to everyday Americans. Learn what one GDP point means to employment, and see how Trump has kept the number climbing.

Your buddy Obama? In addition to being our worst foreign affairs president and worst military commander-in-chief, his economic numbers all deserved an "F." He is our ONLY eight-year president who failed to give us at least one 3% or higher year of adjusted GDP growth. EVERY other president achieved at least one year of 4.28% or higher growth. Aided by Vietnam spending, Johnson had an 8.48 year. The best peacetime year -- 7.83 -- belonged to Reagan. And Obama couldn't even score a 3!!! Look it up.

You say you would speak to Obama but not Trump? How tragically uninformed you are. Obama had BY FAR the worst debt accumulation record of all our presidents. His economic blunders added about $9 trillion to our debt. NO OTHER PRESIDENT EVEN CAME CLOSE. That indebtedness will fall to you and your children.

via shutterstock

Poor families suffered most. Obama's awful job numbers forced a record number of people to take food stamps. Black household income under Obama fell steeply as black unemployment rose. Look that up, too.

But the worst part of what Trump inherited is that Obama, like Bush and Clinton before him, thought bribes and sweet talk were the best ways to deal with North Korea. As the North Koreans neared being able to wipe out Los Angeles with a nuclear-tipped missile, Trump became the first president to stand up boldly to the rogue nation. Notice North Korea, because of Trump, has stopped launching missiles over Japan? Notice North Korea has released political prisoners? Notice North Korea has begun to return remains of U.S. Service members? Absent sturdy spines, Clinton, Bush and Obama could not approach those major achievements.

Obama naively bribed the planet’s worst terrorist nation, Iran, with what was supposed to become a $150 billion handout. Did Obama not know many of those U.S. Tax dollars would help fund Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism? Of course he did. He just didn't care.

Remember the $800 billion of your and everyone else's tax dollars in his early stimulus for "shovel-ready jobs." Most of those tax dollars went to political cronies. He handed $500 million to Solyndra, a solar company run by boosters. The company soon went bankrupt. Our half-billion in tax money vanished with it.

Trump is often obnoxious, but people with courage can have that hangup. Obama always talked big, then feebly stood by when Putin infringed on Ukraine and annexed Crimea. But Obama's most cowardly move came when he warned Assad not to cross "the red line" in Syria. When Obama's warning was ignored, which Assad knew would happen, Obama did nothing. Does that make him a "bum?"

It makes me sad that you, as someone with a national voice would be so ignorant of economics, and also presidential decisions. I encourage you to do more reading and thinking as you watch the nation's GDP numbers rise and minority employment rise.

* Read about "Right To Try," which frees terminally ill people to sign a lawsuit waiver and take an experimental drug that might not be approved for many years. Democrats fought this sensible plan for years because it would cost them donations.

* Read about a Navy Obama left to Trump that struggled with about half its carrier aircraft unsafe to fly.

* Read about Trump's giving the VA the right to fire any employee who neglects or abuses a patient.

* Read about Trump's courage in challenging, actually demanding that, NATO partners to pay their fair share rather than keep mooching off the U.S.

You might also read the wisdom of two of the world’s brightest people, black intellectuals  Dr. Thomas Sowell and Dr. Walter Williams. They have written many books. Sowell and Williams’ integrity, remarkable insights and clarity of expression cause their common sense to soar off the page to readers.

Or, you could ignore vital Trump decisions and remain an illiterate on both presidential achievement and economics. If you disdain knowledge and keep calling Trump or any other U.S. president a bum, people will begin to wonder who's the real bum.

Sincerely,

Hal Lundgren 
(unverified, but not denied)

Year 2018

LeBron Raymone James Sr

wikipedia picture

Thomas Sowell

CNN Concedes POTUS Trump on a Win Streak

 -by Geoffrey Grider 
If you are Donald Trump today (October 6, 2018), it doesn’t get much better than it does right now. Despite the opposition from the hounds of Hell on the Liberal side, Trump’s pick for the United States Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in today by a 50-48 margin . The economy is at an all time high, unemployment at a 50-year low, and America is once again feared and respected around the world. This is what winning looks like, and it is exactly what Candidate Trump promised would happen  during the campaign back in 2016.

But to have fake news CNN write an article conceding that President Trump is on a fire-breathing win streak makes it all the more sweet. CNN has devoted 92% of their programming to negative coverage of President Trump, opposing him at each and every turn, but finally forced to admit that Trump is a nearly unstoppable force to be reckoned with.

Regular readers of NTEB will recall that we have written over and over that Donald Trump is God’s appointed man for this time, and his nearly unbroken win streak strongly testifies to that.

FROM CNN: Donald Trump may have never had a better time being President. Only a re-election party on the night of November 3, 2020, could possibly offer the same vindication for America’s most unconventional commander in chief as the 36 hours in which two foundational strands of his political career are combining in a sudden burst of history. President Trump will become an undeniably consequential President with the Senate due to vote Saturday to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, consecrating the conservative majority that has long been the impossible dream of the GOP.

On Friday, President Trump had celebrated the best jobs data for 49 years as the unemployment rate dipped to 3.7%, offering more proof of a vibrant economy that the President says has been unshackled by his tax-reduction program and scything cuts to business regulations.

FLASHBACK: CLASSIC TRUMP CAMPAIGN SPEECH

While his 2016 election campaign was most notable for swirling chaos and shattered norms, Trump’s vows to nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to fire up the economy were the glue for his winning coalition.

There is more evidence than the soon-to-be reshaped Supreme Court and the roaring economy to make a case that Trump is building a substantial presidency that in many ways looks like a historic pivot point, despite its extremely controversial nature...

--->>> Read the full NTEB article H E R E

Fake News CNN Concedes

9 Times the Media Pushed Misinformation About Kavanaugh

Kavanaugh "End Game" Cartoons

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US Economy: Tax Cuts Equals Explosive Growth

Tax Cuts Bust ‘Secular Stagnation’

By Mike Solon

The Wall Street Journal

July 29, 2018

“This explosive growth … should finally discredit three popular claims made by opponents of the President’s policies: that tax cuts would blow a hole in the deficit, that corporate tax cuts would serve only rich investors, and that secular stagnation was a valid excuse for the slow growth of the Obama era.”

Are low taxes key to a booming economy? Their success is harder than ever to deny after Friday’s report that the U.S. economy grew 4.1% in the second quarter, bringing the average quarterly growth rate during the Trump presidency to 2.9%.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that faster growth under President Trump has already added $1.3 trillion to the 10-year federal revenue projection, with the CBO’s April economic adjustment alone showing an addition of $1.1 trillion—the single largest growth-driven revenue gain ever reported. State and local governments can anticipate a similar dividend, amounting to as much as $600 billion.

The CBO now projects that additional revenue from this economic surge will offset 88.2% of the estimated 10-year cost of the tax cut. That contrasts sharply with the CBO’s assessment that President Obama’s economic slump lost $3.2 trillion in projected 10-year revenues during his last three years—almost five times more revenue lost than was gained by his 2013 tax hike. These results have confirmed again that weak growth is the fastest way to lose revenue and strong growth is the fastest way to raise it.

The next popular myth undone by the growth renaissance is that corporate tax cuts benefit only rich shareholders. Since the tax cut, the Labor Department reports that worker bonuses have hit the highest level ever recorded. The Commerce Department reports that wages and salaries are growing almost 25% faster under President Trump than under Mr. Obama. The recent tidal wave of customer rebates from utilities and cable companies also exposes the massive burden that high corporate taxes had been imposing on consumers.

Perhaps the most important narrative discredited by the economic revival is the “secular stagnation” excuse. Throughout the Obama years, progressive economists said Americans had become too old, lazy and complacent to achieve the growth that was regular before 2009. But somehow American workers overcame all of these supposed weaknesses when Mr. Trump changed federal policy.

-- via The White House

Above is the increase in my hubby's company stock valuation since the last valuation. Thank you, God! We are average-joe shareholders who now FEEL rich/richer.

The company-wide memo specifically mentions a few of the reasons for the positive change in valuation:

 " ... a strong stock market, good performance by comparable companies, solid global economic conditions and the positive effects of the recent change in U.S. Tax rates."

Tax Cuts Bust Secular Stagnation




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Whoa! Stock Valuation is UP!

 recent company email: The ESOP Trustee (GreatBanc Trust) has completed its annual valuation and determined the value of ___ Stock to be $5,108 per share, an increase of 30.7% from the previous valuation.  ___'s strong performance in 2017 and outlook for the future were key drivers, but other factors contributed as well.  These included a strong stock market, good performance by comparable companies, solid global economic conditions and the positive effects of the recent change in U.S. Tax rates.

The value of ___ Stock in participants' accounts in both the ___ Legacy Stock and ___ ESOP Leveraged Stock Funds, has been adjusted by Vanguard to reflect this new price.  In addition, ___ has made the necessary contributions to the ESOP Trust for Plan year 2017 and a new allocation of ___ Stock will be made to the ___ ESOP Leveraged Stock Fund accounts of all eligible KSOP participants based on the new stock value.   Both the stock price change and the new contributions will be visible in participant accounts by March 30^th.

Congratulations to our Team Member Owners!

Winning: South Korea Avoids Tariffs

McCormick to Pay Out Bonus

Are We Rich Yet?

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