David Stockman’s Contra Corner

After two years of gaslighting the public while it blew smoke up America’s ass, the Jacobin news media enjoyed its final feeding frenzy with the release of the 400-page Mueller report. They expected 1000 pounds of raw filet mignon, but it turned out to be tofu fried in olestra. The ensuing fugue of hyperventilating hysteria was also duly expected and William Barr stoically...

But the Mueller report left unscathed the central-but-unproven allegation that the Russian government hacked into the DNC and Podesta emails, gave them to WikiLeaks to publish, and helped you win the election. The thrust will be the same; namely, even if there is a lack of evidence that you colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin, you have him to thank for becoming...

Since I first wrote about private equity’s looting and ultimate devastation of Mervyn’s (“On Private Equity and Real Estate” September 2012, behind paywall), retailer after retailer has been similarly gutted. Payless Shoes, Toys ‘R’ Us, Gymboree, Sears Holding, Mattress Firm and Radio Shack — all companies at one point owned or controlled by private equity firms — have since...

Even if some proof were found though other means going forward, it would still make no difference: US media published over half a million articles on the topic, and not one of them was based on any proof. If that proof had existed, Mueller would have found and used it. https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2019/04/they-were-all-lying/

The case is closed. Neither was there a Trump campaign ‘collusion’ with anything Russia nor was there obstruction by the Trump administration. Unfortunately Russiagaters will not give up on their conspiracy theories anytime soon. They should. Trump’s policies are bad. It is high time to get back to real politics and fight him were its is worth to do so....

It is not: Trump may have just ceded the peace issue in 2020 to the Democrats. If Sanders emerges as the nominee, we will have an election with a Democrat running on the “no-more-wars” theme Trump touted in 2016. And Trump will be left defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia....

.......of all the S&P 500’s value creation over the last 5 years: Amazon (10.1%), Apple (6.5%), Facebook (4.7%), Google (6.4%), Microsoft (7.8%), and Netflix (1.8%). And even though NFLX may look small, its increase in market value over the last 5 years is essentially the same as JP Morgan’s. US equity valuations reflect present and future Tech disruption. No other narrative...

Names like Enron, Worldcom, Global Crossing, Lucent Technologies, and a vast graveyard of others have long been forgotten and are now ancient artifacts of an age gone by. Much like then, today we see companies going public like Lyft, Uber, Instagram, and others who have massive cash burn rates, little to no prospect for profitability in the near future, and astronomical...