The thought police are out in full force, and from both sides of the political aisle.
Say something radically different than the wishes of the president, and you belong in prison says retired general and former Democrat presidential candidate Wesley Clark.
Retired general and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark on Friday called for World War II-style internment camps to be revived for "disloyal Americans."
He called for a revival of internment camps to help combat Muslim extremism, saying, "If these people are radicalized and they don't support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It's their right and it's our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict."
The comments were shockingly out of character for Clark, who after serving as supreme allied commander of NATO made a name for himself in progressive political circles. In 2004, his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination was highly critical of the Bush administration's excessive response to the 9/11 terror attacks. Since then, he has been a critic of policies that violate the Geneva Convention, saying in 2006 that policies such as torture violate "the very values that [we] espouse."
But on Friday, he was advocating the revival of a policy widely considered to be among the most shameful chapters in American history: World War II domestic internment camps. Aside from the inherent problems in criminalizing people for their beliefs, Clark's proposal (which his MSNBC interlocutor did not challenge him on) also appears to be based on the concept of targeting people for government scrutiny who are not even "radicalized," but who the government decides may be subject to radicalization in the future. That radicalization itself is a highly amorphous and politically malleable concept only makes this proposal more troubling.
"We have got to identify the people who are most likely to be radicalized. We've got to cut this off at the beginning," Clark said. "I do think on a national policy level we need to look at what self-radicalization means because we are at war with this group of terrorists." And he added that "not only the United States but our allied nations like Britain, Germany and France are going to have to look at their domestic law procedures."
Key Snip: "On a national policy level, we need to look at what self-radicalization means. ... So if these people are radicalized and don't support the United States, and they are disloyal to the united States, as a matter of principle that's their right. It's our right and our obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict."
Thought Police
Wow.
Idiotic "thought police" attacks on the constitution come from the right and the left.
Wesley Clark, like countless Republican constitutional hypocrites has just thrown his hat into the ring for perpetual war.
Don't like it? Then you belong in an internment camp until you do.
Is Clark's position any different from what happened in Nazi Germany or Iraq? What about China, or for that matter ISIS?
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
In spite of the fact that Uber is the most banned company in the world, it thrives for one simple reason: People like it, especially business travelers and millennials, even if politicians don't.
In the three months ended in June, Uber overtook taxis as the most expensed form of ground transportation, according to expense management system provider Certify. Uber accounted for 55 percent of ground transportation receipts compared with taxis at 43 percent.
"Established travel providers will need to adapt quickly or face further market share erosion to the sharing economy," Certify CEO Robert Neveu said in a statement.
Certify based its finding on the 28 million trip receipts its North American clients submit each year. It does not include receipts from business travelers whose companies use other services to track expenses.
In a few cities, Uber beat out taxis by a wide margin for business travelers. In its home town of San Francisco, 79 percent of rides expensed through Certify during the second quarter were for Uber. In Dallas, 60 percent were for Uber and 54 percent in Los Angeles. Certify noted that it saw rental car transactions drop at the same time.
Uber Banned
Here is a link to a Google search for "Uber Banned". Every few weeks or so, another city or country bans Uber.
The Regulation Rap
The big knock on Uber is that its drivers are unregulated. If customers don't care, what business is it of city officials to care?
Price of Taxi Permits
The real reason cities care is one cities never say: Cities like selling taxi permits for exorbitant prices.
Please check out the going price for a Chicago Taxi Medallion.
There's a medallion on sale right now for the bargain basement price of $249,000.
That's the effective start-up cost for an independent person wanting to get into the taxi business, in a government-sanctioned way.
How much will that medallion be worth five years from now? Ten?
Bad Driver Rap
One can find dozens of stories about bad Uber drivers. Are there no cab complaints, or is it that cab complaints are simply not newsworthy?
Regardless, bad Uber drivers will vanish within five years or so for the same reason taxi driver will vanish: Automation will be the death of all commercial drivers.
Drivers Not Wanted
The need for taxi driver, limo drivers, bus drivers, train drivers, and long-haul truck drivers will nearly vanish within 10 years. Five or six years would not surprise me at all.
Uber recently announced that it wanted to purchase 500,000 self-driving cars in 2020. So, Uber-cab is coming without a doubt.
As a result, there will be less need for cars, and ultimately no need for drivers.
The bulls are attempting to outdo each other as often happens at or near market tops. But who's to say this is a top?
Citing low analyst's estimates, Morgan Stanley says Next S&P 500 Move Is 10% Rally. The body of the story paints an even rosier story.
The direction for stocks is still up after the Standard & Poor's 500 Index topped its previous closing high, according to Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Adam Parker.
The next 10 percent move in the U.S. equities market will be higher as low analyst earnings forecasts, a rising economy and muted investor sentiment paves the way for further gains, Parker wrote in a note to clients on Monday.
"We can't forecast the market multiple, but we can guess at the next 10 percent move," Parker wrote in a note to clients. "Why sell the market when numbers are too low, the economy is improving, and you can still romanticize that you are a contrarian bull?"
Parker also argues that the U.S. economy is likely to be better in the second half of the year than in the first half, and that sentiment on equities is too low "despite the fact that the market is once again bumping against all-time highs."
Parker said the bull market in American stocks can continue for another five years.
He forecasts the benchmark index will end the year at 2,275. That's above the average of 2,232 in a Bloomberg survey of 21 strategists, which includes Parker, and implies a 6.7 percent rally from current levels.
Plenty of Room for More Optimism
Why stop with a 5-year rally? Why not 10 or 20 years? Another 5 years would make it a mere 15. Why not forever?
For starters, this Fed is a sure bet to end the business cycle. Isn't it? And it goes without saying, there will never be another recession.
Apple and Google will soon be trillion dollar companies. Once that happens we can start discussing which company will be the first to top $2 trillion, then $10 trillion.
There's plenty of room for more optimism, and this bull market won't end until we see every ounce of it.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
French President Francois Hollande called on Sunday for the creation of a euro zone government and for citizens to renew their faith in the European project, which has been weakened by the Greek crisis.
Reviving an idea originally put forward by former European Commission chief Jacques Delors, Hollande proposed "a government of the euro zone (with) a specific budget as well as a parliament to ensure its democratic control".
The French president said the 19 member states of the euro zone had chosen to join the monetary union because it was in their interests and no one had "taken the responsibility of getting out of it".
"This choice calls for a strengthened organization, an advance guard of the countries who will decide on it," he said.
The euro zone's members are currently united in the informal body the Eurogroup, which comprises each country's finance minister, presided over by Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
"What threatens us is not an excess of Europe but its insufficiency," Hollande wrote in an op-ed in the Journal du Dimanche weekly newspaper.
Counting "Insufficiencies"
European Commission: The European Commission (EC) is the executive body of the European Union responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the EU treaties and managing the day-to-day business of the EU. The Commission operates as a cabinet government, with 28 members of the Commission (informally known as "commissioners"). One of the 28 is the Commission President (currently Jean-Claude Juncker) proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament. The Council then appoints the other 27 members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President, and the 28 members as a single body are then subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament.[Jean-Claude Juncker is president of the European Commission and a member of the European People's Party (EPP).
Eurogroup: The Eurogroup is the recognised collective term for informal meetings of the finance ministers of the eurozone, i.e. those member states of the European Union (EU) which have adopted the euro as their official currency. The group has 19 members. It exercises political control over the currency and related aspects of the EU's monetary union such as the Stability and Growth Pact. Its current president is Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. The ministers meet in camera a day before a meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) of the Council of the European Union. They communicate their decisions via press and document releases. This group is related to the Council of the European Union. The Eurogroup is also responsible for preparing the Euro Summit meetings and for their follow-up.
European Union: The European Union has 28 member states. It operates through a system of supranational institutions and intergovernmental-negotiated decisions by the member states. The institutions are: the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Auditors, and the European Parliament.
European Parliament: The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union.
Euro Summit: The Euro Summit (not to be confused with the EU summit) is the meeting of the heads of state or government of the member states of the eurozone (those EU states which have adopted the euro). It is distinct from the EU summit held regularly by the European Council, the meeting of all EU leaders.
European Council: The European Council (not to be confused with the parliamentary council of Europe or the Council of the European Union) is the Institution of the European Union that comprises the heads of state or government of the member states, along with the council's own president and the president of the Commission.
Council of the European Union: The Council of the European Union (not to be confused with the European Council or the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe), is sometimes just called "the Council". It is part of the essentially bicameral EU legislature (the other legislative body being the European Parliament) and represents the executive governments of the EU's member states.
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: PACE is not to be confused with the European Parliament or the Assembly of the Western European Union or the Council of the European Union or the European Council or the Council. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is one of the two statutory organs of the Council of Europe, an international organisation dedicated to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and which oversees the European Court of Human Rights. It is made up of 318 parliamentarians from the national parliaments of the Council of Europe's 47 member states, and generally meets four times a year for week-long plenary sessions in Strasbourg.
Please study hard. I am having a pop-quiz sometime this week.
Growth of European Council Meetings
Meetings of the European Council, an institution of the European Union (EU) comprising heads of state or government of EU member states, started in 1975 as tri-annual meetings.
The number of meetings grew to minimum four per year between 1996 and 2007, and minimum six per year since 2008.
From 2008 to 2015, an average of seven council meetings per year took place.
Since 2008, an annual average of two special Euro summits were also organized in addition - and often in parallel - to the EU summits.
Apologies offered for not having the time to research the growth of meetings for any group other than the European Council.
Eurogroup History
The Eurogroup was created in 1997 by the European Council at the request of France.
The chair of the Eurogroup mirrors that of the rotating Council presidency, except where the Council presidency was held by a non-eurozone country, in which case the chair was held by the next eurozone country that would hold the Council presidency.
In 2004 the ministers decided to elect a president and in 2008, the group held a summit of heads of state and government, rather than finance ministers, for the first time. This became known as the Euro summit and has had irregular meetings during the financial crisis.
Curing Insufficiencies
To cure the "obvious" insufficiencies in the above groups, councils, agencies, and summits, Hollande wants to create a new eurozone government, no doubt with its own ministers, councils, groups, summits, assemblies, and parliaments.
Hey, Why Not?
If the goal is perpetual meetings with rotating heads and useless bickering 365 days a year, Hollande's plan may work.
The only open question is how to pay for it.
Does he plan another tax hike or does he simply want the ECB to print the money? If the latter, I believe we need another commission group to study the idea.
United States of Europe?
Joking aside, Hollande is clearly angling for a fiscal union to co-mingle debts, in effect, the creation of a United States of Europe, on his terms, not Merkel's.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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