Taking a deeper look at the massive $1T U.S. market opportunity for AVs
This week’s polls:
In a Fox News national survey, Newt Gingrich surged from 12% to 23% since the last Fox poll in late October and is now ahead of Mitt Romney, who is at 22%. Herman Cain received 15% and Ron Paul was fourth with 8%. In a hypothetical matchup, Romney leads Obama 44%-42%, while Obama leads Cain 47%-38%, and Gingrich 46%-41%.
Romney leads a New Hampshire poll of probable primary voters with 40%, according to a Bloomberg News survey, with Ron Paul second at 17%, while Gingrich is third at 11%. But, 66% of Romney backers said they could be persuaded to support another candidate.
[In October 1983, then Vice President Walter Mondale had 44% of the vote in New Hampshire, with Colorado Sen. Gary Hart at 6%. On Feb. 28, 1984, Hart defeated Mondale in the state by 10 points. In September 1999, George W. Bush had a 33-point lead over John McCain, but McCain would then beat Bush in New Hampshire, 49-30. Some see a parallel to Jon Huntsman, who is at 7% in the Bloomberg News poll today.]
A Bloomberg poll of Iowa primary voters has Herman Cain ahead with 20%, followed by Paul at 19%, Romney 18%, and Gingrich 17%.
In a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of California Republicans, Romney had 27%, followed by Cain at 20%, Gingrich at 14% and Paul at 6%. Rick Perry polled just 3% in this one. But in an Obama-Romney matchup in the state, Obama cleans up, 52% to 35%.
I just have to give major kudos to a friend of mine down in Austin, Texas, Liz S., who first told me when Perry was thinking of running that he was a ‘nitwit.’ Boy, I thought Perry was going to be pretty strong. I should have listened to Liz early on. It also seems I saw him at the Iowa State Fair when he was at his very peak, having just officially announced.
--Meanwhile, with rising poll numbers comes greater scrutiny, as you’ve only heard 100 times already this campaign season, and it’s Newt Gingrich’s turn. Aside from all his personal baggage, professionally, he had to defend himself over at least $1.6 million in payments for consulting contracts with Freddie Mac, though to semi-defend him the payments were over a decade, 1999-2008. Gingrich explained it by saying he provided “strategic advice for a long period of time” after he resigned as Speaker of the House following the 1998 elections. Gingrich also added that his experience with Freddie Mac should be viewed as being valuable.
“It reminds people that I know a great deal about Washington. We just tried four years of amateur ignorance, and it didn’t work very well. So having someone who actually knows Washington might be a really good thing.”
Republican rival Michele Bachmann responded: “It doesn’t matter if its $300,000 or $2 million, the point is the money that was taken by Newt Gingrich was taken to influence Republicans in Congress to be in support of Fannie and Freddie. While Newt was taking money from Fannie and Freddie I was fighting against them.”
Former Fannie and Freddie executives dispute Gingrich’s description of his work at the mortgage giant, saying he was hired to strategize over identifying political friends on Capitol Hill who could help the company through a difficult legislative environment.
--Michael Gerson / Washington Post
“In the GOP’s whack-a-mole primary process, Newt Gingrich is about to get thumped by conservatives.
“The cause is likely to be climate policy. It is not only that Gingrich appeared next to Nancy Pelosi in a 2008 commercial calling for ‘action to address climate change.’ A year earlier, Gingrich argued, ‘The evidence is sufficient that we should move toward the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon-loading in the atmosphere.’ To that end, he supported ‘mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur.’
“At the time, Gingrich’s position was not unique. John McCain had been the Senate sponsor of cap-and-trade legislation. His primary GOP opponents in the 2008 presidential campaign, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, had endorsed greenhouse gas limits in various forms. When Tim Pawlenty was criticized for similar views this year, he noted, ‘Everybody in the race – at least the big names in the race – embraced climate change or cap-and-trade at one point or another. Every one of us.’
“There is a reason for such mass heresy: because the case once made by Gingrich and the others is perfectly reasonable….
“But Gingrich, in the manner of Cultural Revolution self-criticism, has now called his appearance with Pelosi the ‘dumbest single thing I’ve done in recent years.’ Some conservatives may dispute this claim, arguing that Gingrich’s previous support for the individual health insurance mandate and the Medicare prescription drug benefit are rivals….
“It is now a familiar pattern – the scandal of sanity….
“Some of this is just the nature of primaries, in which audiences applaud for purity. But there are other factors. Over the past few decades, the GOP has become a more conservative party. The development of self-consciously conservative media – on radio, cable and the Internet – has provided a welcome alternative to the bias of the mainstream media. It has also simplified many public debates into a contest of ideological teams…But ideological conformity easily becomes cultural isolation – the development of assumptions, language and views disconnected from the broad middle of American life….
“A political party that is serious about winning does not punish candidates for their virtues.”
--Another candidate facing intense scrutiny is Herman Cain. Good lord…he’s turned into a walking gaffe track. After screwing up royally in an interview with editors at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel over Libya, he went to Florida and said Republicans won back the House from the Democrats in 2008. It was 2010. “When the American people begin to ignite that American spirit, they make things happen, just like they made things happen in 2008 when the Republicans took back control of the House,” he declared.
Then Cain, in a stop in Miami’s Little Havana, sipped Cuban coffee and tasted Cuban cuisine. But in trying to say the coffee was delicious, he had no idea what the word is in Spanish. Then he asked, “How do you say delicious in Cuban?”
Oh brother. Earlier in the week, the Journal-Sentinel editors asked him a simple question. Did he support President Obama’s backing of the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi?
“Okay...Libya,” Cain responded haltingly…nineteen seconds later he asked.
“President Obama supported the uprising, correct?” Cain said. “President Obama called for the removal of Gaddafi – just wanted to make sure we are talking about the same thing.” Then more staring at the ceiling. “Nope, that’s a different one,” he blurted out. “I gotta go back and see…I got all this stuff twirling around in my head.” Later, Cain said, “I would have done a better job of determining who the opposition is.”
Yikes. So after seeing the full video, I sent an e-mail to the Cain campaign, urging someone on the staff to show him my column and get him to glance at it every Saturday morning. I also pointed out to them that I had supported John McCain in no small way with my dollars in 2008, a fact you can easily find on the Web.
The purpose of me doing this was really an experiment just to see if I’d get a form e-mail in return, thanking me for my interest and here is how I can contribute to the Cain Train, etc., but I didn’t even receive an acknowledgement of the note. I mean if this campaign isn’t set up to do minimal robo responses, then it truly is as pathetic as the past few weeks have demonstrated.
The campaign of Herman Cain has also proved once again that those who think our political process for selecting a president should be shortened are sadly mistaken. A month ago I thought Cain might be for real, and I was not alone. Today, I think he’s a joke.
Not surprisingly, Cain’s negatives in a Washington Post-ABC News poll rose to 44% from just 27% in October among all adults…up from 17 to 36 percent among Republicans; 25 to 45 percent among all women.
--The U.S. is reportedly furious over security plans for the London Olympic Games next year, with Washington wanting to send 1,000 people of its own, including 500 FBI agents, but Britain’s Home Office said it is confident it can keep everyone safe. British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond is assuring everyone there would be a “full range of multilayered defense and deterrents” in place, including surface-to-air missiles.
--Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, the Idaho man suspected of shooting at the White House last Friday, while President and Mrs. Obama were away, was nonetheless charged with attempted assassination. Good.
--Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords gave her first extended interview since the January shooting that almost took her life and she was clearly struggling to form words. Giffords admitted she would not return to Congress until she is “better.” Her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, was at her side and had to complete some of her thoughts.
It’s a touchy subject, but at what point does she step down until she is fully recovered? The constituents aren’t being served by her.
--Editorial / New York Post…on Occupy Wall Street
“Mayor Bloomberg last night ordered a long-overdue fumigation of the festering mess at Zuccotti Park – and while the zealots likely will be winging about the decision for months, it remains that the two-month-long demonstration had long since devolved from a principled sit-down into a carnival of contempt both for the law and for common decency.
“The action followed crackdowns on Occupy sites around the country – and may well have been prompted by promises of a substantial escalation of the demonstration this Thursday.
“Threats to disrupt rush-hour subway service appeared on fliers around Lower Manhattan at the weekend.
“Just who was responsible for them wasn’t clear – but even the possibility of such a challenge to public safety had to be taken seriously, given the irresponsible acting out that has accompanied the Zuccotti Park demonstration from the outset.
“And, a possible subway shutdown notwithstanding, the demonstrators’ overweening disregard for their neighbors – residential and commercial alike – simply could no longer be tolerated.
“Public urination and defecation was a public-health problem from the beginning.
“All-night drumming, disruption of local business and sporadic forays out of the park to shut down traffic and such were a 24/7 presence.
“Then came the crime. Reports of rape, sexual abuse and garden-variety assault were fixtures….
“So, enough….
“To argue, as some have, that there can be no time limits on freedom of speech is specious nonsense. Others have rights, too, and it is not unreasonable that they be respected.
“Mayor Bloomberg did that last night. Good for him.”
Public support for OWS has plummeted. A poll by Public Policy Polling found that 45% of respondents disagreed with the movement’s goals and only 33% supported them. A Siena Research Institute Poll found that, by a 2-1 margin, New Yorkers said that OWS did not represent the 99% of Americans that are not among the super-rich.
--I was in New Orleans twice last year as part of my Gulf oil spill thing and thoroughly enjoyed the place. I also know from other trips there it can be dangerous and you always have to keep your guard up. But I was surprised to see a Wall Street Journal report on just how high the murder rate is now. As of about ten days ago, there had been 164 homicides in New Orleans this year, compared to last year’s total of 172. Understand that New York City has 20 times the population and had 536 murders in 2010. “If New York had New Orleans’ homicide rate, more than 4,000 people would have been murdered there last year, about 11 every day.”
--A major drug tunnel linking San Diego and Tijuana warehouses was discovered, leading to the seizure of 17 tons of marijuana. It ran the length of four football fields and was equipped with aisle path lighting and a ventilation system. [I’m assuming it was aisle path lighting…this being a fancy tunnel, you see.]
--NBC News hired Chelsea Clinton to become a full-time special correspondent. This is absurd. It’s one thing to hire the late-Tim Russert’s son, Luke. Tim Russert was never the news himself, after all. But, gee, err, Bill Clinton loves to be in the news, and, err, Hillary Clinton is in the news all the time, as she should be in her current position, so do you really think NBC will be objective in the least concerning Bill and Hillary, with daughter Chelsea in the employ? Then again, NBC hired Jenna Bush and MSNBC, Meghan McCain.
--Scientists have found the best evidence yet that Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, has water just beneath the surface, as published in the journal Nature. Scientists have long suspected there could be a giant lake 100 miles deep about 10km below the ice crust. No doubt the Europa monster holds sway there.
--Last week I commented on the Russian launch of a craft headed to explore a Martian moon that got stalled in low-Earth orbit after its engines failed to fire. The probe will now crash back to Earth within weeks.
But on Monday in Kazakhstan, a Russian Soyuz rocket successfully blasted off for the International Space Station, a good thing since it was ferrying an American along with two Russians. This particular launch was originally scheduled for September but was delayed after the failure in August of a Russian unmanned cargo rocket similar to the one used for manned flights.
--As a story in Time magazine puts it, the real “1%” is the U.S. military. Back in 1945 as World War II was ending, 8.7% of the U.S. population was in the armed forces. Today it’s 0.5%, while the rest of us haven’t been asked by either of our wartime presidents to sacrifice in the least. Retired Army colonel and Medal of Honor recipient Jack Jacobs observed, “We love the troops, and you know why we love the troops? Because we don’t have to be the troops.”
--And next year, the Supreme Court is going to rule on an issue that will interest me more than the Court’s healthcare ruling, frankly; that being a case that claims the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to lie about receiving military medals, violates free speech. A majority of respondents to an Oct. 24-Nov. 2 online survey for Army Times and similar publications reveals that 84% say lying about military medals “should be a crime,” while 16% say we must preserve freedom of speech, even for liars. Through my subscriptions to Defense News and Army Times, I’ve read of too many cases of individuals faking being a hero but it’s going to be fascinating to see how the Court handles the issue.
---
Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.
God bless America.
---
Gold closed at $1726
Oil, $97.79…after hitting $102
Returns for the week 11/14-11/18
Dow Jones -2.9% [11796]
S&P 500 -3.8% [1215]
S&P MidCap -3.5%
Russell 2000 -3.4%
Nasdaq -4.0% [2527]
Returns for the period 1/1/11-11/18/11
Dow Jones +1.9%
S&P 500 -3.3%
S&P MidCap -5.1%
Russell 2000 -8.2%
Nasdaq -3.0%
Bulls 47.2
Bears 32.6 [Source: Chartcraft / Investors Intelligence]
Have a great Thanksgiving holiday.
In a Fox News national survey, Newt Gingrich surged from 12% to 23% since the last Fox poll in late October and is now ahead of Mitt Romney, who is at 22%. Herman Cain received 15% and Ron Paul was fourth with 8%. In a hypothetical matchup, Romney leads Obama 44%-42%, while Obama leads Cain 47%-38%, and Gingrich 46%-41%.
Romney leads a New Hampshire poll of probable primary voters with 40%, according to a Bloomberg News survey, with Ron Paul second at 17%, while Gingrich is third at 11%. But, 66% of Romney backers said they could be persuaded to support another candidate.
[In October 1983, then Vice President Walter Mondale had 44% of the vote in New Hampshire, with Colorado Sen. Gary Hart at 6%. On Feb. 28, 1984, Hart defeated Mondale in the state by 10 points. In September 1999, George W. Bush had a 33-point lead over John McCain, but McCain would then beat Bush in New Hampshire, 49-30. Some see a parallel to Jon Huntsman, who is at 7% in the Bloomberg News poll today.]
A Bloomberg poll of Iowa primary voters has Herman Cain ahead with 20%, followed by Paul at 19%, Romney 18%, and Gingrich 17%.
In a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll of California Republicans, Romney had 27%, followed by Cain at 20%, Gingrich at 14% and Paul at 6%. Rick Perry polled just 3% in this one. But in an Obama-Romney matchup in the state, Obama cleans up, 52% to 35%.
I just have to give major kudos to a friend of mine down in Austin, Texas, Liz S., who first told me when Perry was thinking of running that he was a ‘nitwit.’ Boy, I thought Perry was going to be pretty strong. I should have listened to Liz early on. It also seems I saw him at the Iowa State Fair when he was at his very peak, having just officially announced.
--Meanwhile, with rising poll numbers comes greater scrutiny, as you’ve only heard 100 times already this campaign season, and it’s Newt Gingrich’s turn. Aside from all his personal baggage, professionally, he had to defend himself over at least $1.6 million in payments for consulting contracts with Freddie Mac, though to semi-defend him the payments were over a decade, 1999-2008. Gingrich explained it by saying he provided “strategic advice for a long period of time” after he resigned as Speaker of the House following the 1998 elections. Gingrich also added that his experience with Freddie Mac should be viewed as being valuable.
“It reminds people that I know a great deal about Washington. We just tried four years of amateur ignorance, and it didn’t work very well. So having someone who actually knows Washington might be a really good thing.”
Republican rival Michele Bachmann responded: “It doesn’t matter if its $300,000 or $2 million, the point is the money that was taken by Newt Gingrich was taken to influence Republicans in Congress to be in support of Fannie and Freddie. While Newt was taking money from Fannie and Freddie I was fighting against them.”
Former Fannie and Freddie executives dispute Gingrich’s description of his work at the mortgage giant, saying he was hired to strategize over identifying political friends on Capitol Hill who could help the company through a difficult legislative environment.
--Michael Gerson / Washington Post
“In the GOP’s whack-a-mole primary process, Newt Gingrich is about to get thumped by conservatives.
“The cause is likely to be climate policy. It is not only that Gingrich appeared next to Nancy Pelosi in a 2008 commercial calling for ‘action to address climate change.’ A year earlier, Gingrich argued, ‘The evidence is sufficient that we should move toward the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon-loading in the atmosphere.’ To that end, he supported ‘mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur.’
“At the time, Gingrich’s position was not unique. John McCain had been the Senate sponsor of cap-and-trade legislation. His primary GOP opponents in the 2008 presidential campaign, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, had endorsed greenhouse gas limits in various forms. When Tim Pawlenty was criticized for similar views this year, he noted, ‘Everybody in the race – at least the big names in the race – embraced climate change or cap-and-trade at one point or another. Every one of us.’
“There is a reason for such mass heresy: because the case once made by Gingrich and the others is perfectly reasonable….
“But Gingrich, in the manner of Cultural Revolution self-criticism, has now called his appearance with Pelosi the ‘dumbest single thing I’ve done in recent years.’ Some conservatives may dispute this claim, arguing that Gingrich’s previous support for the individual health insurance mandate and the Medicare prescription drug benefit are rivals….
“It is now a familiar pattern – the scandal of sanity….
“Some of this is just the nature of primaries, in which audiences applaud for purity. But there are other factors. Over the past few decades, the GOP has become a more conservative party. The development of self-consciously conservative media – on radio, cable and the Internet – has provided a welcome alternative to the bias of the mainstream media. It has also simplified many public debates into a contest of ideological teams…But ideological conformity easily becomes cultural isolation – the development of assumptions, language and views disconnected from the broad middle of American life….
“A political party that is serious about winning does not punish candidates for their virtues.”
--Another candidate facing intense scrutiny is Herman Cain. Good lord…he’s turned into a walking gaffe track. After screwing up royally in an interview with editors at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel over Libya, he went to Florida and said Republicans won back the House from the Democrats in 2008. It was 2010. “When the American people begin to ignite that American spirit, they make things happen, just like they made things happen in 2008 when the Republicans took back control of the House,” he declared.
Then Cain, in a stop in Miami’s Little Havana, sipped Cuban coffee and tasted Cuban cuisine. But in trying to say the coffee was delicious, he had no idea what the word is in Spanish. Then he asked, “How do you say delicious in Cuban?”
Oh brother. Earlier in the week, the Journal-Sentinel editors asked him a simple question. Did he support President Obama’s backing of the revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi?
“Okay...Libya,” Cain responded haltingly…nineteen seconds later he asked.
“President Obama supported the uprising, correct?” Cain said. “President Obama called for the removal of Gaddafi – just wanted to make sure we are talking about the same thing.” Then more staring at the ceiling. “Nope, that’s a different one,” he blurted out. “I gotta go back and see…I got all this stuff twirling around in my head.” Later, Cain said, “I would have done a better job of determining who the opposition is.”
Yikes. So after seeing the full video, I sent an e-mail to the Cain campaign, urging someone on the staff to show him my column and get him to glance at it every Saturday morning. I also pointed out to them that I had supported John McCain in no small way with my dollars in 2008, a fact you can easily find on the Web.
The purpose of me doing this was really an experiment just to see if I’d get a form e-mail in return, thanking me for my interest and here is how I can contribute to the Cain Train, etc., but I didn’t even receive an acknowledgement of the note. I mean if this campaign isn’t set up to do minimal robo responses, then it truly is as pathetic as the past few weeks have demonstrated.
The campaign of Herman Cain has also proved once again that those who think our political process for selecting a president should be shortened are sadly mistaken. A month ago I thought Cain might be for real, and I was not alone. Today, I think he’s a joke.
Not surprisingly, Cain’s negatives in a Washington Post-ABC News poll rose to 44% from just 27% in October among all adults…up from 17 to 36 percent among Republicans; 25 to 45 percent among all women.
--The U.S. is reportedly furious over security plans for the London Olympic Games next year, with Washington wanting to send 1,000 people of its own, including 500 FBI agents, but Britain’s Home Office said it is confident it can keep everyone safe. British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond is assuring everyone there would be a “full range of multilayered defense and deterrents” in place, including surface-to-air missiles.
--Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, the Idaho man suspected of shooting at the White House last Friday, while President and Mrs. Obama were away, was nonetheless charged with attempted assassination. Good.
--Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords gave her first extended interview since the January shooting that almost took her life and she was clearly struggling to form words. Giffords admitted she would not return to Congress until she is “better.” Her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, was at her side and had to complete some of her thoughts.
It’s a touchy subject, but at what point does she step down until she is fully recovered? The constituents aren’t being served by her.
--Editorial / New York Post…on Occupy Wall Street
“Mayor Bloomberg last night ordered a long-overdue fumigation of the festering mess at Zuccotti Park – and while the zealots likely will be winging about the decision for months, it remains that the two-month-long demonstration had long since devolved from a principled sit-down into a carnival of contempt both for the law and for common decency.
“The action followed crackdowns on Occupy sites around the country – and may well have been prompted by promises of a substantial escalation of the demonstration this Thursday.
“Threats to disrupt rush-hour subway service appeared on fliers around Lower Manhattan at the weekend.
“Just who was responsible for them wasn’t clear – but even the possibility of such a challenge to public safety had to be taken seriously, given the irresponsible acting out that has accompanied the Zuccotti Park demonstration from the outset.
“And, a possible subway shutdown notwithstanding, the demonstrators’ overweening disregard for their neighbors – residential and commercial alike – simply could no longer be tolerated.
“Public urination and defecation was a public-health problem from the beginning.
“All-night drumming, disruption of local business and sporadic forays out of the park to shut down traffic and such were a 24/7 presence.
“Then came the crime. Reports of rape, sexual abuse and garden-variety assault were fixtures….
“So, enough….
“To argue, as some have, that there can be no time limits on freedom of speech is specious nonsense. Others have rights, too, and it is not unreasonable that they be respected.
“Mayor Bloomberg did that last night. Good for him.”
Public support for OWS has plummeted. A poll by Public Policy Polling found that 45% of respondents disagreed with the movement’s goals and only 33% supported them. A Siena Research Institute Poll found that, by a 2-1 margin, New Yorkers said that OWS did not represent the 99% of Americans that are not among the super-rich.
--I was in New Orleans twice last year as part of my Gulf oil spill thing and thoroughly enjoyed the place. I also know from other trips there it can be dangerous and you always have to keep your guard up. But I was surprised to see a Wall Street Journal report on just how high the murder rate is now. As of about ten days ago, there had been 164 homicides in New Orleans this year, compared to last year’s total of 172. Understand that New York City has 20 times the population and had 536 murders in 2010. “If New York had New Orleans’ homicide rate, more than 4,000 people would have been murdered there last year, about 11 every day.”
--A major drug tunnel linking San Diego and Tijuana warehouses was discovered, leading to the seizure of 17 tons of marijuana. It ran the length of four football fields and was equipped with aisle path lighting and a ventilation system. [I’m assuming it was aisle path lighting…this being a fancy tunnel, you see.]
--NBC News hired Chelsea Clinton to become a full-time special correspondent. This is absurd. It’s one thing to hire the late-Tim Russert’s son, Luke. Tim Russert was never the news himself, after all. But, gee, err, Bill Clinton loves to be in the news, and, err, Hillary Clinton is in the news all the time, as she should be in her current position, so do you really think NBC will be objective in the least concerning Bill and Hillary, with daughter Chelsea in the employ? Then again, NBC hired Jenna Bush and MSNBC, Meghan McCain.
--Scientists have found the best evidence yet that Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, has water just beneath the surface, as published in the journal Nature. Scientists have long suspected there could be a giant lake 100 miles deep about 10km below the ice crust. No doubt the Europa monster holds sway there.
--Last week I commented on the Russian launch of a craft headed to explore a Martian moon that got stalled in low-Earth orbit after its engines failed to fire. The probe will now crash back to Earth within weeks.
But on Monday in Kazakhstan, a Russian Soyuz rocket successfully blasted off for the International Space Station, a good thing since it was ferrying an American along with two Russians. This particular launch was originally scheduled for September but was delayed after the failure in August of a Russian unmanned cargo rocket similar to the one used for manned flights.
--As a story in Time magazine puts it, the real “1%” is the U.S. military. Back in 1945 as World War II was ending, 8.7% of the U.S. population was in the armed forces. Today it’s 0.5%, while the rest of us haven’t been asked by either of our wartime presidents to sacrifice in the least. Retired Army colonel and Medal of Honor recipient Jack Jacobs observed, “We love the troops, and you know why we love the troops? Because we don’t have to be the troops.”
--And next year, the Supreme Court is going to rule on an issue that will interest me more than the Court’s healthcare ruling, frankly; that being a case that claims the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to lie about receiving military medals, violates free speech. A majority of respondents to an Oct. 24-Nov. 2 online survey for Army Times and similar publications reveals that 84% say lying about military medals “should be a crime,” while 16% say we must preserve freedom of speech, even for liars. Through my subscriptions to Defense News and Army Times, I’ve read of too many cases of individuals faking being a hero but it’s going to be fascinating to see how the Court handles the issue.
---
Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.
God bless America.
---
Gold closed at $1726
Oil, $97.79…after hitting $102
Returns for the week 11/14-11/18
Dow Jones -2.9% [11796]
S&P 500 -3.8% [1215]
S&P MidCap -3.5%
Russell 2000 -3.4%
Nasdaq -4.0% [2527]
Returns for the period 1/1/11-11/18/11
Dow Jones +1.9%
S&P 500 -3.3%
S&P MidCap -5.1%
Russell 2000 -8.2%
Nasdaq -3.0%
Bulls 47.2
Bears 32.6 [Source: Chartcraft / Investors Intelligence]
Have a great Thanksgiving holiday.