Jimmy Dore explains why I am no longer a fan of Elizabeth Warren.

Where is the legislation she has filed to stop this kind of behavior of the bank executives? Wagging the finger is not nearly enough.

This is why I am not the fan of Elizabeth Warren that I was before she sold us out by endorsing Hillary Clinton and trying to get us to vote for Clinton with cheer leading that she knew was a lie. (Speaking about saying things that you know are a lie. By her own standards she should be fired.)

Naked Capitalism has the article Ilargi: The Curious Case of Missing the Market Boom.

No, global economic growth has not been ‘robust’. Stock market growth perhaps has been, but that’s only due to QE and buybacks. Still, stock markets are not the economy.

I am hoping that owning the few remaining undervalued stocks will give me some sort of cover. I am also hoping that the long history of dividend payments from these companies will not drop as precipitously as their prices. I am also hoping that the amount of cash I am holding will take me through the worst of the crash.

Beyond that, I am not going to try to time the market.

CNBC has the article China will ‘compel’ Saudi Arabia to trade oil in yuan — and that’s going to affect the US dollar.

“I believe that yuan pricing of oil is coming and as soon as the Saudis move to accept it — as the Chinese will compel them to do — then the rest of the oil market will move along with them,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist and managing director at High Frequency Economics, told CNBC

Don’t worry, Trump will fix this. What do you think will happen if we try to do to China what we did to Libya when they wanted to only accept an Arab currency backed by gold for oil.

If you want to check out what I said about Libya, read the Foreign Policy Journal article Hillary Emails Reveal True Motive for Libya Intervention.

Another thing to consider is the explanation that Modern Money Theory gives about the policy flexibility a country like the USA has because it is sovereign in its own currency. If we get forced into trading in gold or someone else’s currency all this gets knocked into a cocked hat. Wouldn’t it be a shame to lose that policy flexibility before we ever got to use it? As MMT says, we will never run out of USA dollars to buy whatever we want that is for sale in USA dollars. The problem comes when there are things we want to buy that are not for sale in USA dollars. This is the real reason our politicians would be willing to go to war.

I have many posts on Modern Money Theeoty, but perhaps the easiest overview comes in Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy.

Datamation has the article Why Linux Works.

Linux works, in short, because so many companies want to control it and can’t, due to its industry importance, making it far more profitable for a developer to build her career as a Linux developer rather than a Red Hat (or Intel or Oracle or…) engineer.

In other words, there is still a place for pride in quality craftsmanship. I wonder if the purveyors of Capitalism or Socialism have a place for this pride in their philosophies. I always believed there was a certain artistry in writing a good piece of software. I noticed that the Silicon Valley/California competitive influence as opposed to the New England and North West sense of craftsmanship, made it harder and harder to take pride in the work as the years went on. Perhaps it had more to do with the passing of time or my age that made it feel that way.

The Huffington Post has the article Trump Promises Truckers Jobs from Tax Cuts, as UPS Invests in Outsourcing Trucking Jobs.

The coming contract battle at UPS involves a new program that was reflected in company job listings, reviewed by TYT, that first began appearing on UPS’s LinkedIn page in August. The program involves holiday-season hiring of non-staff drivers, referred to in the job listings as “Seasonal Personal Vehicle Package Drivers.”

According to the job listings, the company will use not just non-staff drivers, but the drivers’ own vehicles. Both tactics may have implications for the number of jobs held at UPS by full-time staff drivers, mechanics, and other personnel.

So even if tax cuts were to help “create” jobs, they would be at lower salaries and without benefits. This is not going to help bolster the middle class. Before long all the jobs could be at starvation wages, but at least we would all be employed. So busily employed, as a matter of fact, that we wouldn’t have time to protest what they are doing to us.

YouTube has the video Obama Actually Admits He’s A Moderate Republican!.

This is definitely NSFW, but it is an answer to the people who blame me for Trump because I would not vote for Clinton.

I have not figured out how to tell the moderate Republicans running the Democratic Party and all the people who support them, that if they insist on running another candidate like Hillary Clinton, I will not vote for her or for him. Well, I tell them this, but they refuse to listen or believe me.

Truthdig has the article Trump Pushes More Loans on Devastated Puerto Rico.

Despite loud and growing demands that Puerto Rico’s debt be cancelled outright, President Donald Trump is being blasted for doing the exact opposite by calling on Congress to saddle the U.S. territory with even more loans amid a massive humanitarian crisis on the storm-ravaged island.

This is exactly how Puerto Rico got into the financial problems that they were in before the hurricanes. This is the sales pitch the banks give to people who are struggling.

“Oh, so your drowning in debt. Here, we’ll lend you some more money. If we are lucky, you will finally succumb so we can take everything you once had.”

As a bystander, I can see the train wreck coming. All I can do is to shout, “NOOOO, don’t do it.” That’s what I was doing as people were borrowing on the equity in their houses to make up for the raises they weren’t getting at work. From the real estate bubble crash experience, I know that the victims are too desperate to listen to my warnings.

Medium has the article Your app is an onion: Why software projects spiral out of control.

You start with the best of intentions. You hire a developer to build out your startup idea. But almost every week, it feels like the project needs tweaking. Features start creeping in, and the scope slowly expands.

This is why I developed this tool to create outlines in HTM. It is free for the taking.

For the first 30 or so years of my career I worked for people who had enough faith in me that they would let me do proper design before I implemented anything. For the last 6 years of my career, people thought that proper design as described in the article was wasting time. What little design I could do, I had to sneak in and keep hidden from management.

When I had had enough of the insanity, I retired.

YouTube has the video Vegas Shooting Taxi Driver’s Video ! Must Watch B4 Well You Know , The Take Down !.

Cori Langdon at Mandalay Bay In taxi line

As I was watching this, I was thinking that this is too detailed to have been staged.

I don’t know what is the significance of this video. That may only become apparent later, if at all. So here is something for our memory banks as the story unfolds in the corporate media. There is no telling if we will ever get the straight story on this event.

The Ring Of Fire has the article Watch Rachel Maddow Peddle Completely Debunked Story – Redacted Tonight.

There are obviously a lot of people interested in tense relations with Russia. They would be what the Pope calls “blood – soaked arms traders.” Too bad these people own our government and are able to frame our debates by owning our media.

Warning: X-rated for language that you probably hear almost every day.