monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I don't think I'll bother asking what odd notions attend that statement.

Yeah. He's nuts.

OK. I think the major difference will be with an individual in the leadership role who is accustomed to being held accountable for the results actually achieved by the organization he heads as opposed to his supposed good intentions. Such a person is less likely to be tolerant of being offered excuses like "no one sent me that memo", or "I wasn't aware of that" when consulates are burned down, etc. and also less likely to be such a patsy in hard ball negotiations with a truly hostile government.

I saw some article yesterday saying essentially that Pence is the major figure and that Trump is crowdgatherer. Alas, to find this, I'd have to scour my Trump file, which would take minutes of my time, and I might not have even saved it.
edit -
I see ehBeth was already talking about this.

Although the nationwide norm is different than CA, the federal budget continues to grow. Our economy cannot sustain that kind of increase in our debt balance and survive. Now with the baby boomers in retirement mode will less tax paying younger workers, something is headed for catastrophe.
Congress knew of this problem for many years, but have failed to act.

Yes, that's why I didn't bother asking.

Yes. The policies coming down the pike (not the noise) are Pence/movement conservative policies. Trump doesn't have a clue and doesn't care.

TPM

This guy would look so much better with a good shave and one of those black SS officer uniforms.

I always kind of wondered what was it about private insurance ran healthcare people found to be so fantastic.

Chelsea nailed Obama's legacy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/25/compromise-doesnt-work-political-opponents-chelsea-manning

I agree. Tolerable Debt levels and projected GDP growth rates are closely related. We have seen a drop in our "normal" year over year GDP grwth rates of slightly over 1% - a very big deal relative to the servicing of long term debt. Trump aims to correct that with regulatory reform, corporate & individual tax rate reductions, while paying for significantly increased defense & infrastucture spending with reduced government costs and the return of stranded overseas capital. It all sounds good ,.... as did previously ineffective proposals. We shall see.

The debt problem you see is widespread across the western world and the EU nations overall are in worse shape than are we. However that is a rather meager satisfaction. Europe no longer has the financial margin between its social welfare spending and debt limits to finance the defense establishment that may be needed to deal with their declared enemies to the South and East.

Agree. It's also interesting that Economic college professors disagree on many aspects of our economy, because Economics is art rather than science. With the world economy always in flux, it's impossible to measure anything. The fluctuation in the currency market is a good example. Look at what's happened to the world's stock markets.

George, on a somewhat related issue to our economy, what has been your philosophy on investments?

I had read that, and semi agree. I remember thinking over and over that he was too get-along, not pushing enough. On the other hand, what a wall he faced.

I understand people who leak stuff can be good for whatever country in the short or long run, and I understand rage at people who do.

I have a fairly conventionally balanced portfolio with about 6o% in Stocks. I considered shifting to shorter term bonds for added safety in a climate of rising interest rates, but the yields are disappointing. In short I'm fairly conventional and prefer mid cap growth and Large cap value stocks.

Nobody asked me, but I only do large futures contracts relating to relative currency rates, the yen, the dollar, the CNY, that kinda stuff.

Admittedly, I have lost several small fortunes doing that. Each time I have to divorce my current wife and find a new one with money, so it's kinda inconvenient.

But, one of these days, I'm due to hit BIG, I figure.

Trump said he is gunna devalue the dollar, so I'm currently shorting that sucker bigtime.

Thanks for sharing. My philosophy on investing departs from the experts who recommend a higher ratio of bonds as we age. Most of our investments are in index funds, and make up about 90% of our portfolio. I've withdrawn over $300,000 during the past five years, and our current balance is higher than five years ago. Even for the longer term, our investments grew handsomely.
Our initial investments grew over the years, so I'm happy with the results.

Index funds is the way to go. Ive sat with John Bogle so many times when he was still at Vanguard offices and he was all "teachy".
He was really pissed at these "Stock manager dudes" that had clients bail in 2007 qnd 2008. Bogle was always kinda flip about ""picker and day traders"
, "when it goes down, its gotta come back unless we get hit by one of them meteors"

He also was good at the philosophy of "value picks" (like the Windsor funds do) so we screw with an amount of money we arent afraid of losing and play with the ETLs.
So far, so good.

Ive still got some years to go but do you reinvest your "minimal withdrawals"?

Our needs and wants qre not so much and I wanna leave an endowed chair at my undergrad college

Btw, I don't believe in investing in bonds. Not at current rates.

Personally, I have great faith in this White House team and operation. They clearly know stuff we don't know. They way they are behaving and responding right now makes it abundantly clear that Khrushchev is putting missile in Cuba and America is being attacked by space aliens. And yet they are maintaining an almost preternatural calm.