|
THE DON JONES
INDEX… |
GAINS POSTED in GREEN
LOSSES POSTED in RED |
|
|
4/2/18… 15,621.51 3/12/18… 15,613.13 6/27/13… 15,000.00 |
|
(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 4/2/18… 24,103.11; 3/19/18… 23,533.20; 6/27/13… 15,000.00) |
LESSON for April 2, 2018 – IN DREAMS!
Last week, we
reported on the 2018 findings of the World Happiness Report and listed the
finalists, in order, from #1 (Finland) to #156 (Burundi). Next week, we will append the WHR survey on immigration
happiness (as applies to both the immigrants and their destinations, whether
welcomed or not) the methodology of the researchers and internal changes over
the 2017 findings and, lastly, how the United Nations folk compared with our
own Don Jones Index World
Happiness Report for 2017.
But first, we
must take note of a significant anniversary occurring this week – that of fifty
years ago, 1968: the assassination of Martin Luther King, following his seminal
“I Have a Dream” speech.
As reported, it
has not been a particularly happy year for Don Jones (with the exception of a
few billionaires, newlyweds, lottery winners and Philadelphia sports fans) with
the United States falling from 14th to 18th according to
the researchers, a bunch of Gallup people acting under the auspices of the
United Nations.
But consider
1968… a real dumpster fire of a year.
Not only was King shot down in Memphis, a confused Arab killed Robert
Kennedy as he was about to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for
November’s election. The Cold War was
ice-cold, the Vietnam war was hot and bloody far beyond the occasional Iraq or
Afghan casualty, black people were compelled to use separate drinking fountains
and young people were apparently going crazy.
The old liberal turned warmonger Hubert Humphrey stole the Democratic
nomination amidst rioting in the streets and then lost the general election to
Richard Nixon, with all that entailed.
Sort of like
November, 2016, except that Donald Trump’s playbook was nearer to that of
George Wallace to Nixon or Humphrey, and more successful, too.
Nonetheless,
there were also some high moments – a few times when it was possible to discern
a glimmer of hope behind the dystopian clouds that would swirl round the world
(and are swirling still). And so, here
is Rev. King’s address given in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as
the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we
stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came
as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared
in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the
long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred
years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of
segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the
Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of
material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in
the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And
so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and
the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which
every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes,
black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable
Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is
obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as
her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred
obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has
come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We
refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of
opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that
will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce
urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to
take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the
promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate
valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to
lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of
brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.
This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until
there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three
is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to
blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation
returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in
America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of
revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright
day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the
warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of
gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not
seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness
and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity
and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into
physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of
meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must
not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers,
as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their
destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their
freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march
ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When
will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is
the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be
satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain
lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. **We cannot
be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to
a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of
their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites
Only."** We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot
vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no,
we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls
down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials
and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some
of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered
by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the
faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to
Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana,
go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow
this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my
friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I
still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the
true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down
together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression,
will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a
nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the
content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists,
with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of
"interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there
in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with
little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every
hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and
the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall
be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South
with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair
a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling
discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this
faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle
together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing
that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's
children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land
where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, From every mountainside, let freedom
ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it
ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we
will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and
white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join
hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
So – what have
fifty years brought us?
Not much,
according to Colbert King, editorial writer for lyin’ Jeff Zuckerberg’s fake
news Washington Post…
“For Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January, the
White House issued a statement declaring that the slain civil rights icon
understood that “for people to see one another as equals, they had to feel the
tugs of a bond stronger than race. For King, that bond was America.” King,
indeed, did have a dream about America.
“But King’s vision looks nothing like the
America on display in today’s Washington.
“Five decades after King’s assassination,
America has the whitest White House and the most racially exclusive cadre of
presidential appointees since the presidency of Herbert Hoover. The composition
of Donald Trump’s administration mocks the White House’s claim to govern under
an “American spirit of fraternity.”
“A more racially unfriendly time since King was
killed is hard to find.”
Is America
happy about this and other factors? Next
week, we’ll go back to the World Happiness Report, how it compares with our own happiness survey. After a couple of weeks of tariff and
interest-related declines, Don Jones’ Dow Jones portfolio (if he has
one), finally began inching back up. There
was plenty of turmoil in Washington as will affect Don’s future prospects, but
little on the immediate horizon (save an unlisted, but notable spike in gas
prices.)
THE
DON JONES INDEX
CHART of
CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000
(REFLECTING…
approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of
See a
further explanation of categories here…
ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)
DON JONES’ PERSONAL ECONOMIC INDEX (45% of TOTAL INDEX POINTS)
|
INCOME |
(24%) |
BASE 6/27/13 |
RECKONINGS LAST CHANGE |
NEXT |
DON 3/26/18 |
DON 4/2/18 |
OUR SOURCE(S) and COMMENTS |
||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
Wages (hourly, per capita) |
9% |
1350 points |
3/12/18 |
+0.18% |
Apr. 18 |
1,472.77 |
1,472.77 |
||||||||||||
|
Median Income (yearly) |
4% |
600 |
4/2/18 |
+0.06% |
4/9/18 |
673.93 |
674.31 |
debtclock.org/ 31,747 |
|||||||||||
|
Unempl. (BLS – in millions |
4% |
600 |
2/12/18 |
-2.44% |
Apr. 18 |
1,110.17 |
1,110.17 |
||||||||||||
|
Official (DC - in millions) |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
+0.23% |
4/9/18 |
515.98 |
517.14 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 6,642 |
|||||||||||
|
Unofficl. (DC - in millions) |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
+0.20% |
4/9/18 |
490.20 |
491.34 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 13,160 |
|||||||||||
|
Workforce Participation
Number (in millions)
Percentage (DC) |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
+0.3% +0.1% |
4/9/18 |
286.59 |
286.59 |
Americans
in/not in workforce (mil.) In: 155,435 Out 96,074 Total 251.500 http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 61.80% |
|||||||||||
|
WP Percentage (ycharts)* |
1% |
150 |
4/2/18 |
+0.17% |
Apr. 18 |
150.83 |
150.83 |
http://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 63.00% nc |
|||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
OUTGO |
(15%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
Total Inflation (aggregate) |
7% |
1050 |
3/19/18 |
+0.5% |
4/9/18 |
973.30 |
973.30 |
|
|||||||||||
|
Inflation – Food |
2% |
300 |
3/19/18 |
+0.2% |
4/9/18 |
278.70 |
278.70 |
|
|||||||||||
|
- Gasoline |
2% |
300 |
3/19/18 |
+5.7% |
4/9/18 |
290.19 |
290.19 |
|
|||||||||||
|
- Medical Costs |
2% |
300 |
3/19/18 |
+0.6% |
4/9/18 |
264.88 |
264.88 |
|
|||||||||||
|
- Shelter |
2% |
300 |
3/19/18 |
+0.2% |
4/9/18 |
283.40 |
283.40 |
|
|||||||||||
|
WEALTH |
(6%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dow Jones Index |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
-5.67% |
4/9/18 |
422.47 |
432.70 |
Dow – 24,103.11 |
|
Homes – Sales - Valuation |
1% 1% |
150 150 |
2/26/18 |
Sales
+2.97% Valu.
-1.96% |
Mar. 18 |
202.78 214.76 |
202.78 214.76 |
http://www.realtor.org/research-and-statistics
Sales
(M): 5.54 Valuations (K): 241.7 |
|
Debt (Personal) |
2% |
300 |
3/12/18 |
+0.20% |
4/9/18 |
259.05 |
258.90 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 57,814 |
|
AMERICAN ECONOMIC INDEX (15% of TOTAL INDEX
POINTS) |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
NATIONAL |
(10%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
Revenues (in trillions – tr.) |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
-+0.06% |
4/9/18 |
385.14 |
385.37 |
debtclock.org/
3.374 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Expenditures (in tr.) |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
+0.10% |
4/9/18 |
257.64 |
257.39 |
debtclock.org/ 4.107 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
National Debt (tr.) |
3% |
450 |
4/2/18 |
+0.38% |
4/9/18 |
347.11 |
346.90 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 21,056 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Aggregate Debt (tr.) |
3% |
450 |
4/2/18 |
+0.08% |
4/9/18 |
368.24 |
367.93 |
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
GLOBAL |
(5%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
Foreign Debt (tr.) |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
+1.09% |
4/9/18 |
309.24 |
308.95 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
6.310 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Exports (in billions – bl.) |
1% |
150 |
3/19/18 |
-1.33% |
4/9/18 |
158.33 |
158.33 |
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html 200.9 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Imports (bl.) |
1% |
150 |
3/19/18 |
+0.39% |
4/9/18 |
129.37 |
129.37 |
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html
257.5 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Trade Deficit (bl.) |
1% |
150 |
3/19/18 |
+6.18% |
4/9/18 |
88.92 |
88.92 |
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/monthly.html 56.6 |
|
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||
|
SOCIAL INDICES (40%)
LIBERTY and
SECURITY INDEX (15%) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
ACTS of MAN |
(9%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
World Peace |
3% |
450 |
4/2/18 |
-0.4% |
4/9/18 |
425.94 |
424.66 |
Russia and America swap diplomat evictions and
the President says he’d rather let “other people deal with the genocide in
Syria. Not the Saudis, they’re too
busy fighting a “war” against Yemen.
Meanwhile, NoKo dictator Kim takes a slow train to Beijing and the
long-awaited summit is still on (for the time being). |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Terrorism |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
+0.6% |
4/9/18 |
221.68 |
222.12 |
Yet another al-Qaeda leader is killed – this
one in Libya. Package bombers in Seattle
and Texas are rounded up, but France has an epidemic of elderly Holocaust
survivors targeted and killed by neo-Nazis. |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Private/Public
Corruption |
2% |
300 |
4/2/18 |
+0.3% |
4/9/18 |
300.42 |
299.52 |
Republican probers clear Kushner of accepting
fishy loans, but Daddy doubles down on spicing up the 2020 census with
immigration data and still has the women to contend with – and then there is
his Cabinet. Bum of the week Scott
Pruitt enacts sweeping, sweetheart rollbacks of Obama pollution controls,
pleasing the energy lobbyist landlord who gave him a big break on residential
rent. Even ‘Pubs admit his will be the
next head on the chopping block now that Shulkin is gone (see Health), but
where can they find an oily new En Sec with recent Cabinet experience? Hmmm.
NRA, meanwhile, finally admits they’ve been taking foreign money for
years, hoping the tangled trail won’t lead back to the Mideast. |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Crime |
1% |
150 |
4/2/18 |
-0.5% |
4/9/18 |
239.38 |
238.42 |
More mad gunmen stopped in Sacramento, Baton
Rouge and Louisville as is Albany NY sex cult leader. Evil troll steals teddy bears from Parkland
victims memorial. |
|
||||||||||||||
|
ACTS of GOD |
(6%) |
(with,
in some cases, a little… or lots of… help from men, and a few women) |
|
|||||||
|
Environment/Weather |
3% |
450 |
4/2/18 |
-0.4% |
4/9/18 |
335.55 |
334.21 |
Northern half of US is looking at a White
Easter, as April temperatures in Minneapolis dip to minus one. |
|
|
|
Natural/Unnatural
Disasters |
3% |
450 |
4/2/18 |
-0.6% |
4/9/18 |
352.11 |
354.22 |
Over 60 die in Russian mall fire. Uber self-driving car crashes, killing
driver (or do you call them passengers?) while a Chinese space station falls
out of orbit, breaks up and crashes in the South Pacific. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
LIFESTYLE and JUSTICE
INDEX (15%)
|
Science, Tech. & Education |
4% |
600 |
4/2/18 |
nc |
4/9/18 |
630.01 |
628.75 |
Hackers launch cyberattacks against Atlanta
and Baltimore. Apple/Facebook duel
gets personal and heats up, but not quite to level of Trump v. Amazon. Trump overturns ban on toxic paint strippers
(perhaps on advice of lawyers who told him to protect strippers). Teachers in Oklahoma go out on strike,
following example of West Virginia. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Equality (economic/social) |
4% |
600 |
4/2/18 |
+0.3% |
4/9/18 |
733.06 |
733.06 |
Dr. Nassar’s gymnast groping scandal at
Michigan State corrals a Dean Wall
Street celebrates 2017 by gifting top execs with average 17% bonuses. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Health |
4% |
600 |
4/2/18 |
+0.1% |
4/9/18 |
531.77 |
531.94 |
Unfrozen
egg and embryo toll up to 4,000. VA’s
hapless Shulkin out, replaced by Trump personal physician Ronny Johnson who
blusters that POTUS will live to 200.
Super-resistant gonorrhea outbreak in UK. Health Nazis crack down on Starbucks
(coffee causes cancer), rubber duckies (full of toxic bacteria) and Under
Armour (150M fitness apps hacked and presumably sent to Russians who now know
we’re as fat, lazy and drunk as they are. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Freedom and Justice |
3% |
450 |
4/2/18 |
+0.4% |
4/9/18 |
503.51 |
505.52 |
Germany arrests fugitive Catalonian
separatist. Pulse shooter’s widow and
Penn State fraternity killer bros acquitted; affluenza teen gets out of jail,
his cell taken by Pharma Bro Shkreli.
Spooks snoop Facebook, spark privacy backlash that drags down the
whole Dow, but only briefly. |
|
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|
|
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The Don Jones
Index for the week of March 26th through April 1, 2018 was UP 8.38 points.
The Don Jones
Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman and
Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian
Doohan, Administrator/Editor. The CNC
denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well as any of its
officers (including former Congressman Parnell, environmentalist/America-Firster
Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna Finch) and references to Parnell’s
works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or,
at best, mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift,
effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such
slanders.
Comments,
complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com