THE DON JONES INDEX…

 

GAINS POSTED in GREEN

LOSSES POSTED in RED

 

        4/17/17…  15,537.40

        4/10/17…  15,475.06

        6/27/13…  15,000.00

 

 

 (THE DOW JONES INDEX: 4/17/17… 20,453.25; 4/10/17… 20,656.10; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)

 

LESSON for APRIL 17, 2017 – SLGS in AMERICA’S GARDEN!

 

Week after week, month after month, year after year… those who have followed the Don Jones Index have watched the steady, unspectacular upwards creep of the National Debt as though it were a mole or a zombie, pushing ever upwards towards the light of… well… default.

If one followed the Treasury Department’s accounts, they could even see its progress – day after day.

From 19.806 trillion on Election Day to 19,887 over the Christmas holiday, the debt slowly, relentlessly, advanced towards the twenty trillion mark that, in its own way, is a red line no less important (if less publicized) than the twenty thousand mark for the Dow.  (source – Treasury Direct)

And then, having reached an apex of 19.979T on the last day of 2016, 2017 arrived and it began to recede.  19.962 as Donald Trump took office on January 20th.  19,900 on the first of February.  19,920 on the first of March.  And 19,846 on the 15th where it languished until today (Debtclock pegs the figure a little higher, but still under the 20 trillion red line).

Was this a miracle?  The lightning-bolt of revelation as struck St. Paul on the road to Damascus so many centuries ago… the flaming star that illuminated the seconds-to-midnight sky and inspired the brand new President and the tired old Congress to reform, repent and to here and forever-after vow to spend no more than they took in from various revenue streams, most of which are better known by the unflattering appellation: taxes?

Hardly!

What actually happened was a bit of financial hocus-pocus of a sort that comes easily to a Treasury Secretary from Goldman/Sachs, a Director of the National Economic Council (also from G/S) and a cabinet and advisement pool rotten with loaners and alumni from similar bailed-out bunco bankers (as also, to be fair, had jumped from the Clinton campaign staff and Obama administrations like flees escaping dead rats).

On March 8th, the Treasury Department issued a statement that its Bureau of the Fiscal Service would suspend the “sales of State and Local Government Series (SLGS) nonmarketable Treasury securities, effective 12:00 noon Eastern Time (ET), March 15, 2017, until further notice. This suspension is necessary due to the statutory debt ceiling and will assist Treasury’s management of the debt subject to limit.”

State and local government series certificates, notes and bonds (SLUGs) are offered to state and local governments as conservative investments available in both time deposit and demand forms with time deposit certificates maturing within one year, notes within ten and bonds maturing in more than ten years. A SLGS suspension, also known as closing the SLGS window, refers to Treasury no longer accepting new subscriptions for Time and Demand Deposit SLGS securities. In other words, SLGS subscriptions cannot be submitted via the online order form SLGSafe (or any other method). Because there is no statutory or other requirement for the Treasury Department to issue SLGS, a SLGS suspension is announced when deemed necessary. Treasury will reopen the SLGS window when Congress enacts, and the President signs, legislation raising the debt limit.

Think of the signs on garages and bridges or the old TV series Max Headroom.  All  outstanding SLGS count against the debt limit; closing the SLGS window does not reduce the amount of outstanding debt that counts against the debt limit, but closing the window does stop the further increases in the debt that would be counted against the debt limit if SLGS continued to be issued to state and local government entities (existing SLGS have always been honored once the crisis passes, but this provision is not written into law). Thus, asserts the Treasury Department, “closing the SLGS window does not provide new headroom under the debt limit, but it does conserve the remaining headroom available.”

While the SLGS suspension will not prevent a state and local government from issuing new municipal bonds, it might increase cost and cause inconvenience.

With the exception of a few years during the Bill Clinton presidency, all other presidents' budgets in recent memory have run in the red, according to the Motley Fool bean-counters.  “Perhaps even scarier is the fact that since March 1962, Congress has approved lifting the debt ceiling a jaw-dropping 74 times.”

According to Treasury, the debt ceiling has created a crisis situation resulting in SLGS suspension eleven times since 1995:

Then-President Obama ended the last of these suspensions by enacting aBipartisan Budget Act” which included a section entitled “Temporary Extension of Public Debt Limit.” It said that the law imposing a limit on the federal debt “shall not apply for the period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act and ending on March 15, 2017”… in effect, handing over the problem to the next Administration (one of several Obama gifts to whom he thought would be the next POTUS, Miss Hillary).

By suspending the debt limit from Nov. 2, 2015 through March 15, 2017, Congress and President Obama gave the Treasury the authority to borrow an unlimited amount of money from Nov. 2, 2015 until after the 2016 election, meaning that the federal debt increased by $1,414,397,000,000 during the approximately 16 and a half months that Congress removed any legal limit on it.

You might wonder why no suspensions occurred from 2007 to 2011, which period was that of the greatest fiscal crisis since the Great Depression.  The reason for that was President Bush having signed, on Oct. 3, 2008, “The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act,” creating the Troubled Asset Relief Program that authorized the Treasury Secretary to purchase up to $700 billion in assets from troubled financial institutions. That law also increased the debt limit from $10,615,000,000,000 to $11,315,000,000,000.

Since then, borrowing by the federal government has increased the federal debt subject to the legal limit to about $19,865,505,000,000 on March 15th, according to Brent Bozell’s CNS News (that’s cyber, not conservative) — “which exceeds the October 2008 limit by $8,550,505,000,000.”

The strategy of laying off fiscal obligations on the state and local governments in order to give Washington more time to put its house in order (or, more often, kick the can down the road by raising the debt ceiling) usually works.  But on October 1, 2013, a Congress stuffed with bumptious new Tea Party (now, more likely, Freedom Caucus) representatives imbued with their own self-importance and an implacable hatred for the illegal Kenyan/Muslim usurper in the White House and his socialistic, if not outright Communistic, healthcare plan, defiantly shut down the government (or, rather, parts of it), crossed their arms and glowered until October 16th when the Republican House and then-Democratic Senate came to a deal to temporarily halt the government shutdown until Jan. 15, 2014, and extend the debt limit until Feb. 7, 2014. The proposal passed through both the House and Senate shortly before midnight and was signed by Obama on the 17th.

The actual effects of the shutdown were comparatively mild with the exception of the “sequestration” resulting in cutbacks to the military at a time when Russia, North Korea and the Mideast were, as ever, troublesome but not threatening.  National parks, monuments and museums were closed but, through early October, the Republican-led House began approving special-interest bills to restart popular government programs, including the National Institute of Health medical research, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and Head Start. The Democratic-led Senate and president either ignore or reject these bills, criticizing them as “piecemeal” governance and incentivizing the Republicans to keep the shutdown going longer.

But instead of an angry tide of white, working-class Americans rising from out of the farms and the factories and suburbs to march on Washington, yank the Democrats from the mouth of the Republic like the rotten molars they were and proclaim a Directorate under the authority of King Jesus (or King Ryan), the gesture was widely and roundly condemned as a public relations disaster.  True… what else could they have expected from the elite, liberal Jewish media… but the angry provinces and the serfs therefrom also blamed the Republicans for threatening their vacations in Yosemite and raising up the ghost of Newt Gingrich.

So now, with April 28th approaching and the debacle of Obama’s ACA and Trump’s AHCA still lingering like so many misty droplets of disease from a great, tubercular cough… with the newly “moderated” President bromancing St. Paul Ryan (Trump had to turn to somebody after his shirtless mancrush greenlighted the gassing of Syrian children) and facing the choice between delivering up his firstborn budget to the three dozen yowling and yelping Freedom caucusers or else trying to cut a deal with Democrats…what have the representatives of the people chosen to do?

Of course!  Take the advice of Connie Francis, and go on V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!  Have a ball!  (Or, as they prefer… ignorant of the implications that the word gives rise to: tantrum-throwing kindergarteners… go on recess!)

When they stumble back to Washington, they’ll have five… some say four… days to work out their personal problems and conjure up a budget.  No problem!

What could go wrong with that?

I mean… last time out, things didn’t work out so badly.  The economy didn’t crash (and if it had, it would’ve been Obama’s fault) and, besides closing the Washington Monument, the shutdown and its corollary, sequestration produced an outcome that some of the Tea Party sorts actually applauded… a cutback in Federal payrolls.  Of course, with Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and some other entitlement programs off the table, the main casualty was the military so… argues the isolationist wing of the isolationist FC wing of the G.O.P. (mainly Sen. Rand Paul and a few of his imaginary friends)… let the shutdown commence and abide.  Who needs the military these days, with all of those crises as chimerical as Assad’s assertion that America staged the Syrian gas attack with child actors… what’s the problem?  Syria?  Afgraqistan?  North Korea?  (After enjoying chocolate cake with their authorities, President Trump probably figures that the Chinese will tidy up that for him.)

Sooner or later, one way or another, even the fanciest accounting tricks will not prevent the debt from crawling over the $20 trillion threshold.  While this milestone could generate some attention when it is broken, more attention could come in 2018 when the debt-to-GDP ratio starts "pivoting," terms Ernie Tedeschi, policy economist at Evercore ISI.

"2018, according to what the CBO has been telling us over the past couple of years, is when you start to see on one hand the real burden of demographics on entitlement spending on things like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid come into play, and when you see the recovery in tax revenues from the recession ... be for the most part complete," Tedeschi says

“No one is really talking about how high interest rates could go and how artificially depressed they are if you look at them in historic terms," economist Mike Pento warned CNBC.

Even with low rates, the U.S. paid $432 billion in debt service in fiscal 2016 and already has shelled out $139.1 billion for the new fiscal year that started in October. Total debt financing costs during the Obama years came to about $3.3 trillion, according to the Treasury.

One rule of thumb is that each quarter-point rate hike translates into $50 billion more in debt service. So rising yields, even under the Fed's relatively muted forecasts, could add hundreds of billions to debt costs.

"The massive debt is really a reflection of the unwillingness of our political leaders to make any tough decisions or deal with trade-offs," Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a phone interview with CNBC. "It has become all too commonplace to borrow not for productive investments or for wherever we are in the business cycle ... but because people don't want to pay the bills and have found it politically expedient not to do so.

"Some of the numbers become so eye-popping that we can't ignore them. But if we wait too long, it will be too late to make these choices responsibly," MacGuineas added. "If we do wait until we're forced by a bad economy or our creditors to make changes, those changes will be so much more painful and the economy will go through a much more massive downturn."

CNN, which calls the debt limit drop-deadline the “X” date, figures that it will happen this fall (unless angry Congressmen shut down the government before then).

“The Bipartisan Policy Center now estimates that the so-called "X" date -- or drop-deadline by which lawmakers must act -- will hit sometime in October or November.

“That's when the Treasury Department will no longer be able to pay all the country's bills in full and on time because it will have run out of borrowing authority. And there won't be enough revenue plus cash on hand to cover all bills due.

“Translation: The United States would default on some of its legal obligations.

“Those obligations -- approved over the years by both parties -- include paying bondholders, federal contractors, Social Security recipients, tax filers owed refunds and a vast array of other parties.

Well… President Trump certainly has experience stiffing creditors.

But don’t expect Don Jones to come after Washington’s bean counters with pitchforks and machetes.  The “Trump Bump” continued for Don Jones as rising employment and workforce participation figures and the apparent success of the President’s muscular foreign policy resulted in another gain… almost as potent as last week’s record climb.  More Dons found work and social indices such as peace, terrorism and equality scored significant gains.

The new inflation figures were released, and falling gasoline prices tugged the whole index into the black.  But there’s caution abounding… Federal statistics lag weeks and sometimes months before reality and the tensions over Syria and North Korea engendered that which the oilies love most… fear.  Fear has sent current prices at the pump upwards by twenty, sometimes thirty, cents per gallon.

Is a “Trump Dump” in the cards?

 

 

 

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

See a further explanation of categories here

Simply recording gains or losses is deceptive, because some of the indices here represent GOOD things (like increases in income and life expectancy) while others represent BAD things (unemployment, terror).  So, increases in good things and decreases in bad things are considered GOOD (and are depicted in GREEN) – decrease in good things and increases in the bad are considered BAD (and are depicted in RED).

The sum of good things, less the sum of bad things, equals the week’s gain (or loss) to Don Jones.

 

ECONOMIC FACTORS (60%)

                                                                                                                                             

DON JONES’ PERSONAL ECONOMIC INDEX (45% of TOTAL INDEX POINTS)

 

 

 

INCOME

 

(24%)

BASE

6/27/13

             RECKONINGS

    LAST         CHANGE

 

NEXT

 

 DON

4/10/17

DON

4/17/17

      OUR SOURCE(S) and COMMENTS

Wages (hourly, per capita)    

9%

1350 points 

4/10/17

+0.18%

4/24/17

1,443.65

 

      1,443.65

 

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages   21.90 nd

Median Income (yearly)

4%

600

4/17/17

+0.04%

4/24/17

641.16

641.16

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    30,184

Unempl. (BLS – in millions

4%

600

4/10/17

-4.44%

4/24/17

1,011.39

      1,011.39

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000     4.5 nd

   Official (DC - in millions)

2%

300

4/17/17

-4.46%

4/24/17

473.51

494.63

http://www.usdebtclock.org/      7.175

   Unofficl. (DC - in millions)

2%

300

4/17/17

-2.89%

4/24/17

455.97

469.13

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    14,211

Workforce Participation

     Number (in millions)

     Percentage (DC)

2%

300

4/17/17

 

+0.029%

+0.010%

4/24/17

286.88

287.16

Americans in/not in workforce (mil.) 

In: 153,059  Out 94,238 Total 247,297

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    61.89%

WP Percentage (ycharts)*

1%

150

3/13/17

+0.16%

4/24/17

150.24

150.24

http://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate   63.00% nd

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OUTGO 

(15%)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Inflation (aggregate)

7%

1050

4/3/17

-0.3%

April, 2017

993.86    

996.84    

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm   -0.3

Inflation – Food

2%

300

4/3/17

+0.5%

April, 2017

282.91

281.50

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm   +0.5

               - Gasoline

2%

300

4/3/17

-6.2%

April, 2017

342.79

364.04

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm   -6.2

               - Medical Costs

2%

300

4/3/17

+0.1%

April, 2017

270.34

270.07

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm   +0.1

               -  Shelter

2%

300

4/3/17

+0.1%

April, 2017

290.57

290.28

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm   +0.1

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEALTH

(6%)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dow Jones Index

2%

300

4/17/17

-+0.98%

4/24/17

364.29

360.71

Dow – 20.453.25

Homes – Sales

             -  Valuation

1%

1%

150

150

3/27/17     3/27/17    

Sales   -3.69%   Valu.   -0.22%

March, 2017

196.82         204.16

196.82         204.16

http://www.realtor.org/research-and-statistics

Sales (M):  5.48 Valuations (K):  228.4 nd

Debt (Personal)

2%

300

4/3/17

+0.16%

4/24/17

266.01

265.58

http://www.usdebtclock.org/    56,194

 

NATIONAL

 

(10%)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revenues (in trillions – tr.)

2%

300

4/17/17

 +0.06%

4/24/17

382.27

382.50

http://www.usdebtclock.org/       3.353

Expenditures (in tr.)

2%

300

4/17/17

 +0.05%

4/24/17

266.46

266.32

http://www.usdebtclock.org/       3.945

U.S. National Debt (tr.)

3%

450

4/17/17

-+0.06%

4/24/17

370.11

369.89

http://www.usdebtclock.org/     19.875

Aggregate U.S. Debt (tr.)

3%

450

4/17/17

+0.09%

4/24/17

379.81

379.47

http://www.usdebtclock.org/     68,604

 

 

GLOBAL

(5%)

 

 

 

Foreign Debt (tr.)

2%

300

4/17/17

 -0.07%

4/24/17

324.18

324.40

http://www.usdebtclock.org/   5.911

Exports (in billions – bl.)

1%

150

4/17/17

+0.42%

4/24/17

154.53

154.53

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html   192.9 nd

Imports (bl.)

1%

150

4/17/17

-1.78%

4/24/17

137.32

137.32

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html   236.4

Trade Deficit (bl.)

1%

150

4/17/17

-11.24%

4/24/17

114.92

114.92

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/congressional.html     43.6

 

 

SOCIAL FACTORS (40%)

 

                        LIBERTY and SECURITY INDEX           (15%) 

 

     ACTS of MAN

    (9%)

 

 

 

 

 

World Peace

3%

450

4/17/17

 +0.5%

4/24/17

418.42

420.51

North Korea vows nuclear war, holds giant celebration to launch missile which fizzles. Syria blows up buses transporting children to safety.

 

Terrorism

2%

300

4/17/17

           -0.5%

4/24/17

235.49

236.67

U.S. drops MOAB (mother of all bombson ISIS in Afghanistan.  Goofball Wisconsin “terrorist” captured without resistance.

 

Private/Public Corruption 

2%

300

4/17/17

-0.2%

4/24/17

311.16

311.78

Alabama Governor Bently resigns in sex scandal – enemies mobilize to mobilize his appointed Senator Strange.

 

Crime

 

1%

150

4/17/17

+0.3%

4/24/17

246.93

246.19

Mad dog killers pop up like spring weeds… school shooter in San Bernardino, judge shooter in Chicago; workplace, carnival and factory killings proliferate and a fame-seeker posts his random murder on Facebook.  Where are the police?  Beating up a jaywalker in Sacramento!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            ACTS of GOD             

    (6%)

      (with, in some cases, a little… or lots of… help from men, and a few women)

 

Environment/Weather

3%

450

4/17/17

+0.3%

4/24/17

387.82

387.98

Spring springs with summer temperatures all over the east while drought relief spawns outbreaks of wildflowers in Western deserts.

 

Natural/Unnatural Disasters

3%

450

4/17/17

nc

4/24/17

393.68

393.68

Obamacare survives, but Trump threatens to stiff insurers that treat the poor.  Child killed in revolving restaurant.

 

 

 

                         LIFESTYLE and JUSTICE INDEX          (15%)

 

Science, Tech. & Education

4%

600

4/17/17

+0.1%

4/24/17

601.75

602.35

Scientists dwell on possibility of life on one of Saturn’s moons.  Nobel winner Malala urges Trump to meet with refugees.  Pedophilia ring broken up at ritzy Choate private school.

 

Equality (economic/social)

4%

600

4/17/17

+ 0.3%

4/24/17

731.77

733.97

Bill O’Reilly goes on “vacation”.  Aygee Sessions goes to border, blames Mexicans for crime.  Penn State tires of Animal Houses and Scream Queens – bans fraternities and sororities.

 

Health

4%

600

4/17/17

- 0.2%

4/24/17

561.59

560.47

Rats in Hawaii spread brain-eating parasites.  Maryland health nuts find scorpions in their salad.  Health inspectors condemn Mar-a-Lago for dirty kitchens.

 

Freedom and Justice                        

3%

450

3/13/17

+ 0.1%

4/24/17

499.23

499.73

Courts delay Arkansas execution spree.  Hastily organized Deportation Force waives physical, mental and lie detector tests for agents.  Imprisoned Aaron Hernandez acquitted of more murders.  Teenager in Utah denied lung transplant for smoking weed.

 

 

 

 

                       MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX        (10%)

 

 

All miscellaneous incidents

 (transient and cultural)

10%

1000

4/17/17

  * 0.2%

4/24/17

1038.00

1040.01

 

Alt-outrage gushes as Sean Spicer blasts Saturday Night Live and United forcibly evicts a doctor from plan because he “hesitated”.  Senator Elizabeth Warren says “poop” on TV and Star Wars 8 trailer hints at disbanding of Jedis.  RIP to rocker J. Geils, David Letterman’s mom and Bennifer marriage.  In Sweden, employers make workers line up to take microchips in their arms, but Kellyanne Conway denies that she is The Darkness while a meteor soaring over California is taken as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.

 

 

The Don Jones Index for the week of April 17th through April 23rd, 2017 was UP 62.74 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 mere pawns in the web-serial “Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties promulgating this and/or other such slanders.

 

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