Unconventional

First,. I did not watch the Republican convention. I did not expect to learn anything and was confident that watching the greatest hits on the recap shows would be plenty. It was.

There was a couple things on the greatest hits that stood out. Foremost, the despicable behavior of Rudy Giuliani. He talked about the deaths of the Americans in Ben Ghazi and follow that with a quotation from Hillary Clinton that said at this point what does it matter. That quotation was in response to enlist questions in the multiple hearings as to whether the attackers have been motivated buy a single anti-Islamic event in Egypt or just a general desire to attack Americans. The way Giuliani juxtaposed it made it look is though Hillary Clinton had a General indifference to their deaths. I did not expect Giuliani to channel his inner Joseph McCarthy. The Republican surrogates, consultants, spokes people and the like seem to think that Giuliani was terrific. So did the audience. What was just heartening was not so much what Giuliani did but that it was deemed not only acceptable but worthy of praise.

Not to be outdone, Chris Christie allege that Hillary Clinton was responsible for the kidnapping in Nigeria by Boko haran of the schoolgirls. This occurred two years after she was Secretary of State. Christie apparently claims that it only happened because years before this terrorist organization was not put on a list. Not only is there no reasonable causal link there isn't even coincidence.

We have yet to hear any reasonably specific strategy from Trump as to how he is going to defeat terrorism, create jobs, and generally make America great. One way would be for him to go away.

Independence day

For many years I enjoyed the fourth of July speeches of politicians. They generally talked about their plans but mainly what a great country this is. Now we have presidential candidates, primarily Donald Trump but also Bernie Sanders talk about what a deplorable situation we are in. Really?

We have the greatest economy in the world. We came out of the 2008 and 9 recession faster than any other OECD country. We have the greatest Armed Forces in the world even though we don't always use them thoughtfully. We have had six years of job creation and economic growth at about 2%. That is about average over a 100 year period. We do have a problem. That is the divergence between income and wealth twixt the top and bottom. Apart from any fairness or moral issues, this creates diminishing aggregate demand which inhibits growth. Our 500 Fortune companies are awash with cash but will not make capital expenditures or invest in research and development because they see no increase in demand on the horizon. The virtuous cycle is broken.

The two best ideas floating around are the bipartisan notion of earned income tax credits and the democratic proposals for a significant infrastructure spending program, and the creation of an infrastructure bank. The big political question is if Hillary Clinton is elected, will the House of Representatives continue to block infrastructure spending programs? It is virtually certain that the Republicans will control the house. Unless they abandoned their voodoo or fantasy economics, our economy will stagnate.