I don't want to write about Trump and his administration's incompetency in every blog.  So I was not even going to comment on the government shutdown that is going on.  I was trying to find something upbeat to write about.  But today's news out of Wall Street makes me angry and nervous.  The Dow lost another 650 points today.  I knew that this December was going to end up as one of the worst of all time.  But on Christmas eve, when the market is open for only half a day, a big drop in the Dow was not expected.  For someone like me who has retired and has no pension from a company, the profits I have made over the years in the stock market is what I will have  to live on for the rest of my life.  I am smart enough as an investor to know there will be bear market to suffer through.  But the drops recently, especially today, were all unforced errors on the part of the administration.

A president gets too much credit when the economy is doing well and too much blame when things are bad.  So I don't think Obama's handling of the economy is way better than that of Bush.  But you can't argue that Bush was better than Obama, that is for sure.  It is also a fact that the economy that Obama left for Trump was good and that if Trump doesn't screw it up, I think the economy will be still be good when he runs for reelection in 2020.  But he is screwing it up.  The trade war, the third government shutdown, the blaming of the Fed, the mess in his own cabinets, the numerous lies.  All these have negative effects.

So today, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced that he had discussed with all the major banks and he wants to assure everyone that there is liquidity in the banks to lend to consumers.  This scared the market because nobody thought there was no liquidity in the first place.  It is like telling a woman that you just met that you went to the doctor and you have no STD.  That will really make you attractive to her!  Right after that, Trump tweets that the Fed is to blame for the market crash.  So is he going to fire the chairman?  He said the Feds don't understand the value of the trade war.  Neither do most of us.  China's market is down but that won't win the trade war for us.  When China gets the flu, it will be contagious to us as well.  This is hurting the confidence of season investors like me.   Can you imagine what it does to novices in the market?  All unforced errors.

Trump said in the past that he knew more than the generals.  He then appointed four generals in his inner circle.  So we thought that at least he will get good military advice.  Then he had to get rid of Michael Flynn.  We thought that at least he got rid of a bad guy.  But now the other 3 generals are gone.  McMaster, Kelly and now Mattis.  I guess he still thinks that he knows more than the generals.

Mattis is the last one to resign because Trump abruptly announced pulling troops from Syria.  This was shocking to everyone in the military.  Even a lot of Republicans are shocked.  This will only benefit Russia, ISIS and Iran.  The proof is that Putin came out applauding the move.  You have to ask:  Do Trump and Putin know more about what is good for the U.S. than American generals?  Is Trump working for Russia?

It seems to me Trump and his administration has made a mess of the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada.  Huawei is a target for the U.S. because it is believed that it was spying for the communist government of China.  It is also in violation of intellectual property theft according to the U.S.  This is not shocking as many companies in China are probably guilty of these accusations.  But spying is a two way street as Edward Snowden had revealed that the U.S. had spy on China in general and on Huawei in particular.  So why arrest Meng now?

It also curious that Meng was only charged with violation of the U.S. sanction on Iran, not spying.  How is that a crime for a foreign national?  Why would a non U.S. company be subject to a sanction that was unilaterally imposed on Iran.  The U.S. was the only country that withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal.  So Huawei was not violating international or Chinese law if it dealt with Iran.  Since Trump withdrew from the Iran treaty, it has made it clear that any company, foreign or domestic, that dealt with Iran will suffer economic consequences.  This economic pressure is legitimate use of American power.  But to arrest someone for violating a sanction that none of the other countries involved agreed to, seems to me is bullying on Trump's part.

The worst is that Trump has now said that Meng could be a chip in the trade war with China.  This legitimizes China's claim that this was all political and that Meng has not committed any real crime.  This also puts Canada in an awkward position as doing the U.S. work against China for U.S. political gain only.  In the short term, China will punish Canada even if it doesn't want to go deeper into a trade war with the U.S.  There maybe Americans and Canadians detained in China in retaliation.  In the long term, China will expedite its tech advances to decrease dependence to the U.S. in such as areas as semi-conductor.  U.S. allies in the future may not want to do the dirty work for the U.S. if they believe that they would be thrown under the bus by Trump as was Canada this time.

This is the time of the year I predict the bowl results of the Big Ten.  But before I get to that fun part of the blog, I want to make a comment of Trump's comment about Rex Tillerson.  Tillerson had some not so good things to say about the President.  As usual, Trump attacked Tillerson via twitter right away.  Trump said that Tillerson is dumb as a rock and lazy as hell.  My question is, Mr. President, why then did you pick him as Secretary of State if he is that dumb and lazy?  Tillerson was a way better businessman than Trump, given that he was head of Exxon.  Of course, people had criticized Trump for nominating a businessman with no diplomatic experience to be our top diplomat.  But Trump never listens.  If he keeps criticizing all those people who left him, what would you say about Trump's judgment of hiring them in the first place.

Okay, on to the fun part.  Here are the Big Ten teams who are going to win this bowl season:
Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State and Penn State.  So I predict that the other 6 teams will lose.  I think it is the first time I predict the Big Ten will have a losing bowl record.  I will take Alabama and Clemson in the finals with Alabama winning.  Really going out on the limb here.

I didn't always agree with George H. W. Bush when he was president.   But I think he was fair minded and he governed with compassion.  I think he was humble and did not brag about himself, like some president I know!  The fact that Clinton and Obama became friends with him and sought his counsel says a lot about him. 

Two decisions that cost Bush politically impressed me about him.  One was ending his membership in the NRA.  He was an avid gun supporter until he realized that the NRA had gone too far.  The other was when he raised taxes after his "read my lips, no new tax" declaration.  He knew that it was going to cost him dearly in the election for raising taxes.  But he did it anyway because he thought it was the right thing to do.  How many politicians today would do that today? 

Rest in peace, Mr. President.

Trump is proposing a government run tv network to counter CNN.  I wonder why he always goes after CNN when MSNBC is much more liberal.   I think it is because independents know that MSNBC is very liberal but that CNN is fairly neutral.  As a result the criticism of Trump from CNN is more believable to independents.  So Trump attacks CNN because he thinks that CNN would cost him independent voters.  Never mind he is losing independent voters on his own!

He claims a state run channel will make the U.S. look great.  I guess it will make the U.S. look great to the rest of the world just like the Russian run state tv and the Chinese run state tv make those countries look great!  There are reasons why those tv channels are not believed by the rest of the world:  they are the mouthpieces of dictators!  So does Trump want to make us a dictatorship?  Actually, I think so.  Some think that FOX News is already Trump's state run tv!

So if there is a state tv now, what would some recent headlines look like?
"Ukraine is threatening Russia"   "Saudi journalist killed by enemies of the Crown Prince"  "There is no such thing as climate change--concluded by administration report"  "The CIA has concluded that North Korea has given up on its nuclear project"  "The meddling of the 2016 election was done by a 400 lb guy sitting in his mother's basement"   "GM is hiring another 14,000 workers" 

It does not appear that Trump will punish Saudi crown prince over the killing of journalist Khashoggi.  This despite the CIA has said that the crown prince ordered the killing himself.  But it is not surprising that Trump goes against his own intelligence agency.  He did the same with Putin in Helsinki where he famously said that Putin had denied allegations of meddling in U.S. elections "strongly and powerfully".  Recently he also expressed disbelief about North Korea increasing its military program despite the intelligence reports. 

I ask this:  what would republicans say if Obama had express belief in Putin, Kim and the Saudi prince over our intelligence agencies?  I am sure they would have claimed that Obama is treasonous in his actions.  They will say that he is a socialist at least, if not communist.  They will say that kissing up to the Saudis proved that he is a Muslim.  They would say that Obama is against American democracy and values.  What are they saying about Trump today?

Is it just me or does Trump looks like a weak, old man after the midterm elections?  Before the elections, Trump was going to 3-4 places everyday drumming up support for his candidates.  Never mind he was only going to places where he had a good chance to win so that he can claim victory afterwards.  He seem very energetic then but not anymore.

He missed couple of ceremonies while in France.  He claimed that the weather and security were problems.  But that didn't stop other world leaders to go to the destinations.  The guy who claims to be tough looked weak among other national leaders.  Back home, he didn't go to Veterans Day ceremony.  This is not just looking weak but also a gut punch to all the veterans who served this county bravely.  He sent Pence to Asia instead going there himself.  This is a concession of soft power to people like Xi of China.  In Asia, "face" is very important.  This is a big loss of face for the U.S.

Trump fired Sessions right after the midterms.  Sessions' firing was expected for months.  But as predicted it was done after the midterms so that it won't look bad before the elections.  Well, it looks bad now, just as it did when he fired Comey.  It looks worse when he appointed Whitaker to be the interim AG.  Whitaker was appointed obviously only because he was a mouthpiece for Trump.  But Trump then claimed that he didn't know Whitaker.  So why did he appointed him if he didn't know him?  Plus there is a tape of Trump saying he knows Whitaker well.  What a liar!

Trump took away CNN journalist's white house credentials and posted a doctored video of the incidence that the white house claim as the reason for doing so.  Even Fox News came out in support of CNN on this.  Is he so weak that he has to take away the freedom of the press?

Melanie Trump is calling for the firing of a national security officer.  This is highly unusual for the first lady to publicly call for a firing.  Is Trump going to follow his wife's wish or is he going to placate John Bolton who had brought in this protege of his?  Is Trump so weak that he can't  control  his own wife's message?

Look for more firing in the days ahead.  Also look for more blame of Democrats, the Federal Bank etc. if the stocks go down.  Oh, he had already done so.  It appears now Trump is only energetic when he is trying to deflect blame from himself!

So the midterm elections are over.   There are still some close races that have not been decided yet so the final tally is not available.  Let's go over what we know as of now.

The Democrats won back the House as expected.  I had said in the previous blog given the circumstances they should not only get the 23 seats they needed to gain majority, but they need to gain at least 30 to say they have done OK.  Right now they are at 28 plus and still there are more than a dozen seats in play.  So reaching 30 is a lock but to say they had a good night for the House, they need to get to 35 plus.  They are 50-50 for that so they all right for the House races.  They won a lot of the suburban seats that were either red or toss ups in the past so that is good sign. 

I had said that the GOP would not only hold the Senate but was likely to gain 2 seats.  Looks like they flipped four and the Democrats flipped one for a net gain of 3 for the GOP.  So it was a good night for the GOP and shows that it is still difficult to win in the red states like Texas for the Democrats.  The one big disappointment for the Democrats was the loss in Florida.  That is a battleground state with a Democratic incumbent.  They should have been able to hold that one.  The delight for the Democrats is the win in Nevada, beating an incumbent in a battleground state.

I wasn't sure how many governor seats the Democrats were expected to flip.  They flipped 7 which in retrospect was pretty good.  The disappointment again was in Florida.  But the flip in Nevada and particularly in Kansas were good for the Democrats.  The reason they won in Kansas was partly due to the tax cuts that the previous GOP governor instituted which gutted the programs.  The tax cuts did not increase business and jobs.  This is a reminder that tax cuts do not always create jobs and improve the economy as the GOP claim.

So where do we go from here?  Nothing will get done as the Congress will be split.  The Democrats will increase the investigation of Trump.  They will demand to see his tax returns.  But the Democrats need to get of Pelosi as their leader as Trump will attack the House and Pelosi relentlessly in the next two years.

Game on in two days!  The Democrats have been eyeing this day since the election of 2016 was over.  They have been more pumped since due to the actions and words of Trump.  They have been trying to get out the vote and been pouring in an historic amount of money into this midterm.  If they don't at least win back the House, they will be bitterly disappointed.  So what will be considered a successful election for the Democrats?

The Senate is probably out of reach for the Democrats this year.  Given they had to defend a lot more seats than the GOP and many of those seats are in red states, there was little chance they could have flipped the Senate this year.  I think the bet is that they will lose two seats to make it 53-47 GOP.  They will lose North Dakota for sure.  But if they lose only that one and flip Arizona and Nevada, they can make it 50-50.  This is their best scenario and they will still lose in a tie vote because Pence will break the tie.  But that will still be a resounding victory given the uphill battle.   And it will make it more promising in 2020 when the GOP will have to defend way more seats than the Democrats.

As I said, not flipping the House will be a major defeat for the Democrats even if they gained seats.  Given Trump's unpopularity, the usual midterm losses for the party in power, and the unusual donation advantage enjoyed by the Democrats this year, I would expect the Democrats should flip at least 30 seats.  A 23 flip would win control.  But to say they won, I think Democrats will have to flip at least 30 seats.

At least as important is the governors' races and state legislatures races.  I think Democrats losses in these races in the last decade or so have led to the national defeats in 2016.  If Democrats can win the legislatures and governor's office in battleground states such as Michigan they will be able to redistrict more to their liking starting 2020.  Gerrymandering by the GOP controlled state houses have had an effect on keeping the GOP control of Congress.  So these elections are very important.  I don't know exactly how many of these elections the Democrats need to or can flip.  But how they do in battleground states in the Midwest will be clues to how they do for the whole country.

Regardless of what happens Tuesday, one thing is sure.  Trump will claim credit for GOP victories and blame others for the defeats.  He is campaigning hard in close races for the Senate but is conceding a lot of the House races.  This is due to the fact that the GOP will likely retain control of the Senate, so he can claim victory there.  If they lose the House, he will say see how without his support, those candidates lost on their own.  He will never admit that his unpopularity contributed to the defeats of candidates from his party.  The buck never stops with him.