A Few Observations

- Global-warming alarmists point to our recent hurricanes as evidence of their religion ... saying that warmer waters makes for more powerful storms. However, there is another factor that seems to be neglected ... the speed of such hurricanes over water. Both hurricanes Irma and Maria were very slow moving and thus could pick up more energy independent of the actual water temperature. Hurricane Nate is fast moving and would seem to be far less dangerous.

- Why was Harvey Weinstein finally outed after decades of his well-known boorish behavior? Malia Obama has been an intern of his for some months and she has been seen recently bundled up in a parka when around Weinstein (a well-known local protection against his groping hands). Perhaps Harvey had earlier made a move on Obama's number one ... and the NYT is in payback mode?

- The Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock, owned several airplanes and was a licensed pilot. He could have loaded up one of his planes with ammonium nitrate and flown it into the same crowd he shot up (it was right near the Las Vegas airport) ... and killed multiples more country-music fans than he did.

- The U.S.stock market is currently extended and overbought. Just about everyone expects at least a 10% correction ... but we don't know when. I believe that all stocks will suffer then ... but the ones which will be most punished will be the high multiple tech stocks typified by the FANG group (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google). Staying with multinational companies with price-earnings multiples below 15 and dividend yields above 3% should offer a modicum of safety. And don't forget that, after the bloodbath, to be a buyer.

Why?

The Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock, had to have had a motive for his horrendous act ... even if it has not yet become uncovered. He has lived a very unorthodox, itinerant life ... leaping from ice floe to ice floe ... but leaving not a lot of obvious clues. Still, searching for his motivation,  it is helpful to understand what he has been up to. Here follows a reasonably good piece of random journalism ... what reporters have so far uncovered about Paddock ... see: Washington Post Profile. He was pretty much of a successful loner ... very organized in his disorganized way. He was a high-stakes gambler, a property manager, an accountant, a real estate speculator, and, at the end, a mass murderer. So what was behind this evil act?

Like a previous mass killer, did he have a brain tumor?

Was he an anti-Trumper?

Had he really become a soldier of ISIS?

Did he lose all his millions gambling?

Was he on anti-depressants?

Did his girlfriend jilt him for a country music star?

Did his suicide note, giving his reasons, blow out the open window?

Or just maybe he was inspired by Jean Paul Sartre's existentialism and had no motive? And 59 people gave up their lives because of a gratuitous act?