Ukraine Intervetion

The revered Schiff testifier, Dr. Fiona Hill, assured us that the Ukraine did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election ... it was only Russia ... see: Hill of Beans. Why is this important? Because Trump was asking the new Ukraine President Zelensky in his famous July 25th phone call to look into this supposed hacking by the Ukraine into the DNC server (remember Crowd Strike?) ... and, if this and other interference was bogus, then Trump is stupid and his request was clearly an attempt to bribe Zelensky ... according to Schiff, an impeachable offense.

Well pilgrim, here are a set of hyperlinks to articles that raise the specter of 2016 Ukraine interference ... all pointing to events over two years before Trump raised this issue with Zelensky and something our security expert on the Ukraine, Fiona Hill, must have had come to her attention:

Politico Article

Article in The Guardian

The Hill Story

The Nation Article

CBS News Story

New York Times Article

Yes, for sure pilgrim, Fiona Hill must have misspoke or mis-remembered when she testified that only Russia, not the Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 election ... under oath no less. Don’t forget she was the uber-expert! But that wasn’t her only failing ... she previously had advocated against arming the Ukraines against the Russians. Such Trump-bias buffoonery!

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

U.S. demoted to 'flawed democracy' by The Economist research arm

New Hollywood film about Trump-like dystopian America ...

Order: Weekly publication of crimes committed by illegals ...

German police search homes of far-right extremists ...

German newspaper editor: Assassination easiest way to end Trump catastrophe

Woman flies through tornado in a bathtub -- survives!

World's most populous country [China] turning gray ...

Three-hour rape streamed on Facebook live ...

German gov't. fires whistleblower who exposed welfare fraud

Dems launch scorched earth plan against Trump

Ryan on Trump's voter fraud investigation: 'I think it's fine'

Theresa May: Britain and U.S. can lead the world again

The Big Mac Index

Being that my wife and I are traveling to France this fall, I am watching the euro, hoping against hope that it will deflate relative to the dollar before we have to pay the bills then.  One of the more interesting ways of comparing monetary exchange rates is by using the Big Mac index created by The Economist magazine.  I won't go into the details of this calculation here but those of you who are curious please visit The Economist for its very interesting algorithm.  The bottom line is that the euro seems to be overvalued by about 35% ... which means that the euro should currently trade at about $1.10 per euro ... not the current $1.45 per euro.  Wouldn't it be nice if this adjustment were to occur before our trip?

Another salient part of this investigation involves what might happen to the economy in the European Economic Community before and during our trip.  Any shocks here might well affect the exchange rates to which we would be subjected  To pursue this analysis I have found an interesting website that shows the cost of credit default swaps (CDSs) in many countries (see: Credit Default Swap Costs).  Think of this credit default swap data as the cost to buy insurance against a particular country defaulting on $10 million of its 5-year sovereign debt.  Obviously, the higher the cost ... the greater the risk of default ... and the greater the chance of this country's currency deflation. 

Today, it costs $47.35 for such insurance against the U.S.'s sovereign debt versus $164.84 against France's (and $2,218.27 to insure Greece's).  Now the euro is used in many of the countries represented in this table so to be very accurate, one would have to use a GDP-weighted average of these CDS figures.  So, forgetting about how our Federal Reserve Bank and the European Central Bank intervene to manipulate these exchange rates, surely the cost of the euro would/should move close to the Big-Mac-index parity figure by the time of our trip.  If it doesn't, I think then my wife and I will be buying lots of Big Macs in France this fall.