Wall Street Continues To Runaway From Main Street -- December 4, 2014

Updates

Later, 1:50 p.m. CT: Bloomberg is reporting: ECB is preparing a broad stimulus plan; all assets but gold on the table for purchase  (probably because the US stimulus program worked so well); all things being equal, this is not bad news for the stock market.

Original Post

 
To visit Main Street, Disneyland, this past summer it cost a bit more than last year. Not much, but a bit.

But 24/7 Wall Street is reporting:

Walt Disney Co. has lived up to one key expectation we had stated earlier this week: it announced that it is raising its dividend payout to stockholders.

What is a major surprise is by just how much the company increased its dividend above and beyond what we had modeled. Disney’s board of directors declared on Wednesday that it would pay an annual cash dividend of $1.15 per share.

This is an increase of $0.29 per share, or a gain of 34% from the previous year.

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As I've said many, many times on the blog, young folks just starting to invest have a great future ahead of themselves.

After being down as much as almost one hundred points earlier this morning, it looks like the Dow is clawing it's way back into positive territory. It may not get there, but it will be close.

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Domesday or Doomsday

Most folks remember reading about the Domesday Book, the "great survey" of England undertaken by William the Conqueror, in 1086. The king needed to know who owned what, and in the process, who was who and where "who" lived.

Although the 30-second sound bite suggests the Domesday Book was simply about taxes, it was much more than that. To control a country, a King needed to know as much as possible about his subjects.

A parallel can be drawn with regard to all the political interest in the current US president's obsession with immigration and amnesty, and might explain to some extent why more senior GOP senators seem less hostile to the provisions than some of the younger, less experienced GOP house members.

I assume the oft-cited figure of 11 million undocumented people living in the US is an estimate, and perhaps a very, very good estimate. But to bureaucrats in Washington, it has to be quite concerning, to know very little about 11 million people living in the US.

I think some Americans would be amazed how much information the various government agencies have on US citizens: birth records, death records, census information every ten years, IRS filings, state taxes, court records, traffic stops, automobile registrations, drivers licenses, jury duty, property taxes. All that information is cross-referenced across local, state, government computers.

On the other hand, the government may have very little information on those 11 million undocumented individuals.

There is some talk that the "executive order" was never signed by the president. Instead, some are suggesting the "rule" was made by a bureaucrat. If at some point the government or the courts determine that the "rule" is in error or unconstitutional, the "green card" (or whatever color the card will be) can easily be revoked. However, the US government will still have all that information on file in those computers.

So, however this turns out, the US government may be on the verge of obtaining much needed information about as many as 5 million undocumented people currently living in the US. Whether or not these individuals get to keep their "green card," one can be assured the government will keep their information on these individuals.