Notes From All Over, Part 1 -- Nothing About The Bakken -- All Politics-- December 10, 2019

Next one to withdraw? Tulsi Gabbard opts out of next debate even though she qualified. Tulsi Gabbard is polling at 0% in some polls; at best 2%.

Bloomberg effect: his announcement changed everything; donors had new concern; Bloomberg self-financing but donors realized they were pouring money down a rat hole (to coin a phrase) to finance those polling less than 3 percent now that a self-financing billionaire had entered the race. It was Hillary who used to suck all the oxygen out of the room; temporarily it will be Bloomberg who suffocates the rest, but likely to be temporary. Like a Nor'easter, Hillary will be back. Re-calculating. Re-calclating. Re-calculating.

Wow, wow, wow. A reader sent me this link a day or so ago, I forget exactly when (yes, I know, I could look at time time/date stamp but that would take all the fun out of it). I did not open the e-mail until moments ago. I was exhausted and just couldn't read any more. I posted the previous note about Bloomberg and Hillary, like a nor'easter would blow in again, and after posting that (and the Vermont story below), I finally opened the e-mail from a reader. The note provided a link to zerohedge:

Bannon says Hillary will run in 2020 to "save the Democrat party from Michael Bloomberg." Does anyone doubt that. 

As Bannon says, "we just don't when/how she will announce." She doesn't have the money to self-finance (even if she did, like Bernie and Pocahontas, she prefers other people's money). I don't think she has the stamina/desire to be in a full primary race. Could she do something unorthodox and somehow just run in one state, California, to give her legitimacy/gravitas when she walks on stage at the DNC to quiet a riot when the first vote produces no nominee? It's all about social media, the press, the amount of oxygen available, and if she ran a blistering campaign in one state (California) she would dominate Super Tuesday media news. The other states would not even matter. Sure, nowhere near enough delegates but it doesn't matter. If no nominee gets the nomination on the first vote, the super delegates will decide.

Interestingly, it looks like the filing deadline for California is still undetermined.

Super Tuesday: is March 3. After a blow-out win in California, she takes her roadshow to New York, and does the same thing on April 28, 2020. The NY Times is already hinting that is the strategy. Wouldn't that be a hoot: mano a mano, Hillary vs Bloomberg on their own turf. Bloomberg a fake Democrat and Hillary a fake New Yorker.

Finally: The third and final primary just to put the cherry on top of the sundae, June 2, New Jersey. And then on to the DNC convention, July 13 - 16, 2019.

"Democrat Party" or "Democratic Party": wow, I didn't know. Link here. Talk about an oxymoron, "democratic party." Think, super-delegates. LOL.

Away Luggage gets a new CEO. Wiki site here. Unlike most start-ups which seem to be software/internet based, this start-up actually had a physical product, with some clever ideas, by the way.

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Vermont

What's wrong with Vermont? Late last night I posed that question. A reader replied:

What's wrong with Vermont, you ask:

• Property tax is 1.59% - about 8th highest in the USA 

• Personal income tax tops out at 8.95 %- again, in the worst 10. 

• They still have an inheritance tax. 

• Their corporate tax rate ain't friendly, either. 

• I think their sales tax is 6% to the state with another 1% available to be levied by municipalities.  Not bad if they were not bludgeoning people in all the other categories.

Also noted:

• very high total tax burden: as reported in Legislative Joint Fiscal Office, Vermont’s per capita total state tax burden is the second highest in the USA
• high income tax rates: top marginal tax rates for both individuals and corporations are among the highest in the USA and per capita taxes from these sources are higher than the USA average
• very high property taxes: property taxes in Vermont are particularly high, with Vermont’s per capita state & local property tax burden exceeding the national average by 61%

What interests me most about Vermont making the list is that with such a small population base, it is the least able to "kick the can down the road." Look at the other states with the lowest economic outlook:The five states (sic) with the worst economic outlook:

• Hawaii
• New Jersey
• California
• Illinois
• Vermont
• New York 

Vermont is a real outlier.

With Occasional Cortex, De Blasio, Cuomo, running NYC and New York, I think we can add that state / city to Canada among those "closed for business." Two incredible missteps:

• spat with national grid over natural gas pipeline
• dissing Amazon