Cramer's First Hour, Part 2 -- December 18, 2024

Locator: 44482CRAMER.

Cramer's first hour: a mix of facts, factoids, opinions from various sources -- often not cited -- while listening to Cramer's first hour on CNBC.

Those stranded astronauts? They've been stranded another month -- now it's been pushed back from February to March. That will be eight months. That's the earliest. This is simply bizarre. One year of their life they will never get back. No medical emergency so far; this cannot last forever. But, of course, that raises the issue: does NASA even have a plan B for stranded astronauts.

Housing starts, permits: yada, yada, yada.  

US current account -- Trump is right again-- even before he's sworn in: one of the biggest current account deficits ever. A negative $310.95 billion vs a negative $286.6 estimate. This explains Trump's focus on tariffs. This is fascinating. This is the biggest story today that won't be reported. 

The only thing I'm following today: will AAPL turn green before the end of the day?

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History
Missouri Compromise: 1820 (better name: the Missouri-Maine Act)
Kansas-Nebraska Act: 1854
Dred Soctt: 1857

Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2024, p. 59: "The Great Miscalculation," book review by Christopher Flannery. The book:

• A Hell of a Storm: The Battle for Kansas, the End of the Compromise, and the Coming of the Civil War, by David S. Brown, Scribner, 352 pages, $32.

I find it astonishing that journalists today seem to be aghast at what the US Supreme Court has done recently with regard to states' rights. It's almost as if journalists no longer read history. Exhibit A:

That 36°30' line? It only applied to the Louisiana Purchase, and thus it only affected "the line" dividing Missouri (to the north) from Arkansas (to the south). Kentucky and a northern slice of Tennessee were also north of the 36°30' line. Virginia, of course, also north of the line, was a slave state at the time these bills were being discussed and passed.

From National Geographic:

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• I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
• I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
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• If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. 
• Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
• I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 
• And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution.
  
• Longer version here.