That seems to be unusual, to not want to get out in public. I suppose a certain percentage of Americans will do that. Perhaps your employment is enough of the public for you. But for many, getting out is healthy. Remember, we are talking about a decline in restaurant traffic too, and online stores have noting to do with that decline. Truth is, the decline is a manifestation of economic weakness for the consumer. Online ordering only explains a part of the retail "problem".

I have noticed that Jack Novak's article on CNBC seems to have quelled any talk of coup. So, I don't think there will be a coup. Usually a coup relates to just taking out the top guy. That can be done through political means or unfortunately, in the case of JFK, by violence. Will some people still try to use political means to take out Trump? I just don't know at this point. They may cut Trump some slack because he is a novice.

I agree, Moon, but the Fed is afraid of negative rates, and wants to get off the floor. Yet housing has become a commodity, manipulated by Wall Street. Housing stock is too tight, and getting tighter. So, even if there was more access to credit, it pushes up against Wall Street speculators. This is becoming a very big problem in closed access cities, and rents are increasing massively in open access cities.

Inflation is pretty tame these days, Michael.

There is a dilemma here. Yes, we have good laws to protect borrowers. However, it has allowed the uber rich to dominate housing markets, causing rents to rise and American home ownership to drop. That ultimately hurts the very people that the loan protections were meant to protect. I don't have an answer. Just enforce the rule that people should only be given loans they can reasonably expect to pay back. Then let the banks face financial penalty if they don't hold to that standard.

I believe there are many conspiracies. Just one regards liquidation of the economy. The Fed liquidated the economy both in the Great Depression and Great Recession. Some say it was by accident. But since it happened twice, I don't think it was by accident. And the Fed, as B of A has said, misprices risk. That is a conspiracy. I believe B of A. There are plunge protection teams. That is a conspiracy. There are many conspiracies, and no alleged conspiracy should be written off just because people can't see how it could have been pulled of. Having said that, I voted against Trump, and view him as an unstable racist who hates Muslims and who believes he has a superior gene.

Online buying is way overrated. It is not the reason for much of retail's decline, only for some of that decline.

But we can't have it both ways. We can't have stronger growth if everyone is afraid of a little wage creep.

I thought it was noise, and you may be right about it blowing over. But it could be a coup attempt coming. And would that be resisted unlike other coup attempts in history? I see Trump either quiting or fighting. I am not sure that there is a middle way:

So, not sure how Trump impeachment odds are impacted by Israel's recent rejection of Trump and Trump's refusal to visit Israel. It appears that those odds contradict a deterioration in US Israeli relations: www.talkmarkets.com/.../the-coming-trump-coup-could-impact-stocks