Retail sales trend say no US recession in the near term

The 0.7% annual rate increase in 4th quarter GDP was quite disappointing.  It was dragged down by negative numbers for investment and net exports.  But personal consumption remained strong at +2.2%.  The chart below from Fear & Greed Trader at Seeking Alpha indicates that the recession won't come until the Fat Lady (i.e. the consumer) stops singing.

4th quarter US GDP bodes ill for the future

GDP grew at 0.7% (annual rate) in the 4th quarter.  This is a weak result, albeit positive, and the balance of the sources of growth are unhealthy:

Personal consumption expenditures: +1.46%.
Gross private domestic investment:   -0.41%
Net exports of goods and services:    -0.47%
Government:                                      +0.12%
                                                           +0.70%

The biggest negative was net exports, and this is despite the positive effects of low oil prices in the balance.  The strong dollar is hollowing up US manufacturing; it is like the great sucking sound of famously heard  by Ross Perot.  The decline in investment also bodes ill for the future.

Consumption and government spending increasing are not sustainable sources of growth in the absence of the others.

2016 Outlook? Here is an cautionary anecdote about forecasting

From Prof. Schneider on Quora:

"Theodore Streleski spent 19 years working on his PhD at Stanford, and then beat his advisor to death with a ball-peen hammer, feeling that he had hurt his reputation and denied him scholarly support. . . 

"The irony is that the murder was in 1978, and Streleski was released in 1985, meaning he spent less time in prison for the murder than he originally spent in his PhD program. Upon his release he said 'I have no intention of killing again. On the other hand, I cannot predict the future.'"

I think that Streleski's humility is a healthy example for investors like us.

Canadian cash and all-in oil prod. costs are the highest.

The Canadian costs mean that their 2.5 million bpd of oil sands production will shut down as soon as the hedges run out unless WTI is at $40/barrel or better (WCS sells at a $15 discount.) Longer term, they need $70+.

Now I know what happened to my portfolio in 2015

Here is an interesting factoid from Eric Delamarter's Half Moon Capital 4th quarter report:

"We found it noteworthy how narrow the breadth of the S&P 500’s 1.4% performance was in 2015. Remarkably, five mega-capitalization technology companies drove the whole market—accounting for over 300% of the indexes return. In other words, if it were not for that handful of stocks, the market would have been down approximately 3%. Further, stocks within the S&P 500 with market capitalizations less than $10B were down an average 12.6%."

This divergence of price movement among large categories is remarkable.

(You might take a look at friend Eric's fund: http://halfmooncapital.com/ His performance is solid and he is a meticulous value investor.)

Dire Situation in Venezuela: Widespread food shortages. Debt default seems inevitable.

Russ Dallen of Latinvest in Caracas just emailed me an article about the dire situation in Venezuela. The Central Bank is selling the country's gold reserves to meet near term debt payments. Food shortages are widespread.

The low oil prices has brought to a climax a situation that was already spiraling downward.

The article is in Spanish and can be accessed at by clicking on the picture.

Here is an excerpt, courtesy of Google translate:

Venezuelans are beginning to suffer situations of anguish and despair at the lack of food. Over the weekend, more than 10,000 people closed an important avenue of Caracas to protest food shortages, while scuffles among people queuing have become everyday despite the surveillance of armed officers of the National Guard.

On Monday, a resident of the town known as "The Cambur" Carabobo state, sent the following message to a radio station through social networks: "No food, no nothing. There are children and the elderly. Please help".

But today much of the country's ports are vacant, by the shortage of hard currency, and forecasts for the remainder of the first quarter of the year look very encouraging.

"I think we are between four and six weeks in a really extreme situation," he said from Caracas economist Orlando Ochoa, speaking on current levels and projected shortages worsen in the near future.

Ochoa added that the country needs additional funds to overcome the situation, but above all requires a general reorganization of the economy to correct the major imbalances in the economy accumulated along the Bolivarian Revolution.

And the economic collapse of Venezuela really is not being caused by falling oil prices, he said.

The crisis was caused by a series of measures implemented in the country since 2005, including the loss of independence of the Central Bank and the use of international reserves to finance public spending, the nationalization of the telecommunications, steel, cement industry and food, the financing of public sector deficits with inorganic money, the implementation of exchange controls and the system of price controls, he said.

"Then, in 2013 and 2014, Maduro does not take steps that could have been taken to correct, and problems caused by inaction are now accentuated by the fall in oil prices," noted Ochoa.

"Maduro insists on treating the macroeconomic problem as a problem of Marxist sociology. There is no doubt that political bias, ideological bias, the burden of the legacy of Chavez, it is choking and choking him simultaneously to the country, "he said.

http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article56657168.html#storylink=cpy

Tautology of the day

from the FT article on hedge funds today (p. 13,"Ackman falls . . ."):

"The returns for hedge funds in 2015 overall were unsatisfactory because they lost money for investors," said Rick Sopher,LCH chairman, "However, once again the top managers outperformed the average hedge fund manager."

This sighting is, in fact, that of a particularly rare sub-species, the double tautology. But I repeat myself.

Most of the world's oil production is unprofitable at today's prices, figures the Economist

The Economist calculates that most of world oil production is unprofitable at $30. (The snapshot is at $40, still mostly unprofitable.) Their calculations, if correct, point to $100/barrel in the long run because that is what a lot of the production needs. I was guessing the the equilibrium price would be around $50 and I suppose I'll stick with that and point to Saudi Arabia's plans to increase its production in the future, which would indicate a lower equilibrium than that of the Economist, which assumes a static world.

They have a calculator that allows you to see which countries can produce profitably at a given price. Here's the link: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-chart-6?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/dc/st/adjustingthetapsonoilprice

New Hampshire Primary Update: Voters are cowed.

Vive la différence! France's secret defense against excessive immigration

In today's FT, which I am reading online because it still has not been delivered even once this year due to trouble with the paper carriers, there is an article on page 3 that says that asylum seekers consider France a stop-over and not a destination.

The reason? Here it is:




It's not so much the language that is difficult to master but more the pronunciation.  As Prof. Henry Higgins said in My Fair Lady, "The French don't mind what you say as long as you pronounce it correctly."

We have almost won the global war against extreme poverty

The World Bank defines "extreme poverty" as living on less than $1.90/day/person. By this measure, extreme poverty has fallen from almost 40% of the world's population in 1990 to less than 10% today, according to the World Bank.




The Wall Street Journal, in its "Outlook 2016" special section on January 20, 2016, where I got this graph, wrote: "Unprecedented economic growth over the past quarter century has lifted an estimated 1.25 billion people out of poverty, in one of the greatest recent (sic) achievements in human history."

The following chart from Branko Milanovic at CUNY, recently circulated by Prof. Zonis, is the flip side of this good news. The decline in world poverty has resulted from a partial equalization of incomes with the first world middle class.




The effects of globalization on middle class incomes are well known. This data shows that Trump is more correct about the source of the problem than is Sanders, although Sanders is also correct that the results are not desirable.

I think it safe to say, however, and I believe that I speak not only for myself but for the entire world, that we are all happy that extreme poverty has been so greatly reduced.

Oil supply/demand by the numbers

The difference between a cartel and a free market is that in a free market the high cost producer modulates supply by varying his production in response to price while in a cartel all members (in theory) vary production irrespective of cost. How this worked in the case of OPEC is that the low cost producer, Saudi Arabia, alone varied its production in response to price while the high cost producers always produced at capacity. 

The oil market has now flipped from a cartel to a free market. Price will be determined by the costs of the high-cost producer; oil will be priced at the cost of the highest cost producer whose production is needed to meet demand. Lower cost producers will produce at full capacity at all times.

So now that we are in a world where the high cost, not the low cost producers will have to adjust production to bring the market into equilibrium, let's consider the numbers of the high cost producers.

• The EIA says that excess production is about 1.5 million per day. Iran will add another 500,000-1,000,000 BPD in 2016
• The high cost producer is the Canadian oil sands, producing about 2.5 mn BPD.
• The next highest cost producer is the US shale oil industry, producing about 4.0 mn BPD.
• The marginal cash cost of producing WCS (West Canadian Select) is about $27/barrel (according to Suncor). (TD Securities says all-in breakeven averages $44.) This oil sells for $15/barrel today. (Producers have hedged to some unknown degree, however.)
• Already shale oil production is declining at a monthly rate of 100,000 BPD, so the reduction in the daily rate will be at least 1.2 mn BPD by year-end due to the lack of drilling.
• I don't know how fast Canadian production is declining, but since hedged producers can cash out of their hedges at any time and shut down, it could be precipitous or gradual depending on their expectations of future oil prices. (They move slowly because it is difficult and expensive to stop and restart production.)
• Demand ought to rise by 1.5 mn BPD by year end.
• Given the Canadian cost structure, I am guessing the equilibrium price is somewhere around $50/barrel.
• Conclusion: Assuming Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, et al continue producing as much as the can, the production trends are already in place that will bring the market back to equilibrium, perhaps by the end of this year. In the meantime, the price will be volatile.

Another comment on Iran and oil supply/demand

World oil consumption is 95 million barrels/day.

According to Vessels Value of the UK, Iran has 25 VLCCs with 56 million barrels. (This is at the high end of various estimates.) This is under one day's world consumption. It is important on the margin, but not decisive. 

 The important thing is how fast will the high cost producers (Canadian oil sands and US shale oil, which together produce about 6.5 million barrels/day) reduce their production. Canada is losing $15/barrel in marginal cash cost at $30/barrel WTI. (WCS, the Canadian benchmark, gets a $15 discount to WTI and costs just under $30/barrel to produce.) If these prices persist their 2.5 mn BPD will go quickly.

 

Iran's floating oil reservoir: Less than one day of world demand

World oil demand is about 95 million barrels of oil/day.  According to Vessels Value of the UK, Iran has a floating inventory of less than one day's consumption.  It is significant on the margin, but it is not overwhelming.

The myth of declining oil demand

You all understand well, perhaps better than I, the oil supply/demand issue, but since there has been some loose talk among the attractive people with nice voices on Bloomberg and Fox Business about "collapsing" oil demand, I could not resist the urge to comment.

As the chart below shows, world demand each quarter has consistently exceeded demand in the same quarter of the previous year. Demand continues to grow along its accustomed trajectory. It's almost like a law of nature. The problem, then, is supply.

And we are not talking about a lot of excess supply. What we have is a small amount of excess supply persisting consistently over time. If, for example, one left the faucet dripping and the sink were plugged, then the drips would, in time, flood the house. So the oil market is being flooded in a sort of Chinese water torture.

In this case, however, supply will have to keep increasing to maintain an oversupply, because demand keeps growing. In the second chart below, you can see the biggest oversupply was in the second quarter of 2015. Nonetheless, demand in that quarter was still greater than supply in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

This is an interesting and important time. For the first time since OPEC was formed in the 1960s were are seeing a free market in oil. In a free market, the high cost producers drop out as the price drops and equilibrium is maintained. In the cartel world, this was upside down. The low cost producer used to drop its production to maintain the production of higher cost producers. It will take some time to find the equilibrium price because the low cost producer is now going all out many high cost producers still have a low marginal cost, but equilibrium will eventually appear. In the meantime, the price can go anywhere.

Sanders' Medical plan would extend Medicare to cover everyone

Bernie Sanders has issued a brief "white paper" giving his plan for national medical insurance.  He would simply extend Medicare to everyone and add coverage for vision, dental, and nursing home care.  (You may click on Bernie's picture to access the white paper.)

Medical insurance costs for the average family would drop 90% to a maximum of $466/family. 

The simplicity of the program should result in some cost savings.  (He estimates $600 billion a year in savings out of the  $3000 billion currently spent annually.)  Half of the cost of the program would be paid by taxes on workers and their employers and half by soaking the rich through higher income taxes, estate taxes and taxes on investment.

We may argue about how to pay for the plan, but it has the benefits of simplicity and extending coverage to nursing homes.  This would, on the surface, appear good for seniors.  Let's hope some of the mainstream candidates picks up on the best of these ideas while eliminating the eccentricities.

Dollar bubble: Trade-weighted US dollar will peak as China devalues

When the dollar eventually turns down, capital will exit the currency.  The trigger will likely be either 1. Indication by the Fed that further tightening is unlikely; or, 2. Significant drop of the Renminbi.

US mortgage applications are up 25% year-over-year

This week one of my daughters and her husband are taking out a 30-year mortgage. I guess they are not alone:

This ought to have a positive effect on consumer spending, all other things being equal.

India issues domestic bonds denominated in gold

The government of India began issuing bonds denominated in grams of gold in November. They are currently purchasable at post offices in denominations of 1 gram to 500 grams at the equivalent of $1194.39/oz. (2600 rupees/gram at an exchange rate of 67.7 rupees/dollar). 8-year maturity and putable at par (x grams of gold) from year 5. 2.75% coupon in rupees.

Why is India doing this? They want to reduce the current account deficit attributable to gold imports. (Also, the 2.75% coupon is lower than the government's domestic borrowing cost of 7.5%.) Consumer demand accounts for about 1000 tons of gold imports a year. So far Indian consumers have bought only 1 ton worth of bonds. This is disappointing to the government but understandable. Consumers would rather pay the 30% premium for buying coins and jewelry than trust the government to hand over the promised gold in eight years. Greater demand is likely to develop over time, however, as investors are lulled into the belief that the government will deliver the promised gold at maturity.

Will such bonds be issued in other emerging countries? It makes in terms of availability of financing at a lower cost.

BCA: S&P earnings growth negative and forward PE's are high

Even in a good economy, the US stock market is pricey. With earnings growth turning negative, it is very pricey indeed.

Who benefits from low oil prices?

Here are the top five oil importers. (data is for 2012, but it's probably fairly representative)

Japan is interesting. They benefit and their currency is relatively cheap.

Chinese imports near record levels in December. What does this mean?

The FT reported this morning that Chinese imports of oil and copper were both up 9.3% (is this some sort of luck number?) in December. Iron ore was up 11% and soybeans rose 23%. Overall imports were "near record levels." For the year as a whole, oil imports were up 9%.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9b685f82-b9d8-11e5-bf7e-8a339b6f2164.html#axzz3xEevmhh8

Interesting, n'est-ce pas? But what does it signify?

Is Japan a vision of the future of the US and Europe were it not for immigration?

The FT this morning had these sober numbers describing Japan, which show plummeting number of 20-year-olds and eroding monthly earnings.  Without immigration, Japan's present would be Europe's and North America's future.  Japan, however, would rather shrink in many ways than change its culture.

See "Deflated Generation": http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1b24264e-b9d8-11e5-bf7e-8a339b6f2164.html#axzz3xEevmhh8

And I thought they didn't make gurus like that anymore.

India will be one of the fastest growing economies in the world in 2016, with the experts expecting gdp to rise 6%-7%. The vibrancy of the country is illustrated by a recent development.

This morning's FT reports that Indian comedian Kiku Sharda has been jailed for mocking the religious leader of Dera Sacha Sauda, a six million member religious sect. He was arrested from Mumbai by the Haryana Police and booked on December 31 under section 295 A of the Indian Penal Code (outraging religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief). (This is a British era law designed to attenuate religious strife.)

The guru, Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan, is described by the FT as follows: "But the heavy-set, bearded guru is not primarily known for his sober spiritual discourses. Clad in flamboyant outfits evocative of Elvis Presley’s wardrobe in the 1970s, the Baba, who also refers to himself as a saint, has also cut several record albums, including one called “Highway Love Charger”." (Here is a link to the article: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b63e1860-ba00-11e5-a7cc-280dfe875e28.html#ixzz3xDsHBDSS )

The guru's new movie's trailer is well worth a look:

https://youtu.be/scuWiXG5bh8

It hits the theaters in India on the 16 of January but I don't know when it will be released in North America.

Anti-vaccine sentiment in Pakistan Intensifies

The Associated Press has issued the following report:

"QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide attack on a polio vaccination center in southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday killed 15 people, mainly policemen gathered to escort health workers, officials said. It was the latest attack on the vaccination campaign and health workers have been repeatedly targeted in recent years by Islamic militants.

The bombing on the outskirts of the city Quetta killed 13 policemen, a soldier and a civilian, said Shahzada Farhat, a police spokesman. He said 23 people were wounded.

"The suicide bomber detonated his explosives among the police officers, said provincial home minister Sarfraz Bugti. "We're in a war zone," he added.

"The bombing happened outside the polio center shortly before vaccination teams were due to be dispatched to local neighborhoods as part of a three-day immunization campaign, said Syed Imtiaz Shah, the local police chief.

"Hours after the attack, Ahmad Marwat, who described himself as a spokesman for Jundullah, or Army of God, a little-known militant group, claimed responsibility for the assault, without explaining why the center was targeted. He warned of more attacks on polio teams in the future.

"Polio workers in Pakistan, and their police escorts, have been targeted in recent years by Islamic militants who accuse them of working as spies for the United States."

Concerns about vaccinations are even stronger in Pakistan than in California.

The strong dollar and job losses in US manufacturing

I just saw a chart on Bloomberg TV that I have more or less duplicated on FRED. It shows the very tight relationship between US manufacturing jobs and the level of the trade weighted dollar. Common sense tells us that the strong dollar should lead to fewer manufacturing jobs and a weak dollar to more. What surprised me is how short is the lead time from the point when the dollar strengthens and jobs are lost, or how quickly a weak dollar leads to more jobs.

I guess this means that we should expect a big drop in manufacturing jobs in the coming months. The break in the link with the renminbi will make this even worse.

Are the Boston suburbs on the front lines of the cyber war?

The Internet has been down at the middle school in the Boston suburbs where my wife teaches math; she has been unable to post any examination results. The reason: a Denial of Service attack emanating primarily from the Islamic Republic of Iran. (see memo below) Lest there be any doubt, the entire school district, including the PTA and the maintenance staff, are united in refusing in advance to accede to any Iranian demands, should they be presented.

Vox populi: "We neither know nor do we wish to know -- anything."

. . . and proud of it, probably.

From today's FT:

Is there a bubble in the value of the US dollar?

Only the Chinese currency is stronger versus the US$ than it was before the crisis, and it has started the journey south to join the yen, pound, and euro. It looks like the world wants to solve its problems on the back of the US economy. How long can this go on before US manufacturing, or what is left of it, shuts down completely?

Summers in today's FT expects direct effect of Chinese slowdown on US/Europe

And he doesn't think there is any effective monetary response.  So we shall just grin and bear it.

Emerging Market Debt: the 1980s Elephant in the Room

Between 2005 and mid-2015 emerging market corporate debt rose from $900 bn to $4.4 trillion. (Central bank easy money had to go somewhere.) Total debt of emerging market countries went from $5.4 trillion to $24.4 trillion during the same period. (This includes both local currency and foreign currency debt.) Total debt is now 90% of average GDP for these countries. (data from today's FT)

This debt is largely supported by the proceeds from the sale of commodities.

Latin America had a similar quadrupling of debt in the ten years before August 1982 when Mexico suspended all debt payments. The current situation is somewhat similar, except that the emerging countries have relatively more local currency debt today.

In the 1970s, the recycling of petrodollars fueled the debt boom. In recent times, it has been the search for yield and central bank liquidity.

In the case where there is not a dramatic increase in commodity prices from today's levels (e.g. a doubling) it is hard to see how a 1980-like third world debt crisis can be avoided in the near future. (The first world debt crisis looms, but is probably more distant.)

Unlike in 1982, the present crisis has been moving forward in slow motion for a number of years, so the adjustment in the 3rd world may be less brutal than in the 1980s. Local currency debt also provides a cushion of sorts.

Some sort of debt cancellation for both sovereign and corporate debt around the world in both developed and developing countries will likely solve the problem sooner or later, so there is some cause for optimism.

The Lady or the Tiger?

There was a long-ago time, in a land far away, when high school students without exception would one day be assigned to read and discuss Frank Stockton's short story The Lady or the Tiger.  In this story, a barbaric king puts a young man interested in his daughter of whom he does not approve in an arena where he must choose between two doors of egress.  Behind one was a lovely damsel while the other concealed a fearsome and ravenous tiger. The princess, who was seated by the king, knew which was which and was loath to let her suitor be torn apart by the beast, but she also resented the damsel.  She made a subtle sign to the suitor indicating which door he should choose.  What was behind this door?

This is, in effect the dilemma faced by the Obama administration in deciding how the US should react to the actions of Iran in the Middle East.  I recommend that you read Prof. Marvin Zonis' interesting essay on this subject, which defines the doors.  It is unclear whether Pres. Rouhani of Iran is the fearsome tiger or the fair damsel.

The PBOC announced on Dec. 11 that it had abandoned the Renminbi/US$ link

So why is everyone surprised? As of December 11th, the dollar went from 100% of the basket to 26.4%. (article below) The Yuan is behaving accordingly. Given the composition of the new basket, it would not be unreasonable to expect that the Chinese yuan would drop another 30%-40% against the dollar, ceteris paribus. The super-strong dollar is not beneficial to the US economy. I am inclined to believe that the US$ is in a speculative bubble.

Poem quoted in honor of the world's financial and monetary leaders

Home newspaper delivery and the fragility of efficient systems

In his book Antifragile Nassim Nicholas Taleb notes that the more efficient a system is, the more it is vulnerable to widespread disruption than is an inefficient one. (The efficient system is fragile and the inefficient one is antifragile or at least less fragile.)

We are living through an example here in the Boston area. Once upon a time, each newspaper had its own paper boys. Newspaper trucks dropped off bundles at designated locations where they were picked up by boys on bicycles or on foot (or their mothers if they had the flu) who would then deliver twenty or thirty papers each. (We didn't have newspaper delivery in the town I where I grew up (too rural) but in college I remember getting up at 4:30 each morning to deliver the Daily Dartmouth, which was an enjoyable way to get an early start on the day.)

Then, to make it more efficient, the newspapers dispensed with paper boys and used contract employees to deliver large numbers of papers.

To make it even more efficient, this was outsourced to third parties.

Seeking to achieve an even higher degree of efficiency, all the newspapers started using the same outsource provider.

The Boston Globe operates this way and its outsourced delivery operations deliver the Globe, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Boston Herald, the Lynn Daily Item, MetroWest News, and some other papers.

To make the system even more efficient, the Globe switched from this outsource provider to another that promised "better delivery performance" and "substantial cost savings." To achieve the cost savings, the new outsourcee hired fewer people, and the system collapsed on December 28th when the new delivery system was put in place.

As a result of the Globe's single decision, the delivery of all newspapers in the Boston area descended into chaos on the 28th of December. We have not received the FT since then and the Globe is being delivered on an ad hoc basis, including by a Globe columnist who happens to live in town. (He wrote a humorous column (link) describing his delivery route.)

The problem with efficiency is that it ultimately destroys reliability and undermines quality.

New Year's thought: Maybe the Danes are on to something?

Danes were recently rated the happiest people on earth. More recently, the FT (which I am reading online since it hasn't been delivered in the past week) reported the following survey:

Duval Patrick: This is another fine mess you've got us into.

Massachusetts ranked among the best-funded state pension plan when Duval Patrick was elected governor. When he recently left office, it ranked among the worst. Employees continued to contribute 11% of their gross income to the fund, but the state has not put in its share since Gov.Patrick's first budget. (As far as I can remember. This is my impression and I tried to verify it by reading the pension fund's annual report, but they don't break out the state's contribution.) Four states are given a grade of "F" by the Urban Institute for funding their plans: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and North Dakota.

Patrick was a big spender, and non-payment of pension contributions is a form of deficit spending that does not require legislative approval.

Looking forward to 2016: An optimistic prediction

The Boston Globe had an interesting factoid on December 31. The rise in heroin use, addiction, and death has been of growing concern here in Massachusetts. In 2014, we had 1256 deaths from heroin overdoses. (By comparison, we usually have about 300 automobile-related and 250 gun-related fatalities each year, including suicides and accidents.) 80% of the opiate dead were men, with an average age of 36. The death toll was an increase of 88% over 2013. The numbers are not in for 2015, but in Norfolk County around but not in Boston the increase was 60% over 2014, and this is probably representative. Meanwhile, auto and gun deaths are trending down.

As it commonplace to make optimistic predictions about the new year, I shall do so: I predict that the number of deaths from heroin in Massachusetts will increase less in 2016 over the previous year than was the case in 2014.

Still, it is very troubling, and I shall make an additional prediction: By January 2018, public opinion will be far more concerned about the risk of death from drugs or the actions of drugged persons than from autos or guns.


Happy New Year.







Lincoln