Authored by By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers via ConsortiumNews.com, Hong Kong is one of the most extreme examples of big finance, neoliberal capitalism in the world. As a result, many people in Hong Kong are suffering from great economic insecurity in a city with 93 billionaires, second-most of any city. Hong Kong protesters waving U.S. flags last week. (YouTube) […]

China has stepped away from US agriculture imports and said it would bid on a project that could create a grains superhighway in Argentina, reported Reuters. Chinese state-owned construction company (CCCC) is readying a bid that would allow it to dredge Argentina’s Parana River, the country’s only river that acts as a waterway for bulk […]

Authored by Donald Boudreaux via The American Institute for Economic Research, As long as the reality of human existence remains on the imperfect side of paradise – mired in scarcity, often unpredictable, and always carrying at least a small risk of calamity for each individual as well as for groups – some people will complain […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has seen his popularity decline abruptly over the past year – something  the New York Times won’t let its subscribers forget. And Russia’s handling of mass unsanctioned protests related to United Russia’s flagrant prohibition of opposition parties from participating in next month’s Moscow City Council elections has drawn more scrutiny from the […]

Authored by Michael McCaffrey, Americans are blessed to have a plethora of benevolent celebrities who are willing to share their infinite knowledge and wisdom with them… After a thorough examination by a team of top-notch doctors, I was recently given some very disturbing news… I was diagnosed with an acute case of stage 4 platonic […]

It’s not quite a zero coupon perpetual sovereign bond just yet, but it will have to do for now. Having already sold debt which pays zero interest (i.e., 0% coupon), in just a few hours, Germany will sell an ultra-long bond with a 0% coupon for the first time on Wednesday amid a spasm of […]

Yesterday, after countless demands that the Fed cut interest rates, Trump finally made his first, long anticipated formal demand that the Fed should pursue “some quantitative easing“: …..The Fed Rate, over a fairly short period of time, should be reduced by at least 100 basis points, with perhaps some quantitative easing as well. If that […]

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have found that most moderate and large earthquakes are preceded by tiny earthquake clusters, sometimes even weeks before the main shock, according to the LA Times.  So much for the ‘relieving pressure’ argument.  “One of the biggest questions in earthquake seismology is how earthquakes get started,” said the study’s lead author, seismologist […]

In what could potentially become a monumental roadblock in US-North Korea nuclear talks, despite all recent good-will expressed between Kim and Trump through exchange of “beautiful” letters, a major annual Japanese defense review seen by Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper will say for the first time that Pyongyang likely already possesses warheads in the form of miniaturized nuclear weapons. […]

The slew of ransomware attacks on U.S. cities that we have documented exhaustively (here , here  and here) looks as though it is continuing. This time, 23 towns in Texas were hit by a “coordinated” ransomware attack late last week, according to CNBC. The state’s Department of Information Resources says that the attack started last Friday […]

As we’ve already shared with out audience – and not all that long ago – RV sales, long a bellwether of economic health in the US (where it is apparently a treasured luxury for retired suburbanites and some adventurous millennials), are flashing a warning sign of sorts.  Domestic RV shipments to dealers, which, according to […]

Authored by Richard Breslow via Bloomberg, If you did a word cloud search on today’s market stories, you would probably get back, “on poor volumes”. Traders have, very understandably, hunkered down to wait for Jackson Hole, the G-7 and Labor Day. Although, as far as the last of those items is concerned, it remains to […]

Former Vice President Joe Biden barely edged out Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) – by a margin of just 10 votes – according to the latest results from the Iowa State Fair Straw Poll. The poll, which is unscientific and “intended for entertainment purposes only,” found that 17.7% of voters said they support the former vice […]

Via The Conservative Treehouse, Fresh from the same Dept. of Energy and EPA that gave us: toilets that don’t flush; light bulbs that don’t light; dishwashers that don’t wash; plant-based fuel that burns like carrots; and paper straws that dissolve in liquid… Now we get this: […] Energy Star, the federal program from the DOE and the Environmental […]

Last Friday afternoon, when what few traders were not on vacation were planning the venue of their evening alcohol consumption, we showed a remarkable analysis by Bank of America, which found that yields on the $27.8 trillion non-USD global investment grade bond market had declined to just 16bps and that the US share of global […]

Via SchiffGold.com, Last week we reported that the mainstream is turning bullish on gold, and in recent months, a number of prominent investors including Paul Tudor Jones, Thomas Kaplan and David Roche have all talked up the yellow metal. This week, we have another well-known veteran investor saying buy gold. During an interview with Bloomberg, Mark Mobius said that at this point investors should […]

Last week, when WeWork filed its highly anticipated prospectus for the upcoming IPO that seeks to value the company as much as $50 billion, we shared the one chart that summarized – we thought – all that was wrong with the company: the fact that even as revenue has risen, and it has to rise […]

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk, Four Chicago Teachers Union representatives went to Venezuela, a failed nation, singing praises of its corrupt leader. Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed some decaying half-empty Chicago schools. Those closures prompted a CTU visit to Venezuela in praise of its socialist leader Nicolás Maduro whose corrupt and dictatorial regime has sparked […]

Amid a collapse in global bond yields (to record lows) and soaring aggregate volumes of central-bank-created negative-yielding debt, at least one big bond shop is dumping sovereigns. Source: Bloomberg “We’re a lot more defensive,” warned PIMCO’s Daniel Ivascyn, group CIO at the massive bond manager, noting that after the best year-to-date performance since 2003, the […]

Submitted by Monday Morning Macro “Impossible” Events Are On The Rise… A 4-sigma event would be expected to happen once or twice in a trading lifetime – according to the most popular VaR-based risk models. We’ve seen 10 of those this month in Treasuries. What we should have learned from the GFC has been all […]

On 6 August 1991, British physicist Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Switzerland published the first ever website, the WorldWideWeb (W3). By the end of 1992 there were ten websites online and, after CERN made the W3 technology publicly available on a royalty-free basis in 1993, the internet gradually started to grow into the all-encompassing giant […]

Authored by Gordon Chang via The Gatestone Institute, The People’s Republic of China, nonetheless, is already an AI powerhouse, and for America to maintain its edge – and to prevent U.S. tech from being used for exceedingly disturbing purposes – Washington should force U.S. companies to end cooperative AI projects in China. The West should […]

Here we go with the unleashing of the new Cold War arms race 2.0: the United States has just tested a ground-launched cruise missile with a range of over 500km — previously banned under the now defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty — just after Putin recently said Russia will be forced to deploy banned missiles if the US does.  The Pentagon on […]

Authored by Michael Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog, Is a murder committed more heinous than a suicide allowed? In its act, sure. In this context? NO. An “unlucky accident” like this is the ONE THING that a non-corrupt State must prevent. It’s the non-corrupt State’s ONE JOB to keep Epstein alive for trial, and everyone […]

Expanding on our June report, that outlined Australia is constructing a new naval port on its northern coast to counter a rising China in the Indo-Pacific­ region, Australian Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said the government recognized the “vital importance” of militarizing northern Australia for national security purposes. Senator Reynolds said, “over $8 billion will be […]

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News, The Communist Chinese government is bragging about its social credit system has prevented 2.5 million “discredited entities” from purchasing plane tickets and 90,000 people from buying high speed train tickets in the month of July alone. “China restricted 2.56 million discredited entities from purchasing plane tickets, and […]

Beijing will take “countermeasures” and impose serious “consequences” on Washington for its fast-moving deal to sell 66 F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan after President Trump approved the $8 billion deal this weekend.  “The US has to bear all the consequences triggered by the sale,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Monday. “China will […]

Authored by Nicholas Anderson via The Mises Institute, What is the governing dynamic causing both student loans and healthcare burdens to run away from us? As a health economist, I spend my days working with incredibly innovative medical device and biotechnology companies who are commercializing into the healthcare space. By consequence, I’m obligated and prone […]

Bee apocalypse has unfolded in four of Brazil’s southern states in 1Q19. More than half a billion bees died earlier this year, in a short period, experts are suggesting that pesticides are likely to be blamed, reported Bloomberg. Around half a billion bees dropped dead in 4 of Brazil’s southern states in the first few […]

Submitted by Eric Hickman, president of Kessler Investment Advisors The bull market in U.S. Treasury bonds is in full swing and there is plenty more return to be made. Two articles I wrote last October for Advisor Perspectives (here and here) identified the business-cycle peak in long-term U.S. Treasury yields. Yields have fallen dramatically from […]

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com, Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp thinks the Fed rate-hikes throughout Trump’s two and a half years in office are a way to “get the President.” Trump has been highly critical of the Fed, and he says it is to blame if the economy tanks. Shipp explains, “God bless Donald Trump […]

Just days after the ‘suiciding’ of Establishment Enemy #1 Jeffrey Epstein, Attorney General William Barr has ordered the removal of acting Bureau of Prisons director Hugh Hurwitz from the top position in aftermath of Epstein death. Barr is reportedly appointing Kathleen Hawk as Director the Federal Bureau of Prisons (with Thomas R.Kane as Deputy). This […]

Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD cop who was accused of accidentally killing unarmed black man Eric Garner by using an unauthorized chokehold technique, was fired by the NYPD on Monday, even after several city newspapers, including the New York Post, defended him in editorials. Until shortly before the firing, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is […]

A Tesla that was sitting on a rack waiting for repair in Hangzhou, China suddenly caught fire yesterday morning, according to Chinese media. The Hangzhou Fire Command Center received a fire alarm call and responded to find a Tesla “hanging in the air” and on fire. The incident took place at 1:45 AM on August 18 […]

Without going into a Jackson Hole preview this early in the week, former fund manager and FX trader Richard Breslow suggests, it’s probably safe to expect that the attendees will attempt to be market friendly and let everyone know that trade uncertainty diminishes economic confidence. Traders who have been bearish toward risk-on assets have been […]

At the end of June we reported a startling finding by Goldman Sachs: while the S&P 500 rose 7% from its trough on June 3 through the end of the month, valuation expansion accounted for 90% of the rally in response to the Fed’s becoming “impatient” and signaling an easing cycle has begun. What about […]

President Trump tweeted Monday morning that Google parent Alphabet should be “sued” for artificially inflating the number of Hillary Clinton supporters from 2.6 million to 16 million – though he doesn’t offer much context for the information. Wow, Report Just Out! Google manipulated from 2.6 million to 16 million votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016 […]

Authored by James Hoawrd Kunstler via Kunstler.com, There Is No Normal The wheel of time rolls forward, never retracing its path, but because it is a wheel, and we are riding in it, a persistent illusion persuades us that the landscape is recognizably the same, and that our doings within the regular turning of the […]

One week ago, when we discussed that as a result of the accelerated rebuild of cash by the US Treasury, first Bank of America, then JPMorgan suggested that the Fed may be forced to restart QE soon as a result of the upcoming sharp drop in liquidity, we said that “apparently this is something that […]

The very short-lived White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci told CNN on Monday that he’s assembling a team of Trump-hating conservatives, including former Cabinet officials, to divide the Republican party and kick President Trump off the GOP ticket in 2020.  Scaramucci, a registered Republican whose political donations span both sides of the aisle, said “I’m in the […]

Authored by Jennifer Matsui via Counterpunch,org, Media tycoon and former Labour MP Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in crime) was given a state funeral in Jerusalem after *accidentally* falling off his yacht – the unluckily named “Lady Ghislaine”. Later it was revealed Maxwell Sr was a Mossad asset who used his […]

We reported  back in July that PG&E had known for years that hundreds of miles of high-voltage lines running in high-risk fire areas were at risk of failing and sparking a fire. And instead of acting swiftly to make the necessary upgrades, it appears the company routinely failed to identify the infrastructure most in need of […]

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute, There are two fundamental arguments most commonly made against gun control. 1. The Anti-Crime Argument The first one is based on the idea that persons have a fundamental right to self-defense against ordinary criminals. That is, in a world where criminals have access to either legal or […]

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has gone on a blistering attack, in a series of Twitter statements arguing that the world must “seriously consider” the safety of India’s nuclear arsenal under control the “fascist” Modi government. “The world must also seriously consider the safety and security of India’s nuclear arsenal in the control of the […]

Authored by Jessica Prol Smith, op-ed via USAToday.com, After internal challenges with discrimination, the Southern Poverty Law Center can’t call itself an arbiter of justice. I’ll never forget the moment I learned we were on lockdown. It was Aug.15, 2012. My frustration mingled with fear. Trapped on the sixth floor, we knew someone had been […]

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Center for Rapid Innovation (CRI) and DZYNE Technologies completed a two-hour test flight of a new robot plane Aug. 9 at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. “This flight test is a testament to AFRL’s ability to rapidly innovate technology from concept to application in a safe build up approach […]

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com, Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp says the Russian hoax and attempted coup of President Trump and the sex trafficking case against Jeffery Epstein are linked together by the same Deep State players. Shipp explains, “The FBI has completely raided his vault, and they have some pretty damning material…” “I don’t […]

At least one reserve bank globally is starting to ponder the question that many central banks across the world will soon inevitably be asking: what happens if we cut to zero and the economy continues to falter? This has led Australia to start considering QE, following in the footsteps of a world full of central bankers […]

Authored by Patrick Lawrence via ConsortiumNews.com, This reckoning with Beijing’s authority was baked into the cake 22 years ago when the Union Jack came down over Government House… It is impossible not to admire the bravery and commitment pro-democracy demonstrators display daily as they clog Hong Kong streets, shut down its airport, and disrupt the […]

According to a new report from law firm Haynes and Boone LLP, bankruptcies in the upstream sector are increasing this year as energy spot prices remain subdued amid a cyclical downshift in the economy. So far, 26 exploration and production (E&P) firms have filed for bankruptcy through mid-August, with debts totaling $10.96 billion. The firm […]