I always find it helpful to recall that the US was the not the first country to be hit by fentanyl. Estonia, for instance, had a massive wave of fentanyl deaths that started before the US, without all the US prescription opioid consumption, and peaked sooner. Currently, their opioid supply has moved beyond fentanyl to […]

Authored by Gary Barnett via LewRockwell.com, This once great country of America has gone through many changes, and these changes, while implemented by the design of its true rulers, are not understood by the huddled masses that have been taught to accept mediocrity as desired normalcy. The ruling class fully understands that the only way […]

Yesterday, November 19, was International Men’s Day and in 2019, the theme is “Making a Difference for Men and Boys”. The focus of the day is to “promote the need to value men and boys and help people make practical improvements in men and boy’s health and well-being,” Sadly, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong details in […]

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times, Just in time to shine a light on what’s behind the latest sanctions from Washington, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a speech at the annual Astana Club meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan delivered a searing account of Iran-US relations to a select audience of high-ranking diplomats, former Presidents and […]

With ‘Not QE’ inflating risk assets and President Trump promoting a non-existent trade deal, something we outlined last week, new evidence is being communicated by various Chinese sources in the previous 24 hours that suggests a deal is unlikely in the coming weeks, and it now might be time for investors to readjust risk-taking behavior.  On Monday […]

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com, If Democrats get their way and jack up taxes to attempt to cover a “Medicare for All” plan, not only would jobs be lost, but 2/3 of American households would be worse off. A majority of households would end up worse off financially with less disposable income. That’s bad […]

The value of Hudson’s Bay’s Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store in Midtown Manhattan has more than halved in five years, that is according to a new Bloomberg report.  Filings show the building at 611 Fifth Ave. was assessed for $1.6 billion in 2H19, has plunged by 60% in value since it was last appraised at $3.7 […]

Futures slumped for just over three hours amid fears that the US-China trade deal was hopelessly lost and in anticipation of Chinese retaliation for Congress voting unanimously to support Hong Kong protesters, before a burst of optimism was injected. Only there was a surprise twist: instead of the optimism coming from Kudlow, or Ross, or […]

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com, A story with the wrong “official narrative” was scrubbed by mainstream media outlets. After reporting on detained migrant children, AFP and Reuters scrubbed the story when the United Nations revealed it happened on Barack Obama’s watch. Why The “Abject Silence” From The Left About Child Migrant Detentions Under Obama? […]

I’ve been tapped to teach the second course in the statistics/econometrics sequence at the La Follette School. I need examples of excruciatingly bad econometrics to discuss. Please post your suggestions as comments. In 2016, I assigned students to examine the empirical content of “business conditions” indices, like Stephen Moore’s/ALEC Economic Outlook rankings. Some dissections here: […]

Nowhere is the slowdown in the U.S. economy more obvious than in places like Class 8 Heavy Duty Truck orders and rail traffic. We already wrote about how Class 8 orders continued to fall in October and new data the American Association of Railroads (AAR) now shows that last week’s rail traffic and intermodal container […]

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com, Half of India’s power generation capacity using coal and nuclear power is being shut down because of lackluster demand, the Indian Express reports, adding that some of the shutdowns have been temporary, lasting just a few days, but other power plants have been closed for months. Some 65.13 GW in generation capacity […]

By Lambert Strether of Corrente The debate will begins at 9 p.m. ET, one half hour from now, and it will run for two hours. It’s being held at Tyler Perry Studios, “located in the heart of Atlanta on the historic grounds of the former Fort McPherson army base.” (James B. McPherson was killed in […]

Enlarge this image Joe Raedle/Getty Images A record seven million Americans are at least three months behind on car payments. That’s when the lender starts thinking about car repossession. Numbers haven’t been this high since the worst of the financial crisis and there are a lot of macroeconomic explanations about why they’re at these levels. […]

Or not. Figure 1: Manufacturing employment in US (blue), and Wisconsin (red), in logs normalized to 0 in September 2018. Light orange shading denotes Walker administration. Source: BLS, DWD, author’s calculations.  The Wisconsin Manufacturing and Agriculture Credit was fully phased in as of January 2016.

Pete Dominick stopped by the office with recorders and mikes and cables and other paraphernalia. We chatted a bit about my process, how I spend my work day, and what I am looking at. I am not sure if its the sort of stuff anyone else cares about, but Pete is always fun and revealing […]

by Calculated Risk on 11/20/2019 02:44:00 PM

Here is another excerpt from “Is the rate of scientific progress slowing down?”: First, many scientific advances work through enabling a greater supply of labor, capital, and land, and those advances will be undervalued by a TFP metric. Let’s say someone invents a useful painkiller, and that makes it easier for many people to show […]

by Calculated Risk on 11/20/2019 02:14:00 PM

By Lambert Strether of Corrente. Patient readers, more in a bit. I got a late start, and then got wrapped around the axle on the latest impeachment stuff. –lambert UPDATE All done! Hat tip to alert reader Wukchumni for the capsule summary of pilot episode for the new FOX TV Series OK, Boomer, and to […]

I’m fascinated by these sorts of allocation studies. They tend to be over broad and not necessarily reflective of all family offices, but at least its a starting point for discussions. This allocation below is a mixed bag of some intelligent decision-making by very wealthy people who are looking for long term places to park […]

The FBI has reached out to an attorney for the Trump-Ukraine whistleblower reported to be CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, who filed a complaint over President Trump’s July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodomyr Zelensky, according to Yahoo! News.  The move came after a vigorous internal debate at the agency over how to proceed […]

Update 2 (12 pm ET): After what has been an agonizing morning of testimony, it has become clear that Sondland has one goal with his testimony: deflect blame away from himself and President Trump, and toward Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. During a brief meeting with reporters on the White House lawn late Wednesday morning, […]

An indictment drawn up by Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General against Burisma owner Nikolai Zlochevsky claims that Hunter Biden and his partners received $16.5 million for their ‘services’ – according to Ukrainian MP Alexander Dubinsky of the ruling Servant of the People Party. Dubinsky made the claim in a Wednesday press conference, citing materials […]

“In their mania to attack the president, no conspiracy theory is too outlandish for the Democrats.” Those were the ‘fighting’ words of a clearly frustrated Rep. Devin Nunes as he addressed the American public ahead of today’s latest round of farcical impeachment circus shenanigans. With Democrats yawningly repeating endless hearsay and opinion as ‘fact’, Nunes […]

China’s most influential twitter troll is on a rampage today. Following his earlier threat that “China wants a deal but is prepared for the worst-case scenario, a prolonged trade war”, uttered shortly after the Senate vote to support Hong Kong protesters and Trump’s warning that the US could raise tariffs further if there is no […]

Authored by Daniel Payne via The College Fix, Diversity training at a prominent Christian university seems to suggest that merely being alive is enough to qualify one as biased… Baylor University’s Equity Office recently offered a training session called “If You’re Breathing, You’re Biased.” The event, which was held last Wednesday, was styled as an “introductory workshop […]

Walmart has seen “a little bit” of customer-dissatisfaction after the retailer tightened gun and ammunition policies in response to two fatal shootings over the summer at its stores, according to CEO Doug McMillon. “We think there needs to be change” in gun laws while also “protecting the rights of gun owners,” McMillon said Tuesday in […]

Seriously, every time the wind blows in California, it transforms into a third world country with rolling blackouts. And if you’ve ever been to let’s say South America where this happens frequently, it’s not a pleasant thing to experience.  So Californians will get another taste of what it’s like to live in Venezuela or Argentina […]

Here is the audio and transcript, this was one of the “most different” Conversations with Tyler and also one of the most interesting.  Here is part of the summary introduction: Shaka joined Tyler to discuss his book Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison, what it was like to return to […]

Authored by Christoph Gisiger via TheMarket.ch, In an in-depth conversation with The Market, Kevin Duffy, the head of hedge fund Bearing Asset Management, reveals where he sees the most dangerous excesses and which stocks look attractively cheap in today’s environment. All is good. The trade war between China and the United States comes to an end, the global […]

by Calculated Risk on 11/20/2019 10:37:00 AM

Oil prices are rebounding modestly this morning after the biggest drop in seven weeks yesterday and following weakness (to a $54 handle for WTI overnight) after last night’s bigger than expected API-reported crude build. “Refineries should show more progress and be further back on online,” says John Kilduff partner at Again Capital in New York. “Then, we […]

Authored by Michael Lebowitz and Jack Scott via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, A recent article by James Deporre at thestreet.com asked Will Powell’s Remarks Push the Algos to Make a Move? Deporre’s article is a recap of a day’s market events beginning with Jerome Powell’s recent testimony to Congress. He suggests that what matters are not Powell’s words, but whether computerized […]

By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website Political theorist Wendy Brown’s latest book, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West, traces the intellectual roots of neoliberalism and reveals how an anti-democratic project unleashed […]

Many years ago I was incredulous when my wife told me she had to format a paper to meet a journal’s guidelines before it was accepted! Who could favor such a dumb policy? In economics, the rule is you make your paper look good but you don’t have to fulfill all the journal’s guidelines until […]

Target‘s business is booming thanks to the retailer’s investments to make it as easy as possible for shoppers to buy things online and get them that same day. When Target reported quarterly earnings on Wednesday, it said digital sales surged 31%, with its same-day services accounting for 80% of that growth. Those services include a […]

Feral Horses Helping Restore Butterfly Habitat Ecowatch (Glenn F) This is a picture of a stag found yesterday on the West Coast of Jura, covered in plastic from the beach. #notoplastic #wildsideofjura pic.twitter.com/Bz4aYY9gSE — wildsideofjura (@wildsideofjura) November 14, 2019 Global heating supercharging Indian Ocean climate system Guardian (resilc) People Are Having Sex With 3D Avatars […]

Even though I didn’t have high expectations for the House Financial Services Committee hearing yesterday on private equity, America for Sale? I didn’t expect it to be a train wreck either. Today I will focus on the process issues, as in why this hearing ginned up by Team Dem sucked (Lambert insisted I not use […]

Lowe’s on Wednesday reported quarterly earnings that beat analysts’ expectations and raised its forecast for the year, even as revenue fell short of projections. Shares rose more than 5%, hitting a new 52-week high, as investors took the second-straight quarter of better-than-expected results as a sign it is executing its turnaround plan under CEO Marvin […]

Yves here. Bolivia is yet another example of a struggle over resources….and the locals losing. By Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute […]

Due to a special grant, there has been a devoted tranche of Emergent Ventures to individuals, typically scholars and public intellectuals, studying the nature and causes of progress. Here are the winners of those awards so far: Pseudoerasmus, for general excellence and his on-line writings on progress and development. He has donated the funds to […]

Yves here. Venice illustrates a problem that climate change will force individuals and societies to confront: What will we try to save, and what will we decide, deliberately or via neglect, to sacrifice? And this isn’t just our cultural legacy, but cities, populations, even species. From a related post on Venice at Grist: Saltwater rushed […]

I hope you are looking forward as much as I am to a chance to kick back, get to know some like-minded people in the area better, and enjoy some lively conversation and potables. Readers report that they very much appreciate stimulating discussions and getting to see new and familiar faces at these meetups. The […]

Authored by ‘Lance Welton’ via VDare.com, Peter Turchin And The Coming Crisis Of The 2020s Increasingly, social science is dominated by Leftist ideologues who use the remaining respect that academia still has among the public to inculcate students and public alike with their equalitarian dogmas. But there are honorable exceptions. One of these: Peter Turchin, a Russian who is professor of […]

A ‘mega dump’ in China has reached capacity 25 years sooner than anticipated after receiving far more trash per day than originally planned, according to the BBC. The Jiangcungou ladfill in Shaanxi Province – around the size of 100 football fields, was designed to accept 2,500 tons of trash per day. Instead, it received 10,000 […]

The six major world powers approach the reorganization of international relations according to their experiences and dreams. Prudently, they intend to defend their interests first before promoting their vision of the world. VoltaireNet.org’s Thierry Meyssan describes their respective positions before the fight begins. The US withdrawal from Syria, even if it was immediately corrected, indicates […]

According to a new survey from Piper Jaffray, Apple, Nike and Louis Vuitton could be the big winners with teenagers this holiday season. And why wouldn’t teenagers, most of whom likely don’t work for a living, ask for luxury brands on the one day of the year where they are gifted things without regard for price? Piper […]