Archive - Dec 15, 2015

Despite the best efforts to "Le Pen" Trump out of the debate, he still managed to garner the highest votes among poll audiences with regard who 'won' the debate, focusing on killing ISIS family members, border walls, shutting down the internet, and fixing America's roads and bridges. Ben Carson's moment of silence was his first truthful statement in months. The comes the Cruz-Rubio-Paul-Kasich death-match of who can explain Sunni-Shia turmoil in the most confusing way (with 'coughing' Cruz calling himself the most determined "thug" and Rubio lashing out at Cruz's plans to carpet-bomb Syria). Jeb took a swing at Trump as the "chaos president" and missed. In sum, aside from an Iowa conservative radio host who endorsed Cruz proclaiming Fiorina went "full vagina," the GOP debate appeared more a dick-measuring competition as contestant after contestant lined up to seem more hawkish.

Just last week, controversial Shiite lawmaker Hanan Fatlawi suggested that John McCain was planning to coordinate with the Saudis, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey on a troop deployment to number 100,000 in Iraq. With the announcement of a new, 34 country military alliance, deputy crown prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman might have just verified Fatlawi's claims.

The goods-based economy swoons.

“While Fed did a great job in reacting to global financial crisis, it played an equal role in setting markets up for the crisis by running uber-accommodative monetary policy.”

Since mid-2014 the Pentagon has run all manner of war games – as many as 16 times, under different scenarios – pitting NATO against Russia. All scenarios were favorable to NATO. All simulations yielded the same victor: Russia. And that’s why Erdogan’s erratic behavior actually terrifies quite a few real players from Washington to Brussels.

In the fifth and final GOP presidential nominee debate deathmatch (from The Ventian in Vegas), all eyes will be on the Cruz and Rubio as they vie for 2nd place to The Teflon Don. It won't be all plain-sailing for Trump (who warned CNN about "fairness" and slammed FOX's Megyn Kelly in the pre-debate tweetfest), who expects "them all to be coming for me," but we suspect Ben Carson will be a little quieter. With the stakes highest so far (and Iowa caucuses just 7 weeks away) for some of the also-rans it is put-up-or-shut-up time which may mean more fireworks and spectacle as Americans are distracted from their fear of terror, stagnant income, pre-Fed last supper.

The libertarian spin on the path to the dark side has many lessons for our country. Shortly after 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney said on television, “We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will.” And, stricken with terror and indulging in hate, America did embrace the dark side, accepting torture, indefinite detention, warrantless surveillance, assassination, perpetual illegal wars, and mass civilian casualties. Terror led to hate, hate led to aggression, and aggression has led to suffering, not only for the the direct victims of the wars, but for Westerners at home, as we find ourselves afflicted by blowback in the form of a refugee crisis and terrorist attacks.

The president and his top advisers have kept an open door for CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, keeping almost 1,000 appointments with them, a Reuters review of White House records shows. Of the hundreds of appointments listed, Obama himself was present at about half. As the corrupting hand of government intervention spreads, so CEOs and the White House have become allies in advocating for immigration reform, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and reauthorization for the Export-Import Bank. So who really owns The White House?

Grant Williams sets the context for tomorrow's FOMC meeting, where the Federal Reserve is widely expected to hike interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. To say he is very skeptical of the Fed's ability to continue to control market forces much longer is a gross understatement...

As it turns out, Obama is not a fan of efficient market irony and instead of letting the chips on gun control fall where they may especially if it means record stock prices for the shareholders of SWHC and RGR, the president has decided to take his vendetta with US gun makers to the next level and as the NYT reported overnight, "the New York City public advocate on Monday asked federal regulators to investigate whether the gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson had made adequate disclosures in its financial statements."

Millennials are projected to number 75.3 million for 2015, surpassing a projected 74.9 million for Baby Boomers for the first time. However, much like the Boomers, it appears savings habits of Millennials remains poor, as results of our survey found that over 50% of Millennials have less than $1,000 in savings... but then again why save when the government will take care of you, right?

As concerning and hateful as so much of Trump’s commentary is, we can at least be sure he speaks from his own twisted mind. This is precisely why he appeals to so many people in this day and age of completely captured politicians. People like the fact that every word out of his mouth hasn’t been carefully placed there by some billionaire patron. On the exact opposite end of that spectrum we find Marco Rubio. A man so incapable of free-thought, he becomes the ideal target for billionaires looking to craft the perfect puppet. Forget Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio is now the establishment GOP’s pick, and they will do everything in their power to get him the nomination.

"We think carefully about which companies we sell addresses to, but how their customers use this internet connection is beyond our control"...