Archive - May 12, 2015

Shortly after 920pmET, NBC Philadelphia reports an Amtrak train bound for New York from Washington D.C. derailed with approximately 240 people on board. Officials say 8 to 10 cars left the tracks and there are at least 50 injured. Mayor Michael Nutter confirmed 5 dead and several more critically injured, "It is an absolute disastrous mess," he said. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."

It looks like all those ‘conspiracy nuts’ who took issue with the “official” story following the President’s original announcement of bin Laden’s death were not so crazy after all. There’s a reason millions of Americans have lost trust in their government, and especially with the sitting President of the United States. It’s because we have been consistently lied to about anything and everything of any significance.

Instead of collapsing quietly, the US has decided to pick a fight with Russia. It appears to have already lost the fight, but a question remains: How many more countries will the US manage to destroy before the reality of its inevitable defeat and disintegration finally catches up with it? As Putin said last summer when speaking at the Seliger youth forum, “I get the feeling that no matter what the Americans touch, they end up with Libya or Iraq.” But there is another question that deserves to be asked: Do the Americans “touch” themselves? Because if they do, then the next candidate for extreme makeover into a bombed-out wasteland might be the United States itself...

Having lost its mantle as largest economy in the world to China... and world's biggest oil importer (again to China), 'exceptional' USA appears to have just lost its Number 1 status in financial market depth to China also...

Matching the hindrances of the interventionist state is the manipulations of money and interest rates by central banks everywhere, which distorts markets, misdirects capital and labor use resulting in unsustainable booms and inescapable downturns that bring about wrongly invested capital and misallocated labor. This “wrong twists” to the market takes time to overcome and correct. It is government impediments to open, competitive markets – whether in America or in other parts of the world – that are the causes to behind slow growth and sluggish job creation, not “the rich” and their savings.

As we discussed at the beginning of last month, the “revolver raids” have already begun for some heavily indebted US shale companies who were set to see their credit lines cut after banks performed their bi-annual review in April, which is based on where crude has traded over the preceding 12 months. Those credit lines will be assessed again in October and according to a UBS survey of the banks who have helped finance the oil & gas industry, the outlook is not good

What if voting for candidates and political parties was more like voting for a company to prosper?

Just days after Japanese PM Shinzo Abe leaves Washington (having stepped up his nation's military assertiveness), The Wall Street Journal reports that the US Secretary of Defense has asked staff for military options in the South China Sea (as we have detailed China's land reclamation efforts): U.S. MAY USE MILITARY TO CONFRONT CHINA IN SPRATLY ISLANDS DISPUTE: WSJ Having ironically commented on China's "bullying," it appears Nobel-Peace-Prize winner President Obama is preparing for an even bigger objective, amid China's rising threat to USD dominance (with Yuan liberalization and AIIB success).

Having explained to the general public that there was nothing to be concerned about, when an exploding transformer shut down at least one unit of the Indian River nuclear power plant, noting "no danger to public safety," it appears the situation is not as 'contained' as officials hoped. As Sputnik News reports, thousands of gallons of oil that leaked into the Hudson River after the explosion has formed a gigantic oil sheen on the waterway. NY Governor Andrew Cuomo has demanded a probe into the incident, adding that Entergy and contractors will clean up the spill.

It was Obama in the Library with a Nine Iron....

"We are left puzzled by the weak April consumer spending data - we expected the consumer to be a tailwind for growth in this year, offsetting the drag from weaker investment and manufacturing... If consumer spending does not accelerate, we will have to question our forecast for GDP growth to accelerate back above 3.0% in the second half of the year."

History has been so fascinated with oil and its price movements that it is indeed hard to imagine our future without oil. The world is still myopic when it comes to energy. Yes, it wants to embrace renewables but not at the cost of oil. Whatever happens to oil prices in the coming years, one thing is certain: that the age of oil isn’t ending anytime soon, at least not in the next 30 years.

More tips for the most-indebted graduate class ever...