Archive - May 18, 2015 - Story

Speaking in Camden, New Jersey, President Obama just uttered the following Detroit-esque words of doom:

*OBAMA SAYS CAMDEN IS SYMBOL OF PROMISE FOR NATION

We discussed Camden in 2012, 2013, and 2014... and had a different opinion.

After months of speculation and confusion, on Friday we finally got if not direct, then certainly indirect, evidence from this month's TIC data that "Belgium" was merely a front for China.

“When Edward Snowden revealed our intelligence secrets to the world in 2013, civil liberties extremists seized that moment to advance their own narrow agenda." Well the founding fathers were also “civil liberties extremists” with a narrow agenda. That agenda was laid out in a little something called the Constitution. The most dangerous part of Christie’s language is calling Snowden defenders “extremists.” Christie knows exactly what that term has come to mean, and he deliberately used it.

"Like any trend in an unhinged market, it's next to impossible to predict when the confidence will peak. But based on previous peaks, it could (should) be any time,"

Things escalated quickly on Sunday when rival biker gangs met at a Texas Twin Peaks franchise to settle what Reuters says was a "dispute over a parking lot." The fight started in the bathroom, spilled into the restaraunt, and then into the parking lot where as many as five rival gangs attacked each other with guns, knives, brass knuckles, clubs and motorcycle chains.”  

Having enabled billions of dollars worth of militarized equipment to be unloaded into every police department in the nation - only to have alienated the very Americans that hoped for change the most - it appears President Obama is ready to uncross another red line. Following unrest in U.S. cities over the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers, Reuters reports, during his triup to Camden NJ, Obama announced his plans to put in place new restrictions on the use of military equipment by police departments.

Puerto Rico is racing the clock ahead of a July 1 deadline to pass a fiscal budget for 2016 and scrape together $360 million due to creditors. Without a budget, the commonwealth will face a partial government shutdown and may be unable to issue $2.9 billion in oil-tax bonds needed to pay The Government Development Bank.

No wonder Washington never changes – 79 members of Congress have been there since Bill Clinton’s first term in the White House.  This list includes names such as Reid, Feinstein, McConnell, McCain, Pelosi, Boehner, Rangel and Boxer.With a 15% approval rating, The American People absolutely hate the job that Congress is doing, and yet the same clowns just keep getting sent back to Washington again and again.

"The borrowings of governments, households, companies and financial firms have risen in almost every big country around the world since the year 2000, relative to their GDP," The Economist notes. Here, graphed, is the evolution of the world's debt addiction from 2000 to 2014.

Many activists are clamoring for a higher minimum wage. That's an admirable goal, but is that where the worst problem is? Even at the abysmally low wages of the present moment, we still have 938,000 people being turned away from McDonald's because there aren't enough McJobs. The real problem is the lack of meaningful work. In a world of machines and social alienation, meaningful work is as scarce as water in the drought-stricken California Central Valley.

Does legalization lead to lower prices? A crowdsourced site for marijuana prices has the answers...

In the “land of the free” you might be innocent until proven guilty, but your assets aren’t.

"...stocks are the side show of the world. They shouldn't matter that much. They matter too much. They're the realm of punters, the realm of hair-trigger traders... We are back to "a religious belief" that The Fed is our savior... the market doesn't owe you liquidity, thinking you'll get out is the height of naivete."

In America, where work is punished, it's only fair... an AMG in every driveway.

Just how much will society take before they say no?