Archive - May 7, 2015 - Story

Three days ago, when looking at the unprecedented, record outflows from US equities  we asked a simple question: "who is buying... no really". We now have the answer.

Rising tuition rates, high unemployment among recent graduates, and an anemic economic recovery have many questioning the once inviolable notion that a college education is the best way to ensure high-paying, full-time employment. A new study from Georgetown looks at the best and worst majors for those looking to maximize their annual income. 

“In a democratic society,” observed Oakland police chief Sean Whent, “people have a say in how they are policed.” Unfortunately, if you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is never held accountable for violating your rights and his oath of office to serve and protect, never forced to make amends, never told that what he did was wrong, and never made to change his modus operandi, then you don’t live in a constitutional republic. You live in a police state.

A new study by the OECD finds that in the vast majority of member countries, working full-time at minimum wage is not enough to keep families above the poverty line.

Following a report on Sunday, where Human Rights Watch said video and photographic evidence showed that Saudi Arabia used cluster bombs near villages in Yemen’s Saada Province at least two separate times, the US State Department said it is "looking into" the allegations but, as Foreign Policy reports, said the notoriously imprecise weapon — banned by much of the world — could still have an appropriate role to play in Riyadh’s U.S.-backed offensive (as long as it was used carefully).

If you are an American, there is a 1 in 3 chance that you will get cancer during your lifetime.  If you are a man, the odds are closer to 1 in 2.  And almost everyone in America either knows someone who currently has cancer or who has already died from cancer.  But it wasn’t always this way.  Back in the 1940s, only one out of every sixteen Americans would develop cancer. Despite billions spent on research and all of the technological progress we have made over the years this plague just continues to spiral wildly out of control.  Why is that?

What happens is that economic growth eventually runs into limits. Many people have assumed that these limits would be marked by high prices and excessive demand for goods. In my view, the issue is precisely the opposite one: Limits to growth are instead marked by low prices and inadequate demand. Common workers can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that the economy produces, because of inadequate wage growth. The price of all commodities drops, because of lower demand by workers. Furthermore, investors can no longer find investments that provide an adequate return on capital, because prices for finished goods are pulled down by the low demand of workers with inadequate wages.

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The one most interesting category was defense spending: a category despised by progressives even though at this rate spending on interest for the progressives' beloved government debt will soon eclipse defense. It is here that outlays actually dropped from a year ago, declining to just over $150 billion for the quarter. Which is surprising, because as Politico wrote overnight, among the items funded by general taxpayer revenue were such discretionary expenses as hookers and blackjack, after a defense department audit founds that Pentagon employees used their government credit cards to gamble and pay for “adult entertainment.”

"The transition from investment to consumption in the Chinese economy, together with a shift towards cleaner energy sources, has caused a sharp deceleration in dry bulk trade. After expanding at an average annual rate of 7% over the period 2005-14, seaborne demand in iron ore, thermal and metallurgical coal is set to increase by only 2% in 2015 to 2.5 billion tonnes as these trends persist," Goldman says, before warning that freight rates aren't likely to recover until at least 2020.

Hitler’s policies are still viewed to this day as a great example of how unprecedented government intervention fixed a dire economic problem. In short, Hitler laid a golden egg and produced an economic miracle. As early as 1933, even before any miracle could be seen, the New York Times had nothing but praise for his ambitions, according to the following front page headline: “There is at least one official voice in Europe that expresses understanding of the methods and motives of President Roosevelt—the voice of Germany, as represented by Chancellor Adolf Hitler.” Unfortunately for the people living under the Third Reich, this was never allowed to happen. All of these efforts became increasingly subordinated to the logic of war.