ETC

Faustian bargain: An agreement in which a person abandons his or her spiritual values or moral principles in order to obtain wealth or other benefits. A deal with the devil.

The argument over the existence of an Elite, who plan to control the entire world under a New World Order like some great yo-yo, has been around for a long time. Not surprisingly, events created by world leaders of all stripes in recent years give rise to an increasing belief in the likelihood of the existence of such an effort.

Beyond intentional misrepresentations on the part of Beijing, China’s GDP data may suffer from a calculation error that at least one firm claims is endemic across emerging markets thanks to data collection limitations.

“I look at title lending as legalized car thievery,... What they want to do is get you into a loan where you just keep paying, paying, paying, and at the end of the day, they take your car.”

"Qualified households will be unable to move from renting to owning as housing-cost burdens, slow wage growth and student debt make it harder to cobble together even a modest down payment," WSJ says. As homeownership becomes increasingly unrealistic, demand for rentals will only increase, driving further increases in the cost of rental housing. The question then becomes this: what happens when a family that can't afford a down payment can no longer afford to pay the rent?

Should a person or group that has never experienced what is known by all as “real life” while simultaneously being seen by many legal standards as not having the full credentials to be recognized as an “adult” have the ability to vote directly for, or vote for candidates responsible in the setting of the nations wage laws, tax laws, business law, national debt, business tax structures, business mandates, international trade policies, monetary policy, or most importantly – whether to send their brethren off to war where people die for real – not in some video game or movie?

FTW (For Those Who Say I Just Don't Get It... Get This!) There seems a shift showing itself in dramatic fashion unseen since the 2008 financial meltdown. Not only are some key players, or institutions beginning to notice some troubling signs; but rather; those very signs that everyone was told 'won’t or shouldn’t happen', not only are, they’re starting to rear their ugly heads in much greater frequency.

“A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.”

Our general rule of thumb when it comes to legislation is that the more high-sounding the name, the more insidious the law.

Exhibit A: the just-passed USA FREEDOM Act.

There are many half-truths perpetrated on individuals by Wall Street to sell product, gain assets, etc. However, if individuals took a moment to think about it, the illogic of many of these arguments are readily apparent...

Will global QE carry on forever...the next month may give out some clues..will it be Junemaggedon after we had May-hem??

With signs of cracks in the Equal-Weight S&P 500?s relative performance, we have more evidence that all is not necessarily as rosy as it may seem with the major averages near all-time highs.

When the "very serious people" start to admit that the entire house of cards was held together with nothing but bullshit and propaganda, it may be a time to panic...

The Fed insists that Cinderella's carriage is forever golden, ignoring the increasingly obvious reality that the carriage is turning back into a pumpkin before our eyes. The Fed's magic was always a short-term fix, akin to over-fertilizing and over-poisoning our economy to create the illusion of massive growth in profits and stock, bond and home valuations. Now that the magic is wearing off, the reality is going to hit everyone who believed the fantasy of permanent asset bubbles especially hard.

How do you support a consumer economy with stagnant incomes for the bottom 90%, rising basic expenses and crashing employment for males ages 25-54? Answer: you don't.

The most prominent market event overnight was once again the action in China's penny-index, which after tumbling at the open and briefly entering a 10% correction from the highs hit just two days ago, promptly saw the BTFDers rush in, whether retail, institutional or central bankers, and after rebounding strongly from the -3% lows, the SHCOMP closed practically unchanged following a 2% jump to complete yet another 5% intraday swing on absolutely no news, but merely concerns what the PBOC is doing with liquidity, reverse repos, margin debt, etc. Needless to say, this is one of the world's largest stock markets, not the Pink Sheets.