ETC

The perennial hopes of a strong retail shopping season are once again upon us. Given the current deflationary backdrop, small business spending pessimism, the sharp decline in imports and weak wage growth, it is quite likely that actual retail sales will likely disappoint the NRF's forecast of a "shopping season significantly above the 10-year average." But it is truly important to remember that for retailers all #BlackFridaysMatter

Angered that Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. pay very little tax, an entire town in Wales decided to employ the exact same tax strategies used by big companies to reduce their own tax burdens. As the proprietor of the local smokery put it, the plan is "jolly clever." Doing this is not immoral or unpatriotic.

"This will most likely drive a drawdown much like the one we saw in 2009 and 2010."

Prepping has not only gone mainstream, it's infected even the billionaire culture as referenced recently on a ZH article:

There is a driving desire among weaker-minded people to seek control over other people in the name of arbitrary standards of safety as well as arbitrary standards of “civil” conformity. While such people proclaim publicly that they do what they do for the “greater good,” in reality they seek only to satiate a private lust for power. Any fight for freedom from collectivists will require the removal of command and control. This is the only way that humanity can be given breathing room to rebuild without remaining under constant preplanned threat.

As we noted previously, for the first time ever, primary dealers' corporate bond inventories have turned unprecedentedly negative. While in the short-term Goldman believes this inventory drawdown is probably a by-product of strong customer demand, they are far more cautious longer-term, warning that the "usual suspects" are not sufficient to account for the striking magnitude of inventory declines... and are increasingly of the view that "the tide is going out" on corporate bond market liquidity implying wider spreads and thus higher costs of funding to compensate for the reduction is risk-taking capacity.

Believers in "technology always creates more jobs than it destroys" never address the knotty issues of taxpayer subsidies, secular trends of higher labor costs, the eradication of low-skill jobs that pay enough to live on without taxpayer subsidies, or the structural surplus of conventional labor and capital--the scarcity value of both are dropping to zero. While many hope that every low-skill person can become a high-skilled worker, training people doesn't create jobs for them.

Behold! More shark jumping as BofA, Citi blame warm weather for weak October retail sales: "We believe abnormal weather patterns may have biased retail ex-auto sales lower in October."

To compare someone like Bernie Sanders to bloodthirsty monsters like Stalin and Pol Pot is too ludicrous for words. I've heard of slippery slopes before, but good lord, this guy must be totally off his rocker

Not all is well on Wall Street, where when one cuts all the noise, just one thing matters: the year-end bonus. It is here that as WSJ reports citing the latest survey from Johnson Associates, bonuses are expected to see a broad drop for the first time in four years.

Why - after commodities - China is set to change the landscape on energy in the coming years

"I am talking about the growing minority of students who believe they have a right to be free from being offended.. if this doesn't work for you, I would simply ask you to get the hell out of the country. The ever-growing thinned-skinned minority you have joined is simply ruining life in this once-great nation. Please move to some place like Cuba where you can enjoy the company of communists and get excellent health care. Just hop on a leaky boat and start paddling your way towards utopia. You will not be missed."

"Social Security as a whole as well as Medicare cannot sustain projected long-run program costs...", and that the government should be "giving the public adequate time to prepare."

The 'crapification' of jobs is the direct result of the 'crapification' of the economy.

They called it the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). But it’s one of the most poorly named pieces of legislation in US history. They might as well have called it the “Bank Sell-Your-Customers-Out Act”, because that’s ultimately what it amounts to. The BSA is a cornerstone regulation that requires banks in the Land of the Free to be unpaid spies of the government. Now they’re expanding further into “rewards-based crowdfunding platforms”, sites like Kickstarter which help entrepreneurs find money to start a business.