Florida

Why is the deal particularly notable? Because Zell has traditionally had a very keen nose about such things as "market peaks": the 74 years old is credited with calling the top of the real-estate market in 2007, when he sold another of his companies, Equity Office Properties Trust, to Blackstone for $23 billion. Soon after, the commercial-property market crashed as prices fell and debt defaults surged when it became apparent that subprime was not contained.

Polling for the GOP presidential primary has begun to stretch even the most flexible limits of reality and credibility.

At a time when the US and China are practically at arms over the artificial islands in the South China Seas, with the US sending warships on location to patrol (despite White House Spokesman Josh Earnest saying on Oct. 8 that U.S. warships "should not provoke significant reaction from the Chinese") and a stunned China responding "What On Earth Makes Them Think We Will Tolerate This", the last thing we thought we would see right now was three Chinese warships about to port in Florida's Naval Station Mayport. And yet according to USNI that is precisely what is about to happen.

From the bowels of Australia’s iron ore mines to the top of Dubai’s pointless 100 story office towers, the entire warp and woof of the global economy has been distorted and bloated by the central bank money printing spree of the last two decades, led by the red credit machines of Beijing. Everywhere economies have succumbed to over-building, over-consumption, over-financialization and endless dangerous, unstable speculation. Stated differently, China’s red capitalism is the new black swan. There is nothing rational, stable or sustainable about it.

September was officially the warmest ever recorded around the globe (the 7th time this year a month has set a record) as El nino is back in a big way. As Bloomberg reports, its effects are just beginning in much of the world -- for the most part, it hasn’t really reached North America -- and yet it’s already shaping up potentially as one of the three strongest El Nino patterns since record-keeping began in 1950.  Expect "major disruptions, widespread droughts and floods," warned a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, adding that without preparation, "all kinds of mayhem will let loose." The last time there was an El Nino of similar magnitude to the current one, the record-setting event of 1997-1998, floods, fires, droughts and other calamities killed at least 30,000 people and caused $100 billion in damage.

America is not Greece, but judging from the Obama administration's just-unveiled plans to bailout Puerto Rico's disastrous debt situation, the American territory may have to sacrifice a little more sovereignty to get some relief. Obama is pressing for Congress to give Puerto Rico (PR) sweeping powers to reduce its $73 billion debt burden through a form of bankruptcy protection not now available to American territories and will also ask lawmakers to establish an independent body to monitor the island’s fiscal affairs (a la Troika).

Today’s task for the Republican establishment... Between now and March, they must settle on a candidate, hope his rivals get out of the race, defeat Trump in one of the first two contests, or effect his defeat by someone like Carson, then pray Trump will collapse like a house of cards. The improbabilities of accomplishing this grow by the week, and will soon start looking, increasingly, like an impossibility - absent the kind of celestial intervention that marked the career of the late Calvin Coolidge.

The Donald, crushing the hopes of the status quo, has extended his lead among GOP Primary voters with 25% of the support (up from 21% in September). However, the latest WSJ/NBC poll finds Ben Carson coming on strong with 22% support. Aside from Rubio (13%, up from 11%), and Jeb hovering at 8%, this leaves "the rest" of the crowd lagging horribly with Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, and John Kasich looking to go the way of 'the Walker'.

It’s getting harder by the day to tell young people that we live in a nation that values freedom and which is governed by the rule of law without feeling like a teller of tall tales. Unless something changes and soon for the young people growing up, there will be nothing left of freedom as we have known it but a fairy tale without a happy ending.

We have exasperated ourselves on the subject to a manipulated mass of deafened sycophants. Just because the veil is lifted doesn’t mean anyone will look. So we will leave you with strictly the facts...According to state-run Makkah Newspaper in Saudi Arabia, the wealthy Gulf-nation is threatening its citizens with the death penalty for spreading rumors about the government on social media.

In a year when the nation’s overall prison population dropped, the number of older inmates grew rapidly in 2014, continuing a trend that translates into higher federal and state prison health care spending.

This is the story of a veteran NYSE specialist who noticed manipulation in the NYSE market open Imbalance, loudly complained to the NYSE, was ignored, then decided to profit from said manipulation himself... and got busted.  And that's where the story begins...

Just as was evidenced after the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, after Columbine and Tucson in 2011, and following the theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado in 2012, US gun sales have soared following the mass-shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, which killed 10 people and injured seven others. As The FT reports, gun sales this year could surpass the record set in 2013, when gun purchases surged after the December 2012 Sandy Hook murders.