Illinois

During the "recovery" from the Great Recession, the land of Lincoln had more people enter the food-stamps program than start jobs. Food-stamps growth in Illinois has outpaced jobs creation by a 5-4 margin... and stunningly, has put 25 people on food stamps for every manufacturing job created during the recession recovery.

"The politicians cannot understand that they are destroying your future. All they can see is their need to retain power... We are reaching the end of this noose around our neck that was placed there by Marx. What you need to do is take back government. You cannot create a solution with the same line of thinking that created the current mess. The future belongs to the youth. Understand the devil you are dancing with. It is time to become politically active and challenge the establishment for that is the only way to save the future."

"Mainstream America with their 401Ks are in a similar pickle. Expecting 8-10% to pay for education, healthcare, retirement or simply taking an accustomed vacation, they won’t be doing much of it as long as short term yields are at zero. They are not so much in a pickle barrel as they are on a revolving spit, being slowly cooked alive while central bankers focus on their Taylor models and fight non-existent inflation."

The economics of Hillary Clinton is first and foremost about expanding the power and scope of the US government, and as government gains more control, the more employers and business owners need to be in the good graces of American politicians. To be blunt, Clinton believes that people like herself can continually loot US businesses, with business owners paying their protection money without complain. After all, Hillary knows best; just ask her.

For those wondering about the extent to which falling discount rates have served to create a giant, multi-hundred billion dollar underfunded liability for S&P companies, look no further...

"It is like the board is a desperate gambler at the end of their run"...

Then - "We will not have any more crashes in our time." – John Maynard Keynes (1927)

Now - "Ambarella, GoPro & FitBit are headed higher" - Jim Cramer (7/22)

"You know what's funny? If we owed the state money, they'd come take it and they don't care whether we have a roof over our head. Our budget wouldn't be a factor. You can't say (to the state), 'Can you wait until I get my budget under control?'"

Pentagon Goes Barbarian

What seems undeniable about the Law of War Manual, is that there are self-contradictions within it. To assert that it "reads like it was written by Hitler's Ministry of War,” is going too far. But, to say that it’s hypocritical (except, perhaps, on torture, where it’s clearly a repudiation of GWB’s practices), seems safely true. Parts of the document are propaganda. The purpose isn’t to fool the public, who won’t read the document. The purpose of the propaganda is to enable future presidents to say, “But if you will look at this part of the Manual, you will see that what we are doing is perfectly legal.” Those mutually contradictory passages are there in order to provide answers which will satisfy both  the ‘hawks’ and  the ‘doves.’

There is no such thing as objective science when a researcher receives tens of thousands of dollars from the GM producers themselves, then goes on to promote their financiers’ products. Corporate collusion between government bureaucracies and educational institutions has become a serious issue in the U.S. that has corrupted objectivity in nearly every sector of American life.

"Unfunded pension liabilities have grown substantially. There are several factors behind this, led by lower than expected investment returns and insufficient contributions from state and local governments to the plans. In aggregate this would raise government pension contributions by something like $100bn per year, lowering spending in other areas (or raising taxes) by a similar amount."

Thanks, Uncle Warren. The Kraft-Heinz merger engineered earlier this year by everyone’s favorite folksy octogenarian billionaire along with 3G will cost some 2,500 people their jobs, as the combined entity looks to cut costs.

A study by the Illinois Policy Institute shows just how dramatic the impact of the so-called "welfare effect" can be. In one of the most startling findings for instance, if a single mother raising two children were to accept a pay raise from $12 to $18 per hour, her total resources would fall by nearly 33%.

GOP Presidential hopefuls expressed plenty of distaste for the Iran nuclear deal during last night’s debate, but it was the voice of a Democrat that mattered most on Thursday evening as Chuck Schumer, the influential Jewish Senator from New York, came out in opposition to the accord.