Sometimes you just have to stand in awe at the level of corruption and incompetence in government.

"Avoid places with high concentrations of people in the Brussels region (concerts, major events, train stations and airports, public transport, places of high commercial concentration). Facilitate follow the safety controls Do not post rumors: follow the official information from the authorities and police services In order to enable judicial inquiries to track their progress, no further details will be given."

“George W. Bush may think that a war against Iraq is the solution to our problems, but the reality is, it will only serve to create far more,” read a 2003 article on The Onion a week after then-President George Bush launched the Iraq War. While a wide variety of organizations and individuals also rebuked that invasion, the satirical newspaper offered one of the most accurate assessments to date. So accurate, in fact, it all but predicted the rise of the Islamic State.

As the poor get poorer, so the saying goes, the rich get richer; and until recently that was not just true, but apparently mandated so by The Fed. However, the last few months have seen the so-called "1%" appearing to struggle a little in their largesse. As we noted previously, not only are luxury jet values dropping for the first time since 2009, London mansion prices plunging, San Francisco home sales collapsing, fine-wine and diamond prices at 2009 crisis lows, and Sotheby's laying people off, but now, as Bloomberg reports, Swiss watches - the ultimate in luxury extravagance - have seen exports crash by the most since the financial crisis.

After adjusting for inflation, the majority of Americans are worse off today than they were decades ago. The map below shows that median household income actually peaked at least 15 years ago in 81% of U.S. counties.