Gallup

Three weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, and clarity emerges. Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, is in trouble. But if a cloud is forming over the Clinton campaign, the sun continues to shine on The Donald. What does the surge for socialist Sanders and the Republican base’s backing of the outsiders Trump and Cruz and collective recoil from the Republican establishment candidates tell us? As Dylan sang, "The times they are a changing."

Love guns or hate guns, one thing is becoming perfectly clear. The American public’s perception of guns and the NRA is moving in the exact opposite direction of Barack Obama’s message and agenda.

What explains America's revulsion with the existing system? The answer comes from the latest Gallup article: "Explaining Trump: Widespread Government Corruption" in which it finds that once the silent majority of the population can identify the object of their distrust and anger - in this case Congress and the political status quo - and once they can subsequently identify an object that represents its opposite, the latter object's distance to the Oval Office becomes considerably shorter.

Many of us are wishing to be bold, and maybe even revolutionary.  But we are far too comfortable, and also too afraid. 

"In the same Gallup survey that listed 'dissatisfaction with government' as the top concern for each of the past two years, 'guns/Gun control' was considered 'the most important problem' by 2 percent of respondents, about the same who listed “lack of respect for each other” and pollution.'

• China stocks tank, triggers circuit breaker (Reuters)
• Stocks Slump Across Europe and Asia Following Shanghai's 7% Crash (BBG)
• China Halts Stock Trading After 7% Rout Triggers Circuit Breaker (BBG)
• Iran says Riyadh thrives on tension after relations cut (Reuters)
• Saudis and Bahrain Face Off With Iran in Worst Clash Since 1980s (BBG)
• Syrian rebel group backs Saudi move to cut ties with Iran (Reuters)

Our quarterly survey of “Off the Grid” economic indicators finds that the U.S. economy is still growing, but the pace seems to be slowing from Q3 2015.

This is the highest percentage of Americans to mention terrorism in a decade... So are the terrorists winning? Or the fearmongers?

And if American Entrepreneurism is in a death spiral, then so too is the U.S. economy and the state that lives off the surplus generated by American Entrepreneurism.

So how do you grow household wealth by $18 trillion in the face of these dismal real world trends? In a word, with a printing press. But what happened today is that Draghi showed he is out of tricks and Yellen confessed she is out of excuses. Yes, this sucker is going down. And this time all the misguided economics professors turned central bankers in the world will be powerless to reverse the plunge.

Has there ever been a major holiday more focused on materialism than the modern American Christmas? This year, Americans are planning to spend an average of 830 dollars on Christmas gifts, which represents a jump of 110 dollars over the average of 720 dollars last year. But have our incomes gone up accordingly? Of course not.

"Adults over 30 are less happy than any of their predecessors," concludes a study published last week which examined happiness data from more than 50,000 adults, gleaned from the General Social Survey which has collected information about American adults since 1972. Perhaps most notable is that, for the first time ever, adults ages 18 to 29 were happier than adults over 30.

These are not problems that can be glibly dismissed with a few well-chosen words, as most politicians are inclined to do. Nor will the 2016 elections do much to alter our present course towards a police state. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the popularity contest for the new occupant of the White House will significantly alter the day-to-day life of the average American greatly at all. Those life-changing decisions are made elsewhere, by nameless, unelected government officials who have turned bureaucracy into a full-time and profitable business.

What’s refreshing about Trump is the directness with which he expresses his psychopathy. For example, candidates such as Hillary Clinton sugar-coat theirpsychopathy, or even find ways to get their interviewers to join eagerly in their expressions of it (camaraderie with power-holders), but they don’t say such blatant things as (to paraphrase Trump here), “After we raped them — which we shouldn’t have done — we should have stolen from them, and we should still be  stealing from them.”