Monday, March 28, 2016

23% Of Americans In Their Prime Working Years Are Unemployed



As this reality-check data shows, we never really had any sort of meaningful “economic recovery”, and now we have entered the early phases of the next major downturn. So where do we go from here?  Unfortunately, our debt-fueled prosperity has provided us with a massively inflated standard of living that is not even close to sustainable.  As this bubble bursts, the economic pain is going to be absolutely unprecedented.



The Fed's Next Headache: One Third Of Q1 GDP Growth Was Just "Revised" Away

While the February personal consumption expenditures (aka personal spending) - that all important data about the well-being of the US consumer - was in line with expectations rising 0.1%, it was the January revision that was striking. From a 0.5% increase reported a month ago, it was now revised to a paltry 0.1%. In nominal dollar terms, this means that instead of US consumer spending a whopping $67.5 billion more in January, the increase was a paltry $14.7 billion, a delta of $52.8 billion!


 

Gold Recovers Losses After Overnight "Flash-Crash"

Amid a post-holiday Asian open, gold futures were flash-crashed as someone decided it was an opportune time to trade over $275 million worth of the precious metal. Since hitting those China open lows at $1206, gold has rallied back to unchanged near $1223.





Fidel Castro Slams "Illustrious Visitor" Obama's "Honeyed Words", Cuba "Needs No Gifts From The Empire"

Having spent a couple of days glad-handing (and watching baseball) with Raul Castro in Cuba, 89-year-old Fidel Castro has come out swinging against "the empire" with a bristling 1500-word open letter recounting the history of US aggression against Cuba suggesting Obama "reflects and doesn't try to develop theories about Cuban politics." Despite all of The White House's claims of progress, Castro rages "we don't need the empire to give us any presents."



January Spending Surge "Revised" Away, Pushing Savings Rate To Highest Since 2012; Personal Income Slides

Headline data for income modestly beat expectations (+0.2% MoM vs +0.1% MoM) and spending met expectations at +0.1% MoM respectively. Income growth YoY slowed to 4.0% however - near its weakest since Nov 2013. Spending growth also slowed to +3.8% YoY (from 2.9% in Jan) but the big story is the major downward revisions in spending. January's +0.5% 'surge' in spending was revised to a mere +0.1% trickle - the weakest in over a year.



These Are The Oil Producers That May (Or May Not) Attend Next Month's "Farcical" OPEC Meeting

"The meeting is turning more and more into a farce,” analysts at Commerzbank led by Eugen Weinberg said in a report. “It is hardly surprising that Libya is not interested in the Doha meeting. Like Iran, it first wants to increase output and then talk about a freeze."



China Beige Book Reveals Employment Plunges To 4-Year Low, Capex Worst In History

Back in December, New York-based China Beige Book International released what they called a “disturbing” set of data that pointed to pronounced weakness in the Chinese economy. Things have not gotten any better since then and according to the CBB's latest quarterly survey, Chinese firms are now "allergic to hiring."



Bernie Faces Uphill Battle After Big Weekend Wins As Remaining Contests Favor Hillary





Futures Rise In Thin Trading On Back Of Yen Weakness; Europe Closed

With European markets closed across the continent on Monday as the Easter holiday continues, overnight Asia was busy with China Shanghai Composite letting off some steam, and closing down 0.7% at session lows on concerns the Shanghai and Shenzhen home bubble have been popped by the politburo, Japan was a different story with the Yen sliding following a report by the Sankei newspaper that Abe will announce in May his intention to delay the planned levy hike, coupled with additional reports that Japan will unveil a major fiscal stimulus (and just on Friday Abe said he is "not thinking at all about supplemental budget" at this time).



Does The United States Still Exist?

Today law as a shield of the people has been lost. The loss was gradual over time and culminated in the George W. Bush and Obama regime assaults on habeas corpus and due process. Historically, a government that can, without due process, throw a citizen into a dungeon or summarily execute him is considered to be a tyranny, not a democracy. By any historical definition, the United States today is a tyranny.



Mysterious Tombstone For Donald Trump Appears In Central Park

Overnight, a mysterious tombstone on behalf of Donald J. Trump (the date of death is blank: 1946 - ...) was erected in Central Park. While plenty of people shared photos of the tombstone on social media, no one seems to know what it means, other than "being a prank of questionable taste"...


Putin & Assad Have Liberated Syria from the U.S.-&-Jihadist Alliance

from Washington’s Blog:

It has been an alliance between the leaderships of U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE; but, regardless of whether it’s called “the U.S. alliance” or “the Saudi alliance,” or even (possibly) “the Turkish alliance” (and it could be called by any of those three names), it’s the jihadist alliance, and it now seems to be near its final defeat, by, quite clearly, the Russian alliance: Russian air power has enabled the Syrian army (called the SAA or “Syrian Arab Army”) of Bashar al-Assad, plus Lebanon’s Shiite warriors (called “Hezbollah”), plus organization by Iran’s generals, to exterminate thousands of ISIS jihadists. The pro-Syrian alliance, under Russian air-power, are now making final preparations to finish the job, in the Syrian headquarters of ISIS — the city of Raqqa, where ISIS’s “Caliph” is, who could soon be meeting his end.
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Why Japan banned MMR vaccine

from Daily Mail:
Japan stopped using the MMR vaccine seven years ago – virtually the only developed nation to turn its back on the jab.
Government health chiefs claim a four-year experiment with it has had serious financial and human costs.
Of the 3,969 medical compensation claims relating to vaccines in the last 30 years, a quarter had been made by those badly affected by the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, they say.
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World Trade Collapses in Dollars, Languishes in Volume

from Wolf Street:
This wasn’t part of the rosy scenario.
The Merchandise World Trade Monitor by the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, a division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, tracks global imports and exports in two measures: by volume and by unit price in US dollars. And the just released data for January was a doozie beneath the lackluster surface.
The World Trade Monitor for January, as measured in seasonally adjusted volume, declined 0.4% from December and was up a measly 1.1% from January a year ago. While the sub-index for import volumes rose 3% from a year ago, export volumes fell 0.7%. This sort of “growth,” languishing between slightly negative and slightly positive has been the rule last year.
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CIA Agents To Troll Alternative Media Sites In Huge Propaganda Program

from Your News Wire:
The CIA are expanding an existing program that influences mainstream media outlets to promote fake propaganda stories, by having agents troll internet forums, social media, and website comment sections – in an effort to disrupt alternative media sites.
In an expansion of Operation Mockingbird, the agency are now creating fake user accounts on various internet forums and social media channels, arguing politics with real users in an attempt to stifle and subvert genuine communications between users.
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Putin: Human Evolution Under Big Threat from GMOs, Vaccines

by J. D. Heyes, Natural News:
Those who support vaccine choice and oppose genetically modifying our food chain have an unlikely ally: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As reported by the Health Freedom Alliance, a report that was prepared by the Russian Security Council (SCRF), a report which is currently circulating within the Kremlin, says that Putin has given orders to protect the Russian people from GMO “food” as well as Western pharmaceuticals “at all costs.”
The report states that Putin believes the next phase of human evolution is being put at “grave risk,” and that Western and other great powers are “intentionally decelerating the process for their personal gain.”
Read More

Al Jazeeza Presenter to Saudi Ambassador – “Why Support Democracy in Syria but Not Saudi Arabia?”

from Liberty Blitzkrieg:
This past week, Al Jazeera presenter Mehdi Hasan sat down with Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the UN. He asked him a very pointed question regarding why he supports democracy in Syria but not in Saudi Arabia.
It’s a great question, and let’s just say the answer was not at all convincing.
Read More…

Human Experimentation Rampant in the United States

by Janet Phelan, Activist Post:
In an article in the New Republic in December, 1998, former UNSCOM leader Scott Ritter decried Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons experiments on human subjects. Wrote Ritter,
We had received credible intelligence that 95 political prisoners had been transferred from the Abu Ghraib Prison to a site in western Iraq, where they had been subjected to lethal testing under the supervision of a special unit from the Military Industrial Commission, under Saddam’s personal authority.
The stance of the United States and her allies has always been that such experiments bear the watermark of a brutal dictatorship and are never engaged in by the free world.
So when Abu Ghraib again hit the news in 2004, concerning the ongoing torture of prisoners by US forces, the US was swift to act in condemning the reports as constituting isolated incidents and not reflective of US policy.
Read More



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