"It's Hard To Believe" - Establishment Stunned As Trump Gains 'Wealthy, Well-Educated' Voters

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 16:10
Not only is Donald Trump likely to gather the most votes of any GOP Presidential nominee ever, having swept the East Coast and crushed the anti-Trump alliance between Kasich and Cruz even before it made the news cycle; but now, as Reuters reports, the GOP establishment faces an ever bigger problem. Wealthy, well-educated voters helped carry the Republican front-runner to victory this week - a demographic the famously blunt-spoken billionaire had struggled to attract in the past.

ONLY HALF OF AMERICANS REALIZE ELECTION SYSTEM IS RIGGED

by Melissa Dykes, The Daily Sheeple:

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. – Unknown, commonly misattributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, about half of American voters believe that the system U.S. political parties use to pick their candidates for the White House is “rigged” and more than two-thirds want to see the process changed.
Only half?
One would think that, by now, most (if not ALL) people would realize that the entire voting system is a sham.
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Establishment Collapsing: Trump Beating Grand Ol’ Party Of “Serial Child Molesters” and Has Beens

by Mac Slavo, SHTFPlan:

The corruption is on every front. And it is pretty obvious that the two party system has thoroughly rotted through, and its decrepitude obvious to all the onlookers.
There is a great deal of uproar about the collapse of the GOP – which has been thoroughly thwarted and upstaged by Donald Trump at every turn… but it should really come as no surprise.
Everyone hears the warnings that the system is collapsing, but when it doesn’t happen right away, every goes back marching to the music.
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Hillary Will Be The Least Of Your Worries - America Has Economic Diarrhea

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 16:25 According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the official recession arbiter, the US economy is currently at its fourth longest expansion in history. By the sheer nature of a capitalistic society with its inherent cyclicality it is a safe bet that a new economic recession will hit in the not too distant future. We have argued since June last year that the next recession is imminent and we now feel increasingly confident that our prediction will come true before November’s Presidential Election. Even mainstream forecasters seem to jump on the increasingly likely recession-bandwagon.

Obama Admits Couldn't "Convince Americans Of 'Recovery'", Bashes 'The Big Short'

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 14:30 Despite his proclamation that he "saved the world from a Great Depression," the fact is that Obama will be the first President ever to not see a single year of 3% GDP growth - but only cynical fiction-peddlers would mention facts at a time like this. In yet more legacy-defending narrative, Obama told The NYTimes today that his biggest failure was being unable to sell his success in putting the American economy back on track to the American people (no matter the actual realities) careful to blame Republicans for slowing growth "by a percentage point or two." And then in a final affront to fact, Obama dismisses the conclusion of "The Big Short" proclaiming that he reined in Wall Street, overhauled the banking system, and made water from wine "the financial system substantially more stable."

Automating Ourselves To Unemployment

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 17:15 Students of Austrian business cycle theory are familiar with the term malinvestment. A malinvestment is any poor use of resources or capital, commonly made in response to bad policy (usually artificially low interest rates and/or unsustainable increases in the monetary supply). Here, we introduce a related term: malincentive. While not part of the official economic lexicon, I consider a 'malincentive' a useful word to describe any promise of short-term gain whose long-term costs outweigh any immediate benefits enjoyed. Malincetives and malinvestment go hand-in-hand. In my opinion, the former causes the latter. As humans, we respond remarkably well to incentives. And dumb incentives encourage us to make dumb investments.

SEC Begins Crack Down On Non-GAAP Accounting Gimmicks

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 16:48 Having railed for years against the accounting gimmickry known as non-GAAP, with both the WSJ, AP and even Warren Buffett joining the vocal outcry in recent years, things may finally be changing. According to Dow Jones, the SEC is finally stepping up its scrutiny of companies' "homegrown earnings measures, signaling it plans to target firms that inflate their sales results and employ customized metrics that stray too far from accounting rules."

Kamikaze-Kuroda & Carl Icahn Crush Facebook-Driven Stock-Feeding Frenzy

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 16:35

Amazon Soars After Smashing Expectations On Surge In Cloud Profits

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 16:22 Amazon has done it again. Moments ago Jeff Bezos' company reported Q1 earnings that blew away expectations, when it printed revenues of $29.13 billion, well above the expected $28 billion, generating EPS of $1.07 almost double the expected $0.57.

This Is Where America's Runaway Inflation Is Hiding

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 16:09 Deflation, deflation everywhere... except for those 43 million Americans who are being slammed with rent inflation soaring at just over 8% every year, the highest on record.

Why Is JPM's "Quant Guru" Suddenly Worried About The "Endgame"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 15:48 "Increased government spending, financed by central banks could indeed create inflation, but will further elevate the problem of debt viability. If investors lose confidence that the debt can ever be repaid, they will reduce their holdings, increasing the cost to governments or inviting more central bank buying. This can eventually result in the devaluation of all currencies against real assets such as gold, high inflation or even outright defaults (as was the case in Greece). If such a trend develops in one of the large economies, it could have far-reaching consequences."

The Enabler & The Lifeline: Diamond Resorts & Quorum FCU

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/28/2016 - 14:45 Diamond has a good thing going with Quorum: they get access to ample credit, especially for those applicants with weaker credit profiles. From a Diamond investor's perspective, it would be a shame if anything changed. The post credit-crisis strategy of focusing on esoteric lending opportunities like VOI (as well as taxi medallions, hearing aids and fertility treatments) to generate revenues and membership has run into both a broader slowdown in the consumer credit cycle as well as more specific problems, like an increasingly worried regulator.

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

from Lew Rockwell:

Would all of our lives be safer if the government could break down all the doors it wishes, listen to all the conversations it could find and read whatever emails and text messages it could acquire? Perhaps. But who would want to live in such a society?
To prevent that from happening here, the Framers ratified the Fourth Amendment, which is the linchpin of privacy and was famously called by Justice Louis Brandeis “the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” He wrote those words in his dissent in the first wiretapping case to reach the Supreme Court, Olmstead v. the United States, in 1928.
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Why Real Reform Is Now Impossible

by Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds:

The endless bleating of well-paid pundits in the corporate media about “reform” is just more circus.
It’s difficult for well-meaning pundits to abandon the fantasy that meaningful reform is possible. Indeed, a critical function of the punditry and corporate media is to foster the fantasy that the status quo could be reformed if only we all got together and blah blah blah.
As I explain in my new book Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform, real structural reform would trigger the collapse of the status quo. (As a reminder, the status quo benefits the few at the expense of the many.)
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Letter from Oxford

from Paul Craig Roberts:

The letter below came to me from Oxford University where I was a post-graduate.
I do not think it conceivable that the letter was actually written by Oriel College, or any authority at Oxford. This letter was written in exasperation by someone who feels that the civilized world has collapsed around him. This is a letter that the author of the letter wishes had been written.
By presenting the letter, I am not endorsing a make-believe letter or its point of view. My point is different. The world’s most famous university lacks the confidence to defend itself from from unreasonable demands made by students from its former colonies who desire to remove the association of Oriel College with its benefactor, Cecil Rhodes.
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UN Rejects Israel’s Claim To The Golan Heights As Top Rabbis Await The Messiah’s Imminent Arrival

by Michael Snyder, End of the American Dream:

The UN Security Council has unanimously rejected Israel’s claim to sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and this is likely to cause tensions in the Middle East to rise even higher. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boldly declared “that the Golan Heights will remain under Israel’s sovereignty permanently.” After close to 50 years of control over the Golan Heights, this should not have been much of a shock. But the Arab world immediately went into an uproar, and the UN Security Council has taken action. In a unanimous decision, the UN Security Council has announced that Israel’s claims to the Golan Heights are “null and void and without international legal effect.”
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THE ROAD TO CONFETTI

from The Burning Platform:

Ben S. Bernanke, the former Fed chairman turned capital-introduction professional for Pimco, keeps his hand in the policy-making game with periodic blog posts. He’s out with a new one about “helicopter money,” the phrase connoting the idea that, in a deflationary crisis, the government could drop currency from the skies to promote rising prices and brisker spending. Attempting to put the American mind at ease, Bernanke assures his readers that, while there will be no need for such a gambit in “the foreseeable future,” the Fed could easily implement a “money-financed fiscal program” in the hour of need.
No helicopters would be necessary, of course, Bernanke continues. Let the Fed simply top off the Treasury’s checking account—filling it with new digital scrip.
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