US Troops Forced To Flee Town After US-Backed Rebels Threaten To "Slaughter" Them

US special forces soldiers were reportedly forced to flee a town in northern Syria after Free Syrian Army fighters threatened to "slaughter" them for their "invasion", according to videos and reports posted on social media on Friday.

Merkel Says Europe Is In "Critical Situation"

"We need solutions for Europe and we are in a critical situation," Merkel said as she arrived at the gathering. "You can't solve all Europe's problems in one summit. What we have to do is show in our deeds we can do things better in the realms of security and fighting terrorism, and in the field of defense."

Welcome To Paris...

Ah, Paris in the fall; less crowds, color everywhere, less expensive, hot chocolate season, and the Palais-Royal Gardens are lovelier than ever. However, there's just one thing...

World's Most Bearish Hedge Fund Says Active Manager Capitulation Is "Getting Close"

"Ultimately everyone is forced in. Sometimes this happens through capitulation by previously sceptical investors, or sometimes it happens through pure greed as fear of missing out takes over. The big question is, how close are we to that moment? I think we are indeed getting close. Goldman Sachs data on hedge funds show that top 10 positions for average hedge funds make up 70% of long positions."

Nassim Taleb Exposes The World's "Intellectual-Yet-Idiot" Class

"When people vote the way of the I-Y-I elite, it is "democracy". Otherwise it is misguided, irrational, swayed by populism & lack of education."

WTI Crude Slides As Oil Rig Count Rises To 7-Month Highs

Following a week of supply concerns and inventory anxiety, crude prices have slipped notably lower, more potentially bearish news just hit with Baker Hughes reporting the oil rig count rose 2 to 416 - up for the 12th week in a row. This is the highest in 7 months and tracks the lagged oil price perfectly...

88% Probability We Just Entered Recession

Corporate microeconomic policies of capital misallocation (implemented in an attempt to appease investors) are negating all of the intended benefits of Fed policy.  This means we are fully reliant then on fiscal policy which, as we already discussed, is off the table for as far as the eye can see. And so even if we accept that all existing economic policy frameworks (fiscal, monetary, microeconomic) really do have the very best of intentions we are still effectively dead in the water.

Trump Puts An End To The "Most Shameful, Offensive Fear-Mongering" Started By... Hillary

Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, described it as "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election". He was talking about Hillary Clinton in 2008.

What’s The FBI Hiding That Triggered A Congressional Subpoena?

Earlier this week, Republican leaders in both houses of Congress took the FBI to task for its failure to be transparent. In the House, it was apparently necessary to serve a subpoena on an FBI agent to obtain what members of Congress want to see; and in the Senate, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee accused the FBI itself of lawbreaking.

Here Are The "Lines Of People" Waiting For The New iPhone 7

"Buy, Hold, & Pray" Is Not An Investment Strategy

The American consumer is stressed-out, and tapped-out. There are many reasons why Americans have become reluctant shoppers, such as stagnant incomes and rising debt loads, but one of the underappreciated challenges is a distinct change in spending psychology.

Trump Says "Finished Hillary's Birther Movement... Obama Was Born In The US"

“Not to mention her in the same breath but Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean. President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America great again,”

Days After Going After Trump, NY AG Probes Why Exxon Hasn't Written Down Oil Reserves

NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is probing why Exxon Mobil hasn’t written down the value of its assets, two years into a pronounced crash in oil prices. To be sure, it is most likely that Scheiderman is looking for another career-boosting witch hunt, which however is not to say that Exxon is blameless in this particular case.

Stocks Suffer Unprecedented Volatility Shock

Following a record tight 2-month trading range, the stock market exploded with 3 consecutive 1%+ moves; what’s next?

Americans See Current Economic Conditions Worst In 11 Months As Inflation Expectations Plunge

University of Michigan survey results show Current Economic Conditions plunged to 103.5 - the lowest since Oct 2015. The biggest driver of this weakness is tumbling inflation expectations (with 1Y outlook dropping to 2.3% - the lowest since Sept 2010).

"Wrong Way Gartman"...

Gartman: "We Were Uncommonly, Inordinatedly, Improperly Bearish... We Were Wrong"

"We begin by admitting that we were uncommonly, inordinately, improperly bearish, believing that the weakness that had developed since last Friday’s collapse had merely been consolidated… We were wrong."

Deutsche Bonds "Dropping Like A Stone" As 'Most Dangerous Bank In The World' Plummets

"They are dropping like a stone," warns one European credit strategist as signals from the bottom of Deutsche Bank's capital structure signal a "huge increase in the potential for a coupon skip." With DB stock tumbling towards record lows again (EUR 11 handle), Bloomberg reports, the bank’s 1.75 billion euros ($2 billion) of 6% additional Tier 1 bonds, the first notes to take losses in a crisis, are crashing... as the world's most systemically dangerous bank faces existential problems once again.

Mexican Peso Crashes To Record Lows As Trump Odds Surge

While correlation is not causation, it is certainly a wink and a nudge in this case. As Donald Trump's poll numbers soar so the Mexican Peso has been collapsing against the US dollar, and just broke to fresh record lows...

Letter From a Reader re: Photos Showing Crisis Actors Setting up the Nice Scene

by Paul Craig Roberts, Paul Craig Roberts:
You have have posted a fine summary of the Nice FFO http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45429.htm with the video by the foul-mouthed and sarcastic narrator.
I am looking at two photographs of the same scene, one during the set-up, and then the final photo as released. It’s well to compare them in detail. The photo of the preparation is at 23min 30 sec in the video. The lady, front left, has not yet put her foot out from under the sheet. The man (?) to her right hash’t yet seen fit to stick his arm out. A long black object in the left lane has not yet been removed.
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Why Is Turmeric Still Not FDA Approved?

by Sayer Ji, The Sleuth Journal:
There are over 2,000 studies on the GreenMedInfo database demonstrating the power of turmeric to heal, but this time-tested, safe, and affordable healing substance still has not received FDA approval to “prevent, treat, or cure” disease despite the fact that it is capable of doing exactly that.
One of the greatest, if not the greatest triumph of biomedical science today is its role in validating ancient healing modalities that long before the advent of science, and even recorded history itself, were passed down “orally” from generation to generation in the vast body of folkloric medical knowledge that still forms the basis for the majority of the world’s primary health care system. These so-called “natural” or “alternative” modalities, which our species owes its present day survivorship to after eons of dependency on them, are increasingly gaining the attention of men and women in white lab coats intent on unlocking the mysteries of how they work, and in many cases, why they work better than patented, synthetic, chemical-based medications.
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Elizabeth Warren Opens Pandora’s Box With Midnight Letters to DOJ and FBI

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall St On Parade:
While Elizabeth Warren attempted to deliver her keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in July, which included an unabashed endorsement of Hillary Clinton after Warren had failed to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders during the critical primary campaign, chants of “we trusted you” could be heard reverberating through the cavernous hall in Philadelphia.
Warren rose to fame challenging the corrupt practices on Wall Street. She was now aligned with a Presidential candidate who was using Wall Street’s ill-gotten gains from the customers they had fleeced to finance her path to the Oval Office. There is no doubt that this has caused significant cognitive dissonance among Warren’s constituents in Massachusetts’ – the landing site of the Pilgrims and one of the original 13 colonies.
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This is How You’ll Bail out Municipal Pension Funds

by Wolf Richter, Wolf Street:
Check the bills in your mailbox. Happening now in Chicago.
It has gotten so bad that the phrase “Pension Crisis” made it into Wikipedia. It’s the perplexing reality that municipal, state, federal, and corporate pensions in the US and similar schemes around the world are so badly underfunded that it will be impossible to fulfill the promises by a wide margin. By many trillions of dollars.
With state and municipal pension funds in the US, the situation is particularly tricky because the beneficiaries are voters and employees of the government, and politicians of all stripes bought their votes with promises of low contributions and rising benefits. They got away with it for decades because no one cares about “underfunded pensions.” Even the term makes people’s eyes glaze over.
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