In the past months the Obama Administration has clearly also escalated tensions in the seas surrounding the Peoples' Republic of China-East China Sea with Japan and South China Sea with the Philippines-tensions which potentially could provoke a catastrophe. While both provocative operations could give the Pentagon budget a boost in times of budget austerity, they could easily detonate a preemptive...Read More

Negative rates should be integral part of central bank policy options ... Central banks should make negative interest rates a fully integrated part of monetary policy in order to respond effectively to future recessions, according to an academic paper presented on Friday to some of the world’s top central bankers. “It is only a matter of time before another cyclical downturn calls fo...Read More

Are anti-Fed articles appearing in mainstream publications part of an extended program of tearing down the Fed in order to remake it as part of a global central bank?Recently published anti-Fed arguments and their nearer-term motives have been commented on with considerable accuracy by various alternative-media entities. These arguments are compellingly presented. But step back, please.It is...Read More

A Short Checklist for Conspiracy Theorists ... Unlike Wall Street, conspiracy theories are a perfect market, with supply and demand in perpetual equilibrium. This election year has seen soaring demand. -BloombergBloomberg has just posted an editorial debunking conspiracy theories, and the reason for it seems to involve people's suspicion that Hillary Clinton has significant health problems.Usually...Read More

Fed Worries Are Crushing Gold and Silver Stocks ... Gold slumped today, finishing at its lowest level in a month after investors grew worried that the Fed would signal that interest rates would rise when it meets this week. - Motley FoolStrange that the US central bank can preach increased prosperity at a time when some 90-100 million potential workers in the US don't seek formal, mainstream empl...Read More

Sand is essential for modern construction. Almost every new office tower, road and shopping mall being built in Asia's booming cities is made with concrete mixed with sand. And to get more sand, companies and people are pulling sand out of rivers and oceans at an unprecedented rate, say scientists. And in the deep ocean waters off the U.S., sand is being excavated to restore coastlines from Louisi...Read More

The Homeland Security Department is trying to ramp up wearable devices that can detect nuclear radiation ... DHS has made a handful of awards for well-developed prototypes, of wearable products from companies including Leidos and Physical Sciences, Inc., according to a recent FBO posting. Last year, DHS made a broad agency announcement soliciting proposals for so-called Wearable Intelligent Nu...Read More

Hillary, beset by rumors about her health and ethics, is becoming more aggressive with her critics. She is hiring groups to fight back in chat rooms and on websites against criticism, (here).Additionally, she is moving ahead with her campaign as she prefers - and apparently without fear of what her opponents will think - taking a jet for only 20 miles to attend a Rothschild fundraiser in Nantucke...Read More

Being an Ideologue Means Never Having to Say You’re Wrong ... "Communism would have worked, if the Soviet Union had only tried it for real." ... For any political-economic ideology, there is always a hard core of believers who will never waver in their conviction that if only the program were tried in its pure form, it would succeed. Any failures — even debacles on a grand scale, inclu...Read More

How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet Joel Stein ... Troll Culture of Hate Time ... They're turning the web into a cesspool of aggression and violence. What watching them is doing to the rest of us may be even worse ... This story is not a good idea. Not for society and certainly not for me. Because what trolls feed on is attention. And this little bit-these several thousand words-is like leavin...Read More

Brief Donald Trump has beaten Hillary in a major poll.Donald Trump appears to have made a political comeback for the ages, but the media has gone silent about a major new poll that shows the Republican has catapulted back into the lead instead showing their viewers polls from three weeks ago. -SputnikA recent poll released by the USC/LA Times, here, found that Trump held a two point lead over...Read More

BriefPresident Duterte kicks out all presidential appointees in government ... Duterte on Sunday lashed out at the U.S. police killings of black men in his latest outburst against critics of his anti-drug campaign, which has left hundreds of suspects dead. – InquirerPhilippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Sunday that he would be firing thousands of federal officials. Duterte is operating...Read More

Wealthy Have Nearly Healed From Recession; the Poor Haven't ... The Great Recession and the subsequent recovery from it have deepened the wedge between the very wealthy and everyone else in America, plunging the poor deeper into debt and wiping out two-fifths of the wealth held by families in the heart of the middle class. The wealthiest Americans, meanwhile, appear close to regaining all their...Read More

Russia leaves the Dollar based monetary system and adopts a system of Sovereign Currency. The implications are phenomenal! "In 1990 the first priority of Washington and the IMF was to pressure Yeltsin and the Duma to "privatize" the State Bank of Russia, under a Constitutional amendment that mandated the new Central Bank of Russia, like the Federal Reserve or European Central Bank, be a purely m...Read More

Air Force ballistic missile upgrade said to be stalled over cost ... The U.S. Air Force’s program to develop and field an intercontinental ballistic missile to replace aging Minuteman III weapons is stalled over Pentagon concerns the service underestimated the cost by billions of dollars, according to a defense official familiar with the program. - Stars and StripesThe Pentagon seems to be g...Read More

This U.S. Bank Is About to Relive the 2008 Derivatives Nightmare ... Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) - with its stock now trading at a 30-year low - was recently called the world’s riskiest financial institution by the International Monetary Fun … In a last-ditch effort to save itself, DB is trying to dump a bucket load of credit derivatives … You would think no one would buy the...Read More

China to play greater role in Syria while US 'left out' ... Are we seeing the start of a new anti-Islamic State coalition with Russia, Iran and China's involvement in Syria? How could it influence the balance of power in the region? What reaction could be expected from the West, particularly from the countries involved in Syria? -RTThe organization of a larger war continues to become apparent. It...Read More

BRIEFGet ready for the era of The Bitch ... If Hillary Clinton wins the White House in November, it will be a historic moment, the smashing of the preeminent glass ceiling in American public life. - Atlantic (here)This Atlantic article promotes the idea that many men will be angry with President Hillary because of her gender.This is its ultimate point, even though to begin with the article fairly...Read More

BRIEFEvery Month This Year Has Been the Hottest in Recorded History ... On Wednesday, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that July was the hottest month ever recorded on our planet, since modern record-keeping began in 1880. -Motherboard (here) Once again, as almost always it seems, we are confronted with "facts" about global warming.The point of such propa...Read More

BRIEFRyan Lochte, Jimmy Feigen, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger's celebratory night out in Rio continues to get weirder. First the group said they were mugged in a taxi. Then the story changed to include a stop at a gas station restroom. Now authorities have focused on the gas station restroom and there is apparently security footage that shows one of the swimmers "breaking down" a door and "fighting...Read More