Professional Investors Are Preparing For A Stock Market Crash … It looks like a growing number of professional investors are preparing for a stock market crash, as hedge fund filings for the second quarter show a spike in defensive positions. In particular, legendary billionaire George Soros made a huge bet against the market. He increased his short position on the Standard & Poor's...Read More

Don't Let the Dark Ages Happen Here … Last month, Iranian-born Stanford mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics. Congratulations are in order. Mirzakhani did her work here in the U.S., which illustrates an unhappy fact: Central Asian scientists are forced to come to the U.S. to do pioneering work because...Read More

The mishandling of the Scottish referendum shows exactly why Westminster is so hated … The political establishment down here in the Westminster village has been stung into hyperactivity by the sudden surge of support for the Yes campaign in Scotland. Without very much discussion with their own parties Ed Milliband and David Cameron have reached a joint conclusion: that Scotland's discont...Read More

How Europe's low inflation impedes fiscal and structural reform … Europe does not yet have its equivalent of Japan's Abenomics, but Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, pretty much advocated it in his press conference last week. Europe, he said, needs fiscal, monetary and structural policy working together, the three arrows of Abenomics. He acknowledged the ECB's...Read More

New Report: World Leaders Call For Ending Criminalization of Drug Use and Possession and Responsible Legal Regulation of Psychoactive Substances: Former Presidents of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland Join With Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, George Shultz, Paul Volcker And Others To Make Bold, New Recommendations for Major Paradigm Shift in Global Drug Policy on the R...Read More

U.S. Economy Still Missing: 3.9 Million Prime-Age Jobs … Today's U.S. jobs report, which showed nonfarm payrolls increasing by a meager 142,000 jobs and the unemployment rate falling 0.1 percentage point to 6.1 percent in August, will undoubtedly rekindle a familiar debate: How much more should the Federal Reserve do to put people back to work? – BloombergDominant Social Theme: The...Read More

India prepares for shining return of gold demand … Festival season is kicking off in India – a period in which gold sales traditionally spike in the world's largest consumer market for the precious metal. This year investors are watching the key market particularly closely, following a period of muted demand when bourses have rallied and supply has been choked. The recently elected...Read More

Mario Draghi cannot launch QE without German political assent … It is surely wishful thinking to suppose that the ECB is ready to launch full-fledged QE, given its political make-up … Mario Draghi's comments on the eurozone economy at Jackson Hole have put him in direct conflict with Berlin – UK TelegraphDominant Social Theme: These last five years have been a problem, but no...Read More

The Government Wants to Buy 12 Acres of Marijuana – for Research …The NIH is looking for pot farmers. An arm of the National Institutes of Health dedicated to researching drug abuse and addiction "intends" to solicit proposals from those who can "harvest, process, analyze, store and distribute" cannabis, according to a listing posted Tuesday night on a federal gover...Read More

The Sky Is Falling on Chinese Corporations … The four largest banks in China, the banks that have to officially show big profits and profit growth no matter what because they're an integral part not only of the government but also of China's miraculous debt-driven expansion, are showing officially tolerated signs of increasing stress. – WolfStreetDominant Social Theme: There ar...Read More

Icahn, Soros, Druckenmiller, And Now Zell: The Billionaires Are All Quietly Preparing For The Plunge … "The stock market is at an all-time, but economic activity is not at an all-time," explains billionaire investor Sam Zell to CNBC this morning, adding that, "every company that's missed has missed on the revenue side, which is a reflection that there's a demand issue;...Read More

US Signs Agreement with Mexico to Protect Mexican Workers–Including Illegals … At a signing ceremony … the U.S. government, through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Mexican government to allow Mexican Nationals – regardless of immigration status – to "exercise their workplace rights.&quo...Read More

Current Congress might be history's worst at passing laws … It seems like there's not a whole lot being accomplished in the Capitol with the current group of legislators. The current Congress is on track to be the worst ever at passing laws since modern record-keeping began, with three of its lawmakers failing to introduce a single bill, The Post has learned. The divided House and Se...Read More

Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we're nearing collapse … Four decades after the book was published, Limit to Growth's forecasts have been vindicated by new Australian research. Expect the early stages of global collapse to start appearing soon … The 1972 book Limits to Growth, which predicted our civilisation would probably collapse some time this century, has be...Read More

Fed: US consumers have decided to 'hoard money' … One of the great mysteries of the post-financial crisis world is why the U.S. has lacked inflation despite all the money being pumped into the economy. The St. Louis Federal Reserve thinks it has the answer: A paper the central bank branch published this week blames the low level of money movement in large part on consumers and their...Read More

To Save the Rich, China Ruins Hong Kong … When they meet on Sunday, legislators from China's rubber-stamp National People's Congress are expected to disregard even the most moderate proposals to open up Hong Kong's political system. In all likelihood the decision will provoke street protests, drive moderates into the more radical pro-democracy camp and call into question the form...Read More

Why we're so blase about global warming … If you don't regard global warming as a serious problem, your company is growing. According to the survey jockeys at Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans who think global warming is "very serious" or "somewhat serious" has declined since 2006 (from 79 percent to 65 percent). While a firm majority still consider...Read More

Germany to Europe: Help Isn't on the Way … German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has bad news for anyone hoping the European Central Bank will ride to the rescue of the ailing euro region: Monetary policy has come to the end of its instruments. I don't think ECB monetary policy has the instruments to fight deflation, to be quite frank. What we urgently need is investments, regai...Read More

Several Swiss banks pull out of US tax programme … At least 10 Swiss banks have withdrawn from a U.S. programme aimed at settling a tax dispute between them and the United States, Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag said on Sunday, quoting unnamed sources. Around 100 Swiss banks came forward at the end of last year to work with U.S. authorities in a programme brokered by the Swiss government to h...Read More

The criminalisation of American business … Corporate settlements in the United States The criminalisation of American business Companies must be punished when they do wrong, but the legal system has become an extortion racket … Who runs the world's most lucrative shakedown operation? The Sicilian mafia? The People's Liberation Army in China? The kleptocracy in the Kremlin? If y...Read More