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Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,

It didn’t make many national headlines, but the proposed budget for NASA’s “Planetary Defense Coordination Office” was just increased by 90 million dollars. 

At a time when our national budget is already stretched to the max, this seems like an odd thing to be spending so much money on.  As you will see below, the “Planetary Defense Coordination Office” is only two years old, and it is in charge of tracking threats posed by near-Earth objects such as asteroids.  Needless to say, if a giant asteroid suddenly hit our planet it would be the greatest catastrophe in modern times and for those of us that survived our lives would be radically different from then on.  So the threat is real, but in recent years NASA has assured the public that there are no imminent threats.  Has that now changed?

This is a subject that I am particularly interested in, and so a Politico article about “NASA’s asteroid defense program” definitely caught my eye…

The Trump administration has proposed increasing the budget for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office by three-fold — from some $60 million to $150 million — amid growing concerns that humanity is utterly unprepared for the unlikely but still unthinkable: an asteroid strike of calamitous proportions.

The White House also recently issued a new National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan intended to energize a host of agencies who could contribute to potential ways to prevent such as a disaster.

First of all, why spend 90 million dollars that we don’t have if there is nothing to be concerned about?

Secondly, why issue a brand new plan that is “intended to energize a host of agencies who could contribute to potential ways to prevent such as a disaster” if there is no disaster looming for the foreseeable future?

Something doesn’t smell right about all of this.

According to NASA, there are more than 25,000 asteroids lurking out there that are 140 meters in size or greater.

And overall, there are approximately a million near-Earth objects that could pose a potential threat.

So it definitely makes sense to be prepared for such a disaster, and NASA established the ‘Planetary Defense Coordination Office’ back in early 2016…

If and when the interplanetary asteroid apocalypse comes, NASA plans to be prepared.

In a little noticed move this week, the space agency announced that it had created a directorate for “detecting and tracking near earth objects (NEOs).”

The new Planetary Defense Coordination Office—which, despite its science fiction-sounding name, is part of a very real effort to ward off the potentially deadly impact of asteroids that may hit the planet—is charged with supervising “all NASA-funded projects to find and characterize asteroids and comets that pass near Earth’s orbit around the sun.”

At that time, it was being reported that one of the primary tasks of this new agency was to find a way to “redirect” potentially dangerous asteroids…

The office is also developing long-term planetary defense goals. They include “asteroid redirect” concepts that could could push the threatening object off course and away from Earth – a program also of interest to the European Space Agency. NASA is poised for the worst case scenario as well.

“Even if intervention is not possible, NASA would provide expert input to FEMA about impact timing, location, and effects to inform emergency response operations. In turn, FEMA would handle the preparations and response planning related to the consequences of atmospheric entry or impact to U.S. communities,” the space agency noted.

Today, the ‘Planetary Defense Coordination Office’ is being headed up by former Air Force officer Lindley Johnson.  And what he recently told Politico about what a major asteroid impact would mean for our nation was quite chilling…

As we studied the problem more, we looked at the effects of an impact of even a 100-plus meter size object. If it were to impact near a metropolitan area, it would be a disaster on a scale more than anything we’ve tried to deal with in our history. So the threshold that we wanted to look for these things was lowered actually to 140 meters in size based upon a study that NASA sponsored. It would be an existential threat to national well-being. The effects of it would have a significant impact to our society and a nation as a whole.

But once again, why all the fuss if NASA is confident that there are no major threats on the horizon?

Or could it be possible that they are not being entirely truthful with us?

In a previous article, I discussed the fact that the head of Russia’s space agency, Anatoly Perminov, has publicly stated that an 885-foot-wide asteroid known as Apophis “will surely collide with the Earth in the 2030s”.

The 2030s may seem like the distant future right now, but to me it seems like it was just yesterday that the calendar was rolling over from the year 1999 to the year 2000.

And of course there are so many threats that the major space agencies don’t even know about at this point.  For example, the huge meteor that recently exploded over a U.S. military base in Greenland was a complete surprise to authorities.

The truth is that the next time we get hit, there will probably be little to no warning, and if the asteroid is big enough millions of people could die.

According to a very disturbing study that was conducted at the University of California at Santa Cruz, if a very large asteroid hit the Atlantic Ocean we could potentially see tsunami waves as high as 400 feet slam into the east coast of the United States…

If an asteroid crashes into the Earth, it is likely to splash down somewhere in the oceans that cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface. Huge tsunami waves, spreading out from the impact site like the ripples from a rock tossed into a pond, would inundate heavily populated coastal areas. A computer simulation of an asteroid impact tsunami developed by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows waves as high as 400 feet sweeping onto the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

We are talking about a disaster that would wipe out Miami, Charleston, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and New York City along with countless other cities in a single day.

Today, 39 percent of all Americans live in a county that directly borders a shoreline, and so we are extremely vulnerable.

And scientists assure us that it is only a matter of time before we see more giant tsunamis like the one that devastated Japan in 2011.  Even if no asteroid hits us in the near future, the crust of our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and this is particularly true along the Ring of Fire.

Part of the job of the federal government is to protect us, and so NASA should be applauded for wanting to be prepared.

But are they being entirely truthful with us, and if not, what is it that they are not telling us?

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Two weeks ago, just before stocks would suffer their biggest losses since the February VIXtermination event amid surging interest rates, Guggenheim’s Global Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd poured gasoline on the fire with an ominous tweet that caught the attention of the investment community: “Rising rates and declining stocks echo shades of October 1987.”

Rising rates and declining stocks echo shades of October 1987.

— Scott Minerd (@ScottMinerd) October 5, 2018

And while stocks did tumble sharply shortly after Minerd’s tweet, last week’s selloff was not nearly as acute as the Black Monday crash that scarred a generation of traders (that said there are still 2 weeks left in October). Meanwhile, despite the sharp selloff, Minerd has not retracted his crash prediction, on the contrary.

In an extensive interview with Goldman’s Marina Grushin (republished below), the Guggenheim Investments Chairman once again lays out his bearish case, starting with what he believes is the most mispriced asset, i.e., credit, stating that credit spreads are too
tight right now, and noting that “after adjusting for expected credit losses, HY bonds offer minimal value over Treasuries. While carry is reasonably attractive and trailing defaults are modest, a credit investor should not take for granted the ability to liquidate a position when the value proposition changes. The door is always smaller on the way out.”

What is more troubling to equity investors is Minerd’s contention that “turmoil in the credit markets will almost certainly spill over into the equity markets” and that “in a scenario similar to 2001/02, HY spreads could widen by about 800bp or more, which corresponds to a roughly 40% decline in stocks — effectively a retracement to prior technical support levels, the S&P 500 highs of 2007 and 2000.”

And while Minerd isn’t calling for an imminent collapse, saying that he doesn’t think the equity bull market is over yet, he predicts  that “an eventual decline of that magnitude looks justifiable to me on a technical and a fundamental basis.”

So if not imminent then when? His answer: by Q2 of 2019 everything will be tumbling:

Corporate credit spreads tend to start widening roughly one year before a recession begins, which would correspond to the first half of next year. But with spreads as tight as they are you aren’t giving up much by starting to reduce risk now. Besides, it takes time to turn a ship around.

Equities will probably peak a bit later in 2019, not least because the Nov-April period tends to be seasonally strong for stocks, especially after midterm elections. That will be the rally to sell. By the end of Q2 next year, I expect risk-off everywhere.

And just in case that’s not enough, Minerd also stakes his reputation on the call that a recession is just around the corner, and the US will see its first economic contraction since 2009 in 2020, when the Trump fiscal stimulus impulse is finally exhausted. But fear not, when that happens, “the Fed will cut rates to zero, employ aggressive forward guidance, and resurrect QE.”

Scott Minerd’s full interview with Goldman’s Grushin is below.

Marina Grushin: What makes you confident that the US economy will enter recession in early 2020?

Scott Minerd: Confidence in our recession call stems from what we’ve observed in past business cycles. Most pre-recessionary periods share a common set of characteristics. They start with an economy growing above potential, putting downward pressure on unemployment. The Fed then raises interest rates—eventually into restrictive territory—to try to limit the growth of  imbalances. This is the key recession trigger. Evidence that policy is getting tighter can be seen in the flattening of the  Treasury yield curve. Economic activity doesn’t typically slow until a few quarters prior to recession; in fact, growth in the second-to-last year of the expansion is usually fairly strong. We see all of these things playing out right now. The fact that the fiscal impulse is set to fade in 2020 and policy uncertainty will rise heading into the presidential election only adds to my confidence.

Marina Grushin: What assumptions are you making about inflation and interest rates?

Scott Minerd: We’re expecting core PCE inflation to rise over the next couple of years to around 2.25%, partly as a result of cyclical consumer pressures. Tariffs will also have more impact than people think. Not only will imported goods prices increase but  competing producers will pad their profit margins by raising prices on domestically produced goods, just as we saw with the 20% increase in washing machine prices earlier this year.

In the face of inflationary pressures and low unemployment, the Fed will have no choice but to forge ahead into restrictive territory. Even former doves like Governor Lael Brainard are now arguing that the short-run neutral rate may be rising, and that policy will eventually need to become restrictive relative to that. In fact, all Fed officials forecast that the terminal rate will be above their respective forecasts of neutral. So restrictive policy is coming in 2019. We therefore see the Fed raising the target range to 3.25-3.50% next year. This will put three-month Libor somewhat above 3.75%. Long-term Treasury yields will likely top out near 3.50%, and the yield curve will invert once it’s clear the Fed is done hiking. We expect a Fed easing  cycle to begin in 2020, which will put to rest questions about whether the 35-year bull market in bonds is over. It isn’t.

Marina Grushin: You mentioned the shape of the yield curve as evidence of growing recession risk. Haven’t QE and other factors reduced the curve’s signaling power?

Scott Minerd: I’m not a new-era thinker on this issue. What the conventional wisdom misses is that offsetting factors have negated the Fed’s impact on the shape of the yield curve. QE was more than offset by the combination of large deficits, the decline in market yields and the extension of the Treasury portfolio’s average maturity. Post-crisis regulation also contributed to a steeper curve, as did the Emerging Market (EM) turmoil of 2015-16, which resulted in the liquidation of a lot of FX reserves, i.e. Treasuries. We see evidence that these factors matter when we look at the cheapening of Treasuries relative to swaps in the past decade or the current steepness of the Treasury curve relative to the Overnight Index Swap (OIS) curve. Lastly, term premiums are not as low as the Fed’s models say, so the argument that negative term premiums should affect how we interpret yield curve flattening just doesn’t hold water. But even if you don’t believe the yield curve, there are still reasons to believe that a recession is around the corner. One is that consumer and business surveys give the same late-cycle signal as the Treasury market.

Marina Grushin: Does the recent steepening give you pause?

Scott Minerd: I wouldn’t draw conclusions based on a few trading days. Sure, the curve has steepened recently, but it’s been flattening for the last three years! As I said, longer-dated yields are getting closer to our expected terminal rate and there’s still more room for short-end yields to increase.

Marina Grushin: You’ve expressed concern about corporate debt. What are the risks?

Scott Minerd: The last recession featured overleveraged consumers and banks; the next one will feature overleveraged companies and non-bank investors that have taken on too much risk in the era of low rates and QE. As the Fed raises rates, it will choke off corporate free cash flow. Leverage among IG companies, which has already increased a lot in this cycle, will rise further when earnings roll over. This will help lead to a big wave of rating downgrades, thanks to the dramatic growth of the BBB segment of the corporate bond market. BBB-rated bonds now account for almost half of the Bloomberg Barclays Corporate IG index, yet many of their issuers have leverage ratios that were historically associated with BB securities. Passive bond funds have not only aided the buildup of these risks but may also exacerbate their impact when they eventually need to sell downgraded positions into an illiquid market. If the scale of downgrades is on par with prior cycles, the migration of “fallen angels” from BBB to BB could amount to about $1tn of debt, overwhelming the HY market. That will tighten financial conditions and hurt the economy.

Marina Grushin: Haven’t corporate borrowers mitigated these risks by locking in low rates at longer maturities?

Scott Minerd: Actually, a lot of corporate America appears more sensitive to changes in interest rates today, and that lot exists in the riskiest segment—issuers rated below investment-grade (IG). Floating-rate liabilities currently make up a larger piece of the high-yield (HY) corporate debt pie than at any time in the past; and if not this year, then next year, there will be more floating-rate bank loans than fixed-rate HY bonds outstanding. The companies that have locked in rates are typically IG, and won’t be the most vulnerable in a recession.

Marina Grushin: Does the growth of non-bank lending worry you?

Scott Minerd: It’s a risk we’re watching in the HY market. Fifteen years ago, around 80% of all syndicated loans remained on bank balance sheets through a “pro-rata” tranche that was a revolving credit line or an amortizing term loan; now, 70-80% of syndicated bank loans are outside of the banking system, meaning that the pro-rata tranche is much smaller in comparison to the institutional loan tranche that is distributed among non-bank lenders. We’ve also seen estimates that the private debt market has grown to around $400bn to $700bn in size—larger than the size of the bank loan market in 2007. That has made it harder to trace credit risk and maintain credit standards. Meanwhile, innovations like bank loan ETFs have moved credit risk into the hands of retail investors. That’s something we didn’t have to worry about in the last major crisis in corporate credit, in 2001/02. We’re in uncharted territory.

Marina Grushin: Putting this all together, how severe do you think the next recession will be?

Scott Minerd: The next recession may not be any more severe than average in part because policymakers are likely to act quickly knowing that they have limited policy options. But that lack of policy space worries me. In the US we’ll be entering the downturn with the largest peacetime budget deficit we’ve had outside of a recession, and the Fed is likely to be constrained by the zero bound once again, making this the recession when unconventional policies become conventional; we expect the Fed to cut rates to zero, employ aggressive forward guidance, and resurrect QE. Whether these tools will be as effective as the Fed claims they were in the last cycle remains to be seen. Keep in mind that achieving the equivalent of a 2% rate reduction—the difference between our 3.5% forecast for the terminal rate and the roughly 5.5pp of rate cuts in a typical easing cycle—would be worth several trillion dollars of QE. Put differently, we think the Fed will probably wish they had more powerful tools when the time comes to use them.

Outside of the US, the lack of policy space is even more concerning. Markets will force belt-tightening measures in Southern Europe, but the ECB will have minimal ability to cushion the downturn. Will the political systems in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece be able to deliver the fiscal tightening that markets will demand? If not, then we’ll have big problems. The BOJ will have limited options to fight a sharp appreciation of the yen, and China will be choking on bad debt after an epic debt binge over the last decade. These factors could make the next recession more severe than our models suggest.

Marina Grushin: What looks mispriced today?

Scott Minerd: Not surprisingly, we think credit spreads are too tight right now. For example, after adjusting for expected credit losses, HY bonds offer minimal value over Treasuries. While carry is reasonably attractive and trailing defaults are modest, a credit investor should not take for granted the ability to liquidate a position when the value proposition changes. The door is always smaller on the way out.

More broadly, turmoil in the credit markets will almost certainly spill over into the equity markets. In a scenario similar to 2001/02, we think HY spreads could widen by about 800bp or more, which corresponds to a roughly 40% decline in stocks— effectively a retracement to prior technical support levels, the S&P 500 highs of 2007 and 2000. While I don’t think the equity bull market is over yet, an eventual decline of that magnitude looks justifiable to me on a technical and a fundamental basis.

Marina Grushin: How soon should investors reduce risk?

Scott Minerd: Corporate credit spreads tend to start widening roughly one year before a recession begins, which would correspond to the first half of next year. But with spreads as tight as they are you aren’t giving up much by starting to reduce risk now. Besides, it takes time to turn a ship around.

Equities will probably peak a bit later in 2019, not least because the Nov-April period tends to be seasonally strong for stocks, especially after midterm elections. That will be the rally to sell. By the end of Q2 next year, I expect risk-off everywhere.

Marina Grushin: What should investors buy/sell today?

Scott Minerd: We’re underweight duration in our core fixed income funds to position for a rise in rates toward 3.5%. We expect the yield curve to continue flattening and recommend a barbell of high-quality, longer-duration bonds and floating-rate credit. We are upgrading credit quality and reducing our credit beta in anticipation of spread widening beginning next year.

Marina Grushin: What would have to happen for you to change your call for a recession in 2020?

Scott Minerd: We’d likely have to see faster supply-side growth, which would allow us to sustain this pace of economic growth without putting pressure on resource utilization. That would entail better productivity growth but also more rapid increases in labor supply. Despite some observers’ optimism that tax cuts will achieve the former, we don’t expect to see major productivity gains. As for the latter, Washington is unfortunately pursuing a self-defeating immigration policy. At a time when we should be welcoming new foreign workers who can fill the void left by retiring baby boomers, we’re instead looking for ways to restrict immigration.

Marina Grushin: What else are you looking out for?

Scott Minerd: Aside from our recession dashboard, we’ll be keeping a close eye on trade. An escalation of the US-China trade dispute looks nearly inevitable. Large majorities of voters across the US political spectrum describe China’s trade practices as unfair. We expect US politicians of both parties to exploit this angst. But the demands the US has made of China go to the very heart of the Communist Party’s growth model, so it’s hard to see Beijing capitulating. There will be a lot of collateral damage as this escalates. The policy response by the Chinese will be key; we are likely to see a material devaluation of the renminbi, which would put more downward pressure on other EM currencies. That could make it more difficult for EM borrowers to service their large stock of dollar-denominated debt, especially if it coincides with the onset of a recession.

The budget situation in Italy also bears watching. The government there is playing a dangerous game. As the Fed continues to tighten and the ECB winds down QE, Italy will find markets to be less forgiving—and once the US business cycle turns things will only become more difficult. Another crisis of confidence involving the euro appears inevitable.

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Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

I was going to write another article today about a different topic, but I backed down because I didn’t think I could deliver the kind of fiery, forceful, unmitigated argument it would need to be without risking getting banned from social media and blogging platforms.

The article I was planning on writing, which you’ll just have to imagine now, would have been titled “ ‘Assange Can Leave Whenever He Wants!’ No, Idiot, He Can’t.” The feature image was going to be a screen shot of a blue-checkmarked empire loyalist named Greg Olear tweeting the infuriatingly dopey argument that Assange is free to just waltz out the embassy doors whenever he wants, so therefore he isn’t actually being imprisoned by an Orwellian power establishment for publishing authentic documents about powerful people. Never mind the fact that you can say exactly the same thing about literally anyone under political asylum; they are all free to leave the political asylum they’ve been granted at any time, and pointing this out is just describing the thing that political asylum is. Never mind the fact that a UN panel ruled that Assange is being arbitrarily detained by the threat of imprisonment. Never mind that the same US government which tortured Chelsea Manning is currently openly pursuing Assange’s arrest because of his publications, making the assertion that he’s “free to leave” the same as saying he’s “free” to jump off a cliff. People don’t want to believe that their government imprisons journalists, so whenever Assange is in the news you see this argument making the rounds.

It would have been a firecracker of an article, but when it came time to write it, I backed down. I’d generally rather scrap an article than write something tepid and boring that won’t make any impact, so the risk of losing access to my platforms outweighed my desire to write what I’d planned on writing.

Internet Censorship Just Took An Unprecedented Leap Forward, And Hardly Anyone Noticed

“This is huge, this is dangerous, and this is being under-reported.”#Twitter #Facebook #InternetCensorship #censorshiphttps://t.co/7gg9ltEY3u

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 13, 2018

I’ve been self-censoring more and more lately, especially since the latest round of coordinated cross-platform silencing of multiple alternative media outlets the other day. Back in August I had my Twitter account temporarily deletedwhen I said the world will be better off without John McCain and a bunch of #Resistance accounts mass reported me; Twitter cited “abusive behavior” as its justification. The only reason my account was restored was because there was a large objection from many high-profile journalists and activists who understand the dangers of internet censorship, and I’m not willing to gamble that I’d get that lucky should something similar happen again. Being able to disrupt establishment narratives on a high-traffic website like Twitter outweighs the benefits of speaking in an unmitigated way.

And that ultimately is precisely the point. If the social engineers can make an example of a few dissident voices in the public eye, everyone else will rein in their own speech and behavior to avoid the same fate. The overall effect of this phenomenon is actually far more effective in suppressing dissident speech than the overt censorship is by itself, because self-censorship actually silences exponentially more anti-establishment opinions. For every one voice you crack down on overtly, a thousand more silence themselves out of self-preservation, not saying things they would otherwise say and not doing things they would otherwise do.

Obviously a perfectly normal and sane response to having your funding and media accolades criticized. pic.twitter.com/VsuQRZjPJn

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 13, 2018

Meanwhile empire loyalists know that they can consistently get away with saying anything they want with total impunity. The other day for example I criticized the fawning media accolades that professional Atlantic Council propagandist Eliot Higgins has been receiving lately, and he responded by calling me “Grotbags”, an obese witch character from a nineties children’s television show. The joke being, you see, that I am overweight, and I am also a woman, so I am therefore similar to the character Grotbags. Ha ha ha. Eliot has been repeating this hilarious joke for months with zero consequences. He also made headlines back in June with his repeated public invitation for people who disagree with him on Twitter to suck his balls, also with zero consequences.

After my August Twitter suspension a #Resistance account publicly doxxed me, posting my home address, phone number and other information. I didn’t make a public ordeal out of it at the time because I obviously didn’t want to draw attention to it, but I did report it because I wanted it deleted. I was not expecting Twitter Support to reject my report, especially after they had me jump through a bunch of hoops to prove that I did in fact live where the doxxer was saying I lived, but they did.

“We understand that you might come across content on Twitter that you dislike or find offensive,” Twitter wrote back.

“However, after investigating the reported content we found it was not in violation of Twitter’s private information policy. As a result, it won’t be removed at this time.”

I see this routinely across all platforms; some accounts act without any fear of consequences, others seem primed for hair-trigger suspension. The bias is distinctly slanted in the favor of those who support CIA/CNN narratives and attack anyone who speaks out of alignment with the agendas of the US-centralized empire.

So while we are mitigating our speech more and more, the Eliot Higginses of the new media environment consistently get away with all manner of abusive behavior without any repercussions. We’re fighting a media war in which we are not just outnumbered and outgunned, but are increasingly forced to fight with one arm tied behind our backs. The only thing we have going for us at this point is that authenticity is attractive and oligarchic funding can’t buy creativity or inspiration.

So anyway, there’s my confession that I have been caving to self-censorship to avoid being de-platformed. Rather than denying it, I think it’s best that we all admit to it when we do it and call it what it is, because it’s an unseen part of the people’s media rebellion that is generally overlooked and under-appreciated. I haven’t really figured out what to do about it beyond that, but in my experience drawing the light of attention to these things is always a good idea.

* * *

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out mypodcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal,buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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According to Gallup, Americans’ evaluations of current US economic conditions and the economy’s trajectory have not been more optimistic since 2000. Currently, 54% of Americans rate economic conditions as “excellent” or “good,” and just 12% as “poor.” Also, by 57% to 34%, more Americans say the economy is getting better than say it is getting worse.

The combination of those answers results in a Gallup Economic Confidence Index of +33. The index was last at that level in January 2004, and has not been higher since November 2000 (+39), at the tail end of the dot-com bubble.

The latest results, based on a survey taken between Oct. 1-10, may have been affected negatively as the stock market has been volatile since then which could adversely affect consumer attitudes. Any effect of the stock market volatility that began Oct. 10 would not be fully reflected in these results.

Gallup first asked Americans to assess the state of the economy using its current conditions and economic outlook questions in 1992, and has done so on a regular basis since 1996. The questions were asked at least monthly between October 2000 and December 2008, and on Gallup’s annual April economic survey between 2009 and 2017. In December 2017, Gallup resumed asking them monthly.

Gallup asked the same questions on daily tracking surveys between 2008 and 2017. While the tracking and non-tracking survey estimates did not always match, they were usually within 10 points of each other. Because economic confidence was depressed throughout those years, it is safe to conclude that the current level of confidence has not been higher in any Gallup polling on the topic since 2000.

Today’s robust confidence numbers are still below the high in Gallup’s trend, a +56 confidence index rating in January 2000, at a time of then-record stock values, low unemployment and strong economic growth. That month, 71% of Americans rated current economic conditions as excellent or good, while just 5% rated them as poor. Also, 69% thought the economy was getting better and 23% worse.

And while sentiment about the economy may be booming, US assessments of the job market are off the charts, and at record levels

The Oct. 1-10 poll finds similarly positive ratings of the U.S. job market. Sixty-eight percent of U.S. adults say it is a good time to find a quality job, tying July’s measure as the highest in Gallup’s trend dating back to August 2001. The quality job trend has been asked each month since October 2001. Not until January 2007 did a majority of Americans rate the job market positively on this measure. In September 2017, perceptions that it was a good time to find a quality job surpassed 60% for the first time, and that figure has been at 62% or higher since February.

There has traditionally been a strong relationship between the U.S. unemployment rate and the percentage saying it was a good time to find a quality job. On Oct. 5, while the latest survey was in the field, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that unemployment had dropped to a 49-year low of 3.7%. In contrast, when the unemployment rate was high in late 2009 and early 2010, perceptions that it was a good time to find a quality job sunk to as low as 8% in November 2009.

Implications

Ten years after the Great Recession rocked the U.S., Americans’ confidence in the economy has returned to levels not surpassed since the dot-com boom. Economic confidence began to improve in President Barack Obama’s second term and has expanded further during Donald Trump’s presidency, as unemployment continues to decline, the economy shows sustained growth and stock values set new records.

Trump and the Republican majority in Congress are hoping the strong economy will help the party hold onto its power in the midterm elections. What remains a puzzle is that with Trump’s overall job approval stuck in the 40s and his economic approval rating not much better, it does not appear he is getting much credit from the public for the state of the economy. By comparison, when economic evaluations were last as positive as now, George W. Bush had a 60% job approval rating (January 2004) and Bill Clinton had a 63% approval rating (November 2000).

Renewed stock market volatility, higher interest rates, an expanding federal budget deficit and U.S. trade disagreements with other countries all represent threats to the strong economy and consumer confidence. However, those factors have not stopped the positive economic momentum to date – and until the economy begins to show signs of weakening, Americans will likely continue to express confidence in the economy, if not the president..

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Authored by Michael Howard via The American Herald Tribune,

At this point we can only assume that the Turkish version of events regarding the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi is true. As always, I’m open to being proved wrong, and it’s certainly incumbent upon Ankara to release the audio evidence of which they claim to be in possession (though this, should it come out, will naturally be dismissed by the Saudis as fabricated or doctored), but the list of plausible alternative scenarios currently stands at zero. Khashoggi went into the Saudi consulate and was never seen again. If he had merely been kidnapped and jailed, we’d have heard from him by now. He would have appeared on Saudi state television and delivered some kind of scripted statement like Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri did last November. The House of Saud appears to prefer this time of year, autumn, for abductions and assassinations.

If Khashoggi was, in fact, whacked out by a Saudi hit squad—complete with torture and Goodfellas-style dismemberment—as the Turks maintain he was, then Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is even crazier than we thought. Since being named heir apparent by his senile father, King Salman, the crown prince has been on a mission to establish himself as the region’s chief thug. This is no small task, but MbS, as he’s blithely referred to, seems up to the challenge.

As Patrick Cockburn recently wrote, the crown prince’s list of failures, in so short a span of time, is impressive. His escalation of the war in Yemen has achieved nothing unless you count mass murder and mass famine as achievements. The Houthis are holding fast, and the country has been all but obliterated. Perhaps, though, the Saudis view Yemen’s destruction favorably. Like the US invasion of Vietnam, Saudi Arabia’s overarching goal in Yemen is to demonstrate to the region what happens when populations revolt against their oppressors. You want to upend the status quo and realize a degree of independence and self-government, you’d better be prepared to be pulverized. That’s the warning being issued by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

No sooner had bin Salman been appointed crown prince (June 2017) than the Saudi-led diplomatic and economic war on Qatar commenced. The express purpose of the surprise gambit was to punish Doha for its support for terrorism—pretty rich coming from the epicenter of Wahhabism, that diabolic interpretation of Islam upon which al-Qaeda and its numerous clones base their murderous ideologies. Of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, fifteen were Saudi nationals; none were Qatari.

Which is not to say that Qatar is innocent of the charge. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with the UAE, supported the same terrorist elements of the Syrian opposition. Hillary Clinton, in one of her $250,000 speeches to Goldman Sachs, confirmed this in 2013, asserting that Damascus and its allies were “being taken on by indigenous rebels but increasingly a collection of jihadists who are funded by the Saudis, funded by the Emiratis, funded by [Qatar] …” (Emphasis mine.) In a 2014email sent to John Podesta, Clinton wrote: “we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.” Knowing this, Hillary publicly argued in favor of regime change in Syria. But I’m sick to death of writing about Hillary Clinton.

To call the support-for-terrorism pretext flimsy is generous. Preposterous is the better word. I can’t imagine that even casual observers were taken in by it, Donald Trump being a possible exception (he stupidly spoke in favor of the Saudi blockade, apparently unaware that his country maintains a critical military base in Qatar). Riyadh’s motivation was obvious: Qatar was being disciplined for its pragmatic relationship with Iran, with whom it shares the biggest natural gas field in the world. Also for Al Jazeera’s—Qatar’s state-funded media outlet— unflattering coverage of Saudi policies. What the crown prince was hoping to accomplish here is anyone’s guess. Did he think Doha would surrender its own strategic interests, renounce its cooperation with Tehran and meekly submit to his capricious will? Needless to say that didn’t happen. Qatar responded by reinstating full diplomatic relations with Iran, which, along with Turkey, increased exports to Qatar, diminishing the effect of the embargo.

A few months later, right around the time the crown prince launched his Stalinist purge of the royal family, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was detained on a visit to Saudi Arabia. Soon after, clearly reading from a text that had been prepared for him, he announced his resignation on Saudi state TV. In his statement he hit out at Hezbollah and Iran; he also claimed that an attempt on his life—presumably from Hezbollah or Iran—was imminent (Lebanese intelligence contested this). The charade was absolutely transparent. “The words [Hariri] read out,” Robert Fisk wrote at the time, “are entirely in line with the speeches of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman and with the insane president of the United States who speaks of Iran with the same anger, as does the American defense secretary.”

Predictably, the bizarre incident had the effect of uniting the Lebanese people in support of their prime minister and, more importantly, their national sovereignty. Lebanese President Michel Aoun rejected Hariri’s “resignation” and demanded that he return to Lebanon, which he did a couple weeks later. On December 5, one month and one day after resigning, Hariri reassumed the office of prime minister. The crown prince’s stratagem had backfired in spectacular fashion. Meanwhile, Hariri, who strikes me as a bit of a wimp, refuses to speak about what exactly took place during that trip to Saudi Arabia, and is now reportedly taking the kingdom’s side in the Khashoggi affair.

From said affair, we can take away a few things.

First, I’m happy to see that the US and its allies have suddenly embraced due process, calling as they are for a thorough, independent investigation into the event so as to establish beyond a doubt what actually took place, at which point they can respond accordingly. I trust they will now apply the same evidentiary standards to, say, the next chemical weapons incident in Syria, or the next botched assassination of an ex-spy in Europe.

Moreover, it’s good to know where we in the West draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior as regards official allies. Shelling hospitals and mosques and schools andschool buses and weddings and funerals is one thing—unfortunate casualties of war, worthy of a few hollow words of regret. Killing a Washington Post columnist, however, will not be brooked.

Hence, the mass boycott of the upcoming business conference in Riyadh, and Trump’s talk of “severe punishment.” In the world of American politics, one Khashoggi is worth one million Yemeni lives.

Mohammed bin Salman ought to have understood this. That he didn’t tells us much about the man set to rule Saudi Arabia for the next four or five decades. Such hubris, such vanity, and he’s not even king yet! If I had his ear, I would advise the crown prince to exercise extreme caution moving forward. There’s hell to pay for stepping on Uncle Sam’s toes: once he sours on you, your days are numbered. Our old friend and ally Saddam Hussein can, or could, attest to that. I would also hand him a copy of King Lear as a cautionary tale, as the state of affairs in Saudi Arabia is a sparkling case of life imitating art.

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As regulators’ campaign to kill off Libor continues unabated, helping to squeeze the 3 month dollar Libor rate to its highest level since the financial crisis, federal prosecutors in New York have won convictions on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy against two former Deutsche Bank traders for rigging the benchmark rate that underpins the value of nearly $400 trillion in financial instruments denominated in a range of currencies.

Matthew Connolly, who supervised the bank’s money-market derivatives desk in New York, and Gavin Black, who traded derivatives in London, were convicted on the basis of testimony from three junior traders (two of whom pleaded guilty, and a third signed an agreement to avoid prosecution in exchange for his testimony), who said Connolly and Black directed them to aid in the altering of the bank’s Libor submissions to benefit the desk’s trading positions. The illicit behavior for which the two men were convicted took place between 2004 and 2011, according to Bloomberg.

Matthew Connolly, left, outside the federal court house.

The convictions represent a major win for federal prosecutors, but they can’t celebrate just yet; last summer, convictions won by the DOJ against two London-based Rabobank traders were reversed on appeal, dealing an embarrassing blow to prosecutors in New York and the DOJ. All told, global regulators have secured $9 billion in fines from a collection of some of the world’s largest investment banks, including DB and Barclays.

But for the duration of the trial, it appeared that Connolly and Black would also beat the rap, as the judge treated the fumbling prosecutors with open hostility, particularly after one of the government’s key witnesses was called out by the defense in open court for lying about his bonus in a federal plea agreement.

The defense had some success in portraying the three witnesses as liars who molded their stories to avoid prosecution.

The three former traders told jurors that, at the urging of the defendants, they altered the rate or pressured others to submit false data to benefit trading positions held by Connolly and Black. Parietti said Connolly ordered him to disclose positions to the submitters in London because Connolly believed his team was being undermined by others at the bank who were rigging the rate in their favor.

The defense argued that there were no clear guidelines on how banks should submit their rates for the calculation of Libor until at least 2008, and that they weren’t expressly forbidden from taking derivative trading positions into account when making the submission until 2013.

During cross-examination, attorneys for Connolly and Black attempted to portray the government’s witnesses as liars who initially defended their practices to investigators and changed their stories only in exchange for a deal with prosecutors.

All told, at least 10 former Deutsche Bank traders have been charged with rigging interest-rate benchmarks, including Libor and Euribor, in the US and UK. Christian Bittar, a former DB prop trader who was effectively directed by the bank to influence rates (and who was pushed out after DB clawed back some of his bonus and turned him into a convenient scapegoat), was sentenced to five years and four months alongside Barclays trader Philippe Moryoussef, who received 8 years but was sentenced in absentia because he chose to stay in France. 

The challenge for the prosecution will now shift to ensuring that these convictions stick. But while prosecutors will no doubt hold up the scalps of Simon and Connolly as a warning to others who might dare to impinge upon the sacred integrity of markets, the fact remains that not a single senior executive was charged in the scandal (though it contributed to the downfall of former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond). In fact, regulators even stepped up to protect DB CEO Anshu Jain despite his bank’s flagrantly illegal activity, after Bafin, the German securities regulator, declared in 2015 that Jain had no knowledge of the illicit trading despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.

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Authored by Joseph Young via CoinTelegraph.com,

In the beginning of October, Bitcoin achieved a 17-month low volatility rate, recording its highest level of stability since mid-2017.

image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

Bitcoin has started to experience a noticeable decline in its volatility during a period in which the volume of the dominant cryptocurrency achieved a new yearly low. Thus, the volume of Bitcoin dropped from $4.2 billion to $3.2 billion on October 7, by more than 23 percent. Since then, the volume of BTC has recovered substantially, back to $4.2 billion, but it still remains substantially lower than previous weeks. The overall decline in trading activity in the cryptocurrency exchange market due to the uncertainty in the short-term price trend of Bitcoin is said to have contributed to the significant drop in its rate of volatility.

Mike McGlone, a commodity strategist, stated that as the cryptocurrency market matures, the rate of Bitcoin volatility will continue to rapidly decline. He explained that an emerging asset class often sees a large discrepancy in its daily price movements and volatility in volume until it finds strong infrastructure to support and solidify its market.

“This is a maturing market, so volatility should continue to decline. When you have a new market, it will be highly volatile until it establishes itself. There are more participants, more derivatives, more ways of trading, hedging, and arbitraging.”

Since August 9, the price of Bitcoin has remained relatively stable in the range between $6,400 and $6,800. Apart from one occasion in mid-September during which BTC surpassed the $7,000 mark, the asset has shown no signs of solid momentum, mostly due to the lack of volume in the cryptocurrency exchange market.

On October 6, the cryptocurrency exchange market recorded its lowest daily volume in over 12 months, leading traders to be concerned regarding the short-term trend of the market.

Historical lows in volatility: their impact on the crypto market

The decline in the volume and volatility of Bitcoin can have a negative impact on the short-term price trend of the asset. But historically, BTC tended to experience a dip in volume and volatility before initiating large rallies on the upside.

As seen in the volatility chart of Bitcoin, dating back to 2012, provided by Woobull, a cryptocurrency market data platform operated by technical analyst Willy Woo, Bitcoin achieved one of its lowest volatility rates in October 2013.

Image source: Woobull.com

Subsequent to demonstrating a few months of stability, by the end of 2013, the price of BTC increased from around $30 to $1,000, by more than 30-fold within a two-month period. The stability of BTC allowed investors in the market to initiate an accumulation phase in a low price range, enabling more investors to enter the market and acquire BTC.

As prominent venture capital investor Garry Tan, who invested in Coinbase and a group of startups, worth more than $20 billion collectively, said, a low price range helps investors enter a new market or an asset class with significantly less risk:

“The crypto winter generally makes it safer for super-long-term oriented Yale-model institutions to enter at a price that isn’t dangerous. You know what is scary? Investing and then immediately seeing an 80% drop. That is hard to recover from.”

Bitcoin is unlikely to experience a surge in its price in the magnitude of its previous rallies including the 30-fold growth it achieved in 2013. But, in the long-term, stability could allow BTC to establish legs and build stronger support levels in its low price range, increasing the probability of both short-term and mid-term rallies.

Why the Bitcoin market is not reacting to positive developments

Currently, the cryptocurrency market is not reacting to many of the positive developments that have emerged in the sector over the past few months.

In a period of three months, NYSE, Microsoft, and Starbucks have announced the launch of regulated cryptocurrency brokerage Bakkt, to better institutionalize the cryptocurrency market. Coinbase and BitGo received the approval of regulators to operate as trusted custodians to service institutional investors. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have announced their plans of establishing crypto-focused custodian solutions in the short-term.

$30 billion brokerage giant TD Ameritrade recently backed the launch of ErisX, the first regulated multi-crypto futures market with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin support. Seba, a cryptocurrency bank in Switzerland, is expected to obtain a banking license from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) by the end of October.

It is entirely possible, upon the recovery of Bitcoin’s volume and trading activity in the cryptocurrency exchange market, that the market will begin to respond to most of the progress that has been made in the sector over the last three months.

Stability of Bitcoin and what it means for the market

Bitcoin has not demonstrated such a high level of stability in a long period of time. Considering that BTC has continuously demonstrated higher lows throughout the past 30 days, meaning that BTC has consistently recovered beyond its previous high point, it is more likely for BTC to eye a movement to the upside.

Danny Les, cryptocurrency analyst, stated that extended periods of stability and consolidation often lead to a strong upside movement.

“Any extended period of consolidation or ranging is usually the run up to a fairly strong move. That said, opinion is mixed on whether that move is up or down. When you’re analyzing charts, generally higher highs and higher lows are the indicators of a positive move up. Lower highs are probably not the best thing to pin hopes to in expectation of a rally. However, this is Bitcoin so [it is unpredictable].”

Many analysts and traders in the cryptocurrency sector have echoed this sentiment, stating that in hindsight, the bull run of BTC will be strikingly obvious. But, the low volume of the dominant cryptocurrency and the lack of momentum on major cryptocurrencies, still poses a concern for traders in the space. Les added:

“Unless already comfortably in profit, a drop in volume is never something one wants to see when in a position. The overall sentiment attached to crypto probably isn’t the most positive. Bitcoin effectively nose diving since last years all-time high has created a steady wave of retail interest decline across all crypto markets.”

Unprecedented stability since August: $6,800 is a major resistance level

Billionaire investor Mike Novogratz has emphasized $6,800 as a major resistance level for Bitcoin throughout the past month, and if BTC comfortably surpasses that level, then it will be able to eye resistance levels in the $7,000 and $8,000 region.

If Bitcoin breaks out of the $6,800 mark relatively quickly, Novogratz said it is possible for BTC to demonstrate a 30 percent increase in price by the end of the year.

“Thirty percent – there’s some key levels. You’ve got to take out $6,800 and if that breaks, you’ll go up to $8,800, $9,000 and if that breaks, it’s $10,000. Those kind of numbers make sense to me by the end of the year. You’re not going to see the massive run until the institutions actually start buying a lot. And the architecture is being put in place now. It’s going to be announced in the next few months. But then it’ll take a little bit of time to go through investment committees and whatnot.”

The issue is that since August 9, Bitcoin has consistently tried to break out of the $6,800 resistance level and failed in most of its attempts. It recovered beyond $7,000 on September 4, but it struggled to sustain its momentum and fell back down to the mid-$6,000 region.

Les explained that it is more likely for Bitcoin to experience a shakeout prior to a major rally on the upside. BTC has to experience a promising increase in its volume and price to ensure that 2019 begins with a positive sentiment:

“I suspect that there will be more blood before any kind of serious rally up. Volume and price, certainly in Bitcoin’s case need to pick up before we get to near Christmas, otherwise we will see the year out with a very negative sentiment attached.”

Is it the right time to start accumulating Bitcoin?

In late August, when the price of BTC was still at around $6,600, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees stated that the bear market is not over yet but it is a viable period for new investors in the space to start accumulating Bitcoin.

Voorhees stated the rate of collapse of the crypto market has slowed down considerably and it is highly unlikely for BTC to decline far below its current price range.

BTC has dipped below the $6,000 mark on three occasions throughout the past nine months. BTC recovered relatively quickly from the $5,900 region, leaving a short window for investors to acquire the dominant cryptocurrency at a price below the $6,000 level.

Image source: Cryptowat.ch

Given the strong support level of Bitcoin at $6,000 and many of the positive developments the sector has seen, Voorhees stated that it is an appropriate time to start accumulating BTC.

According to Les many platforms and companies in the cryptocurrency sector are continuously working on building the infrastructure that is necessary to support the next wave of users, investors, and consumers:

“Many platforms are ignoring talk of token prices and are just quietly working in the background to fulfil their roadmap objectives. In 2019, I think will be a very interesting year for us all. Mainstream adoption of the technology will start to become apparent and investment methods into the market will become much more in line with traditional markets. The future is very bright, however there has to be a bit of darkness beforehand.”

TD Ameritrade, the fifth largest brokerage in the US, stated that it sees sufficient demand from investors in both the crypto and financial sector to be comfortable with its investment in the cryptocurrency sector.

Why bulls are more likely to win over bears in 2018

Technical indicators, such as Williams’ Percent Range of Bitcoin, show that it is more bear-biased as of October 2018. However, as Don Alt, a cryptocurrency trader supposed, bulls have leverage over the bears which are currently dealing with a market with low volume and activity.

The next big move will be so incredibly obvious in hindsight.

Bulls have:

1) BAKKT coming
2) Increased legislative & institutional interest
3) Lows holding strong

Bears have:

I) Weakening 6k support
II) Sell off stronger than rallys
III) Missing final shakeout

— DonAlt (@CryptoDonAlt) October 5, 2018

The market has also demonstrated intense seller fatigue throughout September and October, making it unlikely for a large downside movement to occur in the weeks to come. It is possible for BTC to be stagnant in a low price range but the probability of the dominant cryptocurrency dipping below the $6,000 support level is low.

Thus, a final shakeout could be in play prior to a major mid-term rally. Generally, most analysts agree that the low rate of volatility Bitcoin has shown throughout the past three months, and particularly in October, will help fuel the next mid-term rally of BTC.

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Police say they’ve identified two suspects who allegedly attacked two Republican candidates for Minnesota’s state legislature over the past week – attacks that have helped justify President Trump’s warning that the Democratic Party has become the “party of Mob Rule” in the wake of the widespread outrage and street demonstrations provoked by the confirmation of SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

According to the National Review, Republican state representative Sarah Anderson was punched in the arm last week after confronting a man who was vandalizing lawn signs promoting Republican candidates. Over the weekend, Shane Mekeland, a first-time Republican candidate, received a concussion after he was sucker punched while speaking with constituents at a restaurant in his assembly district.

Republican state representative Sarah Anderson

Anderson said she was terrified by her assailant, who only backed off when she climbed back in her car and drove away.

“It was just insane. He was charging at me, saying, ‘Why don’t you go kill yourself?’ To have someone physically coming after you and attacking you is just disheartening.”

Charges against the suspects, who have not been publicly identified, will likely be filed in the coming days, according to local police. Meanwhile, Mekeland has continued to suffer memory loss and sensitivity to light stemming from the concussion he received during the assault.

“I was so overtaken by surprise and shock, and if this is the new norm, this is not what I signed up for,” Mekeland said.

The attacks occurred in the days after the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party suspended a member of its communications staff for a week after he wrote in a Facebook post that Democrats would [bring Republicans] to the guillotine” during the upcoming midterm election, per the Washington Free Beacon.

Mekeland expressed disappointment with Democrats for not condemning his attacker and for not doing more to punish the communications staffer.

“He’s a political staffer so you’d think if anybody should know boundaries, I think that’d be it,” he said.

Republicans were outraged by the suspension, saying the candidate should have been fired, particularly after Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned his colleagues about using inflammatory and divisive rhetoric in the aftermath of the Kavanaugh confirmation vote.

“Only one side was happy to play host to this toxic fringe behavior,” McConnell said Thursday, referencing the raucous protesters that descended on the Capitol during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. “Only one side’s leaders are now openly calling for more of it. They haven’t seen enough. They want more. And I’m afraid this is only Phase One of the meltdown.”

McConnell’s comments were inspired in part by Democratic lawmakers Corey Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand. Booker recently urged his constituents to ‘get up in the face’ of Republican politicians, while Gillibrand has derided the Trump agenda as ‘evil’.

Senator Rand Paul has warned that statement’s like Booker’s could be taken to violent extremes by the mentally ill. Paul was present when an unhinged Bernie Sanders supporter opened fire last summer at a Congressional baseball practice, nearly killing House Whip Steve Scalise.

“I think what people need to realize, that when people like Cory Booker say, ‘Get up in their face,’ he may think that that’s OK,” said Paul, who was present when Representative Steve Scalise (R., La.) was shot during a practice for the annual congressional baseball game last year. “But what he doesn’t realize is that for about every 1,000th person that might want to get up in your face, one of them is going to be unstable enough to commit violence.”

Unfortunately, given the politically charged climate and Democrats desperate hopes for taking back the House and the Senate during the upcoming midterms, the US could experience another wave of violent attacks in the run-up to the vote, and another explosion of outrage if Republicans remain in control.

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Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

People are leaving LA, Chicago, New York, Miami, D.C. and San Jose, in droves, for places with cheaper housing.

A Rent Cafe study on Affordable Migration in the US shows people are leaving LA, Chicago, New York, Miami, Washington D.C. and San Jose, in droves, for places with cheaper housing.

Texas has five of the top 10 inbound cities.

• Metro Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Dallas-Fort Worth top the list of areas with the largest net population increases between 2012 and 2017.

• With a median income just $3,000 less than that in Los Angeles and a rent $1,000 cheaper, Maricopa County has become increasingly popular among those fleeing hot markets like the ones in California. Same goes for the top Texas counties in our list where the median income is above that in Manhattan ($83,500).

• The top counties for in-migration present great advantages in terms of housing affordability. In this category, the rent is anywhere from 14% to 26% of the median income, while in the top 10 out-migration counties it can reach a whopping 64%.

• What do Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Miami, Washington, D.C. and San Jose metro areas all have in common? Besides high levels of housing unaffordability, these are all places where US residents are leaving in droves. The home price to income ratio ranges here from 6.3 times to 13.2 times the median income, while a renter household earning the median income is considered rent-burdened.

Reasons for Moving

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 55% of those who decide to move do so for a housing-related reason, such as to relocate to a new or better home, to find cheaper housing, or to own their home instead of rent.

Although the Chicago metro area has a solid economy and a competitive job market, many are leaving it to escape the high taxes.

Chicago area property taxes are higher than 93% of the U.S. Steep county and city sales taxes are adding to the total tax burden.

Also important to take into account is that Cook County is the second largest county in the U.S., 5.2 million people.

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