Sharyl Attkisson Rages “Looks Like Obama Spied On Trump, Just Like He Did To Me”

Authored by Sharyl Attkisson op-ed via TheHill.com,

Many in the media are diving deeply into minutiae in order to discredit any notion that President Trump might have been onto something in March when he fired off a series of tweets claiming President Obama had “tapped” “wires” in Trump Tower just before the election.

According to media reports this week, the FBI did indeed “wiretap” the former head of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, both before and after Trump was elected.

If Trump officials – or Trump himself – communicated with Manafort during the wiretaps, they would have been recorded, too.

But we’re missing the bigger story.

If these reports are accurate, it means U.S. intelligence agencies secretly surveilled at least a half dozen Trump associates. And those are just the ones we know about.

Besides Manafort, the officials include former Trump advisers Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Last week, we discovered multiple Trump “transition officials” were “incidentally” captured during government surveillance of a foreign official. We know this because former Obama adviser Susan Rice reportedly admitted “unmasking,” or asking to know the identities of, the officials. Spying on U.S. citizens is considered so sensitive, their names are supposed to be hidden or “masked,” even inside the government, to protect their privacy.

In May, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates acknowledged they, too, reviewed communications of political figures, secretly collected under President Obama.

Barely an eyebrow was raised in the media.

Weaponization of Intel Agencies?

Nobody wants our intel agencies to be used like the Stasi in East Germany; the secret police spying on its own citizens for political purposes. The prospect of our own NSA, CIA and FBI becoming politically weaponized has been shrouded by untruths, accusations and justifications.

You’ll recall DNI Clapper falsely assured Congress in 2013 that the NSA was not collecting “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Intel agencies secretly monitored conversations of members of Congress while the Obama administration negotiated the Iran nuclear deal.

In 2014, the CIA got caught spying on Senate Intelligence committee staffers, though CIA Director John Brennan had explicitly denied that.

There were also wiretaps on then-Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in 2011 under Obama.

The same happened under President George W. Bush to former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.).

Journalists have been targeted, too. This internal email exposed by WikiLeaks should give everyone chills. It did me.

Dated Sept. 21, 2010, the “global intelligence” firm Stratfor wrote:

[John] Brennan [then an Obama Homeland Security adviser] is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.

 

Note — There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode…

The government subsequently got caught monitoring journalists at Fox News, the Associated Press, and, as I allege in a federal lawsuit, my computers while I worked as an investigative correspondent at CBS News. On Aug. 7, 2013, CBS News publicly announced:

…correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was hacked by ‘an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions,’ confirming Attkisson’s previous revelation of the hacking.

Then, as now, instead of getting the bigger story, some in the news media and quasi-news media published false and misleading narratives pushed by government interests. They implied the computer intrusions were the stuff of vivid imagination, conveniently dismissed forensic evidence from three independent examinations that they didn’t review. All seemed happy enough to let news of the government’s alleged unlawful behavior fade away, rather than get to the bottom of it.

I have spent more than two years litigating against the Department of Justice for the computer intrusions. Forensics have revealed dates, times and methods of some of the illegal activities. The software used was proprietary to a federal intel agency. The intruders deployed a keystroke monitoring program, accessed the CBS News corporate computer system, listened in on my conversations by activating the computer’s microphone and used Skype to exfiltrate files.

We survived the government’s latest attempt to dismiss my lawsuit. There’s another hearing Friday. To date, the Trump Department of Justice — like the Obama Department of Justice — is fighting me in court and working to keep hidden the identities of those who accessed a government internet protocol address found in my computers.

Evidence continues to build. I recently filed new information unearthed through forensic exams. As one expert told the court, it was “not a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack.” 

Patterns

It’s difficult not to see patterns in the government’s behavior, unless you’re wearing blinders.

  • The intelligence community secretly expanded its authority in 2011 so it can monitor innocent U.S. citizens like you and me for doing nothing more than mentioning a target’s name a single time.
  • In January 2016, a top secret inspector general report found the NSA violated the very laws designed to prevent abuse.
  • In 2016, Obama officials searched through intelligence on U.S. citizens a record 30,000 times, up from 9,500 in 2013.
  • Two weeks before the election, at a secret hearing before the FISA court overseeing government surveillance, NSA officials confessed they’d violated privacy safeguards “with much greater frequency” than they’d admitted. The judge accused them of “institutional lack of candor’” and said, “this is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.”

Officials involved in the surveillance and unmasking of U.S. citizens have said their actions were legal and not politically motivated. And there are certainly legitimate areas of inquiry to be made by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But look at the patterns. It seems that government monitoring of journalists, members of Congress and political enemies — under multiple administrations — has become more common than anyone would have imagined two decades ago. So has the unmasking of sensitive and highly protected names by political officials.

Those deflecting with minutiae are missing the point. To me, they sound like the ones who aren’t thinking.

*  *  *

Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) is an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist, author of the New York Times bestsellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,” and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program “Full Measure.”

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Caught On Video: Maxine Waters Uses Funeral Speech To Push Trump Impeachment

What was supposed to be a remembrance ceremony for this man, comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, yesterday turned mildly bizarre, which is a recurring theme as it were, when California congresswoman Maxine Waters took the stage.

Gregory

 

Rather than focus on the lifetime accomplishments of Gregory or fond personal memories, you know all the stuff you would usually include in a eulogy, Waters decided a funeral ceremony was the perfect place to once again call Donald Trump a racist and demand his immediate impeachment.

“I’m cleaning out the White House.  We’re going to sanitize the White House. We’re not going to take what is happening in this country.”

 

“Haven’t you taken enough?”

 

“And then comes along this person [Trump]…This person who does not respect you. This dishonorable human being who cheats everybody! This dishonorable human being who will lie at the drop of a hat. This dishonorable human being who has the alt-right, and the KKK and everybody else inside his Cabinet! This dishonorable human being who can criticize everybody but (Vladimir) Putin and Russia.”

 

“Not only are we going to clean out the White House. We’re going to take back the house that slaves built!”

 

“And I know my colleagues get very upset. Some get afraid when I say ‘impeachment’…when I get through with Donald Trump, he’s going to wish he had been impeached!”

 

“I’m gonna say ‘Impeach 45 everyday,’ ‘Impeach 45 everyday,’ ‘Impeach 45 everyday.’”

 

Of course, if almost anyone other than Waters used the word “sanitize” in a racially-charged monologue describing what she would like to do to someone of another race, it would undoubtedly be front-page news for every political paper in the country…that said, somehow we suspect CNN will ‘miss’ this one.

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The Politician Behind California High Speed Rail Now Says It’s ‘Almost a Crime’: New at Reason

High-speed rail lines began popping up in Europe and Asia in the early 1980s. Passengers were exhilarated by the futuristic trains rocketing between cities on glass-smooth rails at upwards of 200 miles per hour.

With high-profile roll-outs in France and Japan, bullet train mania was underway. And then reality set in.

“The costs of building such projects usually vastly outweigh the benefits,” says Baruch Feigenbaum, assistant director of transportation policy at the Reason Foundation, the 501(c)(3) that publishes this website. “Rail is more of a nineteenth century technology [and] we don’t have to go through these headaches and cost overruns to build a future transportation system.”

Supporters, who claim that most high speed rail systems operate at a profit, use accounting tricks like leaving out construction costs and indirect subsidies. If you tabulate the full costs, only two systems in the world operate at a profit, and one breaks even.

But politicians can’t resist the ribbon cutting ceremonies and imagery of sleek trains hurtling through the lush countryside. So the projects keep coming.

California’s high speed rail line was sold to voters on the bold promise that it will someday whisk passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in under three hours. Nine years later, the project has turned into such a disaster that its biggest political champion is now suing to stop it.

An icon of California politics known as the “Great Dissenter,” Quentin L. Kopp introduced the legislation that established the rail line, and became chairman of the High-Speed Rail Authority. He helped convince voters in 2008 to hand over $9 billion in bonds to the Rail Authority to get the project going. Since he left, Kopp says the agency mangled his plans.

“It is foolish, and it is almost a crime to sell bonds and encumber the taxpayers of California at a time when this is no longer high-speed rail,” says Kopp. “And the litigation, which is pending, will result, I am confident, in the termination of the High-Speed Rail Authority’s deceiving plan.”

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The Everything Bubble Is Ready To Pop

Authored by Jared Dillian via MauldinEconomics.com,

It wasn’t always this way. We never used to get a giant, speculative bubble every 7–8 years. We really didn’t.

In 2000, we had the dot-com bubble.

 

In 2007, we had the housing bubble.

 

In 2017, we have the everything bubble.

I did not coin the term “the everything bubble.” I do not know who did. Apologies (and much respect) to the person I stole it from.

Why do we call it the everything bubble? Well, there is a bubble in a bunch of asset classes simultaneously.

And the infographic below that my colleagues at Mauldin Economics created paints the picture best.

I don’t usually predict downturns, but this time I bet my reputation that a downturn is coming. And soon.

When there’s nothing left but systemic risk, everyone’s portfolio is on the line.

To that end, I’ve put together a FREE actionable special, Investing in the Age of the Everything Bubble, in which I discuss ways to prepare for the coming bloodbath (download here).

 

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Canadian School Bans Cartwheeling, Because We Can’t Be Too Careful

CartwheelYes, a school in Canada banned cartwheels. What’s worst about this is the school’s reasoning:

Cartwheels have been banned at M.T. Davidson Public School in Callander.

Cartwheels are not permitted on school property in the playground rules section of the school’s draft handbook for 2017-18. The rule came into effect this school year even though injuries have not been reported, principal Todd Gribbon admitted.

“The activity can cause concussions, and neck and wrist injuries,” he said.

True—any activity, including a cartwheel, can cause injury. Walking down the stairs can cause falls resulting in concussions, neck, and wrist injuries. Walking outside can get you hit by a car. Swimmers can drown. Bakers can catch their hair on fire. Those brave enough to consume solid food can choke. Students sitting still too long can get embolisms.

The precautionary principle—why do something that could cause harm?—seems prudent until you realize it often doesn’t distinguish between a calculated risk and what if something terrible happens? Recall that just the other day, a New York Times reporter said it was a bad idea for a kid to mow a lawn, even if it’s the White House lawn, because there could be an accident. Really, we are idiots when it comes to risk. We think that there’s risk vs. no risk—so why would any ever choose the former?

In the real world, it’s always risk vs. other risk. The risk of walking to school seems too great to many people, who forget there’s a risk in being driven. There’s a risk in doing cartwheels that is offset by the risk of not doing cartwheels. Kids playing, loving the outside, running around, being active, learning balance—all aspects of cartwheeling—may heighten their risk of wrist injuries while lowering their risk of obesity, heart disease, and school-hating-syndrome. The risk of learning to take a risk decreases the crippling fear of risks. The crippling fear of risks (also known as “insurance brain”) leads to faulty risk assessments.

Which leads to no carthwheels.

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Trump Says He’s Made Decision on Iran Deal, All of Puerto Rico Without Power, German Researchers Accuse U.S. Right Wing of Meddling in Election: P.M. Links

  • President Trump said he has come to a decision on the Iran nuclear deal. The Iranian president called Trump a “rogue newcomer” in his United Nations speech.
  • Hurricane Maria has knocked out power in all of Puerto Rico.
  • A federal lawsuit accuses police in Columbus of exhibiting a pattern of excessive force against black residents.
  • A dispute over a speeding ticket in Iowa reaches the state’s Supreme Court.
  • Researchers in Germany claim right-wing U.S.-based online accounts are “meddling” in the elections there.
  • The president of Catalonia accused the Spanish government of suspending the region’s autonomy as the national police raided multiple regional government offices and arrested 14 senior officials.
  • A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Mexico City.
  • “End-of-life chatbot can help you with difficult final decisions“

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Spot The Moment Inflation Turned Exponential

In the aftermath of a surreal Janet Yellen press conference, in which the Fed chair admitted that Fed “no longer understands” the “mystery” that is inflation, we did our best to explain to Yellen that the reason why the Fed’s search for inflation has been fruitless, is because for nearly a decade it has been looking in the wrong place: the “real economy” where the Fed’s impact has been negligible, as opposed to “asset prices” where the Fed has unleashed near hyperinflation.

Sadly, we doubt the Fed will understand what the above chart means.

Which of course, is ironic, because it was the Fed’s arrival in 1913 that was the catalyst for inflation to snap and unanchor from 700 years of patterns, and to mutate from gradually upward sloping to spike exponentially over the past 100 years. Furthermore, as Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid writes, nothing will change, and Inflation remains the most likely outcome “until a new global financial system found.” Incidentally, he adds the latter because even chief credit strategists of major banks have come to the same “tin foil” conclusion we unveiled in 2009, namely that the existing financial and economic (if not social) system is doomed as long as an unconstrained fiat regime, which creates ever greater and greater asset bubbles, remains.

Here is Jim Reid:

The chart below shows median global inflation first from 1209 (left) and then from 1900 (right). Inflation took on a totally different persona after the start of the twentieth century. The charts are again on a log scale to allow us to easily see the near exponential increase in inflation over the last 100 years or so, especially relative to what occurred before. Note that had we used the median instead of the average, the chart would look almost absurd given the extreme levels of hyperinflation seen in several countries over the last century. The data behind the right hand graph is based on a full set of 24 countries where we have inflation data back to 1900. Prior to this, many countries have data that goes back several decades with some back through the centuries. For the series back to 1210 we have included data as and when it becomes available.

And here is the log chart, both zoomed out and in, showing the catalyst that “broke” inflation: the creation of the Fed in 1913 ahead of World War I.

Yet while the chart above is familiar to most people with even a token interest in finance – except the Fed of course – what was found fascinating, was Deutsche Bank’s solution to the problem: gold.

The various breaks with gold based currencies over the last century or so has correlated well with our financial shocks/crises indicator. It shows that you are more likely to see crises/shocks when we break from hard currency systems. Some of the devaluation to Gold has been mindboggling over the last 100 years.

 

Perversely, the current post Bretton Woods system also allows for huge operations/stimulus to overcome any crisis/shock. We also shouldn’t underestimate the positive impact that this can have on nominal asset prices. Cash is arguably a far more dangerous asset in a fiat currency but unstable regime than it is in a more stable less crisis prone one. However, by continually using stimulus to deal with crises and not letting creative destruction take over, you make a subsequent crisis more likely by passing the problem along to some other part of the global financial system, and usually in bigger size. In a fiat currency world, intervention and money creation is the path of least resistance. In a Gold standard world, mining new gold was the only stable way of increasing the money supply.

 

We think this leaves the current global economy particularly prone to a cycle of booms, busts, heavy intervention, recovery and the cycle starting again. There is no natural point where a purge of the excesses is forced by a restriction on credit creation.

 

So we’re quite confident that there will likely be another financial crisis/shock pretty soon with their frequency continuing to be high until we create a more stable global financial framework.

A new system, according to Reid, which resets the existing broken fiat-based one, and replaces it with one that is founded on sound money. To those who are speechless that one of the top strategists at the biggest European bank effectively has endorsed returning to the gold standard – a pastime typically relegated to the “fringe blogosphere” – strap in because far greater surprises are on their way in the coming months.

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Myth of the Infrastructure Cure-all

Every year the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) comes out with a report card on the condition of America’s infrastructure. We got a D+ this year. According to them, “Deteriorating infrastructure is impeding our ability to compete in the thriving global economy, and improvements are necessary to ensure our country is built for the future.”

They calculate that every family in America will lose $3,400 a year because of infrastructure deficiencies. If the problem isn’t fixed, they say, GDP will lose $4 trillion a year by then (2025) and 2.5 million jobs will be lost. They recommend an additional $1.1 trillion of spending on transportation (roads and bridges) over the next 10 years to correct this problem.

President Donald Trump says that we need to spend $1 trillion to “transform America’s crumbling infrastructure into a golden opportunity for accelerated economic growth and more rapid productivity gains.”

Liberals and conservatives alike get teary-eyed when they hear this. They think that massive spending, especially on roads and bridges, will “put people back to work” and make America more productive.

Here is the reality: America’s infrastructure is not crumbling, massive spending won’t create any permanent jobs, and productivity is not suffering because of our infrastructure. These are economic myths that lobbyists, infrastructure contractors, and the ASCE perpetuate to get fat contracts. 

Let me back up for a moment and say that, yes, our transportation system, for example, is an important factor in productivity and inefficiencies could harm productivity. Los Angeles is a glaring example of inefficiency since it again was the world’s worst metro area for traffic congestion (104 hours per year wasted in traffic; NYC – 89; SF – 83). Surely commuters’ time would be better spent in more productive activities than listening to NPR.

Let me also note that by “we” as in “we need to spend $x trillion …”, the “we” are your local, state, and federal governments who own and operate our roads and bridges. They are the reason we have transportation infrastructure problems. You have only to look to your politicians to place the blame.

When the ASCE comes out with their Report Card every year, our news media dutifully start their reporting by showing a bridge or road somewhere that is crumbling and it is cited as an exemplar of the problem of “our crumbling infrastructure.” What they don’t tell you is that if you look at transportation issues over time, things have been getting better, not worse (except the aforementioned traffic congestion).

The Reason Foundation’s studies on state-owned highways (they are widely recognized as being leaders in this field) and other studies on highways and bridges reveal that there have been significant improvements of infrastructure measures like road and bridge quality and fatalities over the past 20 or 30 years. The facts are that, on the state level, overall spending on highways doubled during that period, and overall measures of highway transportation have improved. They also found there was not a good correlation on a state by state basis of spending to improvements—in some states spending resulted in improvements, in others, not. They also say that problem areas are usually concentrated in a few states, such as California and New York’s congestion.

So, some infrastructure is “crumbling”, but the overall trend is that it isn’t. Most of the noise is from those who would benefit from infrastructure spending and the politicians who enjoy ribbon-cutting.

The idea that massive government spending on infrastructure will create jobs is another myth. If you recall the $787 billion 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Obama Administration told us that such fiscal stimulus would create jobs and promote economic recovery. There is simply no credible evidence that such Keynesian stimulus did anything to help economic recovery. Curve-fitting estimates at the time by the bill’s proponents were wildly incorrect. The $100 billion or so of ARRA that was spent on “infrastructure” had no impact at all on the economy and those “jobs” came and went along with the wasteful spending. ARRA did not produce anything but massive budget deficits and more debt while the economy stagnated.

President Trump campaigned on a dark vision of America that the economy was in shambles, along with our infrastructure, that he would fix it, create jobs, and revive the economy.

The facts suggest the opposite of his campaign rhetoric.

Presently the economy is considered to be at full employment with unemployment at its lowest rate since 2001. One could argue that there is little slack in labor supply. Thus, if the goal of infrastructure spending advocates is to boost employment, that is unnecessary.

If the goal is to boost America’s productivity, then one needs to ask if massive infrastructure spending would accomplish that. As I have pointed out, the state of our transportation system is not crumbling, and in fact has been improving over the years. That is not to say that some states or counties don’t need upgrades, but they are in the minority.

If the ASCE’s assumption that poor infrastructure is impeding progress, then we should look at the LA metropolitan area where traffic congestion is the worst in the world to see if they are correct. Based on their logic, LA’s economy should be suffering. But it is not. In fact, if you compare LA’s GDP to the rise in total US GDP, LA’s upward trend is almost identical if not rising even faster.

What the proponents of massive infrastructure spending fail to understand is that productivity is based mostly on private capital spending on more efficient means of production, distribution, and sales: new factories, new machinery, new software to improve production and logistics, new methods of sales, and so on. These are the primary causes of economic growth. For example, the “crumbling infrastructure” seems to have done little to impede the efficiencies created by the “just-in-time” supply chain that relies on quick transportation.

While many of the Trump Administration’s populist themes will do much to harm the economy, their proposal on infrastructure has some merit if done properly. We can forget their claims of economic transformation, but we should be thinking about better ways to handle infrastructure projects. This is why we need public-private partnerships (P3).

P3s let private companies design, build, and operate new infrastructure projects. According to Bob Poole, the Reason Foundation’s expert on privatization, P3s will result in projects that will be more economically productive (no bridges to nowhere) and would be much more cost effective.

Remarkably, the Trump Administration is proposing P3s to accomplish future infrastructure spending. The Trump proposal relies on tax credits for P3 projects, not $1 trillion in new spending. These projects would be based on privatized systems which generate an income stream, and are financed by revenue bonds. Thus, the risks of these projects are shifted to private companies rather than to taxpayers.

The Trump P3 proposal has many “ifs” in it to result in an effective program. But, if these hurdles can be overcome, then, as Poole says, “this election has opened the door to major changes in what the federal government does and how it goes about it. … My guess is that these changes will be very positive for P3 infrastructure.”

As they say, “if it weren’t for the government, who would neglect the roads?”

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Yellen Admits The Fed is Dependent on Stock Price Levels When Determining Rate Hikes, Inflation is a Mystery

A few short years ago, it was considered tinfoil hat conspiracy theory to say that the goals of the Fed and their QE programs were to boost stock prices, real estate prices, and basically almost every other asset class. Then slowly, years later, the MSM and others began to realize that it was the truth. You even had the likes of former Fed Governors saying so, Richard Fischer, Thomas Hoenig, Charles Plosser, and Jeremy Stein. So fast forward to today, where during the FOMC press conference, Yellen said “Fed is taking into account movements in asset prices in deciding rate hikes.” Wait what? As a reminder, in June of 2016, Yellen said that the Fed does not target stock prices, and 1 year later is saying that they do. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, in which the Fed has lied to the American people and backtracked on previous statements. Yet no journalist in the room dared to ask her about such a statement. 

But, that wasn’t the most insane thing that happened during today’s presser. Yellen earlier in the presser had said that weak inflation was a mystery to her and the Fed, and that they do not fully understand inflation. To put the stupidity of such a statement into perspective, the Fed, which employs thousands of Ph.D economists and dictates monetary policy, just openly admitted they literally have ZERO clue about economics.  Another small bit that caught my attention, was that as Yellen was concluding her prepared remarks, in which she talked about the wind-down of stimulus and the balance sheet and how great the economy was, her final statement in her prepared remarks was “as we stated in June, the committee would be prepared to resume reinvestment’s if a material deterioration in the economic outlook were to warrant a sizable reduction in the federal funds rate.” Pure comedy once again.  But no worries, stocks  finished the day higher, back at fresh record highs, with a fresh new high print for the Shiller PE at 30.70, and the VIX below 10 at 9.78. All is well. 

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‘Hawkish’ Fed Fail? Yield Curve Flattens Most Since 2016 As Dollar Spikes

More dismal housing data, a VIX 9 handle, and bank stocks ripping higher (despite a big flattening in the yield curve) – just another day in Fed-land…

 

Stocks and the long bond unchanged post-Fed, Gold down and dollar up…

 

S&P and Dow ended the day just higher at record highs!!! thanks to post-fed dip-buying panic as Trannies surged…

 

VIX was 'handled' back down to a 9 handle (first 9-handle close since July)… of course…look at the panic-bid in stocks as VIX was crushed in the last few minutes (to get S&P green)

 

AAPL was notably hit, now down 5% from when the iPhone 8 was unveiled…

As WSJ notes, Apple acknowledged problems with cellular connectivity in its newest smartwatch, raising questions about the device’s most significant feature days before it goes on sale in stores in the U.S. and other countries. In a statement Wednesday, Apple said the problem connecting to cellular networks occurs when the Apple Watch Series 3—the first watch from Apple to feature an LTE chip for cellular service—joins “unauthenticated Wi-Fi wireless networks without connectivity.” Apple said it is “investigating a fix for a future software release.”

Financials kneejerked higher today again but retailers snd Utes were weak…

 

5Y Yields spiked most on the day (+5bps) but 2Y was the headline grabber, moving to its highest since Dec 2008 (but notably still below The Fed's 1.50% expectation for Dec…

 

The long-end of the curve rallied on the day as the short-end snapped higher (in yield), crushing the yield curve…

 

but Bank stocks didn't care about details like that…

This is the biggest flattening of the yield curve since Dec 2016.

5Y Yields are back at the same level as when the JUly FOMC meeting hit..

 

and 30Y Yields ended the day lower…

 

Another signal of Fed Fail is the fact that breakevens plunged today…

 

The market still sees a 37% chance that The Fed won't hike In December…

The Dollar Index spiked on The Fed's 'hawkish' statement, jumping by the most since January… (NOTE – this merely moved the dollar index back to payrolls levels)…

 

Despite the dollar gains, WTI prices held on to gains on the day after DOE data with RBOB fading…

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