Protests In Mexico Push Country To Brink Of Revolution And Nobody’s Talking About It

Submitted by Nick Bernabe via TheAntiMedia.org,

Long-simmering social tensions in Mexico are threatening to boil over as failing neoliberal reforms to the country’s formerly nationalized gas sector are compounded by open corruption, stagnant standards of living, and rampant inflation.

The U.S. media has remained mostly mute on the situation in Mexico, even as the unfolding civil unrest has closed the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, California, several times in the past week. Ongoing “gasolinazo” protests in Mexico over a 20 percent rise is gas prices have led to over 400 arrests, 250 looted stores, and six deaths. Roads are being blockaded, borders closed, and government buildings are being sacked. Protests have remained relatively peaceful overall, except for several isolated violent acts, which activists have blamed on government infiltrators.

 

 

The few mainstream news reports that have covered the situation blame rising gas prices but fail to examine several other factors that are pushing Mexico to the brink of revolution.

‘Narco-state’ corruption

The narco-state, or as Mexican activists say, “el narco-gobiero,” is a term used to describe the open corruption between the Mexican government and drug cartels. The narco-state has been in the headlines lately over the kidnapping and presumed murder of 43 Ayotzinapa students in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014. This has been a source of continuous anti-government protests ever since.

Though the kidnappings remain officially unsolved, members of the Guerrero Unidos drug cartel have admitted to colluding with local police forces to silence the student activists. Twenty police officers have been arrested in association with the kidnapping. Former Iguala police chief Felipe Flores has been arrested and “accused of offenses including organized crime and kidnapping the students,” the AP reports. The corruption apparently goes all the way to the top, as federal authorities say former Iguala mayor José Luis Abarca personally ordered the kidnappings.

One Mexican activist who wished to remain anonymous told Anti-Media that “a lot of people think it’s only the gasoline prices, but the price of gas is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. It all started with Ayotzinapa.”

Much like the U.S., the Mexican government is susceptible to corporate influence. It just so happens that the most influential corporate entities in Mexico are drug cartels — and it’s hard for the government to reign in entities that fund and infiltrate it. Similar to the phenomenon of “regulatory capture,” the Mexican government is at least partially funded and co-opted by drug cartels. This festering problem is an underlying factor in the current civil unrest in Mexico.

Neoliberal policies left the working class behind

NAFTA was a contentious issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but it’s just as controversial in Mexico, if not more so. The grand 1994 “free trade” scheme, signed into law by Bill Clinton, saw a dramatic redesign of both the U.S. and Mexican economic landscapes. Corn farmers, long a vital factor in Mexico’s peasant farming economy, were wiped out by low-priced corn subsidized by the U.S. government, which immediately flooded Mexican markets after NAFTA was passed. The Mexican immigration crisis at the U.S.’ southern border soon followed.

Meanwhile, manufacturing plants soon began moving into Mexico from the U.S. to take advantage of extremely cheap labor — leaving many workers in the U.S. out of a job. American agricultural corporations like Driscoll’s have recently come under fire for employing slave-like labor conditions to produce boutique organic fruit for U.S. consumers. Protests for workers rights in Mexico, which recently raised its minimum wage to 80 pesos (~$4) per day, are often met with heavy-handed police crackdowns.

Incoming President Trump has capitalized on two issues caused by NAFTA — the immigration crisis and outsourcing of U.S. jobs — and his reactionary protectionist economic policies will undoubtedly make Mexico’s predicament even worse.

Mexico’s nationalized oil conglomerate, Pemex, has been plagued by falling production for years. Corruption, which is inherent to state-run institutions, has condemned Mexico’s gas industry to inefficiency and stalled innovation. Theft has become a widespread issue, and oil workers were recently caught red-handed siphoning gas directly out of pipelines.

Supposedly to ramp up production and lower prices, the Mexican government pushed through neoliberal privatization schemes in 2013 and 2014, which were backed by U.S. oil interests and incubated by the Hillary Clinton-run State Department. President Enrique Peña Nieto promised the reforms would result in increased production and lower fuel prices, though production has fallen and prices spiked 20 percent on January 1st. Prices are expected to rise even further, as fuel subsidies will be completely phased out by March 2017. Peña Nieto claims the prices must go up to match international prices, though consumers in the U.S. currently pay less for gas than Mexicans.

Peña Nieto’s neoliberal reforms have fallen flat as economic growth has been anemic for years and wealth inequality has grown out of control.

Rampant inflation in Mexico

Perhaps the biggest driver of the current civil upheaval in Mexico is out of control inflation coupled with the value of the peso reaching record lows. Mexican workers are already stretched thin financially as minimum wage hovers at four U.S. dollars per day. Food prices, which were on the rise before the gas price increases, are set to climb 20 percent or more as they correlate closely with prices at the pump.

According to Zero Hedge, in Mexico, it currently takes “the equivalent of 12 days of a minimum wage to fill a tank of gas — compared to the U.S.’ seven hours.” People who don’t drive will also feel the pain, as public transportation costs are likely to rise with fuel prices. Rising gas prices also put downward pressure on the rest of the Mexican economy as workers spend more money on gas and less on consumer goods.

The Mexican government’s deficit spending and Trump’s tough talk on trade have been factors in devaluing the peso, making everything in Mexico more expensive for the working class and driving the general discontent that makes the country a hotbed of unrest.

***

Overall, no one factor can be blamed for causing extreme levels of unrest in Mexico. Before the Ayotzinapa student kidnappings, Mexico was already seeing widespread protests, marches, and strikes. The last several presidential elections have been contested, and the current administration of Enrique Peña Nieto has only a 22 percent approval rating. The general feeling of helplessness in the face of narco-state corruption and economic insecurity is not going away with the next election or protest, and wealth inequality in the country is beyond remedy. Mexico is ripe for revolution. Whether it’s triggered now by the gas gouging and subsequent inflation or in the near future, it’s coming — and we should be talking about it.

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Trump Slams BuzzFeed As “Failing Pile Of Garbage”, Tells CNN “You Are Fake News”

In an epic (mutual) trolling between president-elect Trump on one hand and BuzzFeed and CNN, on the other, the two media organizations which issued yesterday’s unsubstantiated report about Russia having compromising information on the president-elect, Trump first addressed the question of why he referred to Nazi Germany, saying it is “disgraceful” that intelligence communities would allow the release of any information. “That’s something Nazi Germany would have done and did do,” he says.

He then unleashed on Buzzfeed which alone published the 35-page memo behind the Russian allegations, saying “Buzzfeed which is a failing pile of garbage… will suffer the consequences” 

And then, in an even more stunning episode, Trump slammed CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who he also called out during the presser over their report on a two-page synopsis they claim was presented to Trump.

With Trump looking to call on other reporters, Jim Acosta yelled out, “Since you are attacking us, can you give us a question?”

“Not you,” Trump said. “Your organization is terrible!”

Acosta pressed on, “You are attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance to ask a question, sir?” Trump countered by telling him “don’t be rude.” 

“I’m not going to give you a question,” Trump responded. “Don’t be rude. I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news!” Trump responded, before calling on a reporter from Breitbart.

A snubbed Jim Acosta then tweeted the following: “Fortunately ABC’s Cecilia Vega asked my question about whether any Trump associates contacted Russians. Trump said no.”

 

Trump also had some “kind words” for the BBC:

* * *

These exchanges followed an initial statement by Trump spokesman Sean Spicer who said that “for all the talk lately about ‘fake news,’ this political witch hunt by some in the media…is frankly shameful & disgraceful…. Highly irresponsible for a left-wing blog… to drop highly salacious and flat out false information on the Internet.”

Following this, we expect the war between Trump and the media in general, or at least CNN in particular, to reach biblical proportions.

*  *  *

Full Press Conference clip below

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911 Emergency Response System Significantly Reduced U.S. Murder Rate, Says Study

AmbulanceMonkeyBusinessImagesDreamstimeThe U.S. homicide rate peaked in 1980 at 10.2 per 100,000 Americans and the number of annual homicides rose to 24,703 in 1991. Since then U.S. homicide rates have been falling and reached 4.5 per 100,000 in 2014 (a rate not seen since the 1950s) and an annual toll of 14,249. Both the rate and number of murders ticked up in 2015 to 5 per 100,000 and 15,809 respectively. Lots of research has been devoted to trying to figure out why homicide rates fell over the past couple of decades. Some researchers focused on higher incarceration rates; others on more effective policing; still others cited the aging population; and some attributed lower homicide rates to better emergency medicine. Given the fact that the data on criminally inflicted gunshot injuries is not collected comprehensively, this this latter claim has been challenged.

A fascinating new working paper, “Dial 911 for Murder,” by George Mason University economists Thomas Stratmann and David Chandler Thomas argue that advances in the 911 emergency response system over time, combined with the advent of cell phones have contributed significantly to the lower U.S. murder rate because victims are receiving emergency medical care ever more speedily. The argument is that victims of violent gun firearms attacks are increasingly likely to be saved from death thus converting what would have been homicides into aggravated assaults. In addition, they find the establishment of 911 systems initially increased reporting of aggravated assaults and that the subsequent proliferation of cell phones seems to have had a deterrent effect on such assaults.

The initial 911 system devised in 1968 connected to an operator who then transferred the call to the police, fire, and ambulance services as appropriate. In the late 1970s, dedicated 911 call centers were established with monitors that displayed the home number and address of callers and from which emergency services were dispatched by trained personnel. Now GPS 911 is rolling out enabling dispatchers to pinpoint callers and dispatch services to people using cell phones. The researchers suggest that “when potential violent street offenders know that cell phone users have a quick way to reach the police, via GPS 911, their incentive to commit a crime decreases.”

Homicide911

The researchers account for the lethality of weapons over time, socioeconomic changes, improvements in trauma care, and so forth. Once they’ve parsed the data, they report:

While the level of violent crimes, measured as aggravated assaults, is 219 percentage points higher in 2014 than in 1964, homicides in 2014 are eight percentage points lower than in 1964. In this paper, we find support for the hypothesis that the introduction of 911 services explains much of the decrease in homicide rates. Moreover, the introduction of 911 provides an explanation for the divergence between aggravated assault and homicide rates that started in the early 1970s. …The empirical results in this paper indicate that reductions in emergency response times played a significant role in reducing U.S. homicides over the past 45 years. ….

The reported 911 effects are quantitatively important, suggesting more than a 34 percent to 56 percent decrease in homicides that can be attributed to the 911 systems and associated reductions in response times. One simple approach to illustrate the benefits of 911 is to use our estimates to quantify the lives saved by 911 innovations. Such an exercise shows that in 2014, without 911 emergency services, the number of homicides in our sample cities would have been more than 13,000 homicides, instead of the reported 5,872.

Citing the trends in Mobile, Alabama they report that the introduction of basic 911 coincided with an immediate 29 percent drop in that city’s homicide rate which continued to fall in the following years. However, after the introduction of enhanced 911 in the late 1980s, the city’s homicide and assault rates continued to rise. They attribute that increase to the crack cocaine epidemic that dramatically boosted violent crime throughout the U.S. Mobile’s murder rate did increase slightly between 1988 and 1991, but was much lower than the 160 percent national increase. The 2009 roll out of GPS 911 was followed by an immediate 42 percent decline in homicides in the city.

Violent crime is indeed is down in the U.S., but Stratman and Thomas make an interesting case that the speedy dispatch of emergency services made possible by the improving 911 system may make homicide statistics much better than they would otherwise be.

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Jeff Sessions Provides Slippery Answers at Confirmation Hearings, Thanks to Senatorial Decorum

What, me worry?The second day of confirmation hearings into the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general takes place today, beginning with a series of testimonials from witnesses who will then be questioned by members of the committee.

Reason‘s Eric Boehm noted that Sessions got away with offering only “unclear, useless answers on marijuana” during the first day of hearings, and some liberals wanted a more contentious hearing with aggressive questioning from the committee’s Democratic senators and less of the Senate’s typically staid rules of decorum that often provides cover for evasive answers.

Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights told CNN, “The first day of Senator Sessions’ confirmation hearing proved that the rushed nature of the confirmation process places senatorial collegiality over the advice and consent responsibilities that are the Senate’s constitutional duty.”

Late in the first day of hearings yesterday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) noted that police unions adore Sessions, to which Sessions added he believes the Obama administration failed to provide adequate support for local police departments. Sessions promised that as attorney general, he would place fewer restrictions on federal financial assistance to local PDs (who sometimes lose federal grant funding for lack of compliance with federal law) and cut back on efforts designed to curtail police misconduct.

Sessions also reiterated his skepticism of consent decrees—federally enforced reforms and monitoring imposed by the courts on cities with demonstrated records of police misconduct. Sessions hedged just a bit in his opposition to consent decrees, saying some consent decrees “could be a legitimate decision.” In the foreward for a 2008 paper published by the Alabama Policy Institute, Sessions wrote, “One of the most dangerous, and rarely discussed, exercises of raw power is the issuance of expansive court decrees.”

Ex-Reasoner Radley Balko posted in his Washington Post column a series of excellent questions pertaining to civil liberties and federalism that Sessions should be asked (but likely won’t):

You said this in 2007: “The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the constitution than protect our nation’s security.” Do you believe these two things are incompatible? If sworn in as attorney general, you’ll take an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution. Let’s say that once in office, you’re faced with a situation in which you believe it is necessary to violate the Constitution in order to protect national security. Let’s say that the actions you think you need to take aren’t constitutionally ambiguous — you yourself believe they’re unconstitutional. What would you do?

…

You’re also a strong advocate of “states’ rights,” or federalism. Many states whose legislatures don’t share your view of civil asset forfeiture have passed laws to restrict or even end the practice. The federal government responded with its “equitable sharing” program, which allows police agencies in such states to call up a federal law enforcement agency such as the Drug Enforcement Administration when they want to confiscate some property. The investigation is then considered “federal,” which means it’s controlled by federal forfeiture laws, not the more restrictive state laws. This would seem to be a direct infringement on the intent of those states’ legislatures, wouldn’t you agree? The Obama administration has tried to limit the practice, though it hasn’t ended it. Would you repeal the Obama reforms to equitable sharing, strengthen them or end them?

Speaking of federalism, you also have some strong feelings about marijuana legalization. You recently said that “good people don’t smoke marijuana” and that the drug is “already causing a disturbance in the states that have made it legal.” You’ve been critical of Obama and his Justice Department for not cracking down on the states that have legalized the drug. Can you point to any data from Colorado or Washington that demonstrates a “disturbance?”

Among those who testified against Sessions in the first part of today’s hearing were American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Legal Director David Cole, NAACP President Cornell Brooks, and sexual assault survivor’s advocate Amita Swadhin.

Those appearing in support of Sessions include Commission on Civil Rights member Peter Kirsanow (who said while a member of the commission in 2002, “Not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops, more profiling” of Muslims), former Bush administration Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, and former Bush administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

Unfortunately for anyone seeking a substantive grilling of how Sessions would enforce federal law as attorney general, senators of both parties essentially stuck to the script of asking witnesses to provide answers which confirm the senator’s own politics, but which offer little scrutiny of Sessions and his policies.

For example, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked Chuck Canterbury—the president of the nation’s largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police—a question about police confrontations with mentally ill people. Then after receiving a vague answer, Cornyn assured Canterbury, “I think you’ll find a friend in Sen. Sessions as attorney general in recognizing the priorities for local and state law enforcement…” That was followed by Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) asking Army veteran and former DREAMER Oscar Vazquez “Are you concerned about what might happen under the new administration for young people registered under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)?” Vazquez’s answer was of course, yes.

Later today, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) will testify against Sessions—a major break in the aforementioned senatorial decorum, which some conservatives suspect is motivated by Booker’s presidential ambitions. Booker told the Washington Post that while he likes Sessions persionally, “This is a time where I think that silence is not just unacceptable,” adding that he worries a Sessions-led Justice Department could “undermine” criminal justice reform, civil rights, and “the advancement of gays and lesbians in this country.”

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These Are The Top Global Risks For 2017 According To The World Economic Forum

Ahead of next week’s Davos meetings organized by the World Economic Forum, in which the world’s top politicians, financers, and celebrities will mingle, today the WEF released its annual report on what it believes are the top global risks for 2017.

For those who would prefered to just focus on the charts, please skip this part.  For the rest, and especially those pressed for time, and unable to read the 78 page report, here is the exeutive summary:

For over a decade, The Global Risks Report has focused attention on the evolution of global risks and the deep interconnections between them. The Report has also highlighted the potential of persistent, long-term trends such as inequality and deepening social and political polarization to exacerbate risks associated with, for example, the weakness of the economic recovery and the speed of technological change. These trends came into sharp focus during 2016, with rising political discontent and disaffection evident in countries across the world. The highest-profile signs of disruption may have come in Western countries – with the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union and President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election – but across the globe there is evidence of a growing backlash against elements of the domestic and international status quo.

 

The Global Risks Landscape

 

One of the key inputs to the analysis of The Global Risks Report is the Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), which brings together diverse perspectives from various age groups, countries and sectors: business, academia, civil society and government. This year’s findings are testament to five key challenges that the world now faces. The first two are in the economic category, in line with the fact that rising income and wealth disparity is rated by GRPS respondents as the most important trend in determining global developments over the next 10 years. This points to the need for reviving economic growth, but the growing mood of anti-establishment populism suggests we may have passed the stage where this alone would remedy fractures in society: reforming market capitalism must also be added to the agenda.

 

With the electoral surprises of 2016 and the rise of once-fringe parties stressing national sovereignty and traditional values across Europe and beyond, the societal trends of increasing polarization and intensifying national sentiment are ranked among the top five. Hence the next challenge: facing up to the importance of identity and community. Rapid changes of attitudes in areas such as gender, sexual  orientation, race, multiculturalism, environmental protection and international cooperation have led many voters – particularly the older and less-educated ones – to feel left behind in their own countries. The resulting cultural schisms are testing social and political cohesion and may amplify many other risks if not resolved.

 

Although anti-establishment politics tends to blame globalization for deteriorating domestic job prospects, evidence suggests that managing technological change is a more important challenge for labour markets.  While innovation has historically created new kinds of jobs as well as destroying old kinds, this process may be slowing. It is no coincidence that challenges to social cohesion and policy-makers’ legitimacy are coinciding with a highly disruptive phase of technological change.

 

The fifth key challenge is to protect and strengthen our systems of global cooperation. Examples are mounting of states seeking to withdraw from various international cooperation mechanisms. A lasting shift  in the global system from an outward-looking to a more inward-looking stance would be a highly disruptive development. In numerous areas – not least the ongoing crisis in Syria and the migration flows it has created – it is ever clearer how important global cooperation is on the interconnections that shape the risk landscape.

 

Further challenges requiring global cooperation are found in the environmental category, which this year stands out in the GRPS. Over the course of the past decade, a cluster of environment-related risks – notably extreme weather events and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as water crises – has emerged as a consistently central feature of the GRPS risk landscape, strongly interconnected with many other risks, such as conflict and migration. This year, environmental concerns are more prominent than ever, with all five risks in this category assessed as being above average for both impact and likelihood.

 

Social and Political Challenges

 

After the electoral shocks of the last year, many are asking whether the crisis of mainstream political parties in Western democracies also represents a deeper crisis with democracy itself. The first of three “risks in focus” considered in Part 2 of the Report assesses three related reasons to think so: the impacts of rapid economic and technological change; the deepening of social and cultural polarization; and the emergence of “post-truth” political debate. These challenges to the political process bring into focus policy questions such as how to make economic growth more inclusive and how to reconcile growing identity nationalism with diverse societies.

 

The second risk in focus also relates to the functioning of society and politics: it looks at how civil society organizations and individual activists are increasingly experiencing government crackdowns on civic space, ranging from restrictions on foreign funding to surveillance of digital activities and even physical violence. Although the stated aim of such measures is typically to protect against security threats, the effects have been felt by academic, philanthropic and humanitarian entities and have the potential to erode social, political and economic stability.

 

An issue underlying the rise of disaffection with the political and economic status quo is that social protection systems are at breaking point. The third risk in focus analyses how the underfunding of state  systems is coinciding with the decline of employer-backed social protection schemes; this is happening while technological change means stable, long-term jobs are giving way to self-employment in the “gig  economy”.

 

Managing the Fourth Industrial Revolution

 

The final part of this Report explores the relationship between global risks and the emerging technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). We face a pressing governance challenge if we are to construct the rules, norms, standards, incentives, institutions and other mechanisms that are needed to shape the development and deployment of these technologies. How to govern fast-developing technologies is a complex question: regulating too heavily too quickly can hold back progress, but a lack of governance can exacerbate risks as well as creating unhelpful uncertainty for potential investors and innovators.

 

Currently, the governance of emerging technologies is patchy: some are regulated heavily, others hardly at all because they do not fit under the remit of any existing regulatory body. Respondents to the GRPS saw two emerging technologies as being most in need of better governance: biotechnologies – which tend to be highly regulated, but in a slow-moving way – and artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, a space that remains only lightly governed. A chapter focusing on the risks associated with AI considers the potential risks associated with letting greater decision-making powers move from humans to AI programmes, as well as the debate about whether and how to prepare for the possible development of machines with greater general intelligence than humans.

 

The Report concludes by assessing the risks associated with how technology is reshaping physical infrastructure: greater interdependence among different infrastructure networks is increasing the scope for systemic failures – whether from cyberattacks, software glitches, natural disasters or other causes – to cascade across networks and affect society in unanticipated ways.

And now, for the visual summary, first the The Risks-Trends Interconnections Map:

 

Next, the WEF’s summary of The Evolving Risks Landscape, 2007-2017. It shows how the “world’s most important people” have seen the transformation of risks over the past decade. We find it curious that after years of Social issues dominating the top spot, suddenly it is “extreme weather events” are the biggest risk for the world. Ironically, this takes place just as the social upheavals of the past year have converged to result in the biggest fallout against the status quo in modern history.

Next, is a simple summary of the WEF’s Global Risks Landscape of 2017.

It’s not just standalone risks – the next chat shows how global risks are interconnected.

Finally, here is a breakdown of all the various global risks the WEF can envision, which likely means that if anything threatens the system, it won’t be on this list.

 

Full presentation below (pdf link)

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Dollar Rebounds As Trump Talks Trade: “Major Border Tax” Is Coming

Having dumped billions last week to defend the peso, one wonders if the sudden rip higher in the peso (after tumbling on Trump’s comments) is yet another intervention by Banxico?

 

 

While this would not surprise us, there was broad USD weakness as markets were disappointed by Trump’s lack of discussion regarding trade… but once he mentioned it…

“There will be a major border tax on these companies that are leaving and getting away with murder and if our politicians had what it takes they would’ve done it years ago.”

USD surged.

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Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe Does Gun Rights a Favor: New at Reason

Some of the measures advanced by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) have had the unintended consequence of strengthening gun rights.

A. Barton Hinkle writes:

The National Rifle Association gave Terry McAuliffe an F when he ran for governor in 2013. McAuliffe said he didn’t care, and if anything he seemed proud of the grade. But lately he has been taking steps that might make supporters of gun rights think better of him.

The governor already took one last year, when he hammered out a deal with Republicans in the General Assembly. They were furious at Attorney General Mark Herring, who had canceled reciprocity agreements with other states that recognized their concealed-carry permits. The deal with the governor reinstated such recognition. In return, it required the State Police to be on hand at gun shows to offer background checks, and it required individuals subject to protective orders to surrender their weapons.

Progressives thought they got the short end of the stick. So despite the governor’s earlier decision to prohibit civilian bearing of arms in executive-branch offices, Everytown for Gun Safety, which has given millions to support Democrats in Virginia, took out a full-page ad to denounce McAuliffe and his deal.

View this article.

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Greater Fool Theory, Viewer Questions and Global Markets (Video)

By EconMatters


We discuss the Carry Trade, ultimate demise of the European Union, answer viewer questions, touch on the oil market, and dog financial media for the rating`s whores that they truly are in this video. There is some buy the rumor, sell the news effect in the oil market today, but we are still pretty bearish on the fundamentals of the industry, and the current supply glut in the market as witnessed by the most recent inventory reports. We think higher oil prices ultimately bring down some of the demand consumption numbers over time, as some of the demand gains over the past couple of years, come back in or retrace due to higher gasoline and diesel prices at the pump.

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VIX Jumps, Stocks Dump As Trump Fails To Discuss Stimulus

Drug stocks, Boeing, Lockheed, and automakers under pressure but the whole market appears to be derisking as Donald Trump’s press conference appears to be concluding without any discussion of stimulus, something dollar – and risk – bulls had expected, and which did not take place.

 

The machines tried to ramp The Dow as Trump started but that rapidly faded…

 

Year-to-date, gold is now a major winner and bonds top stocks…

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Pharma Stocks Crash Most Since Brexit After Trump Warns Drug Companies “Getting Away With Murder”

After six straight days higher and the best start to a year ever, Biotech/Pharma stocks were just crashed lower on the heels of comments from president-elect Trump promising more competitive drug pricing.

  • Trump says Pharma Industry is “getting away with murder” 
  • Trump says “we need new bidding procedures” for drug industry;

The biggest plunge in Pharma/Biotech stocks since Brexit in June 2016.

In 2 minutes, the entire 2017 rally has been wiped out.

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