Confirming what CBS reported earlier today, UK police and Whitehall officials said that the suspected bomber who killed at least 22 people is 22-year-old Salman Abedi (or Salman Ramadan Abedi) from a family of Libyan origin. Abedi had not been identified by the coroner so no further details would be given, Greater Manchester Police said.

Born in Manchester in 1994, the second youngest of four children his parents were Libyan refugees who came to the UK to escape the Gaddafi regime. His parents were both born in Libya but appear to have emigrated to London before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester where they have lived for at least ten years according to the Telegraph.

They had three sons in total and a daughter, who is now 18-years-old. Abedi grew up in the Whalley Range area, just yards from the local girl’s high school, which hit the headlines in 2015 when twins and grade A pupils, Zahra and Salma Halane, who were both aspiring medical students, left their homes and moved to Isil controlled Syria.

There were unconfirmed reports in Manchester that the whole family apart from the two elder sons recently returned to Libya.

Abedi was named by Greater Manchester Chief Constable Ian Hopkins on Tuesday.

Manchester Police Chief Hopkins said: “Our priority, along with the police counter terrorism network and our security partners, is to continue to establish whether he was acting alone or working as part of a wider network.”

Authorities say they are trying to determine if suspect Salman Abedi was “acting alone or working as part of a wider network.” http://pic.twitter.com/NhcrpxeyOZ

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 23, 2017

According to the FT, police launched raids across the south of Manchester on Tuesday as authorities tried to establish whether the suicide bomber who killed at least 22 people, including children, in the terrorist attack on a concert arena was working alone.  The hunt has initially focused on three adjoining neighbourhoods in the city’s southern districts. Greater Manchester Police said they had raided two addresses in Whalley Range and Fallowfield, where they also carried out a controlled explosion. Forensic investigators could be seen at one of the addresses searching for clues.

Armed officers also arrested a 23-year-old man in connection with the attack, swooping on the suspect outside a Morrison’s supermarket in nearby Chorlton. It is unclear whether the arrest was related to either of the raids.

 

All three areas are ethnically diverse and popular places to live for students. Manchester is the biggest university city in the UK outside of London.

Earlier on Tuesday, Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, although the jihadi group has in the past taken credit for terror incidents that were later found to be unconnected. Dan Coats, the US director of national intelligence, said Isis’s role had yet to be confirmed, adding: “They claim responsibility for virtually every attack.”

UK Police said the attacker died in the explosion, which left 59 people in hospital with injuries. The device, which detonated just after 10.30pm on Monday, appeared to have been packed with metal objects to maximise its lethality. Witnesses at the scene described finding nuts and bolts on the floor near the blast.

Another priority noted by the police will be to establish whether any further linked attacks or copycat incidents are planned. It is likely that the bomber’s communications will form a significant part of the inquiry, while investigators will also be checking if he was known to authorities in any way.

One area of focus will be examining the remnants of the device used in the attack as officers work to establish whether the perpetrator built it himself or had help. As well as seeking to identify any potential accomplices in Britain, authorities will also be looking into the possibility of any link to international groups. In the first hours after an attack on this scale investigators were sifting through a number of theories as they work to settle on the most likely lines of inquiry.

Commentators also pointed out that the Manchester attack took place on the fourth anniversary of the killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, south-east London. Chris Phillips, the former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme: “That may be significant as well.”

via http://ift.tt/2qLEtQo Tyler Durden

The number of futures betting on euro-area equity turbulence crashed 44% from a record following last week’s expiration, as it appears Emmaniel Macron’s victory has seemingly saved the world…

As Bloomberg details, that was the second-biggest one-day drop on record, after a 53 percent decline in open interest back in August 2010, when the market was much smaller.

With France’s presidential election out of the way and the VStoxx Index set for its biggest monthly slide of the year, investors are paring their wagers for volatility ahead… because what could possibly go wrong in Europe with Italy and Spain heating up and Draghi being pushed towards tighter policy?

via http://ift.tt/2qSEr7t Tyler Durden

Interested in precious metals investing or storage? Contact us HERE 

 

Thirteen Reasons Why: America’s High Schools Are Creating (Another) Lost Generation

Written by Peter Diekmeyer (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

 

 

 

Netflix’s recent announcement that it would be producing a second season of Thirteen Reasons Why has raised new questions about the disastrous state of the US public school system and its effects on the economy.

“Hey, it’s Hannah Baker,” says the show’s protagonist, played by a stunning Katherine Langford in the opening episode. “Get settled in. Because I’m about to tell you the story of my life. More specifically, why my life ended.”

The Thirteen Reasons’ portrait of how a stifling, bureaucratic system progressively cuts this teenage girl to pieces, eventually driving her to death, provides a dramatized, insightful reflection on (another) emerging lost generation.

The statistics are grim: a third of 18- to 34-year-olds in the U.S. live at home according to the US Census Bureau. Homeserve USA finds that nearly one in three Americans can’t come up with $500 to fund an emergency. As if that were not enough, according to the US Congressional Budget Office, governments have saddled today’s young with more than $100 trillion worth of pension and healthcare debts.

The harder truth depicted in Thirteen Reasons Why is that today’s high school graduates emerge with few skills, little education and a sanitized view of the world. In short, they are totally unprepared to take on the challenges they face.

Following are Thirteen Reasons Why:

1. Thirteen years in jail

In Thirteen Reasons, Hannah, the bullied protagonist has no way to escape a toxic environment. Her helpless position progressively worsens and eventually drives her to suicide.

Because education is compulsory in the United States, Hannah lives in a de facto prison. She cannot change schools or classes without parental approval and undergoing a humiliating bureaucratic process.

An education system that prioritized learning would put students at the center, leaving them free to choose their schools, classes, teachers and programs.

2. American kids can’t vote

The challenges facing American kids are exacerbated by the fact that they aren’t allowed to vote. They thus have little stake in the system, no sense of responsibility and adopt a de facto poise of helplessness.

3. Students come last

None of the dozen studies reviewed for this article assessed the US public education system based on students’ needs.

Governments prioritize public education based on its effects on national competitiveness. Businesses focus on getting skilled workers (whose training they don’t want to pay for). Teachers’ unions focus on salaries and working conditions.

The upshot is that students’ interests come last.

4. Bloated administrations

America spends more per student than any other country yet ranks 14th in terms of results, behind Russia. Must of this is due to legions of highly-paid administrators that clog the system with rules, regulations and forms, few of which prioritize education.

5. Kids taught to worship government; shun individual responsibility

The young have always been concerned with social causes. It’s thus hardly surprising that teachers would encourage students to prioritize government’s role in healthcare, welfare and environmental regulation.

However today’s public schools offer essentially no counter arguments about individual responsibility.

High school graduates thus emerge as easy prey for politicians who claim that near-unlimited government spending and borrowing are the cure for the nation’s problems. (See the Krugman con).

6. Public schools teach no marketable skills

The greatest indictment of the public school system’s actual performance relates to the fact that students graduate with no marketable skills.

If America’s kids emerged from schools able to read, write, do basic math, type, work as a team and use a half dozen common software packages, they would have something to show for their 13 years in the slammer.

7. Banning Ayn Rand and Huckleberry Finn

Socrates’ motto at the Agora was to “question everything.” However public schools prioritize politically correct doctrine that consciously excludes key ideas and concepts.

Ayn Rand, the most important philosopher of the 20th century, is essentially banned from the public system, as is Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, which Hemingway cited as the root of American literature. History teaching in America, as Niall Ferguson has noted, is sanitized to the point of rendering it almost counterproductive.

8. State-directed curricula: one size fits all

Students vary as do the communities they live in. However a disproportionate amount of teaching is dictated by bureaucrats. This leaves teachers little flexibility to adjust based on students’ needs.

These differ based on whether the school in located in poorer neighborhoods where many students come from single family homes, or in upper middle-class professional communities where traditional family structures are more common.

9. Kids graduate clueless about finances

Public schools teach essentially nothing about managing money, likely the single most important life skill a kid could have. Students graduate thus thinking that borrowing is fine.

This leaves them prey to America’s biggest predatory lenders: big universities, which have managed to saddle youth with $1.2 trillion worth of debts, many of whom have little to show for it.

10. “Hoop jumper” worship: drives out the talented and curious

One of the biggest weaknesses in public and private schools is their collective worship of “hoop jumpers,” – that universal collection of the obsequious sorts that clutter Dean’s lists and other “Top Students” awards.

This wouldn’t be a problem if schools were able to correctly identify top performers. However heavy state-defined curricula force teachers to “teach to the test.”

This leads to the advancement of drone-like students who are able to recite mindless data, massaged concepts and formulas, and more dangerously: with the need to guess and kow-tow to what teachers want them to say.

Worse, in two centuries of public schooling, teachers still fall for that old trap of giving the best marks to kids with nice hand-writing or to math students who get the wrong answer but manage to “show their work.” Students who challenge conventional thinking are smiled at and given a B.

The upshot is the students with drive, curiosity and creativity are quickly driven out.

The number one students – like John Maynard Keynes, the father of modern economics, who taught that the best way to get rich was to spend more than you earn – rocket through the system, and now run the nation’s central banks and university economics departments.

You get the picture.

11. Powerful unions

In a world in which students are stuck in de facto prisons, teachers, who spend more time with them than their parents do, ought to be their biggest backers. They aren’t.

Teachers thus need to accept the lion’s share of the blame for the disastrous state of American schools.

That blame starts with the fact that teachers’ first priority has been to band into powerful unions, which put salaries, benefits and vacation time first and students’ interests last.

12. Millionaire teachers

True, teachers perform one of society’s most useful functions. However during a time of strained public finances students’ needs must come first – not teachers’ salaries.

The teachers’ unions have been hugely successful. Median compensation for US workers is $28,900. Teachers earn $58,000, almost double that amount.

The gap between teachers and those communities they teach in is exacerbated by the fact that gold-plated, state-guaranteed pensions mean that public school teachers generally retire as millionaires.

If teachers were paid at market rates, there would be more money available to fund students’ needs such as smaller class sizes, libraries and computers.

13. Mediocre teachers that can’t be fired

Teachers begin their careers ranked among most socially-committed of any professionals. But as with any human beings, a change takes hold of teachers once they acquire tenure and can no longer be fired.

Office hours and volunteer activities shrink, emails from students and parents are returned slower, if at all. The upshot is that many of the best teachers decline towards mediocrity as their careers advance.

*****

The takeaway for the alternative investors, who wonder how the American public could so easily fall for politicians, economists and central bankers that are running US productivity into the ground, the answer is clear.

America’s public schools may be leaving their graduates incapable of assessing the stakes.

 

Questions or comments about this article? Leave your thoughts HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

Thirteen Reasons Why: America’s High Schools Are Creating (Another) Lost Generation

Written by Peter Diekmeyer (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

via http://ift.tt/2qSED6R Sprott Money

Authored by James Freeman, op-ed via The Wall Street Journal,

The Unapologetic American – Donald Trump brings a new message to the Middle East.

President Donald Trump’s Sunday address in Saudi Arabia was bound to inspire comparisons to the speech Barack Obama delivered in Cairo, Egypt at a similar point in his young presidency. And just like his predecessor, Mr. Trump expressed gratitude and respect for his hosts. But the 45th U.S. President quickly made clear that he did not fly to the Middle East on his first overseas trip in order to explain what’s wrong with America.

It would be a crude overstatement to say that the message has gone from America worst to America first in one presidency. Mr. Obama did speak favorably of his country several times during his Cairo address. But the difference between Barack Obama’s speech in 2009 and the Trump remarks on Sunday in Riyadh is striking.

In 2009, Mr. Obama started out by making the case why Muslims should view his country with distrust:

We meet at a time of great tension between the United States and Muslims around the world — tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Later, Mr. Obama faulted the United States for overreacting to 9/11 and noted that he had ordered the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay by early 2010—a promise he would not fulfill. Mr. Obama also sought to make sure that the U.S. received an ample share of the blame for its poor relations with one of the world’s primary sponsors of terrorism:

For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I’ve made it clear to Iran’s leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward.

Even on issues of women’s rights, Mr. Obama didn’t want to give the U.S. much credit in comparison to the Muslim world. The latter is a world where women sometimes struggle just for the freedom to read books or drive automobiles. But Mr. Obama said that “the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.”

In Riyadh on Sunday, President Trump spent no time blaming America or making excuses for our adversaries. But he did note the possibilities available to a Middle East that rejects terror:

The potential of this region has never been greater. 65 percent of its population is under the age of 30. Like all young men and women, they seek great futures to build, great national projects to join, and a place for their families to call home.

But this untapped potential, this tremendous cause for optimism, is held at bay by bloodshed and terror. There can be no coexistence with this violence.

There can be no tolerating it, no accepting it, no excusing it, and no ignoring it.

Mr. Trump added that “no discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete” without mentioning the government that gives terrorists “safe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment. It is a regime that is responsible for so much instability in the region. I am speaking of course of Iran.” And he left no ambiguity about who was responsible:

The Iranian regime’s longest-suffering victims are its own people. Iran has a rich history and culture, but the people of Iran have endured hardship and despair under their leaders’ reckless pursuit of conflict and terror. Until the Iranian regime is willing to be a partner for peace, all nations of conscience must work together to isolate Iran, deny it funding for terrorism, and pray for the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve.

By the way, this column should note that perhaps the most striking comment when one looks back at Mr. Obama’s 2009 remarks has little to do with U.S. foreign policy, but underlines how far and how quickly the Democratic Party has moved on issues of sexual identity. Toward the end of his speech, Mr. Obama said,

“The Holy Koran tells us: ‘O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.’”

Referencing that line today in the era of transgender politics would have progressives back in the U.S. shrieking for a safe space.

As for the safety of the entire civilized world in its fight against Islamic terror, this column expects that many overseas listeners will find reassurance in a message from America without apologies.

via http://ift.tt/2qSDuMz Tyler Durden

The Military Pumps Out Staggering Quantities of Toxic Waste, Water and Air Pollution and Radiation

Environmentalists are ignoring the elephant in the room … the world’s largest polluter.

Newsweek reported in 2014:

The US Department of Defence is one of the world’s worst polluters. Its footprint dwarfs that of any corporation: 4,127 installations spread across 19 million acres of American soil. Maureen Sullivan, who heads the Pentagon’s environmental programmes, says her office contends with 39,000 contaminated sites.

 

Camp Lejeune is one of the Department’s 141 Superfund sites, which qualify for special clean up grants from the federal government.

That’s about 10% of all of America’s Superfund sites, easily more than any other polluter. If the definition is broadened beyond Pentagon installations, about 900 of the 1200 or so Superfund sites in America are abandoned military facilities or sites that otherwise support military needs.

 

“Almost every military site in this country is seriously contaminated,” said John D Dingell, a soon-to-retire Michigan congressman, who served in the Second World War.

The U.S. military is the third-largest polluter of U.S. waterways.

The Washington Post noted Monday:

The U.S. military is the single largest consumer of fuel in the world.

We use a highly-polluting form of nuclear power so the U.S. military can make bombs.  U.S. military considerations also drive nuclear policy in Japan (that didn’t turn out very well) and other countries.

The government has been covering up nuclear accidents for more than 50 years.

Above-ground nuclear tests – which caused numerous cancers to the “downwinders” – were covered up by the American government for decades. See this, this, this, this, this and this.

At least 33,480 U.S. nuclear weapons workers who have received compensation for health damage are now dead.

And the country’s main storage site for nuclear waste from military production may be in real trouble.

The Pentagon is also one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world … and yet has a blanket exemption from all greenhouse gas treaties.

The defense department also uses open-air burn pits which send a parade of horribles into the air.

Sealife is not exempt. Military sonar kills whales and dolphins.

And the military has long been a flagrant user of chemical weapons and depleted uranium … which can trash ecosystems and human health.

Defoliant spray run, part of Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War by UC-123B Provider aircraft.

Things Get Even Worse During Wartime

And then there’s actual war-fighting …

Then UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon pointed out in 2014:

The environment has long been a silent casualty of war and armed conflict. From the contamination of land and the destruction of forests to the plunder of natural resources and the collapse of management systems, the environmental consequences of war are often widespread and devastating.

The WorldWatch Institute notes:

An estimated 35 percent of southern Vietnam’s inland hardwood forest was sprayed [by the U.S. military with Agent Orange defoliant] at least once. Some areas-those bordering roads and rivers, around military bases, and along the forested transport route known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail-were hit up to half a dozen times.

 

***

 

With each spraying some portion of the trees failed to recover. Estimates ranged from about 10 percent in some forests sprayed only once to 80 percent or even more in those sprayed repeatedly. Denuded areas sometimes became desert-like, with blowing sand dunes.

 

***

 

About 14 percent of southern Vietnam’s teeming hardwood forests were destroyed ….

 

Vietnam’s coastal mangrove forests fared even worse: by a quirk of physiology, a single spraying could wipe out almost the entire plant community. Mangroves can live where other species cannot, at the brackish interface of land and sea, because their roots filter the salt out of seawater so that fresh water is drawn up into the plant’s leaves. The defoliants interfered with this filtering mechanism and allowed lethal doses of salt to accumulate in the plants.

 

Worse, the vegetation seemed utterly unable to regenerate, leaving bare mudflats even years after spraying.

 

***

 

Pfeiffer later recalled “a vast gray landscape, littered with the skeletons of herbicide-killed mangroves.”

 

***

 

A mid-1980s study by Vietnamese ecologists documented just 24 species of birds and 5 species of mammals present in sprayed forests and converted areas, compared to 145-170 bird species and 30-55 kinds of mammals in intact forest.

The Guardian notes of the Iraq War:

Sewers flowed into the streets and rivers, and refineries and pipelines leaked oil into the soil. The sanctions that followed meant little was repaired and land and cities have been poisoned. One observer in Basra in 2008 said people “live amid mud and faeces…

Childhood cancer rates are the highest in the country. The city’s salty tap water makes people ill. And there is more garbage on the streets than municipal collectors can make a dent in”.

 

Lutz says the images of 630 burning oil wells, torched by the retreating Iraqi army in Kuwait in 1991, advertised the inherent ‘ecocide’ of war. But this type of destruction is “the tip of the iceberg”, she says.

 

***

 

In all wars, displaced people congregate en masse without infrastructure to support their presence. Refugees turn to the environment in order to fulfil their basic needs. [i.e. they strip the land bare just to survive.]

 

***

 

“War is bad for wildlife in as many ways as for people.

 

***

 

In Afghanistan too, wildlife and habitats have disappeared. The past 30 years of war has stripped the country of its trees, including precious native pistachio woodlands. The Costs of War Project says illegal logging by US-backed warlords and wood harvesting by refugees caused more than one-third of Afghanistan’s forests to vanish between 1990 and 2007. Drought, desertification and species loss have resulted. The number of migratory birds passing through Afghanistan has fallen by 85%.

Syria and Yemen‘s environments have also been trashed by U.S.-backed wars.

So environmentalists who stay silent about imperial wars of adventure are totally ineffective.

Environmental Issues Cannot Be Separated From Issues of War and Peace

Foreign Policy Journal explains:

No matter what we’re led to believe, the world’s worst polluter is not your cousin who refuses to recycle or that co-worker who drives a gas guzzler or the guy down the block who simply will not try CFL bulbs. “The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest U.S. chemical companies combined,” explains Lucinda Marshall, founder of the Feminist Peace Network. Pesticides, defoliants like Agent Orange, solvents, petroleum, lead, mercury, and depleted uranium are among the many deadly substances used by the military.

 

***

The U.S. military and its fellow polluters—trans-national corporations—treat the planet like it’s a porta-potty…with little or no opposition from the general population. In fact, the military typically enjoys unconditional support even from those who identify as “anti-war.”Keep this in mind the next time you hear the phrase “war on terror”: Our tax dollars are subsidizing a global eco-terror campaign and all the recycled toilet paper in the world ain’t gonna change that.

Project Censored pointed out in 2010:

The US military is responsible for the most egregious and widespread pollution of the planet, yet this information and accompanying documentation goes almost entirely unreported. In spite of the evidence, the environmental impact of the US military goes largely unaddressed by environmental organizations  …. This impact includes uninhibited use of fossil fuels, massive creation of greenhouse gases, and extensive release of radioactive and chemical contaminants into the air, water, and soil.

 

***

 

According to Barry Sanders, author of The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism, “the greatest single assault on the environment, on all of us around the globe, comes from one agency . . . the Armed Forces of the United States.”

 

Throughout the long history of military preparations, actions, and wars, the US military has not been held responsible for the effects of its activities upon environments, peoples, or animals.

 

***

 

As it stands, the Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined. Depleted uranium, petroleum, oil, pesticides, defoliant agents such as Agent Orange, and lead, along with vast amounts of radiation from weaponry produced, tested, and used, are just some of the pollutants with which the US military is contaminating the environment. Flounders identifies key examples:

 

– Depleted uranium: Tens of thousands of pounds of microparticles of radioactive and highly toxic waste contaminate the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Balkans.

 

– US-made land mines and cluster bombs spread over wide areas of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East continue to spread death and destruction even after wars have ceased.

 

– Thirty-five years after the Vietnam War, dioxin contamination is three hundred to four hundred times higher than “safe” levels, resulting in severe birth defects and cancers into the third generation of those affected.

 

– US military policies and wars in Iraq have created severe desertification of 90 percent of the land, changing Iraq from a food exporter into a country that imports 80 percent of its food.

 

– In the US, military bases top the Superfund list of the most polluted places, as perchlorate and trichloroethylene seep into the drinking water, aquifers, and soil.

 

– Nuclear weapons testing in the American Southwest and the South Pacific Islands has contaminated millions of acres of land and water with radiation, while uranium tailings defile Navajo reservations.

 

– Rusting barrels of chemicals and solvents and millions of rounds of ammunition are criminally abandoned by the Pentagon in bases around the world.

 

***

 

Between 1946 and 1958, the US dropped more than sixty nuclear weapons on the people of the Marshall Islands. The Chamoru people of Guam, being so close and downwind, still experience an alarmingly high rate of related cancer.

 

***

 

Meanwhile, as if the US military has not contaminated enough of the world already, a new five-year strategic plan by the US Navy outlines the militarization of the Arctic to defend national security, potential undersea riches, and other maritime interests, anticipating the frozen Arctic Ocean to be open waters by the year 2030.

 

***

 

Linking the antiwar and environmental movements is a much-needed step. As Cindy Sheehan recently told me, “I think one of the best things that we can do is look into economic conversion of the defense industry into green industries, working on sustainable and renewable forms of energy, and/or connect[ing] with indigenous people who are trying to reclaim their lands from the pollution of the military industrial complex. The best thing to do would be to start on a very local level to reclaim a planet healthy for life.”

It comes down to recognizing the connections, recognizing how we are manipulated into supporting wars and how those wars are killing our ecosystem.

Postscript: War is also bad for the economy.

via http://ift.tt/2qgy1Nw George Washington

SubPrime 2.0 is proving far worse than even we suspected.

If you’ve not been following this story, our view is that the auto-loan industry is Subprime 2.0: the riskiest, worst area in a massive debt bubble, much as subprime mortgage lending was the riskiest worst part of the housing bubble.

In both instances, these lending industries were rife with fraud, terrible due diligence, and the like. So when the debt bomb blew up, they were the first to implode.

However, it would appear now that the Subprime 2.0 was even worse than Subprime 1.0 in terms of verifying income.

Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc., one of the biggest subprime auto finance companies, verified income on just 8 percent of borrowers whose loans it recently bundled into $1 billion of bonds, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The low level of due diligence on applicants compares with 64 percent for loans in a recent securitization sold by General Motors Financial Co.’s AmeriCredit unit. The lack of checks may be one factor in explaining higher loan losses experienced by Santander Consumer in bond deals that it has sold in recent years…

 Source: Bloomberg

Santander only verified income on just 8% of autoloans. Put another way, on more than 9 out of every 10 autoloans, Santander didn't even check if the person had a job.

Pretty horrific.

However, the story also notes that even the more diligent lender AmeriCredit verified income on only 64% of loans.

So… two of the largest autoloan lenders basically were signing off on loans without proving the person even had a JOB either roughly half the time or roughly ALL the time.

And this is on a $1.0 TRILLION debt bubble.

Meanwhile, stocks are flirting with all time highs.

Sounds a bit like late 2007 doesn't it?

We offer a FREE investment report outlining when the bubble will burst as well as what investments will pay out massive returns to investors when this happens. It's called The Biggest Bubble of All Time (and three investment strategies to profit from it).

We made 1,000 copies to the general public.

As I write this there are just 19 are left.

To pick up your FREE copy…

CLICK HERE!

Best Regards

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

 

 

via http://ift.tt/2q7BTp2 Phoenix Capital Research

Since inception, the S&P 500 has shown steady growth. In fact, if you had bought the index in January 1950 and held until now, your investment would be up a cool 14,000%. Compare that to the TSX Venture, where a buy and hold strategy since inception in 1990 would have yielded a return of -7.0%. The reason for this difference is the absolute cyclicality of resource market versus general equities.

Since 2011, the S&P has plowed ahead, while the TSX Venture became mired in its worst and longest bear market. The S&P has gained 61% at a time while the Venture gave up a staggering 77%. Ouch!

However, since the resource markets began to rebound in 2016, the dynamics have altered.

The TSX Venture has outperformed the S&P 500 for the past 18 months in dramatic fashion, posting a 71% gain while the S&P rose just 21%. What’s at play? General equity growth may be slowing. However the real factor here is the strength of cyclicality in a resource bull market.

Resource investors continually dwell on the never-ending bull market in the S&P – we have been quite vocal on the topic. The data outlined above puts a new perspective on things, a reminder that we are in a bull market and as the title of this article suggests, “The S&P is reaching record highs, but the TSX-V is where the money is at!”

via http://ift.tt/2qSriLX Palisade Research

Last Wednesday's decline – as Trump impeachment odds soared alongside VIX – has now been erased thanks to 4 volumeless opening-gap, buy the fucking terrorist-attack dip days…

Mission Accomplished? 2,400.67 or bust…

 

And VIX is back…

Now what?

via http://ift.tt/2q7O59a Tyler Durden

On Tuesday, the White House revealed its proposed 2018 budget, which as discussed earlier, anticipates some draconian cuts to government spending amounting to a massive $3.6 trillion over the next 10 years. Broken down by department, this is who wins and loses:

• DHS +7%
• VA +6%
• Def +5%
• DOJ -4%
• Ener -6%
• Int -11%
• HUD -13%
• Trans -13%
• Ed -14%
• HHS -16%
• Labor -20%
• Ag -21%
• State -29%
• EPA -31%

While one can debate the merits, philosophy and ethics of the proposed cuts, there is another, potentially more concerning observation to emerge from the budget, or rather its assumptions.

As a reminder, as of May, the current expansion which started in June 2009, and which has lasted for 95 months, is already the third longest in US history.

So what emerges when looking at the underlying assumptions of Trump’s budget? Nothing short of assumed economic nirvana.

As the following table taken from page 45 of the budget (titled “A New Foundation For American Greatness”) shows, the US is expected to grow at 2.3% in 2017, 2.3% in 2018 and so on, until GDP plateaus at 3.0% in 2020 and remains there until the end of calendar 2027.

What this means is that the White House is assuming there will be no deficit for the entire duration of the projected 10 year period!

But that’s not all, because it also means that the White House budget is based on the assumption that the expansion that started in June 2009 will last at least until December 2027, or an absolutely unprecedented 222 consecutive months of expansion.

There is a problem with that: as the chart below shows, an expansion of that duration – nearly 19 years in a row – would not only be the single longest expansion in American histoy, but it would also last double the next longest duration ever recorded in the US, the expansion which began in March 1991 and ended with the dot com crash, in March 2001.

Unfortunately for the White House, while we are impressed with such grotesque GDP goalseeking, we have a feeling that the next recession will come far sooner than the budget projects…

via http://ift.tt/2qgfcdx Tyler Durden