Donald Trump Denounces Wasteful Pentagon Spending, Vows Great Defense W/No Additional Spending

For all the talk of Ted Cruz trying to reel in disappointed Rand Paul supporters, it just may be Donald Trump who ends up with a good chunk of them.

At an appearance in New Hampshire, Trump went into full Tea Party Beast Mode, attacking virtually every aspect of government spending, including what President Eisenhower famously vilified as the “military-industrial complex”:

On defense, in a race in which all of his Republican rivals favor increasing military spending, Trump promised instead to go after waste and profiteering in the defense industry. “I hear stories, like they’re ordering missiles they don’t want because of politics, because of special interests,” Trump said. “Because the company that makes the missiles is a contributor.” There is so much of that kind of corruption in the Pentagon, Trump said, that he will be able to build up the military without actually spending more, just by putting an end to wasteful and corrupt practices.

That sounds strikingly reminiscent of former presidential candidate Paul’s plan to “audit the Pentagon” with the same vigor as he promised to audit the Fed. Recall also that Candidate Trump has at times espoused the idea of letting Russia and other countries “fight ISIS in Syria,” with the United States only coming in later once things have calmed down. 

Certainly, there is a huge (yuge?) amount of waste when it comes to defense spending. There are whole weapons and aircraft systems that are needleslly expensive. For an atlas of despair on that, consider the F-35 fighter jet, which exemplifies everything that is wrong with the way things get done when the Pentagon is involved. The jet, which will be obsolete by the time it is actually up and running properly (which may never actually happen), has a price tag of at least $1.5 trillion and will likely need to use really old planes to support it on missions. None of this has stopped the Pentagon from going ahead and ordering 404 of the occasionally airborne boondoggles over the next few years. Beyond spending on particular things, there’s also no question that America’s footprint over the world is needlessly big and expensive. And it’s telling that the federal government is incapable of cutting “war spending” even when the country is no longer at war.

In his recent appearance, as reported by Byron York in The Washington Examiner, Trump also attacked all sorts of what are usually called “moneyed interests.”

Trump railed against pharmaceutical companies. He railed against oil companies. And insurance companies. And defense contractors. And he set himself against a political system that he said allows big-money corporate “bloodsuckers” to control the government with campaign contributions.

“Whether it’s the insurance companies, or the drug companies, or the oil companies, it’s all the same thing,” Trump said. “We’re never going to get our country back if we keep doing this.”…

“We’re not allowed to negotiate drug prices, can you believe it?” Trump said. Noting that Woody Johnson, of the Johnson & Johnson family, is a big Jeb Bush fundraiser, Trump asked, “Do you think Jeb Bush is going to make drug prices competitive?” 

There’s a clarity and an attraction to this sort of talk, even if it’s not specifically libertarian in any way, shape, or form. As York notes, many of Trump’s lines could have been spoken by Bernie Sanders. What’s different here is that because Trump is a rich sonofabitch, virulently anti-immigrant, opposed to free trade (at least with China), intermittently bellicose (he’s talked about not just killing terrorists but “their families”), and at least mouthing social-conservative positions on abortion and other social issues, he can speak directly to Republican voters.

York frets that were The Donald to make it to the White House, he “would blow up the Republican Party as it now exists in Washington….[and] make the party virtually unrecognizable to its members today.” That’s probably true but it says a helluva lot about the GOP that a guy with zero political experience and pretty clearly no understanding of what it means to a Republican conservative is leading that party’s nomination process.

I think that’s partly beause whether they like it or not, Trump has built his platform directly on top of conservative complaints emanating from National Review (which has read him out of the conservative movement) and other sources of right-wing orthodoxy. Trump may not have a philosophically consistent world view, but like Sanders, he is channeling anger and resentment at an “Establishment” and a status quo which seems to have no regard for the common people. Between Sanders and Trump, the weakness of the major parties is being revealed in dramatic fashion. While I can’t see myself voting for either—Trump’s xenophobia, unmoored strongman ravings, and utter lack of experience are only the beginning of his problems and Sanders’ economic platform and big-government everything are just awful—it isn’t hard to see their appeal in a race featuring representatives from America’s two leading political dynasties, candidates still arguing over who Ronald Reagan would like best, and a former first lady, U.S. senator, and secretary of state whose strongest argument for the presidency is that it’s her turn and she’s got a lot of endorsements from admirals and academics.

Will Trump’s us-against-all-of-THEM populism, including the military, grab the attention of Rand Paul voters now that the Kentucky senator has left the race? Some of them, for sure, especially if Ted Cruz is seen as the only alternative. For all of his own populist stirrings (including an anti-immigration policy arguably meaner than Trump’s), Cruz is an insider by dint of being in the Senate (not to mention have twice as many Ivy League degrees as the businessman). If the Republican rabble is in a destructive mood, they will certainly flip the switch for Trump, just as similarly situated Democrats will go long on Sanders.

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Should Women Be Required to Sign Up for the Military Draft?

SelectiveServiceSecretary of Defense Ash Carter has ordered that all ground-combat jobs, including special-operations billets, be opened to women. All American men are required to register with Selective Service when they turn 18 years old. Since women are now able to serve in combat roles, is there any reason that they should not also be required to register with Selective Service? During the Republican presidential candidate debate on Saturday, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie all more or less agreed that women should be required to sign up.

According to CNN, Ted Cruz, however, later rejected the idea as “nuts” and noted: “I’m the father of two little girls. I love those girls with all my heart. They are capable of doing anything in their hearts’ desire, but the idea that their government would forcibly put them in the foxhole with a 220-pound psychopath trying to kill them, doesn’t make any sense at all.”

The Sunday New York Times featured an article that reported that economists in general are against the military draft and in favor of a voluntary force. So far, so good. The article then also noted:

The Supreme Court in 1981 rejected a challenge to the registration requirement brought by men who argued that it was unfair to exclude women. The court said at the time that the registration system existed to provide a reserve of combat troops, and the military had the authority to determine that women were not able to serve in those roles. …

“The military now concedes that women can perform in combat roles, so the rationale for why they shouldn’t be drafted doesn’t apply,” said Tim Bakken, a law professor at the United States Military Academy, adding that a new lawsuit could force a change. “The facts have overtaken the law.”

Interestingly, a 2011 study in The Journal of Politics reported survey results that found that instituting a draft significantly reduced the public’s support for war: “moving from an all-volunteer to a conscript army decreases support by 17% (from 54% to 37%).”

I strongly suspect that including women in the draft would reduce the American public’s appetite for war even more.

Disclosure: My birthday draft lottery number was 320.

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Treasury Yield Collapse Leaves 5Y At Crucial Cliff

US Treasury yields are collapsing across the entire curve, down  9-10bps from their pre-opening highs this morning. While 10Y pushed belwo 1.80% (to one-year lows), it is 5Y yields that have traders the most anxious as they look to break out below three-year channel lows…

 

 

What happens next?


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Three Reasons To Be Worried About The Economy

Submitted by Yonathan Amselem via The Mises Institute,

On January 12, America’s central planner-in-chief gave his State of the Union address. The president promised nothing less than to feed the hungry, create jobs, shape the earth’s climate, and make everyone a college graduate. There’s nothing new here, though. We’ve heard variations of this silly song and dance every year under both Democrats and Republicans. The president lambasted naysayers as fear-mongers that were too partisan to admit we have a booming economy. The fact that the Dow Jones cratered roughly 9 percent in the same thirty-day period President Obama gave his address did nothing to quell Obama's optimism about America’s future. In fact, he labeled the US economy “the strongest and most durable in the world.”

Despite our leader’s unwavering confidence in America’s fortunes, a quick peak under the hood reveals a pretty grim state of American commerce.

1. The Federal Reserve and US Government Have Warped the American Economy

In just the past decade, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has grown from roughly $800 billion to over $4 trillion. Our central bankers engaging in massive asset purchases to pummel interest rates downward is not news to anyone. We’ve been living in a world of falling interest rates since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, few mainstream economists have taken a good look at the destructive effects of this unprecedented monetary expansion. The calamitous distortions Fed policy has created for actors on both Main Street and Wall Street since 2008 have laid the groundwork for yet another crash.

Low interest rates stemming from a growing money supply are the only reason the US government has managed to service its gargantuan debt in recent years. The Congressional Budget Office itself has pointed out that even a slight rise in interest rates could potentially result in anywhere from $700 to $900 billion in annual tax payments just to service the interest on our debt. At this pace, paying the republic’s creditors will become our largest government program in no time. Future Americans might go to work and have 50 percent of their paychecks seized not to pay for government services, but simply to service debt forced on them by central planners.

But public debt is far from the only distortion artificially low rates have wrought. Mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, and student loans have ballooned total consumer debt to $12 trillion, and this number is only trending upward. The easy credit economy manufactured by central bankers has obliterated American savings and replaced them with debt. The average American consumer has less than $1,000 in his bank account. He lives praying for no car trouble or a broken arm. There was a time when Americans were rewarded for saving their earnings with double-digit interest rates but this is a distant memory. If Americans want to earn a return nowadays they must play the central-bank sponsored stock market casino. In fact, calling the stock market a casino is a little insulting to casinos — at least Blackjack has consistent rules.

2. American Corporations Are Debt-ridden and Unproductive

The post-recession bull market inspired a lot of confidence in the American economy and Obama’s recovery, but this is akin to praising great happy hour specials on the Titanic. Soaring stock market prices are not a result of increased productivity or innovation — they are a symptom of central bank fueled asset inflation and corporate debt. In fact, since 2008, corporate debt has doubled. Almost 100 percent of all corporate issued debt has been used to buy back stocks and prop up equity prices. This bears repeating. Almost none of America’s recently issued corporate debt has gone toward investing in plant and equipment, increasing the workforce, research and development, or expanding operations in any meaningful way.

Our central bankers, regulatory agencies, and fiscal policies have created a financial system so distorted and removed from real assets and real cash flow generation that corporate executives can rake in billions in bonuses while producing almost nothing of real value. Investing in the real American economy is just not worth the risk. The massive long-term obligations assumed by American companies high on low interest rates will slowly crush the life out of our economy. The only answer is to start producing real goods and begin generating real cash flow. But this won’t happen in the bubble-finance nightmare cycle we’re now in.

Our current money commissar, Janet Yellen, recently “raised rates” from 0.25 percent to a paltry 0.5 percent. If this rounding error of a rate hike can send the market tumbling off a cliff, what would happen if the fed raised the target rate back up to 6 percent like in 2000?

3. American Entrepreneurship is Dying and American Workers Are Unproductive

Financial chicanery aside, we have to come to terms with the fact that Americans themselves just aren’t built like they used to be. President Obama’s administration constantly cites low unemployment as a sign that our economy is back on track. To say unemployment numbers are massaged is an understatement. Of course unemployment recovered since 2008, President Obama was sworn in at the end of a market crash! But more importantly, the American economy is not producing architects, engineers, machinists, or other high value, goods-producing workers. We are pumping out an army of waiters, social workers, and associate professors with worthless six-figure degrees they have no hope of paying off in this life or the next. American workers are not interested or encouraged to start businesses, learn new skills, or innovate in some way. The typical American graduate firmly believes he can turn a six-year sociology degree into a job that doesn’t involve bringing people mimosas for brunch.

Our unproductive workforce is not all the fault of its members.The disincentives for entrepreneurship and wealth creation are colossal in this country. Dealing with licensing boards, zoning commissions, health inspectors, unions, and other regulatory bodies at the federal, state, and municipal level is extraordinarily burdensome, particularly for the poor and nascent immigrants. Successful entrepreneurs then have taxes levied at the federal, state, and local level across a cavalcade of confusing forms and attachments. The state and its many institutions make it nearly impossible for the average American citizen to just try something. This is the lifeblood of a “durable economy.” Unfortunately, business failures are now outpacing business startups.

The political class has completely disrupted the American structure of production, made American workers uncompetitive, snuffed the life out of entrepreneurs, and burdened the entire nation with a debt obligation the size of Jupiter. The US economy is not the strongest and most durable in the world — it is an unskilled thirty-two-year-old waiter crashing at his parent’s place and trying to pay down an $80,000 international relations degree.


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Key Events In The Coming Week: Janet Yellen Testifies, China Closed

With China celebrating the Lunar New Year and offline until next weekend, and with the US in the usual post-payrolls macro newsflow lull, the markets will have more than enough time to stew in the latest source of contagion fears, namely Europe, the same Europe which until recently was fixed but is broken all over again. The highlight of the week will be Janet Yellen’s semi-annual testimony to Congress where she is expected to confirm she is trapped: either push the market even lower by sounding hawkish, or admit the US is on the verge of a recession and admit policy error.

Here is what else to expect, ironically from DB’s Jim Reid:

It’s a fairly quiet start to proceedings this week with the only data of note in Europe being German industrial production for December and confidence indicators for the Euro area and France. The usual post-payrolls lull in the US means there’s no data due across the pond today.

Tuesday’s highlights include trade reports covering the December month out of both Germany and the UK, while across the pond the January NFIB small business optimism reading is due out, along with the December JOLTS report and wholesale inventories and trade sales data for the same month.

Turning to Wednesday we’re starting in Japan where the latest January PPI numbers are due out. In Europe we’ll get regional industrial production reports for Italy, France and the UK while the sole release in the US in the afternoon is the January Monthly Budget Statement.

It’s a particularly quiet day for data on Thursday with nothing of note in Europe and just initial jobless claims data due in the US.

It looks like we’ll have a busy end to the week on Friday with Euro area Q4 GDP and industrial production, French employment data and German Q4 GDP and CPI all due out. In the US the big focus will be on the January retail sales data along with the first reading for the University of Michigan consumer sentiment print for February and December business inventories data.

Arguably the focus of the week will be away from the data and instead reserved for the aforementioned Fed Chair Yellen’s semi-annual testimony to the House Financial Services on Wednesday and the Senate on Thursday. Also due to speak will be the Fed’s Williams on Wednesday and Dudley on Friday. Meanwhile we’ll also see the attention for the US presidential election move to New Hampshire which is due to hold the first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, earnings season rumbles on and we’ve got 64 S&P 500 companies set to report including Coca-Cola, Walt Disney and Cisco. In Europe we’ve got 80 Stoxx 600 companies reporting including Total, L’Oreal, Heineken and Nokia.

And the key US events in table format

Source: DB, BofA


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deFANG’d

FANG stocks are collapsing in the pre-market as faith in the "growth at any cost" meme crashing on the shores of reality once again. Now down over 16% from their post-Fed-rate-hike highs, the stocks you should never sell are being sold in size as large crowds and small doors press NFLX and AMZN (and TSLA for good measure) down over 30% year-to-date. Even Mark Cuban is hedging…

It's carnage in the pre-open…

"For those of following my stock moves, I just bought puts against my entire Netflix position," Cuban posted on the site.

"I'm not selling. But I have no idea what this market will do."

Which will drag the broad FANGs to 5-month lows…

 

As we noted earlier, via JPMorgan's Kolanovic,

For instance, a popular group of stocks held by investors is known by the abbreviation “FANG” (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google). We use these stocks as an illustration for a broader group of similar stocks that have the highest rankings according to momentum and growth metrics (and surprisingly in some cases even low volatility metrics). Given that traditional value metrics look expensive when applied to this group, one can compare these momentum/growth companies on a new set of metrics. For instance, one  can look at the ratio of current price to earnings that the company delivered over all of its lifetime (instead of just the past year). Another metric could be a ratio of CEO or founder’s net worth to total company earnings delivered during its lifetime (see below):

 

Aggregating all FANG earnings since these companies were listed, one arrives at a ratio of current price to all earnings since inception of ~16x. This can be contrasted to a ratio of price to last years’ earnings for all other S&P 500 companies also at ~16x. We think this is extraordinary given that FANGs are neither small nor new companies. In fact, these are some of the largest companies in the S&P 500 and among the largest holdings of US retirees. Given that the three largest FANG stocks are now twice more valuable than the entire US S&P small-cap universe (600 companies), a legitimate question to ask would be “is such a high allocation by long-term investors to these stocks prudent?” Statistically, over a long period of time smaller companies outperform mega-caps ~75% of times. Note also that the current size ratio of mega-cap stocks to small-cap stocks is at highest level since the tech bubble of 2000.

 

Furthermore, such allocation is also questionable from a risk angle. For example, the idiosyncratic risk of holding three stocks in one sector is certainly much higher than the risk of owning, e.g., ~1,000 medium- or small-cap companies diversified across all sectors and industries.

Finally we leave with the thoughts of infamous MacroMan – Just Say No To Equity Market Drugs

The real stock junkies probably go for the really hard stuff: equity market smack. 

 

 

Long FANG and short GDX was a prodigious trade over the past several years, with that spread rising  more than 10-fold from Facebook's IPO in May 2012 to Thanksgiving of last year.   The high was great while it lasted, but coming down has proven to be unpleasant to say the least.  If you wanted one chart to illustrate the pain in equity space, this would be the one.   As Macro Man noted last week, GDX looks like breaking out, potentially inflicting more pain.

*  *  *

This won't end well – it never does.


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Chesapeake Plummets Over 20% On Report It Has Hired Bankruptcy Attorneys

The saga of the gas giant Aubrey McClendon’s built, Chesapeake Energy, enters its endgame, when moments ago following a Debtwire report that the company has hired Kirkland and Ellis as its restructuring/bankruptcy attorney – typically a step taken just weeks ahead of a formal Chapter 11 filing – the stock has plunged 22% to $2.40, the lowest price in the 21st century, and for all intents and purposes, ever.

In a few weeks we will see just how many banks were properly “provisioned” for this now imminent bankruptcy that may just unleash the default wave so many have been waiting for.


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After 1,428 years here’s what brought down the world’s oldest business

In 578 AD, a Korean immigrant named Shigemitsu Kongo made his way to Japan at the invitation of the royal family.

Buddhism was on the rise in Japan at the time; though it had only been introduced a few decades prior, the Empress consort had been actively encouraging the adoption of Buddhism across Japan.

But since the Japanese had no experience building Buddhist temples, they looked overseas for help.

That’s where Kongo came in.

Shigemitsu Kongo was a renowned temple builder, and the royal family in Japan commissioned him to build the Shitenno-ji temple, which still stands today in Osaka.

Kongo saw an incredible opportunity. Buddhism was catching on fast, and he knew he could be kept busy for decades building temples.

It turned out to be centuries. Over 14 centuries, in fact.

Shigemitsu Kongo formed his construction company Kongo Gumi in 578 AD, and it lasted 1,428 years.

It’s extraordinary that any single enterprise could last so long.

Even as late as 2004, temple building accounted for more than 80% of the company’s revenue, which exceeded USD $60 million.

But ten years ago the company finally went under due to the massive debt burden they had accumulated.

It started back in the 1980s. Japan was in the midst of an epic financial bubble thanks to unconstrained credit growth and expansion of the money supply.

Go figure, central bankers artificially suppressed interest rates, keeping them way too low for way too long. And it created a huge asset bubble.

Asset prices in Japan got so out of control that for a short time during the 1980s, it was said that the grounds of the imperial palace in Tokyo were worth more than all of the real estate in the entire state of California.

As part of this bubble, banks had relaxed their lending standards and were handing out loans to just about anyone.

And many Japanese companies took on vast amounts of debt, including Kongo Gumi.

Debt was like a popular drug. Everyone was doing it.

But when the bubble burst in 1989, asset prices collapsed. And companies that had borrowed heavily were left with nothing but debt.

Kongo Gumi didn’t go out of business right away. The company was able to limp along for more than two decades on basic life support.

Soon they were borrowing money just to pay interest on the money they had already borrowed, even though interest rates were at record lows.

But eventually the company’s revenues were no longer sufficient to service the debt.

And in 2006 Kongo Gumi was forced into liquidation.

This company lasted over 1,400 years.

They survived countless political crises, wars, and natural disasters.

They survived the Meiji Restoration in the 1800s, a period in which the government set out to eradicate Buddhism from Japan, and hence, the temple building industry.

They even survived two atomic bombs.

What Kongo Gumi couldn’t survive was debt.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an individual, a company, a government, or even a central bank; if your balance sheet doesn’t add up, sooner or later you’re going under.

It’s concerning to see consumer debt once again on the rise in the Land of the Free, at the fastest pace since the days of the financial bubble.

Perhaps most appropriate was a Superbowl commercial from Quicken Loans advertising how easy they have made it to obtain a loan.

“Push button. Get mortgage.” says the commercial.

More appropriate would be “Push button. Get into debt. Then buy more useless stuff.”

It’s a blatant snapshot of how far along we are in this latest financial bubble.

Of course, most western governments are in this position as well; they can go further into debt with a few strokes of the pen.

No surprise that many governments must borrow money to pay interest on money they’ve already borrowed, even at a time when interest rates are at record lows!

And yet the leading mainstream economic minds claim that debt (and money printing) are actually CURES to economic problems, and not causes of them.

As my colleague Tim Price points out, medieval doctors used to advocate leeches as a way to cure sick people.

Yet this approach turned out be largely ineffective and tended to kill the patient.

Sometimes the final consequences take years. Even decades.

Old, established institutions have the ability to kick the can down the road, just like Kongo Gumi did.

And even in terminal decline they can even give the appearance of strength.

Just a few years before its demise, Kongo Gumi was still a media darling that seemed strong, fit, and likely to last another 1,400 years.

The LA Times, for example, ran a story in 2003 praising the company for its deft ability to outlast Japan’s tough economic conditions.

Kongo Gumi folded less than three years later.

This is an incredibly important lesson: debt is a killer. And no one is immune to this inevitability.

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Inside the battle for control of the Federal Reserve

[Editor’s note: This letter was penned by Tim Price, London-based wealth manager and author of Price Value International.]

A Shandong 5000 electroglide flatbed currency printing machine named ‘Ted’ has edged ahead in a fiercely competitive fight for the chairmanship of the US Federal Reserve, narrowly in front of its major rival, the Heidelberger Druckmaschinen high speed sheet fed rotary offset press, christened ‘Heidi’.

In an ominous sign for supporters of the Heidelberger Druckmaschinen candidacy, a number of US Senate Republicans are circulating a letter supporting the Shandong 5000 model in its quest to replace Janet Yellen at the head of the world’s most important central bank.

The Shandong 5000 is a six colour high speed flexo letterpress printing machine which can churn out up to $200 trillion in high denomination bills in less than 60 seconds.

In a subtle technical innovation, these bills can then be immediately declared illegal and holders of them instantaneously vaporized.

The only other serious contender, a 70 ton Komori Super Orlof Intaglio based in Tokyo, melted after recent deployment by the Bank of Japan.

Senate Democrats rounded on the nomination of a Chinese printing machine in what critics interpreted as a thinly veiled racial slur that ran the risk of igniting an international trade war.

Supporters of the Shandong 5000 electroglide pointed out that the only domestic US manufacturer of high speed, sheet fed rotary 1-10 Intaglio currency printing machines filed for insolvency 60 years ago after using Alan Greenspan for consulting services.

Some Wall Street analysts were skeptical that a flatbed currency printing machine was really the best fit for the task at hand.

Marti Venal at SalesWeasel GoldFelon pointed out that in the 21st century, digital central bank reserves could be created effortlessly electronically without any resort to the printing press whatever.

His colleague Dwight Craven added that three staffers at the Federal Reserve had recently been crushed to death by the accidental toppling of a two mile high mountain of hundred dollar bills following the January 14th 11:02 a.m. Part 57 iteration of the Fed’s latest 8,000-stage quantitative easing programme.

“The Heidelberger Druckmaschinen boomlet is now looking like a Heidelberger Druckmaschinen backlash,” added Venal.

Republicans seem more welcoming of the Shandong 5000 candidacy, despite some disagreements over the machine’s reliability.

The Shandong 4000 series was prone to overheating, occasional power outages, and sometimes exploding spectacularly showering shards of molten steel at supersonic speed over its support workforce.

This made the Shandong 4000 only slightly less dangerous than a full service investment bank.

The Heidelberger printer has long been a bogeyman for some liberals.

They regard the machine as a close colleague of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin whose backing for the financial sector and appetite for unrestrained deregulation has been widely blamed for the banking crisis.

There has also been criticism as to the robustness of the Heidelberger currency printer in light of the near-constant requirement to print money 24/7, 365 days a year, and concern as to whether components of the printer have been ethically sourced.

“It used to take 5,000 Chinese workers to make the cylinder of one of our machines,” said a company spokesman.

“We have since found out that titanium is more hard-wearing.”

Over in Europe, monetary authorities have commissioned 14,000 Wolf-Krugman ultra-speed printing machines in order to prepare for March’s looming currency offensive.

The Bank of England, meanwhile, is preparing to unveil its new currency bazooka, a QE-969 Howitzer railgun capable of shooting money at 5,800 MPH into the economy, rendering it instantly inert.

In other news: The last remaining skeptic of the effectiveness of money printing was fired from the ECB. By a giant cannon. Into Switzerland.

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Bill Clinton Attacks Bernie Sanders on Campaign Trail, Star Wars Movie Hits $2 Billion, Broncos Defeat Panthers: A.M. Links

  • Bill Clinton launched an attack on Bernie Sanders during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, calling his plans disconnected from reality and his campaign a dishonest one.
  • Security services in Russia say they have arrested seven people on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack.
  • The new Star Wars movie hit the $2 billion mark worldwide.
  • Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell died aged 85.
  • The Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers 24-10 in Super Bowl 50.
  • A leopard wandered into a school in southern India, injuring three before it was caught.

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