Tag: finance

The last time we heard the name Vincent Veneziani was several years ago, when he was at Business Insider, a close friend with all of Henry Blodget’s editors and writers, writing stories about Wall Street criminals and frauds such as “Ponzi Schemer Kenneth Starr’s Super Swanky Upper East Side Condo Just Sold For $5.63 Million” and “The Complete Story Of How Lenny Dykstra Went From The Top Of The World To The Jailhouse.” The inherent irony here will become evident in a few moments.

Shortly thereafter the mid-20s Veneziani disappeared from the media world radar, only to write a book, and then reappear in the financial world, this time as an employee of the always entertaining “paid-to-promote-hedge-fund-research” outfit known as Hedgeye, where according to his bio he worked as an Editor.

 

Unfortunately for Veneziani, he only managed to remain employed at Hedgeye for a little over a year, until the spring of 2013 when things went terribly wrong for the young man, who mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth for the next several years.  The former New Yorker, then reappeared, now as a resident of the poorest city in the US, Camden, NJ, where he wrote the following disturbing story just two months ago on March 9, describing what had happened to him shortly after he left Hedgeye, and Wall Street, for good.

The End of a Long Road of Crime

 

In May of 2013, I was 27-years-old and had just been laid off from a cushy job on Wall Street that I had worked at for a little over a year. I also was about a year into a full blown heroin addiction that drained me of time, energy, and especially money. I was broke and dope sick and not thinking right. After asking everyone I knew for money and coming up short, I decided to rob a small coffee shop on Broadway in West Harlem that was near my apartment. Not only did I rob the cashier at knifepoint, I hit the same spot two weeks later and did it again because it was so easy. I didn’t even realize I was committing armed robbery because I had never committed a (serious) crime before and had never been arrested save for a sealed and expunged DUI I got when I was 19-years-old.

 

I thought I was fine but in the first week of June, I was arrested and the detectives had a mountain of evidence against me. The jig was up. Now I had lost my job, apartment, fiance, family and my spirit. It sucked.

 

I quickly got shipped off to Rikers Island seeing as how I was unable to make $30,000 bail. I would end up spending a total of 18 months on Rikers between 2013 and 2014. It was hell. That place will break any man into pieces and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

 

Thanks to a Legal Aid attorney named Raoul Zaltzberg, who actually gave a shit about my case, and extensive interviews with ADA Tiana Walton and Judge Farber in Manhattan Supreme Court, it was agreed that I was not a menace to society. That yes, I had fucked up royally, but deserved rehabilitation instead of 10 to 30 years upstate in a maximum security prison.

 

I was given a plea deal that called for 18 months of inpatient and outpatient treatment followed by five years probation. Considering that I was indicted on two counts of First Degree Robbery in Manhattan, this is as good as it gets. Once I completed the 18 months of treatment, the two counts would drop to Third Degree Robbery, a non-violent felony that carries significantly less time and repercussions if rearrested but a felony nonetheless.

 

Yesterday, Raoul, who is now a private attorney with his own practice (I was one of his first clients and remain loyal to him), Tiana and I walked into Judge Farber’s court and finalized everything. I had completed the 18 months of treatment despite a hiccup or two and would be starting probation. Five long years of being monitored by the state. It’s quite daunting if you think about it: even getting pulled over for a speeding ticket counts as “Police Contact” and can get you jammed up with your PO.

 

But I fought a long and hard road and lost everything in my life and then some. It’s OK though. I’ve learn to become a better person and in a couple months, I’ll be turning 30-years-old. While getting a decent job has been next to impossible, as has affordable housing, I am lucky enough to have found a woman who loves me for who I am and doesn’t judge me despite my past mistakes and addiction. She is wonderful and nothing short of amazing. I have clothes on my back, gainful employment and even a car to get around South New Jersey and Philadelphia with thanks to my father, who bought it for me knowing that it would improve my chances of succeeding and rebuilding my life. It took me a long time to get over losing a woman I was supposed to marry and my many expensive material objects. I was young, successful, a published author, working in finance and living the dream in New York City. I’m no longer that person, but things happen for a reason and I am fine with all of this change. It’s for the best.

 

2016 is clearly a year for milestones. I can’t even describe how good it feels to finally close the books on this last chapter of my 20s and to move on to my 30s knowing I no longer have to check in with Judge Farber every 45-50 days and spend tons of money on programs and classes that are designed to be Medicaid profit machines. Like I said, five years of probation is a long time but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I have the tools, I have the support system in place and most importantly, I’m happy.

 

I didn’t think I would ever be happy again and didn’t deserve to be happy. I was wrong. Here’s to exploring the next chapter of my life and staying out of trouble.

In other words, Vincent is what, according to some Bloomberg “journalists”, would classify as a credible source.

Sarcasm about “competitors” aside, things were about to truly spin out of control for the now 29-year old Veneziani who as it turned out never learned to become a “better person.” Instead he become a grizzled criminal.

The first hint of this was revealed just over a month after Veneziani wrote the above post, on April 23 when the Evesham Township Police department issued the following request for public help to track down a wanted criminal.

Evesham Township Bank Robbed, Public’s Help Needed

 

The Evesham Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in identifying a male who robbed the TD Bank, 336 W. Rt. 70 on April 23, 2016, at approximately 1:19pm Saturday afternoon. The white male entered the bank, approached a teller and handed her a note demanding money. The male then fled the bank on foot towards a nearby Wawa parking lot.

 

 

 

 

If anyone knows the identity of this suspect you are asked to contact the Evesham Police Department at 856-983-1116, the Confidential Tip Line at 856-983-4699 or email at Facebook@Eveshampd.org. Anonymous tips text ETPDTIP to 847411

The identity of the perpetrator was revealed just days later when the bank robber was promptly caught. This is what the Courier-Post wrote:

The same man is behind at least three bank robberies in Camden County this month, prosecutors say.

 

Vincent Venezian[i], 29, was arrested Monday by Cherry Hill Police in connection with a robbery earlier that day at the Wells Fargo Bank on Evesham Road. Police said he entered the bank at about 3:13 p.m. and passed a note to the teller demanding cash; he fled with an undisclosed amount but was [arrested] a short time later.

 

The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said the Cherry Hill man is also responsible for two other robberies earlier this month: one at the Fulton Bank branch in Voorhees on April 4 and another at the TD Bank in Marlton on April 23.

 

Venezian[i] faces robbery and drug charges and is in Camden County Jail on $60,000 bail.

And so ends, this time for good, yet anoter semi-repentant attempt of one former drug-addicted Wall Streeter to get his life, and career, back in order. And failing.

At this point, if we were Bloomberg, we would immediately use this psychologically unstable heroin addict as a source of clickbaiting “information” on either of his prior two employers, whether Business Insider or Hedgeye. But since we realize just how troubled this totally lost this young man is, and since we are not Bloomberg, we won’t.

As for Veneziani, we hope that one day he will put his life back in order and may truly recover.

via http://ift.tt/1sDMa9v Tyler Durden

Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

The state of Rhode Island is considering the legalization of recreational marijuana, and some opponents of legalization have jumped in to demand the status quo continues. 

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday for example, that Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has come out forcefully against the legalization of marijuana claiming that marijuana turns people into "zombie-like individuals." 

Tobin's implied support for breaking up families and jailing fathers, wives, mothers, and husbands — for the "crime" of using a plant that Tobin dislikes — is illustrative. Tobin's positions provide us with a helpful and high-profile example of the flaws in attempts to make moral arguments claiming that non-violent activities should be regulated and punished by states. 

What Prohibition Means 

A call for the continued criminalization of marijuana use and sales necessary implies support for jailing and punishing individuals who deal in the production, use, or distribution of this particular plant. 

This also brings with it tacit approval and support of everything that comes with government prohibition. With every law comes the need to enforce that law. Support for legal prohibition means either explicit or implied support for the following:

• The use of taxpayer funds to support courts for the legal prosecution of drug users including the necessary staff and real estate. These resources are necessarily diverted from being used to prosecute and try perpetrators of violent crime including murderers, rapists, thieves, and other violators of property rights. 
• The use of taxpayer funds to support a police force to apprehend violators, including surveillance equipment, paid informants, police staff, automobiles, and jails. This necessarily draws resources away from police activities designed to capture rapists, murderers, thieves, and other violent criminals. 
• The use of taxpayer funds to build, maintain, and staff a system of jails and prisons for the warehousing of drug-use convicts which also necessitates resources to be provided for food, health care, and other amenities.
• The destruction of marriages and families which results from the incarceration or drug users. 
• An increase in the number of single-parent families (due to one parent being incarcerated), and the resulting increase of poverty. 

Moreover, prohibition leads to the creation of black markets and empowers organized crime outfits and other violent criminals who thrive under the conditions created by prohibition. In response to these side effects, the prohibitionists simply call for even more policing, more public expense, and more incarceration.  

To be fair, it could be that Tobin is actually opposed to harsh penalties for drug use, and that he favors decriminalization. If that is the case, he needs to clarify the difference between this position and his call to "say no to the legalization of marijuana in Rhode Island." But make no mistake, if Tobin takes any position that calls for the sanctioning of private individuals at taxpayer expense, the burden of proof is on him to demonstrate that his preferred course of action — i.e., state coercion — is preferable to people minding their own business. 

Why Not Alcohol? 

Since drug prohibition is such a costly and socially disruptive endeavor, it must be that the costs of drug use are unique in their severity. If they weren't, then it's hard to understand how any humane person could support prohibition. 

So what are the costs of drug usage, according to Tobin? 

Aside from Tobin's second-hand conclusions about zombies based on the highly scientific observations of an unnamed businessman, Tobin also notes that drug use is responsible for "impaired and dangerous driving," and "health problems" including "concerns during pregnancy." Also dangerous, Tobin notes, is the fact that marijuana can offer "an escape" to young people, who, in addition to destructive activities like wearing "hoodies," may be transported by drugs further into "the land of oblivion." 

Reading about Tobin's concern with all of these issues, I naturally wanted to learn more about Tobin's call for the prohibition of alcohol. Given Tobin's lis tof concerns, of course, it logically follows that Tobin must also be in favor of alcohol prohibition. After all, if one is concerned about intoxicating substances that impair health and safe driving, alcohol would be an obvious target for prohibition.  

The health problems related to alcohol, of course have been documented for many years, and in 2013 alone, more than 10,000 Americans died from injuries sustained in alcohol-related auto accidents. Alcohol is also closely linked to domestic abuse and a myriad of social ills. 

So, does Tobin support prohibition on alcohol as well? It appears he does not. 

As with everyone who calls for the abolition of social ills via drug prohibition, yet tolerates the legal selling of alcohol, Tobin must first explain why alcohol-related social ills do not warrant prohibition while he calls for legal action against marijuana users. If Tobin is so ready to imprison people for growing a marijuana plant, why is Tobin not equally set against an intoxicating substance that is shown to increase the likelihood of violent behavior? Without a clear explanation of the distinction here, the rest of Tobin's claims display a damaging inconsistency, and we're forced to conclude his opposition to marijuana is arbitrary.

Moreover, why is Tobin so concerned about the effects of drug use in Colorado? His time might be better spent focusing on the fact that binge drinking is more prevalent in Rhode Island than it is Colorado. And if health is such a great concern of his, he might perhaps better spend his time combating obesity, which is far more damaging to public health overall than is marijuana use. Notably, the obesity rate is substantially higher in Rhode Island than it is in Colorado. 

In his essay, Tobin appears to recognize the need to differentiate between alcohol and drugs in order to sound coherent. However, unable to come up with a scientific, objective, or evidence-based reason for tolerating alcohol, Tobin falls back on an appeal to authority instead. 

To sidestep the argument, Tobin appeals to the Catholic Catechism which states "the use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life…their use … is a grave offense." 

That's fair enough, but what is a drug? Neither Tobin nor the Catechism give any definition and no clarifying footnotes are provided in the Catechism. Any scientific or objective examination of intoxicating substances would include both marijuana and alcohol within this category. Tobin simply ignores this, and in quoting the Catechism, Tobin triumphantly intones: "there is no exception for marijuana." But, as Tobin conveniently fails to mention: there is no reason that alcohol should be excepted either. 

Tobin might protest and say "well, of course by 'drugs' the catechism doesn't mean alcohol" In that case, the question remains: "why not"? By what objective measure does the catechism make this distinction? It remains a mystery. 

Why Not Punish Other Immoral Activities Similarly? 

As a final note, we must ask Bp. Tobin if all activities with harmful social effects should be outlawed? Should adultery be outlawed? If not, why not? Certainly, the social effects of divorce and broken homes are not something to be ignored. If the proper use of public policy is to punish and imprison people for committing a "grave offense" then surely adultery must be punished similarly to marijuana use. Moreover, based on Tobin's arguments, we might also conclude that prostitution is punished too lightly. Given the negative social and health effects of prostitution, it is important that we punish prostitution as we do drug use, with harsh prison terms doled out to prostitutes who engage in the "distribution" of this harmful activity. The grave nature of their offenses surely demands it.

via http://ift.tt/20cVawA Tyler Durden

As the Clinton campaign turns its attention to Donald Trump (or tries to at least), it is encountering one of the many things that makes running against 'The Teflon Don' difficult: With everything he has said and done, how is it possible to focus on only a few key things to attack him on.

"Our problem is a target-rich environment" said one Clinton ally, noting that nearly every day there is a news cycle with damaging headlines about Trump.

Aside from a target rich environment, Trump has been so unpredictable that it's hard to use any one thing and turn it into a narrative strong enough to actually impact voter opinions.

"Right now, they're doing a little bit of everything to see what works. You can spend all day, every day, going after a hundred different things, and those things can add up to less than one hundred. They may not weave into a narrative, or you may not be able to drive any one of them home for long enough. You need discipline." said Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Obama.

As Clinton struggles to define Trump, her campaign has taken the approach of throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks. As Politico reports, first on the list of things to try is the talking point that a Trump presidency would be terrible for women.

“What’s really clear,” Neera Tanden, Clinton’s former top policy adviser, said on a conference call with reporters, “is Donald Trump has made it entirely clear throughout the entirety of his campaign that he would be a terrible choice for women voters.”

The next trial balloon would be to try and play up that Trump would be bad for Latinos and middle-class Americans.

That clarion message, however, was not amplified the next day. Instead, the follow-up was a call with Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who urged reporters to “think about what Trump’s plans mean for Latinos. Middle-class Americans and Latinos would pay the price for his reckless quest to continue enriching the billionaires.”

Finally, Clinton personally picked the fact that Trump will be the first candidate in the past 40 years not to release a tax return as her issue to run up the flag pole. Which is dripping with irony since Clinton herself won't reveal any Wall Street speech transcripts. 

Clinton herself chose to highlight a third issue while stumping in New Jersey, where she surprised her aides by uncharacteristically engaging with an audience member who yelled out a question about Trump’s tax returns.

“You’ve got to ask yourself,” she responded from the stage, “why doesn’t he want to release them? Yeah, well, we’re going to find out.”

While Clinton struggles mightily, Trump himself has been masterful in branding his opponents, as he has proven time and time again. Trump has already selected his narrative when it comes to Hillary, and as his Republican challengers have found out, The Donald knows how to drive his narratives home.

For all his flaws as a candidate, Trump has proved to be incredibly disciplined in branding his rivals. His nickname “Little Marco” skillfully demeaned the presidential qualities of Sen. Marco Rubio. “Low-energy Jeb” planted the idea in Republican primary voters’ minds that Jeb Bush wasn’t up to the job. And his new focus on “Crooked Hillary” plays on one of the Democratic front-runner’s biggest vulnerabilities as a candidate: trust.

* * *

It's clear that the Clinton campaign will have its hands full with the likes of Donald Trump. Not only is The Donald skilled at strategically playing the media to help him build up his narrative and create favorable news cycles, he has the uncanny ability to turn nearly any negative newsflow into something that ultimately ends up helping him with his voting base. As was the case early on in the GOP race, Trump started out behind Hillary in early polls as well. That issue has since been corrected, and he recently has taken his first lead over Hillary. If Clinton continues to fumble the narrative early on, Trump may very well run away with the race, shocking "experts" everywhere.

via http://ift.tt/27FGYSl Tyler Durden

Authored by Andrew Napolitano via LewRockwell.com,

Here is a quick pop quiz. What happens if we lie to the government? What happens if the government lies to us? Does it matter who does the lying?

Last year, the Obama administration negotiated an agreement with the government of Iran permitting Iran to obtain certain materials for the construction of nuclear facilities. It also permitted the release of tens of billions of dollars in Iranian assets that had been held in U.S. banks and that the courts had frozen, and it lifted trade sanctions. In exchange, certain inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities can occur under certain circumstances.

During the course of the negotiations, many critics made many allegations about whether the Obama administration was telling the truth to Congress and to the American people.

Was there a secret side deal? The administration said no. Were we really negotiating with moderates in the Iranian government, as opposed to the hard-liners depicted in the American media? The administration said yes. Can U.N. or U.S. inspectors examine Iranian nuclear facilities without notice and at any time? The administration said yes.

It appears that this deal is an executive agreement between President Barack Obama and whatever faction he believes is running the government of Iran. That means that it will expire if not renewed at noon on Jan. 20, 2017, when the president’s term ends.

It is not a treaty because it was not ratified by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which the Constitution requires for treaties. Yet the Obama administration cut a deal with the Republican congressional leadership, unknown to the Constitution and unheard of in the modern era. That deal provided that the agreement would be valid unless two-thirds of those voting in both houses of Congress objected. They didn’t.

Then last week, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, Ben Rhodes, who managed the negotiations with Iran, told The New York Times that he lied when he spoke to Congress and the press about the very issues critics were complaining about. He defended his lies as necessary to dull irrational congressional fears of the Iranian government.

I am not addressing the merits of the deal, though I think that the more Iran is reaccepted into the culture of civilized nations the more economic freedom will come about for Iranians. And where there is economic freedom, personal liberties cannot be far behind.

I am addressing the issue of lying. Rhodes’ interview set off a firestorm of criticism and “I told you so” critiques in Capitol Hill, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee summoned him to explain his behavior. It wanted to know whether he told the truth to Congress and the public during the negotiations or he told the truth to The New York Times last week.

He apparently dreads answering that question, so he refused to appear and testify. One wonders how serious this congressional committee is because it merely requested Rhodes’ appearance; it did not subpoena him. A congressional subpoena has the force of law and requires either compliance or interference by a federal court. Rhodes’ stated reason for not testifying is a claim of privilege.

What is a privilege? It is the ability under the law to hide the truth in order to preserve open communications. It is a judgment by lawmakers and judges that in certain narrowly defined circumstances, freedom of communication is a greater good than exposing the truth.

Hence the attorney/client and priest/penitent and physician/patient privileges have been written into the law so that people can freely tell their lawyers, priests and doctors what they need to tell them without fear that they will repeat what they have heard.

Executive privilege is the ability of the president and his aides to withhold from anyone testimony and documents that reflect military, diplomatic or sensitive national security secrets. This is the privilege that Rhodes has claimed.

Yet the defect in Rhodes’ claim of privilege here is that he has waived it by speaking about the Iranian negotiations to The New York Times. Waiver — the knowing and intentional giving up of a privilege or a right — defeats the claim of privilege.

Thus, by speaking to the Times, Rhodes has admitted that the subject of his conversation — the Iranian negotiations — is not privileged. One cannot selectively assert executive privilege. Items are either privileged or  not, and a privilege, once voluntarily lifted, cannot thereafter successfully be asserted.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee should subpoena Rhodes, as well as the Times reporter to whom he spoke, to determine where the truth lies.

It is a crime to lie to the government when communicating to it in an official manner. Just ask Martha Stewart. One cannot lawfully lie under oath or when signing a document one is sending to the government or when answering questions from government agents. Just ask Roger Clemens. Stated differently, if Rhodes told the FBI either what he told Congress or what he told The New York Times — whichever version was untrue — he would be exposed to the indictment.

Ben Rhodes is one of the president’s closest advisers. They often work together on a several-times-a-day basis. Could he have lied about this Iranian deal without the president’s knowing it?

Does anyone care any longer that the government lies to the American people with impunity and prosecutes people when it thinks they have lied to it? Does the government work for us, or do we work for the government?

via http://ift.tt/1WFb8BT Tyler Durden

Yesterday we showed something strange: while oil prices have rebounded from multi-year recent lows, gasoline prices have not only rebounded but have done so with a vengeance, sending retail gasoline at the pump is now back to levels last seen just over a year ago, even as WTI (and Brent) is materially lower. As we concluded, “gas prices are unchanged while oil prices are 25% lower.”

 

Something did not add up, which prompted some readers to inquire if this was purely a function of higher gasoline taxes.  We don’t know the answer, and assume it is a deep secret of America’s refiners, but we did find out what the gasoline motor fuel taxes by state are.

Here is the summary from API:

The nationwide average tax on gasoline is 48.04 cpg, up 0.05 cpg from the January 2016 study. A summary of federal and state excise taxes and other taxes collected on gasoline is shown below. The federal tax on gasoline is 18.40 cpg. The average state gasoline excise tax is 20.88, unchanged from the January 2016 study. Other taxes (such as applicable sales taxes, gross receipts taxes, oil inspection fees, county and local taxes, underground storage tank fees and other miscellaneous environmental fees) were 8.76 cpg, up 0.05 cpg from January. Adding these taxes and fees to the state excise taxes results in a volume-weighted average state and local tax of 29.64 cpg.

The regional breakdown of fuel taxes is as follows:

 

And here are the gas tax rates, effective as of April 1, in every US state from the highest (Pennsylvania, Washington, and New York), to the lowest (South Carolina, New Jersey – yes NJ has a low tax for something – and Alaska).

via http://ift.tt/1XDqLJ3 Tyler Durden

Authored by Dilbert Creator Scott Adams via Dilbert.com,

Trump has pulled ahead of Clinton nationally in both the new FOX poll and the Rasmussen Poll. And Trump passed Clinton in favorability according to the newest national poll on that topic. The Megyn Kelly interview (including the hyping of it ahead of time) marked Trump’s third-act turn.

By the way, Anderson Cooper of CNN said last night that CNN finds the FOX polling to be reliable and transparent, in case you wondered.

Meanwhile, Clinton is losing one primary after another to a dehydrated dandelion in her own party. That doesn’t bode well for the coming cage fight with Godzilla.

And Godzilla hasn’t even started to punch hard. He’s still looking at the opposition research and humming. So that’s coming.

Clinton is planning to appear on Ellen with the all-female cast of the new Ghostbusters movie. That’s what overplaying the woman card looks like. One wag on Twitter put it this way:

@ScottAdamsSays

Hillary: Women Women Women Women Women
Trump: America America America America America

— ?T?R?U?M?P? (@screenwriter) May 19, 2016

 The New York Times did its best to make Trump look like a sexist , but they only succeeded in destroyed their own credibility when their star witness outed them for making up stuff.

Clinton surrogate Ed Rendel said something that was probably harmless in person, and in the proper context, but taken out of context by outragists it sounded like he was saying Clinton supporters are mostly ugly women. That didn’t help.

Clinton’s team continues to churn out anti-Trump hit pieces that ask you to imagine President Trump in office. By November, voters will think Trump has been running the country for a year and it looked a lot like the Obama administration. That’s called “graduated exposure” and it’s a well-understood psychological phenomenon. The Democrats are working overtime to make Trump feel less scary while believing they are doing the opposite.

Now imagine Clinton and Trump selecting VPs. If Clinton picks a woman, she overplays the woman card to destruction. If she selects a beta male, it will seem cringeworthy to the sexist public. If she selects an alpha male it will annoy her base without gaining a single vote. Clinton loses on every path.

Meanwhile, Trump can pick a man or a woman and it will look natural. No VP will overshadow Trump’s energy. All he needs is a running mate that is competent and a little bit interesting.

Trump announced his list of potential Supreme Court Justices. Republicans seemed to like the list, which makes Trump seem more mainstream even if you don’t like the names on the list.

A jet on the way from France to Egypt has disappeared, and terrorism is the assumed reason. That plays to Trump’s strength, as does every act of terror everywhere.

Trump has gone a few weeks without creating any new provocations on the scale of his 2015 self. The longer he proves he can moderate his behavior to fit the situation – as he did in the Megyn Kelly interview – the more people trust that he isn’t crazy.

Trump’s insults are now understood to be more than random hate. They are weapons-grade persuasion that have been engineered and then A-B tested at rallies. The “Crooked Hillary” harpoon is already doing its damage. If history is our guide, the nickname will bleed her out before November.

Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, knows how to win. The Clinton campaign doesn’t show the same level of talent, at least in terms of persuasion. Clinton’s logo (the big H) looks like a hospital sign. And their “Love Trumps Hate” slogan is two-thirds “Love Trump.” Any trained persuader knows people put more cognitive weight on the first part of sentences. 

I’m teeming with confirmation bias, but from my kitchen counter, I don’t see how it can go any direction but a Trump landslide from here.

I’ll remind readers that I have disavowed all of the candidates. My political views don’t line up with any of them. My interest is in Trump’s persuasion skills.

via http://ift.tt/1TJXrLd Tyler Durden

One Place to Follow All Your Favourite Financial Sites Including ZeroHedge

What do financing your retirement as well as finding affordable healthcare and the possibility of losing your job all have in common with each other? Easy, at least for an American, these days. Those are the top three worries that we wake up to in this country and that 60% of people believe are very much more than just nightmares gone wrong. They could become reality and it would seem that women are more concerned in particular. It’s healthcare that is on everyone’s lips and it’s been like that for years. Americans have become downright insecure since the economic crisis and despite any progress in employment figures or in the Gross Domestic Product of the country, it’s still a major worry that people perceive every day. How to pay for your healthcare in a country where it’s the most expensive in the world? Even if you’re on a middle-income figure and have insurance, you’re still likely to be sitting their wondering and perusing over how to deal with health bills if they have already arrived in your mailbox, or even worse worrying about the unknown and how you’re going to handle them if (or rather when) they get posted to you.

The country remains roughly divided amongst those that are pro-Affordable Care Act and those that think that President Obama got it all wrong by passing that law making an attempt to provide affordable healthcare in the country that spends more money than any other in the world in that sector of activity. There are more and more Republicans that are voicing their opinions to get that law ditched just as soon as Obama closes the little white door in the big Oval Office and does a runner somewhere off to the sun, probably. It’s not surprising that people are genuinely worried in the USA about how they can pay for their healthcare and that of their family.

A survey that was carried out by the Institute for Communitarian Policy Study (George Washington University) shows that “the majority of Americans have a widespread sense of economic insecurity” today.

·         62% of women are worried in the USA about their healthcare expenses.

·         47% of men are also worried about how they are going to pay for the healthcare costs either for themselves or for their families.

·         It’s obvious that healthcare is a major concern for Americans these days.

·         Today, healthcare spending stands at 17.5% of GDP in the USA.

·         Between 2014 and 2015, healthcare expenses grew at a far greater percentage rate than over the past twelve years according to official statistics.

·         The average rate of growth in healthcare expenditure in the USA stood at roughly 3.7% per annum between 2008 and 2013.

·         2013 was even a historical year with growth in expenditure that stood at a measly (by comparison) figure of just 2.9%.

·         But in 2014, that figure jumped to 5.3% per year.

·         While the number of people with public health insurance increased from 12.9% in 2000 to just below 24% in 2013, there was a radical drop from 71.8% to 61% for private health insurance in the country.

·         The recession can be largely blamed for those figures related to public and private health insurance, with the loss in employment leading to private health insurance being forfeited and enrolment for some into public health-insurance schemes.

·         But, what’s the cause of the increase since 2014 in the average expense growth for healthcare in this country? It’s due to the Affordable Healthcare Act and new and highly expensive drugs that have been launched onto the market.

·         Hospitals account for 32% of all expenditure in healthcare today in the USA.

·         That figure increased by 0.6% from 2013 and 2014.

·         Doctors make up 20% of expenditure in healthcare in the country.

·         Doctors’ expenses increased by 2.1% from 2013 to 2014.

 

But, is the USA alone in the cost of its healthcare system in the world and what are the other places where you would have to fork out and dig deep until you got enough money to find treatment?

Isn’t it a sorry state of affairs that you have to think about how much you have in the bank before you can actually get treatment? Or is it the old Malthusian idea that we have to get rid of the poor because they will simply eat away at the resources of the rich? Just remember though that there is always someone that is richer than you are. That means you will always be the poor man to someone else, won’t you?

But, where would it cost you a bomb to get treatment these days? Here’s the list. Getting treated in any hospital by any doctor in any of these countries would certainly cost us less than in the USA. Have a think about it.

What’s included in the healthcare costs? Anything from medical procedures to pharmaceutical products and prescriptions as well as administration and staff.

1.United States

Health expenditure in this country per capita stands at $8,713. Life expectancy stands at 78.8 years (the only top-ten country that doesn’t even reach 80 years for life expectancy) and the obesity rate is 35.3%. The USA has more money than most countries in this world and it spends more money than any other on healthcare. Yet, there are still people that don’t have cover and there is no greater return on investment here than anywhere else. In fact, it’s worse. The USA has roughly 2.5 doctors per 1,000 residents, which is one of the lowest and worst in the top-ten list. Not only does it cost us more to see the doctor, but we have to wait more to get one who’s available.

2.Switzerland

Switzerland has a per capita expenditure of $6,325 and that amounts to 11.1% of GDP for this country. The obesity rate is just 10.3% and life expectancy stands at 82.9 years. 81% of the Swiss believe that they are in better health with their universal healthcare. At least, the results are better. The Swiss live longer. The country even has more nurses than any other country in the world (17 per 1,000 people of the population) and they have 4 doctors per 1,000 residents.

3.Norway

Norway has health expenditure (per capita) that stands at $5,862 and that represents 8.9% of its GDP. Life expectancy stands at 81.8 years ad obesity is 10% of the total population. As with many countries in the western world, universal healthcare is the order of the day here. There is also the same number of nurses (17) and doctors (4) per 1,000 residents as for Switzerland in this country.

4.Netherlands

Healthcare expenditure here stands at $5,131 per capita and that’s 11.1% of GDP. Life expectancy stands at 81.4 years and obesity is just over 11%. Only 1% of residents have no health insurance in this country. Across the board in all OECD countries, people over the age of 65 believe that they are in good health at a rate of 43.4%. But, in the Netherlands, that figure is much higher at 60%.

5.Sweden

Health expenditure here stands at $4,904 per person in the country (11% of GDP). Life expectancy is at 82 years of age and obesity stands at 11.7% of the population. Swedes also go to the doctor’s far less than any other country in the world (2.9 times per year) and this is because they state that they are in excellent health at a rate of 81% for all residents.

6.Germany

Health expenditure here stands at $4,819 per capita and works out to 11% of GDP (and that’s with 25% of its population being over 65). Almost the entire country has medical healthcare cover either through public or private means (by comparison in the USA only 89% of the country is covered).

7.Denmark

Life expectancy here stands at 80.4 years and they spend $4,553 per person in the country (10.4% of GDP). Its growing ageing population will likely see that percentage of healthcare expenditure increase in the coming years (those over the age of 65 will amount to nearly one quarter of the population in the next thirty years).

8.Austria

Almost the entire country has health insurance here with $4,553 being spent per person (10.1% of GDP). There is a life expectancy of 81.2 years here.

9.Luxembourg

Life expectancy here stands at 81.9%, but obesity is at 22.7%. Per-capita expenditure on healthcare stands at $4,371 ($762 coming from the private sector, per resident).

10.Canada

Canada has a life-expectancy rate of 81.5 years of age. It spends $4,351 per capita on healthcare and that works out to 10.2% of GDP. The average percentage for expenditure as a percentage of GDP in the OECD stands at 8.9%.

The more you spend should be synonymous with greater returns on investment for people in the USA. That means that Americans should be the fittest people on this planet. They’re definitely not! What happened and where did it all go wrong?

People are living longer and that necessarily means that we need to think about healthcare of the future. What direction do we want to take and can we continue living in the country with the most expensive healthcare system in the world? Are we still prepared to work all of our lives and not have enough money to get regular check-ups or pay for operations? Focusing on fear will just keep us in the past rather than progressing towards something better and new. The Dutch writer Corrie ten Boom once said “Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” There’s no point carrying yesterday’s worries around with us today, but that can only happen as long as the cost of healthcare comes down in this country. After all, who’s it making rich? Certainly not the people who work in that sector and certainly not the people who use it to be looked after and treated.

Yet, there are plenty of innovative ways of reducing health costs and thus enabling us to get rid of that worry and fear of healthcare available to us.

What would you do to make healthcare better?

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After Turkish President Recep Erdogan pressured Angela Merkel to cave and allow charges to be brought against German comedian Jan Böhmermann for being mean to him in a video poem, the Spectator decided to hold a contest to see who could come up with the most offensive poem against Erdogan.

It turns out that the winner of the competition is none other than former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who will be awarded £1,000 for his efforts.

Journalist Douglas Murray, the man who came up with the idea, wrote that he is glad that a British political leader has shown that in Britain at least, no foreign potentate is needed to tell anyone what they may think or say. And of course the obligatory shots at Merkel's handling of the situation is addressed as well.

For myself, I think it a wonderful thing that a British political leader has shown that Britain will not bow before the putative Caliph in Ankara. Erdogan may imprison his opponents in Turkey. Chancellor Merkel may imprison Erdogan’s critics in Germany. But in Britain we still live and breathe free. We need no foreign potentate to tell us what we may think or say. And we need no judge (especially no German judge) to instruct us over what we may find funny.

Without further ado, here is the winning poem:

There was a young fellow from Ankara

Who was a terrific wankerer

Till he sowed his wild oats

With the help of a goat

But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

Imagine how many criminal complaints Erdogan has filed with the UK government since learning of this contest, and especially after reading the winning poem…

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Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

After seeming so “dovish” last month in the bland, edited April policy statement, the FOMC meeting minutes reveal supposedly a different vibe. Yesterday’s release has to this point given “markets” more to assume that a second hike will be coming in June. The statement itself leaves little doubt about what is actually dictating their (irrelevant) policy gestures.

Many participants noted that downside risks emanating from developments abroad, while reduced, still warranted close monitoring. For these reasons, participants generally saw maintaining the target range for the federal funds rate at ¼ to ½ percent at this meeting and continuing to assess developments carefully as consistent with setting policy in a data-dependent manner and as leaving open the possibility of an increase in the federal funds rate at the June FOMC meeting.

Global turmoil, global turmoil, global turmoil. Since we are in the midst of a pause, rate hikes are predictably back on. Given this framework, we can judge FOMC leanings from China. Here is a handy guide for US Monetary Policy As Derived From Chinese Liquidity Policy Due to London and Tokyo Bank Policy:

If it weren’t for all this random but somehow regular global noise, the FOMC would still be just as confused but at least no one would care as much – only Dummies.

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Taking a page from Mario Draghi's economic savior play-book, it appears President Obama's meeting with Janet Yellen was not wasted as he seems to have found the blueprints of his own 'bazooka' and bubble-blowing machine. Perhaps the realization that Trump's success is based on Obama's fiction-peddling, the president has been forced to do "whatever it takes" …

 

Source: WhiteHouse.gov

…because the only way Democrats beat Trump (given Hillary's losing position among the wealthy, white, and educated) is if there is a new bubble blown that briefly distracts everyone…

Obama was allegedly disappointed that none of the young inventors offered cash-carrying-drones.

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