Tag: finance

Is This The Ultimate Act Of A Frantic Establishment Willing To Do Anything To Stop Trump?

Submitted by SM Gibson via TheAntiMedia.org,

As Donald Trump inches closer to the Republican nomination, GOP insiders scramble to put a halt to the billionaire’s run for the White House. A new lawsuit filed in the state of California could prove to be the ultimate act of desperation by a frantic establishment willing to go to any lengths to end Trump’s bid for the Oval Office. However, if the allegations contained within the court documents are found to be true, they would not only spell the end of Trump’s presidential aspirations, but most likely his brand as a whole.

On April 26, a woman residing in California named Katie Johnson filed a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein – for the amount of $100 million – accusing the two billionaires of “forcing her to engage in various perverted and depraved acts by threatening physical harm.” The plaintiff, who describes herself as Trump and Epstein’s “sex slave” in the papers, also accuses the pair of having threatened to kill her family if she told anyone of their crime.

The incidents alleged to have taken place over a four-month span in 1994 in New York City, when Johnson was only 13-years-old.

Of the four separate encounters Johnson outlined in the documents, the last incident is described in the most detail:

“On the fourth and final sexual encounter with the defendant, Donald J. Trump, the Plaintiff, Katie Johnson, was tied to a bed by Defendant Trump who then proceeded to forcibly rape Plaintiff Johnson. During the course of this savage sexual attack, Plaintiff Johnson loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to “please wear a condom.” Defendant Trump responded by violently striking Plaintiff Johnson in the face with his open hand and screaming that “he would do what he wanted” as he refused to wear protection. After achieving sexual orgasm, the Defendant, Donald J. Trump put his suit back on and when the Plaintiff, Katie Johnson, in tears asked Donald Trump what would happen if he had impregnated her, Defendant Trump grabbed his wallet and threw some money at her and screamed that she should use the money “to get a f*cking abortion.”

Jumping in front of the media blitz that accompanies rumors of this nature, Trump has already addressed the story, calling the events described by the woman a lie.

“The allegations are not only categorically false, but disgusting at the highest level and clearly framed to solicit media attention or, perhaps  are simply politically motivated. There is absolutely no merit to these allegations. Period,” Donald Trump told RadarOnline concerning the court papers.

A woman the documents refer to only as “Tiffany Doe” is said to be able to corroborate the events.

“Material witness Tiffany Doe fully confirms of all Plaintiff Katie Johnson’s allegations of physical and sexual abuse by Defendants Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein. Tiffany Doe was physically present at each of the four occasions by Defendant Trump upon the person of Plaintiff Johnson, as it was her job to witness all of the sexual escapades of Defendant Epstein’s guests at these underage sex parties and later reveal all of the sordid details directly to Defendant Epstein. Defendant Epstein also demanded that Tiffany Doe tell him personally everything she had overheard at these parties explaining to her that “knowledge was king” in the financial world. As a result of these underage sex parties, Defendant Epstein was able to accumulate inside business knowledge that he otherwise would never have been privy to in order to amass his huge personal fortune,” according to the court papers.

Jeffrey Epstein, who has already served 13 months in prison for a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old, is a registered Level 3 sex offender – considered by the state to be a “high risk” to repeat his offense and “a threat to public safety.” At one point, Epstein, who has been implicated in numerous sex crimes involving minors, was facing 10 years to life on multiple counts of statutory rape.

In 2010, the FBI seized a 194-page “little black book” belonging to Epstein that listed the identities of underage girls he was accused of keeping as sex slaves. Incidentally, the plaintiff, Katie Johnson’s name does not appear in the book.

 

jeffrey-epstein-lawsuit-docs jeffrey-epstein-lawsuit-docs jeffrey-epstein-lawsuit-docs jeffrey-epstein-lawsuit-docs jeffrey-epstein-lawsuit-docs jeffrey-epstein-lawsuit-docs

 

According to Radar, the address listed as Ms. Johnson’s on the documents is a home in Twentynine Palms, California that has been foreclosed upon. The phone number listed as the plaintiff’s has been disconnected.

“To be clear, there is absolutely no merit to these claims and, based on our investigation, no evidence that the person who has made these allegations actually exists,” Trump attorney Alan Garten told the Daily Mail.

via http://ift.tt/1O75akI Tyler Durden

The EU: a 46 Trillion Euro Lehman Brothers?

So much for QE as the answer to the EU’s problems.

 

In 2012, during the depth of the EU banking crisis which nearly took the entire EU financial system down, Mario Draghi stated that he would do “whatever it takes” to hold the EU together.

 

Anyone paying attention knew that this was a bluff. True, the ECB and EU leaders had already defied if not broken every condition of the Maastricht Treaty and the Schengen Treaty (the legislation that formed the EU proper). However, even to the most cynical analyst, Mario Draghi’s claim was pushing the envelope a little too hard.

 

Implementing capital controls and border controls limit freedom, but from the perspective of monetary policy, they’re secondary items. The REAL power is that of the printing press. 

 

This is how Draghi’s promise to save the EU was different from every other action: it addressed the structure of the EU in its most critical component, namely the control of the currency.

 

It took the EU two years to cobble together its reasoning for how something that went completely against the Maastricht Treaty would be permitted. As usual it was the Germans (the ultimate holders of the purse strings) who gave the “OK.”

 

Since being given the green light on QE, Draghi has spent over €600 billion. The ECB’s balance sheet is now approaching its former record high from 2012 after the massive LTRO and LTRO 2 programs.

 

And Draghi has accomplished?

 

Not much of note. The EU’s inflation rate is clearly trending lower. This is AFTER the first ever QE program was both launched and increased in pace form €60 billion to €80 billion per month.

 

 

For all intensive purposes, four cuts into NIRP and the first ever QE program represented nothing more than a tiny dead cat bounce in inflation. If you didn’t know the dates of those programs, looking at the above chart you’d be hard pressed to guess anything significant had happened in terms of monetary policy.

 

Why is this?

 

Because the structural problems for the EU absolutely DWARF the ECB’s current programs. The EU banking system is €46 trillion in size and leveraged at 26 to 1.

 

At these leverage levels, even a 4% decline in asset values renders the entire financial system insolvent. A 4% decline of €46 trillion represents €1.84 trillion. The ECB’s QE program is roughly a little more than half of this. 

 

The real issue is that the ECB is completely cornered. The best it can do is buy EU bonds to drive yields lower in the hope that somehow someone will actually use this to deleverage.

 

Unfortunately that is not human nature. The lower yields go, the more debt EU nations issue. Consider that Spain, Italy and other EU program nations have actually seen their Debt to GDP ratios increase since the 2012 crisis allegedly “ended.”

 

 

In short, the ECB’s extraordinary programs have done ZERO to address the structural issues facing Europe and its financial system. Bankrupt nations continue to issue bonds that bankrupt EU banks buy and use as collateral to backstop their derivatives books, which are in the ballpark of hundreds of trillions of Euros.

 

All the ECB has done is vacuum up this collateral and allow EU banks to continue to value this debt at 100 cents on the Euro. These “solutions” are imaginary at best.

 

At the end of the day, the EU banking system is one gigantic €46 trillion Lehman Brothers. Given the interconnected nature of the global banking system, this is not Europe’s problem… it is the WORLD’s problem.

 

Eventually this will trigger another 2008 type event. When, no one can say, but given that the ECB has failed to generate significant inflation, and that most EU nations have seen their Debt to GDP ratios increase since 2012, it’s not far off.

 

The next Crisis is just around the corner. And it will make 2012 look like a joke.

 

If you’ve yet to take action to prepare for the second round of the financial crisis, we offer a FREE investment report Financial Crisis "Round Two" Survival Guide that outlines easy, simple to follow strategies you can use to not only protect your portfolio from a market downturn, but actually produce profits.

 

You can pick up a FREE copy at:

 

http://ift.tt/1rPiWR3 

 

Best Regards

 

Phoenix Capital Research

 

 

 

via http://ift.tt/24fGoLZ Phoenix Capital Research

Germany’s Third Largest Party Adopts Anti-Islam Manifesto: Says “Muslims Are Not Welcome In Germany”

One week after Austria was shocked by the news that its right-wing, anti-immigrant Freedom Party, had swept the competition, gathering over 35% of the vote and leaving the other five candidates far behind, Europe’s anti-immigrant juggernaut just added to its momentum when neighboring Germany’s populist AfD party adopted an anti-Islam policy on Sunday in a manifesto that also demands curbs to immigration according to AFP. The biggest surprise however, is that the three year-old party is now also Germany’s third strongest party.

Formed only three years ago on what was originally a eurosceptic platform, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has gained strength as the loudest protest voice against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcome to refugees that brought over one million asylum seekers last year. However, with the migrant influx sharply down in recent months, the AfD has shifted focus to the signature issue of the xenophobic Pegida street movement, whose full name is Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident.

“Islam is not part of Germany” ran a headline in the AfD policy paper agreed in a vote by some 2,400 members at the party congress in the western city of Stuttgart.

The paper demanded bans on minarets on mosques, the call to prayer, full-face veils for women and female headscarves in schools.

Frauke Petry, party leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD) votes at
a party congress on May 1, 2016 in Stuttgart

A proposal for a more nuanced formulation, to “stop Islamism but seek dialogue with Islam”, was rejected with boos in the mostly-male gathering, which was held in a hall decorated with banners that read “Courage. Truth. Germany.”

“Islam is in itself political,” retorted one speaker, while another linked the religion with “sharia, suicide bombings and forced marriages”.

As AFP adds, in a broader sense the AfD is presenting itself as a nationalistic conservative force that also questions climate change, promotes traditional gender roles and “family values”, would reintroduce military conscription and take Germany out of the euro. Co-leader Joerg Meuthen said the AfD stood for a “modern conservatism” and a “healthy patriotism” while it rejected “the Germany of 1968, infected by the (socialist and environmentalist) red-green left“.

Having soared to national prominence and entering half of Germany’s 16 state parliaments, the AfD, which many see as the country’s answer to France’s National Front and Austria’s Freedom Party, has now firmly set its sights on national elections next year.

“In the summer of 2015, they gave us up for dead,” a triumphant AfD co-chair Frauke Petry told the delegates, declaring that the party does not intend to settle for the role of opposition group or junior coalition partner. Instead, its new programme should allow the AfD “to win majorities”, she told the weekend meeting.

Support for the AfD stood at 13 percent, narrowly beating the ecologist Greens as Germany’s third strongest party, according to an Emnid institute survey for the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

With its default right-wing bias, AfD has been at pains to distance itself from the hardcore far-right and neo-Nazi movements AFP adds, which are a stubbornly persistent but fringe phenomenon in a country where collective shame over the Nazi era and the Holocaust run deep. Alexander Gauland, leader of the party in Brandenburg state in the former communist East, cautioned delegates to generally temper their statements and “keep in mind that all of Germany is watching us”.

To drive home that message, the congress voted with 52 percent support to dissolve the Saarland regional party chapter because of its deep links with right-wing extremists groups.

To its many critics, however, the AfD represents xenophobia and a backward-looking isolationism. On Saturday hundreds of anti-fascist demonstrators rallied outside the convention centre, with some burning tyres and hurling firecrackers. Riot police used tear gas and temporarily detained 500 of them as officers escorted AfD members into the congress hall.

Hundreds of anti-fascist demonstrators rallied outside AfD’s
convention centre on April 30, 2016

German riot police is pictured during the AfD party congress in
Stuttgart, Germany, April 30, 2016

In another act of harassment, a left-wing media site overnight published the names, addresses and telephone numbers of some 2,000 party members. AfD co-leader Joerg Meuthen pledged to file criminal charges against the unknown hackers behind the data leak.

Aside from drawing the anger of far-left groups, the AfD has also attracted near-universal condemnation from Germany’s major parties.

The general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, Peter Tauber, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper: “The debates at the party congress show that the AfD wants to return to a Germany that never existed in that form.

But while its critics rage, what is more important is that its fans and supporters are growing as yet another country sees a groundswell of popular support for a party whose platform is the latest expression of broad anti-establishment anger, pursuing a return of more conservative, traditional values.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in Austria, Chancellor Werner Faymann faced a barrage of boos and whistles at his Social Democratic Party’s May Day rally on Sunday as his opponents demanded that he resign after the party was thrashed in last week’s presidential election. According to Reuters, Faymann defended the course his coalition government has taken despite the drubbing both ruling parties suffered last Sunday, when the far right achieved a record result. “We need laws and measures that ensure humanity and order,” he said in a speech to tens of thousands of party supporters in front of Vienna’s city hall, a phrase he has often used when referring to the government’s hardening immigration policy.

Austria’s Chancellor Werner Faymann

Many present did not share his view and Faymann’s opponents at the Sunday rally held up placards saying “resign” and “party conference now”. They booed and blew whistles as he spoke and when his name was mentioned.

via http://ift.tt/1Z0c8O4 Tyler Durden

Consolidated Currency Calculations

 

 

The FED is not made up of unintelligent clueless policy makers who have no idea what they are effecting.   They know exactly where their pre-calculated monetary programs are taking us.  After all, understanding the ramification of their monetary machinations is not rocket science.  The faltering economic and financial signs are everywhere for anyone to see that is actually looking.



To use an often sited droll analogy, they are doing “God’s work”.  Directed by a far reaching and pervasive power base derived from the merger of Multi National Corporate – Int’l Banking – SupraState interests and objectives.  A global monopolistic Goliath of insatiable voracity, which has achieved monumental control and influence over the daily economic affairs of the common man.



Most certainly, the end game is to eradicate the presently standing world’s reserve currency. he final pillar to be toppled, so as to introduce a one world currency backed by an SDR based multinational monetary regime, which will serve to further consolidate the grip on the sovereignty of man.



Clearly, to achieve this aim they need to completely destabilize the Dollar, and mark my words that IS coming.  At the end of the day, this will be yet another consolidating currency event, and nothing more.



The only remaining question is whether it will be orchestrated methodically through peaceful negotiations among the major trading nation’s central banks of the world, or violently and abruptly until the last standing military alliances are victorious…………..same as it ever was.

 

 

Got Gold?

via http://ift.tt/1NeCwTX Bruno de Landevoisin

10 Stats About The Last 10 Years

By Nick Colas of Convergex

10 Stats About The Last 10 Years

The headline this week that Goldman Sachs’ stock has gone nowhere for a decade got us thinking about general market performance over the last 10 years. The key contours are straightforward: subpar price returns (a 4.9% compounded annual growth rate for the S&P 500) with increased volatility (a VIX that is 25% more volatile than average).  From there, things get funky.  Consumer Discretionary – not Tech or Health Care – is the top performing sector, up 137% over the decade, in no small part due to Amazon (up 1,600% over the period and in the S&P 500 since 2005). Only one sector is down over this timeframe: Financials, 28% lower (making Goldman an outperformer in its sector, funny enough).  And gold (up 87%) has trounced stocks (S&P 500 up 62%).  There’s more, and in this note we also look for where some of these anomalies may revert to a longer run mean.

Think back over the last 10 years – how different was your life in April 2006?  While you may think your daily existence is largely the same (maybe the kids are older or you’re married now, but that about it…), consider what was actually different about your life in the spring of 2006:

  • No iPhone. Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in January 2007, and it didn’t ship until June of that year.
  • No Facebook (unless you were in college at the time). Facebook only opened to the general population in September 2006.
  • No Twitter. The full version of the product launched in July 2006.
  • No Instagram. The picture sharing site only launched in 2010.
  • No Kim Kardashian. “Keeping up With The Kardashians” debuted in October 2007.
  • No Uber. The company received its seed funding in 2009.
  • No iPad. Apple started taking pre-orders on the first-gen product in March 2010.

It feels like April 2006 demarcates the last days of some Dark Age, or at least a simpler time without the manifold distractions of today.  And while you might opt for a world without the Kardashians, imagine it without your smartphone, Facebook/social media, and an iPad to entertain the kids (or yourself). It’s ok – don’t panic. You have them now.

The journey from April 2006 to April 2016 in financial markets has, of course, been a wild ride.  But just as it is hard to remember what daily life was like a decade ago, it is also easy to forget some of the important waypoints that capital markets took from there to here.  And sometimes looking in the rear view mirror is helpful to considering the road ahead.

Investing has a name for that exercise: “Reversion to the mean”.  Anomalies can exist for long periods of time, but eventually asset classes revert to some natural risk adjusted rate of return. In economics, policymakers look at long-cycle data to grade their efforts at managing the macro economy. The bottom line: an occasional glance backwards at the data is a useful exercise even if all you really care about is predicting tomorrow.

Here are 10 data points about the last 10 years we hope you will find useful:

#1 – U.S. Consumer inflation (as measured by the CPI) over the last 10 years: 18%.  That translates into a compounded annual growth rate of 1.67%, well below the Federal Reserve’s goal of 2%.  The most recent core inflation data from the CPI shows a little higher (2.2%), but the core PCE data is more in line with the long run headline average (1.7%).

Key takeaway: a decade – even one with a financial crisis in the middle of it – is a long enough period to assess structural inflation.  A 1.7% average rate may just be a new normal, at least until the next recession when it will presumably decline. 

 

#2 – Price appreciation for the S&P 500 over the last decade: 62%.  The compounded growth rate here is 4.9%.  The best performing major average over the last 10 years is the NASDAQ Composite, up 110% or a 7.7% compounded annual growth rate.

Key takeaway: no matter how you slice it, equity market returns are not double digits anymore even when you add 2% or so for dividend payments.  Now, pick the right entry point (mid crisis should do it) and they are obviously much higher.  But over a decade, 5-8% seems to be the market’s speed limit.  Not bad, but not the +10% numbers of the 1980s and 1990s.  

 

#3 – S&P operating earnings 10 years ago: $73/share on its way to $82 in 2006.  Inflation adjusted, those 2006 normalized earnings of $77.50 would be $91.45 today.  Actual trailing four quarter earnings for the S&P 500 right now are $100, or 29% higher than the operating earnings back in 2006/7.

Key takeaway: earnings are 29% higher than 2006, but the S&P 500 is 62% above the levels of a decade ago.  Earnings multiples have expanded because interest rates have declined; don’t forget that the U.S. 10 year Treasury had a yield of 5.0% in April 2006.  Now, it is 1.7%.

 

#4 – The best performing sector over the last 10 years: Consumer Discretionary, up 136%.  In December of 2005, the S&P Committee in charge of choosing companies to add to the large cap 500 index decided to include Amazon. Good choice, because over the last decade the stock has returned +1,600%. In their eyes, however, it was a Consumer Discretionary company, not a Tech concern. That decision, plus good returns from other large brand-name consumer companies, makes this industry the best performing major sector in the S&P 500.

Key takeaway: this sector seems ripe for some reversion-to-the-mean underperformance, unless the S&P Committee finds some other hyper-growth names to add to the collection.  Wonder where they would put Uber?

 

#5 – The price of a barrel of crude in April 2006: $75.  If crude oil prices had just kept up with inflation over the last decade, a barrel would cost $88.59. Instead it is $43/barrel.

Key takeaway:  What if I told you oil would trade for $30/barrel in 2026?  Or $130/barrel?  How would it change your long term outlook, and which do you believe is more likely?  My own thought is that oil will be higher in a decade and large cap energy stocks are a good long term hold. 

 

#6 – The best performing market cap range in U.S. equities over the last decade: mid-caps, up 87%.  Over a long period, you would expect to see risk and return scale as the textbooks tell us they should: more risk equates to higher return. Yet small caps are only up 52% (Russell 2000) to 78% (S&P Small Caps) and the S&P Mid Cap Index is 87% higher.

Key takeaway: another candidate for reversion to the mean underperformance over the next decade. 

 

#7 – Average daily VIX levels over the last 10 years: 21, barely higher than the long run average of 20, but with much higher volatility. The standard deviation of moves in the CBOE VIX Index since 1990 is 8; over the last decade it has been 10.  Simply put, volatility was more volatile in the last 10 years.

Key takeaway: One trend that should last for the next decade.  The average for the VIX may not move very much, but periods of market churn will elicit greater investor concern.  This should be especially true in the next recession, whenever that comes, if only because markets will worry about what policymakers will do to combat that next economic slowdown. 

 

#8 – Total venture capital raise in the last decade: $426 billion. It has been a golden age for VC investors and the companies they support.  Many of the new products we listed at the top of this note would have never come to market without this source of capital.

Key takeaway: VC money flows do seem to be waning.  Deal count receded in 2015, from 9,381 in 2014 to 8,097 in 2015.  Capital invested, however, was $77 billion – the highest in a decade and almost 3x the $26 billion invested in 2006.  See here: http://ift.tt/1W0U6hd

 

#9 – Total money flows out of U.S. equity mutual funds: $209 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute. 

Key Takeaway: We don’t have the 10 year numbers handy, but inflows into U.S. stock ETFs over the last 5 years total $368 billion.

 

#10 –   Gold has outperformed equities by a wide margin, +87% versus +59% for the S&P 500.

Key takeaway: one of the more surprising results from our 10 year lookback.  The contrarian in me wants to believe the performance here will converge, and equities will outpace gold for the next decade.  But consider this: which sounds more likely – gold at $1,860/oz (pretty much its 2011 highs) or S&P 500 at 3126?  They are both 50% higher than today’s close.

via http://ift.tt/1W0U6hb Tyler Durden

“If This Goes Well, I’ll Use It At Goldman Sachs Next Year” – Obama Mocks Everyone At His Final “Nerd Prom”

In his final address to the White House correspondents dinner also known as “nerd prom”, Obama embraced his last chance at a snarky, hyperbolic, comic monologue and used the stage to unleash a series of one-liners at 2016 presidential candidates in both parties, the media and his own career as president.

 

“It is an honor to be here at my last, and perhaps the last, White House Correspondents’ dinner,” he said as he took the podium. “You all look great. The end of the Republic has never looked better. Next year at this time someone else will be standing here in this very spot, and it’s anyone’s guess who she will be,” Obama said.

At the end, Obama literally dropped the mic at the event where politicians, journalists, media moguls, Capitol Hill power brokers, Hollywood stars and even dogs (those belonging to Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher) gathered.

Obama didn’t spare his former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, quipping, “If this material goes well, I’m going to use it at Goldman Sachs next year. Earn me some serious Tubmans.”

He also joked her lack of popularity with young voters: “I’ve said I admire Hillary’s toughness, her smarts, her policy chops, her experience. You’ve gotta admit it though: Hillary trying to appeal to young voters is a little bit like your relative who just signed up for Facebook,” Obama said. “‘Dear America, did you get my poke? Is it appearing on your wall? I’m not sure I’m using this right. Love, Aunt Hillary.'”

Obama then took on 74 year old Bernie Sanders from Vermont, describing him as “the bright new face of the Democratic party.” “Bernie, you look like a million bucks. Or, to put in terms you will understand, you look like 37,000 donations of $27 each,” the outgoing jokester said, referring to a zillion small contributions to Mr Sanders’ campaign. 

“I am hurt though, Bernie, that you have distanced yourself from me. That’s not something that you do to your comrade.”

But much of Obama’s monologue focused on the Republicans, saying “we’re praying Cleveland makes it through July,” and noted the absence of GOP front-runner Donald Trump. “You know I’m gonna talk about Trump!” Obama told the crowd.

“Although I’m a little hurt that he is not here tonight. We had so much fun the last time,” Obama said referring to the same event in 2011, during which Trump was present. “And it is surprising. You got a room full of reporters, celebrities, cameras and he says ‘no.’ Is this dinner too tacky for The Donald. What could he possibly be doing instead? Is he at home, eating a ‘Trump Steak’, tweeting out insults to Angela Merkel? What is he doing?”  Obama wisecracked.

“The Republican establishment is incredulous that he’s their most likely nominee. Incredulous. Shocking. They say Donald lacks the foreign policy experience to be president,” Obama said. “But in fairness he has spent years meeting with leaders from around the world: Miss Sweden, Miss Argentina, Miss Azerbaijan.”

“And there’s one area where Donald’s experience could be invaluable and that’s closing Guantanamo, because Trump knows a thing or two about running waterfront properties into the ground,” the US president jibed.

He didn’t let Ted Cruz get by unscathed, reminding the audience that last week, the GOP presidential hopeful called a basketball hoop a “ring” at a campaign stop in Indiana. “He went to Hoosier country, called the hoop a basketball ring. What else is in his lexicon? Baseball sticks? Football hats? But sure, I’m the foreign one.”

Obama didn’t mention John Kasich by name but took a jab and the GOP candidate, saying “Some candidates aren’t polling high enough to qualify for their own jokes tonight.”

Obama appeared in a pre-recorded video with former Speaker John Boehner and mocked some Republicans’ hope that current Speaker Paul Ryan would become a “white knight” nominee at the Republican convention. “Dinner guests were asked to check whether they wanted steak or fish, but instead a whole bunch of you wrote in Paul Ryan. That’s not an option, people,” Obama said. “You may not like steak or fish, but that’s your choice.”

“Glad to see you feel you’ve earned the night off,” Obama said to RNC chair Reince Priebus. “Congrats on all your success. The Republican party, the nomination process, it’s all going great. Keep it up.”

Toward the end, Obama also poked fun at himself and his age: “Eight years ago I was a young man, full of idealism and vigor. And look at me know,” he said laughing. “Hillary once questioned whether I’d be ready for a 3 a.m. phone call. Now I’m awake anyway because I gotta go to the bathroom.”

And he threw in a few jabs at the media, saying “Jake Tapper left journalism to join CNN,” but ended on a serious note urging responsible reporting and chiding over-coverage of Trump.

“Uncovering truths is more important than ever. Taking a stand on behalf of what is true does not require you shedding your objectivity. In fact, it is the essence of good journalism,” he said.

Obama ended his final White House Correspondents’ dinner by pulling a Kobe Bryant, dropping the mic and saying “Obama out” before walking away from the podium.

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

CSX Freight Train Derails In Washington D.C., 9 Cars Overturned, Hazardous Material Leaking

A CSX freight train has derailed in Washington D.C.., near the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station Sunday morning leaving several cars overturned and resulting in a leak of hazardous materials.

Doug Buchannan, a spokesman for the D.C fire department, said as many as nine cars have derailed and at least three are leaking hazardous material. The incident happened at 6:40 a.m. Sunday.

According to WTOP, Rhode Island Avenue was closed in both directions from 4th to 10th streets in Northeast as of 7:30 a.m.  The Red Line’s Rhode Island Station is also closed. Metro said it would establish bus shuttle service between the NoMa and Brookland stations. No injuries were immediately reported.

D.C. Fire officials told WTOP they do not know what kind of substance is leaking, however News4’s Mark Segraves reported multiple sources at the scene said at least one of the chemicals is sodium hydroxide. Also known as lye and caustic soda, the odorless chemical may generate substantial heat when dissolved in water, which may be sufficient to ignite combustible materials, according to the Center for Disease Control.

The CDC said it can create eye and skin irritation and burns when exposed. It is also damaging to the respiratory system if the fumes are inhaled.

According to a CSX statement, the train was traveling from Cumberland, Maryland to Hamlet, North Carolina, when it derailed near 9th Stree and Rhode Island Avenue. The train has three locomotives and 175 total cars, including 94 cars loaded with frieght and 81 empty cars.

This is a developing story.

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

Is The USA Really Just Another Greece?

USA

The non-European countries always enjoy themselves by pointing fingers at the weaker European countries as the main culprits of the current economic crisis and Greece, Spain and Portugal are always being targeted as ‘worrisome’ countries. Even China, which is still experiencing a growth rate of 6% is being used as a reason for the weak world economy. However, the situation of the US economy isn’t that great at all.

In fact, the Federal Reserve has practically no other choice but to keep the interest rates at a very low level, as a following a path with increasing interest rates would be disastrous for the country’s budget. A lot of people seem to be forgetting the government/GDP ratio of the USA has increased to in excess of 100% and that already is quite an alarming level. Whereas the ratio was just 64% right before the crisis, the net debt has just exploded under the reign of the current president.

USA Debt GDP

Source: tradingeconomics

But what would this result in, if the Federal Reserve would indeed continue to increase the interest rates? Well, the impact would be devastating as a higher benchmark rate would also force the USA to pay a higher interest rate on its government debt, and every 1% increase of the cost of debt results in an additional deficit of $180B per year. David Wessel, a director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy has used an interesting chart. Even though the starting point is showing a flaw (the official government debt/GDP ratio is already 100%), the government debt will only increase.

USA Interest

Source: David Wessel presentation

You can clearly see the total debt/GDP ratio will increase to 160% within two decades and if we adjust the starting point of the calculation to make sure the current ratio is being used, the net debt/GDP ratio will reach 200% within 25 years from now. Assuming a GDP growth rate of 1.5% in the next 20 years, this would result in a total debt of 50 trillion dollar. That’s right, 50,000 billion dollar. If we would assume the USA will have 375 million inhabitants by then, the total government debt will be in excess of $130,000 per person (so roughly half a million dollar for a family of four). Throw in the traditional household debt, and you’ll understand why we aren’t too optimistic about the future!

And oh, yes, if the long-term interest rate would be 3%, the $50T in debt would cost you, the taxpayer, $1.5T per year to service it. Again, using 375M citizens and 275M tax payers, the interest expense per tax payer would be $500/month, and that means not a single additional dollar would/could be spent on anything else!

USA 10Y yield

Source: brookings.edu

There’s only one solution for this, and that’s a prolonged period of low interest rates, and that’s exactly what the previous chairman of the Federal Reserve has been talking about. Bernanke claims this probably is the easiest and most clean approach to try to pull one last trick before the music stops.

But let’s face it, there is no way out of this. The Fed is almost out of ammunition and the only ace up its sleeve (apart from helicopter money) is to try to reduce the longer term interest rates resulting in a vicious circle of decreasing interest rates. And ask Japan how that worked out for them…

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