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While Christianity remains the largest religion in all 50 states, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism are on the rise across the nation.
Chart: BofA
As the chart shows, Islam is the second largest religion in 20 states (mostly in the Midwest and South), Judaism in 14 states (mostly in the Northeast), and Buddhism in 13 states (mostly in the West).
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Tx95OD Tyler Durden
By EconMatters
Starting this time last year we added over 40 Million Barrels to US Oil Stockpiles. The question is can storage facilities handle another 40 Million Build in Oil Stocks over the next 7 weeks?
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This is the email that David Little, Chairman and CEO of Houston-based DXP Enterprises sent to his employees to explain why, “due to bank obligations and to continue a positive cash flow profile” the company has to freeze 401(k), why it is cutting pay in some cases as much as 60% and why many employees are about to lose their jobs in the middle of what is an “oil and gas depression.” It is a disturbing read.
Dear DXPeople,
As you well know, these are very challenging times for everyone in the oil & gas industry and other industrial markets. We are working hard to navigate both the challenges in oil & gas and an industrial recession plus what appears to be continuing softening. Normally, when upstream oil and gas is down the rest of the industrial market is booming, not this time!
This past Friday, we announced our fourth quarter and year-end results. Our revenues were down 17% from a year ago and 27% from the fourth quarter of 2015 versus the fourth quarter of 2014. Fiscal year 2016 has started off even weaker than we anticipated with January sales down an additional 12% from December. Oil and gas related companies across the country have reported sales declines as high as 50% – 60%. All of this in the midst of declining industrial confidence and performance. Furthermore, the forecast by experts suggests the oil & gas economy will get worse before it gets better. We are currently 20 months into this oil & gas down cycle which is also unusually long for a correction.
It goes without saying but over the past twelve months, we have all made efforts to contain costs and improve operations where possible. All, while focusing on growth. For this, we thank all of you for the sacrifices, discipline and effort you are making each and every day. But I am sorry to say that because of bank obligations and to continue our positive cash flow profile, we have to do more. The leadership team and I have been reviewing line-by-line every location, budget and expense, on how we can reduce costs while considering every decision through the prism of our values, culture and priorities. While we fulfilled a $2.9 million company match to our U.S. 401 (K) savings plan for 2015, we have determined it should be frozen immediately for the remainder of 2016. The Board of Directors, senior management and leaders in management positions will participate in a 10% reduction in base pay effective March 14th. Additionally, DXP as a whole company will require that we right size the company for our expected sales volume. This is in an effort to reduce labor costs while preserving as many DXPeople as possible in this uncertain economic environment.
We have all taken pay reductions over the last year with some of us taking reductions as high as 50% – 60% (via commission or bonus declines) including senior management. It is unfortunate, but the prolonged oil and gas depression and industrial recession has left us with no other choice but to make these difficult and unwanted moves and decisions.
The fastest and biggest cure to the health of DXP is more sales. Your expectations and mine are that the sales management, sales professionals and everyone else that touches our customers is working smart and diligently as we are all counting on you! DXP has given you some great weapons to be successful with and we are supporting and counting on your efforts to win each order. I am not going to list all the tools you have to win with, you should know what they are and understand how to use them already, but to use the “Hunter” and “Farmer” label you have to do both. “Farm” existing accounts to capture more of each customer wallet/spend and “Hunt” for new customers. We have the customer value propositions to sell and you have the selling skills to succeed.
Over the last several months, we have seen countless companies announce layoffs and in isolated incidents even bankruptcies. I point this out to try and put in context that the oil and gas depression is affecting more than DXP and is further reaching than many would have initially thought when this started over 2 years ago. The decisions we make are about preserving the future of DXP. DXP is a great company that is accustom to winning and we will win again. I can promise you that the leadership team will do all that we can to put us in a position to emerge stronger on the other side while staying true to our values and culture. Thank you for your understanding.
Respectfully,
David Little
Chairman & CEO
DXP Enterprises, Inc
And here is some more context, courtesy of the WSJ
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1TZPlBL Tyler Durden
Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,
Donald Trump “appeals to racism.”
“[F]rom the beginning … his campaign has profited from voter prejudice and hatred” and represents an “authoritarian assault upon democracy.”
If Speaker Paul Ryan wishes to be “on the right side of history … he must condemn Mr. Trump clearly and comprehensively. The same goes for every other Republican leader.”
“Maybe that would split the (Republican) party,” but, “No job is worth the moral stain that would come from embracing (Trump). No party is worth saving at the expense of the country.”
If Republican leaders wish to be regarded as moral, every one of them must renounce Trump, even if it means destroying their party.
Who has laid down this moral mandate? The Holy Father in Rome?
No. The voice posturing as the conscience of America is the Washington Post, which champions abortion on demand and has not, in the memory of this writer, endorsed any Republican for president – though it did endorse Marion Barry three times for mayor of D.C.
Anticipating the Post’s orders, Sen. Marco Rubio has been painting Trump as a “scam artist” and “con artist,” with an “orange” complexion, a “spray tan” and “tiny hands,” who is “unfit to lead the party of Lincoln and Reagan.”
The establishment is loving Rubio, and the networks are giving him more airtime. And Rubio is reciprocating, promising that, even if defeated in his home state of Florida on March 15, he will drive his pickup across the country warning against the menace of Trump.
Rubio, however, seems not to have detected the moral threat of Trump, until polls showed Rubio being wiped out on Super Tuesday and in real danger of losing Florida.
Mitt Romney has also suddenly discovered what a fraud and phony is the businessman-builder whose endorsement he so avidly sought and so oleaginously accepted in Las Vegas in 2012.
Before other Republicans submit to the ultimatum of the Post, and of the columnists and commentators pushing a “Never Trump” strategy at the Cleveland convention, they should ask themselves: For whom is it that they will be bringing about party suicide?
That the Beltway elites, whose voice is the Post, hate and fear Trump is not only undeniable, it is understandable.
The Post beat the drums for the endless Mideast wars that bled and near bankrupted the country. Trump will not start another.
The Post welcomes open borders that bring in millions to continue the endless expansion of the welfare state and to change the character of the country we grew up in. Trump will build the wall and repatriate those here illegally.
Trump threatens the trade treaties that enable amoral transnational corporations to ship factories and jobs overseas to produce cheaply abroad and be rid of American employees who are ever demanding better wages and working conditions.
What does the Post care about trade deals that deindustrialize America when the advertising dollars of the big conglomerates are what make Big Media fat and happy?
The political establishment in Washington depends on Wall Street and K Street for PAC money and campaign contributions. Wall Street and K Street depend on the political establishment to protect their right to abandon America for the greener pastures abroad.
Before March 15, when Florida and Ohio vote and the fates of Rubio and Gov. John Kasich are decided, nothing is likely to stop the ferocious infighting of the primaries.
But after March 15, the smoke will have cleared.
If Trump has fallen short of a glide path to the nomination, the war goes on. But if Trump seems to be the near-certain nominee, it will be a time for acceptance, a time for a cease-fire in this bloodiest of civil wars in the GOP.
Otherwise, the party will kick away any chance of keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House, and perhaps kick away its future as well.
While the depth and rancor of the divisions in the party are apparent, so also is the opportunity. For the turnout in the Republican primaries and caucuses has not only exceeded expectations, it has astonished and awed political observers.
A new “New Majority” has been marching to the polls and voting Republican, a majority unlike any seen since the 49-state landslides of the Nixon and Reagan eras.
If this energy can be maintained, if those throngs of Republican voters can be united in the fall, then the party can hold Congress, capture the While House and reconstitute the Supreme Court.
Come the ides of March, the GOP is going to be in need of its uniters and its statesmen. But today, all Republicans should ask themselves:
Are these folks coming out in droves to vote Republican really the bigoted, hateful and authoritarian people of the Post’s depiction?
Or is this not the same old Post that has poured bile on conservatives for generations now in a panic that America’s destiny may be torn away from it and restored to its rightful owners?
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1TZLNiJ Tyler Durden
Below are links to some of the more interesting and important reads I came across today, but will not be publishing on in detail.
Hillary Clinton Turned $1,000 Into $99,540, White House Says (1994 article…some things never change, New York Times)
The Growing Risk of Civil War in Turkey (This country is a total basket case, Washington Post)
Donald Trump’s Policies Are Not Anathema to U.S. Mainstream but an Uncomfortable Reflection of It (Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept)
Susan Sarandon Says Bernie Sanders’ Hollywood Backers Are “Afraid” to Be More Vocal (Total cowards, Hollywood Reporter)
If It Comes Down to Trump or Clinton, Is It Unpatriotic to Abstain? Ralph Nader Has a Better Idea (Huffington Post)
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And the revelations just keep on coming.
One day after the St. Louis Fed spent thousands in taxpayer funds to “discover” that, gasp, “consumers across the country are borrowing more to buy cars and go to school“, yes really…
Consumers across the country are borrowing more to buy cars and go to school https://t.co/mkKAoVya2o http://pic.twitter.com/DxMiHo7kki
— St. Louis Fed (@stlouisfed) March 3, 2016
… today it’s Gallup’s turn to point out what has been abundantly clear to all non-economist types, and is the reason why the so-called recovery remains nothing but a myth, namely that “Americans Are Buried Under a Mountain of Debt.”
More from John Gleming:
The amount of debt Americans carry is staggering and grows every day.
A prior article explored the kinds and amounts of consumer debt that Americans carry, other than mortgages. Gallup found that only a subset of Americans carries the bulk of consumer debt. This article examines how consumer debt affects different groups of Americans, especially millennials.
Those Without Enough to Live Comfortably Are Using Credit Cards to Supplement Their Resources
Two-thirds of Americans say they have enough money to live comfortably, with more traditionalists (76%) and baby boomers (67%) saying they do than millennials (62%) and Gen Xers (61%).
Those who say they don’t have enough money to live comfortably appear to be using their credit cards to supplement their available resources with high-interest credit. It seems that though their total consumer debt balances are 17% lower than those of Americans who say that they do have enough money to live comfortably, across all generations except traditionalists, Americans who say that they don’t have enough money to live comfortably carry 36% larger credit card balances than those who say that they do have enough money.
The difference is particularly acute among millennials, where those who say that they don’t have enough money to live comfortably carry three times more credit card debt than those who say they do have enough money. Millennials who say they don’t have enough money to live comfortably also carry more auto loan debt and personal loan debt than millennials who say they do have enough money. Millennials are the only generation where those who say that they don’t have enough money to live comfortably carry 8% more total consumer debt than those who say they do have enough money.
Do Americans Enjoy Saving Money or Spending Money More?
Gallup has been tracking whether Americans enjoy saving money or spending money more since 2001. In 2001, 48% of Americans enjoyed spending money more than saving it. The preference for spending money remained at 48% in 2005 and then began a decline, which accelerated during the Great Recession.
At the height of the Great Recession in 2009, just 39% of Americans enjoyed spending money more than saving it. The low point for a preference to spend came in 2014, when just 35% said they enjoyed spending money more than saving it. In 2015, the spending preference crept back up to 37%. In the current research, 39% of Americans said they enjoy spending money more than saving it, while the remaining 61% enjoy saving money more. Neither of these percentages differs appreciably by generation.
Those who say they enjoy spending money more tend to earn more but also carry more debt.
Among the generations, those who enjoy spending money more includes a higher proportion of those making $48,000 per year or more than does the group of those who prefer saving money, who include a larger share of those making less than $48,000. The average annual income for spenders is just over $78,500, 9% higher than it is for savers at just over $72,000.
The exception is millennials, where the pattern is reversed. Among millennials, savers have a higher proportion of those making $48,000 per year or more than spenders, who have a larger share of those making less than $48,000. Even with this annual income pattern, however, the average annual income of millennial savers is 5% lower than that of millennial spenders.
In general, those who enjoy spending money more carry more credit card debt (81% more), more student loan debt (4% more), more auto loan debt (6% more) and more personal loan debt (37% more) than those who prefer saving it.
Generationally, the only exceptions to this pattern are among Gen Xers and baby boomers. Gen Xers who enjoy spending money more carry less student loan (24% less) and less auto loan debt (11% less) but double the credit card debt (102% more) and significantly more personal loan debt (75% more) than savers. And baby boomers who enjoy spending money more carry significantly less personal debt (23% less) than those who prefer saving it.
Among millennials, those who enjoy spending money more carry more credit card debt (58% more), more student loan debt (23% more), more auto loan debt (26% more) and more personal loan debt (18% more) than millennials who prefer saving.
When Gallup compares the differences in income and total consumer debt between those who enjoy spending money more and those who prefer saving it, Gen Xers, baby boomers and traditionalists who enjoy spending money more carry their income difference in additional consumer debt. In other words, the ratio of the difference in total consumer debt divided by the difference in annual income between these two groups is approximately 1.1-to-1 for members of these generations who enjoy spending money more.
For millennial spenders, however, the ratio is 2.5-to-1. In other words, millennial spenders carry 2.5 times more consumer debt than the difference in their annual income compared with savers.
Student Loan Debt Associated With Highest Level of Indebtedness
Almost four in 10 Americans enjoy spending money more than saving it, and they carry a larger debt load across the board though their annual income is higher than those who enjoy saving more. And even among individuals who say that they do not have enough money to live comfortably, almost one-third (32%) still enjoy spending money more than saving it, even if it means piling on more debt, especially credit card debt. This group has among the highest levels of credit card debt — 60% higher than everyone else.
Student loan debt — though not extremely widespread — is associated with the highest levels of indebtedness for all generations, but especially for millennials. And as the data illustrate, those with student loan debt are also more likely to take out a car loan, adding to their already-large debt burden.
For those with student loans, that debt accounts for an average of 36% of the person’s annual income, the largest percentage among all types of consumer debt. On average, total consumer debt accounts for 37% of annual income — but it accounts for 57% of annual income among those with student loans. This is a staggering percentage when considered against all other personal financial demands, such as mortgage or rent, food, telecommunications (including Internet and cable), insurance, savings and investments, and fuel and auto maintenance, among other expenses. Precious little is left over for discretionary spending, and until only recently, discretionary spending in America had been shrinking.
Except for millennials, those who enjoy spending money more than saving match the difference in their annual income (over savers) with the additional consumer debt they carry (over savers). Millennial spenders, though, carry 2.5 times more debt than their income difference over savers.
These data suggest that a significant portion of every generation is buried under a mountain of several different kinds of consumer debt. Though sizable slices of each generation carry no debt, the sheer magnitude of how much Americans with debt do owe is a cause for concern.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1QSOeyu Tyler Durden
The GOP is no longer monolithically the tough-on-crime party many think of it as being. As the debate rages on over whether or not we’re living through a “libertarian moment,” it’s worth noting that conversations around criminal justice reform are featuring prominently this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.
Groups like Right on Crime and Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty (CCATDP), once viewed mostly as novelties within the movement, are now fixtures of CPAC. What’s more, they’re making the case for rethinking the party line on criminal justice issues in decidedly conservative terms.
“The first year we got a lot of weird looks,” CCATDP’s advocacy coordinator, Marc Hyden, says. “But since we keep coming back, we’re accepted as just another part of the umbrella of conservatism. Nobody questions whether I’m a conservative or not—I’m talking about pro-life policies, fiscal responsibility, and limited government, and the death penalty just doesn’t work with that.”
Right on Crime Deputy Director Derek Cohen also has a playbook for reaching his fellow conservatives—and different messages work for different groups, he says. When talking to fiscal conservatives, he likes to point out that the same government that runs the post office runs the prison system. “Not exactly a model of efficiency,” he says. In Texas, where Right on Crime is based, a move toward giving low-level offenders probation or parole instead of prison time has allowed the state to forgo spending $2 billion on new prison infrastructure.
Social conservatives, on the other hand, “tend to appreciate the human value” and the “redemptive quality” of in-facility programs that help people—including people who have made serious mistakes—better themselves. “Even for serious crimes, even for violent crimes, when we send someone away for a long time, their life is fundamentally altered,” Cohen says. “That could be altered for the better, but that’s only if we’re putting in the rehabilitational elements that reduce recidivism.”
He conjures the example of a father and husband who gets caught with a little bit of heroine. His prison sentence under the old scheme would likely be just long enough to cause him to lose his job and experience problems at home. For social conservatives genuinely nervous about the decline of the family, that’s clearly a sub-optimal outcome. If instead people like that get intensive probation, “they’re at work. They’re at their kids’ ballgames.”
There’s some evidence policy is moving in tandem with the increased support among conservatives. Houston’s district attorney recently introduced guidelines whereby most first-time low-level drug offenders are diverted into community programs instead of locked up, for example.
We’re seeing progress on capital punishment as well. Just yesterday Florida’s legislature passed an overhaul to make it less likely that offenders will end up on death row. On the same day a judge ruled that Alabama’s execution system, like Florida’s before it, is unconstitutional. Last year Nebraska abolished its death penalty, and on Wednesday of this week the Utah state senate voted to do the same. “Now it’s heading over to the [Nebraska state] House,” Hyden says, “and the speaker of the House is against the death penalty! So we may get another red state to repeal the death penalty, which proves that Nebraska wasn’t an anomaly.”
The piecemeal nature of these victories can also be used to appeal to conservatives, he says. “I look at it through a Tenth Amendment framework—change should be done at the state level. If it’s not expressly mentioned in the Constitution, it should be done by the states.”
***
Reason TV caught up with CCATDP’s Hyden at CPAC last year. See what he had to say below.
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Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
“The Bear Market Is Dead, Long Live The Bull.”
You could almost hear the chants from the always bullish biased media this week as the markets ripped higher on “first day of the month” portfolio rebalancing and short-covering by fund managers.
The rally, as discussed this past weekend, was not unexpected:
“The good news is that the market was able to break above 1940, and the 50-dma, which now clears the way for a push to the 1970-1990 where the next levels of resistance will be found.
The bad news is that the markets are once again extremely overbought and still confined inside of an overall downtrend.”
Is this rally, which looks a whole lot like other rallies we have seen repeatedly in recent months, a true return to a bull market? Or is this another trap being set by the bears?
While it is too early to know for sure, with risks still mounted to the downside a little extra caution might not be a bad idea.
This week’s reading list takes a look at various views on the market, economy and what to expect next. What is interesting is that being overly bullish at the moment carries more portfolio risk (loss of capital if you wrong) than being bearish (missing out on early gains).
1) This Is A Suckers Rally by Michael Kahn via Barron’s
“Chip Anderson, president of StockCharts.com, wrote in a recent newsletter to users that current “emotional short-term reactions are really just part of a larger pattern.” According to his analysis, “The market has topped and is generally moving lower based on a rounding top pattern and the downward movement of the 40-week (200-day) moving average.“
But Also Read: Bears Have Their Backs Against The Wall by Avi Gilburt via MarketWatch
And Read: Top 10 Reasons Investors Should Sell Now by Doug Kass via Real Clear Markets
2) March Is Best Chance For Market Rally by Sue Chang via MarketWatch
“March may be the best chance yet for an S&P 500 rally if you ask Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James. History and an energy shift at the market’s gut level could be the triggers.
Saut believes the stock market bottomed in February. ‘The first week of March should see the market’s ‘internal energy’ rebuilt for another try on the upside,’ he said in a report.”
But Also Read: March Madness by Lance Roberts via RIA
3) Weak Economic Data Aligns With Market by Chris Ciovacco via Ciovacco Capital
“The shorter-term data tracked by our market model has seen noticeable improvement over the past two weeks. The longer-term picture, looking out weeks and months, continues to be concerning. Therefore, until more meaningful improvement starts to surface, our allocations will continue to have a defensive slant.”
Also Read: Two Reasons Stocks Are Headed Higher by Anthony Mirhaydari via Fiscal Times
But Don’t Miss: 2008 Revisited by Nouriel Roubini via Project Syndicate
4) Three Weeks Later, Gundlach Cashes Out Of Rally by Tyler Durden via Zero Hedge
“In an interview with Reuters Jennifer Ablan after DoubleLine Capital’s February flow figures were released (it was a $2.2 billion inflow) , Gundlach said the firm is now considering closing out some of its long positions in the stocks that they purchased three weeks ago.
Is the bond trader now just a closet equities daytrader? We wond’t know, but since the S&P 500 has jumped 8% in that period, why not takes some profits.
“That’s what we’re talking about,” Gundlach said about booking some gains after their short-term rally.
Gundlach still maintains that the U.S. stock market is in a bear market but had made those equity purchases because the conditions in the second week of February with “wickedly negative equity sentiment were such that risk/reward favored a potential tradable rally and also made such a low allocation less advisable.”
The time to buy the dip, however, has passed: “I am bearish. There are just wiggles and jiggles in the markets.“
Also Read: The Best Offense Is A Good Defense by Adam Koos via MarketWatch
CHART OF THE DAY: McCellan Oscillator Over 90 by Northman Trader
5) Sunshine, Lollipops And… by Bill Gross via Janus Capital
“If negative interest rates fail to generate acceptable nominal growth, then the Milton Friedman/Ben Bernanke concept of helicopter money may be employed. How that could equitably be distributed nationally or worldwide I have no idea, but the opinion columns are mentioning it more and more often, and on Twitter, the “Likes” are increasing in numbers. Can any/all of these policy alternatives save the “system”? We shall find out, but current evidence of the past 7 years’ experience would support only a D+ report card grade. Barely passing. As an investor though – and as a citizen in this election year – you should be aware that our finance based economic system which like the Sun has provided life and productive growth for a long, long time – is running out of fuel and that its remaining time span is something less than 5 billion years.
Investment implications? Do not reach for the tantalizing apple of high yield or the low price/ book ratio of bank stocks. Those prices are where they are because of low/negative interest rates. And too, do not reach for the seemingly momentum driven higher prices of Bunds and Treasuries that negative yields have produced. A 30 year Treasury at 2.5% can wipe out your annual income in one day with a 10 basis point increase. And no, you can’t go to a bank and demand your cash for a fear of being labeled a terrorist. Seems like you’re cornered, doesn’t it?“
Also Read: This Is Nuts, When’s The Crash by David Keohane via FT Alphaville
“Bull markets die with a whimper, not a bang.” – Anonymous
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