United States

Submitted by Michael Klare via TomDispatch.com,

Over the past few years, we have written many strange stories about China's often-ridiculous, perpetually-bubbly, always on the precipice financial system. The story about China's literal "cash cows", however, is by far the strangest.

As everyone knows by now, the primary reason the global equity market, taking its cues from the US, is where it is now is due to a relentless stream of debt-funded stock buybacks. Earlier this year Bloomberg stumbled on the same thing we have written since 2013, namely that "there is only one buyer keeping the bull market alive."

Submitted by Kurt Cobb via OilPrice.com,

The world's largest exporter of crude oil, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, recently announced a plan for its post-oil future. If a country almost synonymous with the oil economy can see the need for such a plan, how can the rest of the world, particularly the United States, the world's largest consumer of petroleum, not see the necessity of such foresight?

The main reason stocks in the steel sector are on fire today is because overnight the Commerce Department escalated its trade war with China when it implemented the latest clampdown on a glut of steel imports, when it announced that corrosion-resistant steel from China will face final U.S. anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties of up to 450%. The final U.S. anti-dumping duties on the Chinese products replace preliminary ones of 256% issued in December 2015.

When last week, Oklahoma threatened to impeach Obama over the administration's recommendations on accommodating transgender students, saying the president overstepped his constitutional authority, few paid much attention. After all, it is safe to say there have been far more egregious violations of the constitution by this administration, for it to be too worried about allowing transsexuals to use any bathroom they choose.

However, now that ten other states joined Oklahoma overnight in suing Obama, it may be time to pay attention.