The fight to check the spread of Islamic State in Afghanistan is making for some strange bedfellows. 

"Great" earnings (ex-FX of course) and an "appealing to a broader retail audience" stock split? Recipe for awesomeness, right? Wrong! Nike is now down almost 10% from its post-earnings peak...

NKE running downhill fast...

Just Don't It!

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

The only real solution in my view is to create and distribute money at the base of the pyramid rather than to those in the top of the pyramid.

Many well-intended people want to reform the status quo for all sorts of worthy reasons: to reduce wealth inequality, restore democracy, create good-paying jobs, and so on.

After a year of proclamations from mainstream media (and Wall St. economists) that low oil prices mean low gas prices at the pump which means "bonanza" for US consumers, it appears none of that happened. Confidence is fading fast despite what some suggest is $550 average savings this year as 'gains' flooded into soaring rent and healthcare costs. But, more recently, as stock markets celebrate a soaring oil price (off decade lows), wholesale gasoline prices have soared 10% in a little over 48 hours...

This past week brought two pieces of contradictory news. In a misguided attempt to fight terrorism, Republican presidential candidates proposed curtailing the Internet and, by implication, Facebook. Meanwhile, Facebook rolled on; a year-end Time magazine poll concluded Facebook was the most popular smartphone App with 126,702,000 US users.