North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was detained at London Heathrow airport for 12 hours before being deported after attempting to enter the United Kingdom in disguise and using a fake tourist visa, say Heathrow immigration officials. After arriving on an early morning Air China flight, his documents were questioned and he was taken into custody for further questioning.
Submitted by Peter Tchir of Brean Capital,
The Manufacturing Economy versus The Service Economy
As we start the new year, there is a debate raging within the market. No the debate isn’t whether there is weakness in the manufacturing economy, that is taken as a given, especially after Friday’s awful Chicago Purchasing Manager number of 42.9.
No, the debate boils down to this:
The bears will argue that
The U.S. economy has always done poorly when manufacturing has turned this weak
With the Fed hiking rates in order to signal a "return of confidence" to the economy, one - the most important - aspect of a recovering economy continues to be absent: rising wages.
As the following chart showing the annual growth in wages of production and non-supervisory workers (who make up 83% of the US workforce) reveals, wage growth is not only well below the Fed's goal of 4.5%, at 1.7% it is below the Fed's goal of 2% inflation, suggestion that on a real basis wages would be declining if the Fed had attained its 2% inflation mandate.
Despite official pleas for “calm” following the death of prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, Iranians are in no mood to stand down.
Perhaps the Ayatollah's calls for "divine vengeance" have incited a riot or perhaps the Shiite world has simply had enough of the House of Saud, but whatever the case, crowds once again gathered outside the Saudi consulate in Mashhad on Sunday where riot police tried in vain to disperse the mob with water cannons just hours after angry protesters torched the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
Submitted by Jeremy Choate via Sufficient Reason blog,
This essay is a bit of departure from my usually reasonable and logical approach to important issues. That’s not to say that the essay isn’t well-reasoned and is bereft of logical argumentation, but I freely admit that it’s polemical, in nature. Sometimes you’re just pissed, and you need to vent. Here’s my vent…