It has been a strange two days for US foreign policy.

Earlier today we reported that in what amounts to a significant blow to the official US position over Syria, namely the multi-year demands to replace president Assad with a western puppet ruler, John Kerry on Tuesday accepted Russia's long-standing demand that President Bashar Assad's future be determined by his own people, as Washington and Moscow edged toward putting aside years of disagreement over how to end Syria's civil war."

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Thousands of years ago in ancient city of Babylon, specially trained scribes gathered each day in the Temple of Marduk to record the day’s events.

They used cuneiform writing instruments and clay tablets, over 1200 of which still survive today.

These scribes kept excellent records, detailing astronomical observances and water levels of the Euphrates River, as well as market prices for the most popular commodities like wheat, barley, and wool.

Richard Werner – an economics professor and the creator of quantitative easing – says that it’s a myth that interest rates drive the level of economic activity. The data shows that the opposite is true: rates lag the economy.

Economics prof Steve Keen – who called the Great Recession before it happened – points out today in Forbes that the Fed’s rate dashboard is missing crucial instrumentation:

Early last month, we noted that something very strange was happening off the coast of Galveston, Texas. 

As FT reported, "the amount of oil [now] at sea is at least double the levels of earlier this year and is equivalent to more than a day of global oil supply.” In short: the global deflationary crude supply glut is beginning to manifest itself in a flotilla of stationary supertankers, as millions of barrels of oil are simply stuck in the ocean as VLCCs wait to unload.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,