America

Ross Douthat says the results of this GOP primary process are “a defeat for True Conservatism™” — that is, the idea that all defeats of GOP candidates can be explained by their lack of ideological purity. Excerpt:

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

The central bank war on savers is rooted in a monumental case of the Big Lie. Here is what a retired worker who managed to save $5,000 per year over a 40 year’s lifetime of toil and sweat in a steel factory now earns in daily interest on a bank CD. To wit, a single cup of cappuccino.

Yet the central bankers claim they have absolutely nothing to do with this flaming economic injustice.

Speaking through its mouthpiece Global Times, China has published its first reaction to "unpredictable" Trump's position as presumptive Republican nominee and their expectations of a Trump vs Clinton fight for The White House...

Despite a very modest beat of expectations US worker productivity fell for the 2nd quarter in a row (down 1.0% vs 1.3% QoQ), the two-quarter-average output per hour isdown 1.4% - the worst slump since 1993. Unit labor costs rose by a better than expected 4.1% (helped by a downwardly revised 2.7% rise in Q4), the highest since Q4 2014.

America’s productivity slump is the biggest in nearly a quarter century...

A new study has shown that the aerial spraying of pesticides used to kill mosquitoes has caused an increase in autism amongst children in America.  According to a study presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies, the use of pesticides to combat mosquito borne illnesses such as the Zika virus, has actually caused birth defects amongst the population. Scientists observed a 25 percent increase in autism and developmental disorders in children who lived in areas where aerial spraying for mosquitoes has been used since 2003.