America

ABC, Fox News, and Rasmussen now have polls suggesting Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton nationally and for the first time during this campaign RealClearPolitics 'tracker' has Trump with a 0.2pt lead - the unofficial "death cross" of Clinton's campaign as Wayne Allyn Root right remarks "Hillary is sinking faster than the Titanic." Voters are putting their money where their polls are too as bookies odds of a Hillary victory in November are tumbling.

During the Oregon standoff, where a group of US citizens calling themselves the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, seized control of a federal wildlife refuge in protest of harsh sentences being given to members of a ranching family for allegedly allowing fires set on their property to spread on to federal land, Ron Paul posed a question: Is the event isolated, or a sign of things to come?

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Oregon standoff was the latter.

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

China is rapidly expanding its military presence in the disputed waters and airspace of the South China Sea. A new high-tech surveillance drone is stalking foreign warships approaching the man-made artificial islands, creating tension in the region and a headache for the Pentagon as it feels obliged to defend and provide free navigation in what was once international waters. The simmering tension between the U.S. and China is reaching boiling point as the two sides flirt with overt military conflict.

Published originally on The Great Recession Blog

by David Haggith

I have pointed out in previous articles how most of the growth in stocks over the past few years has been due to stock share buybacks. Without this hideous (and at one time illegal) practice, there would have been no bull market over the last few years.

That’s right. Research from no other place than Wall Street, itself, indicates that almost all of the returns since 2009 have been due to stock share buybacks!