America

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton blames the Syrian conflict on all the wrong actors. The former Secretary of State blames president Assad, Iran and Russia for creating their own nemesis, ISIS. The takfiri terrorists have been rampaging through Iraq and Syria chopping Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian and Russian affiliated heads among others, with the financial, spiritual and military backing of their Gulf supporters and their western allies, including Turkey. Hillary Clinton’s appraisal of the Syrian conflict is a serious concern for all. “You cannot be serious,” as former World No.

I’m a long time member of the Strong Towns organization which advocates for financially solvent municipal governance. I’m also a member of the Congress for New Urbanism which strives to build walkable mixed-use neighborhoods of the kind our great grandparents would have taken for granted, but are rare indeed these days. I often ask myself what good a financially stable town is if most of the people living there are heavily leveraged and living pay check to pay check. So I have a particular fascination with people who embody the Strong Towns ethos within their own households.

"Intervention in foreign exchange markets in order to gain a competitive advantage is unacceptable," proclaims US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in a strongly worded statement today with regard America's position in the global economy. That we note this comment is only relevant as, despite the apparent "stability" of the Chinese Yuan against the USD, relative to the 13-currency-basket with which China primarily trades, the Yuan has collapsed to 17-month lows - with JPY and EUR appearing to bear the brunt of the pain.

Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens would pay nearly half of everything they earn to the government.” ? Ron Paul

If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.

With every passing day, the Fed is slowly but surely losing the game.

Only it is not just former (and in some cases current) Fed presidents admitting central banks are increasingly powerless to boost the global economy, even if they still have sway over capital markets. What is far more insidious to the Fed's waning credibility is when former economists affiliated with the Fed start repeating mantras that until recently were only a prominent feature in the so-called fringe media.