America

Richard Gamble reviews John Wilsey’s American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion, and finds Wilsey’s version of exceptionalism to be dangerous in its own way:

Submitted by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

The elephant’s not even in the room, which is why the 2016 election campaign is such a soap opera. The elephant outside the room is named Discontinuity. That’s perhaps an intimidating word, but it is exactly what the USA is in for. It means that a lot of familiar things come to an end, stop, don’t work the way they are supposed to - beginning, manifestly, with the election process now underway in all its unprecedented bizarreness.

Currently the US Dollar, traded on the stock market as (UUP), and (USDU); is the world's reserve currency. Although there is talk of the fall of the US Dollar as the world reserve currency, it's all talk and there's no signs that this will happen any time soon. Hungary recently issued sovereign bonds in Yuan - but so what? It's just a drop in the bucket. The practical fact is there is no real threat to the US Dollar's status as a reserve currency. However, there may be one.

There has been much confusion, at time quite angry, how in the aftermath of the Soros-funded Panama Papers revelations few, if any, prominent U.S. name emerged as a result of the biggest offshore tax leak in history. Now, thanks to McClatchy more U.S. names are finally being revealed and it will probably come as little surprise that many of the newly revealed names have connection to both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The artist responsible for the nude painting of Donald Trump, portraying him with small genitals, has fled the U.S. after receiving threats of violence from supporters of the Republican presidential front-runner. News Hub reports: Ilma Gore’s work, ‘Make America Great Again’, is up for sale with a price tag of £1 million (NZ$2.5 million). It’s currently being displayed at the Maddox Gallery in London, after galleries in the US refused to show it due to security concerns. “The reaction, especially in the UK, has been incredibly supportive.