America

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."

Earlier today, in "The Humiliation Is Complete: Assad Can Stay, Kerry Concedes After Meeting With Putin," we documented John Kerry's visit to Moscow where America's top diplomat discovered there are Dunkin Donuts in Russia and also found some time to talk Syria with Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov.

After what amounted to a staring contest over the fate of Bashar al-Assad, Kerry blinked as expected, and the US is now willing to concede that the Syrian President may remain in power indefinitely. 

Someone forgot to give the banks the memo that the Fed's first rate hike since 2006 was supposed to, at least on paper, benefit the savers of America and not so much the, well, banks.. Because the ink hadn't even dried on the Fed's statement and one after another banks revealed that they would promptly boost their Prime lending rate from the current benchmark of 3.25% to the new Fed Funds-implied prime rate of 3.50%.

Sticker Shock: Fed to Hike Rates First Time in NINE Years!

Courtesy of Phil’s Stock World

A rate hike – what’s that?