America

Submitted by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

How reassuring is it to Hillary, exactly, that she won what amounted to a straw poll totaling less than 11,000 votes among the various Nevada hotel employees unions? You could tell from her pained, artificial smile at the victory podium that there is something booby prize-ish about that narrow triumph. And what was with the metallic red outfit that had her looking like a previously-owned Christmas tree ornament? Maybe her handlers put her in Kevlar for the occasion.

“The industrial environment is in a recession - I don’t care what anybody says,” Fastenal CFO Daniel Florness exclaimed in frustration back in October when William Blair analyst Ryan Merkel dared to suggest that the US economy wasn’t in fact in the doldrums on the company’s Q3 call.

WTI crude prices are up almost 6% this morning with April (the new front-month) trading above $33.50 - testing post-DOE plunge stops. The irony of the ramp is that it comes amid terrible global PMIs (demand), a report from IEA of oil staying in glut for longer than expected (supply), and warnings from Abu Dhabi's biggest bank that $20 oil is possible. Oh well, we are sure the algos know what they are doing... despite veterans of the 1980s oil glut warning it could take 7 to 10 years to emerge from the current slump.

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush announced on Saturday night that he would leave the 2016 Presidential race, after a disappointing finish in South Carolina. Donald Trump may have helped destroy Jeb’s candidacy by repeatedly challenging him on 9/11 by saying that the terror attack was the fault of his brother George W. Bush Or perhaps America has had enough of the Bush family… Press TV reports: Bush, who was once considered Republican frontrunner, finished in sixth place in the Iowa caucuses and in fourth places in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Just as the government did in the lead up to The Scottish Referendum in 2014, it appears David Cameron is already unleashing resorting to the so-called Project Fear. As The Telegraph reports, following Boris Johnson's lack of acquiescence to Cameron's call for no Brexit, more than a dozen of the country's most senior military leaders will argue that Britain should vote to stay in the European Union because of its importance to national security.