America

Late last month, we reported that ISIS has cut its fighters’ salaries in half due to “exceptional circumstances the caliphate is facing.”

Those “exceptional circumstances” include Russia’s unrelenting aerial campaign against the group’s illicit oil trafficking business in Syria. The US-led “coalition” likes to take credit for helping to cripple the oil trade, but in reality it was Vladimir Putin (and Zero Hedge) that put the issue in the spotlight in November.

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

After a series of stunning declines through the month of January and the first half of February, global financial markets seem to have found a patch of relative stability at least for the moment.  But that does not mean that the crisis is over.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Laws are effective only to the extent they are enforced. A law on the books has little impact if prosecution is highly unlikely.

 

The US Economy Has Not Recovered And Will Not Recover

Paul Craig Roberts

The US economy died when middle class jobs were offshored and when the financial system was deregulated.

Jobs offshoring benefitted corporate executives and shareholders, because lower labor and compliance costs resulted in higher profits. These profits flowed through to shareholders in the form of capital gains and to executives in the form of “performance bonuses.” Wall Street benefitted from the bull market generated by higher profits.

Jeb Bush made a campaign stop on Tuesday at a gun manufacturer in Columbia, Ohio. The Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush tweeted a picture of his handgun manufactured by a company which has a history linked to arming the Nazis during World War two, and is currently a leading supplier to the U.S. military. The gun represents “America”, according to Bush, both the manufacturer and the country. The Washington Post reports: The short tweet includes only the word “America.” (with a period for emphasis) and a picture of a .45-caliber handgun engraved with his name: “Gov.