America

The omniptence of artificial intelligence is unquestioned. The 'future' is automation, robotization, and algorithmic domination is the mantra of the new normal prognosticators - and anyone who challenges this world view is a luddite or 'denier'.

There's just one problem - those quantitative, AI-based, computerized algos, that are supposed to be making people obsolete in the financial markets, are in trouble. As Bloomberg reports, program-driven hedge funds are stumbling, a promising startup has closed, and once-reliable styles are showing weakening returns.

While President Trump is more than willing to tweet or comment ad hoc his feelings about any of several crucial geopolitical hotspots, the Chinese prefer the more subtle approach. With their India border tensions, officials pen 'threatening' articles; but with North Korea, it appears the government prefers a well known mouthpiece - The China Global Times - to send a message to America - simply put, back off the rhetoric before this goes pear-shaped because North Korea has nothing to lose...

Authored by John Galt via JohnGaltFla.com,

Way, way, way, way back before televisions were generally available in color, cable was a luxury reserved for hotels and the wealthy, and financial television was reserved to Louis Rukeyser and a weekly program on PBS and the “Nightly Business Report”, the idea of information beyond the 6:30 p.m. national newscast was considered absurd.

Two days after President Donald Trump said the US has “no alternative” but to triumph over the worsening opioid overdose crisis, the president said he is preparing to declare the opioid crisis – America’s worst public health crisis in decades - a national emergency.

Authored by Daniel McAdams via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Usually foreign analysts of the American political scene are either sycophantic or just annoying, but no one would dare say that about Aussie observer Caitlin Johnstone, whose punk rock style of cutting to the chase is as refreshing as it can be shocking (I am not a fan of the strong language, but I get it).