America

The scramble for America's bottom dollar is on, and according to a troubling report by Reuters it has prompted America's largest low-cost retailer Wal-Mart to not only cut prices, but to squeeze suppliers in a stealthy war for market share and maximizing profits, a scramble for market share which is oddly reminiscent of the OPEC 2014 price fiasco and is certain to unleash a deflationary shock across wide portions of the US economy.

Via Howard Kunstler of Kunstler.com,

We need a new civil war like we need a hole in the head. But that’s just it: America has a hole in its head. It’s the place formerly known as The Center. It didn’t hold. It was the place where people of differing views could rely on each other to behave reasonably around a touchstone called the National Interest. That abandoned place is now cordoned off, a Chernobyl of the mind, where figures on each side of the political margin fear to even sojourn, let alone occupy, lest they go radioactive.

Via Disobedient Media

Traders are on edge ahead of tomorrow's key address by President Trump to Congress, in which as Bloomberg writes "trillions are at stake."

Since Trump’s election, the S&P 500 has risen by 10%, posting 17 record closes in a rally that’s added $2.8 trillion in value to the U.S. equity market, with economists divided on how much of the rally is due to hopes from Trump's pro-growth promises, how much due to corporate earnings growth (which are expected to rise 12% from last year's energy-depressed levels), and how much due to the organic growth of the economy.

As observed earlier in the day, as part of the leaked preliminary Trump budget, the president was set to unveil major spending increases for US defense offset by cuts to federal agencies, and other non-defense sectors. And on Monday morning, the first details emerged, including that the boost to defense spending is expected to be about 10%, or some $54 billion, and will be revenue neutral, offset by cuts in non-defense areas, and will not "add a dime to the deficit." As Trump said, he is seeking a "historic increase" in military spending.