America

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

Submitted by Duane via Free Market Shooter blog,

Yesterday, President Trump met with the National Sheriff’s Association at the White House.  Like so many Trump comments, this one took a strange turn when Trump (jokingly or not) threatened to “destroy the career” of a Texas state Senator:

During the meeting, Rockwall County, Texas, Sheriff Harold Eavenson told President Trump about a piece of asset forfeiture legislation he believes would aid Mexican drug cartels…here’s the full conversation:

 

Submitted by David Galland via The Passing Parade

One of the more interesting mental exercises related to predicting the future involves trying to fathom the impact the rise of robots will have on humanity.

We can be quite sure that in the proverbial blink, robots will be doing all the war fighting. After that, what’s the point? But does that then lead to the sort of robotic apocalypse so well envisioned in Terminator?

After an outstanding start to the year for Equity hedge funds, this most recent gap move higher in stocks (while rates and FX remain firmly ‘in range’) is pretty-much exactly what RBC's Charlie McElligott warned is a "bad scenario" for equities funds.

On the surface, today's monthly budget statement showed good news: in January the US Treasury brought in total receipts of $344 billion, versus outlays of only $293 billion, resulting in a surplus of $51 billion, substantially greater than the $40 billion expected (and well above last year's $28 billion deficit), a surplus which however was largely due to a law requiring the IRS to delay sending out tax refund checks to household claiming certain tax credits.