America

After investing nearly $80 billion into startups in 2015, Venture Capitalists, growing slightly weary of the $1 billion valuations being handed out like candy to every 22 year old with an app that can replace your face with that of panda, have pulled back a bit in 2016 resulting in a 10% reduction in equity capital for America's graduating snowflakes.  But as Bloomberg points out, that's not a problem as many of Silicon Valley's revenue-free startups see debt capital as a better alternative anyway...sure, what could go wrong?

Submitted by Eric Zuesse via Strategic-Culture.org,

California alone accounted for all of Hillary’s popular-vote win, plus 1,405,004 votes

America’s Electoral College - the publicly elected representatives who select the U.S. President - voted on Monday, December 19th, and chose Donald Trump as America’s next President, though Hillary Clinton had won nearly three million more of the nation’s popular votes on November 8th than he did.

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

Here’s more evidence that the “recovery” never really happened, and good reason to think that the entire social safety net structure is doomed to fall apart.

The birthrate, long tied to economic growth, has been dropping to its lowest point in recorded history – both nationally and, in particular, in the state of California.

Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

In the late 1400s, the city-states of Italy were among most dominant powers in the world.

Most of the city-states had abandoned the feudal system that persisted across Europe.

So Italy was one of the only places on the continent where anyone, including foreigners, could work hard, take risks, and become wealthy.

People could start businesses and own private property– revolutionary concepts in the 1400s.