Bilal Saab makes the case for a more precise use of the term ally:
The word “ally” is used far too casually in Washington’s Middle East lexicon. It’s time to break this bad habit, because the truth is that with the exception of Turkey—a NATO member—the United States does not share a single alliance with any Middle Eastern country.
"It may be the world's biggest traffic jam."
- Reuters
Last week we revealed what we thought was a "shocking photo" of nearly 30 oil tankers caught in a traffic jam off the Iraqi coast, an indication of just how much excess oil is currently parked offshore.
With oil losing some of its euphoric oomph overnight, following the API report of a surge in US oil inventories, and a subsequent report that Iran's oil minister would skip the Doha OPEC meeting altogether, the global stock rally needed another catalyst to maintain the levitation.
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
Something ugly this way comes. As we noted last week, despite proclamations that any weakness in US spending or economic data is merely seasonal or transitory, BofA's credit and debit card spending data revealed that sales were notably weak. Today we get further confirmation of what Retail ETF investors have been seeing for a while as Johnson-Redbook reported a 2.8% plunge in Same-Store-Sales - the worst start to an April since 2005.