Authored by MN Gordon via Acting-Man.com,
Onward vs. Upward
Something both unwanted and unexpected has tormented western economies in the 21st century. Gross domestic product (GDP) has moderated onward while government debt has spiked upward. Orthodox economists continue to be flummoxed by what has transpired.
Monsanto have reported a loss of tens of millions of dollars in India, amid a boycott of the corrupt company following the deaths of 300,000 farmers. After Monsanto pushed a form of Bt cotton into [...]
Just days after reports emerged that student loan defaults are soaring, which is undoubtedly due to some combination of, among other things, poor job prospects for the millions of snowflakes who graduate each year with their $200,000 educations in anthropology and the moral hazard created by liberal politicians constantly calling for student debts to be 'forgiven' (a.k.a. forcefully jammed down the throats of taxpayers), the Trump administration has revoked rules put in place by Obama that barred student debt collectors from charging penalty fees on past-due loans.
Excerpted from Dr. Ed Yardeni's blog,
US Flow of Funds: ETFs Driving Stocks Higher
...the saying that a picture is “worth a thousand words” is attributed to newspaper editor Tess Flanders discussing journalism and publicity in 1911. We have always believed that a chart is worth a thousand data points in a time series. Given our chosen profession, we tend to focus on the data for the equity and debt markets in the Fed’s quarterly statistical extravaganza. Let’s focus on equities:
During a week that saw WTI crude prices erase all post-OPEC-production-cut-deal gains, after the Saudis admitted 'cheating' (but rapidly back-pedalled), oil speculators added almost 80,000 contracts to their short positions - the 2nd most in 34 years.
This surge in shorts reduced the massive record net long crude positioning by the 2nd most in history - but clearly it remains extremely one-sided still...