Business

Despite the surge in consumer confidence and exuberance at what lies ahead, real wages for America's average joes declined year-over-year in February (down 0.3%). This is the first consecutive monthly drop in real wages since 2011 (which forced Bernanke to to hint at and then unleash QE2 later that year).

So not only is The Fed hiking into the weakest GDP growth outlook since 1987, noiw they are hiking into declining real wage growth (something tht has previously driven The Fed to a massvely dovish stance).

It is fitting that just a few hours until the Fed's second rate hike in two quarters, and one day after Goldman downgraded global stocks to Neutral for the next 3 months, not to mention with the results of the anticipated Dutch election due shortly, that global stocks as well as S&P futures are higher, while crude oil has finally managed to stage a rebound as the Dollar DXY index is fractionally in the red.

Literally no one knows the true 'value' of equity research, not even the investment banks that are selling it.  Up until now, equity research has been treated as a 'freebie' given away to institutional clients in return for trading commissions but that is all about to change thanks to the European Union’s MiFID II regulations, which require asset managers to separate trading commissions from investment-research payments.

The following is an interesting overview, via X22Report.com, of our current economic situation and the behavior of the elites going into the next stage of the collapse process.

As Alt-Market's Brandon Smith notes, take special note of the information on the abrupt decline in bank issued loans (debt); is it not rather coincidental that as the Federal Reserve presses forward with the interest rate hiking process that credit issuance suddenly freezes up?

Authored by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Despite a massive rally in the stock market, Illinois public pension liabilities continue to grow.

GARS, the Illinois General Assembly Retirement System, is only 13.52% funded, down from 17% funded in 2013. How long can GARS last?

Meanwhile, Illinois has accrued a combined net pension liability of roughly $130 billion on which it assumes a 7% return.