Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
In an earlier post we looked at nationwide growth in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as "food stamps."
We found that, thanks to many years of accelerated growth in the program under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, 1 in 7 Americans now participate in the food stamp program.
Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid is one of the few strategists on Wall Street to admit he was wrong (although he may still end up being right). Previewing his annual credit outlook titled "Volatility Ahead", Reid confesses that "we’ve long felt that as we approached 2017 we would likely be at the turning point of the credit cycle. Indeed our forecasts are for wider spreads in our annual outlook for the first time since the Euro Sovereign crisis earlier this decade. However in the course of writing this outlook much has changed."
For the 16th month in a row (longer than the 14 month stretch during the financial crisis), Swiss Watch exports have collapsed year-over-year. As Bloomberg reports, the 16.4% plunge in October is the biggest monthly drop in seven years, as demand weakened in almost every major market for Rolex and Omega timepieces.
Bloomberg adds that shipments fell to 1.68 billion francs ($1.7 billion), the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said in a statement Tuesday, with 13 of the top 15 markets were negative in October.
Authored by Steve H. Hanke of The Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.
The United States has recorded a trade deficit in each year since 1975. This is not surprising. After all, we spend more than we save, and this deficit is financed via a virtually unlimited U.S. line of credit with the rest of the world. In short, foreigners in countries that save more than they spend (read: record trade surpluses) ship the U.S. funds to finance America’s insatiable spending appetites.
The most notable thing about today's Treasury auction of $34 billion in 5 Year paper is not what happened after the 1pm announcement of its pricing, but what has been taking placed in the last few days, where as the following charts from SMRA, there has been a major surge in shorts, who have in turn sent the underlying paper "super special" in repo, to the tune of -2.50% as of this morning.