Ever since merchants changed out payment terminals last October in order to comply with new rules and accept chip cards, merchants are seeing expenses relating to debit transaction fees increasing, in some cases as much as 20%. The reason stems from transaction terminals being set up to steer transactions in such a way that will generate the most revenue for the data processing company.
As the Chicago Tribune explains
Over the past few months, we have covered the unfolding saga (here and here) of the Central States Pension Fund, which handles retirement benefits for current and former Teamster union truck drivers across various states including Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, New York, and Minnesota, and is one of the largest pension funds in the nation, all the way through Kenneth Feinberg's rejection of the proposal to cut benefits on behalf of the Treasury.
When the proposal was rejected, we said that the final resolution will be in the form of an inevitable taxpayer-funded bailout
The monotonous drone from The Eccles Building continues to pontificate that bond bulls are fools but stock buyers are the smart ones for the miracle hockey-stick of Keynesian dreams is just around the corner and rate-hikes right along with it. Three decades of factual dismissal of this bullshit propaganda are of course proving that line of reasoning simply false and while Rosengren, Bullard, et al. bloviate that 'investors' should be selling bonds, it is shockingly ironic that their bond-buying nemesis is Mrs.
After issuing a record $1 trillion in combined bank and shadow loans in the first quarter which just like during the financial crisis provided a short-term boost to global growth (while sending China's debt/GDP to all time highs)...
... China's dramatic debt issuance binge is about to hit a brick wall.
Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
Stop Blaming Consumers, They Can’t Help It
Since 2009, mainstream economists, the media, and the Fed have continued to prognosticate a resurgence of economic growth. Yet each year, as shown in the chart of Fed forecasts below, such predictions have repeatedly overstated reality.