Over the past year we have provided extensive coverage of what will likely be the biggest, most politically charged, and most significant financial crisis facing the aging U.S. population: a multi-trillion pension storm, which was recently dubbed "one of the most heated battles of a lifetime" by John Mauldin.
While everyone likes to point the finger at Amazon, the growing retail apocalypse in America can't be tied to just one catalyst. Certainly, there is no doubt that Amazon is taking a toll on brick-and-mortar retailers but massive excess capacity, perpetually over-levered capital structures and a constant lack of capital investment have undoubtedly helped accelerate the decline.
China’s factory prices (PP) jumped last month despite authorities' continued attempts to curb industrial production to combat pollution. China's PPI rose 6.9% in October Y/Y, higher than the projected 6.6% while consumer prices climbed 1.9%, also higher than the median forecast of 1.8%, and above last month's 1.6% Y/Y increase.
A little over a year ago, specialized satellite imaging company Orbital Insight which uses its proprietary imaging and algorithms to track above-ground oil storage, confirmed something we had alleged earlier in the year: that China was vastly under-representing the amount of oil it had stored in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve (with significant implications for prices).
Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,
As a candidate, Donald Trump used uncommonly harsh language to criticize Saudi Arabia—the world’s largest oil exporter.
He called the Saudi regime the world’s biggest funder of terrorism.
He also said the Saudi government uses “our petro dollars—our very own money—to fund the terrorists that seek to destroy our people, while the Saudis rely on us to protect them!”
At another point, Trump said, “Who blew up the World Trade Center? It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi [Arabia].”