Business

Authored by Anthony Doyle via BondVigilantes.com,

Via The Daily Bell

Just because a Ponzi scheme is run by a government doesn’t mean it won’t collapse.

The situation in Kentucky serves as a dire warning about larger pension systems including Social Security.

What Kentucky is currently facing in like a bank run. When people hear that a bank is failing, they all scramble to get their money out before it goes bust. This snowballs and the bank runs out of cash that much quicker.

When it comes to the US labor market, it's a tale of two extremes according to a recent report by Goldman Sachs.

At one end, the rate of short-term unemployment, defined as those unemployed fewer than 15 weeks, is lower than at any point since the Korean War and is already 0.4% below the bottom reached in the late 90s boom, with half of the gap likely due to demographic change. According to Goldman economists, "from the perspective of workers transitioning briefly between jobs whose attachment to employment is high, this is already a very tight labor market."

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Centralized banking and all other forms of intermediary rentier skims are presented as solid. If history is any guide, these supposedly solid entities may well melt into air.

Why is bitcoin considered such a big deal? Why has it grabbed so much mind-share, and why is it skyrocketing? And why is the cryptocurrency sector going bonkers?

In the latest headache for Mario Draghi, the Eurozone's closely watched CPI weakened to 1.40% year-on-year in October 2017 versus expectations of 1.50% and a reading of 1.50% the previous month. As a reminder, according to the ECB's September forecast, HICP inflation is expected to rise to 1.5%, leaving little margin for deflation in the next few months, especially if Draghi's tightening overtures are to be taken seriously.