Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,
Visa recently unveiled its own offensive in the war on cash. Visa is offering certain merchants a $10,000 reward if they refuse to accept cash in the future.
Not surprisingly, Visa’s competitor is also part of the war on cash. Mastercard is increasing its efforts to encourage merchants to refuse cash. Here’s Bloomberg, quoting the CEO of Mastercard:
Buried deep in today's FOMC Minutes was a warning to the equity markets that few noticed...
This overall assessment incorporated the staff's judgment that, since the April assessment, vulnerabilities associated with asset valuation pressures had edged up from notable to elevated, as asset prices remained high or climbed further, risk spreads narrowed, and expected and actual volatility remained muted in a range of financial markets...
Shitty day for Housing Recovery enthusiasts, the Trump administration, and Fed followers...
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
There may perhaps be no other group of investors that’s more DESPERATE today than pension funds.
Pensions, of course, are the giant funds responsible for paying out retirement benefits to workers.
The idea is that both the employer and the employee typically contribute a set percentage of the employee’s salary throughout his or her career with the promise that, upon retirement, he or she will receive a fixed monthly payment.
With Trump's key economic advisory forums now disbanded following a mass exodus of corporate CEOs, moments ago JPM CEO Jamie Dimon joined the pile up stating that "the members of the President's Strategic and Policy Forum agreed to disband" and noting that "the group put out its own statement" he wanted "you to understand why I personally supported this decision and how strongly I feel about these issues."
His argument: