Business

Even as the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare in recent months has suffered one humiliating loss after another, at the hands of none other than the very same Republican party, one government agency has been repeatedly scapegoated for the GOP's failure to come up with a credible and passable alternative to Obamacare: the Congressional Budget Office. Then agan, while hardly an excuse for their sheer incompetence, the GOP is certainly right to point the finger at the CBO's track record of "forecasts", one which we have mocked here on occasion after occasion after occasion.

Authored by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

Have you moved a material percentage of your financial portfolio to cash? Have you become so concerned about the meteoric ramp upwards in asset prices that you find it wiser instead to move to the sidelines, build "dry powder", and wait to re-enter the markets at saner valuations?

If so, you have my sympathies.

Authored by David Stockman via Daily Reckoning,

On July 10, 2007 former Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince famously said what might be termed the “speculator’s creed” for the current era of Bubble Finance. Prince was then canned within four months but as of that day his minions were still slamming the”buy” key good and hard:

“When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing,” he said in an interview with the FT in Japan.

Since the election of Donald Trump as President, 'hope' has triumphed over reality...

As this Trumptopia has evolved (and as yet achieved very little in reality), hard data - real actual economic output - has collapsed to two year lows, as surveys of economic activity reached record levels of delusion... and over the last couple of months fell back somewhat to reality.

Consider it a kiss to the bond investors who are expected to oversubscribe the upcoming latest "triumphal" Greek return to the bond markets, as soon as next week. Moments ago, rather unexpectedly, S&P raised its outlook on Greece from Stable to Positive, but reaffirmed the Greek rating at B-. The rating agency, said it believes that "recovering economic growth, alongside legislated fiscal reforms and further debt relief, should enable Greece to reduce its general government debt-to-GDP ratio and debt servicing costs through 2020."