Business

Despite a hiccup in the last week or so, global stocks survived as the best-performing asset class of the year (with the MSCI All-Country World Index wrapping up its best first half in 19 years)...

But, as Bloomberg reports, Wall Street strategists are fighting historic odds when urging investors not to chase the rally in the U.S. stock market.

They’re predicting the S&P 500 Index will see momentum fade in the second half after shares climbed 8.2 percent for the best first-half performance since 2013.

Authored by Lynn Paramore via INETEconomics.com,

The famed short-seller offers a mid-2017 reality check for “fake fiscal news,” economic pipe dreams, and “portents of even worse things”

First Maine, then Connecticut, and finally late on Friday, confirming the worst case outcome many had expected, Illinois entered its third straight fiscal year without a budget as Republican Governor Bruce Rauner and Democratic lawmakers failed to agree on how to compromise over the government’s chronic deficits, pushing it closer toward becoming the first junk-rated U.S. state.

The US isn't yet grappling with the economic disaster that is a shrinking popuation - unlike Japan. Though it's starting to look like a not-too-distant possibility. US birthrates fell to yet another historic low in 2016 as a whirlwind of economic and cultural factors inspire more women to delay, or forgo, having children. According to provisional data for the fourth quarter provided by the CDC, the US birthrate has declined to 62 births per 1000 women – its lowest level on record, and down from 62.5 in 2015.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,