Europe

Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

On April 15th, Zero Hedge bannered «Doomsday Bunker Sales Soar After Trump's Military Strikes», but this growth in the market for nuclear-proof bunkers is hardly new; it started during the Obama Administration, in Obama’s second term, specifically after the Russia-friendly government of Ukraine, next-door to Russia, got taken over in 2014 by a rabidly anti-Russian government that’s backed by the U.S. government.

If This Is Freedom and Democracy, What Is Tyranny?
Paul Craig Roberts
John Whitehead

Despite tumbling soft data and disappointing earnings data...

Stocks soared most in 6 weeks...

In what Reuters has said was "an apparent sign of support just three days before the first round of an uncertain presidential election", French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron - and the market-friendly candidate preferred by Europe's establishment - spoke with former U.S. president Barack Obama on the phone on Thursday.

In Crispin Odey's latest letter to investors, the billionaire hedge fund manager laments "how quickly everything has changed", notes that "without the reflation fireworks, equity markets feel vulnerable", and concludes that while a year ago it was easy to be bearish - China was slowing, world trade was creaking, Europe was not recovering and the oil price was hitting new lows - "a year later to be bearish feels lonely, despite the fact that the reflationary story of the past year looks difficult to sustain and auto loan lending has joined a long list of risks along with Trump and Br