Europe

Authored by StraightLineLogic's Robert Gore via The Burning Platform blog,

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

On July 1, 2005, the Chairman of then President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors told a reporter from CNBC that,

“We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.”

Submitted by Dmitry Orlov, The Saker, Victor Katsap and Evgenia Gurevich via PaulCraigRoberts.org,

Insouciant Americans do not even know what they should be worried about...

A Russian Warning

Via ConvergEx's Nick Colas,

Today we offer up five market counterfactuals – “What ifs” – to both illustrate why large cap U.S. equities just closed near their highest levels of 2016 and consider the conventional wisdom about whether the current rally is sustainable. 

 

Our home base: where asset prices and other trends started the year. 

 

Submitted by Soren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• Opponents counter that the initiative amounts to an assault on free speech in Europe. They say that the European Union's definition of "hate speech" and "incitement to violence" is so vague that it could include virtually anything deemed politically incorrect by European authorities, including criticism of mass migration, Islam or even the EU itself.