Federal Government

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

At the beginning of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to close an exploitable loophole in asset forfeiture laws. State and local law enforcement agencies often sought federal “adoption” of seizures in order to route around statutes that dumped assets into general funds or otherwise limited them from directly profiting from these seizures. By partnering with federal agencies, local law enforcement often saw bigger payouts than with strictly local forfeitures.

In the long run, as someone once said, we are all dead, but in the meantime, as BofAML's Michael Hartnett provides a stunning tour de force of the last 5000 years illustrates long-run trends in the return, volatility, valuation & ownership of financial assets, interest rates & bond yields, economic growth, inflation & debt...

Stock whisperer Yellen said all the right things yesterday, when she sounded more optimistic than pessimistic on the economy but while the economy is "strong" it is most likely not strong enough to weather a rate hike in the immediate future.

After yesterday's US and UK market holidays which resulted in a session of unchanged global stocks, US futures are largely where they left off Friday, up fractionally, and just under 2,100. Bonds fell as the Federal Reserve moves closer to raising interest rates amid signs inflation is picking up. Oil headed for its longest run of monthly gains in five years, while stocks declined in Europe.

Dove, hawk, or nothing at all? That's the question as Fed chief Janet Yellen speaks after she receives the Radcliffe Medal from Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. There are no prepared remarks, but a scheduled 30-minute Q&A session with Greg Mankiw could give insight into Yellen's thoughts on two key issues: whether she now has more faith that recent evidence of rising inflation is convincing, and the degree to which she feels overseas risks have receded.