Human Interest

Despite exuberance in soft "survey" data post-Trump, as hope for change re-appears, "hard" data continues to disappoint with Industrial production weakness and now durable goods orders tumbling 4.6% MoM (slightly better than expected -4.8%) - the biggest drop since Aug 2014.

Aside from the reactive drop in 2014 after the big Boeing order, this is the biggest MoM drop since summer 2013...

Durable Goods New Orders decline YoY once again (-0.5%) as ex-defense orders crashed 6.6% MoM (-2% YoY).

From "big man on campus" to J.V...

Source: Townhall.com

Five people have been arrested in Egypt for making a fake news video that purports to show carnage caused by Russian air strikes in Syria, according to the Egyptian Interior Ministry. The fake video was intended for Western audiences and closely resembles many of the videos from Aleppo that have gone viral on social media and been featured by unquestioning mainstream media in recent weeks. In the fake video, actually filmed in Egypt using Egyptian child actors, an eight-year-old girl wears a white dress and bandages covered in red stains, and holds a teddy bear.

Kim Kardashian is planning to divorce husband Kanye West following the recent announcement that he supports Donald Trump. Kim was spotted without a wedding ring on her finger last night, as photographers snapped a picture of the 36-year-old riding in a car with her three-year-old daughter North and one-year-old son Saint – without the usual ring on her wedding finger. Reports of an imminent divorce began circulating immediately after Kanye announced his support for Trump at a concert in California last November.

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

One of the quirks about being an expat in a faraway land is that, whenever something unusual happens in your home country, your local friends look to YOU for answers.

You become, by default, the de facto expert of your home country’s nuances.

Case in point: this weekend we had an intercompany Christmas party down here at the farm for two of the businesses that I run.