Labor

Tax revenues for the state of California have come in nearly a billion dollars below projections, which is causing Governor Jerry Brown to amend his $171 billion spending plan that was just proposed in January.

As Reuters reports, California's tax revenues came in $869 million less than forecast for the first four months of the year. Governor brown is now expected to cut some of the proposed spending increases in education, healthcare and infrastructure as a result of the miss.

The last great hope indicator of the bullish narrative appears to have broken as today's initial jobless claims soars 20k to 294k - the highest since Feb 2015. Seemingly confirming the dismal payroll print, one can only wonder how long before this catches 'down' to the weakness in PMI/ISM survey employment data and the hard macro data. The last 3 weeks have seen initial claims soar by the most since 2005...

This is the first time claims have risen YoY since Nov 2012...

Catch 'up' time...

Submitted by Matthew Bankert via The Mises Institute,

When was the last time you used a government “service”? Maybe you went to the DMV to get a new driver’s license, or maybe you signed up for new healthcare plan using Healthcare.gov (you’d better — or else!). Whatever transaction it was, there was a government employee on the other end — or as some like to call them, a public servant. 

A 25-year-old woman from Hyderabad, India, was allegedly tortured to death while working as a maid against her will in Saudi Arabia. Her Saudi employers kept her working as a maid illegally after her visa expired and against her wishes while allegedly torturing her physically and mentally. dna India reports: The family members of Asima Khatoon were informed about the death on Thursday when an unknown person called her mother from Riyadh and informed that Asima was no more.