Labor

"They will not achieve anything by attacking my record, which is known; I love my country and I'm honest. I will fight against the illegitimate interruption of my mandate using all the tools that the rule of law gives me,” embattled President Dilma Rousseff told a gathering of youth groups late Wednesday in Brasilia. 

One of those “tools” was the Supreme Court and more specifically Judge Luiz Fachin who Rousseff appointed last June.

Following last month's bounce, driven by a surge in 'hope', The Philly Fed collapsed to -5.9 (dramaticlaly missing expectations of +1.0) and hitting its lowest levels since Feb 2013. With 'hope' plunging back to its lowest levels since Dec 2012, there was little to support the dream as Prices Paid and Received plunged, and New Orders cratered to 3 year lows. Future CapEx expectations crashed as did workweek and employment outlooks.

Not unequivocally good...

Charts: Bloomberg

When last we checked in with billionaire Sam Zell, the real estate mogul was busy offloading some $5.4 billion in apartments from Equity Residential’s portfolio. The 23,000 units were sold to Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital and as we noted at the time, Zell has traditionally had a very keen nose about such things as "market peaks": the 74 years old is credited with calling the top of the real-estate market in 2007, when he sold another one of his companies, Equity Office Properties Trust, to Blackstone for $23 billion.

There are now 130 million Americans who are involved in co-ops and credit unions, the latter being in possession of $1 trillion in assets. In addition, 10 million Americans are now members of worker-owned companies. Plus, there are now 2000 publicly owned municipal utilities. Indeed, 25% of America's electricity is now produced by these kinds of socialist institutions.

TPP? Don't let these "conservative" politicians pretend they are for anything except rigging the rules for the giant corporations and billionaires that fund their campaigns, and hire them at lucrative, obscene reward-salaries after they leave office.