Labor

Despite the surge in consumer confidence and exuberance at what lies ahead, real wages for America's average joes declined year-over-year in February (down 0.3%). This is the first consecutive monthly drop in real wages since 2011 (which forced Bernanke to to hint at and then unleash QE2 later that year).

So not only is The Fed hiking into the weakest GDP growth outlook since 1987, noiw they are hiking into declining real wage growth (something tht has previously driven The Fed to a massvely dovish stance).

Authored by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Despite a massive rally in the stock market, Illinois public pension liabilities continue to grow.

GARS, the Illinois General Assembly Retirement System, is only 13.52% funded, down from 17% funded in 2013. How long can GARS last?

Meanwhile, Illinois has accrued a combined net pension liability of roughly $130 billion on which it assumes a 7% return.

Government employees swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.

Intelligence workers are no different …

And yet former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kiriakou writes:

Authored by Peter Schiff via Euro Pacific Capital,

Via MauldinEconomics.com,

I’ve written about this before, but there are 10 million American males between the age of 24 and 64 who have literally dropped out of the workforce. It means that they have given up on finding a job or are simply not looking.

But, focusing on just one subset among those who are 24–64, we see that white working-class males’ labor force participation rate has dropped to 59%.