Politics

Despite today's expected decision by the UK Supreme Court, which ruled that Theresa May has to put the Brexit decision to a vote in parliament - in line with what May recently said she would - the government announced that the decision would not adversely impact its timeline for triggering Article 50 before the end of March, and that it would introduce Article 50 legislation "within days." The result was little if any reaction from various asset classes, with the pound largely unchanged after some initial volatility.

Perhaps reports of the Trumpflation rally's death have been somewhat exaggerated in the past few days. After RBC pointed out yesterday that equity generalists are "increasingly uncomfortable with reflation trades", this morning we have seen the latest violent inversion in this theme.

According to a new Reuters / Ipsos poll, a record number of disaffected, Hillary-supporting Californians now support secession from the United States because they're just so "triggered" by Trump's victory.  If successful, California would become the single largest "safe space" in the world.

Per the poll, 1 in every 3 Californians now support a "peaceful withdrawal from the union," which is a substantial increase from the 20% who favored such a withdrawal the last time a similar poll was conducted in 2014. 

China is wasting no time to project power in a world in which it believes Donald Trump's "America First" doctrine has created a "superpower vacuum."

One day after a senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday that Beijing is prepared to "assume a role of world leadership if others step back from that position" after U.S. President Donald Trump pledged in his first speech to put “America first”, Beijing has reportedly deployed an advanced Dongfeng-41 ICBM system in Heilongjiang Province, which borders with Russia.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Meanwhile, back in reality, household income for the bottom 95% has declined while the owners of capital and their privileged, protected servants in the Establishment have gorged themselves on private wealth.