Politics

“We are helpless and not being able to do anything against this deliberate destruction to the oil installations. NOC urges all faithful and honorable people of this homeland to hurry to rescue what is left from our resources before it is too late.”

That’s from Libya’s National Oil Corp and as you might have guessed, it references the seizure of state oil assets by Islamic State, whose influence in the country has grown over the past year amid the power vacuum the West created by engineering the demise of Moammar Qaddafi.

An investigation into dodgy dealings by fatcat bankers has been quietly axed. The decision by the Financial Conduct Authority, has sparked outrage and has been labeled a “a huge blow for taxpayers” and “a slap in the face for ordinary people”. The investigation was dumped as the FCA said other measures were in place to tackle wrongdoing,  but many see Osborne’s decision to sack the head of the FCA for wanting to be too tough on bankers as a critical reason. The Mirror reports: Early in 2015 the FCA announced plans to review banking’s culture.

Now that the subprime-funded "growth dynamo" that kept the US economy chugging along over the past year has finally choked, as we saw yesterday when auto sales posted the weakest print in half a year, there is just one industry that is keeping US factory orders, which have already declined for 13 consecutive months, from an all out implosion.

War.

Oregon Ranchers Resist Washington’s Imperialism

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/01/03/the-war-against-the-cowboys/

The post Oregon Ranchers Resist Washington’s Imperialism appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.

While the recent dramatic revision in construction spending - a direct input into GDP - which as we noted earlier this week, was a huge revision in the series  by the US government which admitted to "processing errors" would lead to substantial downward revisions to recent GDP prints, moments ago the US November Trade deficit printed at $42.4 billion, down from $44.6 billion in October and better than the $44.0 billion consensus expectation.