presidential election

With McCarthyism 2.0 continues to run amok in the US, spread like a virulent plague by unnamed, unknown, even fabricated sources, over in France one day after his first meeting with French president Emanuel Macron, the man who supposedly colluded with and was Trump's pre-election puppet master (but had to wait until after the election to set up back-channels with Jared Kushner) Vladimir Putin sat down for an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro in which the Russian president expressed the belief that Moscow and Western capitals “all want security, peace, safety and cooperation

A few weeks ago, in what was described as one of the "worst-ever recorded attacks of its kind," the WannaCry ransomware virus spread the globe at an alarming rate, seizing control of private networks and demanding bitcoin payments to relinquish that control.  As we pointed out then, and not terribly surprisingly, those pesky "Russian hackers," the same ones that lay relatively dormant for years then suddenly emerged from hibernation in 2016 to hack the DNC, John Podesta and the entire 2016 U.S.

Submitted by Nicholas Colas of Convergex

Millennials save more of their income than older generations. Don’t believe it? Look at a recent survey by Merrill Edge, which found millennials say they save 36% more than their general population counterparts report as over a third stash away more than 20% of their salary per year.

Authored by David Swanson via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Government lies are common when seducing a population to support a war, but the Russian “hacking” claims are unusual in that U.S. officials supply no evidence while the “fact” is just assumed,

After a week of dismal housing data, a silver lining perhaps. The spike in U.S. mortgage rates since the November presidential election has been cut in half.

As Bloomberg notes, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage dropped in the week ended Thursday to a six-month low of 3.95 percent, according to Freddie Mac data.

In the seven weeks after the election, borrowing costs increased by 75 basis points to 4.32 percent at the end of December, the highest since April 2014.