presidential election

Yesterday's underwhelming unveiling of President Trump's Tax plan included a "one-time tax on trillions of dollars held overseas" presumably aimed at encouraging firms to onshore trilions of dollars of cash on the cheap - implicitly creating jobs and making America Great Again.

However, as The Congressional Research Service's detailed study of the last time this was enacted in 2004 shows, the program had little effect. The program was part of the American Jobs Creation Act.

European shares are lower, pressured by disappointing results by Deutsche Bank and ending a six-session gain, as Asian equities and S&P futures were little changed after a record-setting rally in world stocks which pushed the MSCI World index to over $50 trillion yesterday, fizzled after Trump released unconvincing tax cut plans prompting traders to "sell the news" while caution set in as the ECB met.

Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

«Centrist» candidate Emmanuel Macron was no sooner announced winner in the first round of the French presidential election at the weekend, and with unseemly haste the political establishment rushed to close ranks against rival Marine Le Pen of the Front National.

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

For the French establishment, Sunday’s presidential election came close to a near-death experience. As the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo, it was a “damn near-run thing.”

Neither candidate of the two major parties that have ruled France since Charles De Gaulle even made it into the runoff, an astonishing repudiation of France’s national elite.

Marine Le Pen of the National Front ran second with 21.5 percent of the vote. Emmanuel Macron of the new party En Marche! won 23.8 percent.

LePen Euro Frexit Panic Over – "For Now"

by John Stepek, Editor of Money Week

OK, drama’s over.

The French election has turned out pretty much exactly as expected.