Social Issues

Japan's demographic "time-bomb" has been widely documented in recent years: as we discussed most recently in February, as troubling as Japan's deflationary economic quagmire is, the biggest threat facing Japan has little to do with its balance sheet and everything to do with its demographics, for the simple reason that not only is Japan's population the oldest it has ever been, as well as the oldest on average in the entire world, but is now also officially shrinking.

Via Global Macro Monitor blog,

We have been busy crunching some very interesting data on pension funds from the most recent Federal Reserve’s,  Flow of Funds Accounts.    Check out the charts below.

Interestingly,  the last time Private and State & Local Government Pensions were fully funded was at the end of the stock market bubble in 2000.  Pensions were 25 percent overfunded in 1999.

Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

It is widely known that the U.S.-led NATO intervention to topple Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 resulted in a power vacuum that has allowed terror groups like ISIS to gain a foothold in the country.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction release data every year showing the levels of certain illicit drugs found in the wastewater of select European cities. Looking at cocaine, London is way in front of all other major cities analysed...

You will find more statistics at Statista

As Statista's Martin Armstrong points out, on an average day, the UK capital's drains flow with almost 900mg of the drug per one thousand people.

Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

Canada officially moved to legalize recreational marijuana on Thursday when the government introduced legislation allowing the possession of small amounts of cannabis. The new law also sets regulations for the sale, growth, and purchase of the plant.

USA Today reports: