Social Issues

Liberal politicians in Washington D.C. often complain about the federal tax code being too regressive and thus placing too large a burden on low-income families while allowing "millionaire, billionaire, private jet owners" to get a free pass (one must to be willing to ignore actual statistics to reach this conclusion but lets just take the word of Bernie Sanders at face value for the moment). 

As Illinois muni debt continues to hover around all-time highs, the number of watchdog groups offering warnings about Chicago's deteriorating finances continues to grow.  The latest such warning comes from Truth In Accounting which provided the Windy City an 'F' on their latest fiscal report card citing a staggering debt burden that amounts to $41,700 per Chicago resident. To put that figure in perspective, the median household income in Chicago is roughly $48,500. 

A mere few years ago the idea that artificial intelligence (AI) might be used to analyze and report to law enforcement aberrant human behavior on social media and other online platforms was merely the far out premise of dystopian movies such as Minority Report, but now Facebook proudly brags that it will use AI to "save lives" based on behavior and thought pattern recognition. 

What could go wrong?

Anxiety appears to be building in the Treasury Bill market once again as the yield spread between 12/7 and 12/21 widens to 12bps after President Trump cast doubt on whether he and congressional leaders can agree to keep the government funded.

As AP reports, Trump is meeting with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday to discuss budget and immigration issues.

But, in a tweet, Trump cast doubt on whether they can agree to fund the government beyond a Dec. 8 deadline.

The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT) is a federal Australian territory covering 520,902 square miles with a total population size of 245,000 (8th largest in Australia).

A brand new report from the NT Police Commissioner indicates an elite unit of the Australian Federal Police called Territory Response Group (TRG) will be using military grade weapons to patrol Alice Springs and Darwin at night.