United States

After many prominent blow ups in the retail and consumer space in the past week, moments ago Nordstrom was the latest casualty of the US consumer's unwillingness to spend money when the company reported Q1 EPS of $0.26, missing consensus estimates of $0.46 by nearly half, and about a third of what the company earned last year despite relatively flat revenues of $3.25 billion which also missed expectations of $3.29 billion. Comparable sales dropped -1.7% on estimates of an unchanged print.

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has confirmed with reporters that he will visit Israel after the Republican convention in July and before November’s general election. Israel National News reports: His confirmation came after the Trump campaign on Monday denied an Ma’ariv report last Friday, according to which he will visit Israel, Russia and Germany after the convention. A close adviser to Trump was cited in the report as saying the trip was meant to improve his image and to keep him more abreast of foreign affairs.

Economic inequality and the absolute destruction of the middle class is something that we've covered for many years (recently here), and being that central bank policies only exacerbate the issue, readers of Zero Hedge are undoubtedly well acquainted with topic. As usual, it took a while, but it does appear as though the mainstream media is finally catching up, as CBS recently published a piece on the erosion of the middle class in the United States.

Authored by Josh Harkinson, originally posted at MotherJones.com,

If the nationalists get their way, this November might be the last time Texans vote for a US president.

On Wednesday, the Platform Committee of the Texas Republican Party voted to put a Texas independence resolution up for a vote at this week's GOP convention, according to a press release from the pro-secession Texas Nationalist Movement. The resolution calls for allowing voters to decide whether the Lone Star State should become an independent nation.

By the SRSrocco Report,

North American silver investment via its domestic supply suffered another large deficit in 2015.  How big was the deficit?  It was huge, surging 70% compared to 2014... and this only includes silver investment from two Official coin sales.