United States

After the San Bernardino Terrorist attacks, a new law has been passed by US lawmakers that amended the visa waiver program in order to provide enhanced security. The new law, known as HR 158, restricts a group of people and certain nationalities from automatically gaining access to US soil without a thorough background check. While the US tries to combat the threat posed by the Islamic State, it could at the same time be hindering its own progress in opening up to a whole group of moderate Muslims.

Another Fabricated Jobs Report

Paul Craig Roberts

According to Friday’s (January 8) payroll jobs numbers, almost 300,000 new jobs were created in December. Additionally, the previous two months were revised upward by 50,000 jobs. Apparently, the equity market did not believe the report, with the averages moving down today.

Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

The focus on China as if their problems were only Chinese is highly misplaced, though you can understand the appeal of the excuse. This sentiment was expressed over and over today (just as it was in August):

Moments ago, the Fed released the latest, November, consumer credit data: it was not good. Rising by just $13.95 trillion, it was a big miss to the $18.5 trillion expected, and below the $15.6 billion downward revised increase in October. In fact, three months after the historic surge in September to the highest print in the revised series, total consumer credit has tumbled to the lowest since January.

But the big problem was not in the total data, but in one of the two key component data sets.

“There are reasonable concerns about the safety and security of the citizenry of the State of Texas regarding these refugees.”

That’s a quote from federal court documents filed in connection with a lawsuit the state of Texas brought against the State Department last year in an effort to block the Obama administration’s plan to settle Syrian refugees in the Lone Star State.

On Thursday, Alabama sued the federal government as well.