Authored by Stratus Advisors, via OilPrice.com,
With earnings season in full swing, we thought it helpful to outline what we are looking for in oil and gas production and refining company statements and earnings calls. Several key topics will dominate oil markets next year, and how companies are thinking about those topics now will likely play a large part in determining their strategic success next year.
As speculation mounts that Paul Manafort might be the target of the sealed indictments reportedly approved by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury, Buzzfeed is reporting new details of Mueller’s probe into Manafort, seemingly a hint that he will in fact be one of, if not the only, target taken into custody tomorrow.
Much like the historic run that nearly resulted in the collapse of the global financial system in 2009, home prices in the U.S. are once again looking more like an Amazon or Facebook stock price chart than a stable store of value that should probably grow roughly inline with overall inflation.
And while these price gains are great news for the private equity firms that scooped up foreclosed homes after the last housing crisis, they're once again making it nearly impossible for the average American family to find affordable housing.
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via The Daily Reckoning,
This is the reality: the American Dream is now reserved for the top 0.5%, with some shreds falling to the top 5% who are tasked with generating a credible illusion of prosperity for the bottom 95%.
The question about who still has access to the American Dream is starkly answered by this disturbing chart:
A rare blackout exercise and mass evacuation drill took place in North Korea last week according to NK News, citing "multiple sources." The wartime preparations were not visible in Pyongyang, but were seen in “secondary, tertiary cities and towns” on the eastern coast of the country.