United States

Authored by Robert Gore via Straight Line Logic,

Looking for a good laugh? Consider the United States.

Amid today's contradictory statements from President Trump that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson "is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man... Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!" and The State Department's statement that "The White House is still committed to a diplomatic approach" on North Korea, it appears the fragility of the North Korean nuclear showdown is a great as ever.

Submitted by Stock Board Asset

Previously unreported Pentagon data shows how much the average U.S. taxpayer has paid for combat operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria. According to the two page report summary, the cumulative estimated cost of the 16 year war in the Middle East has cost each taxpayer $7,500.

One day after Rex Tillerson revealed for the first time that the US has been in direct - if secret - contact with the government of North Korea over its missile and nuclear tests, a stunning revelation considering that administration officials have until this point insisted that there has been only limited, indirect contact between the White House and the Kim regime,  Trump, in his latest Sunday morning tirade, tweeted his Secretary of State to effectively stop negotiating with "Little Rocket Man" and to save his energy as Save your energy as Trump will "do what has to be done."

Submitted by John Mauldin of Mauldin Economics

Today we’ll continue to size up the bull market in governmental promises. As we do so, keep an old trader’s slogan in mind: “That which cannot go on forever, won’t.” Or we could say it differently: An unsustainable trend must eventually stop.