United States

With tensions between Turkey and the US escalating dramatically and unexpectedly in the past few days, when first Turkish police on Wednesday arrested a local employee of the US embassy in Istanbul and charged him with espionage and an attempt to overthrow the government, which was following on Sunday afternoon by the US embassy in Turkey announcing that "effective immediately" it has "suspended all non-immigrant visa services at all U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey"...

It's that time in the quarter again: 3Q earnings season begins this week with Wall Street consensus expecting S&P 500 EPS growth of just 5% (3% ex-Energy), a sharp drop from the last two quarters (Q1 was+14% and Q2 +11%).

Submitted by John Mauldin of Mauldin Economics

Uncle Sam’s Unfunded Promises

Here’s a surprisingly profound question: What is a promise? Dictionaries offer various definitions. I like this one: “An express assurance on which expectation is to be based.”

President Donald Trump has made it known that he will not tolerate liberal cities like New York and Los Angeles openly stymying federal authorities’ efforts to arrest illegal immigrants. Since taking office, he has threatened to slash federal funding while ICE has circumvented local authorities to arrest undocumented immigrants during enforcement blitzes like September’s “Operation Safe City.”

On Friday, we reported that in a move that looks suspiciously like retaliation, Turkish police on Wednesday arrested a local employee of the US embassy in Istanbul and charged him with espionage and trying to overthrow the government. The arrest stemmed from the man’s alleged support for Erdogan's scapegoat for "fill-in-the-blank", US-based Cleric Fettulah Gulen, who was blamed for 2016's fake coup attempt and pretty much everything else that's wrong in Turkey.