Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
Dear Readers, I appreciate the confidence that you show in me with your emails asking my opinion about the Las Vegas shooting. Many of you suspect that it is another false flag affair, and you ask me about its purpose.
Over the past year, amid Donald Trump's crackdown on refugees and illegal immigrants, Canada has emerged as a willing safe harbor for those whose welcomes (and visas) in the US had expired. This past January, in response to Trump's executive order on immigration, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith,” adding that “Diversity is our strength."
Today The House passed the 2018 budget resolution in a 219-207 mostly party-line vote (18 republicans voted against the resolution along with all Democrats), representing the first step toward the Republican goal of sending tax-reform legislation to President Trump.
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 Wall Street Journal reported, citing local media.
While many US companies, especially those in the Russell 2000, have seen their stocks surge in recent days on renewed hopes that Trump tax reform may pass in the coming months (Goldman assigned a 65% probability of Trump tax passing), the reality is that for a vast majority of US corporations a tax cut to 30% or even 25% will have little marginal impact: after all, while US companies may have some the highest statutory tax rate in the world...
... the effective tax rate of the median S&P 500 company is 12% below the statutory rate, or roughly 27%: