United States

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and a group of his colleagues are calling on the newly appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately investigate how US taxpayer funds are being used by the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support Soros-backed, leftist political groups in several Eastern European countries including Macedonia and Albania.  According to the letter, potentially millions of taxpayer dollars are being funneled through USAID to Soros' Open Society Foundations with the explicit goal of pushing his progressive agenda.

First Goldman, then RBC, and now JPM's top quant.

One month after JPM's head quant Marko Kolanovic warned that volatility is about to return and could lead to "accidents", the market timer also called "Gandalf" elsewhere for his prognosticative skills is out with a fresh warning, predicting "market weakness in the near-term" adding that he is cautious and urging clients to hedge equities.

From Nuisance to Threat: The High Cost of Truth

Paul Craig Roberts

When one gives so much scarce time and energy from one’s life to a large and unknown public, one needs to know that it is sufficiently appreciated to be a worthwhile use of one’s time and energy. This is especially the case when there are large costs associated with the commitment.

Your response to my quarterly request for donations showed me that enough of you value what I am doing to justify its continuation.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

The U.S. shale cowboys are back on their horses and leading a strong recovery in the oil patch that is not expected to falter even as WTI prices dropped last week below $50 per barrel for the first time in more than two months.

World stock indexes soared to record highs on Thursday while the dollar traded close to a one-month low after the Federal Reserve hiked U.S. interest rates but signaled no pick-up in the pace of tightening. European and Asian were broadly higher this morning, with S&P tagging along, driven by two main events: the latest "dovish" Fed rate hike, and the Dutch election results, in which Geert Wilders performed worse than some expected, reducing concerns of Eurozone political risk, and broadly seen as a sign of support for Europe's establishment.