United States

Government dysfunction is at its worst.  We voted them in.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.
Granted, the choices were abysmal. But the Republican and Democratic parties,
with no third party competition, can continue to run dysfunctional governments,
whittling away our dominant global position until the cracks of our broken government
becomes abundantly clear.  As a society,
we play right into their subterfuge of keeping us so upset at the other party,

Israel Owns the UN as well as the US

http://www.globalresearch.ca/i-stand-by-my-assessment-that-israel-is-committing-the-crime-of-apartheid-head-of-un-body-resigns-following-pressure-from-un-secretary-general-guterres-to-withdraw-critical-report/5580538

In his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid published 11 years ago, President Jimmy Carter raised the question whether Israel had stolen Palestine and excluded the rightful residents from their homeland.

By Shant Movsesian and Raj Dhall MSTA,

This week has not been one to savor for USD bulls, with the FOMC rate hike accompanied by a statement which failed to generate the fresh wave of hawkish sentiment markets had positioned for. We saw some hesitancy ahead of the Fed announcement Wednesday evening, with Fed chair Yellen’s familiar cautiousness reining in UST yields to a modest degree. The subsequent pull back has also been relatively modest with the 2yr shedding 5bps on the week as a whole; both 5yr and 10yr off the highs by some 10bps.

Last weekend, after looking at the latest H.8 statement by the Fed, we noted something concerning: total loans and leases by U.S. commercial banks were rising at an annual pace of about 4.6%, based on weekly Fed data. That is down from a 6.4% pace for all of last year and peak rates of around 8% in mid-2016. This is the slowest pace of debt creation since the spring of 2014. This deceleration has prompted numerous questions about the sustainability of the recovery, and led the WSJ to noted that the slowdown, "is at odds with the idea of a stronger economy and rising sentiment."

The pleasantries, lack of handshake between Trump and Merkel notwithstanding, are officially over.

One day after Trump returned to his favorite medium to slam Germany for abusing NATO's funding scheme, and US defense spending generosity, accusing Germany of owing "vast sums" of money to both NATO and the US, Germany has struck back. As a reminder, this is what Trump tweeted on Saturday morning: