Obama warned everyone back in 2009 that "elections have consequences." Now, eight years later, we learn that apparently the "consequences" of running around the country for nearly a decade threatening to raise taxes, "spread the wealth around" and pursue any number of other socialist policies are a record number of people renouncing their U.S. citizenship.
Offering the first official glimpse of the parameters of Trump's "wall" along the US-Mexican border, an internal Department of Homeland Security report seen by Reuters reveals that the structure would be a series of fences and walls that would cost as much as $21.6 billion, and take some three and a half years to construct.
Since the air war against the so-called Islamic State kicked off in August 2014 ,the United States has spent just under $11 billion financing it. According to the most recent Pentagon figures, Statista'a Niall McCarthy reports that the bill for the campaign hit $10.99 billion as of December 31, 2016. On a daily basis, the cost of operations against the terrorist group averages $12.5 million. Since 2014, the cost of flying operations has reached $4.4 billion while $2.4 billion of munitions have been expended against ISIS targets.
In December, Grant Williams, author of "Things That Make You Go Hmm..." offered the most comprehensive analysis yet of the rise and inevitable fall of the petrodollar (and implicitly US hegemony). In the following presentation, from Mines & Money Conference in London in December 2016, Williams focuses on gold's performance in 2016, the reaction to Donald Trump's election and joins a series of dots that may lead to the end of the petrodollar system and a new place for gold in the global monetary system.
In a decision that will hardly come as a surprise, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously (including one GOP appointee) ruled for the U.S. to remain open to refugees and visa holders from seven Muslim-majority countries while the Trump administration fights to reinstate a travel ban in the name of national security.