United States

In his annual address to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin struck an unusually conciliatory tone on Thursday, saying Moscow wanted to get on with the incoming U.S. administration and was looking to make friends not enemies: "We are ready to cooperate with the new U.S. administration. We have a shared responsibility to ensure international security."

"We don't want confrontation with anyone. We don't need it. We are not seeking and have never sought enemies. We need friends," Putin told Russia's political elite gathered in the Kremlin's grand hall.

Corporate tax reform has been a key policy initiative of Trump's as he has called for slashing the corporate tax rate from 35% down to 15%.  While this is welcome news for most companies, it would result in some fairly staggering writedowns for Wall Street's largest banks that amassed substantial net operating losses in 2008 and 2009.

According to Bloomberg, Citibank would be hardest hit with writedowns that could hit earnings for up to $12 billion or more. 

Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org,

Looking at US history over a fairly long period of time, it is easy to see the destructive path that has accompanied the expansion of the American empire over the last seventy years.

In the first major political accomplishment by Donald Trump, yesterday the Trump team announced that he had reached a deal with Carrier to keep its air conditioning plant in Indiana, and prevent an outsourcing of some 1000 jobs to Mexico. Understandably, Trump wasted no time to deliver the good news to his Twitter followers.

I will be going to Indiana on Thursday to make a major announcement concerning Carrier A.C. staying in Indianapolis. Great deal for workers!