United States

By now it is a well-known fact that corporations have no real way of generating organic profit growth in this economy (the recent plunge in Q1 EPS was a stark reminder of just that), so they are relying on two things to boost share prices: multiple expansion (courtesy of central banks) and debt-funded buybacks (also courtesy of central banks who keep the cost of debt record low), the latter of which requires the firm to generate excess incremental cash.

Just one week after the US Department of Commerce quietly slashed historical US capex spending by billions of dollars following a major data revision...

... it was time for another major revision to a series that is nearer and dearer to most Americans' hearts, namely Disposable Personal Income.

As we noted earlier, today's Personal Income and Spending report revealed that personal spending in April surged by 1%, or the most since August 2009 driven in part by a major jump on energy goods and services.

For decades, the story of Saudi Arabia recycling petrodollars, i.e., funding the US deficit by buying US Treasuries with proceeds of its crude oil sales (mostly to the US), while the US sweetened the deal by providing the Saudis with military equipment and supplies, remained entirely in the conspiracy realm, with no confirmation or official statement from the US Treasury department.

After yesterday's US and UK market holidays which resulted in a session of unchanged global stocks, US futures are largely where they left off Friday, up fractionally, and just under 2,100. Bonds fell as the Federal Reserve moves closer to raising interest rates amid signs inflation is picking up. Oil headed for its longest run of monthly gains in five years, while stocks declined in Europe.

Submitted by Roberty Parry via ConsortiumNews.com (h/t Contra Corner blog),