United States

Submitted by StraightLineLogic.com's Robert Gore via The Burning Platform blog,

Economic depressions unfold slowly, which obscures their analysis, although they are simple to understand. Governments and central banks turn recessions into depressions, which are preceded by unsustainable expansions of debt untethered from the real economy. The reduction and resolution of excess debt takes time, and governments and central banks usually act counterproductively, retarding necessary adjustments and lengthening the adjustment, and consequently, the depression.

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

You have to love it when one of Donald Trump’s wild pitches sends the beltway hypocrites into high dudgeon. But his rumination about negotiating a discount on the Federal debt was priceless.

After a month-long scare campaign waged by Saudi Arabia, and in no small part the Obama administration, which went so far as to threaten it would dump its US Treasurys (which the NYT previously had quantified as $750 billion however which the Treasury just yesterday disclosed for the first time in 41 years as only $117 billion suggesting the Saudis would likely also have to sell US stocks and any other US-denominated assets), if the US were to pass a bill that would hold it legally liable for the Sept 11 attacks, it will be up to Obama to veto the bill because moments ago the Senate unanimo

Reader Anna Salyi, a Catholic in Hungary, sends two great e-mails. I publish them with her permission:

The US Senate has approved legislation that would allow victims of the 9/11 terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, despite vocal opposition from the White House. On Tuesday the Senate unanimously adopted a proposed bill allowing Americans to sue nation-states for terrorist attacks on US soil, defying opposition from the White House and allies such as Saudi Arabia. Dubbed “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” the bill sailed through the upper chamber of Congress without opposition is now heading to the House of Representatives, which  lawmakers have their own version of the proposal.