Submitted by Wolf Richter of Wolf Street
Freight Rail Traffic Plunges: Haunting Pictures of Transportation Recession
292 Union Pacific engines idled in Arizona Desert
Total US rail traffic in April plunged 11.8% from a year ago, the Association of American Railroads reported today. Carloads of bulk commodities such as coal, oil, grains, and chemicals plummeted 16.1% to 944,339 units.
While markets remain relatively subdued ahead of tomorrow's nonfarm payrolls report, after several days of losses in US stocks, which have taken "sell in May" to heart and pushed the S&P500 to three week lows, overnight markets ignored the latest weak data out of China where the Caixin Services PMI was the latest indicator to disappoint (dropping from 52.2 to 51.8), and instead focused on crude, which rebounded from yesterday's post inventory-build lows and briefly printed above $45/bbl over uncertainty related to the impact of Canada wildfires on production and how long will last.
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
If an economic system collapses in the woods and no one is paying attention, are there any consequences outside the woods? Well, yes, of course. As with most situations financial and global, however, consequences are not usually taken very seriously until they have spawned a vast bog of sewage we all have to then swim through.
The issue is and always will be “interdependency,” and the dissolution of sovereign borders. Take a close look at the European Union, for example.
Ever wondered where the United States imports its oil from?
Howmuch.net came out with some infographics to show that from 2000 to 2015. What we would highlight here is the notable shift from the U.S. depending heavily on Middle East countries and Mexico, to depending more on America's neighbor to the north, Canada.
In 2000, the U.S. imported 661 million barrels of oil from Canada, 503 million barrels from Mexico, and a combined 902 million barrels from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,
Friday, a Russian SU-27 did a barrel roll over a U.S. RC-135 over the Baltic, the second time in two weeks.
Also in April, the U.S. destroyer Donald Cook, off Russia’s Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, was twice buzzed by Russian planes.
Vladimir Putin’s message: Keep your spy planes and ships a respectable distance away from us. Apparently, we have not received it.