FEB 20 17 SIT EC y POL
ZERO HEDGE. ECONOMICS
GLOBAL CONTEXT:
Despite US markets being closed in observance
of Washington's birthday, S&P futures spiked during overnight trading,
reaching new all time highs before fading some of the gains. Both Asian and
European markets traded modestly higher after paring early gains.
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The
Unthinkable Just Happened In Spain quiebran los bancos del mundo . pero aqui ..lying
is OK
As part of the epic, multi-year criminal investigation into the doomed
IPO of Spain’s frankenbank Bankia, Spain’s national court called to testify six central bankers
and one financial regulator. The previously untouchable now
stand accused of authorizing the public launch of Bankia in 2011 despite repeated warnings that the banking group was “unviable.”
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US ECONOMY FUMBLING
TOWARDS COLLAPSE
"...the real issue hidden in plain
sight is how America - indeed all the so-called 'developed' nations - are going
to navigate to a stepped-down mode of
living, without slip-sliding all the way into a dark age, or something worse."
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While armchair and tenured economists took Trump to task last week over
his reportedly "overly optimistic" GDP projections, it is worth
recalling that in 2009 when Obama took office in the
midst of a recession, the former
president projected GDP growth of 3.5% to 4.5% for 2010-2014. He never
even got above 3%.
See the image on Global Economic Prospects forecasts at: https://twitter.com/policyquests/status/832799491572928512/photo/1
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Shale
oil output in the US may grow significantly over the next five years due to
increased activity in oil rigs and fast productivity gains, Bank of America
predicts. The key reason: breakeven costs for key major US plays now stand
around the $55/bbl mark. Assuming a gradual recovery in oil prices, annual US
shale oil growth is expected to rise by 700 thousand b/d annually by 2022: a
total increase of 3.5mmbpd.
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Despite record
gluts in crude and gasoline amid resurgent US crude production, hedge
funds boosted their net long position in WTI last week to a new record
high. For the first time ever, hedge funds
hold more than a billion barrels of bets that crude oil prices will rally.
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"The
worst thing he could do -- and I see this as a real danger -- would be to
politicize the agencies that produce government economic data, to put
people in place that will skew the numbers in his favor. If that happens, the data will be useless, and we’ll
essentially be flying blind when it comes to the true state of the economy.”
University of Oregon professor Mark Thoma is even worried
that the Trump administration will turn to "fake data" or
"alternative facts" should the economy turn south over the next four
years.
“The
worst thing he could do -- and I see this as a real danger -- would be to
politicize the agencies that produce government economic data, to put people in
place that will skew the numbers in his favor,” [It happens with Obama see graphic below]
Of course, Presidents selectively pick economic data to
make themselves look better. Just consider
Obama's amazing "economic recovery" that he bragged
about constantly, the "greatest recovery since the great depression," the data doesn't lie...
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"I want to believe that
it was not, because the alternative, that liquidity has
devolved to the point that a relatively small and formerly obscure fund can
drive the entire market for days on end is quite scary as both a trader and
investor."
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The economy can grow (just like a self-driving
car can move forward) (1) if workers can make an
increasing quantity of goods and services each year, and (2) if non-elite workers
can afford to buy the goods that are being produced. If these workers find fewer jobs available,
or if they don’t pay sufficiently well, it is as if the engine of the self-driving car is no longer working.
I have likened the
necessary portfolio of goods the economy needs to ingredients
in a recipe, or to chemicals needed for a particular experiment. If
one of the “ingredients” is not available–probably because of prices that are
too high for consumers or too low for producers–the economy needs to “make a
smaller batch.” We saw this happen in the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009.
Figure 1 shows that the use of several types of energy products, plus raw
steel, shrank back at exactly the same time. In fact, the recent trend in coal
and raw steel suggests another contraction may be ahead.
Figure 1. World
Product Consumption, indexed to the year 2000, for selected products. Raw Steel
based on World USGS data; other amounts based of BP Statistical Review of World
Energy 2016 data. OPEN
Figure 5 shows the trend in labor
force participation rate in the US: Figure 5. US Civilian labor force
participation rate, based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, as graphed by
fred.stlouisfed.org. OPEN http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-20/oops-economy-self-driving-car
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POLITICS
"For the first time in human history, we are standing at a point where we need to
basically undergo fundamental systemic adaptation. Exactly what that
looks like we're still trying to work out."
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WORLD ISSUES and ME
Radical
breaks from past designs sometimes work in industries that require little up-front
capital, like Internet companies. It's
now clear that they are deadly when it comes to nuclear.
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DEMOCRACY NOW
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GLOBAL RESEARCH
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INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE
Red Hysteria Engulfs Washington By Eric Margolis RU is not our pal
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COUNTER PUNCH
David Smith-Ferri Resistance
and Resolve in Russia: Memorial HRC
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Martin Billheimer Capital of Pain
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SPUTNIK and RT SHOWS
Keep Calm and Blame Russia: 'Was There a Coup Attempt at All' in Montenegro? https://sputniknews.com/world/201702211050888921-montenegro-coup-attempt-russia-allegations/
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Meat of an Issue: Ukraine Major Importer of Russian Products Despite Kiev's Ban https://sputniknews.com/europe/201702211050889739-ukraine-russia-food-importer/
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Paris Sees 1.5Mln-Decrease in Tourist Arrivals After 2015 Terror Attacks https://sputniknews.com/europe/201702211050889943-paris-tourism-november-attacks/
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RT SHOWS
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WASHINGTON BLOG
The mainstream media continues
peddling its “fake news” narrative like a desperate pusher whose junkies are
dying from his toxic dope. It’s
slowly dawning on the media-consuming public that the MSM is the primary
purveyor of “fake news”– self-referential narratives that support a blatantly
slanted agenda with unsupported accusations and suitably anonymous sources.
Many of these Fake News
Narratives are laughably, painfully bogus: that President Trump is a
Russian tool, to take a current example. (That President Obama was a tool of
the neocon Deep State–no mention of that. According to the MSM, America doesn’t
even have a Deep State–har-har…the joke’s on you if you are credulous enough to
swallow this risible absurdity.)
But the real danger isn’t fake
news–it’s junk news. Junk News (the title of a 2009 book by an Emmy
Award–winning journalist– Junk
News: The Failure of the Media in the 21st Century) —is related to Junk Science and Junk Food.
Junk science is presented as “science” but cherry-picks data
to support a specific but unstated agenda–an agenda that requires downplaying
or overlooking conflicting data.
One common example of junk
science is the approval of new medications by the FDA. If you actually dig into Phase III data, you may well
find that the “benefits” of the new wonder-drug are barely above statistical
chance, and the potential interactions with commonly prescribed (or imbibed)
drugs are ignored.
⇒ Keep Reading
⇒ Keep Reading
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NOTICIAS IN SPANISH
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El poder de la palabra rusa Javier Belda
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PRESS TV
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Trump's
new travel ban targets same Countries
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'4 Russian servicemen killed in Syria' Just kill 8 in the other side
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