[expat_panama]

A lovely morning everyone!  Stocks staged an upside reversal closing ahead a fraction of a % in very heavy trade (still below 50-day moving averages) while metals enjoy a mixed surge --gold holding at $1,118.05 and silver soaring to $15.43!   The econ announcement sched looks more like show'n'tell day at Bean-counter School:

8:30 AM Initial Claims
8:30 AM Continuing Claims
8:30 AM Retail Sales
8:30 AM Retail Sales ex-auto
8:30 AM Export Prices ex-ag.
8:30 AM Import Prices ex-oil
10:00 AM Business Inventories
10:30 AM Natural Gas Inventories

Other headlines:

• Misperceiving Inequality
• Is More Information Making Us Worse Investors?
• Voting High Wages With Money of Others - Don Boudreaux, Pittsburgh Trib
• Will the Fed Delay Rate Hike After China Shock?
• U.S. Retirees Unwittingly Do Putin's Dirty Work - Andrea Chalupa, TDB
• Prepare For Overwhelming 'Waves Of Deflation' To Suck Us Into Recession

 

[1010RD]

One of the problems we face is that income inequality is a lie in itself. Gini coefficients, the entire equation and graph were invented to promote fascism. They’re a propaganda tool not a serious economic theory.

Human beings have different preferences. People have different abilities. That’s going to be reflected in many ways. Those that prefer leisure to work will have lower incomes. That’s it.

We shouldn’t take this seriously, but mock it at every step.

[1010RD]

Thanks for sticking with this.

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. — Carl Sagan, “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,” Parade, February 1, 1987