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Tyler Durden 11/11/2014 A funny thing happened on the way to the ‘end’ of the multi-trillion dollar bond buying program known as QE - the Fed chronicles. Aside from the shift to a globalization of QE via the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BOJ) as I wrote about earlier, what lingers in the air of “post-taper” time is an absence of absence. For QE is not over. Instead, in the United States, the process has simply morphed from being predominantly executed by the Federal Reserve (Fed) to being executed by its major private bank members. Fed Chair,...

This will be the most dominant Republican Congress since 1929, with an almost-certain 8 percent majority in the Senate and an 11.7 to 17.7 percent majority in the House. That trumps the party's 6.3/13.3 percent majorities in the 80th Congress that began in 1947. (Even if the party loses the Senate races in Louisiana or Alaska, it only needs two of the contested House races that remain to go its way to beat 1947.)

By Michael Snyder November 5th, 2014 How do you fix a superpower with exploding levels of debt, that has a rapidly aging population, that consumes far more wealth than it produces, and that has scores of zombie banks that could collapse at any moment. You might think that I am talking about the United States, but I am actually talking about Europe. You see, the truth is that the European Union has a larger population than the United States does, it has a larger economy than the United States does, and it has a much larger banking system than the...

Ryan Kelly Chamberlain II, the subject of a nationwide manhunt after explosive materials were allegedly found in his San Francisco apartment, was taken into custody by the San Francisco Police Department and the FBI, an FBI spokesman said today. A law enforcement source briefed on the case told ABC News that Chamberlain was taken into custody "right under the Golden Gate Bridge," but he was not certain if he was in a car or on foot at the time. The capture came after a day of dramatic and cinematic cat-and-mouse with the hunted man. "We had been close to him...

Now a new study suggests that a simple blood test could soon allow doctors to diagnose clinical depression as easily as they check cholesterol. Researchers at Northwestern University have developed the first blood test that analyzes levels of nine blood biomarkers associated with adult clinical depression. The results of their study were published Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry. The test looks at levels of nine RNA blood markers, which appear to be different among patients with diagnosed clinical depression versus those who do not have depression. RNA are the molecules that help to process DNA genetic code and carry...

Two months before Californians go to the polls to choose a governor, the state's top elections official tearfully acknowledged Friday that she has been consumed by a "debilitating" depression that has often kept her away from the office.. Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who oversees statewide voting, told The Times that she has a history of depression and has moved out of the two-story country home she owns with her husband. She now resides in a trailer park on the outskirts of Sacramento. "I have suffered from depression since I was in college, and I am having a more difficult...

Alliance Defending Freedom filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights Wednesday on behalf of Tom Mortier, who is challenging Belgium’s laws that allow euthanasia. Mortier’s mother was put to death by a doctor for “untreatable depression” even though she was not terminally ill. Mortier did not find out what had happened until he received a telephone call the day after her death. “The government has an obligation to protect life, not assist in promoting death,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Robert Clarke. “A person can claim that she should be able to do whatever she pleases, but...

KAMLOOPS, B.C. - A 22-year-old B.C. woman is suing her ex-boyfriend to pay tuition for a class she says she failed due to distress over the breakup. Roopam Plawn, a marketing student at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, says in her notice of claim that she is seeking $500 for the class, $600 for anxiety, depression, insomnia and loss of working time and performance and $250 for "severe distress." She also wants Jasmeet Ahluwalia to pay court costs. Plawn says in the court document that she met the international student in September 2013, they broke up in early 2014, got...

The latest research exploring the topic found that mice without serotonin still reacted to antidepressants. The data could change the way we think about treating the leading cause of disability worldwide.A lack in serotonin might not be entirely to blame for depression, new evidence suggests. It's widely believed that people with depression don't make enough serotonin-a messenger in the brain. But mice lacking serotonin did not exhibit symptoms of depression, reports a study in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience. When Prozac — which works primarily by increasing the amount of serotonin in the brain — was introduced in the 1980s,...

So what’s really going on? We are in a structural depression that began in 2007 and will continue indefinitely. A lot of people don’t understand the definition of an economic depression. They believe that it means a continuous decline in GDP. Put differently: If two quarters of declining GDP mark a recession than a depression must be a long string of declining GDP. But that’s not the definition. A depression does not mean that you have no growth. You can have growth in a depression, it just means the growth is below trend. But all the policy makers think we’re...

December 3, 1934, Time Magazine, Plot Without Plotters, From Straight Dope One frosty dawn in November 1935, 500,000 War veterans rolled out of their blankets in the pine barrens around the CCC camp at Elkridge, Md. The brassy bugle notes of "Assembly" hurried them to the camp's parade ground, where, mounted on a white horse and surrounded by his staff, they found their leader, Major General Smedley Darlington ("Old Gimlet Eye") Butler, U. S. M. C., retired. "Men," cried General Butler, "Washington is but 30 miles away! Will you follow me?" The answer was a mighty shout: "We will!" Squad...

Economic growth in Europe came in at zero in the second quarter of 2014. That's better than being in recession. But it's not the growth that Europe — with its huge unemployment rate of 12 percent, or roughly 19,130,000 people out of work — needs. The eurozone (below in blue) has been in a depression since the financial crisis. That's because in terms of gross domestic product, the eurozone has not risen back to its pre-financial crisis levels. The U.S. (below in red) on the other hand has gotten out of its slump, and continues to grow at a decent...

Something happened yesterday. It began with a post I wrote about depression and suicide called “Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice.” When I clicked “publish” on that piece, I felt confident. I was sad that it had to be written, and upset about the circumstances surrounding it, but sure that I was saying something that needed to be said; something truthful but uplifting, frank but compassionate. I actually found myself getting emotional as I wrote it. I’m not suicidal but I have demons of my own, so I submitted that post to the public,...

I’m not normally one to write a blog post about a dead celebrity, but then I suppose there is no such thing. There are only living celebrities, not dead ones. In death, wealth and prestige decay and we are brought into a new reality, the only reality there is or ever was — one which, for much better or much worse, doesn’t care at all about our popularity or our money. The death of Robin Williams is significant not because he was famous, but because he was human, and not just because he left this world, but particularly because he...

As he stepped out on stage last year to hawk his big TV comeback in front of advertisers, comedy great Robin Williams joked it was 'nice to have a job where the checks will clear.' After making his name as the eccentric and beloved alien on 1970s TV hit Mork and Mindy, Robin transferred his attentions to Hollywood with a stream of box office hits. But after acclaim and an Oscar, the movie career started to dry up and the actor signed up for CBS show The Crazy Ones, a small-screen comedy about a 'renowned and slightly unhinged' advertising genius/madman....

LOS ANGELES – They earn their living by making the masses laugh, but experts say comedians are all too often masking intense sadness behind those smiles.

"Depression is one of the most tragically misunderstood words in the English language," writes Stephen Ilardi, an associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Kansas, in a blog post on the Psychology Today website. "When people refer to depression in everyday conversation, they usually have something far less serious in mind," than what the disorder actually entails. "In fact, the term typically serves as a synonym for mere sadness." Here are some facts about depression: •Although major depression can strike people of any age, the median age at onset is 32.5, according to Washington University School of Medicine...

Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams has died at age 63, according to police in Marin County, Calif. The full statement is below. On August 11, 2014, at approximately 11:55 a.m, Marin County Communications received a 9-1-1 telephone call reporting a male adult had been located unconscious and not breathing inside his residence in unincorporated Tiburon, CA. The Sheriff’s Office, as well as the Tiburon Fire Department and Southern Marin Fire Protection District were dispatched to the incident with emergency personnel arriving on scene at 12:00 pm. The male subject, pronounced deceased at 12:02 pm has been identified as Robin...

Back in 2013, Williams predicted that it would be “game over” in 2014. What are the statistics showing him now? Williams says, “They are showing the economy continues to weaken, and it never recovered. A second quarter contraction here would most assuredly be recognized as a new recession, and I contend we never got out of the old recession. We had plunge, stagnation and, now, we are turning down anew.”

Amity Shlaes does not believe in playing it safe. In 2007 she issued the original edition of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, which dared to badly dent the established shibboleths regarding America’s Great Depression and how Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal did—or did not—dealt with it. In 2013, she departed the beaten path still more provocatively, resuscitating the reputation of the much-maligned Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge defied all odds and joined The Forgotten Man in achieving best-seller status. Having placed such high-stakes bets and won, she doubled back—and doubled-down—to collaborate on a “graphic” version of The...