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I was sound asleep when the phone rang and so I cannot be absolutely sure the conversation was not a dream,but it seemed real enough.“Hello,...[m]y name is Mr. Mensch,..president of the Parodists of the World, Professional comedy writers,and we want to engage you in a suit against the administration for tortious interference with our livelihood.”.....He then launched into a litany of grievances against the administration......[SNIP]...............“Sounds like a bad joke..,”I replied. “With the world’s attention focused on Moslem extremists. New jihadi groups showing up all through Europe,and Palestinians continuing to attack our ally Israel and we train and arm Palestinian guards...

A proposal from Sen. John McCain has sparked a furious backlash from shipbuilding and ship repair executives who say the plan would cripple their industry and compromise coastal security.. The Arizona senator wants to repeal a key provision of a 95-year-old law that governs shipping in America's coastal waters and between domestic ports. It would strike the requirement that vessels engaging in port-to-port, domestic waterborne trade be built in the U.S. .............. In a news release, the Arizona senator said, "It costs six dollars per barrel to move crude from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast United States on a...

Rick Perry! The man who has been governor of Texas since pterodactyls roamed the plains took his leave at the State Capitol this week. He is not saying anything for sure about running for president. Mum’s the word until springtime. However, he recently told a reporter that if voters want to break from the Obama era, “I am a very clear and compelling individual to support.” Wow, the Republican race is getting to be like one of those crime shows where the detectives have to paste pictures all over the wall so they can keep the suspects straight. So many...

One day, it’s gold. The next, it’s equities. Most days, it’s crude. On Wednesday, it was copper. On Thursday it was the Swiss franc and Swiss stocks. And the move in those two makes those others look like minor-league hiccups. While you were sleeping, all hell broke loose in Switzerland, as the central bank ditched its currency cap against the euro after four years and slashed interest rates to negative 0.75%. The Swiss franc is rallying wildly, while the Swiss stock market is cratering and U.S. stock futures are mostly on the losing side as investors figure out this latest...

ECONOMIC DEATH SPIRAL: MORE AMERICAN BUSINESSES DYING THAN STARTING....

Myles Udland January 15, 2015 The crash in oil prices might be good for consumers, but it's terrible for inflation data. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release the consumer price index on Friday morning at 8:30 ET. The index is a measure of consumer prices, and the most popularly cited measure of inflation. Expectations are for headline inflation to fall 0.4% in December compared to the prior month, which would be the largest month-on-month decline since December 2008. Compared to last year, headline inflation is set to rise 0.7%. "Core" inflation — which strips out the...

Dream Act, Veterans, Religion, Renewing the American Economy Barack Obama’s approach to power is a deterrent example of current political trends. Officeholders elected to preserve, protect and defend laws and unique national identity, are not only derelict in their duties, but feel entitled to realize their personal dreams and to mold “their” country into a private kingdom. The sense of entitlement is reinforced by lack of obligation of results, culminating in rampant impunity. Native American Chiefs considered that “man has responsibility, not power”, for present-day selfish leaders, power is all but responsibility. People are the share-holders in their own country,...

Myles Udland January 15, 2015 Here's a word no one wants to hear: "recession." Headline payroll gains were strong in 2014 and GDP growth has been above 3% in four of the last five quarters. So everything is good, right? Well, one indicator that has a perfect record of predicting recessions is creeping towards some uncomfortable levels: the yield curve. The yield curve, or the interest rate paid on the range of US Treasury bonds, typically ranges from low to high: the shortest duration bills are paid the least interest, with investors earning additional yield for lending the government for...

Linette Lopez January 15, 2015The story on Wall Street this earnings season is a classic case of, "be careful what you wish for; you just might get it." Since Wednesday, when Wall Street started reporting its earnings for the last quarter of 2014, we have seen an across-the-board beatdown on trading revenues. •A 23% drop in bond trading (from the same time last year) contributed to JP Morgan's earnings miss. •Citigroup's trading revenue fell by 14% overall, and bond trading fell 16% from this time last year. •And sales and trading revenue at Bank of America fell 20% from the...

As President John F Kennedy once quipped, the rising tide lifts all boats; but one only needs to compare San Francisco and Stockton - cities just 80 miles apart - to question whether the rising tide lifts all boats equally. California has recovered all of the jobs the state lost during the recent recession. But that doesn't necessarily mean the state's job market is uniformly doing well. California's tale of two states isn't new or surprising, but it is one that has been conspicuously absent from the Sacramento agenda. Yet, in the event there wasn't enough evidence already, the January...

Elena Holodny January 15, 2015Societe Generale is out with its latest quarterly chart of "swan" risks — and it's looking pretty ominous. Technically speaking, "black swan" risks are by definition nearly impossible to predict — and when they come, it's bad. But the point that SocGen's swan chart is trying to show is there are economic and geopolitical risks stewing that could seriously rock the economy and the markets if they occur. Once again, further deterioration in the eurozone area is the most significant downside risk. The risk of a hard economic landing in China "somewhat eased," according to SocGen....

Global markets were thrown into turmoil on Thursday as a shock move by Switzerland to abandon its more than three-year-old cap on the franc sent the currency soaring and Europe's shares and bond yields tumbling. The franc jumped by almost 30 percent in a chaotic few minutes after the 1.20 per euro cap in place since late 2011 was lifted, surging past parity to trade as high as 0.8052 francs per euro. It was trading at 1.02600 at just after 1200 GMT. The move reversed an earlier rebound in risk appetite following an overnight recovery in commodity prices. Over 100...

Women's fashion discount retailer Deb Shops is closing all of its stores in Michigan and nationwide. After more than 80 years in business, the Philadelphia-based retailer, which specializes in junior- and plus-size apparel, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Dec. 4, according to a news release. On Jan. 7, the bankruptcy court awarded Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources the store closing process for all locations. Officials with Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources began going-out-of-business sales at approximately 287 Deb Shops retail locations Friday, Jan. 9, the release states. The company's website gob.debshops.com now is simply an...

Just two days after it warned that it might file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Body Central is shutting all of its stores and headquarters completely. The chain’s 265 stores are running “aggressive promotional sales through Sunday,” Gardner Davis, an attorney representing the Jacksonville-based chain of clothing stores geared to young women and teens, said on Friday afternoon. It has stores in the The Avenues and Orange Park malls and River City Marketplace. The company’s headquarters and warehouse closed Friday, he said. “It’s tragic that the company’s 2,500 loyal employees are losing their jobs,” he said. About 185 of those employees worked...

The preppy lifestyle brand started by Tory Burch’s ex-husband, Chris Burch, is shutting down its remaining locations ‘due to the highly competitive nature of the current retail environment,’ a spokesman said. It’s curtains for C. Wonder. The retailer confirmed that it will shutter its remaining locations. C. Wonder is closing up shop. The retailer, which was launched by designer Tory Burch’s ex-husband, Chris Burch, will be shutting down its remaining stores, a spokesman confirmed. “Due to the highly competitive nature of the current retail environment, C. Wonder will be closing its remaining stores," a spokesman said in a statement to...

If you were waiting for a “black swan event” to come along and devastate the global economy, you don’t have to wait any longer. As I write this, the price of U.S. oil is sitting at $45.76 a barrel. It has fallen by more than 60 dollars a barrel since June. There is only one other time in history when we have seen anything like this happen before. That was in 2008, just prior to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But following the financial crisis of 2008, the price of oil rebounded fairly rapidly. As you...

Oil and natural gas are sliding again to multi-year lows, and once again it is having an influence on stocks. What's important is to understand the outsized influence this near-daily drop in oil (six months and running!) is having on corporate earnings. Even though the energy sector is only roughly 8 percent of the market capitalization of the S&P 500, the decline in earnings in that sector has been so dramatic that it is affecting earnings estimate for the entire S&P 500. On December 1st, analyst anticipated that Energy earnings for Q1 2015 would decline 13.8 percent compared to Q1...

We have witnessed the price implosion of oil, and the subsequent decline in gasoline prices. Is this the beginning of a trend, and what industry will admit and be subject to an inability to control its pricing structure? Cable television? The cost of cable television is a broken promise. Originally, for those old enough to remember, the promise of cable television was that though it may involve a charge, something new for television, there would be no commercials. Anyone remember? Now, the cable providers have it both ways. There are commercials, and infomercials, on which they receive money from not...

Fed related publication warns of: http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2014/december/baby-boomers-retirement-stocks-aging/

Myles Udland January 14, 2015Copper took turn for the worst on Tuesday night, falling more than 6% to below $2.50 per pound in New York, a fresh four-year low. In a note to clients on Wednesday, David Cui at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said this not sending a good signal to the white hot Shanghai stock market, which was the world's best performing stock market in 2014. Cui wrote that given the widespread use of copper in the Chinese economy, a drop demand — and a resulting drop in price — is often a good indicator of economic health...