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Baltimore City’s Police Union is sounding the alarm because they say the department is in crisis due to the fact that it has too few officers. According to a new report, there are more than 100 fewer Baltimore City PD officers than last year, with the union saying this poses a safety concern as officers are being overworked. The police union president calls the situation “dire.” ... You don’t have enough police officers to patrol the streets safely protecting themselves, much less protecting the citizens of Baltimore,” said Lt. Ryan. Baltimore ended last year with the second highest number of...

In a stunning development, the Bureau of Labor Statistics just revealed that the US unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 4.6% in November. This is the lowest level since August 2007. Economists were expecting the rate to be unchanged from October’s 4.9%. “The trend in employment growth remains more than strong enough to keep the unemployment rate trending down,” Jim O’Sullivan, of High Frequency Economics, said. Some of this decline was due to the 446,000 Americans that dropped out of the labor force, which brought the labor force participation rate down to 62.7% during the month from 62.8% a month ago....

Top Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson on Wednesday endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. "Clinton’s platform on racial justice is strong: It is informed by the policy failings of the past and is a vision for where we need to go," McKesson wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. Clinton hosted a meeting with McKesson and other Black Lives Matter activists in the fall to discuss the Campaign Zero plan to end police violence....

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that he plans to cast a vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The retired four-star general, who served as secretary of state under Republican President George W. Bush, made the announcement at the Long Island Association’s fall luncheon.

Existing-home sales for August an annual rate fell o.9% to 5.33 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday, as the supply of existing homes for sales fell 10% vs. a year earlier. Economists had expected a rate of 5.44 million. Sales fell significantly in July to a revised 5.38 million, but from a recovery high. ... Tuesday, the Commerce Department reported August housing starts fell more than expected. But a day earlier, the National Association of Home Builders said its builder sentiment gauge soared in September to match an 11-year high. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve's decision to leave...

When we first reported about the imminent paralysis of an unknown number of global supply chains and a potential shock in worldwide trade as a result of the historic bankruptcy of Hanjing Shipping, one of the world's largest container shipping companies which handles 8% of Trans-Pacific trade volume for the US market, we concluded that "the global implications from the bankruptcy are unknown: if, as expected, the company's ships remain "frozen" and inaccessible for weeks if not months, the impact on global supply chains will be devastating, potentially resulting in a cascading waterfall effect, whose impact on global economies could...

The 19-country eurozone lost some economic momentum in August, largely because of a slowdown in Germany, a closely watched survey showed Monday, days ahead of another possible stimulus package from the European Central Bank. Financial information company IHS Markit said its purchasing managers’ index — a broad gauge of economic activity — for the eurozone fell to a 19-month low of 52.9 points in August from 53.2 the previous month. The fall was unexpected as the initial estimate for August was 53.3. In spite of the fall, the eurozone is still growing, albeit sluggishly as anything above 50 indicates expansion....

U.S. nonfarm productivity unexpectedly fell in the second quarter, pointing to sustained weakness that could raise concerns about corporate profits and companies' ability to maintain their recent robust pace of hiring. The Labor Department said on Tuesday that productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, dropped at a 0.5 percent annual rate in the April-June period. It was the third consecutive quarterly decline. Productivity fell at an unrevised 0.6 percent rate in the first quarter. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast productivity rising at a 0.4 percent rate in the second quarter. Productivity decreased at a 0.4 percent rate compared...

The federal government has sunk deeper into the red than analysts projected just five months ago, and is now poised to post a $590 billion shortfall this fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday. That’s some $56 billion worse than the CBO had projected in March, and it comes as new spending far outpaces revenues. Both individual and corporate income tax revenue is down so far this year — though the reasons are not fully clear yet, analysts said. What is clear, though, is that government spending continues to rise, and when adjusted for the timing of payments is...

Americans in markets across the country could be looking at double-digit premium hikes under ObamaCare next year, according to a new study that’s already fueling election-year finger-pointing. The Kaiser Family Foundation report found premiums for popular low-cost plans under the health care law are projected to increase an average 11 percent in 2017. Among the sharpest projected increases are: 26 percent in Portland, Ore.; 21 percent in the District of Columbia; and 16 percent in New York City. The study focused on the two least-expensive — and very popular — “silver” policies. It specifically examined the impact of rising premiums...

It would have been nice if we’d been correct to the minute, but we were two months early, and therefore wrong, when we wrote on March 30, If This Plays Out, Friday Will Get Ugly. But it did play out today. At the time, we suspected that the March jobs report, released in early April, would be a debacle. We based this on an analysis of the divergence over time between the reports issued by payroll processing company ADP and the jobs reports issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That divergence had been going on for months. Eventually it...

Some companies are paring investment plans as they assess the demand outlook in wake of weaker first-quarter growth and earnings, raising doubts about how quickly manufacturing can pull out of its slump. Global economies are struggling to improve, the oil industry has retrenched and factory customers are also bringing inventories more in line with sales. “There’s fragile sentiment when it comes to business investment,” said Thomas Costerg, a senior U.S. economist at Standard Chartered Bank in New York, who projected a decline in orders for business equipment. “The global growth picture is still unsettled. Corporate profits have softened as well....

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level since February 2015, more sobering news for the labor market after a disappointing April jobs report. The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless aid rose by 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 294,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose by 10,250 to 268,250, highest in nearly three months. […] “Today’s jobless claims report was a surprise, and not a positive one,” said Jim Baird, chief investment officer at Plante Moran Financial Advisors. “Jobless claims have moved sharply higher in recent weeks, reinforcing...

U.S. retail sales unexpectedly fell in March as households cut back on purchases of automobiles, further evidence that economic growth stumbled in the first quarter.The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that retail sales declined 0.3 percent last month after being unchanged in February. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales edging up 0.1 percent last month. Retail sales excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services ticked up 0.1 percent last month after an upwardly revised 0.1 percent gain in February. These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product. Economists...

It may turn out the economy did not grow at all in the first quarter. Trade data released Tuesday show the U.S. deficit widened more than expected to $47.1 billion in February and was a bigger drag on growth than expected. It's the latest economic metric that chiseled away at the tracking model for first quarter growth. The median of economists who participate in the CNBC/Moody's Analytics Rapid Update is now 0.5 percent for tracking GDP growth, down from 0.9 percent last week. Their average forecast for growth is 1.1 percent.

For years, hospital lobbyists have promised that Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion would kick start states’ economies and produce thousands of new jobs. (Expanding welfare always stimulates the economy, right?) This piece of their Obamacare sales pitch is critical because, according to their calculations, these new jobs will generate the necessary revenue to pay for states’ share of the Obamacare expansion costs. The Arkansas Hospital Association, for example, made a similar guarantee, promising that most of the state’s share would be covered by new tax revenue generated by new jobs. But now that expansion has been up-and-running for more than two years,...

The Horrors of the Inquisition and Its Modern Advocates By Julio Severo As perfidious as to commit a crime is to excuse, understate or deny it. On October 2015 Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho said in his Brazilian Twitter, "A entidade chamada Inquisicao e uma invencao ficcional de protestantes." Translation: "The entity called the Inquisition was a fictional invention of Protestants." His original statement is here. Other pro-Inquisition statements by him are exposed here. If everything Olavo says about the Inquisition is correct, then Protestants are liars, because they have been saying about the horrors of the Inquisition for...

We have not seen global economic activity fall off this rapidly since the great recession of 2008. Manufacturing activity is imploding all over the planet, global trade is slowing down at a pace that is extremely alarming, and the Baltic Dry Index just hit another brand new all-time record low. If the "real economy" consists of people making, selling and shipping stuff, then it is in incredibly bad shape. Here in the United States, the dismal economic numbers continue to stun all of the experts. For example, on Monday we learned that the Texas general business activity index just...

link only - Bloomberg

The Department of Health and Human Services attempted to reassure private insurers on Thursday that they'll be able to recover losses from participating in Obamacare by claiming it was an "obligation" of the U.S. government to bail them out. At issue is a provision within the law known as the risk corridors program. Under the program, which runs from 2014 through 2016, the federal government is to collect money from health insurers doing better than expected and use those funds to provide a federal backstop to other insurers who incur larger than expected losses from rising medical claims. The idea...