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The headlines go from bad to worse for the UK and EU establishment as yet another new poll this weekend, by Opinium, shows "Brexit" leading by a remarkable 19 points (52% chose to leave the EU against 33% choosing to keep the status quo). This result comes after 2 polls Friday night showing a 10-point lead for "leave" which sparked anxiety across markets. This surge in "leave" probability comes despite an additional 1.5 million voters having registered this week (which many expected to increase "remain" support). Further anger towards EU was exposed when former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith warned...

I have had several requests from friends to review the self-rescue gear we carry in our Get Back Home (GBH) bags, probably due to the recent but not unexpected flooding we have had this spring. Some readers may be surprised to learn that there is very little practical difference between self rescue from a flooded car and the common mountaineering skill known as rappelling. I first began carrying self-rescue gear in our vehicles after considering how much of the highways in our major urban areas are elevated for miles and miles on end. I know what happens to these elevated...

During a PBS town hall meeting, president Obama was asked why he and Hillary want to control and restrict guns and ammunition to responsible gun owners. Obama's response was the typical stock answer of rejecting the "notion" that anyone is hell-bent on taking away "folks' guns", yada yada. However, as AllOutdoor notes, if you listen carefully to Obama's full response, there is a comment Obama gives about knowing browser history that should sent everyone into a blind rage. "I just came from a meeting, today, in the situation room, in which I’ve got people who we know have been on...

Starting today, and continuing for the next month, the FAA has warned airplane pilots that GPS signals on on the West Coast, and especially over California and Nevada, may be impacted. The reason why is not exactly clear, but as Gizmodo notes, the US military will be testing a device or devices that will potentially jam GPS signals for six hours each day. Officially the tests were announced by the FAA but are centered near the US Navy’s largest installation in the Mojave Desert, China Lake, located "just down the road" from Area 51. The Navy has kept silent about...

“Someone” is getting desperate. Throughout the last week, anytime stocks have begun to correct or drop, “someone” has bought S&P 500 futures to prop the market up. Anyone who’s been involved with the markets for a while knows the difference between real buyers and manipulation. This is manipulation plain and simple. Look at all those “V” rallies. Three days in a row stocks opened DOWN and someone immediately stepped in and began buying aggressively. Another tell-tale sign of manipulation: the buying halts almost the moment stocks get to 2,100 on the S&P 500. At this point the manipulation ends. And...

First "Shocking" Deposition In Clinton Email Case Reveals She Did Not Use A Password **SNIP** He was asked about the inconvenience of the State Department’s passwords system, and he said that he eliminated her need for any passwords: A: She wouldn’t have had a password. Q: So the computer would have just been open and be able to use without going through any security features? A: Correct.

One month ago, pro-European voices in Austria, and all of Europe, were suddenly muted when in the first round of the Austrian presidential election, Norbert Hofer head of Austria Freedom Party (FPO), described as a "Euroskeptic, right-wing, anti-immigrant party" crushed his opposition buoyed by a migration crisis that has heightened fears about employment and security across the continent, and gathered a whopping 35% of the vote leaving the other five legacy candidates far behind.

Donald Trump certainly knows how to manipulate the media and ruffle some feathers in order to get a reaction, this we know. Trump's plan to build a wall on the Mexican border doesn't need to be rehashed here, but one person who has let Trump's rhetoric on the subject get under his skin is former Mexican president Vicente Fox. Fox has been on an emotional roller coaster ever since Trump started in with his criticisms of Mexico. Initially, Fox took to the airwaves to let everyone know that the wall Trump has said Mexico will pay for, ya, he's not...

Back in February, when we commented on the unprecedented hyperinflation about the be unleashed in the Latin American country whose president just announced that he would expand the "weekend" for public workers to 5 days...... we joked that it is unclear just where the country will find all the paper banknotes it needs for all its new physical currency. After all, central-bank data shows Venezuela more than doubled the supply of 100-, 50- and 2-bolivar notes in 2015 as it doubled monetary liquidity including bank deposits. Supply has grown even as Venezuela has fewer U.S. dollars to support new...

. The current outstanding student loan debt in the United States is roughly $1.3 trillion, and getting bigger by the second. The good news (for those not concerned about economic realities), Obama has just set the precedent that loans will be forgiven, the bad news, parents are now telling their kids to take out more student loans if they intend on going to college. But there is a twist. According to Bloomberg, a new survey by Discover Financial Services found that 48% of parents think their child should pay a portion (if not all) of the cost of attending college,...

Who could have seen this coming? Remember a week ago when TV entertainers crowed about the surge in The Baltic Dry Freight Index was a "clear signal" that 'China is back' baby and that escape velocity growth was just around the corner as global growth was destined to pick up... Well, just as we warned very explicitly, the ramp in the index merely reflected the frenzied speculation in industrial metals by the Chinese and as authorities have cracked down on that idiocy, so the Baltic Dry has plunged by the most since November... as real demand punches back.

When Jim Chanos said earlier this week that days ago that sub-Saharan Africa is facing a severe cash shortage (mostly as a result of their collapsing oil export revenue) he probably did not have the economic basket case of Zimbabwe in mind, and yet this is the country which, after years of monetary and economic collapse "problems", including the occasional bout of hyperinflation, finds itself in the most dire situation. As News24 reports, just this past week, Zimbabweans formed long queues outside banks on Thursday as a cash shortage prompted the government to announce plans to print a local version...

In an oddly ironic twist, today Donald Trump announced that he has picked as chairman of his newly launched fundraising operation none other than a former employee of the bank he has repeatedly criticized in the past, and which he used as a foil to criticize Ted Cruz: Goldman Sachs. Trump announced that heading up his own personal fundraising operation as national finance chairman will be Steven Mnuchin, a long-time business associate, chairman and CEO of the hedge fund Dune Capital. More importantly, however, he spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs where he was most recently a Partner, having built...

Trumped! Why It Happened And What Comes Next, Part 1   Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blogFirst there were seventeen. At length, there was one.Donald Trump’s wildly improbable capture of the GOP nomination, therefore, is the most significant upheaval in American politics since Ronald Reagan. And the proximate cause is essentially the same. Like back then, an era of drastic bipartisan mis-governance has finally generated an electoral impulse to sweep out the stables.Accordingly, the Donald’s patented phrase that “we aren’t winning anymore” is striking a deep nerve on main street. But that is not on account of giant trade deficits or a faltering foreign policy and failed military adventures per se.Indeed, it...

Europe's conservative, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim tide is rising and spreading at an accelerating pace from nation to nation. First it was the unprecedented ascent and surge in the polls of France's National Front, whose Marine Le Pen has become the leading contender in next year's presidential elections; then there was Austria whose Freedom Party swept the competition in last weekend's first round of the local presidential elections; then over the weekend we learned that Germany's brand new (less than three years old) Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has not only adopted an "Anti-Islam manifesto", stating that "Muslims are no longer...

Update: PR Governor Padilla has spoken... -PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR SAYS WON'T PAY DEBT TOMORROW -PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR SAYS ISLAND WON'T PAY DEBT MONDAY -PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR: GOVERNMENT SIGNED MORATORIUM BILL YESTERDAY -PUERTO RICO NEEDS DEAL W/ CREDITORS AND/OR CONGRESS: GARCIA And of course, demands a bailout... -PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR CALLS ON U.S. CONGRESS, PAUL RYAN FOR HELP And then threatens... -CRISIS WILL GET WORSE IF U.S. CONGRESS DOESN'T HELP: GARCIA -PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR CONCLUDES REMARKS TO COMMONWEALTH A default on the $422 million due today is "virtually certain," S&P Global Ratings said April 11.

As Donald Trump inches closer to the Republican nomination, GOP insiders scramble to put a halt to the billionaire’s run for the White House. A new lawsuit filed in the state of California could prove to be the ultimate act of desperation by a frantic establishment willing to go to any lengths to end Trump’s bid for the Oval Office. However, if the allegations contained within the court documents are found to be true, they would not only spell the end of Trump’s presidential aspirations, but most likely his brand as a whole.

While this should be no surprise to any rational non-establishment-teet-suckling economist, former McDonalds' CEO Ed Rensi exclaims, in a recent Forbes Op-Ed, that "a $15 minimum wage won’t spell the end of [fast-food brands]. However it will mean wiping out thousands of entry-level opportunities for people without many other options." The $15 minimum wage demand, which translates to $30,000 a year for a full-time employee, is built upon a fundamental misunderstanding of a restaurant business (and we add simple supply and demand fundamentals) - just "do the math" Rensi rants... “They’re making millions while millions can’t pay their bills,” argue...

Will MartinApril 29, 2016The men behind the legendary finance blog Zero Hedge have been unmasked after one former blogger with the site revealed the identity of his employers. Speaking with Bloomberg reporters Tracy Alloway and Luke Kawa, Colin Lokey — described as a "political science graduate with an MBA and a Southern twang" — said he was part of a three-man team running Zero Hedge, the blog best known for its sensationalist headlines and bearish outlook on the world. Lokey, 32, says the other men behind the site are 37-year-old Daniel Ivandjiiski, a Bulgarian former hedge fund analyst, and Tim...

<p>Anyone closely following the Panama Papers tax haven story, is by now familiar with the role that Rothschild plays in providing virtually identical services right inside the US by the Rothschild Trust, as explained in our recent article "Rothschild Humiliates Obama, Reveals That "America Is The Biggest Tax Haven In The World."</p>