Something Wicked This Way Comes

"The narrative about an improving economy, thriving jobs market, and glorious future is bullshit. I know it. You know it. And your establishment puppeteers know it. But only “fake news” sites would dare reveal these inconvenient truths."
  • Dec 22, 2016 4:25 PM
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ISIS Releases Holiday Attack List Of U.S. Churches

Recent messages posted to the pro-ISIS "Secrets of Jihadis" group on the Telegram app included a list of churches in the United States and called for lone-wolf attackers to "turn the Christian New Year into a bloody horror movie."
  • Dec 22, 2016 4:50 PM
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Dashcam Video Captures Moment Of Deadly Berlin Truck Attack

The first video of the terrible events that occurred in Berlin this week has surfaced. As Reuters reports, a video clip from a car-mounted dashcam appears to show the moment a truck drove into a Berlin Christmas market on Monday in an attack that killed 12 people.
  • Dec 22, 2016 4:41 PM
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In Rare Move, US Sues Barclays For Mortgage Securities Fraud

The market was waiting for the DOJ to announce the long-awaited settlement with Deutsche Bank today. Instead, it got news of a surprise lawsuit filed by the DOJ which sued Barclays after failing to settle a long-running probe into the UK bank's involvement in pre-crisis mortgage fraud.
  • Dec 22, 2016 4:29 PM
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Chart(s) Of The Week: 'Lombard Street' For A New Age

Gold is collateral of last resort as it is near-universally accepted. Repo fails indicate, very strongly, collateral shortage. Put the two together and you get yet more evidence that central bankers really don’t know what they are doing. And, also like in Bagehot’s day, the repercussions are global.
  • Dec 22, 2016 3:55 PM
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Italy Proves That Banks Are Not The Risk-Free Fantasy We're Told To Believe

We’ve been programmed to sign over our life’s savings to a complete stranger simply because the government says it’s OK. That same government has lied to us about everything else imaginable, ranging from the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction to whether or not he had “sexual relations with that woman.” Yet this government-sanctioned trust is routinely abused.
  • Dec 22, 2016 3:05 PM
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Home Affordability Drops To 8-Year Lows As Mortgage Rates Surge

"Rapid home price appreciation and tepid wage growth have combined to erode home affordability during this housing recovery, and the recent uptick in mortgage rates only accelerated that trend in the fourth quarter,” said RealtyTrac's Daren Blomquist: "The prospect of further interest rate hikes in 2017 will likely cause further deterioration of home affordability next year."
  • Dec 22, 2016 2:46 PM
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Gold Manipulation Suspicion Lingers

It seems that manipulation of the gold fixing is over and done with - exposed by various lawsuits. Nevertheless, a noticeable price slide still occurs regularly in early New York trading - price behavior that is reminiscent of the time after August 5 1993, when manipulation of the gold price could first be detected.
  • Dec 22, 2016 2:26 PM
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Syrian Army Says Aleppo Has Returned To Government Control

The Syrian army said Aleppo has returned to government control, ending the 4-year rebel control over parts of the city that years ago was the largest metropolitan center in Syria and is now a landscape out of Call of Duty.
  • Dec 22, 2016 2:02 PM
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2016 Year-End Bull/Bear Debate

As we head into 2017, trying to predict the markets is often quite pointless. The risk for investors is “willful blindness” that builds when complacency reaches extremes. It is worth remembering that the bullish mantra we hear today is much the same as it was in both 1999 and 2007. We don’t need to remind you what happened next.
  • Dec 22, 2016 1:40 PM
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Snowden Lashes Out At Congressional Report He Is Colluding With Russia

The anti-Russian propaganda launched into overdrive today with the release of the full Congressional report claiming that "since Snowden's arrival in Moscow, he has had, and continues to have, contact with Russian intelligence services", in other words the former NSA contractor is a traitor. Snowden, however, had a few things to say about the report.
  • Dec 22, 2016 1:30 PM
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