Department store sales hit a new record low in the data going back to 1992.

Wolf Richter wolfstreet.com, http://www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter E-commerce sales in the fourth quarter soared 12.1% from a year ago to a new record of $132.8 billion (seasonally adjusted), the Commerce Department reported this morning. For the whole year 2018, e-commerce sales blew through the $500-billion level for the first time, reaching $513.6 billion, up 14.2% or $64 billion from a … Read more

3 Dozen Reasons To Hold Gold

by Egon von Greyerz The world financial system has been in a euphoric state since 2009. It seems that the Keynesians, like Krugman or the Modern Money Theorists (MMT) are right after all. All asset markets are near the highs and show little sign of changing direction. As Treasury Secretary Mellon said in September 1929: “There … Read more

A Perfect Storm Is Developing Over Container Shipping

via Zerohedge: The slowdown in global trade began many quarters before the Trump administration launched a trade war with China last May. The primary cause of the downturn is sharp declines in intra-Asian trade – mostly due to China’s deteriorating economy. While equity markets around the world have soared in the last several months from “trade optimism,” any deal between Washington and Beijing may … Read more

House of Commons votes 312 to 308 to approve Amendment (a) to the #NoDealBrexit debate motion.

House of Commons votes 312 to 308 to approve Amendment (a) to the #NoDealBrexit debate motion. This amendment explicitly rejects leaving the #EU without a #WithdrawalAgreement and Framework for the Future Relationship. pic.twitter.com/0vjqcCxNWR — UK House of Commons (@HouseofCommons) March 13, 2019 "The ayes have it" U.K. Parliament votes against a no-deal Brexit by a … Read more

Stimulus Won’t Be Enough This Time | Matt from Silver Fortune

Matt from Silver Fortune interviewed by Elijah Johnson of Silver Doctors Gold and silver have undergone a significant downturn the last few weeks. But with the Fed continuing in an easing direction, Matt from Silver Fortune is still bullish.  Matt thinks as soon as gold moves above $1400, silver will take off. An economic crisis is ahead, Matt says. He outlines … Read more

Fox News Worried It Might Lose Far Left Demographic Amid Tucker Carlson Controversy

Via The Babylon Bee NEW YORK, NY—Fox News executives reportedly called an emergency meeting Tuesday morning amid a controversy involving old, offensive comments made by star political pundit Tucker Carlson. According to insiders, leaders of the news organization are “extremely worried” over the possibility of losing the far left demographic that is threatening to boycott … Read more

Another Conservative Voice Choked Out?

by TrailDust Did Tech Giants Strike Again? REAL.VIDEO IS GONE I looked to real.video today to catch some alternatives to the stuff on Youtube, and I found this! So my thoughts on this matter run in the direction of the sinister hand that tried this past year to kill FellowshipOfTheMinds.com. It may be that this was just … Read more

Dems Can’t Do Math

As Democrats in Congress refuse to secure the US southern border, the cost of illegal immigration continues to mount. The United States spends over $268 billion dollars a year supporting illegal aliens. That money covers expenses such as healthcare, education, childcare, the justice system, and welfare—forcing US taxpayers to shell out $734 million dollars every … Read more

Is A Crisis Looming For Canadian Oil?

By Irina Slav Earlier this month when pipeline operator Enbridge said its Line 3 pipeline will only return to operation in the second half of 2020, it was very bad news for Alberta. Producers in Alberta will have been hoping to start boosting production again once the government-instituted cuts expired at the end of this … Read more

Zero evidence of a bull market. zero. its swinging around this range with a big lower low in between.

https://twitter.com/hks55/status/1105869671474040833 I've done academic research on econ. growth for over 15 years, but I've never seen anything like this. The stagnated global productivity growth tells that something is seriously wrong in the world #economy . Why and what: https://t.co/qYfq55IsK2https://t.co/nGdvimiScd pic.twitter.com/O8ggSyuK30 — Tuomas Malinen (@mtmalinen) March 13, 2019 https://twitter.com/OccupyWisdom/status/1105537296865071104 Don't mind the gap…@OccupyWisdom@TheBubbleBubble@NorthmanTrader$DJIA $INDU $QQQ $SPX … Read more

NBC: Facial Recognition’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’ Is Using Millions of Pictures Without Consent

NBC News notes in a recent article that the faces of millions of people are being used without their consent to program facial recognition software that could one day be used to spy on them. In an article titled “Facial Recognition’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’: Millions of Online Photos Scraped Without Consent,” NBC News discusses the … Read more

The next total economic collapse is right here.

by NostraGREEDamus https://youtu.be/QljG9g3pZ4A M(eta): The video captures the sentiment of 2008 perfectly. This will happen all over again. General Electric is bankrupt: They have been cooking the books for 30 years. GE has negative cashflow aka insolvency and generally being out of fucking money. GE used to be the biggest corporation in USA also is … Read more

US Banks Report $251 billion of “Unrealized Losses” on Securities Investments in 2018, the Most Since 2008: FDIC

Wolf Richter wolfstreet.com, http://www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter And other juicy banking nuggets. Net income in Q4 2018 among all 5,406 FDIC-insured banks and thrifts more than doubled year-over-year to $59 billion, due to “higher net operating revenue” and “lower income tax expenses”; and full-year net income rose 44% to $237 billion, the FDIC reported today in its Quarterly Banking … Read more

$1 = 5 Cents: The Effect of Fourteen Decades of Dollar-Eroding Price Inflation

via advisorperspectives: The Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers (CPI-U) released this morning puts the year-over-year inflation rate at 1.52%. It is substantially below the 3.76% average since the end of the Second World War and above its 10-year moving average, now at 1.58%. For a comparison of headline inflation with core inflation, which is based … Read more