SOCIALISM: Venezuela Is Leaking Oil Everywhere.

by

via bloomberg: “The once-mighty PDVSA is polluting waterways and farmland, unable to clean up its messes after years of neglect, scant investment and corruption scandals.” The spills are conspicuous signs of what has gone so horribly wrong at once-mighty PDVSA. The state-owned company doesn’t publish statistics, but environmentalists, analysts and workers keep seemingly endless lists of … Read more

PRIVACY: European privacy search engines aim to challenge Google.

by

via denverpost: Sites such as Britain’s Mojeek, France’s Qwant, Unbubble in Germany and Swisscows don’t track user data, filter results or show “behavioral” ads. These sites are growing amid the rollout of new European privacy regulations and numerous corporate data scandals, which have raised public awareness about the mountains of personal information companies stealthily gather and … Read more

Heads up, historical support test for interest rates!

by

by Kimble Charting This 4-pack looks at short to long-term interest rates over the past few decades with a little twist, each chart is inverted (yields are upside down). Each chart reflects that yields are testing multi-decade support at each (1). These support lines were tested back in 2000 & 2000, where lows took place, which ended up … Read more

Martin Armstrong: Central Banks Looking at Creating Their Own Cryptocurrencies – One Step Closer To Losing All Our Freedom

by

by Martin Armstrong The IMF has recommended that all Central banks should issue their own cryptocurrencies. Indeed, they are looking at using Block Chain to keep track of taxes and to enforce negative interest rates with cryptocurrencies which would allow them to impose negative interest rates whenever necessary. With adopting cryptocurrencies that governments would control, we will come one step … Read more

CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS OUST ALMOST 130, INCLUDING 9 TEACHERS, OVER CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS

by

via chicagotribune: Nearly 130 Chicago Public Schools employees have been terminated, recommended for dismissal or simply resigned amid scrutiny following an enormous review of worker backgrounds prompted by a Tribune investigation this year. That group of employees includes nine teachers, 35 people classified as classroom aides and an unspecified number of people the district lists as substitute or … Read more

Will record business debt trigger a financial crisis? And what will it do to stocks?

by

Wolf Richter wolfstreet.com, http://www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter Total US business debt has surged to $32 trillion, three times as big as household mortgage debt, and over twice as big as total household debt. In 2008, the $10 trillion in mortgage debt was one of the factors that triggered the Financial Crisis. So when this business debt blows up, … Read more

Illegal immigrants are reportedly storming the U.S. border from the Mexican city of Tijuana right now.

by

https://twitter.com/BreakingNLive/status/1066783003836329987 As President Trump said: ”Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund … Read more

Facebook & Google could face huge fines in Russia over future legal violations – report

by

Moscow may start imposing hefty fines on tech giants, including Google and Facebook, over failing to comply with Russian legislation. The new fines will reportedly be equal to one percent of a firm’s annual revenue in the country. Russian authorities are planning to amend the current legislation to implement the measure, according to unnamed sources … Read more

$714 Billion Have Gone Up In Smoke: Bitcoin Plunges to $3,738; Whole Crypto Scam Melts Down, Hedge Funds Stuck

by

Wolf Richter wolfstreet.com, http://www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter itcoin plunged to $3,738 at the moment. Down nearly 40% from two weeks ago, and down 81% from peak-mania of $20,078 on December 17, 2017. It’s back where it had first been on August 12, 2017. It looks like a magnificent bubble that is imploding, but “bubble” is a misnomer; it’s … Read more

Aircraft Leasing Bubble in Trouble?

by

Alarming signals are coming from an unlikely place, the market that the industry long touted as an engine of infinite growth. By MC01, a frequent commenter, for WOLF STREET: In 1990, leased aircraft accounted for 15% of airline fleets. By 2017, the overall fleet of aircraft had ballooned, and within this much larger overall fleet size, … Read more

The Two Paths to Collapse

by

by Charles Hugh-Smith The very structure of our systems guarantees their failure once conditions change beyond their limited ability to adjust. As a general rule, there are two paths to collapse: gradual erosion and sudden crash. The two are intertwined, of course; in most cases, the system slowly loses vigor, resources, efficiency, etc. (erosion) which leaves … Read more

Facebook is going down in flames

by

UK Parliament seized internal documents related to Facebook’s privacy and data decisions. No one is going to like what the sausage factory actually does to make money… https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/25/18111007/uk-parliament-seized-internal-facebook-documents-app-developer-six4three-cambridge-analytica The UK Parliament used a rarely-used procedure to compel an app developer to seize a number of internal Facebook documents related to the company’s decision-making process preceding … Read more

Is Deutsche Bank CRASHING?! – Bank Is Not Long For This World

by

Josh Sigurdson talks with author and economic analyst John Sneisen about the latest news revolving around Deutsche Bank whose shares continue to see new lows. Of course this year, they have taken the task upon themselves to revert to a holding company, write their living will, they’ve been downgraded, they’ve been switching around management and … Read more