Govt searches of phones, laptops at airports rising

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via philly: WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. government searches of travelers’ cellphones and laptops at airports and border crossings nearly quadrupled since 2015 and were being done for reasons beyond customs and immigration enforcement, according to papers filed Tuesday in a federal lawsuit that claims scouring the electronic devices without a warrant is unconstitutional. The government has … Read more

2 Aircraft Carriers Have Left Port – Are The USS Eisenhower And The USS Roosevelt Headed South Toward Venezuela?

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by Michael Snyder Juan Guaido has initiated a violent uprising in an attempt to overthrow Nicolas Maduro, and it appears that the U.S. may be preparing to intervene in the conflict militarily.  The USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker accurately tracks the current positions of U.S. naval assets, and according to them the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower … Read more

Social Security Costs to Exceed Income in 2020

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by FS An annual government report indicated Social Security’s costs are expected to exceed its income starting in 2020. When this last happened in 1982, the 1984 Social Security fix followed where Congress raised taxes and raised the income level subject to taxation to cover the shortfall. What will happen now that we’re set to face this … Read more

Excess reserves are getting too scarce as seen in the now positive spread between EFFR and IOER

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#Fed $USD 🇺🇸 Excess reserves are getting too scarce as seen in the now positive spread between EFFR and IOER Fed holds three options: 1: End QT earlier than October 2: Cut IOER without cutting RRP (difficult to communicate) 3: Introduce an open-ended repo-facility pic.twitter.com/E9i9QwU71y — Andreas Steno Larsen (@AndreasSteno) April 30, 2019

The Clever Market Timing Withdrawal Strategy – an alternative to traditional withdrawal strategies

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by arthur450 Plenty has been written about withdrawal strategies. Yet, one dimension has been, in my opinion, under-explored: market timing. And believe me, I’ve read more or less everything ERN has written on the topic. Yes, I can hear it from over here: you can’t time the market! Which is true, but not really. Hear … Read more

Deceptive Banking Practices

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by Afrabuck So my wife and I have a vacation account with a large multi state bank. We only use it to hold our vacation fund and have purposely decided to separate it from our savings and checking bank. We place any gifts (Christmas, Anniversary, and Birthdays) directly into this account to save for something … Read more

Globalization Is Waning… US-China trade deal won’t solve that, strategist says.

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via CNBC: Peak globalization has actually already come and gone, according to David Roche, president and global strategist at London-based Independent Strategy. Even China — whose leaders are now some of the loudest proponents of global systems — will see most of its future growth come from domestic pursuits, he projected. Globalization is waning, and a … Read more

Fed’s Key Rate Edging Closer to Top of Band as Repo Rates Surge

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by confoundedinterest17 I am still laughing over Fed-nominee Stephen Moore calling Ohio “the armpit of America.” But I wonder what Moore has to say about the idea of a new Fed quantitative easing scheme:  Federal Reserve officials are considering a new program that would allow banks to exchange Treasurys for reserves, a move aimed at ensuring liquidity … Read more

Hanson: House Prices “Turn Negative” for the First Time Since 2007

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via mhanson: Redfin reported last week that house prices were down 0.1% y/y in March, the ‘first such decline since 2012’. BUT, that sounds better than it really is… Redfin has been reporting shrinking HPA for about a year now (See Item 1). Last month it finally “turned negative”, an important distinction. Redfin’s “first decline since 2012” marker is … Read more