Was it a blip, or a breakthrough? Scientists around the globe are revved up with excitement as the world's biggest atom smasher - best known for revealing the Higgs boson four years ago - starts whirring again to churn out data that may confirm cautious hints of an entirely new particle. Such a discovery would all but upend the most basic understanding of physics, experts say. -Washington PostHe...Read More

Scott Minerd, global chief investment officer of Guggenheim Partners, said on Wednesday it is a good time to dip into U.S. Treasuries in the wake of their sell-off. “It is impossible to get the timing of anything exactly right. You have to ask yourself, ‘Are you a speculator or an investor?'” -ReutersPuerto Rico is about to default on bond obligations today, but some of the l...Read More

The world will run out of fresh drinking water by 2050 because of the Western world's meat centered diet, according to a secret report just released on WikiLeaks. Nestle executives, concerned about the company's future in a world threatened by climate change ... discovered that high meat consumption is depleting the world's fresh water supply. – InquisitrThe Nestle report dates back to 20...Read More

Overall, the ongoing rise in supply would be adequate to satisfy the growth in oil demand in 2H14, resulting in a well-balanced market – OPEC Forecast, June 2014 (right before oil price collapse)Oil prices have plummeted 70 percent from highs in June 2014 and not many upstream oil and gas operations are making money. – Omar Mawji, OilPrice.com, May 2015 In the first half of 2014, it wa...Read More

Identity 2016: ‘Global citizenship’ rising, poll suggests ... People are increasingly identifying themselves as global rather than national citizens, according to a BBC World Service poll. The trend is particularly marked in emerging economies, where people see themselves as outward looking and internationally minded. However, in Germany fewer people say they feel like global citizen...Read More

One day we're saving the banks; the next day we're saving the auto industry; the next day we're trying to see whether we can have some impact on the housing market. – President Barack ObamaYesterday's New York Times devoted 6,000 words and a main feature to nothing short of an all-out defense of Obama's economic legacy. In the process, they went full Keynesian.From the opening paragraph that...Read More

The dollar has an opportunity to make history. After three straight years of gains, strategists are forecasting the US currency will be a world beater again in 2016, strengthening against seven of 10 developed world peers by the end of the year. – Median estimate from Bloomberg SurveyTwo data points may establish a trend. Three can confirm the trend - with a margin of error.But what happe...Read More

The European Union always was an American project. It was Washington that drove European integration in the late 1940s, and funded it covertly under the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. - TelegraphAmbrose Evans-Pritchard is telling the truth again, or at least part of it, in this most recent column of his. But we find ourselves disagreeing with him on some im...Read More

Germany to launch 1 billion-euro discount scheme for electric car buyers ...Germany is set to launch a new incentive scheme worth about 1 billion euros ($1 billion) to get more consumers buying electric cars as it struggles to meet a target of bringing 1 million of them onto its roads by the end of the decade. The costs of the incentives, similar to those already established in some other European...Read More

Trump's World to watch as Trump outlines his foreign policy ... Critics have accused the Republican front-runner of bigotry and posing a danger to U.S. national security. Many foreign policy and defense advisers say his views are worrying, mingling isolationism and protectionism, with calls to force U.S. allies to pay more for their defense and proposals to impose punitive tariffs on some import...Read More

It became clear that the best way to stay competitive and protect the business for long-term is to move production from our facility in Indianapolis to Monterey, Mexico. – Carrier Air Conditioning spokespersonBack in February, workers at a Carrier air conditioner manufacturing plant in Indianapolis filmed a company spokesman informing employees that 1,400 jobs would be moved to Mexico. The s...Read More

Why the world needs more U.S. government debt ... Are government-imposed restrictions holding back the U.S. economy? In a way, yes: The federal government is causing great harm by failing to issue enough debt. The U.S. generates more income than any other country, and will keep doing so for many years to come. The federal government can generate a lot of revenue by taxing this income — a p...Read More

Barack Obama and the end of the Anglosphere ... When supporters of the Vote Leave campaign sketch out a future for Britain outside the EU, they often point to the Anglosphere of English-speaking nations - bequeathed by Britain's imperial past. So Barack Obama's intervention in Britain's EU referendum last week was a potentially devastating moment for the Brexit campaign. - Financial TimesThis fasc...Read More

White House poised to release secret pages from 9/11 inquiry ... The Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers. -APWe've run a number of stories on the disintegration of Saudi Arabia but Western attacks against the House of Saud keep on coming.In...Read More

For the next two days, the Committee that controls the world will be huddled in the ivory tower known as the Eccles Building in D.C. There, ten people will tediously examine the data, look at the forecasts, and weigh options for an economy with a GDP of $17 trillion, a population approaching 320 million, and an official national debt of over $19 trillion.This committee with unlimited, unquestioned...Read More

2016 Campaign's Populist Tone Rankles America's CEOs ... Chief executives at big American companies are increasingly frustrated by the populist tone of the presidential campaign, and concerns are mounting in boardrooms and corner offices that anti-business rhetoric may solidify even after the November election. – Wall Street JournalThis Wall Street Journal article makes the point that Trum...Read More

Washington Launches Its Attack Against BRICS ... Washington is now disposing of the reformist President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff ... In Brazil, Washington has used corruption insinuations to get President Rousseff impeached by the lower house. Evidence is not necessary, just allegations. It is no different from "Iranian nukes," Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," Assad's "use of che...Read More

The Panama Papers are going to be made into a movie as Western anti-privacy propaganda grinds on.The Panama Papers comprise 11.5 million emails hacked from the computers of Mossack Fonseca, a provider of corporations, trusts, shell companies and other legal structures that enhance privacy and anonymity.While those whose names appear in the 11.5 million emails have come under suspicion of criminal...Read More

China’s Economic Recovery Masking Financial Risks, Fitch Says ... Are We Heading Back Into China Markets Turmoil? ... -BloombergChina is run by a communist party but its policies are increasingly mercantilist and reminiscent of European and US strategies.Whether the world is run out of Washington or Beijing, the economic, political and military approach is increasingly similar.China is i...Read More

EU Has Meddled Too Much, Admits Boss Juncker ... More The European Union meddles too much in people’s lives, according to its most senior official. In a significant admission, Jean-Claude Juncker said a lot of the laws made in Brussels should have been left to national governments. As a result the EU has lost popularity with ordinary people because they feel it over-regulates, the Euro...Read More