Even if they have the same degree from the same university, graduates from richer family backgrounds tend to earn significantly more than their counterparts from poorer backgrounds, according to a study that analyzed the tax returns and student loan records of 260,000 British graduates. …read more
Source: Grads with rich parents likely to earn more than classmates
BP chairman defends CEO Bob Dudley’s big payout for 2015 in the face of losses and job cuts. …read more
Source: BP defends massive pay hike for CEO
By Tyler Durden
In another quiet overnight session, the biggest – and unexpected – macro news was the surprise monetary easing by Singapore which as previously reported moved to a 2008 crisis policy response when it adopted a “zero currency appreciation” stance as a result of its trade-based economy grinding to a halt. As Richard Breslow accurately put it, “If you need yet another stark example of the fantasy storytelling we amuse ourselves with, juxtapose today’s Monetary Authority of Singapore policy statement with the storyline that the Asian stock market rally intensified on renewed optimism over the global economy. Singapore is a proxy for trade and economic growth ground to a halt last quarter.” The Singapore announcement led to a sharp round of regional currency weakness just as the dollar appears to have bottomed and is rapidly rising. The Singapore dollar slid 1 percent in the wake of the new stance.
Speaking of the Greenback, the USD rose against most major peers and base metals denominated in the U.S. currency fell to compensate for the appreciation. The dollar’s more than 6 percent drop since late January is starting to meet some resistance amid lackluster euro-area expansion and investor speculation that U.S. economic growth remains intact, strengthening the case for higher interest rates this year. To be sure, none of that speculation was actually confirmed by the data, with both retail sales and inventories missing but when did facts matter over narratives.
“We’ve seen stabilization in macro data in China, but stabilization is one point, re-acceleration is another,” said Ralf Zimmermann, a strategist at Bankhaus Lampe in Dusseldorf, Germany.
After crude dropped as low at $40.84, it rebounded and was trading unchanged after the latest IEA forecast predicted the global supply glut would narrow to just 200k b/d in 2H, down from 1.5m b/d in 1H. Brent mirrors WTI recovery after testing support at 200-day moving avg. “The IEA report bounced the market, being quite positive for when the supply glut will disappear, seeing this happen in 2H based on demand and based on non-OPEC production,” says Saxo Bank head of commodity strategy Ole Hansen. The market also remained keenly focused on any and all “Doha” headlines ahead of the OPEC meeting in Qatar on Sunday.
Also notable are the oil technicals: “We tested the 200-day MA earlier” Hansen added, but bounced back w/ IEA report, says Hansen. “If we close today below the 200-day MA that could trigger a negative technical reaction, but at this stage we are seeing a bit of a fightback.”
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was little changed as miners and energy producers tumbled, while investors weighed earnings reports from Burberry Group Plc and Nestle SA. Commodity producers, the best performers among industry groups in 2016, fell for the first time in five days. Anglo American Plc and Randgold Resources Ltd. lost at least 2.7 percent. BP Plc led oil stocks lower. Lenders also declined, paced by Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Plc, after jumping the most since 2011 on …read more
Source: U.S. Futures Flat After Oil Erases Overnight Losses; Dollar In The Driver’s Seat
By Tyler Durden
In an oddly-timed-release, just a day after her 'unusual' meeting with President Obama (and sandwiched between two “emergency Fed meetings”), Janet Yellen's seemingly legacy-protecting narrative-confirming interview with TIME magazine proclaiming once again that “we are focused on Main Street, on supporting economic conditions – plentiful jobs and stable prices – that help all Americans.” So now you know – it's all for you America – the bank bailouts, the deflationary-glut-creating ZIRP, the money-printing, and the “confusing and confounding” messaging. Now stop your complaining and Vote Hillary!
As TIME reports, you don’t often hear central bankers say, “I don’t know.” That’s because monetary wizards, like brain surgeons and rocket scientists, tend to cultivate an aura of omniscience. Their vast underground computers crank out supposedly precise answers to complex questions about where the global economy will be in the next five minutes or the next five years. But Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen has never been allergic to uncertainty.
In a recent interview with TIME, she made it clear there are plenty of things about the economy both at home and abroad that the Fed—not to mention economists, investors, politicians and the rest of us—doesn’t grasp right now. Unemployment has dropped to pre-crisis levels, but wages remain stagnant. The traditional relationship between job creation and inflation seems to have broken down. More and more technology has not boosted productivity, as it has in the past. Asset classes like stocks or bonds no longer move together in the ways they used to. In short, the global economy is playing by new rules, rules Yellen and the Fed itself are trying to puzzle out. “Sometimes you have to make decisions without knowing all that you would like to know,” she says. “That’s part of the job.”
This new reality is partly the result of the $29 trillion that central bankers pumped into the global economy over the last few years. (The Fed alone dumped $4.5 trillion in the U.S.) Central bankers were forced to take such steps because gridlocked governments didn’t act to put more fiscal stimulus into their economies after the 2008 financial crisis. They became, as economist Mohamed El-Erian has written, “the only game in town” for propping up growth. The downside of the recovery: distortions in corporate debt and equity markets and the risk of another crash.
The Fed has frequently been criticized, particularly by Republicans but also by some on the left, for continuing to keep rates low in such an environment. By many metrics, the American recovery is improving, and easy monetary policies have been known to encourage risky financial behaviors of the sort made infamous in 2008. But Yellen sees herself less as a wizard that backs into numbers via computer models and more of a family doctor who’s taken an oath to first do no harm. “We necessarily operate in an environment in which there’s a great deal of uncertainty,” she notes, talking about everything from the Chinese financial markets to the future of …read more
Source: Day After Obama Meeting, Yellen Confirms Fed "Focused On Main Street… Helping All Americans"
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Regulators proposed to ban Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos president Sunny Balwani from their labs.
Podcast favorites: Bernie gets the Axe | Radical Islam in America | Graham Opposes GOP Leader
…read more
Source: Theranos CEO in jeopardy after regulators propose ban
Hundreds of officials linked to a massive vaccine scandal in China are being punished. …read more
Source: Chinese officials punished in vaccine scandal
By Tyler Durden
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,
This is an English translation of an article that I wrote for the German magazine, Compact. I was encouraged by the high level of intelligent discourse that Compact brings to its readers. If only the US had more people capable of reaching beyond entertainment to comprehending the forces that affect them, there might be some hope for America.
Compact brings hope to Germany. The German people are beginning to understand that their country is not sovereign but a vassal of Washington and that their chancellor serves Washington’s hegemony and American financial interests, and not the German people.
Would The World Survive President Hillary?
Hillary Clinton is proving to be the “teflon candidate.” In her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, she has escaped damage from major scandals, any one of which would destroy a politician. Hillary has accepted massive bribes in the form of speaking fees from financial organizations and corporations. She is under investigation for misuse of classified data, an offense for which a number of whistleblowers are in prison. Hillary has survived the bombing of Libya, her creation of a failed Libyan state that is today a major source of terrorist jihadists, and the Benghazi controversy. She has survived charges that as Secretary of State she arranged favors for foreign interests in exchange for donations to the Clintons’ foundation. And, of course, there is a long list of previous scandals: Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate. Diana Johnstone’s book, Queen of Chaos, describes Hillary Clinton as “the top salesperson for the ruling oligarchy.”
Hillary Clinton is a bought-and-paid-for representative of the big banks, the military-security complex, and the Israel Lobby. She will represent these interests, not those of the American people or America’s European allies.
The Clintons’ purchase by interest groups is public knowledge. For example, CNN reports that between February 2001 and May 2015 Bill and Hillary Clinton were paid $153 million in speaking fees for 729 speeches, an average price of $210,000.
As it became evident that Hillary Clinton would emerge as the likely Democratic presidential candidate, she was paid more. Deutsche Bank paid her $485,000 for one speech, and Goldman Sachs paid her $675,000 for three speeches. Bank of American Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Fidelity Investments each paid $225,000.
Despite Hillary’s blatent willingness to be bribed in public, her opponent, Bernie Sanders, has not succeeded in making an issue of Hillary’s shamelessness. Both of the main establishment newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times have come to Hillary’s defense.
Hillary is a war-monger. She pushed the Obama regime into the destruction of a stable and largely cooperative government in Libya where the “Arab Spring” was a CIA-backed group of jihadists who were used to dislodge China from its oil investments in eastern Libya. She urged her husband to bomb Yugoslavia. She pushed for “regime change” in Syria. She oversaw the coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras. She brought neoconservative Victoria Nuland, who arranged the coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine, …read more
Source: President Killary
Donald Trump and Megyn Kelly “had a chance to clear the air” on Wednesday. They talked about a possible interview, but Trump has not committed to one.
…read more
Source: Trump and Kelly met to ‘clear the air’
Sumner Redstone’s mental competency is still an issue in court, and the opposing lawyers are once again attempting to force him to give a deposition. …read more
Source: Motion filed for Sumner Redstone deposition
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