by Jonathan Newman
Mises.org
The net neutrality public debate is back, and this time with even more blatant disregard for common sense and consistency. A small minority of the net neutrality proponents are consistently applying their own wrong-headed rule, but the majority have either misplaced their outrage or have conveniently retreated now that they see that a consistent application of the net neutrality rule would mean no free data offers.
The grumblers are back at it
In an effort to piggyback on the immense popularity of Pokémon Go, T-Mobile has decided to offer one year’s worth of free cellular data just for the game. Now only constrained by their cell phone’s battery life, Pokémon trainers would be able to walk all around their cities catching and hatching the creatures and putting them to the test in the Pokémon gyms to their heart’s content.
But don’t just blame Brexit.
It is too early to know if the shooting of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge are the beginnings of acts of retribution against police for their wanton murders of citizens. The saying is that “what goes around, comes around.” If police murders of citizens have provoked retribution, police and those who train them need to be honest and recognize that they have brought it upon themselves.
Strengths
Low oil prices wreaked havoc with US shale producers, but increasingly the industry appears to be adapting successfully to new market conditions.
On the heels of a failed coup attempt in Turkey and continued uncertainty in global markets, Peter Boockvar notes that what is really happening in China may surprise people.
Anger in France is on the upswing and rightfully so. People have had enough of French president Francois Hollande and his government.
Confidence is slippery, even when you are a metals investor sitting atop the best performing assets of 2016. It doesn’t help when 4 years of a miserable bear market remains fresh in our memories. Any weakness in prices and it can feel like markets are getting ready to plunge right back to $13 silver and $1,000 gold.
Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, there has been a persistent shortage of high-quality government debt. More than just a safe haven in times of financial stress— the so-called ‘flight to quality’ — the supply of high- quality sovereign debt has been steadily shrinking. This shortage became acutely apparent with the results of the Brexit referendum as investors worldwide bid up bond prices to the point where most long term bond yields reached historic lows in the US, UK , Germany and Japan. Brexit only exacerbated a shortage problem that bond investors have had to contend with for nearly a decade. The current squeeze in supply is just the latest manifestation of this wider issue in today’s financial markets.
Editor’s note: Over the next two days, instead of our normal market commentary, we’re featuring valuable tech insight from our friend Jeff Brown. As you’ll see, his advice has never been more important…
QUESTION: Marty; You said we could see new highs form in 2016 for the Dow, but the breakout is more likely in 2017. Has that changed? – BD
Good Day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! What a beautiful, weather-wise, weekend here in the St. Louis area we enjoyed this past weekend. WOW! I’m teetering on the fence this morning, not sure if I’m going to have problems or not, so if I’m gone for a while, you’ll know why! HA! What a shame that more policemen were shot this past weekend, this time in Baton Rouge… Like I said last week, the fabric of our country is being torn to shreds… We cannot allow this to continue, period! I have to talk about something else… Steely Dan greets me this morning with their song: My Old School… And I’m never going back to my old school!
Nuestra Señora de la Muerte.
The S&P 500 is trading near an all-time record high. But investors should not take this as the all clear signal. According to most indicators, the market is now more overvalued than ever before.
For 14 years, the U.S. government has been holding back the full story about 9/11…
News reports about the recently released 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks are typically dismissive: this is nothing new, it’s just circumstantial evidence, and there’s no “smoking gun.” Yet given what the report actually says – and these news accounts are remarkably sparse when it comes to verbatim quotes – it’s hard to fathom what would constitute a smoking gun.
In what feels like scenes from an edgy political satire film, New York media are now alternately casting either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton as the most dishonest presidential candidate in the annals of political history. Tragically for the country, there are legitimate grounds for making either case.
I was in the streets of Chicago in 1968 during the Democratic Convention. It was only a few months after Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were shot to death. The “establishment,” as we called it back then, was all set to nominate Vice-president Hubert Humphrey who had started out in Washington as a Midwestern progressive firebrand but was now was broadly perceived by America’s hippie youth as a stooge and a sell-out to the evil forces running the Vietnam War.
Now it’s $13 trillion.