Economy & Finance

How Relaxed COVID-Era Rules Fueled Minnesota’s Biggest Scam Authored by Kristin Robbins via RealClearPolitics, In my testimony before the Senate last week as chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and Oversight Committee, I outlined the genesis of Minnesota’s massive fraud scandal, how it expanded under relaxed COVID-era rules, and what steps the federal government can […]

US Industrial Production Surged In January Despite slumping sentiment surveys, ‘hard’ data continues to suggest the US economy is ticking along nicely with Industrial Production surging 0.7% MoM in January (better than the +0.4% MoM expected and well up from the downward revised +0.2% MoM in December). This is the 3rd straight monthly increase in

Amid Slumping Sales & Sentiment, Housing Starts & Permits Jumped In December It would appear that homebuilders are desperately hoping for a ‘Field of Dreams’ year… After seeing existing home sales collapse in January (not driven by the winter storms), US Housing Starts and Building Permits rose dramatically more than expected in December (+6.2% MoM

Under Intensifying US Pressure To Reach Deal, Zelensky Explodes: No Time “For All This S**t” Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has increasingly made his frustrations with the Trump administration public, but he may have just crossed the line with the US President, who Zelensky admits can be tough and unbending. Zelensky has newly complained amid the

Has America Reached Peak Idiocracy? Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, We live in a lowest common denominator society. For the last several decades, virtually every major institution in our society has become less civilized, and that is because our entire population has become less civilized. 20 years ago, a film entitled

Core Durable Goods Orders Surge For 9th Straight Month US Durable Goods Orders dropped 1.4% MoM in preliminary December data (slightly better than the 2% decline expected) but well down from the +5.4% MoM surge in November… Source: Bloomberg The headline orders print was restrained by a decline in orders for aircraft. Boeing said it

Oil Surges On Report Warning US-Iran War Is Far Closer Than Americans Realize Axios’ Barak Ravid, a journalist very close to the Israeli government, writes Wednesday that the Trump White House is now “closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon.” The sources he spoke

Global “Everything Rally” Pushes US Futures HIgher As “AI Disruption” Fears Fade US equity futures trade near session highs, after rising much of the overnight session amid muted volumes. Yesterday, US stocks recovered their early losses starting just after the EU close and that momentum has carried through to global markets today with what appears to

New Mexico Launches Probe Into What Happened At Epstein’s ‘Zorro Ranch’ Until now, the public’s visualizations of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal have largely centered on his Caribbean Island and his seven-story New York townhouse, but a new setting is poised to take greater prominence, as the New Mexico legislature just launched a wide-ranging investigation into

“Pressure Is Enormous”: Nestle CEO Faces Mounting Scrutiny Amid Infant Formula Crisis Nestlé SA CEO Philipp Navratil is feeling the heat after the world’s largest food company recently carried out the biggest recall in its history, pulling infant formula off supermarket shelves after a contaminated ingredient was discovered early last month. Shares have taken a