Faces Of Two Liars

 
If anyone is surprised they shouldn't be.

The lying never stops. It's global. Academics, bureaucrats, MSM, politicians, lobbyists, corporations, so-called experts, bankers, Wall Street, elites. Rigged is the word MSM pilloried Trump for using. In truth, that was too kind. Rotten to the bone is far more accurate.

Spying on its citizens and denying it. Setting up staged, phony arrests of alleged terrorists. Bribing countries with cash to cover up inept diplomacy. Toppling so-called dictators and starting unnecessary wars. Unconstitutionally expanding powers of the executive branch. Constant stonewalling with MSM succor to keep the public from knowing the truth. The list is long and laborious. Those who brought us zero tolerance should now get a dose of their recipe.
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Last October, about 6 months after the New York Times first revealed the existence of the Hillary Clinton private email server, President Obama appeared on "60 Minutes" and denied any and all knowledge of her potentially illegal technology arrangements.  When asked point blank whether he knew about Hillary's private email server, Obama responded, quite simply, "No."

Of course, we now know from the FBI's investigation notes that, in fact, that was a complete lie.  As we noted back in September, Huma Abedin's interview with the FBI on April 5, 2016 revealed an email sent on June 28, 2012 from Obama, using an unknown pseudonym, to Hillary on her private email server.  So, either Obama is so incompetent that he didn't recognize that Hillary wasn't using a ".gov" email account or he simply lied in the following interview.  We'll let you be the judge.

The first relevant exchange occurred between White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri and State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki.  Shortly after, the March 2nd New York Times article on Hillary's private email server, Palmieri, who was known to be leaving the White House to join the Clinton campaign, emailed Psaki to request that John Kerry not discuss Hillary's email scandal on an upcoming interview with "Face The Nation" on March 15th.  Apparently, Psaki was able to coordinate with CBS to make sure Kerry wouldn't be asked any "uncomfortable" questions and then wrote back to Palmieri that they were "good to go on killing CBS idea."

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Ten days after the story broke, White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri emailed State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki to ask, “between us on the shows…think we can get this done so he is not asked about email.” That apparently referred to Mr. Kerry, who appeared in an interview on CBS ’s “Face the Nation” three days later.

“Agree completely and working to crush on my end,” wrote back Ms. Psaki.

A day later, Ms. Psaki added, “Good to go on killing CBS idea.” She continued, “And we are going to hold on any other TV options just given the swirl of crap out there.” Mr. Kerry wasn’t asked on CBS about the email server, though it isn’t clear how Ms. Psaki could have guaranteed that.

Teased by Ms. Palmieri about her use of the phrase “swirl of crap,” Ms. Psaki wrote back: “Ha I mean—the challenging stories out there.”

And, of course, you can see from the transcript of Kerry's interview that he, in fact, was never asked a single question about Hillary even though other guests were questioned about the scandal later during the show.
Worse yet, Psaki, of the State Department, was seemingly rewarded for helping to "crush CBS idea" as she was given Palmieri's position at the White House once Palmieri departed to join the Clinton campaign.

Ms. Palmieri had previously announced she would be leaving the
administration to join Mrs. Clinton’s campaign in mid-2015, but was still at the White House when she sent the email. Other emails show Ms. Palmieri helped arrange for Ms. Psaki to move from the State Department to the White House communications job Ms. Palmieri was vacating.

Unfortunately the stories don't end there as other emails reveal coordination between the State Department and Hillary's attorney's all while the FBI was conducting an official investigation.

In another email coming from the State Department, Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary for management, told Heather Samuelson, one of Mrs. Clinton’s attorneys, about new documents the State Department had posted concerning the former secretary of state.
Ms. Samuelson was one of the attorneys who reviewed Mrs. Clinton’s emails to determine which were government-related and which were personal before providing the official ones to the State Department. She was interviewed by the FBI as part of its probe and granted limited immunity in exchange for turning over her laptop as part of the investigation.

In another exchange, Mr. Kennedy told Ms. Samuelson that Politico was “running [a] story that State official said Secretary Clinton did wrong thing. Wildly inaccurate reporting.”

But, as outrageous as this story is, we're sure the mainstream media will simply bury it as yet another ring-wing attempt to "criminalize behavior that is normal" and promptly go back to demanding Trump's tax returns.

zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-07/white-house-intervened-suppress-hillary-email-scandal-leaked-emails-revealax

Which Way To The Polls

"How many times did you vote?"

"Three. And you?"

"Five!"

"I heard you say six times."

"That's was the dog."

"Since when did dogs get to vote in Cook County?'

"Fifteen elections ago."

zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-06/more-illegal-immigrant-voters-discovered-philly-just-tip-iceber

Overnight

Listen not to the falling rain but the falling UK pound that at one point was down over 6% against the dollar before recouping most of it in what was a rough day for the Brexit crowd as those resentful, crusty EU member continue their hostile rhetoric today it was French President Francois Hollande.

The WSJ reported: “The Brexit situation is one of the risk focuses the markets have,” said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets. “The question is how is it going to play out.”

The pound fell as much as 6.3% against the dollar to $1.1819 in early Asian trading before recovering, according to Thomson Reuters data. The declines have since narrowed to around 1.9%.

The selloff began with comments by French President François Hollande, who said the EU should negotiate toughly with the U.K. to avoid a fallout on member states. Britain wanted to leave the bloc “but doesn’t want to pay,” which was “not possible,” Mr. Hollande said in comments cited by Sky News.

“I initially doubted what I saw on my screen,” said Kenji Yoshii, a foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo, as the pound tumbled in early Asia trading. The wave of selling Friday follows a rough patch for the pound. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Theresa May set a date to begin leaving the EU. So far in October, the pound was down 4.1% against the dollar. The Nekki was off 0.20%, Hang Seng faltered 0.38%, the Shanghai o.21%, the BSE Sensex fell0.41% and the ASX 200 down 0.3%.

Elsewhere, banks in Japan fell after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kurodacautioned Thursday that European nations should react to the problems affecting their banking system in a timely manner, juxtaposing the current situation with Japan’s banking crisis in the 1990s.

The central banker said the banking crisis in Japan grew more serious and extended as the government took a long time to respond, with the injection of public funds. “It is true that had adverse effect on the macro economy,” Mr. Kuroda told reporters in Washington, D.C.

Computerized trading later caught some of the blame for the down pound. The dollar pound I'd the fourth most active trade pair of currencies. According to Thompson Reuters the range was $1.1819 from $1.2614 before recovering. More recently, it was down 1.4% at $1.2437. That was off last weeks's $130 levels. In February of 1985, the pound fell as low as $1.0520 amid an acrimonious mining-industry strike. The yen drifted lower at 103.78. Mainline Chinese banks were closed for holiday.

Reuters reported, citing OPEC sources, that energy ministers from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq will be among key OPEC representatives to meet non-OPEC member Russia at the sidelines of an energy conference in Istanbul in the coming week. During Asian hours on Friday, oil traded flat. U.S. crude futures were unchanged at $50.44, after finishing up 1.2 percent in the U.S. session. Global benchmark Brent was down 0.02 percent at $52.50 a barrel, after adding 1.3 percent overnight.

And here's what  gold looked lke after anhter rough day. Last traded at 1255.20.

Gold Here

 
So what do we think of gold right here?

We like it.The meme is a strong dollar hurts gold and it it does. The Fed has sent its obligatory messengers into the wilderness of the marketplace to spread the word interest rates are going up. And most likely they will, though there's a possibility they won't.

But there is more to it here, as is usually the case. We have listed excerpts from two gold articles. You need to read them both in their fullness to get a better picture. We will be buyers but until we get a clearer signal for the entry point we want or should we say hope to get. But we have no intention of being washed out of it.
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To say that gold and gold stock investors have seen their portfolios pull back over the past two months would be a big understatement. However, because the rally that preceded it this year was huge it still appears that the market is just wringing out its excesses. And that means a buying opportunity is near.

Gold bottomed in December 2015 at a price of $1045.40 per troy ounce and then rallied to $1377.50 by July. That was a 32% gain, in round numbers, and was a serious move in anyone’s book. Since then, gold is down just under 9% in price, which is a significant decline.

 

The VanEck Vectors Gold Miners exchange-traded fund (ticker: GDX) had a much wilder ride, as it gained more than 150% from its January low to its August high. And its drop from the peak was a portfolio-busting 27%. Volatility cuts both ways so investors owning gold stocks saw tremendous profits on the way up and commensurate losses on the way down.

The question is, “Why are these markets both down so much and are they back in their long-term bear markets?”

barrons.com/articles/gold-fans-keep-the-faith-this-bloodbath-will-end
  
What Else is Moving

1. There is massive FX volatility  as money piles into the USD
2. Oil is rallying relentlessly
3. Gold is down against every major currency this week
4. There is no observable news to justify moves of this magnitude
5. Precious Metals are having the largest drawdowns of any other market
6. JGBs after getting hammered post the BOJ August policy change  have recouped 1/2 of their losses

Right now we are trying to get a bearing on the possible causes seen and unseen on the deluge of selling.In times like this, we are long on observable facts, and short on opinions until a thesis that ties things together materializes. And when one does not, we just look at what is moving the most and try to reverse engineer the behavior.

Biggest Movers This Week Using the chart below we can easily spot what the biggest movers in  widely held commodities and the FX markets were this week.
Weekly Futures Performance

 
 ODEY's Levered Gold Bet

Even Paulson would be scared

Odey’s  biggest bet is in Gold. Gold represents 100 per cent of his fund’s unleveraged value, meaning a large rally or fall in its value may dictate the fate of his entire portfolio. His reasons are well known, and may be why he has become a target if it is Odey being liquidated. Mr. Odey: “central banks have printed $80tn of money, backed by only $1.27tn of gold”. Which we agree is going to be the death of all paper money. But to be leveraged to the extent that Odey is may be irresponsible.

As the FT states: "Odey’s long gold position interacts with his overarching premise — that a crisis starting in China explodes through global markets. Large amounts of global gold demand come from Asia."

And there is the problem. The crisis has to be inflationary, not deflationary. And Central Bankers are in charge of a market that will take out leveraged portfolios despite easy money.

ODEY's Levered JGB Bet

Mr Odey’s second big trade is that Japanese government bond yields will explode higher as financial markets realize that the “all in” Bank of Japan has run out of ammunition. Some macro hedge funds have over the years attempted to short JGBs based on the idea that the country’s indebtedness and poor growth was incompatible with its low yields. JGB yields have continued to drop, leading to the trade being nicknamed the “widow maker”
Again from the FT:

"the premise that JGB yields will rise during market turmoil is no certainty. The Japanese are the world’s largest single owners of financial assets, which in the event of a crash would presumably be sold and funds repatriated into yen. Over the last two decades a strong yen has tended to coincide with a fall in Japanese government bond yields. Betting against JGBs in anticipation of a crisis may have painfully opposite consequences when a crisis arrives."

 
marketslant.com/articles/common-sense-gold-and-silver-etfs

It Begins And Ends

Donald Trump is hardly a savior because there are none except the one you view in the mirror every morning if you bother.

Trump is merely an ingredient--a necessary one in this case--like the main one you need in a recipe. We are surrounded by deception and lies, Gilbert and Sullivan's things not being what they seem, skim milk masquerading as whip cream. The two main parties and, yes, so too the third and fourth and so on. These are not parities of and by and for the people. These are elitists, control mongers, even mobsters not much different from the kind one can see on television and in the movies.

Questioning their territory is one thing, threatening it another. And that's what the anti-globalization movement is about. Not Trump. He's just a symbol, a dangerous one they in their arrogance and conceit vastly underestimated. It's not Trump; it's those deplorables, another convenient epithet.

Populism is as racists a term as the elitists and MSM have in their lexicon of what constitutes racism. It is no different from calling a person or group a name based on the color of their skin or their sex. Labeling an individual or group a name, or epithet, for exercising what is suppose to be their right to freedom of choice, speech and assembly in the phony democracies that populate the globe is the height of racism.

The real racists are those who created the meme zero tolerance. The climate change freaks who dissemble and threaten anyone and all who question their hardly exact science. In a real democracy tolerance is one of the most basic planks. A never ending one centered on diversity, not the PC packaged kind that's being forced on societies today. It begins and ends with individuals not regulations and laws. It begins and ends with respect. And if there are any spiritual people still around today willing to risk making their beliefs public, they know it begins and ends with love.
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Must Read of the Day – ‘I Listened to a Trump Supporter

I talked at length with a Trump supporter I grew up around. I wanted to understand. I respected her growing up. I wanted to know why a person as kind and compassionate as I remember her is voting for someone like Donald Trump.

She was a family friend, a good person. In rural Ohio, everything was tight. Money, jobs. If you really needed quick cash, she’d put you to work doing landscaping. She’d pay fairly and reliably for the area.

She’s voting for Donald Trump. I disagree with her choice, but I understand why she rejects Clinton so fiercely, and why she’s been swept up in Donald Trump’s particular brand of right-wing populism. I feel that on the left, it’s increasingly easy to ignore these people, to disregard them, to write them off as racists, bigots, or uneducated. I think that’s a loss for everyone involved, and that sometimes listening can help you to at least understand why a person is making the choices they make, so you can work on the root causes. For her, the root cause isn’t racism. In fact, I remember her as one of the only people in the area who proudly hired black workers, in a place where that was a huge issue. She fought over that choice.

But that’s enough background. Let me relay a bit of what she told me.

She’s a person who built her business from the ground up. She wasn’t rich, but was very comfortable for the area. She had a nice house, a nice car, and was stable. She achieved the American dream of not having to struggle. Things changed during the housing crisis. A landscaping business requires customers who need landscaping, and people who don’t own homes just don’t need landscaping. In some of these neighborhoods, one in five people lost their homes. That almost immediately turns a successful landscaping business into a struggling one.

Then there was a domino effect. She couldn’t pay for her lawn-care equipment leases and loans. That hurt her work efficiency. Then, she lost her car. But that didn’t stop the payments. Then, she lost her house. She slowly had to let go all of her employees, until it was just her, hand-mowing lawns for cash the way you might expect a high school student in the summertime.

She told me that every week, it seemed there was another default letter, another foreclosure, another bank demanding more blood from her dry veins. To her, that pile of default notices and demands for payment looked suspiciously similar to Hillary Clinton’s top donor list.

She lost everything she worked so hard for. Obama swore he was going to help. The Wall Street bailout did seem to help Wall Street. But it did absolutely nothing for her. She turns on the news and sees how the Dow Jones is doing better than ever. But that didn’t bring her house and livelihood back. Liberals insist that Obama’s made her life better. But, now she’s driving a car that falls apart randomly while having to pay those same banks for a car she doesn’t own and never will. It’s difficult to convince someone whose life is objectively worse that their life is better. And it’s disingenuous to try. You can break down the specifics, sure. But when someone’s hungry, and you’re busy silencing their complaints by telling them how well world hunger is improving, you’re just going to upset them.

This is not a person who is stupid or racist. She knows Bush caused the economy collapse with his irresponsible tax policies and wars. But she saw liberals as fighting for the banks’ recovery, to hell with her needs. She sees in Hillary someone who celebrates that approach. Who measures US success by the success of multinational mega corporations — corporations who undercut and destroy local businesses. This is a person who grew up in a town with a friendly neighborhood general store, a locally-owned hardware store, farmers’ markets, florists, and auto shops. All of these businesses closed when Walmart moved into town. All their owners now work at that Walmart for a fraction of their previous wages, no benefits, and no hope for something better, something of their own. And now, she sees a free trade supporting former Walmart executive about to come in to office, and it feels like salt in her community’s wounds.

This is a wounded person. Insulting her or continuing to hurt her isn’t going to help. She’s swept up in Trump’s message because she feels someone’s finally listening. Right-wing populism is an awful thing. But desperate people with their backs against the wall will grasp on to whatever they feel will bring a change. Neoliberal capitalism is not sustainable for these people.

Over the past few years, she tried getting back in her business. But a corporation moved in and is operating far cheaper, using undocumented immigrant labor. I should note: She specifically said she doesn’t hold it against the migrant workers. As she said, “They’ve got to take whatever jobs they can get. Just like we do. It’s not their fault. They didn’t choose to make prices so low that legal businesses couldn’t compete.” She was literally a “job creator”. And she wasbeing priced out by the very people Donald Trump insists are pricing her out. That hurts everyone, and it adds an air of authenticity to what he says.

I asked her if she supports Trump’s Mexico wall. She told me, “It doesn’t matter if I do. Hillary wants a wall, too. That wall’s gonna happen.” She wasn’t simply making this up. She’s heard this from many sources, Clinton being one of them. So to her, the idea of a border wall is a non-issue. I pressed her on the issue, and she said she thinks, “It’s a waste of money. If someone wants to cross the border, they’re gonna cross the border.”…

A few times, she seemed ashamed of things Trump’s said or done. I’d ask her to unpack her feelings. She said he sometimes upsets her, but “If you wait and wait for a flawless candidate, you’ll never find one.” She said she’d be much prouder to vote for Trump if he’d tone down his rhetoric.

This fits into my strongly held belief that people are looking for an excuse to vote for Trump. All he has to do to win is tone down some of his more heinous and idiotic tendencies.

I talked to her a bit about Bernie Sanders, to see what she thought of him. She told me, “He seemed like a nice enough guy. But I didn’t pay him much mind because there was no way he was gonna beat Clinton.” I talked with her about his platform, his policy proposals. She lit up. She told me, “It’s a real shame he didn’t make it.” She told me that if she knew him, his record, and his proposals, she’d have voted for him. I said that since the primary concluded, Hillary’s shifted some to adopt policies similar to his, and I asked if that changed her mind. She told me, “It doesn’t matter what she says. It matters what she’s done.”

No amount of insulting her from an ivory tower is going to change her mind. No amount of guffawing about her lack of education, her self-deception, her racism, or her internalized misogyny is going to change her mind. The only thing she’ll listen to is a promise of real change to the system that’s hurt her. If the Democratic Party can’t offer her a viable alternative, we’re going to see another neck-and-neck election in 2020, and in 2024, and in 2028.

These people need a populist answer. They need someone willing to listen to their very real concerns, and offer solutions that don’t look like Band-Aids on bullet wounds. If they had that on the left, we wouldn’t even be discussing Ohio as a “swing state”.

Right now, this is the discourse we’re seeing about Trump supporters. This only emboldens those attitudes. To people like her, this feels like the left is laughing at her for her unwillingness to get in line and support the things that have left her broke and broken.

The above excerpts are not the entire piece. You should read the whole thing: I Listened to a Trump Supporter.

The more deeply I think about this election, the more I agree that the above sentiments motivate Trump voters far more than feelings of racism or hate. As I noted in a piece published a few weeks ago, The Status Quo vs. Donald Trump:

This isn’t about me. This is about the American voter, and the more time passes, the more I understand the motivations of the vast majority of Trump supporters. It isn’t xenophobia or racism, it’s a vote against the status quo and the way they’ve strip mined and destroyed this country. It’s a FU vote and a major gamble, but it’s not as irrational or hateful as you might think.

This doesn’t mean that Trump won’t betray his supporters and prove to be the Republican version of Barack Obama, but it does mean that the dominant media narrative characterizing Trump supporters as a bunch of racist, uneducated brutes is pretty much just dishonest, elitist propaganda.

libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/05/must-read-of-the-day-i-listened-to-a-trump-supporter/

Well, George, We're There

People know about George Orwell's 1984, but in 1946 he penned an essay, “Politics and the English Language,"about the dangers of  debasing the language. You debase the currency first, then the language. See 1913 the year of inception for the IRS and this Federal Reserve Bank.

Once upon a time in the English language we had the comparative case: slow, slower and slowest; dumb, dumber and dumbest; fat, fatter and fattest. Two of them--and quite possibly all three--have been outlawed already. The diversity gap. That's one of those premeditated PC misnomers. It's hardly subtle. But it's malicious. At a time when universities are allowing so-called safe zones where only certain races or people of a certain persuasion are allowed, this academic is supposedly concerned about widening the diversity gap.

Well, George, we're there.

Student leaders of this year’s freshman orientation at James Madison University were given a list of 35 things they should avoid saying, including phrases such as “you have such a pretty face,” “love the sinner, hate the sin,” “we’re all part of the human race,” “I treat all people the same,” “it was only a joke,” “I never owned slaves,” and “people just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps,” among other expressions.

Those phrases and others on the list “widen the diversity gap” and do not “create a safe and inclusive environment,” according to the seven-page handout, a copy of which was provided to The College Fix by a campus spokesman.

Adapted from Dr. Maura Cullen’s book “35 Dumb Things Well-Intended People Say: Surprising Things We Say that Widen the Diversity Gap,” the list also classifies some compliments and encouraging words, such as calling someone “cute” or saying “I know exactly how you feel,” as a no-no.

Many of the “dumb” statements also pertained to race. “I don’t see color,” “I’m colorblind” and “I don’t see difference. We’re all part of the same race, the human race” were all advised against. “If you are going to live in this country, learn to speak the language” also made the list.

After each phrase, an explanation as to why it should be avoided was given. Expressions on race allegedly make people of color feel invisible and diminish their life experiences, the handout states. Statements of empathy supposedly “shuts the other person down,” it adds. Saying to LBGTQ people “what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom is your business” is “hurtful and annoying” because it does not acknowledge the quality and depth of their relationship outside the bedroom, the handout states.The last item on the list warns against labeling something as political correct, calling it “an attempt to shut the other person up.”

James Madison University’s director of communications Bill Wyatt told The College Fix via email that “this was just an exercise, prior to orientation, to get our volunteers to understand how language affects others. The list was not distributed to our first-year students nor were the volunteers instructed not to use the phrases.”

Yet page one of the handout, written by JMU, reads that orientation leaders should “use this handout as a resource” to help accomplish the goal of creating a “safe and inclusive environment for your first year students.”They were also called upon by the handout to “take some time to reflect on your prejudices and biases, and how that might affect your interactions with students.”

They've been working on the currency for years and it was only a matter of time before they got around to the language. The only thing dumb is this lady's book. It's hurtful and annoying. For those of you with pre-college children still at home, you might want to consider if this is the kind of university or college you want your children to attend. It's called using your purchasing power.

The number is 35 today. By the time your children get there it could be 35,000 and  have it's own academic department.

pjmedia.com/trending/2016/10/05/james-madison-u-tells-students-35-things-they-should-never-say

The Kaine Way

If Hillary Clinton running mate Tim Kaine had his way, Virginia residents would today be paying billions in higher taxes. As governor, Kaine sought to impose nearly $4 billion in higher taxes, including an income tax hike on families earning as little as $17,000 a year. He also pushed for higher taxes on distilled spirits and cigarettes.

Income Tax Hike on Working Families: Kaine tried to Increase the bottom tax rate from 5.75% to 6.75%, directly affecting low income families earning as little as $17,000 annually. As noted by Politifact Virginia: “Not everyone at that level would have paid more under Kaine’s plan, but it’s a safe bet that large number of them would have seen their overall tax bill rise.”
Alcohol Tax: Kaine pushed a 2% markup on distilled spirits sold in Virginia’s fully monopolized state-owned retail stores.

By law, Virginia residents and businesses must purchase distilled spirits from the monopoly Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) stores. Residents can’t even escape the regime by buying their beverages elsewhere, because Virginia only allows residents to bring home one gallon from another state. Rather than reform the system, Kaine tried to squeeze more money out of hard working Virginians. He called for a two percent across the board markup, which would have raised the retail price for people shopping in ABC stores as well as those enjoying a beverage in a restaurant. Virginians would have had no choice but to pay the Kaine-imposed markup. Kaine’s attempted $8 million beverage tax hike was part of his final budget proposal, released Dec. 18, 2009.

Cigarette Tax: Kaine pushed a 60-cents per pack cigarette tax increase on smokers, whose median income was about $40,000 per year. Kaine’s record in support of tax hikes made him an attractive running mate Hillary, who has proposed a series of tax increases totaling at least $1 trillion over ten years.

Read more: atr.org/taxin-tim-kaine-tried-raise-income-taxes-poorest-among-us

Overnight

For the fourth straight session Japanese shares climbed as the Nikkei 220 benefited from a weaker yen and the upswing in the U.S. market, gaining 0.8% to 16,949.51 on the back of financials and exporters. Many investors will be waiting to see Friday's U.S. jobless claims figures.

The dollar helped out trading at 103.34 near it four week high of 103.57 hit Wednesday. Higher oil prices didn't hurt Asians shares either as as prices after the U.S. Energy Information Administration
announced stockpiles fell by 3 million barrels last week, the fifth unexpected weekly drawdown. Oil was initially up 2%, but later gave back some of those gains with Brent futures falling 0.62% from its highs to $51.54 a barrel. U.S.futures followed a similar pattern, dropping 0.66%, at $49.50 a barrel.

The Hang Send index edged slightly higher, 0.48%, at 23902.60; the ASX 200, up 0.56%, at 5483.70; the Shanghai Composite at 3005.51,ahead 0.23% and the Korean Kospi up 0.44% at 2062.02. Again, positive U.S. news released Wednesday helped with the September ISM non-manufacturing coming in stronger than expected at 57.1, compared with a Reuters poll estimate of 53. Factory orders also increased slightly in August, while the trade deficit in the U.S. widened more than expected in August, and mortgage applications increased 2.9 percent last week. In all it was an up day for Wall Street's three main markets with the Dow up 0.62% at 18,281.62, the S&P 500 gaining 0.43% to 2,159.73 and the Nasdaq higher by 0.5% to finished at 5,316.02. Gold held its ground at 1272.50 an ounce.

Hillary Cheats Again

There is no end to what Hillary will do to deceive.

With only one questioner getting to read their question from a script, a 15 year old threw Hillary a softball that it turns out, as one might suspect, was too soft at this town hall meeting yesterday in the Keystone State. This goes way beyond arrogance. It's in-your-face contempt for the electoral process that itself is under suspicion for its lack of integrity and any decent voters from either party. But, then again, it's typical of the Clinton regime and their 20 year-plus saga in public life.

zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-05/clinton-caught-using-child-actor-ask-planted-question-pennsylvania-townhall

If Bloomberg Says It It Must Be True

In the VP debate last night, Senator Tim Kaine boasted about 15 million jobs this administration has created since the economic downturn.

Apparently, the good Senator doesn't read the works of another big Hillary supporter, Bloomberg.

What's happening? Middle-income jobs have all but disappeared over the years in the South Florida city, sending residents to either the low end or the high end of the spectrum.

“Miami-Dade now has more jobs than it had in 2007,” said Kevin Greiner, senior fellow at the Florida International University Metropolitan Center. “The problem is that the quality, and the wages, and the income of those jobs created have been significantly lower than they were in the past."




bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-05/miami-is-the-newly-crowned-most-unequal-city-in-the-u-s

This was  supposed to play as an attack on the income gap between the wealthy and the poor. Note the time used mostly runs from 2007-20015. nearly all of those years under the current administration and the current Fed. So most of those jobs Kaine smugly boasted abut were, even if they exist, of the bartender and burger flipper variety. And last we looked Florida was listed as a swing state.

What's more the Fed devastated the people at the lower ends of this economic totem pole. And this last quote pushes the important point after eight years of the status quo: What economic recovery?

Miami, like most other major cities, wants to nurture higher-skill technology jobs. But what would actually help narrow the inequality gap is a solid recovery in retail, lodging and recreation, according to Nathaniel Karp, chief U.S. economist at BBVA Compass.