Courtesy of John Rubino.
A good news/bad news day: Consumer spending jumps, consumer confidence plunges, two Fed regional reports disappoint. Escorts and McDonald’s both point towards slowdown. China’s credit risk grows. Japan ramps up stimulus, rest of world soon to follow. Charles Hugh Smith on why pension funds (that is, your retirement) are doomed. Great interviews with James Rickards and Helen Chaitman. Oil and gold stable. Gold’s COT report improves dramatically, though not enough to signal a bottom. Bitcoin is soaring on China demand. Trump says more crazy stuff, Clinton gets bad news, and Brexit gains support.
Best Of The Web
Here’s why all pension funds are doomed, doomed, doomed… – OfTwoMinds.com
Dominic Frisby interviews James Rickards – Frisby’s Bulls & Bears
Criminal bankers threaten entire world economy – USA Watchdog
Gold: Intelligentsia – you’re fired! – 321Gold
The business of central banks is like pornography – Finanz und Wirtschaft
Stock share buybacks now bought out – The Great Recession
Rick Rule on gold’s bull market – King World News
We’re in the eye of a global financial hurricane – OfTwoMinds.com
The coming Fed-induced pension bust – Hussman Funds
“We are becoming convinced that the system won’t stabilize” – Zero Hedge
Trump victory odds soar as the Hillary Clinton ‘death cross’ strikes – Zero Hedge
What we have now isn’t capitalism – Wall St. For Main St.
Weekly commentary: unambiguous signals disregarded – Credit Bubble Bulletin
Doggie (life) style – AheadOfTheHerd.com
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Breaking News
The Economy
5/31 Consumer confidence unexpectedly plunges – Business Insider
5/31 Consumer spending posts biggest gain in more than six years – CNBC
5/31 Goldman Sachs financed Clinton’s son-in-law’s Greek bets – Wall St. On Parade
5/31 Investing in the face of an interest rate hike – Korelin Economics Report
5/31 Mizuho CEO: Japan sales tax delay is “admission Abenomics has failed” – ZH
5/31 Brazil’s new anti-corruption minister involved in corruption scandal – Zero Hedge
5/30 China defualt chain reaction threatens products worth 35% of GDP – Bloomberg
5/30 Cuddling and Egg McMuffins show economic slowdown underway – Financial Sense
5/30 ‘Seismic shift’ coming for US dollar, gold market – Financial Sense
5/30 World’s Japanese growth engine stays in the station – Financial Review
5/30 Australia’s debt problem looks worse than China’s – Financial Review
5/30 Millennials and living at home – Dr. Housing Bubble
5/30 Debt rattle – Automatic Earth
5/29 China April industrial profit growth slows from March – Money Control
5/29 Rauner vetoes bill reducing pension contributions – Mish
5/29 Weekly commentary: Just the facts – Credit Bubble Bulletin
5/29 The banking crisis in Spain is back – Wolf Street
5/29 Mind the seasonal maladjustments and statistical shenanigans – David Stockman
Precious Metals
5/31 Thanks to Yellen, gold will bounce back – Daily Bell
5/31 Bullish hedge funds run for the exits in gold market – Kitco
5/30 Gold and silver – at significant support. New “story” developing – Edge Trader Plus
5/30 Energy & debt crisis point to much higher metals price – SRSrocco Report
5/30 For how many millennia do John Plender and the FT plan to disparage gold? – GATA
5/29 Why China’s largest bank just bought a massive gold vault – Motley Fool
5/29 Commercial traders do something unprecedented in report’s history – Seeking Alpha
5/29 The Fed can’t make a decision, but they can make gold glitter – Birch Gold
5/29 The arguments for gold in 2016 that no one should ignore – Birch Gold
5/29 A few questions to those who slam gold – Zero Hedge
5/29 Pierre Lassonde interview – King World News
5/28 Gold futures slide to lowest close in 3 months – MarketWatch
5/28 Gold and silver – at significant support. New “story” developing – Edge Trader Plus
5/28 5 things you need to know about investing in gold – Kiplinger
5/28 ‘Strong hands’ returning to gold in new world of negative yields – Bloomberg
5/28 Gold miner investors could stand to be more paranoid – NewsMax
5/28 What Austria’s gold audit means for you – Sovereign Investor
Inflation, Deflation, Currency War, Cryptocurrencies
5/31 Economists and faith leaders plot Britain’s downfall – Daily Bell
5/31 Brexit focus on immigration concerns is paying off – Telegraph
5/31 Brits “appalled, disgusted” at Brexit postal ballot ‘fraud’ – Zero Hedge
5/30 Oil rally gives ECB inflation forecasts a boost – Telegraph
5/30 Jubilee debt relief as prelude to new global economic order – Market Oracle
5/30 Bitcoin soon to be accepted at online casinos – NewsBTC
5/30 Bitcoin skyrockets and is now up more than 100% this jubilee year – Dollar Vigilante
5/29 China depreciates currency to 5 year low – China Topix
5/29 Bitcoin enabled as an investment option for retirement accounts – CryptoCoins News
5/29 China thinks the US will default via inflation – Birch Gold
5/29 Currency tranquility is calm before storm as risks taunt traders – Bloomberg
5/29 Bitcoin is soaring on unprecedented burst in Chinese buying – Zero Hedge
Real Estate Bubble
5/31 The new subprime mortgage – Zero Hedge
5/30 Sam Zell dumps holdings, warns “the Fed deferred reality for too long” – Zero Hedge
5/30 Homes priced in ounces of gold – Smaulgld
5/28 A worrisome pileupon of $100 million homes – New York Times
DollarCollapse Podcasts
5/23 Hard times for obsolete entities
5/14 Chaos spreads to US retailers and Italian banks
5/04 Easy money has failed; what’s next?
4/27 Okay, I’ll say it: run for the hills
4/21 Corporate earnings (among other things) go from bad to horrendous
4/13 A potentially brutal earnings season kicks off
4/06 The end of privacy = risk off and soaring gold
3/30 The inevitable is now imminent
3/22 Huge government deficits coming
3/17 Same mistakes, bigger scale
Politics
5/31 As Trump feuds with ‘Pocahontas,’ Sanders appeals to Native Americans – WaPo
5/31 New poll shows only 4% of Americans trust congress – Daily Bell
5/31 Electronic voitng machines & why voters should be suspicious of every election – ZH
5/31 “Bill Clinton was here”: the elite one-percent ‘orgy island’ exposed – Zero Hedge
5/31 Donald Trump is oddly popular in China –Fortune
5/31 7 times we were sure Donald Trump wouldn’t get the GOP nomination – Mashable
5/31 Why Donald Trump has a real chance to become president – SMH
5/31 Conservative party turmoil escalates with open call for Cameron to quit –Guardian
5/31 “The only true ‘safe space’ is liberty and freedom” – Heat Street
5/30 Sensing opportunity, Libertarians pick Johnson, Weld for ticket – MarketWatch
5/30 Rise of Trump tracks growing debate over global fascism – Zero Hedge
5/30 How an old-school gossip columnist explains Donald Trump – Atlantic
5/30 In campaign chaos, Donald Trump shows his management style – Washington Post
5/30 Donald Trump hasn’t broken journalism. It was already broken – Daily Kos
Offshore Investing
5/20 EU to compile common blacklist of tax havens, sanction them – Reuters
5/17 Panama Papers: dozens of Americans tied in – Panama Papers
5/17 Panama Papers hub in Miami: Citigroup’s private bank – Wall St on Parade
5/12 Crooks, terrorists, tax evaders: Can new shell company rule stop them? – Reuters
Clean Tech
5/31 Tesla’s Gigafactory sets grand opening for July 29th – Verge
5/31 Big corporations ditching their power providers. A sign of the utility death spiral? – GTM
5/31 Utility scale wind turbine market poised to $130 billion by 2016 – Cluster Mapping
5/31 Saudi Arabia – the next solar super power? – Business
5/30 JinkoSolar outstrips Trina Solar in module shipments – Solar Server
5/30 Clean energy to take bigger share of electricity – Bloomberg
5/29 Tall buildings are bigger threat to birds than wind power – Bloomberg
5/28 There’s a lot to unpack in Trump’s answers about energy policy – Washington Post
5/28 Wind energy’s rustic years are over – Slate
5/28 Solar story is just getting started – Financial Sense
5/28 Trump vows to undo Obama’s climate agenda –Reuters
5/27 Generation wind – building a bridge to America’s clean energy future – Huffington Post
Art of the Collapse
5/30 Economic reality, brick walls, budget balancing act political cartoons – Mish
5/08 ‘Dilbert’ creator’s 6 reasons why Trump will win – Zero Hedge
War, Civil Unrest, Privacy, Creeping Fascism, Police State
5/31 Sen. Rand Paul: we must restore congressional authority on declaring war – Time
5/31 Texas men train to shoot Muslims, dip bullets in pig blood – Independent
5/31 How to legally scam the welfare system – Zero Hedge
5/31 Governments to commercial spyware to intimidate dissidents – Mish
5/31 Erdogen: “contraception is treason, women not equal, Muslims must multiply” – Mish
5/30 French unions to extend strikes to trains, planes, buses – Mish
5/30 This is how bloody US-China war could start –National Interest
5/30 The EU has turned Greece into a prison for refugees – Nation
Self-sufficiency, Food Security, Survival
5/31 Building an igloo alone: “Survive In Ice and Snow” –SHTF Plan
5/31 Cell-phone-radiation causes brain and heart tumors in rodents – Kurzweil
5/29 Eat some Sesame seeds to fight oxidative stress – Modern Farmer
5/27 Living a longer life with baking soda – Dr Sircus
5/27 The hidden side of Wall Street’s “mischief”– Economy and Markets Daily
CyberWar, CyberTerrorism, CyberCrime
5/29 North Korea linked to digital thefts from global banks – NY Times
5/29 President Obama threw a cyberwar… and no one came – Tech Dirt
5/22 Cyberwar: The smart person’s guide – Tech Republic
5/21 Yet another major cyberheist in ‘secure’ global payments system – Zero Hedge
5/20 Cyber-war gets real – Baseline Mag
Off-Topic But Brilliant/Challenging/Infuriating
5/31 Things are thriving in the “modern hooker economy” – Zero Hedge
5/31 ‘Huge wake up call’: Third of central, northern Great Barrier Reef corals dead – SMH
5/31 By the year 2040, embryo selection could replace for procreation – Kurzweil
5/31 Football’s silent shame: Dementia ‘conspiracy’ is a stain on the game – Telegraph
5/31 Woman who died after night swim in crocodile-infested waters – Telegraph
5/30 Schrödinger’s cat now has a playmate – CS Monitor
5/30 Your next hamburger may contain endangered wolf – Take Part
5/30 Cincinnati zoo kills gorilla to save child who slipped into enclosure – CNN
5/30 Cash-strapped ISIS is selling sex slaves on FaceBook for $8,000 – Zero Hedge
5/30 How to become gluten intolerant – JP Sears
