Hurricane Irma destroyed half of Florida’s citrus crop when it tore through the state earlier this month. Many of the affected groves of oranges and grapefruits were approaching harvest and their destruction has since help send the price of orange concentrate futures rocketing higher. Unfortunately, Irma only exacerbated the situation of declining output caused by an epidemic of “citrus greening” that’s in its twelfth year.

“Go to any large, high-density city like New York or San Francisco, and you’ll notice a difference in costs immediately. The price you pay for groceries, dinner at the restaurant, filling up your tank, or even your daily coffee goes up substantially… While this effect on costs is most evident in cities, it’s actually present throughout the country.”

The U.S. federal government just passed a record $20 trillion in publicly held debt. And, it will only grow higher unless President Trump and the U.S. Congress can agree to unprecedented spending cuts combined with tax increases. But when you look at another fiscal measure – the ratio of debt-to-GDP – the U.S. is not in the worst situation…

According to a recent note published by the Pew Research Center, Millennials now head more households living below the poverty line than any other generation and, in aggregate, represent nearly one-third of all impoverished households in the United States. 

America’s favorite rapidly-depreciating asset is now losing it’s value fast than ever… which is probably not good news for an auto market in which 25% people were already underwater by an average $3,635.

“As soon as lenders (and the investors behind them) get overconfident that they have better models and can make excess profits by disrespecting credit risk, they always get their hats handed to them sooner or later. The mortgage market learned this lesson at the expense of the entire global financial system, and it is playing out now in a micro-level, in the ABS market for subprime auto loans.”

Say’s Law of markets is a particularly potent antidote to worries about automation, displaced workers, the so-called “economic singularity” as well as any fears about a re-distributive shift in income from the poor to the rich from machines.

Retail bankruptcies soared 110% in the first half from the year-ago period, accounting for $6 billion in debt. The list includes name brands such as Gymboree, Payless, rue 21 and the Limited, all of which cited the Amazon affect as a contributor to their downfall.

There is no way that this is going to end well. “…our highly levered financial system is like a truckload of nitro glycerin on a bumpy road…”

The many flaws of survey data makes it a rather questionable foundation for economic science.

The budget deficit for President Trump’s first two years in office will be nearly $250 billion higher than initially estimated, hitting $702 billion in fiscal 2017, due to what appears to have been a calculation mistake: a shortfall in tax collections and a mistake in projecting military healthcare costs, according to budget chief Mick Mulvaney.

Long walks on the beach, holding hands in a hot-tub overlooking the ocean, working on your golf game…in Hawaii, treating the kids and grand-kids to treats and trips – we have all seen the commercials of how great ‘retirement’ can be (or could have been), if you just put a little more money into the stock market via your friendly […]

There really is no true market for gold, just a rigged game consisting of physical gold and paper gold trading side by side as if they were one and the same. They’re not. And the result? More and more paper gold is poised on top of on an inverted pyramid with less and less physical gold at the base distorting the actual price of physical gold.

American auto OEMs are panicked about the coming wave of lease returns and they’re apparently colluding with auction houses to help keep used prices higher for longer.

The borrower is the servant of the lender, and through the mechanism of government debt virtually the entire planet has become the servants of the global money changers.  Politicians love to borrow money, but over time government debt slowly but surely impoverishes a nation.  As the elite get governments around the globe in increasing amounts of debt, those governments must raise taxes in order to keep servicing those debts.  In the end, it is all about taking money from us and transferring it into government pockets, and then taking money from government pockets and transferring it into the hands of the elite.  It is a game that has been going on for generations, and it is time for humanity to say that enough is enough.

The experimental and destructive monetary policies of central banks are driving many to flee to cryptocurrencies in hopes of finding some stability.

On Tuesday, in its attempt to corner the last elusive space of the retail market – clothing –  Amazon announced the launch of Prime Wardrobe, “A New Fashion Platform” which will be included in current and future Prime memberships, Amazon said on its website. Essentially Prime Wardrobe will allow users to try clothes on before they buy and receive discounts.

Trump’s victory lap back in January after Ford cancelled plans for a brand new $1.6 billion production facility in Mexico may have been premature. As it turns out, per a press release from earlier this morning, one of the first strategic actions taken by Ford’s new CEO, Jim Hackett, will be to relocate the company’s ‘Focus’ production to China rather than Mexico.

The steep increase in credit card defaults in 1Q’17 and 4Q’16 was the largest since 2009, according to a report by Moody’s, which suggests that the US consumer is getting progressively weaker and is unable to support the spending needed to keep the US economy afloat.