Daily Archives: April 17, 2017

04/17/17

Earnings, Consumer Confidence, Housing Prices and MOAB

By: Kent Engelke | Capitol Securities

Thursday, stronger than expected earnings from two mega sized financials helped boost shares of financial companies. The dollar was little changed and Treasury bonds lower in the wake of the President’s comments on currencies, interest rates and support for FRB Chair Yellen.

Consumer sentiment also rose to a three month high in April and optimism about their current financial situation and the economy reached the strongest point since November 2000, according to the University of Michigan sentiment survey.

What I think is significant in the Michigan data is the “favorable home buying attitude” index is now held by 82% of respondents, the most since 2005 and just below the record of 84% in 1999.

I think this is significant for a number of reasons. First, the 2008-09 crisis started in residential real estate and is perhaps now at its official end. Second, most people judge their net worth not by the value of their stock portfolio, but by the value of their homes, hence a strong rationalization for the highest level of “current financial situation” index since 2000. Finally, the odds now favor an increase in Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER) or what someone thinks they can rent their homes for if it was indeed a rental.

OER is a major component of all inflationary indices and such has been essentially flat since 2009 after plunging in 2008. This flat lining is a major reason why inflationary expectations have remained “well anchored.” If OER rises, so does inflationary expectations.

Speaking of potential inflationary expectations, weekly jobless claims are the lowest since they reached a 44-year low in the week ended February 25. Wow!

However, during March there was a tempering of wholesale prices as such declined for the first time since August 2016. Seventy-five percent of the decrease in the March PPI however was due to a drop in final demand service (goods manufactured destined to the consumer — includes commodities as oil fell by 2.9% from the previous month).

Trading Friday was initially quiet, so was the conversation until MOAB. Like most, I believe this was dropped to garner the attention of North Korea. However it also lifted the spirits of many of whom I speak with daily, making all us feel like the country is doing something about the deteriorating geopolitical environment.

The US citizenry is not immune to historical precedence. We don’t like being pushed around and taken advantage of, feeling a sense of pride when our country attempts to right a wrong. Yes, some can find fault with this statement, but PC 101 was not offered when I went to college.

Brinkmanship was the cornerstone of American foreign policy for 70 years, a span where global conflagration did not occur (Note: WWII commenced 20 years after WWI… in the Great War, 18 million died… in WWII over 100 million died or about 3.2% of the world’s population was killed).

In my view, MAOB instilled a combination of fear and pride, an event that may boost sentiment further in the immediacy.

This week’s economic and earnings calendar is crowded. Economic releases include retail sales, CPI, manufacturing data, various housing statistics and the Beige Book.

Last night the foreign markets were down. London was down 0.29%, Paris was down 0.59% and Frankfurt was down 0.38%. China was down 0.74%, closed Japan was up 0.11% and Hang Sang closed for a holiday.

The Dow should open nervously lower amid heightened geopolitical unrest. The 10-year is up 6/32 to yield 2.21%.

04/17/17

Patriots vs. Commies: Berkeley Turns Into a War Zone [VIDEO]

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Right Wing News

Things got frisky in Berkeley, California Saturday when Antifa leftists and Trump supporters faced off. I believe this is only going to get worse over time and spread. The police basically stood back and did nothing. Both sides got their violence on and it was not pretty. One Trump supporter punched a female leftist in the face. He didn’t hold back either… wonder if he realizes he could have killed her. The Antifa thugs wore coverings over their faces and many were in fact bought and paid for by the radical left. Most are college students who have been taught over and over that Marxists are above others and are morally superior to those on the right.

At least 20 were arrested in the violent standoffs, but not until they had their fun. Berkeley was a war zone this weekend. 11 people were injured, including one officer who inhaled some variant of tear gas. There were hundreds of protesters in the streets and many were armed with one form of weapon or another. The Trump supporters wore helmets and came prepared this time. Police are saying there will be more arrests once they review video and social media of the event. There’s a lot of it out there too. Most officers donned gas masks because of tear gas. Fireworks were thrown into the mass of people and police said that pepper spray was used in the crowd.

From KRON 4:

BERKELEY (KRON) — Twenty people are in custody and 11 people were injured after an enormous group of pro and anti-Trump demonstrators clashed in Berkeley.

Hundreds of President Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters held dual demonstrations Saturday near the downtown area at 2151 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Police expect to make more arrests once they review video and social media evidence.

KRON4 had a team of reporters at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, where fights broke out and gas was released on the crowd earlier in the morning.

Those arrested were booked into Santa Rita Jail, according to police.

Due to the release of gas, officers were forced to wear gas masks.

“A large portion of the crowd has now moved into the street and some fights have broken out,” according to Berkeley police. “Currently, Allston Way between Milvia St. and Martin Luther King Jr. Way is blocked.”

Part of the demonstration crowd moved to Shattuck Avenue and Center Street, and these roads were blocked off.

Officers also said they came across several prohibited items including flagpoles, a knife, a stun gun, helmets and signs, and flags attached to poles. Those items were strictly prohibited and officers had confiscated many of them earlier in the day. The Downtown Berkeley BART station was shut down due to a “civil disturbance,” according to BART officials. When officers were asked about the fights, they said they were not at liberty to discuss their tactics. “Our No. 1 goal is to make sure that our community has an opportunity to practice its First Amendment rights,” police Sgt. Andrew Frankel said. But widely circulated video from the scene Saturday showed many Berkeley police officers standing around doing nothing as people literally beat each other into the ground. Several officers said they were ordered to stand down by the Chief of Police.

Within just a few hours of the protests starting it turned violent as Antifa activists threw rocks, used pepper spray and released tear gas at the Trump supporters. Many of the right-wingers wore head and face gear to protect themselves from the expected onslaught and began chanting “Trust fund commies, off our street!” The Trump supporters did not hold back this time and were yelling for the commies to get out of California. Refreshing.

Trump supporters had organized a Patriot Day rally, starring Lauren Southern, a former reporter for conservative Canadian outlet The Rebel Media and Kyle Chapman, a man who achieved Internet stardom as “Based Stickman” after assaulting a member of Antifa with a stick at the March 4th scuffle in Berkeley, among others. This was not a rally or a protest really… it was an all-out brawl. It was total chaos in the streets. Antifa showed up and started the violence, so this can squarely be laid at their feet. But the right decided to dance for a change and boy did they.

Antifa claims to want to stop fascists, but they are the fascists in reality. Every time they appear en masse in black masks, they’re just encouraging millions of Americans to hate them with a burning passion. And Americans are not going to stand passively by while communists run wild in the streets… not anymore.

https://twitter.com/TrumpSuperPAC/status/853357205332131840

04/17/17

Ancient Historians on Jesus Christ: World’s Most Elaborate Conspiracy Theory, or… Not?

By: Arlen Williams | Gulag Bound

God born into the flesh of man; died to pay the price of sin, for those who believe in and yield their lives to him; resurrected to overcome that separation from God above; and ascended back to Heaven till he returns — true or false? That is the crux of it, pardon the Passion season pun.

It has been said the life of Jesus, from a small town in the middle of the world called Nazareth, is the most well documented of ancient history. We have more historical detail and validation of his biography than, for example, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan.

Further, he is the subject of the most extensive study of any human, ever since. And the most “extreme” view of him is actually the shared eyewitness view of his followers and the contemporaries they convinced, now generation upon generation. They corroborate his own attestations with courtroom consistency.

Beyond that, in the most mutually corroborative accounts, the Bible’s four Gospels (i.e., “Good News” in Ancient Greek) he is shown to have fulfilled Old Testament prophecies spread over hundreds, even thousands of years. Many of these were regarded as confounding mysteries… until he solved them by bringing them to pass. That is, if one believes all the documentation is not an astoundingly vast and intricate work of conspiracy concocted right under the noses of Jesus’ contemporary skeptics and powerful opposers.

Yet beyond this, one of the often cited proof points of Christian apologists is the historic accounting of so many people so consistently willing to die for sake of this story, their confession. And these were renown for seeking to uphold the morality and ethics taught in the Bible, martyrs including those original eyewitnesses, Jesus’ disciples and chroniclers.

Must all this testimony be further corroborated by less interested historians of approximately that time, to dare be believed? J. Warner Wallace has briefly summarized just such accounts in a single article, “Is there Any Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible?” His site is called Cold Case Christianity.

Wallace suggests the decision of what to believe about Jesus is not unlike the same kind of evaluation concerning two much more recent happenings.

Two well documented historical events with a rich set of evidences. In spite of this, both events have been interpreted in a variety of ways. It shouldn’t surprise us then to find the historical records of Jesus Christ might also experience the same type of scrutiny and diverse interpretation. Did Jesus truly live, minister, died and rise from the grave as the Gospels record or was it an elaborate conspiracy? One thing we know about the Kennedy assassination and the World Trade Center attack: regardless of interpretation, there were eyewitnesses to the events, and the events did truly occur. In a similar manner, the ancient evidence related to Jesus reveals there were eyewitnesses and He did exist in history. Is there any evidence for Jesus outside the Bible? Yes, and the ancient non-Christian interpretations (and critical commentaries) of the Gospel accounts serve to strengthen the core claims of the New Testament.

He refers to historians, Thallus (52AD), Tacitus (56-120AD), Mara Bar-Serapion (70AD), Phlegon (80-140AD), Pliny the Younger (61-113AD), Suetonius (69-140AD), Lucian of Samosata: (115-200 A.D.), and Celsus (175AD). He also cites the Talmudic references of Medieval Jewish writings. Not all were kindly disposed to Jesus of Nazareth being the Bible’s Messiah.

What does Wallace conclude? I will let you look into that at will, but my careful suggestion as a Jesus Truther, don’t take too long.

“Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right?” – Jesus, Luke 12:57.