What
the Layoffs at Ford’s Medium-Duty Truck Plant Mean - (www.wolfstreet.com) Demand
from businesses in the real economy is slumping! These particular layoffs
aren’t happening because consumers are strung out and have trouble getting
financing or are switching down to used vehicles or whatever. They’re happening
because demand from commercial customers that ply their trade in the real economy
is slumping. Ford announced that it will lay off 130 hourly workers and
eliminate one shift from May 8 until the end of September at its Ohio Truck
Plant that makes medium-duty F-650 and F-750 trucks. They’re are used by
businesses such as…
·
Dump-truck operators…
·
Companies that operate
cargo box trucks…
·
Companies that need boom and
bucket trucks, such as utilities…
FT's John Dizard Warns Of "Catastrophic
Decline In Asset Values" - (www.zerohedge.com)
"Short term asset price declines
have been reversed by the wall of money coming out of active investment
managers and into the accounts of low-cost index products. But this comes
at the expense of making the eventual decline in a broad range of asset
values not just painful, but catastrophic." The mania for average returns has been suppressing
short term losses, or corrections:
A. sound banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one
who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with
his fellows, so that no one can really blame him. — John Maynard Keynes
We
have created a bubble in average. Waiters
and childhood friends are no longer telling us about what miracle gold, oil, or
tech stocks they bought at the right time. They are exchanging stories about
low management fees on their index-tracking exchange traded funds.
Puerto
Rico: A Debt Problem That Kept Boiling Over - (www.nytimes.com) It
all goes back to 1917. Congress passed a law that year making Puerto Ricans
United States citizens. That same law, still on the books today, empowered the
island to raise money by issuing tax-exempt bonds. And not just federally
tax-exempt bonds: Congress went on at length to bar anyone from taxing Puerto
Rico’s bonds, presumably never dreaming how this would play out a century later
— which, on Wednesday, led to the territory declaring a form of bankruptcy because it could not pay the $123 billion
in bonds and unpaid pension debts it owes. The 100-year-old law stipulates that
no one — not any state, not any county or city, not the District of Columbia,
not any other territories, not even Puerto Rico itself — can tax the interest
that Puerto Rico pays its investors. This has spurred people with eyes on easy
profits to dive in for decades.
Why
Charles Gave Expects "Total Mayhem" In France Even If Macron Is
Elected - (www.zerohedge.com) If Macron is elected, as I already said, I'm
not sure it's not going to be a triumphant election. So I'm not sure they will
have that much legitimacy at first. And second thing is that just after, we
have the election for the French Parliament. And then it's going to be a total
mayhem. Because you have four main different currents in France. The extreme
left, the Macron left, you see? You have the Fillon right, and you have Le
Pen's right. So you have four. The way it's done before is that you had only
three. Extreme left and the left were joined. And you had the election, you had
three guys, and if anyone from the Front National had any chance of being
elected, then the worst position of the other two retired. Right away. And
said, you must vote for my usual enemy, but we don't want to. It's what's
called the Front Republic.
Regulator
in China Takes Aim at Anbang Insurance Group - (www.nytimes.com) A
Chinese regulator announced on Friday that it had taken disciplinary measures
against the Anbang Insurance Group, a financial behemoth that has tried to
invest tens of billions of dollars overseas, for the improper sale of two
investment products. The moves by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission
come against a backdrop of broader worries about the country’s financial
system, in addition to ones about the insurance industry. President Xi Jinping
told Politburo members last month that China should place a strong emphasis on
financial stability as a pillar of a strong economy, Xinhua, the state-run news
agency, reported. Many foreign economists and investors on Wall Street have
expressed misgivings about China’s rapid accumulation of debt, particularly at
state-owned enterprises, since the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.
Kuroda says
BOJ facing 'challenging' situation amid low inflation - (www.reuters.com)
Senate Tackles Rewrite on GOP Health-Care Bill - (www.wsj.com)
Senate Tackles Rewrite on GOP Health-Care Bill - (www.wsj.com)
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