China’s export slump deepened in February, highlighting the challenge for policy makers seeking to keep the economy humming at home while trade acts as a brake on growth.
The week-long Chinese new year holidays fell in February this year, closing factories and curbing shipments. That saw exports tumble 25.4 percent in U.S. dollar terms from a year earlier, the biggest decline since May 2009. Imports extended a streak of declines to 16 months, slumping 13.8 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $32.6 billion.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-08/china-export-slump-shows-growth-push-depends-on-domestic-demand
Even in states that agreed to expand Medicaid, the popularity of high-deductible plans in those insurance exchanges has added to hospitals' mounting concerns over how patients can pay those bills, if at all.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160305/MAGAZINE/303059966?utm_source=modernhealthcare&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20160305-MAGAZINE-303059966&utm_campaign=financedaily
THE OLIGARCHS' SUPER-PAC ANTI-TRUMP SAVAGERY
Pat Buchanan: 'Not in memory has the leadership of a party been so out of touch'
http://www.wnd.com/2016/03/the-oligarchs-super-pac-anti-trump-savagery/#WbXDCQ8VD5zDudki.99
Thanks To The Republican Civil War, Every Scenario Ends With Hillary Clinton Winning The Election
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/thanks-to-the-republican-establishment-every-scenario-ends-with-hillary-clinton-winning-the-2016-election
Outstanding consumer credit, a measure of non-real estate debt, rose by a seasonally adjusted $10.54 billion in January from the prior month, the U.S. Federal Reserve said Monday. The 3.58 percent seasonally adjusted annual growth rate was the slowest growth pace since March 2013; in dollar terms, it was the smallest increase since November 2013. (http://on.wsj.com/1puUXIX)
key leaders of the Democratic Party—including the president—are getting on board with Republicans, despite some talk about confronting income inequality. Influential Democrats intend to negotiate with Republican counterparts on the size and terms of post-facto tax “forgiveness” for America’s globalized companies. This is real money they’re talking about—a giveaway of hundreds of billions.
Why haven’t voters heard about this from candidates? Because Republicans and Democrats both know it would make angry voters even angrier.
http://www.thenation.com/article/democrats-and-republicans-are-quietly-planning-a-corporate-giveaway-to-the-tune-of-400-billion/
Clinton said again she would release the transcripts only if all other candidates who have given paid speeches did. She also said that she stood up to Wall Street. “I have a record,” she said. “And you know what, if you were going to be in some way distrusted or dismissed about whether you can take on Wall Street if you ever took money, President Obama took more money from Wall Street in the 2008 campaign than anybody ever had.”
Sanders quipped: “Secretary Clinton wants everybody else to release it, well, I’m your Democratic opponent, I release it, here it is. There ain’t nothing. I don’t give speeches to Wall Street for hundreds of thousands of dollars, you got it.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/200pm-water-cooler-372016.html
...the Fed and other central banks have thoroughly falsified financial market prices and destroyed all of the ordinary mechanisms of financial discipline.
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-price-isnt-right-how-central-banks-are-fixing-to-ambush-the-casino/
The moment that got me in Sunday night’s Democratic boasting contest, hosted by CNN, was Hillary crowing about the great achievement of Obamacare — getting thirty million uninsured Americans on some kind of health plan! The part she left out, of course, is that most of those plans have “deductable” ceilings in the multiple thousands of dollars, guaranteeing that the policy holder goes bankrupt if he/she seeks medical help.
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/mistakes-were-made/
The globe’s top financial watchdog called time on the world’s debt binge, noting that debt issuance and cross border flows in emerging economies slowed for the first time since the aftermath of the global credit crunch at the end of last year.
With financial markets thrown into fresh paroxysms in 2016, oscillating between extremes of “hope and fear”, the over-leveraged world was finally approaching a day of reckoning, said Claudio Borio, the bank's chief economist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/04/debtor-days-are-over-as-bis-calls-time-on-world-credit-binge/
Notes on the Syrian exodus: ‘Epic in scale, inconceivable until you witness it’
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/05/great-syrian-refugee-crisis-exodus-epic-inconceivable-witness-lebos-islamic-state
Legalizing Weed Has Done What 1 Trillion Dollars And A 40 Year War Couldn't
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-05/legalizing-weed-has-done-what-1-trillion-dollars-and-40-year-war-couldnt
