War with Iran remains a deeply unpopular prospect among the American people, but a new opinion poll conducted by Reuters and polling organization Ipsos found there's not much optimism concerning the likelihood of getting entangled in a future conflict. The poll released Tuesday found that half of all Americans see the US and Iran being at war "within the next few years".

As of early this week it appeared the White House as well as Pentagon were firmly signaling the US has climbed down the escalation ladder, with statements claiming the US military build-up near the Persian Gulf of the past two weeks had forced Iran to put its planned actions against US troops "on hold" in order to "recalculate".

In terms of market action, trade fears really seem to have settled in as the dominant theme on markets. But if markets are simply wondering when there will be a solution, then they may be waiting for the wrong thing. While the mood remains negative as the market waits for a US/China agreement/resolution, maybe the new long-term reality is an increasingly and deliberately bifurcated global economy? The US and its allies vs China. If it sounds familiar – it should in terms of 1945-89. The West won the last Cold War on the same basis – and the economic benefits accrued to the free capitalist states, a theme the Neo-coms are increasingly banding around. You just imagine the scene in the war room: “This is time Mr President..”

The House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation held an oversight hearing last week on the two recent Boeing 7373 MAX airplane crashes.

Testifying were the heads of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Asking questions and making statements were 39 members of the House – 22 Democrats and 17 Republicans – who during the 2018 election cycle took in a total of $134,749 – or an average of $3,455 each from Boeing in campaign contributions.

Inoculating their interests from responsibility, blame, shame and liability were the Boeing lobbyists and lawyers swarming the Capitol.

The chair of the subcommittee, Rick Larsen (D-Washington) ($7,048 from Boeing in 2018, $101,134 over his career), artfully steered the hearing away from Boeing’s corporate responsibility for the deaths of the passengers on the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines planes that crashed within five months killing all 346 passengers on board.

The House Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation held an oversight hearing last week on the two recent Boeing 7373 MAX airplane crashes.

Testifying were the heads of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Asking questions and making statements were 39 members of the House – 22 Democrats and 17 Republicans – who during the 2018 election cycle took in a total of $134,749 – or an average of $3,455 each from Boeing in campaign contributions.

Inoculating their interests from responsibility, blame, shame and liability were the Boeing lobbyists and lawyers swarming the Capitol.

The chair of the subcommittee, Rick Larsen (D-Washington) ($7,048 from Boeing in 2018, $101,134 over his career), artfully steered the hearing away from Boeing’s corporate responsibility for the deaths of the passengers on the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines planes that crashed within five months killing all 346 passengers on board.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping unexpectedly toured a rare earth mining facility following the announcement of U.S. sanctions on Huawei, the message was unmistakable: China is prepared to use its domination of raw materials used in virtually all high-tech manufacturing to gain leverage in the trade dispute.

China is the largest supplier of rare earth materials that are used in everything from mobile phones to nuclear power to guided missiles. Xi’s visit highlighted the fact that just as Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE require U.S. technology for their products, U.S. technology and national security manufacturers rely on Chinese rare earths.

China told the world’s main disarmament forum on Wednesday that U.S. foreign policy was destabilising, baffling and redolent of Don Quixote, the Spanish fictional hero whose misplaced determination leads him on a series of doomed endeavours.

“The Cold War mentality has come back to drive the security strategy and policy of a major power,” China’s disarmament ambassador Li Song told the Conference on Disarmament, a long-stalemated arena for arms talks at the United Nations in Geneva.

“In particular the U.S. keeps saying other countries make it feel unsafe – this is truly baffling,” he said.

Even more striking than the scale of need are the shifting demographics of who is eating here and why. The homeless population is getting younger, staffers say, and more likely to have children and full-time jobs. In one hour, over taco salad and Fanta, I meet fast-food employees, a former car salesman who lost his home in the financial crisis and a pregnant 31-year-old whose baby is due the same month her housing vouchers run out.

But the biggest surprise about St. Vincent’s may be the state in which it’s located. Just four years ago, Utah was the poster child for a new approach to homelessness, a solution so simple you could sum it up in five words: Just give homeless people homes.

By Michael Snyder

If the U.S. economy is “booming” and very bright days are ahead, then why are many large U.S. corporations laying off thousands of workers? Layoffs are starting to come fast and furious now, and this is happening even though the coming recession has not even officially started yet. Of course many are convinced that we are actually in a recession at this moment. In fact, according to John Williams of shadowstats.com if the government was actually using honest numbers they would show that we have been in a recession for quite some time. But the narrative that the mainstream media keeps feeding us is that the U.S. economy is “doing well” and that the outlook for the future is positive. Well, if that is true then why are big companies laying off so many workers right now?

Let’s start by talking about Ford Motor Company. On Monday, they announced that they will be laying off approximately 7,000 workers…

SOURCE: DEEPSTATEBLOG.ORG

The United States is seeking to shut down Venezuela’s emergency food aid program, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The stated goal of U.S. policy is combating the corruption of the Venezuelan government. The unstated reality is that the Trump administration is doing exactly what it accuses the Maduro government of doing: weaponizing access to food.

The emergency food program—known by its Spanish initials, CLAP—is the main food source for an estimated 15% of Venezuelans and a critical supplement for a far larger percentage of the population. Officials in the Maduro government, including top military brass, “are using the CLAP program to steal from it, launder money, and for political control,” the senior Treasury official said. “Corrupt Maduro continue to seek illicit revenue streams, even as the Venezuelan people and economy sink deeper into despair,” said another senior Treasury official, Sigal Mandelker, the undersecretary for sanctions.

SOURCE: THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

The more steps that we take toward a war with Iran, the more likely it becomes that somebody will do something really stupid that will actually trigger one. By cutting off Iran’s oil exports, we are threatening to completely wreck their economy, and at this point they feel backed into a corner. And the Iranians have already watched the U.S. invade two countries that they share a border with (Afghanistan and Iraq), and so it is understandable that they are a bit paranoid that it could happen to them too. President Trump keeps saying that he doesn’t want a war with Iran, but the Iranians do not believe a single word any U.S. politician says. Instead, they watch what we actually do very, very closely, and the fact that the Pentagon wants to deploy thousands of new troops to the Middle East is definitely going to freak them out. The following comes from Fox News…

France is the home of Frederick Bastiat whose philosophy of economics and freedom is noted and summarized below. Obviously, the leaders of France either never heard of Bastiat, or reject his philosophy out of hand.

In 1850, Frédéric Bastiat’s political theory was published in his work The Law. In this work, the Frenchman vigorously challenged what he believed to be a perversion of the real meaning of law and justice and called on his countrymen to seek true liberty that leads to prosperity. In France today, the people’s liberty has been plundered – that’s thanks to socialism – hey AOC; check it out!!!

For the sake of brevity, his work can be distilled down to a few basic points in question-and-answer format:

Apple has promised to be clearer and more upfront with iPhone users about battery health and performance, following action by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The competition watchdog said it opened an investigation last year after finding that iPhone owners were not being warned clearly that their phone's performance could slow down following a 2017 software update designed to manage demands on the battery.

The CMA was worried that users might have tried to repair their phone or replace it because they didn't realise the software update had caused the handset to slow down. It also said that people found it hard to access information about the health of their phone's battery, which can degrade over time.

If the cold war with China intensifies, more companies with alleged ties to the Chinese government could be prohibited from doing business with American firms.

The latest U.S. actions on trade are preventing negotiations with Beijing from proceeding, China’s Commerce Ministry said Thursday.

“If the U.S. would like to keep on negotiating it should, with sincerity, adjust its wrong actions. Only then can talks continue,” Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Gao Feng said Thursday in Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation.

He did not mention any U.S. actions specifically, but it’s been a tense couple of weeks between the world’s two-largest economies. President Donald Trump unexpectedly accused China of reneging on a deal earlier this month and announced that tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods would increase to 25% from 10% on May 10. Beijing retaliated with raising levies on $60 billion worth of U.S. products. In the last two weeks, his administration also put Chinese telecom giant Huawei on a blacklist that prevents it from buying from American companies without U.S. government permission.

Can we have a quick reality check and acknowledge that what is happening to America is a million times worse than what’s happening in Europe and is of much greater consequence?

When Goldman Sachs was negotiating its deal with New York City in 2005 to build its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, one of its requirements was that it have a seat along with the New York City Police Department in a taxpayer-funded spy center to keep the Main Street riffraff under surveillance. Goldman wanted the new surveillance center to be in place no later than December 31, 2009. Curious, isn’t it, that Goldman was prescient enough to think that the pitchforks might be coming out after an epic crash on Wall Street. The spy center was, indeed, built and both Goldman and JPMorgan Chase were given seats, along with the New York Fed, Citigroup and others. (See Wall Street Firms Spy On Protesters in Tax-Funded Center and 60 Minutes Takes a Pass on Wall Street’s Secret Spy Center.)

Every single day, most Americans eagerly gobble down foods that contain ingredients that have been genetically-modified without ever considering the consequences. Most of us simply assume that the federal government would never allow us to eat GMOs if they were not safe. Unfortunately, it appears that the federal government has completely failed us. The material that I am about to share with you is deeply disturbing, and after reading this article there is a very good chance that you will never want to eat genetically-modified food ever again. But at this point it is almost impossible to completely avoid GMOs, because they are in almost everything. Unless they are specifically designated “organic”, most corn, soy, canola and sugar beets grown in America today have been genetically modified, and almost all packaged foods contain ingredients derived from at least one of those sources.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he has spoken with Walmart CFO Brett Biggs regarding the next round of tariffs on Chinese goods.

Mnuchin told the House Financial Services Committee Wednesday that he has been “monitoring the situation [tariffs] very carefully” and spoke with Biggs on what items they can and cannot source.

“We haven’t made any decision yet …” Mnuchin said. “We will be sensitive to consumer items that particularly affect people on fixed salaries.”

US aviation investigators have reportedly said a bird strike may have been a factor in the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max crash in Addis Ababa in March.

The claim from a person familiar with the matter was reported by CNBC on Tuesday and preceded stocks for the aviation company rising 1.2 per cent around midday.

It was previously reported bad data may have activated a system that pushed the nose of the plane down and may have been the reason the aircraft and the same model belonging to Lion Air went down in Indonesia in October 2018.

The American aviation official reportedly thinks the bird strike could have triggered the anti-install MCAS system in the Ethiopian flight 302 crash that killed eight Americans among the 35 nationalities on board.

However the airline said there was 'no evidence of any foreign object damage' as the probe remains open.

Amazon is trying to make the lives of its warehouse workers a bit less rote.

It's piloting a program in five fulfillment centers around the country where its employees have the option to gamify their workload.

At employee workstations, games with names such as "MissionRacer," "PicksInSpace," "Dragon Duel," and "CastleCrafter" appear on a small screen with retro-looking graphics and keep track of employees' work. The Washington Post was first to report on the existence of the program, which an Amazon representative confirmed with Business Insider.

Tesla just raised $2.7 billion but still looks desperate as — once again — financial and legal questions surrounding its survival mount.

Perhaps tellingly, the market couldn't seem to care less about this $2.7 billion — or $2.3 billion net of hedging and fees to be precise. Tesla's stock has fallen by about a quarter over the past month as analysts up and down Wall Street chop their stock-price targets and forward-looking estimates at a steady clip. Wedbush Securities called it a " code red." Evercore said Tesla could justify its current valuation only with "supernatural growth."

Microsoft removed Huawei laptops from the Microsoft online store last weekend, likely in response to the US government blacklisting Huawei.

Huawei laptops are still being sold in physical Microsoft stores that still have the computers in stock, according to The Verge.

Microsoft hasn't made an official statement regarding its relationship with Huawei. Business Insider has asked Microsoft for comment, but the company didn't immediately reply. Other outlets have also requested comment from the company to no avail.

Home Depot has come a long way when it comes to renting out tools, and it's a sign that the retailer is working hard to woo home-improvement professionals.

"We know that 90% of pros rent tools, but several years ago, only about one out of 10 pros rented from us," Home Depot CEO Craig Minear told investors during the company's earnings call on Tuesday. "Today, that number has improved to one out of four, yet there remains opportunity for further growth as we continue to invest in our tool rental experience."

Those improvements could come about in the form of continuous investments in rental offerings and ensuring that stores are consistently stocked with enough "brands that pros care about," Minear said.

Some ironies are just too precious to pass by. The 2016 US presidential elections gave us Donald Trump, a reality TV star whose famous tag line from his show “The Apprentice” was “You are fired!” Focus on this tag line; it is all that is important to this story. Some Trump Derangement Disorder sufferers might disagree. This is because they are laboring under certain misapprehensions: that the US is a democracy; or that it matters who is president. It isn’t and it doesn’t. By this point, the choice of president matters as much as the choice of conductor for the band that plays aboard a ship as it vanishes beneath the waves.

Talk about a graphic display of soft power: Beijing this week hosted the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations.

Organized under the direct supervision of President Xi Jinping it took place amid an “Asian Culture Carnival.” Sure, there were dubious, kitschy and syrupy overtones, but what really mattered was what Xi himself had to say to China and all of Asia.

In his keynote speech, the Chinese leader essentially stressed that one civilization forcing itself upon another is “foolish” and “disastrous.” In Xi’s concept of a dialogue of civilizations, he referred to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as programs that “have expanded the channels for communication exchanges.”

Xi’s composure and rationality present a stark, contrasting message to US President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign.

It’s geopolitical, geoeconomic war. Cold, so far, but now about to descend to deep freeze. The US National Security Strategy unmistakably spells it out. China is a strategic competitor and must be contained, no holds barred, on all fronts: economic, military and most of all, technological.

Enter the current, concerted offensive across the spectrum, from 5G and AI to moves attempting to prevent the coming of globalization 2.0. Add to it maximum pressure all over the world to prevent nations from joining the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the organizing foreign policy concept for China in the foreseeable future and the strategic road map for Eurasian integration up to 2049.

It’s all interconnected; the Trump administration’s trade war, Google blocking Huawei from the enhanced Android OS, the demonization of Belt and Road. It’s all about control of global supply chains and technological infrastructure.

British Steel has been ordered into compulsory liquidation after talks with the government failed to secure a bailout, threatening the jobs of about 5,000 employees, with another 20,000 jobs in the supply chain.

The steelmaker had requested an emergency $38m bailout loan from the British government following dwindling European sales amid Brexit uncertainty, and an ill-fated decision to sell off excess carbon credits earlier this year.

Just three weeks ago, the government had given a $150m loan to the company.

How many times have you heard “You can’t eat gold” as a reason NOT to own gold? It is nonsense.

You can’t eat gold either during good times or after an economic collapse, but neither can you eat dollar bills, euros, bolivars or hundreds of other devaluing paper currencies.

In good times and in bad times, gold is necessary for wealth protection. A gold market will always exist, and you can exchange your gold (or silver) for the items you need.

Try exchanging Confederate money, Yugoslavian dinars, Hungarian pengos, Weimar Reichsmarks or hundreds of other failed currencies for food in 2019. You might starve.