According to STR, Inc, a hotel industry market data firm, 2020 was absolutely the worst year on record for hotels as industrywide profits fell to zero, as the virus pandemic and resulting government-enforced social distancing measures kept travelers at home. STR's latest report said the US hotel occupancy rate was 44% for...
30Y Breakevens Spike Above 16 Year Downtrend After Yellen Says “Will Explore 50-Year”
It isn't the first time an ultra-long duration bond has been discussed by the Treasury, and it also certainly won't be the last time, but moments ago long end of the curve slumped, and the 5s30s steepened to session wides, after Janet Yellen said during her Senate confirmation hearing she’ll...
Will 2021 Be The Year The World Loses Faith In The US Dollar?
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,Nearly 186 years ago to the week on January 8, 1835, US President Andrew Jackson accomplished what no other American president has done before, or since: he paid off the national debt.Jackson was a staunch fiscal conservative. He despised banks, and, according to his biographer,...
A Stock Market Crash Of 65-80% This Year?
Authored by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,A year ago, macro strategist David Hunter predicted a massive melt-up in financial assets, to be followed by an equally tremendous market crash.Well, he’s certainly been right so far on the melt-up prediction.All major stock indices are trading at record highs. And valuations have never...
Saudi Arabia Lifts Its 3.5 Year Economic Blockade Of Qatar In US-Brokered Deal
Within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) a more than three-year diplomatic and economic war has raged between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which has even involved the closing of borders and airspace between the two (with UAE firmly in the Saudi camp), hardening into a total economic blockade of Qatar by other...
Stocks Suffer Worst Start To A Year Since The Dot-Com Crash
The re-awakening of "Blue Wave" risk...Source: Bloomberg...along with escalating pandemic-related lockdowns/restrictions (worse than expected vaccination roll-out and hospitalization panic-mongering like we saw in 2018 due to the flu) sparked the worst start to a year for the S&P since 2001...The entire market was hit with a selling wave at the...
Banning Government Use of Face Recognition Technology: 2020 Year in Review
By Nathan Sheard If there was any question about the gravity of problems with police use of face surveillance technology, 2020 wasted no time in proving them dangerously real. Thankfully, from Oregon to Massachusetts, local lawmakers responded by banning their local governments’ use. The Alarm On January 9, after first...
Deception And Suppression: A Year Of Beijing’s Virus Coverup
Authored by Nicole Hao and Annie Wu via The Epoch Times,Around this time last year, Chinese authorities acknowledged that an “unknown” form of pneumonia was spreading in the city of Wuhan.But it was already too late. What we now know as COVID-19 had already broken out across the city and possibly beyond.In the...
Litigation Against Mass NSA Surveillance: Year in Review 2020
EFF takes on fights for the long run, and some of our longest running legal fights are focused on bringing the National Security Agency within the rule of law, and batting back the arguments that the state secrets privilege should insulate the government from accountability for spying. EFF started these...
Five Times This Year The New York Times Accidentally Told The Truth
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,The paper of record in 2020 shifted dramatically to the most illiberal stance possible on the virus, pushing for full lockdowns, and ignoring or burying any information that might contradict the case for this unprecedented experiment in social and economic...