By Michael Snyder

The numbers are telling us that we have never been closer to the next recession than we are right now. The storm clouds that were gathering on the horizon are now directly above us, and suddenly the mainstream media is filled with stories about when the next recession will begin and the effect that this may have on President Trump’s chances of winning in 2020. In fact, there has been so much chatter about this that even President Trump is talking about it. All over television, experts are breathlessly speculating about when the coming recession will begin, and they are dispensing lots of advice about how people should be preparing for it.

So what evidence has led so many of these talking heads to come to such a conclusion?

Well, the following are 11 reasons why so many experts now believe that a U.S. economic crisis is imminent…

By Max Gulker

Since Massachusetts residents passed a 2016 referendum legalizing recreational cannabis, the fate of the industry has largely been in the hands of the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. Having licensed 23 pot stores across the state, and set rules for individual growers, the commission is now drafting rules for marijuana delivery services.

You may be chuckling right now at the possibility of a stereotypical stoner’s dream to never leave his home coming true, or because Massachusetts, never coy about heavy-handed regulations, has created something called the Cannabis Control Commission. Take a moment to get those laughs out of your system, because we can learn a lot about government regulation from Massachusetts’ early experiences with legal pot, and what we learn is no laughing matter...

By Cory Doctorow

As long we’ve had electronic mass media, audiences and creators have benefited from periods of technological upheaval that force old gatekeepers to compete with brash newcomers with new ideas about what constitutes acceptable culture and art. Those newcomers eventually became gatekeepers themselves, who then faced their own crop of revolutionaries. But today, the cycle is broken: as media, telecoms, and tech have all grown concentrated, the markets have become winner-take-all clashes among titans who seek to dominate our culture, our discourse and our communications.

How did the cycle end? Can we bring it back? To understand the answers to these questions, we need to consider how the cycle worked — back when it was still working...

By Nicholas C. Anderson

What is the governing dynamic causing both student loans and healthcare burdens to run away from us?

Imagine I invite you and your significant other, life-long friends of mine, to choose the restaurant of your choice whereby I vow to pay 80 percent of the bill. You rightfully choose the best 5-star place in town to enjoy a fantastic meal. There’s no price on the menu and you remind yourself that “if I have to ask, I probably can’t afford it.” Then you remember that I’m going to pay 80 percent of the bill and you go for it. The bill arrives for the two of you and it’s an eye-popping $1,500 for which, of course, you’re responsible for $300. You call me in a fit of confusion...

Tongue in Cheek!

DURHAM, NC—In an effort to improve the company’s image amid criticism about poor conditions in its warehouses, e-commerce giant Amazon has begun to ship workers in packages to personally assure customers they’re being treated well, sources confirmed Friday. “When people who don’t know any better criticize my employer, they’re totally ignoring the fact that Amazon just sent me on an all-expenses-paid trip across the country in this nice, sturdy box,” said an Amazon employee identifying himself as Wilson O’Connell.

Capitalism is private monopoly,communism is government monopoly.
America is suppossed to be a Free Enterprise Country.
Capitalism,Communism and Fascism as well as Socialism are ALL gifts from ther International Banksters!

Paul Craig Roberts

American capitalism is based on plunder. With the continental USA plundered, American capitalism hoped to continue enriching itself by plundering Russia as it did under Yeltsin, carefully including the Russian “Atlanticist Integrationists” in the spoils in order to have support from the liberal, progressive forces in Russia for stripping Russia of its assets. But Putin more or less put a halt to the American/Israeli rape of Russia, although it still continues through the neoliberal economics that Harvard brainwashed into the Russian central bank and economics profession. Brainwashed Russian economists are the main reason Washington is able to punish a powerful country such as Russia with economic sanctions.

Kids didn’t used to roast to death, forgotten in the back seat of cars, because it was hard to forget your kid when he was sitting right there beside you – or even sitting in your lap. That was outlawed – for saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety.

And now kids are forgotten about in the back seat and left to roast to death.

So Trump is in favor of starving children now!

Officially there is not a full naval blockade yet, though the US has made efforts to prevent shipments to Venezuela, and earlier this week was reported to have seized a ship full of food to prevent it getting to Venezuela.

By Chris Menahan

This is the system our ruling oligarchs are trying to implement in America.

Big Tech has already implemented their own “social credit score” system where they punish people for their political views by deplatforming them, censoring their websites and closing their PayPal/bank accounts...

By Jeffrey A. Tucker

For years now, competent commentators have tried to explain that tariffs do no one any good (on net). They are taxes. They increase business costs. They force businesses to cough up to the government for no particular reason. They don’t work to open economies. They sow seeds of distrust. They invite retaliation thus ruining export markets in addition to raising prices and tipping small businesses into the failing side of thin margins...

The average American has $38,000 in debt — a quarter of which comes directly from credit card charges. In December 2018, consumer debt overall hit a record high $4 trillion.

As the trade war with the U.S. continues to escalate, China has re-engaged with Iran on three key projects and is weighing the use of what both Washington and Beijing term the ‘nuclear option’, a senior oil and gas industry source who works closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry told OilPrice.com last week.

For the first of these projects - Phase 11 of the supergiant South Pars non-associated gas field (SP11) - last week saw a statement from the chief executive officer of the Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) that talks had resumed with Chinese developers to advance the project. Originally the subject of an extensive contract signed by France’s Total before it pulled out due to re-imposed U.S. sanctions on Iran, talks had been well-advanced with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to take up the slack on development.

By Antony Sammeroff

Occupational licensing makes for an interesting case because it is almost ubiquitously considered in the public interest and even necessary to prevent catastrophe. And yet there is actually zero evidence that it leads to a higher quality of service provision. Zilch!...

General Electric shares fell as much as 15% on Thursday after fraud investigator Harry Markopolos, who blew the whistle on Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, said GE was concealing deep financial problems.

In a 175-page report, Markopolos accused GE of hiding $38.1 billion in potential losses and asserted that the company's cash situation was far worse than it had disclosed.

'GE's true debt to equity ratio is 17:1, not 3:1, which will undermine its credit status,' Markopolos said in the report, which was commissioned by an undisclosed hedge fund that has taken short positions on GE stock.

The report says GE is insolvent and asserts that its industrial businesses have a working capital deficit of $20 billion.

The plunge in share prices wiped more than $10 billion off of GE's market capitalization in a matter of hours.