News Story of the Day: The global total amount of negative-yielding government bonds are still immense, but they have fallen from record highs over the last two months.
According to Fitch Ratings (via Reuters), negative-yielding bonds declined to $10.4 trillion this month, which is the lowest level since the end of May. The all-time record occurred in June when it was $11.7 trillion.
Surging eurozone bond yields and a strengthening U.S. dollar have added better yields to the global bond market since the beginning of September.
Chart of the Day: did you know that Cuban slaves in 1842 ate better than the Cubans under Castro? That’s right. The daily food rations for Cuban slaves in 1842 were far better than the daily food rations for Cubans when the Castro government first established the system. Here is a chart courtesy of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI):
Illustration of the Day: last weekend, #DraftOurDaughters was trending big time on Twitter. It was meant to showcase two things: Hillary Clinton’s support for wars and her support for women being drafted. Here are just some of the many images that were being shared across the social media outlet:
Fallacy of the Day: “the only thing businesses care about is their bottom line and this hurts consumers.”
This is a common fallacy perpetrated by many people who detest companies, large and small. To them, profits are evil and the government should nationalize all businesses. What they fail to realize, however, is that profits are only achieved by satisfying the consumer. If a company can’t satisfy the consumer in any way then these companies will not generate any profits or revenues.
Indeed, businesses should always hone in on their profits because then all of us benefit as well. Profits are a virtue!
Quote of the Day: why is Peter Schiff one of the best political and economic commentators around today? Here is just one of his famous statements made back in 2009:
“When private industry makes a mistake, it gets corrected and goes away. As governments make mistakes, it gets bigger, bigger and bigger and they make more, more and more because as they run out of money, they just ask for more and so they get rewarded for making mistakes. In the meantime that is exactly what we are doing by subsidizing companies which are failing, we have a reverse Darwinism, we’ve got survival of the unfittest, the companies and people that have made terrible mistakes are being rewarded and other people are being punished and being taxed.”
Video of the Day: for whatever reason, a leaked audio clip of Hillary Clinton calling for some election rigging in Palestine wasn’t generating nearly as much headlines as the FBI reopening its investigation into her emails. It should’ve been because it showcases the government’s constant interventions into internal affairs and Clinton’s advocacy of such a foreign policy. Perhaps the media were worried that it would suggest evidence of Donald Trump’s claims that the election is rigged. Here is the clip embedded below:
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