Kerry Lutz's--Financial Survival Network

The Ayn Rand Institute's Rituparna Basu writes, "A major reason why doctors are ignored is that doctors themselves are hesitant to assert their right to practice medicine as they see fit. Dr. Craviotto doesn’t put his opposition to government control of his profession in those terms, but that’s the logical foundation of his position: doctors have the right to practice medicine as they choose, and everyone else has the right to accept their services or not." We talk about this issue and more on the with her and what we can look forward to in the age of Obamacare. 

John Rubino says that no US GDP report is complete without an explanation from the Consumer Metrics Institute of how Washington is fooling us. The latest one is even scarier than usual:

There are a number of disturbing items in this report:

– Even at first glance this is not a good report. Although the headline number itself says “stagnation,” in the context of earlier reports it shows an economy in dynamic transition from lackluster growth towards outright contraction. The overall headline number is down 2.5% from the prior quarter and down 4% from the next earlier quarter. These are significant changes, with the prior quarter’s trend extended and the downward slope intensifying.

– Private commercial investment dropped substantially, led by reduced outlays for residential construction, transportation equipment and IT infrastructure.

– The year-long 2013 cycle of inventory building has come to an end. Over an extended time period inventories are mostly a cyclical zero-sum game, with excessive growth or contraction over any period being corrected (i.e., reversed) during a subsequent period. Moving forward we should expect that inventories will continue their cyclical contraction, with negative consequences to the headline number.

 

Mondays with Andrew Hoffman:

• NFP Report-3 numbers that count;
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  GDP fiction report;
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  Japan keeps dropping-largest ever drop in pmi;
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  China 47% yoy drop in home sales;
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  Ukraine keeps inching closer to war;
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  Interest rate are dropping like a stone everywhere;
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  Gold spikes;
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  Silver to gold ratio nears 67.