Piketty: When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations.

Bernanke and the Inflationistas There’s something about inflation derp that goes straight to the ids of certain people — largely, one suspects, angry old men, though it would be nice to have hard evidence on the demographic. And they will keep regarding the Journal as the place to get the truth no matter how much money it costs them.

The TPP: Toward Absolutist Capitalism

There are many excellent arguments against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), two of which — local zoning over-rides, and loss of national sovereignty — I’ll briefly review as stepping stones to the main topic of the post: Absolutist Capitalism, for which I make two claims:
1) The TPP implies a form of absolute rule, a tyranny as James Madison would have understood the term, and
2) The TPP enshrines capitalization as a principle of jurisprudence.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic

On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers.

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• U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday, with both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite Index refreshing their record closing highs, as major earnings reports came out generally positive. 

•  (MarketWatch)Sales of new single-family homes fell 11.4% to an annual rate of 481,000 in March, pulling back from a seven-year high reached in the prior month and hitting the slowest pace since November. 

• In Japan, manufacturing fell to 49.7 (est. 50.8), dropping below 50 for the first time since July 2014. 

•  PRNewswire/ -- Even though buyers in most markets can break even on a home purchase in less than two years, nearly half of renters in a newly released survey said their credit or finances keep them from buying a home. 
• Of renters surveyed by Zillow, 16 percent said they can't qualify for a home loan, 18 percent said they can't afford taxes, maintenance and other costs associated with home-ownership, and 13 percent said they don't have enough savings for a down payment. About a quarter said they struggle to pay their rent. 
•  According to the survey, 82 percent of renters are long-term renters, and 57 percent are long-term renters who have lived for a long time in the same home. Just 14 percent of renters said they aren't staying long enough in the same place to buy. 

• The Competitive Edge: renters searching for their next home on Zillow can easily see how long rentals have been on the market... 

•  U.S. gains 126,000 jobs in March, unemployment at 5.5% 

•  Russia's consumer price inflation hit 16.9 % in March as the country heads for recession. 

•  ISM services index dips to 56.5% in March from 56.9% 

•  China's services purchasing managers' index (PMI) was posted at 52.3 in March, up from 52 in February 

•  Corn inventories of 7.745B bushels as of March 1 are up 10.5% YoY and stand against trade estimates for 7.609B. Acres planted drop 1.398M YoY. 
•  Wheat stocks of 1.124B bushels are up from 1.057B YoY and stand against estimates for 1.141B. Acres planted drop 1.648M YoY. 
•  Soybean inventories of 1.334B bushels are up from 994M YoY and stand against estimates for 1.348B. Acres planted gain 934K YoY. 

•  The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell more than expected, while activity in the services sector hit a six-month high in March, underscoring the economy's solid fundamentals despite a recent softening in growth. The good news is that claims and the services sector data suggest the economy has gained some momentum heading into the second quarter. 

•  US durable goods orders fell 1.4 in February 

• U.S. Wages climbed by 1.3% from Q2 of 2012 to Q2 of 2014, compared to a 17% increase in home prices during that time, according to RealtyTrac. 

•  The German economy, the biggest in Europe, is expected to keep its growth momentum in the first half of 2015 and continue to expand as strongly as at the end of 2014, Germany's central bank said on Monday in its monthly bulletin. 

•  To boost economy, Sweden lowered its repo rate, the rate at which the central bank lends to commercial banks, from minus 0.1 percent to minus 0.25 percent and announced that it would buy 30 billion krona (3.42 billion U.S) 

•  Across the US about 5.4 million homes(more than 10% of home-owners) are still upside-down on their mortgages, according to an estimate from CoreLogic. 

•  An ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup weed-killer - glyphosate - is “probably carcinogenic,” according to a new decision by the World Health Organization. 

•  The Abbott (he thinks the science of human-caused climate change is “crap”) government has pledged an extra $100 million as part of a long-term plan for the Great Barrier Reef that it hopes will prevent the international embarrassment of having the precious site declared officially "in danger" by the World Heritage Committee. 

•  As bacon sales sizzle and China -- where pork is the favored meat -- becomes wealthier, pig farmers around the world are meeting demand by using about four times as much antibiotics per pound of meat as cattle ranchers. Poultry is a close second.

• (March 16, 2015) - Researchers at UC San Diego and Creighton University have challenged the intake of vitamin D recommended by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Institute of Medicine (IOM), stating that their Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for vitamin D underestimates the need by a factor of ten. 

•  Scrunchies saving wildlife from being killed by cats. (cats are killing birds by the billions each year) 

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• European stock funds attract $5.2 billion in ninth straight week of inflows 

•  (Reuters) - Investors in U.S.-based funds pulled $1.8 billion out of taxable bond funds in the week ended March 11 on increased expectations that the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates... 

•  More than 5 million renters say they're likely to buy a home in the next year, according to the Zillow (US)Housing Confidence Index (Zillow) 

• US access to mortgage credit has improved significantly, and is roughly two thirds of the way back to 2002 pre-crisis levels. 

• South Korea's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to an all-time low of 1.75% 

•  The U.S. Fed rejected the capital plans of two large banks, the American units of the Deutsche Bank and Banco Santander, due to their "qualitative" deficiencies including ability to model losses and identify risks. 
•  All U.S. major banks passed the Fed stress test 

•  The British economy grew by 0.6 percent in the three months to the end of February 

•  U.S. wholesale inventories unexpectedly rose 0.3 % in January as sales recorded their biggest decline since 2009, lifting the number of months it would take to clear warehouses to its highest level in more than 5-1/2 years. 

•  The U.S. added 295,000 jobs in Feb. as the unemployment rate fell to 5.5 %, lowest since 08, but youth unemployment is rising.For those aged 20-24 years old it was 10% in February – up from 9.8% in January 
•  Unfilled job openings at small businesses reach 9-year peak. Around 29% of small-business owners say they have at least one job opening that they could not fill, Bloomberg reports. That is the highest that number has been since March 2006, and one of the highest numbers seen in 40 years. 

•  Among the Dow Industrials on March 18 Apple is in ATT is out 

•  Germany's annual inflation got out of its negative territory and stood at 0.1 % in February 

• According to the second estimate from the U.S. Commerce Department the economy expanded at a 2.2 % annual rate in Q4 of 2014, revised down from the previous estimate of 2.6% 

•  Japan's CPI rose 2.2 % YoY in January, marking the 20th consecutive monthly growth. 

•  Iron Ore at the lowest price since 2009 as China tackles overcapacity and pollution 

•  China’s premier Li Keqiang cut the nation’s growth target to “around” 7% , reiterating the need to pursue reform as development slows and the likelihood of tougher times ahead for the world’s second largest economy. 

•  (Pritchard) Put together, China is pursuing the most contractionary mix of economic policies in the G20, relative to the status quo ante. Collateral damage is already visible in the sliding global prices of iron ore, copper, nickel, lead and zinc over recent months, as well as thermal coal, oil, corn and even sugar. 

•  The Warming World: Is Capitalism Destroying Our Planet? Since 1880, when global temperatures began to be systematically collected, no year has been warmer than 2014. The 15 warmest years, with one single exception, have come during the first 15 years of the new millennium. Indeed, it has become an open question as to whether global warming can be stopped anymore -- or at least limited as policymakers have called for. Is capitalism ultimately responsible for the problem, or could it actually help to solve it? 

•  Pepperoni Turns Partisan  

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• The U.S. economy will expand by 3.2% or more this year, its best performance since at least 2005, as an improving job market leads to stepped-up consumer spending, according JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas. 

•  U.S. consumer sentiment rose to the highest level since January 2007 

•  (Blommberg)The unexpected 0.2 percent drop in hourly earnings on average last month, the biggest since records began in 2006, was probably influenced by the mix of workers on payrolls, economists said. Big gains in hiring of seasonal holiday workers, more entry-level positions and retirements of more expensive employees all probably played a role. 

•  Russia’s credit rating was cut to one step above junk by Fitch. 

•  (Prtichard) Without such jobs, Italy's political system is going to blow up soon. Its unemployment rate has just reached a modern-era high of 13.4pc, with youth unemployment hitting a record 43.9pc. The Mezzogiorno is sliding from depression towards social collapse. The Bourbons made a better fist of it. By cruel contrast, Germany generated 27,000 fresh jobs in December. Unemployment has fallen to a 23-year low of 5pc. Things have never been so good since reunification. There could hardly be clearer evidence that monetary union is unworkable. 

•  Business Insider:(Italy) In about 15 years time, it'll be a 1:1 ratio. Every worker's wages will be supporting one person who doesn't work.  

•  (Bloomberg)ECB weighs bond purchases up to 500 billion Euros to juice economy..A 500 billion-euro purchase program would take the ECB halfway toward its goal of boosting its balance sheet to avert a deflationary spiral in the euro area 

•  (MarketWatch) -- European Central Bank Mario Draghi has signaled the ECB could be closer to launching full-scale quantitative easing, as he said the risk of deflation has increased. The Euro hit a 9-year low as bloc slips into deflation.. 

•  The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index dropped to a six-month low of 55.5 from 58.7 in November. 

•  China's PPI fell a record 3.3% 

• YoY, the 34th straight month of decline. China's Purchasing Managers Index slipped to 50.1 in December from 50.3 in November, marking the third straight month of decline.Anlysts expect the central bank to continue to inject liquidity into the economy in the new year. 

•  Chinese industrial profits fell 4.2% in November - the biggest annual decline since August 2012  

• The UK economy, boosted by the inclusion of sex and drugs in national accounts, overtakes France by a whisker to become the world's fifth largest economy 

•  Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi says price is irrelevant to output decisions PRNewswire: 

• The total value of all the homes in the United States is expected to end 2014 at $27.5 trillion, a 6.7 percent increase from last year and the third consecutive overall increase, according to Zillow. 
• Homes lost $6.1 trillion in value between December 2006 and December 2011. 

•  (MW Howard Gold) Two researchers from the University of Oxford have estimated that computerization will put nearly half the jobs in the United States in jeopardy, including some creative professions that were thought to be immune...

• IBM researchers estimate that a human brain can make 36.8 quadrillion calculations per second. The total computational power of the world's supercomputers is now eight times that, and the largest supercomputer, in Guangzhou, China, has nearly the computational capacity of one human brain...Peter Bock, professor emeritus of engineering at the George Washington University, has followed AI's progress for four decades and he says it's tracking Moore's Law closely. "We are precisely on schedule" to have the capacity to create the human-like brain of Mada, a fictional intelligent machine he described in the 1993 book "The Emergence of Artificial Cognition." Bock's TARGET DATE: 2024. 

•  Only 15.6%  of advisers outperformed the Wilshire 5000 last year, so says Mark Hulbert 

•  Carl's Jr. announced the launch of a new grass-fed, free-range beef burger that is free of added hormones, antibiotics and steroids. and Chick-fil-A Inc. says it is phasing out all chicken raised with antibiotics over five years. 

•  Nokia (NOK) expands HERE maps client base with Baidu partnership offering international location services to Chinese tourists travelling abroad. HERE maps are in more than 200 countries and voice-navigation facility in 118. 

•  Bought and paid for Republicans succeeded in passing a budget that includes explicit Citigroup language (inserted at the last minute) condoning financial institutions to trade instruments that are insured by the FDIC, explicitly putting taxpayers back on the hook for losses caused by these trades. 

•  SPIEGEL ONLINE Deaths from police shootings US 461 Germany 8 Britain 0 Japan 0

•  Disney(DIS) declared an annual dividend of $1.15 per share, up 34%. This is Disney’s 59th consecutive dividend. 

•  Abbott (ABT) increased the quarterly dividend to $0.24 per share from $0.22 per share. This is the 364th consecutive quarterly dividend to be paid by Abbott since 1924. 

•  Northeastern University researchers have discovered an antibiotic called “teixobactin” that eliminates pathogens without encountering any detectable resistance — a finding that challenges long-held scientific beliefs and holds great promise for treating chronic infections