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.

QUICK OVERVIEW

• 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) 

QUICK OVERVIEW

• 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