California Governor Jerry Brown will be seeking to burnish his foreign policy credentials when he leads a trade and investment mission to Mexico – California’s largest export market – in July. Many Democrat operatives are beginning to whisper that Hillary
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is dominated by the U.S., just approved a $17 billion loan for the Ukraine. As the IMF’s largest participant with 17.69%, the United States will contribute over $3 billion. The first disbursement will be
According to a World Bank report released Wednesday morning, the United States is on the cusp of losing its economic global supremacy for the first time since it took the crown from the United Kingdom in 1872. However, after its
The European Union undercut the United States’ sanctions against Russia by failing to match America’s April 28th sanctions against 17 high-tech companies that are directly owned or controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Although the EU issued “enhanced” sanctions against
In what could have been America’s deadliest oil train disaster, over a dozen crude oil tankers in a 100-car train derailed and caught fire in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia. Police and Homeland Security are evacuating many downtown buildings in a metropolitan
Most Americans expect Democrats to dominate the political use of social media and the Internet in the 2014 and 2016 national elections, but the Gallup polling organization just published a report titled “Mobile Technology in Politics More Potential than Reality” that indicates
Gunmen stormed Libya’s National Parliament Tuesday and started shooting, forcing lawmakers to abandon a vote on the country’s next prime minister. Parliamentary spokesman Omar Hmeidan told Reuters that rioters armed with knives and guns stormed the legislature building, torching furniture,
The California State Senate is considering SB 1372, which would raise the top corporate tax rate by 47% to 13%. The proposal ties the corporate tax rate to the ratio of a company’s CEO compensation to that of its median
Gunmen believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) attempted to stop and kidnap two German diplomats in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday. The gunmen opened fire when the Germans’ car refused to stop, and one diplomat was
In a huge rejection of the United States’s corporate income tax rate – the highest in the world – America’s second-largest drug company, Pfizer, Inc., just proposed a merger with Britain’s AstraZeneca that would move the company away from New
With the United States Congress returning from the Easter break today, there will be plenty of focus in this election year on the continuing challenges of unemployment and its impacts on families. Almost 10% of American families had at least
Pro-American former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah won 44.9% of the vote in Afghanistan’s April 5th presidential election and will face former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who received 31.5% of the vote, in a run-off expected to be held
The real purpose of President Obama’s trip to Asia was to fortify an economic and military alliance to counterbalance China’s growing influence in the region. In the preceding weeks, China has shown its displeasure by backing Russia in the Ukraine
The United States Energy Information Administration (EIA) said American crude oil stockpiles rose 3.5 million barrels to 397.7 million barrels last week, the highest level since the 1930s. With the United States now producing over 8 million barrels per day
Kern County Water Agency intends to rescue hundreds of farms from the state’s severe drought this spring by reversing the flow of the California Aqueduct. Water districts in the San Joaquin Valley are proposing a drought tactic that’s never been
Standard & Poor’s downgraded Russia’s credit rating to BBB-, just one notch above junk, and warned that the nation faced a further downgrade in the event of tighter financial sanctions by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). To prevent
Lee Adler of the Wall Street Examiner just reported that the advance number of “actual” initial unemployment in the United States fell to an eight-year low according to the newest Department of Labor announcement. The 297,870 initial claims reported for
The Dutch Defense Department said it scrambled two F-16s from Volkel air force base to intercept a pair of Russian TU-95 Bear strategic bombers approaching their airspace from the North Sea. The Russian provocation comes just a week after Defense
In a flurry of Alaskan oil deals, London-based BP announced a sale of interests to Houston-based Hilcorp in four North Slope oil fields and the use of the proceeds for a big growth of investments on the North Slope. The
With Franklin Tax-Free Income going to court on May 12th to invalidate the pension for making Stockton, California, insolvent, all unfunded public pensions in California may be at risk of being invalidated by the court. In the corporate bankruptcy business, turnaround managers
The original Earth Day was proposed at the 1969 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Conference in San Francisco by peace activist John McConnell and supported by UN Secretary General U Thant to honor peace on earth and the
Fed Chair Janet Yellen, after declaring the U.S. Federal Reserve is abandoning Quantitative Easing – code words for money printing – is now demanding the Bank of Japan (BOJ) also curtail its Quantitative Easing. She understands the BOJ is using monetary policy
The Los Angeles Times ran an article Monday called “Moving in with Parents Becomes More Common for the Middle-aged” that seems to knock off a February story in the French magazine Le Monde called “Meet France’s Boomerang Kids, Moving Back In
Tesla Motors mined middle class taxpayers for a $495 million loan to build a subsidized car in California for uber-wealthy elitists to thumb their noses from the car-pool lane at the peasants in the low class lanes. Now they want
In a major setback to California voters, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled in favor of a motion by California to squelch subpoenas that sought records to verify that signatures had suspiciously been invalidated by the California Secretary of State
The crisis in Ukraine was always a confrontation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama. In the opening round, Russia won a huge psychological victory by humiliating America’s NATO alliance as a military paper-tiger, annexing the Crimea
The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) just admitted that the state-managed pension plan, that provides retirement for the state and almost 1,600 local government agencies, is 52% underfunded and will be forced to jack up taxpayer-funded contribution rates by about
Russia has achieved a strategic psychological victory over NATO in the Ukraine with the announcement by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva that an agreement had been reached with Ukrainian and NATO member diplomats to ease tensions in the country.
The California Field Poll has released its latest study on voters’ opinions of the seriousness of the current drought and what steps the state should take to respond to the crisis. The poll found that 88% of voters believe the
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen gave her first speech on monetary policy since she took office from retiring Chairman Ben Bernanke. Yellen made it clear she is focused on moving Federal Reserve (Fed) policy back to the “Taylor Rule”
The financial press went all “rainbows, butterflies and unicorns” with headlines like “Retail Sales Sizzle in March” over the supposedly strong retail sales report just released. Unfortunately for average Americans, their spending growth after inflation has been declining at a
The U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) just reported that United States “proven reserves” of crude oil in 2012 jumped by 15.4% to 29.2 billion barrels. This new official level is only about 13% of the declared reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Russia is probing NATO defenses in Eastern Europe as part of its strategy to recover the satellite countries it lost in the break-up of the Soviet Union. Although NATO was designed around European members shouldering most of their own security,
Barack Obama may be the Republicans’ best friend when it comes to educating 18-33-year olds of the Millennial Generation about the downside of voting for the Democrats’ economic policies. According to a report from the Pew Research Center for Social
Russia’s military annexation of the Crimea and buildup of land and air forces on its borders with Eastern Europe is raising anxiety that Russia will militarily intervene in other former “republics” to rebuild the Soviet Union. Ukrainian tanks and special-forces
The rain didn’t come to California last year, but it is was raining “Benjamins” on Capitol Hill as the Central Valley’s Paramount Farm interests contributed $457,000 to Congress, and the Westlands Water District spent $1,600,000 on lobbying and outreach last year.
Bill Gross must have never heard of the political saying “when you are digging a hole for yourself, stop digging.” After being dragged through the mud by the financial press over the messy exit of his Co-Chief Investment Officer, and
A new California Field Poll released Thursday reveals that in the aftermath of the corruption scandals involving three State Senators, the opinions of voters are turning against the performance of State Legislature incumbents. Democrats currently hold 55 seats and Republicans 25, a
In the continuing fallout following General Motors’ admission that for years it failed to recall of 2.6 million vehicles with known life threatening risks, Toyota Motor Corp on April 9th announced it would recall 6.39 million faulty vehicles in the company’s
In what can only be described as a national security and tech industry disaster for the United States, the Court of the European Union struck down the “2006 Directive” that allowed the EU and the United States to share in
