David Crowder

This past week the Congressional Budget Office released its latest projections on the U.S. Budget and Economic Outlook. News from the report was discouraging. The CBO projected that the federal government will amass huge budget deficits for the near to…

This past week saw the world financial, business, and technological elites and global powerbrokers meet in Davos, Switzerland for the 50th annual World Economic Forum week. The mood at the annual gathering was less than optimistic though. Just as the…

This past week the news emerged that despite what has been called the greatest economy in history a huge percentage of Americans are actually living from one paycheck to the next. Respected business news site MarketWatch cited a few surveys…

This past week saw the longstanding shadow war in the Middle East between the U.S. and Iran become an escalating conflict. After attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, America responded by killing the most powerful military figure in Iran,…

In the past few weeks, the extent of the unfolding banking crises in both Italy and China has become more apparent. In mid-December, the Italian government found itself forced to save the struggling southern lender Banca Popolare di Bari. The…

This past week saw mixed data released on the state of the U.S. economy. The statistics on spending and personal income were positive enough to lead stocks higher. While talking heads were crowing about the “strong economy,” they were overlooking…

Over the weekend the news emerged that the United States and China have reached a first phase trade war agreement. In the headlines it sounded like great news, but digging deeper beneath the surface revealed that there are several serious…

This past week, the news emerged that the even the rich are now tightening up on their belts. An exclusive report from Yahoo! Finance revealed that the rich have significantly reduced their spending and purchases versus the past year. According…

This past week a noted and almost revered institutional investor hall of famer Richard Bernstein turned bearish on the earnings of U.S. companies and the fortunes of the upcoming 2020 stock market. He became contrarian on the future direction of…

This past week a prominent government official vociferously objected to the massive runaway spending that the U.S. Congress continues to pursue. Even as Fiscal Year 2019 ended with an enormous federal budget deficit, Fiscal Year 2020 only worsened the trend.…

One consistent trend over the last few years is the dangerous rise of American consumer debt. This past week the news revealed that the U.S. consumer has again pushed this category of debt to another all-time high in September. The…

The news this week revealed that September set new records for both central bank and ETF gold buying. Central banks continued their gold buying spree as they diversified their currency reserves out of American dollars in a big way. For…

In the last few weeks, the news has emerged that corporate debt has reached its highest all-time level in recorded history. Possibly worse news is that half of this debt rates at only BBB, a single level over junk status.…

This week saw the deadline for Brexit move uncomfortably and dangerously close with no breakthrough on the negotiations between Great Britain and the EU in sight. As of today there are only 22 days left until Britain leaves the EU…

This past weekend saw a major successful attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil production facilities and one of its largest oil fields. It resulted in over five million barrels of oil exports being taken offline. The most severe sudden disruption of…