Israeli Strikes Kill Five Across Southern Lebanon

Prices Jump, Employment Dumps As US ISM Services Disappoints In March The last six months or so has seen S&P Global's and ISM's Services PMI surveys diverge dramatically (former at three year lows, latter near four year highs). But, following S&P Global's Services PMI plunge into contraction in March, ISM's Services PMI actually 'agreed' and fell also (but only modestly) from 56.1 to 54.0 (still in expansion but worse than the expected 54.9)... Source: Bloomberg Under the hood it was a very mixed bag with a surge in New Orders (highest since Feb...

US Mortgage Debt Hits $13.2 Trillion, Average Household Owes Nearly $109,000 Authored by Mary Prenon via The Epoch Times, America’s mortgage debt continues to escalate, hitting the $13.2 trillion mark, according to an April 30 WalletHub report. The personal finance website and app indicated that the average U.S. household owes nearly $109,000 in outstanding mortgage balances and that mortgage debt has remained on an upward trend over the past few years. “Mortgage rates are the highest they’ve been in around a decade, and home prices have seen a meteoric rise in recent years...

We Can't Control This: The Populist Tide Is Coming For Both Parties Authored by Charles Bass and Richard Swett via RealClearPolitics.com, Who was David Brat? Many Americans have forgotten the name. We haven’t. In 2014, David Brat, then a little-known economics professor, stunned the political world by defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary in Virginia. At the time, most observers viewed the upset as an isolated event - a local revolt against an established leader who had lost touch with his district. In retrospect, it was something much larger....