Here comes a great crash that will defie the law of Economics

Current stock market valuations are not sustainable.  If there is one thing that I want you to remember from this article, it is that cold, hard fact.  

In 1929, 2000 and 2008, stock prices soared to absolutely absurd levels just before horrible stock market crashes.  

What goes up must eventually come down, and the stock market bubble of today will be no exception.  

In fact, virtually everyone in the financial community acknowledges that stock prices are irrationally high right now.  

Some are suggesting that there is still time to jump in and make money before the crash comes, while others are recommending a much more cautious approach. 

But what almost everyone agrees on is the fact that stocks cannot go up like this forever.

On Tuesday, the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all set brand new record highs once again.  Overall, U.S. stocks are now up more than 10 percent since the election, and this is probably the greatest post-election stock market rally in our entire history.

But stocks were already tremendously overvalued before the election, and at this point stock prices have reached a level of ridiculousness only matched a couple of times before in the past 100 years.

Only the most extreme optimists will try to tell you that stock prices can stay this disconnected from economic reality indefinitely.  

We are in the midst of one of the most outrageous stock market bubbles of all time, and as MarketWatch has noted, all stock market bubbles eventually burst...

The U.S. stock market at this level reflects a combination of great demand, great complacency, and great greed. Stocks are clearly in a bubble, and like all bubbles, this one is about to burst.

If corporations were making tremendous amounts of money, rapidly rising stock prices would make logical sense.

But that is not the case at all.  Corporate earnings for the fourth quarter of 2016 were actually quite dismal, and this disconnect between Wall Street and economic reality is starting to really bug financial analysts such as Brian Sozzi...

The S&P 500 has gone 89 straight sessions without a 1% decline. Considering that Corporate America didn't exactly light up on the top and bottom lines during the fourth quarter, such a streak is rather troublesome. 

Granted, the stock market is a forward-looking mechanism that appears to be trading on hopes that Trump's unannounced stimulus and tax plans will be lifting economic growth in 2018. 

Even so, the inability of investors to at least acknowledge persistent struggles among companies and ongoing chaos in Washington is starting to become disturbing.

It is a basic fact of economics that stock prices should accurately reflect current and future earnings.

So if corporate earnings are at the same level they were at in 2011, why has the S&P 500 risen by 87 percent since then?  The following comes from Wolf Richter...

The S&P 500 stock index edged up to an all-time high of 2,351 on Friday. Total market capitalization of the companies in the index exceeds $20 trillion. That's 106% of US GDP, for just 500 companies! At the end of 2011, the S&P 500 index was at 1,257. Over the five-plus years since then, it has ballooned by 87%!

These are superlative numbers, and you'd expect superlative earnings performance from these companies. Turns out, reality is not that cooperative. 

Instead, net income of the S&P 500 companies is now back where it first had been at the end of 2011.

The cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio was originally created by author Robert Shiller, and it is widely regarded as one of the best measures of the true value of stocks in existence.  

According to the Guardian, there have only been two times in our entire history when this ratio has been higher.  

One was just before the stock market crash of 1929, and the other was just before the bursting of the dotcom bubble...

Traditionally, one of the best yardsticks for whether shares are over-valued or under-valued has been the cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio constructed by the economist Robert Shiller. 

This ratio is currently at about 29 and has only twice been higher: in 1929 ahead of the Wall Street Crash, and in the last frantic months of the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.

We can definitely wish for the current euphoria on Wall Street to last for as long as possible, but let there be absolutely no doubt that it is going to end at some point.

It would take a market decline of 40 or 50 percent to get the cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio back to a level that makes economic sense.  

Let us hope that the market does not make such a violent move very rapidly, because that would likely be absolutely crippling for our financial system.

Markets tend to go down a lot faster than they go up, and every other major stock market bubble in U.S. history has ended very badly.

And this bubble is definitely overdue to burst.  The bull market that led up to the great crash of 1929 lasted for 2002 days, and this week the current bull market will finally exceed that record.

Trying to pick a specific date for a market crash is typically a fruitless exercise, but market watchers are becoming very concerned about some of the signs that we are now seeing. 

Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=1052#M69ucgSX1TCRY8Iw.99

The Oonirisa Of Ife, Ghana’s President, Others Join Queen Elizabeth II For Commonwealth Celebrations In London

The Ooni of Ife His Imperial Majesty Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II,  President of Ghana, His Excellency,Nana Akufo Addo and Former Prime Minister of Barbados Arthur Owen are expected to join Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, other members of the Royal Family, Commonwealth Secretary General and other leaders of the Commonwealth as Special Guest Speakers during the this year’s Commonwealth Day Service and Commonwealth Africa Summit 2017 where “Leveraging our Commonwealth Heritage for economic development and collective growth” will be at the top of conversations during summit  slated to hold from the 13th – 15th March 2017.

In line with the yearly history of the rich tradition of Commonwealth celebration which is geared towards the promotion of mutually respectful cultural values of all member states, Ooni Ogunwusi will be involved in a number of events to include the Commonwealth Day Service and the Commonwealth Africa Summit slated to hold from 13th to 15th March 2017 where the African foremost monarch is expected as a keynote speaker and a Special Guest of Honour to lay wreath at the Memorial Gate in remembrance of Africans who died in the 2nd world wars.

As the Arole Oduduwa and Spiritual Leader of all Yoruba people at home and in Diaspora, His Imperial Majesty who will during his 2week visit to the UK meet with the multitude of Yoruba subjects residing in the country will be hosted by members of the British Parliament business leaders to discuss mutually benefits in cultural, economic and educational collaboration and partnerships.

Se eti riigbo, wipe ?: Arole Oodua The Oonirisa of Ile Ife His Imperial Majesty Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi will visit Oxford in March

Arole Oodua His Imperial Majesty, The Oonirisa of Ile Ife , Oba Enitan Ogunwusi is set to visit Oxford on the 22 of March 2017 as part of a two-week tour in Britain. Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, who was crowned the Ooni of Ife in 2015, is one of the most influential of the Yoruba people, Nigeria’s second biggest ethnic group. The 42-year-old accountant is due to visit Britain for the Commonwealth African Summit in London, from March 13 to 15. He will come to Oxford on March 22 to give a lecture at Oxford University, before taking a tour of the Ashmolean Museum. King Ogunwusi is also expected to have dinner with the members of the Nigerian community living in Oxfordshire. The Commonwealth summit he is attending earlier in March will focus on ‘leveraging our Commonwealth heritage for economic development’.

Vizio Smart TVs Spied On 11 Million Viewers 24 Hours Per Day Without Their Knowledge Or Consent

Vizio, one of the world’s biggest makers of Smart TVs, is paying $2.2 million to settle charges that it collected viewing habits from 11 million devices without the knowledge or consent of the people watching them. According to a complaint filed Monday by the US Federal Trade Commission, Internet-connected TVs from Vizio contained ACR—short for automated content recognition—software. Without asking for permission, the ACR code captured second-by-second information about the video the TVs displayed. The software collected other personal information and transmitted it, along with the viewing data, to servers controlled by the manufacturer. Vizio then sold the data to unnamed third-parties for purposes of audience measurement, analysis, and tracking. “For all of these uses, Defendants provide highly specific, second-by-second information about television viewing,” FTC lawyers wrote in Monday’s complaint. “Each line of a report provides viewing information about a single television. In a securities filing, Vizio states that its data analytics program, for example, ‘provides highly specific viewing behavior data on a massive scale with great accuracy, which can be used to generate intelligent insights for advertisers and media content providers.'” In an e-mailed statement, Vizio officials wrote: “The ACR program never paired viewing data with personally identifiable information such as name or contact information, and the Commission did not allege or contend otherwise. Instead, as the Complaint notes, the practices challenged by the government related only to the use of viewing data in the ‘aggregate’ to create summary reports measuring viewing audiences or behaviors.” The tracking started in February 2014 on both new TVs and previously sold devices that didn’t originally ship with ACR software installed. The software periodically appended IP addresses to the collected data and also made it possible for more detailed personal information—including age, sex, income, marital status, household size, education level, home ownership, and home values—to be associated. The collection occurred under a setting that was described as a “Smart Interactivity” feature that “enables program offers and suggestions.” The menu never informed users that the feature also transmitted viewing habits or other personal information. The complaint offered these additional technical details: Through the ACR software, Vizio’s televisions transmit information about what a consumer is watching on a second-by-second basis. Defendants’ ACR software captures information about a selection of pixels on the screen and sends that data to Vizio servers, where it is uniquely matched to a database of publicly available television, movie, and commercial content. Defendants collect viewing data from cable or broadband service providers, set-top boxes, external streaming devices, DVD players, and over-the-air broadcasts. Defendants have stated that the ACR software captures up to 100 billion data points each day from more than 10 million VIZIO televisions. Defendants store this data indefinitely

Israel just crossed a line it has never crossed before

As police forcibly evacuated the illegal Israeli settlement of Amona last week, in the West Bank, right-wing Israeli lawmakers were frantically preparing legislation to ensure that no other settlements could be cleared in the future.

The legislation was passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament, 60-52 late Monday night.

The unprecedented “Regularization Law” crosses new legal and political lines — applying Israeli law to Palestinians in the West Bank — and comes just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing for a summit with US President Donald Trump next week.

The law gives Israel the right to expropriate land where Israeli settlements or outposts have previously been built, even if the land is owned by private Palestinians. Palestinian landowners, even if their rights to the land are recognized by the Israeli authorities, will not be permitted to claim the land or take possession of it "until there is a diplomatic resolution of the status of the territories."

Although the law does not grant the settlers ownership of the land, it does permit them to remain in their homes if "the settlements or outposts were built in good faith or at the state's instruction."

This is the first time since Israel took military control of the West Bank in the 1967 Six Days War that the Knesset has passed legislation regulating Palestinian property ownership in the West Bank. 

As compensation, Palestinian landowners can choose to receive an annual usage free of 125 percent of the land's value as determined by an assessment committee, or to receive a comparable, alternate plot of land, if one is available.

According to Peace Now, a left-wing Israeli organization, the retroactive legislation can be applied to some 70 settlements and outposts, totaling huge swaths of land, although the precise numbers have yet to be determined. Existing demolition orders against Israeli homes built on land claimed by Palestinian owners will be frozen for a year, pending the state's decision.

Critics say the new law is a flagrant violation of the basic principles of democracy.

A former justice minister and parliamentarian from Netanyahu's own Likud party, Dan Meridor called the law "evil and dangerous" and noted that Palestinians in the West Bank who live under military occupation "did not vote for the Knesset and the Knesset has no authority to legislate for them."

The Regularization Law passed just weeks after the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2334, which states that Israel’s settlement-building has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law" —  in particular, the Geneva Conventions, which Israel has signed and ratified.

As a result, the law potentially exposes Israel to prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Soldiers who enforce the rules — for instance, by forcibly removing Palestinian landowners from their land — could possibly be brought to trial for war crimes.  

Ironically, the Regularization Law could never be applied to Israel proper, because it violates basic civil and property rights already recognized there.

Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups have already filed petitions against the legislation with the Israeli Supreme Court, which may, in fact, strike it down. Israel's Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who was appointed by Netanyahu, has stated that he will not defend the legislation in court.

Yet damage has already been done. According to Israeli media, in response to the law's passage, European Union officials have postponed a long-awaited summit that, Israeli officials had hoped, would lead to a thaw in Israel's relations with the EU. And Germany's foreign ministry issued a statement reading, "Our trust in the Israeli government's commitment to the two-state solution has been fundamentally shaken."

The legislation is also likely to impact the upcoming Trump-Netanyahu meeting. Netanyahu, who heads Israel's most right-wing coalition ever, has high hopes for his relationship with the new US administration, which, he believes, will support Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank.

But according to Israeli media, the Trump administration had told Netanyahu not to make any significant moves on settlement before the meeting. Netanyahu had tried to convince his own party and coalition partners to postpone the vote, but they refused. And when, in late January, Israel announced plans to approve close to 6,000 new housing units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the White House released a statement saying settlements "are not helpful to achieving peace.”

White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to comment on the Regularization Law, but at his daily briefing on Tuesday stated that it would be "a topic of discussion" when the leaders meet.

Even the name of the law has become a controversial political issue. In Hebrew, the word for "Regularization" — hasdara — can be interpreted colloquially as "making everything OK in the end.” But the English-language media have been left to sort out their own translations, which have relflected political inclinations.

The right-leaning Jerusalem Post accepts the official government translation and refers to the "Regularization Law.” The centrist Times of Israel goes with the "Outposts Law." And the left-leaning Haaretz blatantly calls it "The Land-Grab Law."

HTML Code

Mark of the beast:Church and State Unite in America: Franklin Graham says Donald Trump Won Election by the ‘Hand of God’

Celebrated evangelical Rev. Franklin Graham says that it was the “hand of God,” rather than Russian hackers, that determined the outcome of November’s presidential election.

“I think maybe God has allowed Donald Trump to win this election to protect this nation for the next few years by giving maybe an opportunity to have some good judges,” he said.

The son of renowned Baptist minister Billy Graham, the Rev. Franklin Graham has been invited by President-elect Trump to be one of six clergy to offer the invocation, benediction, and several readings at his swearing-in ceremony on January 20.

In an interview with Religion News Service Thursday, Graham said that beyond mere human factors, the mysterious hand of divine providence was at work in the elections.

“All I know is Donald Trump was supposed to lose the election” according to all the polls, Graham said.

“For these states to go the way they did, in my opinion, I think it was the hand of God,” he said. “It wasn’t hacking. It wasn’t Wiki-leaky or whatever. It was God, in my opinion, and I believe his hand was at work, and I think he’s given Christians an opportunity.”

While never officially endorsing Trump, Rev. Graham has been a sharp critic of the Obama administration and a vocal opponent of Hillary Clinton, especially for her uncompromising support of abortion-on-demand.

Shortly before Election Day, Graham declared that the best choice for president “isn’t difficult to figure out if you are a Christian,” in evident reference to Republican candidate Donald Trump.

“There’s two different pictures and two different visions for America,” Graham said in early November. “The Democratic Party has a vision, Hillary Clinton has a vision, Donald Trump has a totally different vision for this nation with the Republican Party. This isn’t difficult to figure out if you are a Christian.”

The evangelist acknowledged that for many, voting for Trump might not have been easy, but he insisted that it was, nonetheless, the better choice and that Trump was a “changed man.”

“You may have to hold your nose and vote,” Graham said. “I have people that say, ‘Well I don’t like Donald Trump, I don’t like what he says.’ Well I don’t like what he said either, I promise I don’t like it. But those are things that he said 11 years ago, not something that he said today.”

“I think Donald Trump has changed,” Graham added. “I think God is working on his heart and in his life. But people have to make up their own mind.”

In a Facebook post some weeks earlier, Graham had stated that “the difference between the candidates is night and day.”

“Some candidates have entire political ads talking about how they spent their career fighting for the rights of children,” he said. “Yet they spent their entire career fighting against the rights of unborn children!”

Graham said Hillary Clinton’s progressive agenda was “godless” and could not be defended.

Following WikiLeaks revelations, the preacher denounced the “depth of corruption” in Washington politics, calling for its eradication.

“WikiLeaks is giving us a much clearer picture of the depth of the corruption that is thriving in our nation’s capital,” Graham wrote, calling it “a swamp that needs to be drained.”

“Our political system is broken, and it will take strong, tough leadership to begin fixing some of this,” Graham said.

Regarding the inauguration ceremony, Graham says he still has not decided which Scripture passage to read.

“I’m taking time just to pray and ask God to give me wisdom and guidance because it’s a responsibility that I take very seriously,” he said.