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Washington

Washington

If You Think the Fed Is Bananas Now, Just You Wait…

Back in July, President Trump tweeted his intentions to nominate Judy Shelton to be on the board of the Federal Reserve.

And while she hasn't been formally nominated yet, her mixed-up ideas on how the Fed should operate under government control are both alarming and dangerous.

Today, our Shah Gilani delves deep to show you the danger her plans, and the Fed in general, pose to America's capitalist democracy...

Washington

The Modern Monetary Theory Could Trigger a Rome-Style Collapse

The left wing of the Democratic Party has a lot of ambitious proposals on the table in the form of the Green New Deal, and they've come up with an imaginative way to pay for it: Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT for short. This is essentially the idea that there's nothing to prevent a sovereign government like the United States from printing as much money as it needs to pay for whatever it wants.

But here's why MMT would end in disaster...

Washington

The "Warfare State" Has Consumed the Middle Class

The United States spends roughly $800 billion a year on defense; the People's Republic of China, about $146 billion. The Russian Federation lays out around $55 billion, annualized, while the Islamic Republic of Iran's military spend annualizes at $15 billion – not accounting for the crippling 13%-plus inflation it's experiencing.

Finding reliable figures for military expenditures of Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, or the tattered remnants of al-Qaeda and ISIS would be a waste of time.

It's enough to say that not a single one of these state and non-state actors can reasonably be expected to show up on our shores, "D-Day style," at any point in the near future. And if you expect any of these adversaries might come ashore, cannons blazing, in Cleveland, or San Francisco, or Austin, or Bismarck, N.D., then I respectfully submit you may be watching a little too much cable news.

And in the slightly more likely event that one of these foes were to, say, set off a dirty bomb in any of these places, it's doubtful an extra aircraft carrier would prevent it.

And yet, if the manifestly stupid, hopelessly censored mainstream media – run by just five conglomerates – were to be believed, hordes of jihadist enemies are closing in from all sides, moments away from striking.

Then again, this pale shadow of a legitimate Fourth Estate has also – just as dangerously – confused an East Coast stock bubble for real, widespread prosperity and strength.

No, folks, the real danger to American security and prosperity - what's left of it, at least - is safely ensconced, thriving in its ultimate evil, right here...

Washington

36 Reasons Why Today Could Be Marijuana's Biggest Day in Weeks

Legal cannabis is off to a roaring start in Canada, of course, but the next flood of big-gain potential will come to us courtesy of folks south of the border.

That's because today, voters in Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Utah, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin will head to the polls to vote on no less than 36 major cannabis reform ballot measures.

Now, any one of these could catalyze tremendous pot-stock gains virtually overnight because, as we've seen time and again since 2014, "when laws pass, stocks soar."

But I'm most excited about the biggest of them...

Washington

How the Trump Tax Cuts Are Biting into Market Returns

Stock prices and leaves aren't the only things falling right now.

Tax collections fell again in September, but the Congressional "Budget Busting Agreement" has spending soaring right into the face of plunging federal revenue.

And I'm here to tell you this: The fall in tax collections is a big factor driving shares and bond prices down.

Find out why over the long term, there won't be enough liquidity left in the markets for earnings to go anywhere but down...

Washington

I'm Not Remotely Worried About a Federal Weed Crackdown

There aren't many U.S. Department of Justice officials who would be "rock stars" anywhere, period, let alone at a San Jose legal cannabis industry expo.

But I'm here to tell you: There was such a star in our midst at this conference…

I'm talking about former Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole.

Back in 2013, he was the No. 2 official at the Justice Department who authored the now-famous "Cole Memo."

That memorandum ordered federal agents to leave states with legalized marijuana well enough alone – as long as they had adopted a clear regulatory framework for doing so. The landmark memo gave the states and federal law enforcement a kind of legal modus vivendi for regulated cannabis, allowing each party to "look the other way."

The memo was instrumental in helping a multibillion-dollar legal weed sector take root and thrive.

So it's no surprise that, as a keynote speaker at the Cannabis Business Summit & Expo in San Jose July 25-27, Cole was treated like a conquering hero.

I had the chance to catch up with him privately beforehand to hear what he had to say...

Washington

The Truth About That $20 Billion Boeing "Lost" When Trump Pulled Out of the Iran Deal

From the very first episode, I've dug "Mythbusters," the popular Discovery Channel TV series in which special-effects wizards Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman used the scientific method to prove or "bust" urban legends, myths, rumors, movie scenes, and even current news stories.

Well, there's another sequence of myths making the rounds right now about one of the best stocks you can buy.

So, tongue firmly in cheek, I thought it might be instructive (and fun) for us try our hand at mythbusting, with me as the "host."

So here is the myth, broadly stated…

"Boeing will lose as much as $20 billion in aircraft deals as Trump pulls the United States out of the Iran nuclear pact… and that loss will clobber Boeing."

While I'm having fun "hosting" this "episode," I'm dead serious about a critical examination of these media claims to determine whether they're factual reporting… or yet another cluster of "media myths" aimed at The Boeing Co.

There are three key reasons why this is so important:

Boeing is a longtime Private Briefing favorite and a dynamite outperformer, too. This stock has zoomed as much as 500% since I first recommended it to my subscribers at about $62 back in September 2011. Even after a pullback (before the Iran news broke), the stock is still at $344, a 455% gain – not including dividends.

I've seen these types of scare headlines before – directed at Boeing by journalists who are going for the drama of the disaster du jour, though they clearly don't "get it" in terms of what's really going on. And with each of these – the "Boeing Dreamliner Scare," for instance, and again more recently, with the Southwest Air Flight 1380 incident – those media folks were flat-out wrong.

And most important of all, we believe Boeing continues to be a great long-term growth play – which is why it's on Private Briefing's "Super 10" list of stocks to accumulate when prices go down.

With massive potential future gains on the line, let's investigate whether all the assertions of "catastrophic damage" to Boeing's top-line prospects hold water or not...