by Wolf Richter, Wolf Street:
Subprime is calling.
In the first quarter, the delinquency rate on credit-card loan balances at commercial banks other than the largest 100 – so at the 4,788 smaller banks in the US – spiked in to 5.9%. This exceeds the peak during the Financial Crisis. The credit-card charge-off rate at these banks spiked to 8%. This is approaching the peak during the Financial Crisis.
A sobering set of numbers the Federal Reserve Board of Governors released this afternoon.
But overall, across all commercial banks, including the largest banks with the largest credit-card loan balances outstanding, the delinquency rate was 2.54% (not seasonally adjusted). This overall rate was pushed down by the largest 100 banks, whose combined delinquency rate in Q1 was 2.48%.
The best evidence that Russia-gate is sinking beneath the waves is the way those pushing the pseudo-scandal are now busily covering their tracks. The Guardian complains that “as the inquiry has expanded and dominated the news agenda over the last year, the real issues of people’s lives are in danger of being drowned out by obsessive cable television coverage of the Russia investigation” – as if The Guardian’s own coverage hasn’t been every bit as obsessive as anything CNN has come up with. 
In recent years, the number of people moving away from the state of California has greatly outnumbered the number of people moving into the state. Reasons for the mass exodus include rising crime, the worst traffic in the western world, a growing homelessness epidemic, wildfires, earthquakes and crazy politicians that do some of the stupidest things imaginable. But for most families, the decision to leave California comes down to one basic factor…
The Vatican released a lengthy report yesterday on how the drive for accumulating money at any cost has turned Wall Street and much of the global financial system into an “amoral culture,” noting that the idea that markets will be self-policing is pure bunk. The Vatican has apparently decided to keep the debate alive that Senator Bernie Sanders started during the presidential campaign of 2016 when he repeatedly railed against Wall Street for having a “business model of fraud.” The Vatican’s entry into this critical conversation would be much more meaningful if each time it or the Pope lectures the world on the meaning of morality they would acknowledge the Catholic Church’s own moral failings over decades in protecting sexual predators of children, refusing to report the assaults to law enforcement and moving the predators from parish to parish — not all that dissimilar to the private justice system run by Wall Street as predator brokers move from firm to firm. (See our related article on the Pope 
This is America clearly struck a chord with this generation. But is there more to the character played by Donald Glover than meets the eye? We’ll look at the symbolism of This is America and its significance in today’s social climate.
Five million people die from stroke every year. Those deaths can be cruel and lingering. These 9 foods can help keep you safe. 
For years I’ve been arguing that there is a GMO geopolitics going on in the world, as European and American agribusiness cartels – think only of IG Farbensanto, my nickname for the whole GMO-food control project, recently made a reality by German giant Bayer buying out American Monsanto (in cash!) – try to gain control of the world’s food supply through patented seeds, and while other countries, Russia and India, have resisted. I’ve been arguing that Russia’s growing stance against GMOs would position it as the world’s biggest non-GMO food supplier. This article, shared by Mr. B., makes it abundantly clear that this is exactly what is in Mr. Putin’s mind:
OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS, THE PENTAGON IS POISED TO SPEND ALMOST $1 BILLION FOR A RANGE OF ROBOTS DESIGNED TO COMPLEMENT COMBAT TROOPS. BEYOND SCOUTING AND EXPLOSIVES DISPOSAL, THESE NEW MACHINES WILL SNIFF OUT HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS OR OTHER AGENTS, PERFORM COMPLEX RECONNAISSANCE AND EVEN CARRY A SOLDIER’S GEAR.