Almost all of the demand for oil that suddenly pushed prices up was speculative demand. People began to speculate not only in stocks and bonds and real estate, but also in commodities. The market went up for old tankers, which were used simply to store oil in. A lot of the oil was simply being stored for trading, not used.

That's why Apple, Microsoft and the big information technology companies have kept so much money registered abroad (although in US dollar accounts with a nominal foreign address's owner). They pretend to make their global income in Ireland. They have an office, which could be simply a postal drop box in Ireland, and claim to make all their money there, not in America.

When economists speak of money, they neglect that all money and credit is debt. That is the essence of bookkeeping and accounting. There are always two sides to the balance sheet. And one party’s money or savings is another party

Debtor countries may postpone the inevitable by borrowing from the IMF or U.S. Treasury to buy out bondholders. This saves the latter from taking a loss - leaving the debtor country with debts that are even harder to annul, because they are to foreign governments and international institutions.

To the deficit commission, a depression is the solution to the problem, not a problem.

I guess the main thing that came out of the Panama Papers was that Ukrainian President Poroshenko had promised to divest of his chocolate company and instead, he simply moved it into an offshore account. And on the very day that he was increasing the attacks on the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine, the export sector, he was signing documents to conceal his own money offshore. So the exposé of the Panama money laundering has hit some of the dictators that America is protecting and promoting.

When Mr.Trump says he wants to help all Americans, he means he wants to help all Americans in the 1% by really letting Wall Street get a huge debt from the 99% of the Americans. It's just the opposite of what people believe.