One psychologist who wished to remain anonymous told Sky News that the developments represented a “medical scandal.”

“Our fears are that young people are being over-diagnosed and then over-medicalised,” the psychologist said.

He added that staff members were shut down by other clinicians when they tried to voice concerns and feared being labeled “transphobic” if they didn’t approve treatment.

“Looking back there are young people who I now wouldn’t necessarily put on medication,” he said.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that five people working at Britain’s only NHS transgender clinic had quit after children as young as three were being through unnecessary gender reassignment treatment.

“Referrals to the clinic risen in recent years, with 94 in 2010, rising to 2,519 by last year, with the youngest patient aged just three,” reported the Daily Mail.

As we previously highlighted, parents in some EU countries are even having their children taken by the government for refusing to allow sex change treatment.

*  *  *

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The Brookings Institution released research recently that shows that the problem may be more profound than many people thought. Cities like Dallas, which has performed well in terms of overall employment growth, is still trailing in attracting workers in 13 separate industries.

And about 20 US cities, led by San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Boston and San Diego have sucked up much of the chemical manufacturing, satellite telecommunications and scientific research jobs between 2005 in 2017. These cities captured an additional 6% of "innovation" jobs, amounting to about 250,000 positions. 

Many companies in these industries tend to benefit from being closer to one another and they are able to target educated employees with urban amenities.

Brookings Institution economist Mark Muro said the trend risks could wind up "self-reinforcing and destructive, as the workforce separates into a group of highly productive and high-earning metro areas and everywhere else."

And even though it is expensive to operate in Silicon Valley, prompting many companies to move some offices out of the area, the moves haven’t been large enough to register or make a difference in the overall trend. Muro says that most US metro areas are either losing innovation jobs outright or gaining no share.

His study showed “a clear hierarchy of economic performance based on innovation capacity had become deeply entrenched.”

"Across the 13 industries they studied, workers in the upper echelon of cities were about 50% more productive than in others," his data showed. 

(click to enlarge)

After World War II in the U.S., labor was more mobile and the types of industries driving the economy were more diverse and less clustered. This trend started to reverse around 1980 and there are now growing concerns of the United States is separating into two different economies, prompting efforts to spread the benefits of economic growth more evenly.

The Federal Reserve said that this was a risk to possible overall growth and many political figures have addressed the issue as well. The key directive of Trump's trade war with China, in fact, is to help provide a resurgence in labor to depleted areas of the country.

The authors of the study believe that "federal research grants, tax breaks, and loosened regulations" are the keys to solving the problem. They propose "focusing on around 10 inland cities with a large enough population and existing tech expertise to contribute" and the idea will be discussed by a congressional caucus on competitiveness this week. 

“It is wishful thinking we will turn this around without some directed federal support,” Muro concluded.

“They’re standing there, President Trump is holding court. And he says, ‘Oh, by the way, no pressure.’ And you saw President Zelensky shaking his head as if his daughter was downstairs in the basement, duct-taped,” Johnson said, drawing laughter from the room.

At least the democrat is being relentlessly mocked on Twitter for his blatant ridiculousness.

I have never witnessed anything like the last three years, culminating with these last three weeks.


I have seen more rational and convincing arguments in emails from Nigerian banisters

— crosby spencer (@crosbyspencer1) December 12, 2019

While the scenario Johnson conjured up was highly embellished, it was the latest Democratic attempt to undercut the White House, reported RT.  Democrats seek to insist that President Trump placed no “pressure” on Zelensky or imposed a “quid pro quo” on his government.

I think he’s a plant..

Not by any alphabet agency or anything like that..

Literally, I think he’s a plant.. Almost vegetative..

— billstmichael (@billstmichael) December 13, 2019

Democrats have been grasping for straws in attempts to convince people Trump’s “pressure” on the Ukrainian president was an impeachable offense. In public statements, Zelensky himself has maintained that he faced no pressure, deeming his July phone conversation with President Trump a “good call.”  Johnson challenged that claim, suggesting at one point during Thursday’s hearing that Trump’s height advantage over Zelensky proved a disparity of power between the two leaders.

Wait? What? Is this what he’s talking about? Trump in a big chair? Huh. Come on Trump couldn’t you shrink for this meeting? Good grief abuse of size right?! Geez pic.twitter.com/t3NiByncVS

— Gail Hooper (@gailehooper) December 12, 2019

Again, Johnson is being mocked on Twitter for his irrational behavior and statements.

To be fair this is the same guy who thought Guam might tip over. Not new for Hank! https://t.co/34bbVK6YO3

— mallory quigley (@mallorytq) December 12, 2019

The Democrat-controlled House launched an impeachment inquiry into the Trump-Zelensky phone call in September, after a White House whistleblower came forward with allegations that President Trump coerced Zelensky by leveraging US military aid to compel an investigation into his political rival, Joe Biden. Democrats introduced two articles of impeachment earlier this week as a result of the inquiry, which are set for a committee vote sometime late on Thursday night. –RT

Until then, expect the nonsense to continue. Democats want to impeach Trump because he’s tall and because they conjured up a fake scenario in their own heads that Trump had tied up the Ukrainian president’s daughter in his basement with duct tape. How are we to NOT think this is just a gigantic rouse?

Chinese middle class, some of the richest in the world, is expected to abandon the US for Japan, Thailand, and South Korea, during the holiday week next month. 

CAAC didn't explain the cause of the shift in tourism, but after more than a decade of rapid growth, Chinese travels to the US are falling as President Trump's trade war deepens into the 17th month.

The resulting trend has been hugely damaging for the US tourism sector.

The US Travel Association recently warned that tourism from China might never recover as other countries will take market share.

In the last year, Chinese tourists have been flocking to Russia, Europe, Australia, and Canada, spending record amounts of money.

"If market share loss continues in future years, the United States will be losing out on one of the largest and fastest-growing source markets of global travel," the US Travel Association warned.

In August, we reported that a slump in tourism was seen in Beverly Hills as Chinese and Saudi tourists went elsewhere.

While the Chinese might be abandoning the US tourism industry, they're still traveling around the world in increasing numbers. Outbound travel from China rose 5.5% in 2018, as it seems the great decoupling between the US and China is not just affecting trade and technology, but now has spread into tourism. 

“Maybe we can have a way to create a thousand housing units overnight,” Kaplan said of the program, adding that her plan will come at “no or low” cost because the city would not be purchasing the boat, but simply renting it, and requiring the residents to contribute towards the rental fee based on their level of income.

It may sound counterproductive to charge homeless people for a place to stay, and perhaps it is, but even homeless shelters require a small fee of their residents, and the housing will likely be far more affordable than most apartments or hotels.

“It could be a great way to house a lot of people quickly. Cruise ships have been used for emergency housing after natural disasters and for extra housing for things like Olympics,” Kaplan told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Kaplan suggested that the ship could work similarly to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, a large old ship that is now docked in the harbor, acting as a hotel for tourists and other visitors to the area.

Many members of the council are on board with the proposal, but it would need to be approved by the Port of Oakland and they seem reluctant to allow such a cruise ship to dock in their port for extended periods of time.

Mike Zampa, a spokesman for the port told the Chronicle that Oakland’s port was designed for cargo ships, not cruise ships.

“There isn’t the infrastructure to berth a cruise ship. Safety and security issues at the federally regulated maritime facilities would make residential uses untenable. How do you hook it up to utilities? You can’t have unauthorized personnel walking back and forth through marine terminals—those are federally regulated facilities, you need a badge to get in and out. There is also a lot of big and heavy equipment rumbling over those facilities all day long,” Zampa said.

Without support from the Port of Oakland, it is very likely that this plan will not go forward. Oakland has seen a huge spike in homelessness over the past two years, with the number of people on the street rising from 1,902 to 3,210.

The bonuses handed out were on top of other year-end bonuses the company offered.

But St. John's Properties looks more and more like it is the exception from the norm when it comes to holiday bonuses this year. 

According to a survey from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, fewer and fewer companies are offering performance based bonuses in recent years. 

About 10% of companies surveyed said they would give bonuses to all staff based on company performance this year. That number is down from almost 19% in 2015. 

About 24% of companies said that bonuses would be given to select workers. This is down from 37.5% in 2015.

The same survey - which polled 250 companies - shows that the share of companies awarding bonuses of $100 or less, in cash or gift cards, is increasing to 20%, from 12.5%. Other non-monetary gifts, like an extra vacation day or a gift basket (because that'll help pay the rent) are also up, to 11% from 6.3% in 2015.

On Wall Street, employees probably aren't hoping for a repeat of last year. The 2018 average bonus in the NY Securities Industry last year was $153,700, which was down nearly 17% from $184,400 in 2017. 

Andrew Challenger, vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said: "The decline in season’s end gifts was uneven. Based on anecdotes, bonuses in finance, real estate and construction were strong, but slipping in retail and manufacturing."

Last year I actually ran for Congress, and so I understand how stressful politics can be. I really wanted to get to Washington and make some positive changes, but a massive flood of PAC money came pouring in from outside the state for another candidate and that totally turned the tide of the campaign. In fact, the PACs spent more money on the campaign that any of the individual candidates did by a very wide margin. It was a very painful lesson, and it taught me a lot about why our political system is so deeply corrupt.

Laughter can be great medicine, and sometimes I find it helpful to laugh about what is going on in Washington right now. With that in mind, the following are 14 hilarious political gifts that you should definitely not give to your liberal friends, and each link will take you directly to Amazon via an affiliate link…

#1 Nancy Pelosi toilet paper: Pelosi has become the face of the impeachment sham that is currently unfolding in D.C., and considering how unfairly the Democrats have been treating President Trump, what conservative would not be at least a little tempted to put this toilet paper in their bathrooms?

#2 Full Set of Democrat Monopoly-Style Board Game Money: The Democratic candidates for president seem to be competing with one another to see who can promise to give the voters the most free stuff, and so this gag gift seems very appropriate for the 2020 election season. The money features the faces of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris.

#3 Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide: This book has more than 3,000 ratings on Amazon, and it has an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars. It is almost entirely blank, and because of that President Trump has called it “a great book for your reading enjoyment!”

#4 The Impeachment Case Against Trump: Funny Trump Political Humor Gag Gift: This is another book that is almost entirely blank because the truth is that the Democrats have no case at all.

#5 All The Reasons To Vote For Biden: Needless to say, this is another blank book, and I expect it to become a lot more popular if Biden can actually win the Democratic nomination.

#6 Clown Show Trump Haters T-Shirt: Can you imagine Pelosi, Schumer, Brennan, Clapper, Schiff, Nadler, Pressley, AOC, Waters, Biden, Sanders, Mueller, Warren, Omar, Beto, Comey and Tlaib on a single shirt? And what makes it even better is that they are all in clown masks.

#7 The Hillary Clinton Coloring Book: This is definitely not a coloring book for children. The following is what the seller says about it: Acclaimed artist Tim Foley offers colorists thirty-one black-and-white illustrations of Hillary in all her pant-suited, empowering magnificence. Foley has transposed the former first lady into a wide variety of famous paintings and photographs. From placing her face on the Statue of Liberty to transforming her into Rosie the Riveter or Uncle Sam taking on Trump, Foley masterfully incorporates Clinton into a variety of scenes that are sure to be loads of fun to fill with color. This book also features her as Amelia Earhart, Wonder Woman, Nancy Sinatra, and more! Even good ol’ Bill and Elvis make appearances!

#8 Hillary’s America: Filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza got into an enormous amount of trouble for making this film, but it may have helped push Trump over the top in the last election.

#9 “Annoy Liberals – Use Facts And Logic” Coffee Mug: This mug has a great slogan, but it is probably not safe to take to work or anywhere else where you could potentially trigger liberals.

#10 “Impeach Pelosi” T-Shirt: President Trump once suggested that Nancy Pelosi should be impeached, and he is absolutely correct about that.

#11 “Hillary For Prison 2020” T-Shirt: After all this time, Hillary Clinton has still managed to stay out of prison. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if justice was finally served in 2020?

#12 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – AOC – Zero Cents Penny: This fake coin is actually a little bit larger than a real penny. And considering the fact that AOC isn’t displaying any sense at all when it comes to public policy, it would appear to be the perfect monetary denomination for her.

#13 Socialism Survival Kit: Are you ready to survive in socialist America if Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren get elected? According to the seller, this kit contains the following: Kit contains symbols to remind of the failings of socialism. Toilet paper for a failed market, adhesive bandage for failed medical care and for Government oppression, and a candle for failure of basic infrastructure like power. A reminder of the brutality, inhumanity, and oppression that socialism has brought in its first 100 years.

#14 Sweet Warm Cup Of Liberal Tears: Those on the left were crying plenty of tears in the aftermath of the 2016 election, and there will be a tsunami of tears if Trump is able to emerge victorious once again in 2020.

Obviously, any of the gifts on this list would be likely to greatly anger any of your liberal friends, and that is probably not something that you want to do.

So I have a suggestion.

If you have a liberal friend and you can’t figure out what to give, I would give that friend a copy of the U.S. Constitution.

After all, most liberals have never read it, and if they actually became acquainted with it they might just stop trampling on it.

In the U.S., the main factor as to whether or not a worker can beat out a robot for a job seems to be his or her education. Overseas, in the EU, a lot of it is determined by how strong a workers' employment contract is. 

Giugliano argues that it would be foolish for any government to argue against automation because it is such a large driver of economic growth. Equally, Giugliano argues that the impact of automation needs to be spread evenly. 

He calls the American model of favoring the educated "brutal", but at least having some semblance of being meritocratic. The European model of protecting workers with contracts, he says, is unfair on younger workers that don't have contracts. This, in turn, won't help with the problem of inter-generational injustice that drives voters toward populist politicians, the op-ed argues. 

He also points out a study by Konstantinos Pouliakas for the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training that shows the extent of how automation is a challenge in Europe. The study found that 14% of adult workers may face a "very high risk of automation" and that the occupations most in danger are routine jobs with little demand for transferable skills or social interaction. 

Economists Maarten Goos, Alan Manning and Anna Salomons also conducted a study, looking at 16 European countries between 1993 and 2006, and finding an increase in the employment share for high-paid professional managers, as well as low-paid services workers, and a decrease in the share of manufacturing and routine office workers. 

This is a result of computers easily replacing routine tasks, the study concludes, echoing the sentiment that workers doing these jobs are the most vulnerable. 

There is little evidence that automation is polarizing wages in Europe the way that it is in the US. Economists Paolo Naticchioni, Giuseppe Ragusa and Riccardo Massari researched salaries on the continent between 1995 and 2007 and found that technology only had a "weak effect" on their distribution. They also found that education plays no role in determining wage inequality in the EU, which is not the case in the US.

The clear losers from automation in Europe can be highlighted by study of Germany by Wolfgang Dauth, an economist at the University of Wuerzburg. He found that the burden falls primarily on young workers just entering the manufacturing sectors. Newer workers are penalized because Europe's labor market means companies have to give more stable and better paid jobs to older incumbent workers. 

Giugliano concludes that governments shouldn't dissuade innovation: 

The example of Italy shows that not having enough automation has a pernicious effect on the labor market. Gaetano Basso, a researcher at the Bank of Italy, found that since the mid-2000s, Italians haven’t suffered wage polarization, but rather an outright degradation of the jobs market. Only the share of low-wage manual occupations has increased markedly, while high-wage jobs have dropped along with middle-income employment. The lack of automation is one cause. Italy’s economy has been marred by stagnant productivity for three decades, so it’s unsurprising that wages and job quality haven’t improved.

Instead, he concludes that governments must get better at handling the unwanted consequences of automation by promoting the right skills and education for prospective workers. 

Congressman Adam Schiff chaired the House Intelligence Committee hearing and was supposed to be the wise, fearless and incorruptible chairman. Instead, the camera’s cruel, unblinking eye revealed him as a buffoon – and a sinister one at that.

Schiff’s round bald dome was identical to Mussolini’s and his ridiculous bulging eyes are those of Christopher Lloyd’s evil cartoon villain Judge Doom in the Hollywood movie “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

The supposedly heroic Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman of the National Security Council was even worse – Presented as an all-American Patriot, instead he resembled the thick, hulking brutal thug that Hollywood Central Casting always chooses to play endless Russian intelligence service or criminal villains in thousands of bad primetime TV shows.

Kurt Volker was almost as bad. He was the quiet cool, calm, bespectacled villain – always a CIA bureaucrat and usually played by Ronnie Cox – who wants to feed Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Steven Seagal or Bruce Willis to the villains.

And of course – the Real Hero could not appear at all. The Whistleblower’s identity is being jealously guarded – though as Senator Rand Paul has pointed out, everyone knows who he is and – far from being a Disinterested Pure Hero, he was a CIA veteran and former senior National Security Council official outspoken in his contempt for the President of the United States: In other words, yet another anonymous Deep State manipulator and apparatchik.

No doubt he will be revealed as the winner on the Fox Television Channel’s popular show, “The Masked Singer.”

Or perhaps he will reveal himself in an exclusive interview with a fawning Rachel Maddow, still masked and identified as “The Lone Ranger.”

(Is this The Whistleblower?)

Now Rand Paul does have the looks, the bearing, the moral fervor and the dramatic character to play the hero in this botched fiasco of a drama. But there is only one small problem. He is on the other side. He has forcefully publicly defended President Donald Trump.

Gravity – Albert Einstein assures us – “bends” light (A dubious assertion at best but at least Einstein, unlike Schiff and Company Looked the Part he always played – Lovable, Child-Like Jewish Genius Who Never Gets a Hair Cut) And Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) has bent the brains of movie directors Nancy Pelosi and Schiff.

Trump Derangement Syndrome: a fearful, incurable affliction more terrible and humiliating than Alzheimer’s: Better to forget who you are than remember you are a hate-crazed, foaming at the mouth, credulous idiot who will believe anything.

Like all policy wonks of their aging generation of corrupt and complacent Baby Boomers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Schiff have salivated at the thought of inflicting a “Watergate 2” impeachment drama comeuppance on Donald Trump.

But the Villain of Watergate, Richard Nixon, was indeed an inept and more than slightly sinister creep (and lifelong liberal). He looked the part and he exuded pious bogus ineptitude on camera his entire career. (Nixon’s inspiration for how he projected himself on television was clearly Jack Webb playing Sergeant Joe Friday in the wonderfully badly acted “Dragnet” police series on US television in the 1950s.)

By contrast, Donald Trump channels John Wayne, the most popular and enduring movie star in American history:

Trump is a physically big and fearless New York construction businessman turned immensely successful popular entertainer. He, like Wayne is a natural athlete. It is a matter of public record ignored by all fearful liberal wimps that Trump really was offered a contract after college to be Major League Baseball player for the Phillies, but he turned it down to focus on his business career.

Working class American Heartland men and women over 40 instinctively loved Wayne and therefore they love Trump too. Aging American feminists like Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren – and the further they are over 50, the more rabid and rage crazed and insane they become – hated Wayne and are traumatized by his resurrection as a defining national culture hero nearly four decades after his physical death echoing in the figure of Trump.

It was Trump’s genius at silent reaction shots that ridiculed 17 Republican Congress members, Senators and Governors in the 2015-16 campaign before he even began to turn his wit and video skills on Hillary Clinton – a creepy Richard Nixon clone if there was one.

Trump was crafted by Fate and his brilliant media career from The Apprentice to Worldwide Wrestling Central Casting to be the Hero of Impeachment. Making him the villain reverses the entire emotional dynamic of the drama. It is like casting James Stewart as Nixon. (At worst, Trump is classic King Kong eternally plagued by those pesky biplanes: And everybody roots for Kong)

Liberals who loved Watergate went into emotional frenzies over Nixon’s imagined humiliation at the hands of such ludicrous pompous and overpaid fools as Dan Rather of CBS.

Pelosi and her laughably misnamed “advisers” have learned nothing from all this. This week, we are seeing yet more interminable biased show-trial hearings and the even more ludicrous Jerrold Nadler has taken center stage. He looks like Frankenstein’s dwarf –servant Igor in Mel Brooks’ classic 1973 comic horror movie “Young Frankenstein.”

The bottom line on why Impeachment has failed so miserably to whip up a storm or convince anyone beyond the already committed “Trump Must Go”, babies-throwing-tantrums across Liberal America lies in the childishness and elemental incompetence of its cast and directors. Being repulsive and ridiculous human beings themselves, they have no clue how obvious it would be that they would appear that way to everyone else.

The potential for these types of recreational drugs to treat depression has certainly caught the medical world's attention. The school of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in September started a research center to study psychedelic drugs and their effects on behavior and brain function.

Psilocybin is the key drug being tested, as its potential has drawn researchers to studies that go beyond depression. Scientists are also looking to test psilocybin for Alzheimer's, anorexia, OCD and migraines.

Compass Pathways is working to bring to market a version of psilocybin that it has manufactured to treat depression that has resisted other treatments. Compass sponsored the trial, which has been the largest controlled study of psilocybin to date. 

The study looked at the effect of two doses of psilocybin, with the high one twice as much as the lower, and a placebo. The study involved 89 volunteers and the company says the next step is a study on 216 patients with depression in Europe and North America. 

The most frequent reactions from the study, according to Compass, were: “Changes in sensory perception and positive mood alteration.”

When you look at the numbers, they truly are startling. For example, a recent survey that was conducted by Cigna found that almost half of all Americans feel lonely…

Nearly half of Americans are lonely, according to a survey of 20,000 people across America by Cigna, which used the well-regarded UCLA Loneliness Scale to measure responses. Indeed 46% said they sometimes or always feel alone and 47% say they sometimes or always feel left out.

And other surveys have produced numbers that are even more alarming. A Harris Poll that was conducted a few years ago actually discovered that 72 percent of all Americans “experience loneliness”…

The survey of more than 2,000 Americans conducted by the Harris Poll last month on behalf of the American Osteopathic Association, showed that almost three-quarters (72 percent) of Americans experience loneliness. And for many, it’s not just a once-in-a-while occurrence — one-third said they feel lonely at least once a week.

Of course this is commonly known as “the happiest time of the year”, but for many it just magnifies their loneliness.

People see love, warmth and community modeled in television commercials and in Hallmark movies, and they assume that most people out there must be living lives like that.

Sadly, that is not true at all. What we see on our televisions are echoes of the way that America used to be, and many of us would love to see that type of culture make a roaring comeback.

But for now, America is a very, very lonely place, and this reality is reflected in a song that was just released by one of our most popular pop singers…

Mabel, the singer behind the hit “Don’t Call Me Up,” has a new track for those who struggle with loneliness during the holidays.

Titled “Loneliest Time of Year,” Mabel captured how for some people, the holidays can heighten feelings like loneliness, loss and depression. In the song, released Friday, she sings lines like, “Sorry I’m not so merry/But I feel like this yearly/Christmas time isn’t my vibe/Brings no joy into my life” and “If I’m feeling lonely/I can’t be the only one.”

Yes, millions of American families will gather during the holidays, but way too many of those gatherings are filled with bitterness, resentment, strife and discord.

In fact, another new survey has found that the average American only needs 3 hours and 54 minutes “before they start to feel sick of their families”…

The holidays are supposed to be a time to come together with family and celebrate, but a new survey finds that most Americans can barely get through an evening with their family before needing a break. A total of 2,000 Americans who usually travel to visit family during the holidays took part in the research, and 75% say they will inevitably need to get away from their relatives and indulge in some much needed “me time.”

In fact, it only takes respondents an average of three hours and 54 minutes before they start to feel sick of their families.

This isn’t how it is supposed to be.

We were created to love and to be loved. And when you remove love from the equation, people become very miserable quite rapidly.

In America today, “deaths of despair” are happening at the highest rate in all of U.S. history. The following information comes directly from the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee…

Anne Case and Angus Deaton famously chronicled a dramatic rise among middle-aged non-Hispanic whites since 1999 in “deaths of despair”—deaths by suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis.1 The Social Capital Project has extended Case and Deaton’s research to cover the full American population as far back as available data permit: to 1900 in some cases, and to 1959 or 1968 in others. We present here a snapshot of the long-term trends in deaths of despair. We also attach our full dataset for use in future research, including results broken down by age, sex, and race.

Mortality from deaths of despair far surpasses anything seen in America since the dawn of the 20th century. (The trend for middle-aged whites reveals a more dramatic rise but only goes back continuously to 1959.) The recent increase has primarily been driven by an unprecedented epidemic of drug overdoses, but even excluding those deaths, the combined mortality rate from suicides and alcohol-related deaths is higher than at any point in more than 100 years.

So it would appear that our very unhappy nation is rapidly becoming even unhappier.

And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what this is happening.

As a society, we decided that marriage wasn’t important. So now we have one of the lowest marriage rates and one of the highest divorce rates in the entire world.

As a society, we decided that children weren’t important. So now our birth rate has dropped below replacement level and a third of all U.S. children live in a home without a father.

As a society, we decided that patriotism wasn’t important. So now the American flag is being banned by some schools as a “divisive symbol” and most of our young people have never even read the entire U.S. Constitution.

As a society, we decided that God wasn’t important. So now just about every form of evil that you can possibly imagine is exploding in our society, and we are literally on a path that leads to national suicide.

If you feel lonely, miserable or depressed this holiday season, I would definitely encourage you to get my latest book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters”. It is filled with very practical advice that will enable you to start turning things around immediately. But even more importantly, reach out to those that you love during this holiday season.

Life is way too short to live it alone.

Society would have us believe that those that have the most money are the most “successful”. But that is not true at all. In reality, those that love the most are really the most “successful”, and so let us endeavor to be people of great love.

San Francisco-based payment system Square has a new warning for consumers this holiday season: 2019 will be the "most expensive season for Christmas trees in history." 

Industry analysts conclude that there's more demand for trees this year than supply: 

"Some Christmas tree growers have fewer trees to sell this year than they wish they had. They have fewer trees to cut than in years past," said Doug Hundley, spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association.

The current industry environment is tighter supply in some of the top trees exporting states, like Oregon and North Carolina, are inflating prices that could dent consumers' wallets.

"Fortunately, many other states grow and ship trees also. Key point here is we have a well-established distribution system delivering trees everywhere including to states that grow almost no trees themselves," Hundley said.

The main driver behind tighter supply is the Christmas tree bust after the Great Recession, which lead to a collapse in tree farms in key export states. 

It generally takes seven years to grow a Christmas tree, and with many farms going bust after 2009 to 2012, not enough seedlings have been planted to match demand in 2019. 

"In 2008, when the recession hit, people either got out of the business or couldn't afford to plant, so they didn't. Now, we're seeing the fruition of that because it takes about 8 to 10 years to grow a Christmas tree," said Gerrit Strathmeyer, co-owner of Strathmeyer Christmas Trees.

The shortage of trees this year has raised prices across the country. The average price of a tree has more than doubled since 2008, from $36.50 in 2008 to $78 in 2018. Prices this year could exceed $78, likely to push above $81 and could exceed $100, depending on the size, variety, and state. 

As the new year rolls around, really, the next decade: 2020, consumers won't necessarily be hungover from the holiday meals and pounds of turkey or the gallons of egg nog that will be had, but rather their credit card bills after the holiday season. 

Consumers this year will have to choose between paying for a tree and or paying their phone bill - it could very well be that consumers go on strike as Christmas becomes too damn expensive. Nevertheless, most consumers in the "greatest economy ever" are using credit cards this year with rates at two-decade highs.

So this could only mean one thing: the hangover period for consumption will be seen in 1H20. 

The first hike came earlier this year, when the state's Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) announced an increase that will cost the average Nevada teacher an additional $750 annually.

The second increase came last month, when the CCEA voted to increase its annual dues to $846, up from $630.

Combined, these increases mean that most CCEA members are going to see nearly $1,000 more docked from their paychecks next year:

The PERS increase, like the several that preceded it, will provide no benefit whatsoever to the teachers forced to pay that added cost, which will be spent instead on the system’s $14 billion deficit.

The CCEA, meanwhile, plans to spend the extra $2.2 million that it will take from teachers each year to lobby for a $1 billion tax hike.

The union claims that higher taxes and increased spending are the only way to improve Nevada’s public schools but neglects to explain why the near tripling in spending that has already occurred since 1960 has failed to improve student performance.

At $10,200 per student, Nevada is already spending an amount comparable to several outperforming nations, like France, Italy and Spain, as well as numerous outperforming U.S. states, like Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Rather than forcing taxpayers, including teachers, to pour more money into a broken system, teachers and students alike would be better served by addressing the root cause of Nevada’s education problem: the chronic and systemic mismanagement of public schools.

But according to the Clark County School District (CCSD) evaluators not a single school under the CCEA has had an ineffective administrator or school leader for at least the past four years. This “everyone is doing great, regardless of outcomes,” approach would be unimaginable in any other endeavor of this size or importance. Imagine a hospital administrator learning that a handful of surgeons was responsible for 100 percent of patient deaths but concluding that they were just as effective as every other surgeon.

Would anyone feel comfortable being treated by one of those underperforming surgeons the following year simply because they received a budget increase?

This demonstrates the real problem with the proposed $1 billion tax hike: the lack of genuine accountability prevents the system from improving regardless of how much money is spent.

To make matters worse, the hundreds of millions of education dollars are, in fact, spent on things that have nothing to do with education or improving student learning.

The so-called prevailing wage law, for example, takes tens of millions of dollars out of the classroom each year by requiring school districts to pay wages that are 62 percent above the market rate on construction projects. This handout to one of the state’s most powerful special interest groups will cost Nevada schools nearly $500 million over the next ten years.

And that’s just an example of an officially sanctioned  form of waste.

Large school districts like CCSD lose millions more each year to the more conventional forms of waste and fraud according to Harvard scholar Lydia Segal.

In recognition of this fact, former CCSD Superintendent Carlos Garcia in the early 2000s ordered the implementation of a robust financial accounting system designed to prevent fraud and maximize transparency — but the project itself became exactly the kind of financial blackhole it was ostensibly designed to prevent.

Despite spending more than $100 million on that project, the system in place today is still unable to perform the basic tasks the district cited to justify its purchase in the first place. While all of that money was classified as education spending, it is a safe bet to assume that lining the pockets of contractors on a failed computer upgrade did little to help improve student learning.

Yet, rather than addressing the structural deficiencies responsible for this colossal failure, the legislature instead rewarded the CCSD with even more money.

And when the money does reach the classroom, it is deployed in the most ineffective way possible. Rather than treating teachers as professionals and rewarding them for their skills, teacher compensation is instead based entirely on longevity and credentials.

The refusal to reward teacher quality not only harms student learning, but also denies great teachers the raises and promotions that they deserve, and which they would undoubtedly receive in any other industry.

Rounding out this cornucopia of inefficiencies is the PERS retirement benefit offered to teachers, which, as mentioned earlier, forces current and future teachers to pay for the system’s past funding failures. The benefits are also structured in such a way that veteran teachers are penalized for working over thirty years. Needless to say, an effective compensation system would seek to retain the most experienced and dedicated teachers, not push them out.

Lastly, there is the establishment’s hostility to choice and competition, a hostility so blinding and irrational that the CCSD, amid a budget shortfall that required cuts elsewhere, actually spent over $100,000 on a marketer to persuade parents not to enroll their children in public charter schools.

The insistence that education be provided through a one-size-fits-all monopoly hurts teachers and students alike. Numerous studies have found that choice and competition help increase both student test scores and teacher salaries at public schools in jurisdictions that embrace these programs.

Nonetheless, the CCEA has stuck to its belief that more money, and only more money, will fix public education.

And that’s why, rather than addressing the reasons more money hasn’t helped in the past, the CCEA is prepared to spend $2.2 million of teachers’ hard-earned money on a political campaign to hike taxes.

That all sounds awesome, right?

Well, to reach $40 billion next year, China would have to quadruple its US Agricultural imports!!

In 2018, China bought less than $10 billion in Ags from the US (and to reach $50 billion would mean to double the previous record high Ag exports)...

Notably, as @AgriTrends notes, to reach $50 billion... China could buy the entire U.S. soybean crop for $36 billion, then what else?

And as China purchases from US have plunged, they have shifted demand to Latin America...

So Brazil will be very upset if this deal is actually fulfilled, and it will likely mean China breaking contracts with its new suppliers.

All of which explains two things:

Why Agricultural commodities are not screaming higher...

And neither are stocks, yuan, or copper, as investors appear to be discounting the rising probability of the Phase One Deal being busted within a few months as the "promised" purchases do not occur... and if that is close to the elections, it could well mean an ugly market reaction.

That is what business owners in Bristol, England are dealing with. The man in the official looking high-viz reflective vest was a teacher, and the customers were students.

It is school policy to restrict what shops and restaurants students can patronize on their way home from school, by sending teachers out to patrol the streets.

Students who disobey the rule are punished with detention, even though this happens outside of school hours and off school property.

The business owner had to call the police to get the teacher to leave, and stop blocking the doorway to his shop (which prevented customers from entering).

He says it has cut down on his business significantly, including intimidating other customers besides the school children.

When the man spoke to the school Superintendent, he was treated to a lecture about how his food is unhealthy, and should not be available to students.

Click here to read the full story.

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Amid a homelessness crisis, San Francisco is trying to find ways to keep the streets from being littered with human feces.

They ran a pilot program over the past three months to keep public toilets open all night.

Dividing the costs by the number of flushes, it came out to $28.50 per flush.

Most of the costs were for the two staff members at each bathroom, to stop drug use and other criminal activity.

To see if the program was effective, the city compared how many calls for human waste cleanups they got in the surrounding areas in the three months before the test, compared to the three months during the test.

The best results showed calls fell from 190 before the pilot, to 166 during the trial– less than a 13% drop in reports of human waste.

Click here to read the full story.

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Here’s an interesting fact we discovered recently: on Black Friday this year, Americans bought 202,500 firearms, according to the number of FBI background checks conducted, which are required for gun sales.

That’s enough to arm the entire British military of 190,000 soldiers, including reserves, with a cool 12,000 firearms leftover

This Black Friday is just 1,000 guns below the all time record for guns purchased in one day, which was on Black Friday in 2017.

Click here to read the full story.

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US Senator Isakson is stepping down from his position at the end of this year due to health reasons.

In his place, the Governor of Georgia has appointed Kelly Loeffler to the seat.

This is only interesting because she is the current CEO of Bakkt, a company that facilitates Bitcoin futures trades.

So now there is actually someone in government who might understand cryptocurrency…

Click here to read the full story.

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In the beginning of October, Charles Donnelly had his guns seized under Washington state’s Red Flag law over a meme.

These laws allow police to take guns from innocent people over fears they will commit a crime in the future.

Donnelly posted a photo of himself with two AK-47s and the text “One ticket for Joker please.”

It was a common meme at the time, poking fun at the media’s repeated speculations there would be a mass shooting at a Joker screening.

Obviously, the meme was in very poor taste. There had been a shooting at an Aurora, Colorado theater in 2012, during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, which featured Heath Ledger as the Joker.

But the meme was still satire. And however distasteful or offensive, jokes are protected free speech.

Prosecutors also used previous satirical social media posts to argue Donnelly’s guns should be confiscated.

Click here to read the full story.

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And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.