And This Is The Way It Is -- Wednesday Night, July 13, 2016

This is a quick walk-through of The Wall Street Journal that is posted on-line right now, with some of my comments.

US electric grid could easily go down due to minimal terrorist activity.

All that talk about "walking back" the Brexit? The new UK leader, Ms Theresa May, is already assembling her "Brexit Team." The new prime minister has already chosen David Davis to lead the team: Davis is a senior figure from the more free-market or Thatcherite wing of Britain's ruling Conservative Party. He is know for being tough, and somewhat difficult to work with.

Many, many stories on bonds, money, yields:

• in a first, Germany sells 10-year bonds with a negative yield
• US sells 30-year bonds at record low level
• the Dow, meanwhile, setting new records (with dividends); eked out another record today
• 35-year-old bond bull is on its last legs
• "there is a limit to how far negative yields can go before money becomes meaningless" -- James Mackintosh
• behind the bond-stock divide is a big and risky bet on central banks
• why ultralow interest rates are here to stay
• "sorry: you are just going to have to save more money" -- bonds pay borrowers while lenders earn nothing; stocks soar to all-time highs; the financial world is probably NOT QUITE as crazy as it seems -- but you better lower your expectations for investment returns
• US budget deficit widens to near two-year high in June
• US pension funding levels to deteriorate -- Moody's

Settlement of Syrian refugees in US accelerates; with high birth rate, and failure to integrate, we will see in 2050 how badly this will all play out.

Aleppo, Syria: running out of food, medicine.

Drone kill: a US drone strike killed the mastermind of a 2014 Pakistani Taliban school massacre that left more than 130 children dead. Dead: Taliban leader Omar Mansoor.

Oil glut: simply worsens. Here in north Texas, gasoline is again below $2.00/gallon; it's gonna get a lot cheaper.

CSX revenue falls 12% as coal shipments continue to slip.

Honda Ridgeline: will take a bite out of the Chevrolet Colorado, the GMC Canyon, the Toyota Tacoma, and the Nissan Frontier (this pickup segment totals about 350,000 units/year).

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GDP Now

Link here.

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2016 is 2.3 percent on July 12, down from 2.4 percent on July 6. The forecast of the contribution of inventory investment to second-quarter real GDP growth ticked down from -0.50 percentage points to -0.55 percentage points after this morning's wholesale trade report from the U.S. Census Bureau.