"The Dow Jones Industrial average fell into bear market territory Wednesday, and some analysts see a decline of another 10% or more before the selling subsides," wrote Patti Domm. "The Dow has lost 20.3% on an intra-day basis since Feb 12 and a little more than 20% on a closing basis. A 20% decline is considered bear market territory." Exactly one month back, on 12 February the Dow hit a record closing high of 29,551.42. President Donald Trump frequently associated the rise in stock prices as a reflection of his good economic policies so the media has been quick to taunt him for the fall. Bloomberg calculates the possibility of a recession in the US at 53%. "The chance of a recession within the next year now stands at 53%, the highest reading since the US exited the Great Recession in June 2009 and significantly higher than the 24% seen in the prior month." The global economy is suffering a supply side problem as factories shut down to restrict workers from traveling and a demand side problem as people stop buying as earnings drop, wrote Matthew Yglesias. Prices of commodities, such as oil and wheat have fallen and investors are parking their money in bonds of 'safe governments'. "The interest rate on a 10-year US government bond has fallen to below 1 percent. A German 10-year bond carries an interest rate of negative 0.87 percent." This must be sweet music to the ears of Joe Biden who is now almost certain to be nominated as the candidate of the Democratic Party to take on Trump in the presidential election on 3 November. Left wing candidate Bernie Sanders did very well in early primaries but after South Carolina Biden pulled ahead and after super Tuesday Biden has all but ensured his nomination. The reason for Biden's surge is that the Democratic establishment ganged up against Sanders. The swamp absolutely does not want to be drained. When asked, Sanders said, " Look, it is no secret -- The Washington Post has 16 articles a day on this -- there is a massive effort to stop Bernie Sanders." "The corporate establishment is coming together, the political establishment is coming together, and they will do anything and everything. They are really nervous that working people are standing up." Is Biden a certainty in November? His son Hunter Biden is still a question mark. "Back in 2014 after a regime change in Ukraine, Hunter Biden joined the board of a scandal-plagued Ukrainian natural gas company named Burisma. Hunter had no apparent qualifications for the job except that his father was the vice president and involved in the Obama administration's Ukraine policy. He got paid $50,000 per month for the job..." That is a huge $600,000 a year. In India we call it crony capitalism and condemn it as highly corrupt. Apparently not the Democrats.
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