Trends This Week – The Presidential Reality Show and the markets – 09.28.16

Global forecaster Gerald Celente discounts and explains why the notion that markets rise on the anticipation that a given presidential candidate can influence and even fix the economy. The campaigns, and especially the debates, are rich with attack lines and sound bites, but entirely void of solutions, ideas and the moral grounding necessary to reverse the downward spiral of the country.

Shara Rutberg – Birch of the next super drink

Brits have starting gulping birch water, with the second birch water brand having been launched earlier this year. Packed with health claims and colorful lore, will its popularity bubble into U.S. markets? After all, “Coconut water as a thirst quencher is so last year,” according to our fair, balanced and hydrated friends at Fox News, who recently featured a birch water …

Maira Sutton – More Closed-Door Meetings, a New Chief Transparency Officer, and Growing International Opposition to the Deal: What’s Going on with the TPP

Over the past month, trade officials have been frantically working to resolve outstanding disagreements over provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in the midst of speculation that the deal is in deep trouble. At this late stage of negotiations, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has pretty much abandoned all remaining pretense of transparency in its consideration of these remaining policy …

The extinct dinosaur called The Individual

“Give up your dreams, if you must. Cease dreaming altogether. Call those dreams and ambitions and visions…delusions. Then you will be ready. Then you can truly serve humanity. You can fall back into the arms of the many who will receive you with love. You’ll become an empty vessel through which miracles are channeled. One day Oprah will interview you.” (The …