It seems American schoolchildren lose their ability to think creatively over time. As students enter their educational journey, they retain most of their abilities to think creatively. In other words, children are born with creative genius. Employing a longitudinal study model, Land and Jarman studied 1,600 children at ages 5, 10, and 15.

Surprisingly, Land said they discovered if given a problem with which they had to come up with an imaginative, and innovative solution, 98 percent of 5-year-olds tested at the “genius” level. Simply put, their answers to how the problem should be solved were brilliant.

Upon entry into the school system, those numbers started to drop dramatically. When the team returned to test those same subjects at age 10, the percentage of genius-level imaginative and innovative thinkers fell to an unthinkable 30 percent. The indicators led the researchers to believe the current educational system is to blame. Not only did 68 percent of those students lose their ability to think with imagination and innovation, the thought that only 30 percent could still do so is unfathomable.

Land’s team was not surprised to find only 2 percent of adults (age 31) still retain their ability to think imaginatively.

It explained that “the Swiss will exchange information with rich countries if they have to, but will continue offering citizens of poorer countries the opportunity to evade their taxpaying responsibilities.” According to the report, the United States’ secrecy score (60) is rising, which results in attracting corrupt wealth. In 2013, the US was in sixth place, and in 2015 it took third place in the rating.

The report added that “Financial secrecy provided by the US has caused untold harm to the ordinary citizens of foreign countries, whose elites have used the United States as a bolt-hole for looted wealth.” Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Germany, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and Guernsey closed out the top 10 most corrupt countries.

The least corrupt nations among the 112 covered in the rating were San Marino, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Montserrat. The countries with the lowest secrecy score were UK (42) and Slovenia (42), Belgium (44), Sweden (45), Lithuania (47), Italy (49) and Brazil (49).

"Maybe the Fed would be happy to see a bear market that could be blamed on Trump." Schiff thinks the markets could easily correct 20%. One black swan event Schiff sees is the notion of investors abandoning the euphoria over Trump's presidency, which helped fuel the stock market rally this year.

"We've had a huge move up since the election of Trump even though prior to the election the expectation was if Trump won it [would be a disaster for markets]," he said. When asked if the two straight quarters of double-digit earnings growth has sparked the rally in stocks this year, as opposed to solely Trump, Schiff pointed to earnings headwinds in the retail sector. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to meet later this week.

The country’s three largest independent television stations remained off the air for a fourth day as Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s president, showed no sign of letting up in his campaign of vengeance against journalists who chose to defy him.

Despite personally being ordered not to by Mr Kenyatta, the three stations on Tuesday broadcast the build up of the parallel inauguration of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader. Mr Odinga had himself sworn in as “the people’s president” after refusing to accept his rival’s victory in two elections last year, the first of which was overturned by the supreme court, the second boycotted by the opposition.

Although a Kenyan activist, Okiya Omtatah, won a court ruling suspending the shutdown, the government communications authority refused to receive the written order, raising fears about the rule of law in one of Africa's most advanced democracies. Police first detained a courier sent by Mr Omtatah to deliver the order, and then ripped up a second copy he attempted to hand over in person. At least 92 people have been killed in election-related violence since August.

The new system, called order-to-shelf, or OTS, has a strict set of procedures for purchasing, displaying, and storing products on store shelves and in back rooms. To make sure stores comply, Whole Foods relies on “scorecards” that evaluate everything from the accuracy of signage to the proper recording of theft, or “shrink.”

Some employees, who walk through stores with managers to ensure compliance, describe the system as onerous and stress-inducing. Conversations with 27 current and recently departed Whole Foods workers, including cashiers and corporate employees — some of whom have been with the company for nearly two decades — say the system is seen by many as punitive.

They say many employees are terrified of losing their jobs under the new system and that they spend more hours mired in OTS-related paperwork than helping customers. Some are so fed up with the new system that they have quit or are looking for other jobs. In addition to hurting morale, OTS has led to food shortages across Whole Foods stores, they say.

This capability would allow Hezbollah to target strategically sensitive targets deep in Israel, and cross a red line drawn by Israel over how far its enemies can build up their military capabilities. These developments have led to a flurry of Israeli warnings in recent days, as part of a diplomatic attempt to make Iran and its Hezbollah client desist from their activities.

Israeli officials have made it clear that if their warnings go unheeded, military action will become likely. “There is no doubt [that] this is a new stage in the attempts by Iran to build independent capabilities … in Syria and Lebanon,” Dr Ely Karmon, a senior scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, told JNS.

The weapons factories in Syria are likely under direct Iranian control “and those in Lebanon under Hezbollah control,” Karmon said. By building weapons factories in Lebanon and Syria, Iran can kill two birds with one stone, Karmon argued. It can arm its proxies with advanced weapons, and cut out the need for ground transportation of the weapons across routes that have proven vulnerable to Israeli detection and repeated alleged Israeli air strikes.

According to Al-Hayat, Gaza’s prime minister Yahya Sinwar, the former commander of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the large military drill being carried out in southern Israel by the IDF this week is merely a cover for the mobilization of troops and the IDF will seize the opportunity to attack in Gaza. 

Hamas, as well as other militant groups on the strip, have raised their security threat levels and Hamas leaders have been evacuated to safe and secret locations, the paper said. Furthermore, roadblocks have been erected throughout the Gaza strip in order to keep any possible civil unrest at bay. 

I have been repeatedly warning that we are way overdue for a stock market crash, and many are concerned that we may be on the precipice of another great financial crisis.  We shall see what happens on Monday, because that will set the tone for the rest of the week.  If we see another huge decline early Monday morning, that could easily set off full-blown panic selling on Wall Street.

It is quite rare for the market to drop this much in a single day.  The largest single daily decline was a 777 point drop in 2008, and overall the Dow has fallen by more than 600 points less than 10 times throughout history… Once a market landslide begins, the movement can be absolutely breathtaking.  But none of this should come as any sort of a surprise, because even the Washington Post admits that “speculation of a market pullback” has been seemingly everywhere in recent days…

Right now we are in the terminal phase of a historic “double bubble” in both stocks and bonds.  Many times we will see one or the other get clobbered on a particular day, but Friday was a “bloodbath” for all asset classes… But it would be foolish to ignore the fear that appears to be growing on Wall Street.  At this point, even Bloomberg is openly wondering if this “is the start of something big?”… If the stock market does crash in 2018, it will not be a surprise. The only surprise will be that it took this long to happen.