Mid-East Massacre: Qatar Crashes, Saudi Stocks Plunge Most Since Black Monday

Broad middle-east and african stock markets crashed over 5%, erasing any gains back to November 2008 as the carnage from last week continues. From Kuwait (-4.3%) to Qatar (-8%) it was a bloodbath as Saudi Arabia Tadawul Index plunged 5.4% - the most since Black Monday (now down over 50% from their 2014 highs). These losses are far in excess of US 'catch-up' moves and suggest a dark cloud over Asia this evening.

Exclusive: Dallas Fed Quietly Suspends Energy Mark-To-Market On Default Contagion Fears

The Dallas Fed met with the banks a week ago and effectively suspended mark-to-market on energy debts and as a result no impairments are being written down. Furthermore, as we reported earlier this week when first nothing the rumor, the Fed indicated "under the table" that banks were to work with the energy companies on delivering without a markdown on worry that a backstop, or bail-in, was needed after reviewing loan losses would exceed the current tier 1 capital tranches.

Independence Is A "Poison Hallucination As Useless As Looking For Fish In A Tree," China Warns Taiwan, After Vote

“Tsai should keep in mind that if she revisits Chen’s dangerous path to cross the red line of cross-Straits relations, she will meet a dead end. If the DPP abandons the progress made by its predecessor in the past eight years, it will jeopardize its future as a ruling party. The lesson of Chen Shui-bian should be a long-lasting lesson."

How Did Americans Get So Fat, In Seven Charts

Americans are fat. They are so fat very few would even bother to click on a hyperlink in this article explaining how fat they are, so instead we will present 7 charts showing how the situation got so dire.

"After Me, The Jihad," Gaddafi Tried To Warn The West, But Nobody Listened

The true Benghazi scandal indicts not just Hillary, but the entire Western power elite, whose wars have, as Gaddafi warned, flooded the world with a Jihadi Deluge and installed a postdiluvian Reign of Terror over us all.

CNN Reassures Investors: "Don't Panic... America's Economy Is Still In Good Shape"

How QE Crushes The Real Economy & Why The Secular Low In Treasury Yields Lies Ahead

The economy was supposed to fire on all cylinders in 2015. Sufficient time had passed for the often-mentioned lags in monetary and fiscal policy to finally work their way through the system according to many pundits inside and outside the Fed. Surely the economy would be kick-started by: three rounds of QE and forward guidance; a record Fed balance sheet; and an unprecedented increase in federal debt to $18.63 trillion in 2015, a jump of 86%. Further, stock prices had gained sufficiently over the past several years, thus the so-called wealth effect would boost consumer spending. But the economic facts of 2015 displayed no impact from these massive government experiments.