Archive - Aug 11, 2014

• Maliki digs in as U.S. pushes for new Iraq government (Reuters)
• Ukraine's forces say close to taking rebel-held Donetsk (Reuters)
• Anger Over Michael Brown Shooting Leads to Looting (WSJ)
• German Economy Backbone Bending From Lost Russia Sales (BBG)
• Kinder Morgan to Consolidate Empire (WSJ)
• Early Failure to Detect Gaza Tunnel Network Triggers Recriminations in Israel (WSJ)
• You’ll never guess how much BuzzFeed raised from Horowitz (FT)
• The dumb money is now chasing Chinese oligarchs: Norway’s Wealth Fund Buys $576 Million of Mayfair Area (BBG)
• Clinical trial to start soon on GSK Ebola vaccine (Reuters)
• No drone skeet shooting any time soon (WSJ)

One notices how the United States never has to go in with the military and bail out the Scandinavian countries? At some point the Iraqi people will have to take responsibility for how they want to live and deal with the consequences of these choices.

Since there is nothing on today's data docket, it will be all about, you guessed it, geopolitical risks, where "consensus" is best summarized by these two Bloomberg headlines:

• Stay USD Long as Geopolitical Risks Loom
• USD is mixed and world stock markets rise as concerns over geopolitical risks ease

That pretty much covers it, although in addition to the Ukraine civil war one can now add an Iraq coup to the list of geopolitical fiascoes instigated by US foreign policy.

Just days after the US launched a campaign that implicitly aides the current regime headed by the supposedly outgoing PM, al-Maliki, it appears that latest US intervention has already led to "unexpected" consequences, this time with the prime minister appearing to have just staged a coup overthrowing Iraq's president President Fouad Massoum moments ago.