Archive - Aug 2, 2014

Look for a speech on Friday August 22^nd by Janet Yellen where she officially signals financial markets that they better start finding their respective chairs.

Outlook of the foreign exchange market in the week ahead, with some observations about equities and bonds.

As we previously commented, when scientists start using phrases such as "the worst drought" and "as bad as you can imagine" to describe what is going on in the western half of the country, you know that things are bad. However, in recent weeks the dreadful situation in California has gone from bad to catastrophic as the U.S. Drought Monitor reported that more than half of the state is now in experiencing 'exceptional' drought, the most severe category available. And most of the state – 81% – currently has one of the two most intense levels of drought.

The 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I is upon us. Well we should mourn this cataclysmic event and continue to draw lessons from it. We see the same dangers today in the petty but growing conflict over Ukraine between the US and its European satraps and Russia. A conflict over a quasi-nation of absolutely no strategic interest to the United States. American neocons and their Congressional mouthpieces are now calling for NATO to take control of Moldova and Georgia. Conrad von Hotzendorf would have approved. No one in the west is ready to die for Luhansk or Donetsk, but few in 1914 Europe were ready to die for Verdun or Ypres – but millions did.

Last night, minutes before the most ineffectual Congress in US history took off for a well-deserved 5 week vacation, the republican-controlled House escalated the immigration duel with Obama, and passed what democrats called "mean-spirited" border legislation late Friday which as Politico reported was "full of political red meat for their conservative base, including revisions to a 2008 anti-trafficking law and more money for the National Guard." And just to make sure that immigration is a key divisive topic during the midterm elections, one which further splits the nation along predominantly ethnic lines, they also passed a bill to rein in Obama’s program to shield undocumented immigrants from deportations.