Archive - Nov 2015 - Story

In a few weeks time the east Mediterranean is about to become a warship and aircraft carrier parking lot, with the Truman and de Gaulle side by side, just as we predicted it would be a month ago when we said that the summer of 2013 naval scenario is unfolding once again, and where another half a dozen (at least) Russian warships are already located in what has all the makings of a historic Gulf of Tonkin redux.

There are so many strands of lies and distortions that it is now almost impossible for Official Washington to disentangle itself from all the false narratives that the neocons and the liberal hawks have spun in support of their various “regime change” strategies. So, the American people are left with the mainstream U.S. news media endlessly repeating storylines that are either completely false or highly exaggerated. Official Washington’s many false narratives about Russia and Syria have gotten so tangled that they have become a danger to the struggle against jihadist terrorism and conceivably a threat to the future of the planet.

The corruption of compromise summed up in 57 words...

"Give me liberty, or give me death!" – Partrick Henry, American Founding Father, 1775

"They value their civil liberties more than they value life. I disagree with that. You want to be free and dead? I’d rather be not free and alive" – Billionaire Hillary Clinton donor Haim Saban, 2015

By now, everyone knows Brazil is stuck in a stagflationary nightmare that's made immeasurably worse by the country's seemingly intractable political crisis. But what about the rest of Latin America? Goldman takes a close look at the regional outlook for the next four years and finds a decidedly unfavorable growth-inflation mix. 

Presented with no comment...

"Tokyo will consider dispatching its Self-Defense Forces to the South China Sea, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday, suggesting a possible role for Japan in patrolling those tense waters."

The 'Great Recession' was evidently so bad for the economy that it stopped the net influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico. For the first time since the 1940s, more Mexicans have been leaving the U.S. to return home than arriving, a reversal that brings down the curtain on the largest immigration wave in modern American history. As WSJ reports, the Pew Research Center figures released Thursday suggest that the surge in legal and illegal Mexican immigration that helped transform America - and remains a contentious issue on the presidential campaign trail - may have peaked for good.

Courtesy of the Fed, the most bearish trade going into the year end period is to go long a handful of very specific stocks.

While recent market turmoil in China has meant the government has been burning through its cash reserves at a record pace, for the electric utility plant in Yancheng; money is quite literally power as 3 billion yuan of outdated or damaged bank-notes are incinerated to generate electricity for Jiangsu province each and every year...

Painful as it is to admit, the West, especially the United States, bears significant responsibility for creating the conditions in which ISIS has flourished. The recent attacks should be understood as “blowback terrorism”: a dreadful unintended result of repeated US and European covert and overt military actions throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and Central Asia that aimed to overthrow governments and install regimes compliant with Western interests. These operations have not only destabilized the targeted regions, causing great suffering; they have also put populations in the US, the European Union, Russia, and the Middle East at significant risk of terror.

Liquidity in the junk (and all other markets) is evaporating, and according to Citi the spread between an illiquid and liquid junk bond portfolio just hit 100 bps, the most in the history of the series. Meanwhile according to Mohamed El-Erian "The market is comfortable that whenever we hit a hiccup, the Fed is going to come back in," he said. "It's very deeply embedded that central banks are our best friends forever."

A fire burning in a residence on the 50th floor of the John Hancock Center in Chicago has been put out according to the city’s fire department.

The infamous John Hancock building in Chicago is on fire. CNN reports, and the following tweets show, flames visible halfway up and enormous plumes of smoke amid the freezing Illinois air. The fire is in the northeast corner of what appears to be the 50th floor of the building. The Chicago Tribune reports at least six ambulances were called to the scene. Authorities have shut down Michigan Avenue, which will be holding the Magnificent Mile Festival of Lights Parade Saturday evening.