Archive - Apr 11, 2015 - Story

The Middle East’s ongoing descent into chaos and China’s impending ascendancy to the status of global superpower are just two of the many threats that the US, European Union and Russia all share.  Each of these issues should certainly occupy a higher position on their respective agendas than the breakup of Ukraine or the insolvency of Greece.  Leaders of all three governments would be well-advised to set aside their differences, or at least to prevent those differences from obstructing cooperation on more important issues.  Unlike its predecessor, the Second Cold War will not be bilateral.  Today’s world is far more chaotic, kinetic and dangerous than it was fifty years ago.

The California heat of the past 12 months is like nothing ever seen in records going back to 1895, notes Bloomberg's Tom Randall, and with the already record-low snowpack starting its melt early, it appears this is only the beginning of problems. What's happening in California right now is shattering modern temperature measurements - as well as tree-ring records that stretch back more than 1,000 years.

There is a $100 trillion bond market out there that has been priced by a handful of central bankers, not a planet teeming with exhuberant savers. The mad descent of the former into the whacky world of QE and ZIRP has caused a double whammy distortion in the bond markets of the world. So, no, there isn’t a savings glut in the world; there is an outbreak of destructive central bank bond buying and money market price pegging that is virtually destroying the world’s bond market. What we have is a fraud wrapped in a bogus theory. Only none dare call it that. At least, not on bubblevision.

Six days prior to Japan's devastating 2011 undersea earthquake that killed over 18,000 people, around 50 melon-headed whales - a species that is a member of the dolphin family - beached themselves on Japan’s beaches. Now, 4 years later, and despite a lack of scientific evidence linking the two events, many Japanese took to social media in fear as the mass beaching of over 150 melon-headed whales on Japan’s shores has fueled fears of a repeat of the monster quake, which unleashed a towering tsunami and triggered a nuclear disaster.

We simply don’t see any time in the future that would see Americans start spending again at a rate anywhere near what would be required for an economic recovery. However, that is by no means a generally accepted point of view in the financial press; and so these issues must be addressed time and again until people begin to understand, and quit making the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons. People have a right to know what’s truly happening to their lives, and their societies. And they’re not nearly getting enough of it through the ‘official’ press.

Over the past year, NATO has flooded the media with over 100 reports of its aircraft intercepting Russian spy and warplanes over neutral territory which supposedly were getting too close to native soil for comfort and thus were in urgent need of an escort. Last week, however, the roles were reversed when a US RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft was intercepted in very close proximity by a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet over the Baltic Sea near Russia’s Kaliningrad Region. A defense official said the Russian fighter jet flew within 20 feet of the unarmed reconnaissance jet in what the official called a “reckless” encounter that endangered the lives of the RC-135 crew.

A picture is worth 1000 words...

Although rarely cast as such this is a “War of the Worldviews” in the political and policy sector. This war is about the nature of reality. This war, not mere partisanship, is an underlying cause of political gridlock, at least for economic policy. Paul Krugman long ago left the twilight zone of Neo-Keynesianism to boldly go where no man has gone before. There isn’t a better “sciencefictionomist” than Prof. Krugman. That said, a coin has two sides. Sciencefictionomics has far from won its war on common sense.

"The worst economic system - except for all the rest." But is Capitalism really that bad? The BBC's Colm O'Regan casts his comic lens upon the complexities of the economic system that's used across much of the globe...

2015 Global growth expectations - after a brief excited but dead-cat-bounce - have tumbled back to their lowest ever... as global stocks have un-tumbled back to almost record highs...

Reports suggest the Yemeni rebels are battling Saudi forces near Najran, with some contending the rebels may have overtaken a Saudi post which, if true, would appear to mark an escalation in the conflict as it would indicate that the Houthis are willing to take the fight to the Saudis on their own turf.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to officially announce her candidacy for the 2016 presidential election on Sunday, putting an end to months of speculation about her plans. Here are some key things to know about the first Democrat to declare her candidacy...

These are your euro money markets on central planning. The ECB is attempting to help correct the distortions created by its QE program by lending out its holdings in order to grease the wheels of European repo markets, but as JPM notes, the central bank's program will likely not be sufficient.

Moments ago NBC and various news wires reported that the US Capitol was on lockdown following reports of a suicide on the west front of the building. Related to this incident, the U.S. Capitol Police are continuing to investigate the suspicious package on the lower West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol Building. AP quotes Kimberly Schneider of the Capitol Police says in a statement that the suspected shooter has been "neutralized," but there is no immediate explanation what that means.

Water is perhaps the world’s most important resource, and one of the most common resources. For decades water was regarded as a common good, and it was plentiful enough that in most parts of the world there was little money to be made off of it. Now as the world’s population continues to grow, all of that is changing...