Archive - Sep 4, 2015 - Story

In yet another somewhat surreal twist in The Donald's path to The White House, Fox Business reports the long, sometimes contentious relationship between Donald Trump and Steve Wynn has taken another turn, with the Las Vegas casino magnate serving as an unofficial adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign. Having known each other for 30 years, Fox's Gasparino notes that they have clashed in the past (Wynn on Turmp in 1998 "He's a fool," and Trump on Wynn "he's a very strange guy.") but in recent years both have been critical of the leftward tilt of the Democratic Party and president Obama.

Things were already bad enough for emerging markets going into August. Persistently low commodity prices, slumping demand from China, depressed global trade, and a “diminutive” septuagenarian waving around a loaded rate hike pistol in the Eccles Building had served to put an enormous amount of pressure on the world’s emerging economies. And then, the unthinkable happened.

For most of us, the image of a serial number on a forearm conjures up indelible images of 1940s Germany, but it seems this is not the case for the Czech police, who adopted the controversial practice earlier this week.

Early last month, we noted the irony inherent in the fact that Saudi Arabia, whose effort to bankrupt the US shale space has been complicated by the Fed's ZIRP, was set to opportunistically tap the debt market in an effort to offset a painful petrodollar reserve burn. As Bloomberg reports, Qatar is now doing the same, "raising money from local banks as the slump in oil prices buffets the finances of the Middle East’s largest oil and gas exporters."

The characteristic feeling of the post-2008 world has been one of anxiety. Occasionally, that anxiety breaks out into fear as it did in the last two weeks when stock markets around the world swooned and middle class and wealthy investors had a sudden visitation from Pan, the god from whose name we get the word "panic." Pan's appearance is yet another reminder that the relative stability of the globe from the end of World War II right up until 2008 is over. We are in uncharted waters. The relentless, if zigzag, rise in financial markets for the past 150 years has been sustained by cheap fossil fuels and a benign climate. We cannot count on either from here on out...

After 6 straight weeks of rig count increases, last week saw a 13 rig drop - the most since May. This leave the rig count at its lowest since July 24th. WTI Crude jumped 60c on the news and is holding gains...

Remember last Friday? The Dow screamed 140 points higher in the last hour of the day to "prove" everything was awesome into the weekend. It wasn't! With The Dow down 300 points today, it is now 600 points below those panic-buying highs just a week ago...

"What happens in any bull asset bubble such as what we've seen is you run out of buyers. It's hard to get deals done if the bottom third can't get a mortgage."

The can is no longer rolling along. Instead, it has come to a near halt, with central bankers and government policymakers desperate to give it another boot. Watch out!

Low oil prices? Low interest rates? Jobs galore? Wages pressures? Time for a rate hike? Then explain this...

Corruption isn't just bribes and influence-peddling: it's protecting the privileges of the few at the expense of the many. Rampant pollution is corruption writ large: the profits of the polluters are being protected at the expense of the millions being poisoned. What China will be left with a poisoned land stripped of talent and capital.

Meanwhile, in Turkey...

Since the start of the Second Great Depression, the US economy has lost 1.4 million manufacturing workers, but has more than made up for this with the addition ff 1.5 million waiters and bartenders.