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Yahoo’s annual Christmas party this year was a Roaring 20s / Great Gatsby theme, complete with champagne towers and a vintage Rolls Royce. The party itself, right down to the theme, was a symbol of waste, indulgence, and excess; it reported costly between $7 and $10 million to stage. The good old days are long gone. This is no longer a company that can afford such largess. And everyone seems to realize it... except Yahoo. Frankly, this seems like the perfect metaphor for the United States of America.

2015 has witnessed several events that had, and will have, negative repercussions on individual freedom. Orwellian totalitarianism is increasingly creeping into our everyday lives. How much more intrusive will the violations of our liberties become and for how long will the establishment get away with this? With regards to the financial system, no real solution was found to issues such as those in the euro zone. Furthermore, the financial system as a whole once again got deeper into debt. For how much longer can central banks and governments continue kicking the can down the road without any real reform?

"Everything is clean and perfectly safe. Any radioactive materials are miles away"...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s seminal masterpiece Crime and Punishment is often thought of as one of the longest classics at more than 200,000 words. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016, which was signed into law on Friday, is nearly twice as long. At 887 pages, the bill allocates $1.15 trillion in war and discretionary spending for fiscal year 2016 which began almost three months ago. (That’s an average of $1.3 billion in spending PER PAGE of the bill.) In making it public law, President Obama has effectively signed the death warrant of the US government’s finances.

The Senate and House passed the spending bill this week, which the President signed into law on the same day. Embedded in the law is a provision to lift the 40-year old crude export ban. The lifting of the crude export ban is a historic milestone, but seemingly less relevant for US E&Ps, Midstream and Oilfield Services as compared to a year and a half ago when WTI-Brent spreads were close to $9.00/bbl vs. the current spread of $0.80/bbl. Nevertheless, there is still a negative long-term impact on refiners should spreads re-widen.

In the wake of a Security Council resolution on Syria that failed to consider the fate of Bashar al-Assad, a belligerent Turkey is fuming mad. In comments made from Istanbul on Saturday, PM Ahmet Davutoglu said the UN's stance "lacks realistic perspective." He also said Turkish troops will remain in Iraq until Mosul is "freed" from ISIS. Translation: Turkish boots will be on Iraqi ground for the foreseeable future.

One would think that the Criminals, themselves, would not have the audacity to use the same Script (with just minor plot variations) every eight years. But here we go, again.

As new investor liquidity evaporates and as billions are redeemed first from the junk bond universe, then investment grade and then loans, the debt crisis which was unleashed in anticipation of the Fed's rate hike, is about to get much worse, and lead to even more prominent hedge fund "gates" and liquidations.

“After reviewing his email practices earlier this year, the secretary believes that his previous, occasional use of personal email for work-related business, even for routine administrative issues and backed up to his official account, was a mistake."

How much do you think your paper currency will be worth 23 centuries from now? Or even 23 years? Or potentially even 23 months?

"The irony in this year’s batch of outrageous predictions is that some of them are “outrageous” merely because they run counter to overwhelming market consensus. In fact, many would not look particularly outrageous at all in more “normal” times – if there even is such a thing!"

“The deal to lift the crude ban is a significant change in U.S. policy, but in terms of the near-term impact on prices, we expect that to be blotchy and sentiment driven. All that you’re doing is transferring the glut from the U.S., where most of the storage capacity is, to elsewhere in the world.”

"We think carefully about which companies we sell addresses to, but how their customers use this internet connection is beyond our control"...

“They need to show they’re selling quickly to calm markets and stop the free fall of their shares. For that to happen they need to accept the price buyers want to pay.”