Corruption

Evangelicals, Tea-partiers, Progressives, Libertarians, Ghettofied Blacks, Unionized Labor, and other groups will be tapped and lured by the career politicians in the two parties to receive their financial support and vote, in most instances without political voice… Our system of Presidentialism may have served us well in the past but its rigidity in the political process denies the multiple voices that need to be heard in a democracy, nor offers the required tools for political compromise.  Sadly... here we are, stepping into 2016 with the possible political prospect of having to elect as chief executive of this nation either a lady with questionable trust-credentials or a boisterous charlatan.

We are currently in a transitional phase of geo-political-monetary power struggles, capital flow decisions, and fundamental economic choices. This remains a period of artisanal (central bank fabricated) money, high volatility, low growth, excessive wealth inequality, extreme speculation, and policies that preserve the appearance of big bank liquidity and concentration at the expense of long-term stability. The potential for chaotic fluctuations in any element of the capital markets is greater than ever. The butterfly effect - the flutter of a wing in one part of the planet altering the course of seemingly unrelated events in another part - is on center stage.

For several years now, we’ve periodically observed that China’s increasingly aggressive crackdown on dissent serves as a harbinger of far more difficult times ahead. The thinking goes that if anyone is privy to the severe fragility the country’s economic situation, it would be Chinese leadership. As such, desperate moves by Chinese leadership should foretell drastically worse economic and social conditions to come.

Derivatives like credit default swaps turned a mere bubble in the US housing market into a global financial catastrophe... 

"It was over. The guard led me into a room daubed in graffiti, with the faint smell of cigarettes and urine. He allowed me to use the toilet, but it had no door – the days of privacy and dignity were over. A plastic toilet with no seat. I couldn’t really comprehend it."

There’s really one supreme element of this story that you must keep in view at all times: a society (i.e. an economy + a polity = a political economy) based on debt that will never be paid back is certain to crack up. Its institutions will stop functioning. Its business activities will seize up. Its leaders will be demoralized. Its denizens will act up and act out. Its wealth will evaporate. Given where we are in human history - the moment of techno-industrial over-reach - this crackup will not be easy to recover from. Things have gone too far in too many ways. The coming crackup will re-set the terms of civilized life to levels largely pre-techno-industrial. How far backward remains to be seen.

The Oregon standoff potentially forces the hand of the Liberty Movement, not the hand of corrupt government - the exact reverse of what should be happening. Ammon Bundy and companions are not the tip of the spear.  Not even close.  What some fear is that they are cannon fodder beckoning a nationwide government crackdown to which others will then be forced to personally respond to with equal measure.  And all of this on the worst possible terms and at a very inconvenient time (executive actions on gun control mere weeks from now).

Happy New Year Californians - behold the power of monopoly and regulatory capture.

For those wondering what comes to mind for the average Chinese web surfer with regard to nations in Europe, we present the following map from Foreign Policy who “plotted the most common Chinese-language Baidu query for each European nation.” Highlights include "likes to fight" for Russia, "why doesn't it annex Portugal" for Spain, and "beautiful women" for Ukraine.

In 2015, the iron fist of power clamped down on humanity, from warfare to terrorism to surveillance, police brutality, and corporate hegemony. The environment was repeatedly decimated, the health of citizens was constantly put at risk, and the justice system and media alike were perverted to serve the interests of the powers that be. However, while 2015 was discouraging for more reasons than most of us can count, many of the year’s most underreported stories evidence not only a widespread pattern that explicitly reveals the nature of power, but pushback from human beings worldwide on a path toward a better world.

In the next week, a potential ballot measure, submitted to the Office of the Attorney General in October, is expected to receive title and summary for the 2016 election, meaning its advocates will be able to collect signatures in order to secure its official place on the ballot. The proposed law would require legislators and candidates to sport the emblems of groups that donate money to their campaigns.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, put it best: “Take alarm,” he warned, “at the first experiment with liberties.” Anyone with even a casual knowledge about current events knows that the first experiment on our freedoms happened long ago. Worse, we have not heeded the warnings of Madison and those like him who understood that if you give the government an inch, they will take a mile. Unfortunately, the government has not only taken a mile, they have taken mile after mile after mile after mile with seemingly no end in sight for their power grabs. All of the signs point to something nasty up ahead.

• The Year Nothing Worked: Stocks, Bonds, Cash Go Nowhere (BBG)
• Oil falls toward $37, near 11-year low, as excess supply weighs (Reuters)
• End of easy money for mini-refiners splitting U.S. shale? (Reuters)
• Shale's Running Out of Survival Tricks as OPEC Ramps Up Pressure (Reuters)
• 'Safe’ Puerto Rican Debt Stirs Worries (WSJ)
• These Will Be Wall Street's Most In-Demand Jobs Next Year (BBG)

The last trading week of 2015 begins on a historic precipice for stocks: as reported over the weekend, the U.S. stock market has not been lower for any year ending in a “5? since 1875. That streak is now in jeopardy, because following Thursday's shortened holiday session which ended with an abrupt selloff, the overnight session has seen continued weakness across global assets in everything from Chinese stocks which tumbled the most since November 27, to commodities (WTI  is down 2.5%) to European stocks (Stoxx 600 -0.4%), to US equity futures down 0.4% on what appears to be an overdue dose of Santa Rally buyers' remorse.

Now that the gold-trading company at the nexus of what may have been the world's biggest gold smuggling ring in history has imploded seemingly overnight, vaporizing countless tons of physical gold and unknown amounts of client cash, even more questions remain.