Corruption

Just 13 short months ago - two months before then President Yanukovich was ousted - Russia lent Ukraine $3 billion (by buying their Eurobonds). As Reuters reports, the terms of that loan included a condition that Ukraine's total state debt should not exceed 60% of its GDP. As of last month, based on Moody's estimates, Ukraine has violated that condition with a debt-to-GDP of 72% (and will likely rise to 85% of GDP in 2015).. and so, according to Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov, "Russia has the right to demand early return of this loan." With European aid 'contingent on major reforms' and possibly taking up to 1 year, this leaves the good old IMF (i.e. the US and European taxpayer) to bridge Ukraine's 'gap' and ironically bailout Russia.

A month ago we discussed the influx of 'foreigners' to help the Ukraine government 'manage' the country. As UA Today reports, foreign appointments have become a key part of Ukraine's mission to reform its economy and crack down on corruption (and ensure American interests are taken care of?) and now boats 3 non-Ukrainian cabinet members. And now a 4th non-Ukrainian - Estonian Jaanika Merilo - will step up to the plate 'tasked with bringing more foreign investment into Ukraine and improving the country's business climate'. We suspect she will have some success...

• Police Surround Paris Terror Suspects Near CDG Airport (BBG)
• ECB Said to Study Bond-Purchase Models Up to 500 Billion Euros (BBG)
• How OPEC Weaponized the Price of Oil Against U.S. Drillers (BBG)
• German Industrial Production Falls Amid Plunge in Energy Output (BBG)
• Car Loans See Rise In Missed Payments (WSJ)
• Jim O'Neill threatens he will replace BRICs with ICs (BBG)
• Oil heads for seventh weekly loss as supply glut drags (Reuters)
• Armed man takes hostage in kosher grocery in Paris (AFP)
• Janus Chairman Didn’t Know Details of Gross’s Investment (WSJ)
• Kaisa Bondholders Dream of White Knight as Default Becomes Real (BBG)

If we review the events of 2014, it seems the situation has intensified: governments are still overwhelmed with debt, our fiat money system is unsupported, our central banks insist on accumulating debt and making money valueless. Will someone realize we have to pull the plug? And when we do, because it will happen whether we want it or not, how can we hedge against the damage that we will all be exposed to? Owning physical precious metals stored outside the banking system is a proven and essential form of monetary insurance against the uncertainties and negative surprises we see in our world today.

For now, they've failed............but the fact that this watering-down was even considered is something I find sickening.

“You never know where the skeletons in the closet are or what company will be next," warns one Chinese credit analyst and as the CNY30 billion indebted Chinese developer Kaisa Group (that we initially discussed here) admits it can’t say if it plans to meet a bond deadline today as a local news website said lenders took steps to preserve assets. The builder of residential communities and shopping centers must pay about $26 million in interest on its 10.25 percent 2020 debentures today (which appears unlikely) and its bonds have crashed to below 30c. The big question, as Bloomberg notes, is who's next?

To question money-printing as the one-size-fits-all solution to every economic problem is to question the power structure of the status quo.

• French policewoman killed in shoot-out, hunt deepens for militant killers (Reuters)
• The Bold Charlie Hebdo Covers the Satirical Magazine Was Not Afraid to Run (BBG)
• Evans Says Fed Shouldn’t Rush Rate Rise as Inflation Undershoots (BBG)
• Oil holds above $51 as traders search for floor (Reuters)
• Gross Helps Fuel New Fund With His Own Cash (WSJ)
• ECB warns Greek funding access hinges on keeping bailout (Reuters)
• Greece Jolts QE Juggernaut as ECB Gauges Deflation Risk (BBG)
• Analysts Say There's No Telling How Low Oil Prices Could Go (BBG)
• Scientists find antibiotic that kills bugs without resistance (Reuters)

Yesterday, to much fanfare, the White House blasted that it was Obama's desire to appoint Allan R. Landon, a Hawaiian community banker, to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. To wit: "President Obama said, “Allan Landon has the proven experience, judgment and deep knowledge of the financial system to serve at the Federal Reserve during this important time for our economy.  He brings decades of leadership and expertise from various roles, particularly as a community banker.” Apparently what he also brings as Bloomberg's Dawn Kopecki reminds us, is the usual near-criminal cronyism and corruption that we have all grown to love and expect from every single Fed governor in recent history. It turns out in 2005 Landon agreed to step down as SFHLB board member due to the "appearance of impropriety" when he "failed to comply with a rule requiring the disclosure of conflicts of interest by a director."

Who owns Greece's public debt? That's the 322 billion-euro question, according to the Finance Ministry's figures from the third quarter of last year. Most of the debt has changed hands since a bailout in 2010, a second in 2012 and a restructuring involving private creditors that same year. Private owners now hold only 17 percent. The secondary market has become very thin — bear that in mind when looking at 10-year bond yields. A default would have to be absorbed instead by official creditors, holding the remaining 83 percent of outstanding loans and bonds. These include euro-area governments (62 percent), the International Monetary Fund (10 percent) through its participation in the two bailouts, and the European Central Bank (8 percent), which purchased bonds in 2010 through its Securities Market Program. The remaining 3 percent are repurchase agreements and assets held by the Central Bank of Greece. It is unclear where losses on that portion would fall.

If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand

Remember when shortly after ISIS' stunning and rapid ascent to power it was revealed that a key reason for the terrorist organization's blistering success were the M-1 Abrams tanks, armored transport trucks, Howitzers and countless Humvees made in the US, sold to Iraq and subsequently captured by ISIS? It appears that the US has decided to restock ISIS, if only indirectly. As Matthew Aid's Strategypage.com discloses, the US is now selling a whopping 170 M-1 tanks to Iraq in order to restock the 40 lost to ISIS last summer, and then some. And since ISIS will promptly recapture a substantial portion of this latest batch, the US now appears to have found a fully covert, backdoor ISIS-restocking supply channel: one where Iraq pays to US military contrators (using US taxpayer aid money) such as General Dynamics, and subsequently the inventory mysteriosuly finds its way to barbaian, headcutting terrorists.

That markets are rigged, at both the macro level, through central banks, and micro, through HFTs, dark pools and purposeful market fragmentation, should be painfully obvious to everyone by now. But when even the regulators engage in "jury rigging", or in this case blocking prominent HFT-critic Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist (a prize which doesn't count for much on these pages but should - at least on paper - impress such statist cronies as the SEC), has been blocked from a government panel that will advise regulators on issues facing U.S. equity markets, it becomes clear as day that the rigging is not just in the markets: worse, it is openly involves the market's "regulator" and "enforcer."

• Economists sceptical ECB bond-buying would revive eurozone (FT)
• Indonesia naval captain says may have located missing plane's tail section (Reuters)
• Oil hits five and a half year low under $55 (Reuters)
• Samaras Warns of Euro Exit Risk as Greek Campaign Starts (BBG)
• The death of active investing: Vanguard Sets Record Funds Inflow (WSJ) - thank you Fed
• Oil Downturn Has Many Wondering How Lone Star State Will Weather a Bust (WSJ)
• Hollande Says France Must Exceed 1% Economic Growth to Spur Jobs (BBG)

"Customers who used to wager on casino tables are probably now sitting at home betting on stocks,” said Tai Hui, Hong Kong-based chief Asia market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. “Investors are levering up on margin trading, or ‘using a small knife to cut a large tree.’"