France

Over the weekend, in its latest quarterly presentation, the Bank of International Settlements made what may have been a very premature assessment that China is now contained. Judging by events in the past 24 hours, the reality is anything but.

The left is now mixing terrorism and mass shootings to push a narrative to eviscerate the Second Amendment. We once again have rehashed stories about the AR-15 rifle, which isn’t as powerful as a hunting rifle and rarely used in crimes. And we have the media endorsing gun control policies that would require gun bans and confiscation. They’re insinuating parts of it, but the brash call to ban guns entirely is coming.

Things must be going well in the "war on terror," as the US Air Force just admitted that it is fast running out of bombs to drop on ISIS after "B-1s have dropped bombs in record numbers." As ZeeNews reports, Air Force chief of staff General Mark Welsh said as America ramps up its military campaign against the Islamist terror group, the Air Force is now "expending munitions faster than we can replenish them."

With Draghi's Friday comments, which as we noted previously were meant solely to push markets higher, taking place after both Europe and Asia closed for the week, today has been a session of catch up for both Asian and Europe, with Japan and China up 1% and 0.3% respectively, and Europe surging 1.4%, pushing government bond yields lower as the dollar resumes its climb on expectations that Draghi will jawbone the European currency lower once more, which in turn forced Goldman to announce two hours ago that it is "scaling back our expectation for Euro downside."

Terrorism works on the perception of the victims. It seems incredible that ten mediocre individuals, with a few primitive weapons, could cause world-wide panic. But it is a fact. Bolstered by the mass media, which thrive on such events, local terrorist acts turn themselves nowadays into world-wide threats. The modern media, by their very nature, are the terrorist’s best friend. Terror could not flourish without them. The next best friend of the terrorist is the politician. It is almost impossible for a politician to resist the temptation to ride on the wave of panic. Panic creates “national unity”, the dream of every ruler. Panic creates the longing for a “strong leader”. This is a basic human instinct.

As we approach the Fed meeting expect markets to get more volatile. While the odds favor a move, it isn’t a sure thing until it is actually done. We found out last week what happens when forward guidance turns out to be forward misdirection. All those traders who thought they had a sure thing, who assumed that Draghi wouldn’t dare disappoint the market, got whipped. Whipped good.

As we warned last week, Europe is about to change forever, and sure enough, Marine Le Pen's National Front party is on course for a historic result in regional elections on Sunday, winning more than 30 per cent of the vote and leading the country’s two mainstream parties. Our words from the day after the Paris attacks, when Le Pen called for "eradication" of Muslims and demanded the nation "re-arm itself," seem extraordinarlity prophetic now "if there is one 'winner' from last night's terrible events in Paris, it is France's anti-EU, anti-immigration far-right wing Front Nationale party leader Marine Le Pen."

Perhaps the best way to show what a mess Europe is in is the €3 billion deal they made with Turkey head Erdogan, only to see him being unmasked by EU archenemy Putin as a major supporter, financial and who knows how else, of the very group everyone’s so eager to bomb the heebees out after Paris. But Brussels thinks it’s found a whipping boy for all its failures. Greece. It’s fast increasing its accusations against Athens’ handling of the 100s of 1000s of refugees flooding the country. Everything that goes wrong is the fault of Greece, not Brussels. The EU has so far given Greece €30 million in ‘assistance’ for the refugee crisis, while the country has spent over €1.5 billion in money it desperately needs for its own people. But somehow it’s still not done enough.

Stop swallowing the overblown scaremongering of the government and its corporate media cronies. Stop letting them use hysteria over small menaces to drive you into the arms of tyranny, which is the greatest menace of all. Overthrow the reign of terror the State has installed over your mind. Else the days ahead may be terrible indeed.

The vicious Isis attacks in Paris represent yet another unpardonable offense; and through war, Cameron and Hollande seek to avenge the innocents who were killed and wounded. But as the humiliating outcome of the Suez war reminds us, there are some problems to which war is an unsuitable response. Across much of the greater Middle East today, we confront one such problem. For western governments to reflexively visit further violence on that region represents not a policy but an abdication of policy. It’s past time to think differently.

"In the year ahead, geopolitics likely poses the greatest potential to disrupt markets in terms of event risk. There is also the potential for geopolitical risks to intersect with economic fragility in the event of a downturn, amplifying both."

French voters are about to head to the polls for the first time since last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris. This alone is enough to make the upcoming regional elections particularly significant. However, as in pretty much every recent French election, all eyes will be on the performance of Marine Le Pen’s Front National. According to the latest polls, the anti-immigrant party looks close to a breakthrough at the regional level... Front National has never governed a French region. It now looks on course to win two of them.

Magic ‘Super Mario’, the ECB’s monetary magician, disappointed markets yesterday as continuing and unprecedented monetary easing failed to prevent a sharp sell-off in stock and bond markets yesterday which has continued today.

In a 445 “for”, 146 “against” (seven abstentions) vote, German lawmakers approved the use of six Tornado reconnaissance jets, and the deployment of a frigate to help "protect" the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle off the coast of Syria. Berlin will also send refueling aircraft and up to 1,200 military personnel.

Optimism in US equity futures appears to have returned, and as of this moment US equity futures are higher by 9 points to 2060 as the attention shifts to what, according to BofA, is truly the most important ever. It is unclear just how the algos would take a second consecutive major disappointment in a row: should today's NFP print be well below the 200,000 consensus, December rate hike odd will tumble and the EUR will surge even more after declining modestly from overnight highs just below 1.10, leading to even more losses in European equities and spilling over to the US.