Greece

The current refugee crisis is not an EU problem, but rather "a German problem," according to Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban as his nation's borders are swamped with foreigners seeking to travel on to Germany. "People in Europe are full of fear because they see that the European leaders are not able to control the situation," he exclaimed after a meeting with EU President Schultz. He is right, of course, as we detailed here and here, but the sheer scale of the tragedy is worst than many could imagine. Orban defended his decision to erect a fence along its southern border with Serbia, saying: "we don’t do this for fun, but because it is necessary," adding rather pointedly that his country was being "overrun" with refugees, most of whom, according to the prime minister, were not Christians.

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For years, many had mocked both European and US stress tests as futile exercises in boosting investor and public confidence, which instead of being taken seriously repeatedly failed to highlight failing banks such as Dexia, Bankia and all the Greek banks, in the process rendering the exercise a total farce.  The implication of course, is that regulators, thus central bankers, openly lied to the public over and over just to preserve what little confidence in the system has left.  Now we know that this is precisely the policy intent: as Reuters reports citing a paper co-authored by a Bundesbank economist, "banking supervisors should withhold some information when they publish stress test results to prevent both bank runs and excessive risk taking by lenders."

In other words: lie.

All eyes will be on Mario Draghi on Thursday as expectations for something big from the former Goldmanite have grown over the past two weeks. More specifically, some now think the odds of QE expansion have increased considerably in light of collapsing eurozone inflation expectations, the incipient threat of some $1 trillion in QE-offsetting EM FX reserve draw downs, turmoil in China's financial markets, heightened volatility across the globe, and chaos in emerging markets from LatAm to AsiaPac.

With China closed today, the usual overnight market manipulation fireworks out of Beijing were absent but that does not meant asset levitation could not take place, and instead of the daily kick start out of China today it has been all about the ECB which as we previewed two days ago, is expected - at least by some such as ABN Amro - to outright boost its QE, while virtually everyone else expects Draghi to not only cut the ECB's inflation forecast, which reminds us of the chart which in March we dubbed the biggest hockeystick ever (we knew it wouldn't last) but to verbally jawbone the Euro as low as possible (i.e., the Dax as high as it will get) even if the former Goldmanite does not explicitly commit to more QE.

It is time for a comprehensive audit of Janet Yellen ’s Federal Reserve - and not just for the reasons presidential candidate Rand Paul and others have given. The Fed needs to be audited to see if its ruling body has broken the law by manipulating financial markets that are outside its jurisdiction.

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The Italian, Hungarian, Greek etc. governments should issue rail tickets from their countries to Brussels and tell the refugees that that’s where the European capital is, and to apply there for visas, asylum, and everything else. Let’s see how Brussels deals with 50,000 -100,000 people in its streets and parks, with more coming every day, while the whole world is watching live on a hundred new channels. Brussels lives by the adage of divide and rule. And that serves only the bureaucrats that inhabit the institution. Not the refugees, and not the people of Europe.

"China is imposing fresh controls to prevent too much money from leaving the country, in an effort to keep badly needed funds at home to battle a deepening slowdown in the world’s No. 2 economy." This is undsiputedly bad news for China, but Blythe Masters would be the first to admit, escalating Chinese capital controls would be just the thing bitcoin needs to surge, and surpass, it previous all time highs...

Europe's refugee crisis just took a dramatic turn for the worse, and strikes at the very hear of Europe's Shengen customs union which has allowed borderless travel within Europe for decades. As Bloomberg reports, the Italian Province of Bolzano in Northern Italy said in a statement that it agreed with the Italian government on request by German Federal State of Bavaria by "communicating a willingness to restore border controls at Brenner and temporarily suspend the Schengen agreement."

• All surveyed analysts expect the ECB to keep their three key interest rates unchanged
• A number of analysts have suggested that inflation rhetoric could be downbeat and further QE is a possibility later this year, as such any potential indication to this by Draghi is likely to take centre stage at the press conference
• The central bank are said to be concerned by inflation expectations, with low energy prices and recent EUR strength raising concerns about the central bank’s mandated 2% inflation target

Wax on Wax off,risk on today risk off tomorrow.....things could spiral out of control rather quickly

If you find that you are pointing to yourself on 5 or more of the bullet items below... please delete your Twitter account immediately.

Just when everyone was convinced that the main "risk off" event of the summer, namely the Greek bailout, was safely tucked away and that having abdicated its sovereignty to its creditors  and Germany in particular, who now hold the Greek banking system hostage courtesy of draconian capital controls, that Greece would continue to receive its monthly cash allotment just so it could repay creditors from its first two bailouts and would not make headlines for the foreseeable future , Market News just reported that suddenly even the Greek bailout is no longer on autopilot as a result of the upcoming elections in three weeks, whose outcome is anything but assured.

In case you aren’t up to speed on your Japanese history, the nation’s post WWII Constitution prohibits military action unless it’s in self-defense. Clearly a sensible approach, which is why the current Japanese government, led by the demonstrably insane and incompetent Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, wants to get rid of it. Not only will this action increase the likelihood of World War III in the Far East, but it’s another important example of a government acting against the will of the people. Democracy is dead. Globally. If we fail to bring it back, history will see us as one of the most inept and spineless generations in history.