Italy

• Sure, why not: China Rebounds as Trade Data Disappoints (BBG)
• Oh, that's why: China's Stock-Rescue Tab Surges to $236 Billion, Goldman Says (BBG)
• Can't make this up: German finmin says must avoid reliance on debt, cenbank stimulus (Reuters)
• Stocks rise after contrasting China, Germany trade data (Reuters)
• Euro zone second-quarter GDP revised up as Italy grows faster (Reuters)
• Brent oil rises on European, Chinese data; oversupply weighs (Reuters)
• Corporate Prosecution Deals Headed for a Legal Test (WSJ)

What is the reason for the drop? Well, one can believe the ECB's stated explanation which is that due to European summer vacations, activity in Europe has ground to a halt. Of course, this would suggest that monetization in the Eurozone is continent on managers' summer vacation plans, which is probably an even more troubling explanation of ECB activity bottlenecks than what may be really going on in Europe. The alternative? As we noted over the weekend when we reported that now even the IMF is discussing the upcoming limits to BOJ QE as a result of sellers running out of BOJs to hand over to the BOJ, the same may be taking place in Europe

Don’t expect to see any end to desperation and instability in MENA, but do expect new demographic crises out of other regions: Indonesia, Ukraine, Pakistan, West Africa, and Brazil, with its cratering economy. It’s not inconceivable that China might bust apart politically, with centrifugal consequences. The global economy is contracting. We have indeed attained the limits to growth. Cheap oil is bygone and the capital infrastructure we have won’t run on expensive oil — including the oil industry itself. New technology or further central bank legerdemain is not going to fix that. We’re in population overshoot and a scramble is underway to bail on the places that just can’t support the people who live there. National boundaries will be defended. Sentimentalists will have to step aside. History is not a bedtime story about bunnies and kittens.

Even before China reopened from its 5-day holiday, regulators were pitching Chinese stocks as cheap (37.3x P/E) and less-margined (+108% YoY) and promised to "safeguard stability" in a "variety of forms" seemingly pouting cold water on The FT's recent report (and the malicious instigator of China's market crash). All of this is quite ironic, given China's chief central bankers admitted "the chinese bubble has burst." As stocks open, CSI-300 (China's S&P 500) has confirmed a 'Death Cross' which in 2008 was followed by a further 60% decline. More troubling, however, is the incessant rise in interbank rates as despite CNY530bn of liquidity injected in the last 3 weeks, overnight rates have doubled. China credit risk jumps to 2-year highs and AsiaPac stocks are generally lower at the open (as US futures dumped'n'pumped) not helped by Japanese weakness on BoJ tapering concerns. PBOC strengthened the Yuan fix for the 4th day in a row - the most since Sept 2010.

Before China’s bursting equity bubble grabbed international headlines, and before the PBoC’s subsequent devaluation of the yuan served notice to the world that things had officially gotten serious in the global currency wars, all anyone wanted to talk about when it came to China was a "hard landing." Now that the yuan devaluation has all but proven that China has landed, and landed hard, here are the five channels of contagion.

Keys in the week ahead:  equity markets--still look lower; China--volatility likely to continue; Fed--market says no Sept hike

Banks in the US and Europe are trying to develop a cashless transactions system. The concept is to establish a comprehensive ledger for a business or a person that records everything received and spent, and all of the assets held – mortgages, investment portfolios, debts, contractual financial obligations, and anything else of market value. There would be no need for cash because the ledger would tell you and anyone you were considering a transaction with how much is available and would be transactable at any specific moment. This is not a dreamy idea. Blythe Masters is leading a new business effort to develop a universal cashless system. Not only is she gathering significant investor interest, but the Federal Reserve and various US Government agencies have become keenly interested in the potential usefulness and efficiencies of a universal cashless system

With the refugee crisis in Europe reaching epidemic levels and European leaders impotent, it appears an Egyptian Billionaire has a solution. As Al-Arabiya reports, Naguib Sawiris has offered to buy an island off Greece or Italy and develop it to help hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from Syria and other conflicts.

Moments ago, US equity futures tumbled to their lowest level in the overnight session, down 22 points or 1.1% to 1924, following both Europe (Eurostoxx 600 -1.8%, giving up more than half of yesterday's gains, led by the banking sector) and Japan (Nikkei -2.2%), and pretty much across the board as DM bonds are bid, EM assets are all weaker, oil and commodities are lower in what is shaping up to be another EM driven "risk off" day. Only this time one can't blame the usual scapegoat China whose market is shut for the long weekend.

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.

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.

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."

If we could put the economics of Bernie Sanders into a nutshell, it would be this: Burden private enterprise with one directive after another, and then demonize it when it ultimately falls down under the awful weight of taxes, higher costs, and mandates. While many people believe that instituting the Sanders economic agenda would help turn the USA into another Sweden or Denmark, the more likely outcome would be turning this country into another Venezuela.

One of the most curiously persistent surrealisms of Washington, DC is the reflexive deference given the Federal Reserve System. The Washington elite tends to accord more infallibility to the Fed than do Catholics the Pope.

"It is estimated that sub-Saharan Africa will have 900 million more inhabitants in the next twenty years. Of these, at least 200 million are young people looking for work. The chaos of their countries of origin will push them further north." That is the future. It will no more go away by itself, and by ignoring it, than the present crisis, which, devastating as it may be, pales in comparison. Europe risks being overrun in the next two decades.