Saudi Arabia

So much for that December plunge in the US trade deficit, which plunged from $48.6 billion to three year low of $38.5 billion supposedly on a drop in energy imports, but in reality was due to a drop in broad imports as the US economy ground to a halt ahead of the Fiscal Cliff. In January, or after the stop gap measure to allow the economy to continue, things went back to normal, with the US returning to doing what it does best: importing, especially importing expensive energy, and sure enough the deficit spiked promptly back to $44.4 billion - it recent long-term average - as exports were $2.2 billion less than December exports of $186.6 billion while January imports were $4.1 billion more than December imports of $224.8 billion. Immediate result: look for banks to trim 0.2-0.3% GDP points from their Q1 GDP forecasts.

Rampant malinvestment is creating scarcity of capital, energy & justice. All the sordid and spellbinding rackets working their hoodoo on the financial scene have obscured a whole other dimension of the fiasco that America finds itself in, namely the way we have arranged the logistics of everyday life on our landscape: the tragedy of suburbia. I call it a tragedy because it represents a sequence of extremely unfortunate choices made by our society over several generations, and history will not forgive the excuses we make for ourselves, nor will it shed a tear for the tribulations we will induce for ourselves by living this way. Politically, all this mischief has manifested as a campaign to sustain the unsustainable, to keep all the rackets running at all costs, including most particularly the suburban way of life. It is unlikely that we will succeed at that - though it does account for the desperation running through the national zeitgeist these days. 

The world is rapidly running out of clean water. Some of the largest lakes and rivers on the globe are being depleted at a very frightening pace, and many of the most important underground aquifers that we depend on to irrigate our crops will soon be gone. At this point, approximately 40 percent of the entire population of the planet has little or no access to clean water, and it is being projected that by 2025 two-thirds of humanity will live in "water-stressed" areas. But most Americans are not too concerned about all of this because they assume that North America has more fresh water than anyone else does. And actually they would be right about that, but the truth is that even North America is rapidly running out of water and it is going to change all of our lives.

Here a three views that are outside the consensus.

The discovery of oil in the Middle East around the 1930s has had a drastic effect on the lives of the people in the region.  In most instances this black gold buried under the sands of Arabia has impacted the lives of the people in a rather positive manner. But not always. Syria today is burdened with the largest refugee crisis in the world - mostly displaced internally - a clear indication of population shifts. And as population shifts so too do demarcation lines, with the rebels claiming now to be in control of some of the oil producing sites. Will the opposition fare any better once they manage to get the oil facilities to operate once more? Or will they also contribute towards making the people who sell guns all that richer? How will they use the revenue if the manage to operate the facilities?

Russia is back. President Vladimir Putin wants the world to acknowledge that Russia remains a global power.  He is making his stand in Syria. The Russians are troubled by what they see as a growing trend among the Western Powers to remove disapproved administrations in other sovereign countries and a program to isolate Russia. Again, Russia is seeing Washington’s hand in Syria in the conflict with Iran. The Russians are backing their determination to block another regime change by positioning and manning an advanced air defense system in what is becoming the Middle East casino.  Putin is betting that NATO will not risk in Syria the cost that an air operation similar to what was employed over Libya will impose.  Just in case Russia’s determination is disregarded and Putin’s bluff is called, Surface to surface Iskander missiles have been positioned along the Jordanian and Turkish frontiers. Putin is certain that he is holding the winning hand in this very high stakes poker game. When the Turks and U.S see that there is little chance of removing Al-Assad, they will have no option other than to negotiate a settlement with him; and that would involve Russia as the protector and the mediator.

When Moody's downgraded the UK's sovereign credit rating last week it was something of an anti-climax. The ratings agencies long ago lost what little credibility they ever had. Being downgraded by Moody's is like being called a moron by a moron; ask anyone who has ever set foot in a bond dealing room - the ratings agencies are always behind the curve. The UK has been on the skids, credit-wise, for years. Britain's debt to GDP has gone through the roof. We, and generations to come, will be left with the reckoning. Nobody believes that bonds are an objective reflection of economic reality. The game is rigged, and everybody knows it. But the Moody's downgrade should serve as a piercing smoke alarm to anybody still naive enough to be holding these instruments of value destruction. Get out now while the going is good.

• Obama Paints Wider Role for Government in Middle Class Revival (BBG)
• Obama to Seek a New Trade Deal With EU (WSJ)... or this is strawman why 2016 GDP will be higher
• Mobile phone sales fall for the first time since 2009 (Telegraph)
• Sequester Looms, No Deal in Sight (WSJ)
• Neither US party swallows a compromise (FT)
• Embattled Economies Cling to Euro (WSJ)
• For China, Spending Is Harder Than It Looks (WSJ)
• Bank of England's Sir Mervyn King says recovery in sight (BBC) - just a little more inflation first
• G7 fails to defuse currency tensions (FT)
• Japanese Leader Urges Firms to Boost Wages (WSJ) - so does the US one
• Fed Bank Chiefs Back Money-Fund Overhaul (WSJ), or force everyone out of MMFs and into stocks

• Pope steps down, citing frailty (Reuters)
• Japan’s economic minister wants Nikkei to surge 17% to 13,000 by March (Japan Times)
• Venezuelan devaluation sparks panic (FT)
• Rajoy releases tax returns, but fails to clear up doubts over Aznar years (El Pais)
• Companies Fret Over Uncertain Outlook (WSJ)
• Home Depot Dumps BlackBerry for iPhone (ATD)
• Kuroda favors Abe's inflation target, mum about BOJ role (Kyodo)
• A Cliff Congress May Go Over (WSJ)
• U.S., Europe Seek to Cool Currency Jitters (WSJ)
• Radical rescue proposed for Cyprus (FT)
• Franc Is Still Overvalued, SNB’s Zurbruegg Tells Aargauer (BBG)
• Northeast Crawls Back to Life After Crippling Blizzard (WSJ)

Do the "deciders" in the globe want to enrich those that are now parking hot money in gold? "No" is the answer.

After digesting the opinions of the shills, shysters and scam artists, I am ready to predict that I have no clue what will happen during 2013. The fog of uncertainty is engulfing the nation, making consumers hesitant to spend and businesses reluctant to hire or invest. Virtually all of the mainstream media, Wall Street banks and paid shill economists are in agreement that 2013 will see improvement in employment, housing, retail spending and, of course the only thing that matters to the ruling class, the stock market. Even among the alternative media, there seems to be a consensus that we will continue to muddle through and the day of reckoning is still a few years off. Those who are predicting improvements are either ignorant of history or are being paid to predict improvement, despite the overwhelming evidence of a worsening economic climate. The mainstream media pundits, fulfilling their assigned task of purveying feel good propaganda, use the 10% stock market gain in 2012 as proof of economic recovery. The facts prove otherwise... Every day more people are realizing the con-job being perpetuated by the owners of this country. Will the tipping point be reached in 2013? I don’t know. But the era of decisiveness and confrontation has arrived. The existing social order will be swept away. Are you prepared?

A Chinese solar firm which nearly produced the country's first domestic bond default will complete an interest payment on schedule after a local government intervened on its behalf. Investors say the latest instance of a government riding to the rescue of a troubled Chinese firm has led to moral hazard and inefficient credit allocation. In previous near-defaults, local governments had stepped in directly to arrange bailout funding. But as in past cases, the deal flouts legal notions of debt seniority by allowing one group of creditors - bondholders - to get paid in full, even as a pre-existing default remains un-cured. Analysts say the market does not effectively price in risk because investors assume the government will never allow a default.

With the BoJ and the Japanese government set to announce the now much-anticipated (and oft-repeated rumor) 2% inflation target in a joint (yet, rest reassured completely independent) statement, we have seen JPY swing from a 0.4% weakening to a 0.6% strengthening (sell the news?) and back to middle of the day's range by the time Europe closed. Cable (GBPUSD) has quite a day, dropping almost 100 pips top to bottom before bouncing back a little. This is 5 month lows for GBP as the triple-dip response of Mark Carney's new deal starts to get discounted. The USD ended practically unchanged despite all this as European sovereigns leaked wider, CHF strengthened modestly (2Y Swiss positive) and US equity futures did a small stop-run helped by the JPY crosses. It seems the zero-sum game in global FX competitive devaluation, as Steve Englander notes, has a long way to go, for if the UK and Japan, among others, are determined to crowd in growth by boosting exports, their currencies will have to fall a lot more than is now priced in.

Biggest loser? China.