Toyota

The scandal swirling around Germany's largest listed company had its beginnings in an attempt to crack the U.S. market, the missing link in VW's global footprint. But, as Handelsblatt details, what began as expansion ended in deception (piecing together the events that led up to the scandal, based on the facts as they are currently known).

When bailout-darling GM 'fessed up to an intentional ignition-switch defect, tied to at least 174 deaths, The Justice Department fined them $900 million (and no employees faced criminal charges). So, in this consequence-less world in which we live, when Volkswagen admits to literally cheating emissions-standards tests, it faces up to $18 billion in fines from The EPA, one has to wonder whether "we" have our priorities right?

The world’s poorest countries are not characterized by naive trust in capitalism, but by utter distrust, which leads to heavy government intervention and regulation of business. Under such conditions, capitalism does not thrive and economies remain poor. Pope Francis is right to focus attention on the plight of the world’s poorest. Their misery, however, is not the consequence of unbridled capitalism, but of a capitalism that has been bridled in just the wrong way.

But Not There Yet...

Yesterday afternoon's meltup short-squeeze in China - after regulators announced their latest restrictions on short-selling - has stalled in the early trading tonight following The IMF's decision to delay inclusion of Yuan in the SDR pending a review in September 2016. Though this will be a disappointment to the Chinese, the door is still open though given waringse from BMW and Toyota over "normalizing" auto sales, the market problems may be morphing quickly into economic problems.

• Fed expected to push ahead with rate hike plan (Reuters)
• Upbeat earnings lift European stocks ahead of Fed (Reuters)
• Chevron to Cut 1,500 Jobs (Rigzone)
• Can Windows 10 Revive PC Sales? (WSJ)
• U.S. Junk-Bond Buyers Left in Dark as Private Deals Become Norm (BBG)
• Jeb Bush Drawing Big Bucks From GOP Establishment (WSJ)
• Myriad of Greek Risks Means Money Managers in No Hurry to Return (BBG)
• Gas production at Gazprom set to hit post-Soviet low (FT)

"I held in my hand the Holy Grail for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The most influential economic mind of the twentieth century provided the CME with the intellectual foundation upon which to build its financial superstructure."

• Chinese stocks tumble again, ignoring Beijing's blandishments (Reuters)
• Plight of Greek pensioners heaps pressure on Tsipras (Reuters)
• Cash Crunch Hits Everyday Life in Greece (WSJ)
• Souvlakis Tell a Story Well Beyond Today's Greek Crisis (BBG)
• Greek Referendum on Bailout Too Close to Call, Poll Shows (BBG)
• Move Over Greece: For Treasuries Traders, Today Is About the Fed (BBG)
• ECB adds corporate names to QE-eligible bonds (FT)
• Special Report: How Greece went bust (Reuters)
• Puerto Rico’s Pain Is Tied to U.S. Wages (WSJ)

"Washington broke arms and heads to get that 60th vote—not one to spare—to impose on the American people a plan which imperils their jobs, wages, and control over their own affairs. It is remarkable that so much energy has been expended on advancing the things Americans oppose, and preventing the things Americans want. The same routine plays out over and again. We are told a massive bill must be passed, all the business lobbyists and leaders tell how grand it will be, but that it must be rushed through before the voters spoil the plan. And when ordinary Americans who never asked for the plan, who don’t want the plan, who want no part of the plan, resist, they are scorned, mocked, and heaped with condescension."

• Greek PM optimistic on debt deal as banks bleed (Reuters)
• Greek central bank chief says banking system stable (Kathimerini)
• ECB Said to Confer on Emergency Greek Aid Amid Cash Flight (BBG)
• More tax "avoidance": Citigroup to shift European retail banking HQ to Dublin (Reuters)
• Florist's tip led police to Charleston shooting suspect (USAToday)
• Asian shares edge higher on Fed caution, China sell-off intensifies (Reuters)
• Toyota in damage control mode after American exec arrested (Reuters)
• Venezuela Oil Loans Go Awry for China (WSJ)

This won't end well... As far as the Empire of Chaos goes, Divide and Rule remains the sweetest game in town.

• Amtrak train in Philadelphia wreck was traveling at twice speed limit (Reuters)
• The engineer has no recollection of the crash and “no explanation” for what happened (WSJ)
• Taliban claim attack on Afghan guesthouse that killed 14 (Reuters)
• Chicago’s Junk Rating From Moody’s Puzzles Investors (BBG)
• House votes to end spy agencies' bulk collection of phone data (Reuters)
• Wesley Clark: The Penny-Stock General (BBG)
• AOL’s Armstrong to Leave $213 Million Richer After Verizon Deal (BBG)

In welfare state America its virtually certain that through one artifice or another taxes will go up and the national debt burden will rise to crushing heights in order to keep the baby boomers’ entitlements funded. While Keynesians and Wall Street stock peddlers are clueless about the implications of this - it actually doesn’t take too much common sense to get the drift. Namely, under a long-term path of fewer producers, higher taxes and more public debt, the prospects for rejuvenating the previous historically average rates of real output growth are somewhere between slim and none - to say nothing of the super-normal rates implied by the markets’ current bullish enthusiasm.

In the first part of this series; several fundamental principles of economics (and markets) were stressed. Supply/demand analysis is not merely objective, and logically/mathematically irrefutable; it is the only basis upon which the market for any hard asset can be analyzed. Conversely the price-analysis constantly parroted by the Corporate media is utterly devoid of any significance or legitimacy – in the corrupted crime-scenes of today which we call our markets.

• Euro zone bond yields sink to historic lows (Reuters)
• Clinton Foundation to Keep Foreign Donors (WSJ)
• Russia says U.S. forced it to act on Ukraine (Reuters)
• Bankers to China's Rescue (BBG)
• Saudi Arabia Adds Half a Bakken to Global Oil Market in a Month (BBG)
• Valuations of Hong Kong's stock market operator go interstellar (Reuters)
• Switzerland Attracts Fewer Firms as Politics Hurt Business Image (BBG)