World Trade

• Pope Francis calls for action as Iraqi Christians forced to flee (Reuters)
• Richest Russians Deprived of Luxury Foods by Putin’s Ban (BBG)
• Exxon Drilling Russian Arctic Shows Sanction Lack Bite (BBG)
• Israeli Jets Strike Gaza Targets After Rockets Shatter Truce (BBG)
• U.S. starts aid airdrops in Iraq but no strikes yet (Reuters)
• Banks Said to Be Arranging Argentine Debt Buyer Group (BBG)
• Siberia Flight-Ban Threat Forces Airlines to Mull Options (BBG)
• Malaysia Airlines to Be Delisted in $429 Million Buyout (BBG)
• Erdogan poised to win Turkey's first popular presidential vote (Reuters)
• African Bank Fights Collapse in Espirito Santo-Like Drama (BBG)
• China to build lighthouses on five isles in defiance of U.S. call (Reuters)

Either Europe is run by a bunch of unelected idiots, or... well, that's about it. After blindly doing the US' bidding over all propaganda matters Ukraine-related, and following just as blindly into round after round of US-inspired sanctions, sanctions to whose retaliation Europe would be on the frontline unlike the largely insulated US, Europe appears to be absolutely shocked and is apoplectic that after several rounds of sanction escalations, Russia finally unleashed its own round of sanctions and yesterday announced a 1 year ban on all European food imports, something which will further push Europe into a triple-dip recession as already hinted by Italy yesterday.

America Used COMMUNIST Torture Techniques SPECIALLY DESIGNED to Produce F·A·L·S·E Confessions

"It's a troubling continuation/expansion of trade as a geopolitical tool," warns one Washington-based consulting firm as Russia prepares to unleash retaliatory actions to US and European sanctions. As Bloomberg reports, Russia said yesterday it may ban imports of chicken from the U.S. and fruit from Europe and is investigating McDonald's cheese for safety. In addition, a Russian lawmaker has drafted legislation that might result in U.S. accounting firms being barred from doing business in his country. All of this is odd given Jack "trust me" Lew's reassurance that Russian sanctions would have no impact on the US economy. Russia's response, US will feel 'tangible losses' from 'destructive, myopic' sanctions.

Readers are familiar with our quarterly summary of the IMF's laughable forecasts, which we compile after every quarterly release of the fund's World Economic Outlook. Moments ago, the IMF released its latest update for world growth and trade for 2014 and 2015. Since we have said it all already, we will cut straight to the charts.

August gold GCQ14 and September silver SIU14 contract purchases spiked the exact moment Malaysia Airlines reported MH17 missing. Coincidence or tragedy profiteering? You decide.

While the USA has been oddly quiet since Ukraine's President Poroshenko unilaterally ended the cease-fire, the Russians have not. This morning's "anti-terrorist" shelling of East Ukraine buildings stirred Russia's Prime Minister Medvedev to warn:

*MEDVEDEV SAYS POROSHENKO MADE MISTAKE ENDING CEASE-FIRE; PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR NEW DEATHS
*MEDVEDEV SAYS THERE MAY BE FULL FLEDGED GAS CRISIS BY FALL

Of course, Ukraine is 'fixed' - it must be: stocks are up. However, it appears a new round of violence (with little seeming room for negotiation) appears set to start as Ukraine moves ahead and Medvedev makes it clear there will be repercussions.

Janet Yellen is an officious school marm. She constantly lectures us on Keynesian verities as if they were the equivalent of Newton’s Law or the Pythagorean Theorem. In fact, they constitute self-serving dogma of modern vintage that is marshaled to justify what is at bottom an economic absurdity. Namely, that through the primitive act of banging the securities “buy” key over and over and thereby massively expanding its balance sheet, the Fed can cause real wealth - embodying the sweat of labor, the consumption of capital and the fruits of enterprise - to magically expand beyond what the free market would generate on its own steam. Dr. Yellen, of course, claims there are no financial bubbles to worry about because the Keynesian bathtub of potential GDP has not yet been filled to the brim. Perhaps she would like to put in a bid for one of these homes...

One hundred years ago today the world was shook loose of its moorings. Every school boy knows that the assassination of the archduke of Austria at Sarajevo was the trigger that incited the bloody, destructive conflagration of the world’s nations known as the Great War. But this senseless eruption of unprecedented industrial state violence did not end with the armistice four years later. In fact, 1914 is the fulcrum of modern history. It is the year the Fed opened-up for business just as the carnage in northern France closed-down the prior magnificent half-century era of liberal internationalism and honest gold-backed money. So it was the Great War’s terrible aftermath - a century of drift toward statism, militarism and fiat money - that was actually triggered by the events at Sarajevo.

The proof is clear. According to SWIFT, China’s renminbi is now the second most used currency in the world for global trade settlement, putting it ahead of even the euro. It’s happening. And based on the data, it’s completely obvious (as we continued to chronicle) to just about everyone but the US government. However, we were still surprised to see an article in the Financial Times’ banking intelligence subsidiary (‘The Banker’) entitled "The US’s dollar domination is coming to an end." This reality has become obvious to just about everyone... Reserve currencies come and go. So will the dollar. This is nothing new.

For quite some time, we have been predicting that the Russians and Chinese will, at some point, bring an end to the petrodollar system that has virtually guaranteed the US the position of having its currency be the world's default currency. This position has allowed the US, in recent decades, to go on a borrowing and currency-printing spree, the likes of which the world has never seen. But now, the US is broke, and its stature as the biggest boy has begun to wane. The other kids in the schoolyard are playing smart, whilst the US is still playing tough... and it's no longer working... The US is at war with China and Russia. It's an undeclared war, and it's monetary warfare, not military warfare.

There has been no forward progress in US hourly compensation over the last half century. How it is possible that the world’s richest and most technologically advanced economy ever, operating during a 50-year period that included the invention of the Internet … the triumph of capitalism in China and Russia … and a landing on the moon – that is the most bountiful half-century in human history – failed to make its most important component parts better off. And at the bedrock level, we find the explanation: Fed policies are dangerous claptrap.

He also DEMOLISHES Intelligence Agencies’ Excuse for 9/11, Confirms They're Recording Our CONTENT, Explains They've Got "Dataddiction" ... and Confirms We're Living In a Police State

With the housing purchase market for everyone but the wealthiest stagnating (confirmed by today's sliding "plans to buy a home" indicator), forcing Americans to scramble for rental properties and pushing residential asking rents to fresh record high quarter after quarter, the same can not be said for the commercial sector. In fact quite the opposite: according to the WSJ the owners of the towering 3.1 million square foot One World Trade Center, which at last check was 55% leased, have been forced to cut asking rents by 10% from 75% to $69. Why? "The market's not there," said Mr. Durst, whose Durst Organization bought a stake in the tower from the Port Authority in mid-2011. "When we started in 2011, everybody expected the economy to take off, and obviously that hasn't happened."

Do not look at this chart if you remain of the opinion that everything is fine in the world. For the 3rd time in the last 4 months, world trade volumes dropped. The 0.5% fall in March - it must have been weathery all over the world? - continues the biggest plunge in global trade since May 2009. As WSJ reports, exports from developing economies in Asia recorded the largest decline, a drop of 4.5%. Central and Eastern Europe was the only region to record a rise in exports as the decline in trade flows is consistent with other evidence that suggests the global economy got off to a weak start this year. So, $12 trillion of global money printing and world trade is unable to sustain growth...