Corruption

In some countries, the 'solution' the state chooses for its ignominous billionaire class of inequality-garnering, economy-wrecking individuals is to either a) turn one's back for a brief enough moment as to allow the tyrant to leave the country in search of a golden beach upon which to lament how great a trade being long European bonds would have been' or b) enhance their wealth further on a quid pro quo basis. In China, the 'treatment' for corrupt billionaires who love casinos, cigars, and luxury cars is much simpler... execution.

China’s stock market is on fire but its economy is cooling off.  Can the divergence last? And what’s next for China? Stay tuned to find out.

The Chinese stock market is "looking prercarious" according to Citi FX Technicals' team. A bearish outside day on the Shanghai Composite could represent just the first of a series of technical patterns that suggest a potential 23% correction... as 100s of thousands of newly minted margin'd retail equity 'investors' find out the hard what a tap on the shoulder feels like. As Paul Sinder warned, "take a look at a chart of Chinese retail margin debt, but not just right before bedtime. It looks something like the U.S. figures heading for 1929."

One of the bigger problems facing the new, upstart Greek government, which has set before itself the lofty goal of overturning 6 years of oppressive European policies and countless generations of Greek cronyism, corruption and tax-evasion is not so much the concern about deposit outflows and bank runs - even though it most certainly will be in the next few days unless the Tsipras government finds some resolution to the dramatic standoff with Merkel and the ECB - but something far more trivial: running out of money.

“We like the money,” said Raymond Baker, the president of Global Financial Integrity, a Washington nonprofit that tracks the illicit flow of money. “It’s that simple. We like the money that comes into our accounts, and we are not nearly as judgmental about it as we should be”... Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on his weekly radio program in 2013, shortly before leaving office: “If we could get every billionaire around the world to move here, it would be a godsend.”

Needless to say, Greece is only the poster child. The McKinsey numbers above suggest that “peak debt” is becoming a universal condition, and that today’s Keynesian central bankers and policy apparatchiks are only pushing on a giant and dangerous global string. So now we get to ground zero of the global Ponzi. That is the monumental pile of construction and debt that is otherwise known on Wall Street as the miracle of “red capitalism”. In truth, however, China is not an economic miracle at all; its just a case of the above abandoned Athens stadium writ large.

The era of living off borrowed money is over in Greece, and the Greek people now have a choice: they can continue down the path of poverty by leaving their culture of corruption unchanged, or they can grasp the nettle and support a new culture based on transparency, fiscal prudence and strict adherence to the basic rules of monetary management.

• RadioShack files for bankruptcy; Sprint to take over some stores (Reuters)
• Kansas To Issue Bonds and Invest Proceeds to Boost Pension Returns (WSJ)
• Merkel to Make Last Push With Putin as Pessimism Prevails (BBG)
• Islamic State in Syria seen under strain but far from collapse (Reuters)
• Texas Swagger Fades Fast as Oil Town Squeezed Hard by OPEC (BBG)
• SEC probes Blackberry options trading ahead of Reuters report about Samsung talks (Reuters)
• Spanish Bonds Underperform Italy’s as Podemos Gains Popularity (BBG)
• Steelworkers Union Rejects Offer From Refiners (WSJ)
• Brazil January Inflation at Fastest Pace in Nearly 12 Years (BBG)

ECB putting interests of banks over those of people … again.

People versus the banks ... time to take a stand ...

With the ECB escalating matters this afternoon, the craziness of European leaders talking past one another in an effort to create the next headline-driven narrative continued to gather pace today. That idiocy was nowhere more obvious than when EU President Martin Schulz warned ominously that Greece risks national bankruptcy if it continues down the path of non-agreement when Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has previously explained quite clearly that "Greece is already bankrupt."

Back in September 2010, Petrobras conducted what was then the largest share sale (to date) in history, when US$72.8 billion worth of shares in the company were sold on the BM&F Bovespa stock exchange. Upon its IPO, Petrobras became the fourth-largest company in the world by market capitalisation. Those days are long gone now, and following the triple whammy of a Brazilian economy in tatters coupled with plunging oil prices and an unprecedented corruption scandal, not only is its stock plumbing unseen ultradeep water depths, but Petrobras has rarely been in a worse shape than right now. Which is perhaps why moments ago the CEO of the semi-national company - which was the largest in Latin America by revenue as recently as 2011 - Maria das Graças Foster, "resigned" according to a filing with Brazil's securities regulator.

Greece has been borrowing its way to disaster long enough. For its part, Greece stands at a fork in the road. Syriza can move aggressively to recover Greece’s democratic sovereignty or it can desperately cling to the faltering currency and financial machinery of the Euro zone. But it can’t do both. Now and again history reaches an inflection point. Statesman and mere politicians, as the case may be, find themselves confronted with fraught circumstances and stark choices. February 2015 is one such moment.

Because admitting that the Venezuelan utopia is failing due to the policies of Hugo Chavez' "socialist revolution" would leave the thread by which Venezuelan socialism hangs ready to snap, President Maduro has shifted the blame for hyperinflating-price-based staples shortages and food lines from a cut in oil revenues to the dastardly capitalists. As The BBC reports, Maduro ordered the arrest of executives of one of the country’s largest pharmacy chains for allegedly creating shortages of everything from diapers to heart medicine. A triumphant information minister proclaimed, "we came, we normalized sales, we summoned the owners, we arrested them and they're prisoners for having provoked the people with economic war."

The Greek Elites and kleptocrats are terrified of the discipline that leaving the euro will impose, but the general public should welcome the transition to an economy and society that has been freed from the shackles of Imperial debt and the kleptocracy that has bled the nation dry.