ETC

"Strange how paranoia can link up with reality now and then."

Forget the mad spinning. Here it is, in a nutshell, what it really takes for Iran and the P5+1 to clinch a game-changing nuclear deal before the new July 7 deadline.

Greece is not the real issue for Europe. The entire Greek debt market is about €345 billion in size. So we’re not talking about a massive amount of collateral… though the turmoil this country has caused in the last three years gives a sense of the importance of the issue.

"The A-share market may not bottom until the government, possibly via the PBoC, becomes the buyer of the last resort. It seems that the government might have just taken the first step in that direction on Sunday night with PBoC’s promise to provide liquidity support to stabilize the market. If PBoC becomes the main source of market-supporting liquidity, we expect the central bank's credibility to be hurt."

Even if you never intended to offend anyone and you had no idea that your words were insulting, in some countries you can be detained without bail and sentenced to years in prison for such speech. Today, there are highly restrictive hate speech laws in Canada, in Mexico and in virtually every single European nation. The United States is still an exception, but the truth is that our liberties and freedoms are being eroded every single day, and it is only a matter of time until “hate speech laws” are used to take away our freedom of speech too.

America is better off when President Obama is out on the stump bloviating and boasting rather than in Washington actively doing harm. But the whoppers he just told the students at the University of Wisconsin are beyond the pale. Said our spinmeister-in-chief: "And the unemployment rate is now down to 5.3 percent. (Applause.) Keep in mind, when I came into office it was hovering around 10 percent. All told, we’ve now seen 64 straight months of private sector job growth, which is a new record — (applause) — new record — 12.8 million new jobs all told." That’s a pack of context-free factoids.

The idea that our large-scale problems could be fixed with systemic reforms is enticing: replace the thousands of pages of tax code with a simple flat tax without deductions, for example, or the replacement of too big to jail/fail banks with community-owned banks that served the public, not shareholders. But the attraction of reforms is a siren song, because our system is run by vested interests for vested interests, period. Any real reform is Dead On Arrival (DOA) because any real reform threatens the swag and security of vested interests.

"...between ridiculously low interest rates and the increasing costs of compliance, we can’t make money anymore..."

The US government has really screwed the world on this. Paperwork is the priority. Not business. The transition isn’t going to be smooth. And it won’t happen overnight. But there will come a time, and likely soon, when the United States gets displaced.

Tsipras is calling for 'No' Vote in July 5 Referendum, but I think Greece most likely would not survive a Grexit.

By insuring spoiled brats/vested interests never face the consequences of their actions and choices, we guarantee failure of the entire system.

The EU is blowing up itself by trying to exert far too much influence on the very member nations that made its existence possible. Brussels is a blind city. It will take a lot of pain, and probably even the very wars the EU was originally founded to prevent, to figuratively burn it to the ground.

To summarize: the first revenue drop for the S&P in 5 years, a major downward revision in EPS now expecting just 1% increase in 2015 EPS, a 25% cut to GDP forecasts, a machete taken to corporate profits and 10 Yields, and not to mention double digit sales declines for some of the most prominent tech companies in the world. And that, in a nutshell, is the "strong fundamentals" that everyone's been talking about.

Just hours after the SEC sued Lynn Tilton for CLO fraud, the "Diva of Distress" countersued the SEC to stop it from pursuing its civil charge, alleging the SEC violated her constitutional rights or something. As she said then, "I hold hope that our nation will allow a fair fight for truth, to defend integrity and intent against allegations and provides fair forums," Tilton posted on Twitter. Our nation did not.

Cheap, easy credit has created moral hazard and nurtured magical thinking throughout the global economy.

How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.