Saudi Arabia

Anyone who thinks the adversarial relationship between Washington and Tehran has turned into “détente” due to the nuclear deal is living in Never-Never Land. Your bullshit-ometer should be making an awful racket in response to the shifting explanations given for the twenty-four-hour Iranian hostage scare involving two US Navy boats intercepted in the Gulf. The signing of the Iran deal means that we are in for a long series of provocations in the Gulf, and this is only the beginning. In order to keep all this in perspective, just remember that the long dance between Washington and Tehran involves at least four partners, including their hard-liners and ours.

The Saudis are explicitly conserving their own resources at home, while exploiting land and water supplies here in America. “We’re letting them come over here and use up our resources. It’s very frustrating for me, especially when I have residents telling me that their wells are going dry and they have to dig a lot deeper for water. It’s costly for them to drill new wells."

According to the latest Fed data, after a drop of $12 billion in the first week of the year, another $34.5 billion in Treasurys held in custody was sold in the week ended January 13, bringing the total to just $2.962 trillion, below the previous recent low recorded in early November, and at levels not seen since April 2015. Adding up the flows from the first two weeks of the year reveals the worst and most custody holdings "outflowing" start to the year in history.

“As chair of the G7, I need to seek solutions regarding the stability of the region as well as the whole world. I believe appropriate dialogue with Russia, appropriate dialogue with president Putin is very important.”

Broad middle-east and african stock markets crashed over 5%, erasing any gains back to November 2008 as the carnage from last week continues. From Kuwait (-4.3%) to Qatar (-8%) it was a bloodbath as Saudi Arabia Tadawul Index plunged 5.4% - the most since Black Monday (now down over 50% from their 2014 highs). These losses are far in excess of US 'catch-up' moves and suggest a dark cloud over Asia this evening.

The consequences of all this will be felt all over the world, and for a long time to come. All of our economic systems run on oil, so many jobs are related to it, so many ‘fields’ in the economy, and no, things won’t get easier when oil is at $20 or $10, it’ll be a disaster of biblical proportions, like a swarm of locusts that leaves precious little behind. Squeeze oil and you squeeze the entire economic system. That’s what all the ‘low oil prices are great for the economy’ analysts missed (many still do). Entire nations will undergo drastic changes in leadership and prosperity.

There’s more than a whiff of 2008 in the air. The sources of systemic financial sector risk are different this time (they always are), but China and the global industrial/commodity complex are even larger tectonic plates than the US housing market, and their shifts are no less destructive. There’s also more than a whiff of 1938 in the air, as we have a Fed that is apparently hell-bent on raising rates even as a Category 5 deflationary hurricane heads our way, even as the yield curve continues to flatten.

The great Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - the long-time dictator of crude oil prices for the world - is struggling on all fronts. The Saudis are in a state of panic all around - from its OPEC status and dwindling reserves to its proxy wars that absolutely cannot turn into full-fledged wars and its growing friendlessness. At the end of the day, Saudi Arabia has overextended itself, and overestimated its prowess and it does not have the clout that it once had to be able to do this effectively.

"The chaos that one day will ensue from our 35-year experiment with worldwide fiat money will require a return to money of real value. We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or euros. The sooner the better."

Senior-level sources in numerous Middle Eastern governments have privately expressed bewilderment at recent and current U.S. government strategies and policies toward the region. But a closer examination of U.S. policies, now almost entirely dictated by the Obama White House, shows no cohesive national goals or policies exist, but rather an ad hoc set of actions and reactions, which are largely dictated either by ideological positions, ignorance, whim, or perceived expedience.

"The fact that market volatility is on the rise and the Fed is raising interest rates further increases the probability of a Bear Market. The current option-implied probability of a bear market (i.e. ~20% decline this year) is about 25%. While there is no way to predict a bear market, below we look at various scenarios, and estimate that the probability of a bear market may be nearly twice as large."

President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address came up short of the facts on several topics. Obama apparently omitted part of his presidency in boasting of nearly 900,000 manufacturing jobs “in the past six years.” Over his entire time in office, manufacturing jobs have gone down by 230,000.

The man who killed 10 German tourists on Tuesday in a brazen suicide attack in Istanbul has been identified as one Nabil Fadli, a ISIS-linked , Saudi-born operative who entered Turkey just last week as a Syrian refugee.

The rift between Saudi Arabia and Iran has quickly ballooned into the worst conflict in decades between the two countries. The effect from the brewing conflict on oil is murky, but for now it is not having a bullish impact. But what if the current “Cold War” between Saudi Arabia and Iran turned hot?

Having upset The Sauds (by exposing the truth about The Kingdom's subjugation of women and medieval laws), and hurt relations with Saudi Arabia, Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallstrom has now made an enemy of another Middle-East nation. Israel has barred Wallstrom from entering their nation after she called for investigations into "extrajudicial killings" during recent violence. In response, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement: "The Swedish Foreign Minister has, in her reckless and ludicrous comments, buoyed terrorism and by so doing is encouraging violence."