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Live feed from China's Tiananmen Square, where moments ago, China's historic 70th V-Day celebration parade has begun.

Many Republicans simply delude themselves that Trump is not a serious candidate who cannot, for some reason, get the nomination. We say, don’t underestimate his ego, which we know is and always has been enormous.

It is time for a comprehensive audit of Janet Yellen ’s Federal Reserve - and not just for the reasons presidential candidate Rand Paul and others have given. The Fed needs to be audited to see if its ruling body has broken the law by manipulating financial markets that are outside its jurisdiction.

"China is imposing fresh controls to prevent too much money from leaving the country, in an effort to keep badly needed funds at home to battle a deepening slowdown in the world’s No. 2 economy." This is undsiputedly bad news for China, but Blythe Masters would be the first to admit, escalating Chinese capital controls would be just the thing bitcoin needs to surge, and surpass, it previous all time highs...

When the bubble vision stock peddlers get desperate, they talk decoupling. So by the end of yesterday’s bloodbath you would have thought China was on another planet, and that “commodities” were some trinket-like collectibles gathered by people who don’t wear long pants, drink coca cola or jabber on their cell phones. On these fine shores, of course, its all awesome from sea to shinning sea. So don’t be troubled. Buy the dip.

"One manager at a major fund - part of the 'national team' of investors and brokerages charged with buying stocks to revive prices – said a friend, also an executive at a large fund, was recently summoned for a meeting with regulators, along with all other mutual funds that had engaged in short-selling activity. 'If I don't come back, look after my wife,' his friend told him, handing the manager his home telephone number."

Just when everyone was convinced that the main "risk off" event of the summer, namely the Greek bailout, was safely tucked away and that having abdicated its sovereignty to its creditors  and Germany in particular, who now hold the Greek banking system hostage courtesy of draconian capital controls, that Greece would continue to receive its monthly cash allotment just so it could repay creditors from its first two bailouts and would not make headlines for the foreseeable future , Market News just reported that suddenly even the Greek bailout is no longer on autopilot as a result of the upcoming elections in three weeks, whose outcome is anything but assured.

Following China's official PMI print at a 3-year low, Caixin's PMI collapsed to 47.3 - the lowest sinec March 2009. Despite another CNY150bn liquidity injection (but the biggest strengthening of Yuan since Nov 2014 and a financial conditions tightening in FX trading), China, US, and Japanese stocks are plunging... SHCOMP -4%, Dow -280, NKY -340

"It is estimated that sub-Saharan Africa will have 900 million more inhabitants in the next twenty years. Of these, at least 200 million are young people looking for work. The chaos of their countries of origin will push them further north." That is the future. It will no more go away by itself, and by ignoring it, than the present crisis, which, devastating as it may be, pales in comparison. Europe risks being overrun in the next two decades.

What better way to mute demands for a return to sound money and the gold standard, than by making them equivalent to jihadist terrorism? Why, there are none, which may explain the hilarious appearance of the "Islamic State's" latest 55-minutes pro gold standard YouTube clip, which is nothing but a crash course in Austrian economics.

The week that passed has left many of the so-called “smart crowd” flummoxed, disheveled, dismayed, and disrobed from their expensive facades of “expert insightful analysis.” It seems all that “expert” as well as “insight” wasn’t all it was made out to be. In less than a week: historic records weren’t only broken – they were smashed to smithereens. And the one’s that were the most historic? They weren’t set for positive things.

We are heading for a crisis that will be exponentially worse than 2008. The global Central Banks have literally bet the financial system that their theories will work.  They haven’t. 

To many Americans, even many who did not vote for him, the election of Barack Obama seemed to hold out the promise that our racial divide could be healed by a black president. Even Obama’s supporters must concede it did not happen, though we would, again, argue angrily over why.

Is AAPL the next AOL, and is Tim Cook the next Thorsten Heins? It all depends on China: if the world's most populous nation can get its stock market, its economy and its currency under control, then this too shall pass. The problem is that if, as many increasingly suggest, China has lost control of all three. At that point anyone who thought they got a great deal when buying AAPL at $92 will have far better opportunities to dollar-cost average far, far lower.

When it comes to soliciting opinions, the NY Fed in general, and former Goldmanite Bill Dudley in particular, care about just one group of "advisors" - the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets (a group created in July 2009 after the 2008 market crash) also known as the billionaires who run the country's biggest hedge funds, prop desks and PE firms, including JPM, Credit Suisse, Apollo, Blackrock, Blue Mountain, Brevan Howard, Tudor, Fortress, and lo and behold, David "Balls to the Wall" Tepper.