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"Templeton Global Bond ($100bn in total; $59bn in mutual funds) – BEN’s largest fixed income fund – has seen meaningful outflows YTD (-$7.6bn from retail; -13% annualized rate) and could persist given the deterioration in excess performance (-460bps vs. benchmark YTD)."

Though none of these men are perfect or trustworthy with ultimate power, President Obama and his team make Donald Trump and Rand Paul look like founding fathers.

If we have a saviour, it is the person in the mirror. If we are to be saved, we alone must do the research, make the plans, vote with our feet and establish our own liberty.

Whether Beijing is questioning Guo about his habit of eschewing investments in China in favor of deploying capital overseas or whether Fosun did something “wrong” in the markets during the selloff is hard to know, but one thing’s for certain: “kill the chicken to scare the monkey” is alive and well.

After yesterday's rollercoaster session in both the S&P and in oil, where initially stocks soared alongside oil, only to promptly tumble as stops were taken out and as the refiners' inventory strategy was exposed after the DOE's latest weekly numbers were released, it has been a quieter session so far, though maybe not for China where stocks jumped at the open only to fizzle and close at the lows in what appears to be ever less intervention by the market manipulating "National Team."

"I want to add my voice in support of Muslims in our community and around the world... If you're a Muslim in this community, as the leader of Facebook I want you to know that you are always welcome here and that we will fight to protect your rights and create a peaceful and safe environment for you."

Gold is one of the few investments that every investor should have in their portfolio. We are now at the dangerous end-game period of a very bold but very reckless & disappointing experiment with the world's fiat (unbacked) currencies. If this experiment fails -- and we observe it's in the process of failing -- gold will provide one of the best forms of wealth insurance. But like all insurance products, it only works if you buy it before you need to rely on it.

"... a default cycle in commodity-related areas at this point is unavoidable, and the only real question here is whether it stays contained to those areas or extends itself to other sectors."

The “war on drugs” costs Americans a staggering amount of money every year that it persists. Despite the billions they receive, federal, state and local law enforcement have a proven inability to stem the flow of drugs on the nation’s streets.

"This new, modern, highly efficient, and highly precise weapon can be equipped with both a conventional warhead as well as a special, nuclear warhead.  Naturally, in the fight against terrorism that is not needed and I hope there will be no need [to use nukes against the Islamic State]."

- Vladimir Putin

Oil tanker rates soared to the highest in seven years amid an acceleration in the number of bookings and signs that the ships are being delayed when unloading due to a lack of space in on-land storage tanks. This means that day rates for 2 million-barrel carrying ships sailing to Japan from Saudi Arabia, the industry’s benchmark route, surged to $111,359, the highest since July 2008,

One can choose to ignore all these charts. However, many of them suggest eery similarity to 2007/2008 in structure. And if this structure plays out the so called "Santa" rally may not be all that it's cracked up to be. The cumulative message of all these charts: Things are far from well.

Wake up world, the EU hasn’t experienced 2% inflation since BEFORE the Crisis erupted in earnest in 2012. Three NIRP cuts and over €1 trillion in QE later, the EU is on the verge of deflation again.

Of the many economic policies that are accepted as true yet are absolute nonsense, perhaps none is more achingly nonsensical than the notion that weakening a nation's currency will magically make that nation prosperous. No empire has ever prospered by weakening its currency. Reducing the purchasing power of one's money is the road to ruin, not prosperity.