Porsche

This country has gone from being one of the most regulated countries in the OECD to one of the least regulated and as a result the economy has boomed. Many of the wealthiest people in the world have been quietly establishing escape hatches here.

• Germany Sees No Need to Scrap Troika in Overseeing Greek Turnaround (WSJ)
• European markets subdued as Chinese data weighs (Reuters)
• U.S. Oil Workers Strike Enters Second Day as Crude Prices Slide (BBG)
• Oil prices rally above $55 as investors pile in (Reuters)
• Obama Wants a New Tax on U.S. Companies' Overseas Profits (BBG)
• If Trading Bonds Is Hard, Think About Pain When Rates Rise (BBG)
• Julius Baer Braces for Swiss Franc Impact (WSJ)
• Coke, Budweiser win as Super Bowl ad battle gets serious (Reuters)

• Fed seen remaining patient with rate guidance amid global turmoil (Reuters)
• National Weather Service apologizes for blizzard forecast miss (CBS)
• Greek PM Tsipras pushes on with radical change, markets tumble (Reuters)
• Obama Drops Plan to Raise Taxes on ‘529’ College Savings Accounts (WSJ)
• Hard Choices on Easy Money Lie Ahead for Fed Chief (Hilsenrath)
• Debt That Once Boosted Its Cities Now Burdens China (WSJ)
• Skymark Said to File for Bankruptcy After Airbus Deal Flops (BBG)
• Heavy Fighting Drains Ukraine Government’s Options and Finances (WSJ)

After panicky New Yorkers stormed their local neighborhood Whole Foods to stock up for the "Blizzard of 2015" which subsequently was revised to merely "The Tempest In A Teapot of 2015",  not a creature was stirring this morning  except...

• Earnings Pessimism Jumps as Oil Threatens S&P 500 Growth (BBG)
• It’s Amateur Hour in the Booming Chinese Stock Market (BBG)
• France mobilizes 10,000 troops at home after Paris shootings (Reuters)
• European Stocks Gain With S&P 500 Futures While Oil Drops (BBG)
• Nasdaq Looks to Operate Dark Pools for Banks (WSJ)
• This Guy Called Bonds in ’14. You Listening This Time? (BBG)
• Paris attacks boost support for Dutch anti-Islam populist Wilders (Reuters)
• OPEC price war in Asia intensifies as oil falls below $50 (Reuters)

To all those wondering if everything is rigged, we have a very simple answer: Yes.

They say be careful what you wish for. And, as is often the case, "they" are right.

For the first time in the 600-year history of Michelangelo's masterpiece, Pope Francis has decided to rent out the Sistine Chapel for an $8000-per-head Porsche Travel Club concert. What makes this unprecedented action even more 'interesting' is the fact that The Vatican - in all its omnipotent wisdom - also made an announcement that it will be limiting the number of vistors (read 'common folk') allowed inside the chapel and as IBTimes reports, demanding vistors must be silent and cannot take photographs. So much for Pope Francis' "poor Church of the poor."

As the "Big Mac Index" is to global purchase price parity levels of inflation, so when it comes to the state of the "recovery" if not for everyone, then certainly for the 0.1%, there is no better metric than the "Porsche Indicator." Recall: "Porsche Reports Record Sales in 2013; 21 Percent Increase Over 2012" which certainly didn't come on the back of yet another year of declines in real incomes for the middle class (spoiler alert: it came on the back of some $10 trillion in liquidty injections by the world's central banks). Yet one place where the "Porsche" recovery forgot to make landfall, is none other than the biggest casualty of Europe's artificial monetary, political and wealth-transferring union: insolvent Greece.

The economic "recovery" has been based on a simple premise: debt can be substituted for income with no ill effects. As real household incomes have declined, the legitimate foundation of additional spending--more income--has eroded for the bottom 90%. The Fed's substitution of debt for income has only doomed the nation to a deeper, more painful realignment of real income and expenses.

Here's a two-word summary of why the American healthcare system is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed with policy tweaks: perverse incentives.

Self-sufficiency is the deep rooted belief that you can take care of yourself and those around you.

Whether or not Obama made a huge political gaffe by secretly arranging the Qatar-mediated exchange of Bowe Bergdahl, who some 16,000 Americans have petitioned should be court-martialed for walking away from his post in 2009, for 5 Taliban leaders remains to be seen. To be sure republicans have jumped on the blunder and especially the hawks within the GOP are now "tag-teaming" the issues of Benghazi and Bergdahl with the intent of painting will Obama "as an appeaser, and a negotiator-with-terrorists" as The Nation reports. In any case, if Obama was hoping to use the Bergdahl exchange as a marker of successful foreign policy, he is suddenly caught flat-footed. What won't help the president's case of promptly sweeping this latest scandal under the rug, is a clip such as this one, released earlier today by the Taliban showing the handover of the prisoner of war to US forces.

We are witnessing implied volatility on all asset classes simply collapse to the lowest levels witnessed in 20 years, or at least the lowest levels achieved prior to the GFC in early 2007.

Is the top 10% up to the task of borrowing and blowing enough money to prop up a debt and bubble-dependent economy? Right now, we're one stock-market-and-housing bubble pop away from finding out if the top 10% will be able and willing to spend, spend, spend once their bubblicious assets are evaporating like mist in Death Valley.