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Global Capitalism is trapped in its own Prisoner’s Dilemma; fourty four years after the end of the Bretton Woods System global central banks have manipulated the cost of risk in a competition of devaluation leading to a dangerous build up in debt and leverage, lower risk premiums, income disparity, and greater probability of tail events on both sides of the return distribution. Truth is being suppressed by the tools of money. Market behavior has now fully adapted to the expectation of pre-emptive central bank action to crisis creating a dangerous self-reflexivity and moral hazard. Volatility markets are warped in this new reality routinely exhibiting schizophrenic behavior. The tremendous growth of the short volatility complex across all assets, combined with self-reflexive investment strategies, are creating a dangerous ‘shadow convexity’ that will fuel the next hyper-crash.

The arms race of devaluation is not free and has come at the cost of massive global debt expansion. The world has simply shifted private debt to the public balance sheet. The next major global crash will likely be driven by unhealthy sovereign credit rather than corporate credit. The next Lehman moment will be the financial collapse of a major developed country instead of a bank.

With default risk soaring, and Ackman's dreams dissolving, Valeant Pharma is crashing again today (halted three times and down over 28%) following a report by Citron Research that claims to have a "smoking gun" on the company's activities, claiming Valeant is using pharmacies related to Philidor to store inventory and record the transactions as sales.

“If Congress fails to raise the nation’s debt ceiling by [November 3], the US could risk a first-ever default on its obligations”.

"In the West, they talk about ‘moderate opposition,’ but we so far haven’t seen any in Syria. Any person who takes up arms and fights the legal authorities, how moderate can he be?"

Investors are too complacent (the Minsky-Moment).  Too many are still trying to profit from the Fed subsidy of past stimulus. Investors remain loaded in risk assets, incentivized by the need to beat peers and benchmarks and comforted into complacency by the Fed ‘put’. The true level of risk is being ignored. The pervasive mentality of seeking maximum risk has become a terrible risk/reward trade for two main reasons...

After yesterday's closing ramp "prudently" just ahead of an abysmal IBM earnings report with the lowest revenues since 2002, and the latest rally in capital markets which sent European stocks to their highest level since August on the back of a barrage of global bad data which has unleashed the Pavlovian liquidity dogs screaming for moar central bank bailouts, this morning has seen a modest decline in the Stoxx 600 driven by energy names, while S&P500 futures are set to open lower on IBM's disappointment at least until the latest massive BOJ USDJPY buying spree sends the pair to 120 and the S&P solidly in the green. The biggest political event overnight was the Canadian election, where Trudeau's liberals swept PM Harper from power, capping the biggest political comeback in the country's history; the Canadian dollar is largely unchanged after initially weakening then rising.

History may eventually decide the "New World Order" started on September 28, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama had a 90-minute face off at the UN in New York. Irrespective of spin – “productive” according to the White House, “tense” according to a source close to the Kremlin – facts on the ground accumulated almost immediately.

The one-month-ish Treasury Bills that mature November 18th are collapsing. Following comments this morning by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew that the US will run out of cash on November 3rd and his warning of a "terrible" debt limit accident, the 11/18/15 T-Bills have seen yields explode from -1bp to 7bps - an unprecedented 8bps spike as investors panic-sell beyond the deadline. WI 1month bills are over 11bps! As Barclays Joseph Abate warns, "This is the beginning...Nervousness is ratcheting higher”

While the macro watchers were keenly awaiting China's macroeconomic data dump on Sunday night, which was far worse than reported (as we will show shortly), a just as notable development was taking place in China's microeconomic world, where as the FT reported on Sunday, China's state-owned SinoSteel, the country's second largest importer of iron-ore, and a major miner and steel trader (yes, another commodity trader) was "poised to default on its bonds this week, the latest test of whether Beijing is willing to impose market discipline on national champion companies."

• Great News: China’s GDP Growth Beats Forecasts as Stimulus Supports Spending (BBG)
• Oh wait, maybe not: China GDP: Deflategate Comes to Beijing (WSJ)
• Actually, definitely not: Shanghai rebar falls to record low after weak China GDP (Reuters)
• But who cares: European Shares Gain on Earnings as Bonds Drop, Metals Decline (BBG)

The dollar dropped about half a milligram gold, and 50mg silver.

But who wants to read about the universal currency falling, failing? Few people are so barbarous as to think of the dollar’s value as being priced in terms a monetary metal.

...isn’t it a little bit scary to consider that the government’s #1 asset is its ability to steal money from you?