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Puerto Rico may be teetering on the verge of default but that doesn't mean public sector employees won't be going home with some extra cash for the holidays. Ten days before $1 billion in interest payments come due and two weeks after resorting to an absurd revenue clawback end-around to make a $354 million payment, the commonwealth just paid out $120 million in bonuses.

Taken together with the rather steep drop in US industrial production, the risks of a full-blown and perhaps severe recession have undoubtedly grown. Unlike what the FOMC is trying to project via the federal funds rate, a rate that isn’t being fully complemented, either, at this point, visible economic risk is not just rising it is exploding.

"My minions in the Federal Reserve - such loyal servants! - continue feeding an orgy of leverage and debt, spreading ruination under the false guise of prosperity. What a delicious irony, that the fools doomed to eternal damnation in my Empire believe themselves prosperous as they absorb the poison of exponentially rising leverage and debt."

"Typically rate rises start when profits are growing faster than debt and when companies are still deleveraging. This is around “half-past two” on our leverage clock2: 1994 and 2004 both fit this pattern. Now, with companies having been leveraging up for the past four years, and net debt/EBITDA in both Europe and especially the US at its highest non-recessionary level ever, it feels more like eight o’clock, or possibly even later."

“To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for everything.” ~Edward Abbey

A world where money is decentralized means a world where nothing you’ve ever seen before will become the new norm and the new norm is unlikely to include a scrap of paper issued by a bankrupt government.

What happens the next time global GDP takes a nosedive when Central Banks have already used up all of their ammunition?

When last we checked in on Puerto Rico’s seemingly intractable debt debacle, Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla was busy using an absurd revenue clawback end-around to avoid defaulting on $273 million in GO debt. On Friday, we get the latest out of Puerto Rico and the news is ... well, good we suppose. PREPA - Puerto Rico’s power authority - has reached a restructuring agreement with bondholders and insurers to refinance some $9 billion in debt via securitization.

“I have a feeling that they will not pay us back because they are crooks.”

Weak earnings performance in marketing operations below the current EBIT guidance of $2.4-$2.7 billion could place negative pressure on the Baa3 ratings in the absence of any mitigating measures. A weakening of the company's liquidity position, delays with the planned divestments in 2016 or a material reduction in its working capital funding capacities by the banks, as well as sustained high leverage with adjusted debt/EBITDA exceeding 4x, will also put negative pressure on the Baa3 ratings."

Following the latest BOJ statement, the market found itself wrongfooted assuming the BOJ was actually launching another episode of easing, sending the USDJPY soaring, until suddenly the realization swept the market that not only was the incremental action not really material, but even Kuroda spoke shortly after the announcement, confirming that "today's decision wasn't additional easing." The result was one of the biggest FX headfakes in recent days, perhaps on par with that from December 4 when EUR shorts were crushed, as the biggest carry pair first soared then tumbled and since the Yen correlation drives so many risk assets, also pulled down not only Japanese stocks but US equity futures.

Despite these economic dynamics that are automatic in any legitimate market, there has been no price discovery in the silver market for three decades.

China did everything it could to prevent a collapse and it still happened.  How do you think other countries will do?

According to ScGen, the Fed is widely expected to start tightening policy on Wednesday and adds that "after the BoJ and ECB, we see a risk that the market will be wrong-footed for a third time, and that extreme positions built ahead of tightening will be reversed.... In particular, we are short US small cap equities vs large via being short Russell 2000 vs S&P 500.... As the Fed tightens and the market enters into a lower-liquidity environment (and higher-volatility regime), we think the premium on small caps is no longer justified."

The writing has been on the wall since the S&P "junking" in September, and now Fitch has jumped on the bandwagon, cutting Brazil to BB+, outlook negative.