Germany

Following yesterday's dramatic geopolitical shock, U.S. equity index futures rise as Russia has not escalated the confrontation with Turkey as some had feared, while Asian shares fall, reversing earlier gains. European stocks are rallying and the euro is falling on the back of a Reuters report that the ECB is mulling new measures to prop up lending, although it’s not clear at this point what the real impact from these measures would be.

"Why are Western leaders expressing their determination to “destroy” ISIS using all means necessary, while avoiding the most significant factor of all: the material infrastructure of ISIS’ emergence in the context of ongoing Gulf and Turkish state support for Islamist militancy in the region."

Some have suggested Vladmir Putin's first retaliation for the Turkish shooting down of a Russian fighter jet would be to cut off gas supplies (which represent 57% of Turkey's supply). With Russia Defense Minister stating that the "downing of the Russian warplane is a 'hostile act'," adding that the defense ministry is "devising a set of measures to respond to the incident," it seems taking the 'nuclear option' of cutting off 20% of Erdogan's entire energy supply would be a strong first non-lethal non-World-War-3-starting step.

It had been a relatively quiet session overnight when as reported previously, the geopolitical situation in the middle east changed dramatically in a moment, when NATO-member country Turkey downed a Russian fighter jet allegedly over Turkish territory even though the plane crashed in Syria, and whose pilots may have been captured by local rebel forces. The news promptly slammed Turkish assets and FX, sending the Lira tumbling, pushing lower European stocks and US equity futures while sending 2 Year German Bunds to record negative yields.

"The political left is happy to see people cross borders but would gladly restrict the flow of capital and goods. The political right is happy to see capital and goods cross borders but would gladly build a fence to restrict the flow of people. I’m afraid that the compromise might be to restrict people, capital and goods."

A reasonable argument can be made that the temperament of the USA is worse than that of Germany in 1932. We’re more foolish, feckless, and savage, our politics more ridiculous, and the wave we’re riding is much more dangerous.

It may be a holiday shortened week in the US with Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales on deck (some of which may be starting as soon as Wednesday) but there is a lot of macro data to digest in the next few days.

As a result of the global commodity weakness, global stocks have fallen for the first time in six days as the sell-off in commodities continued, dragging both US equity futures and European stocks lower. However, putting this in context, last week the MSCI All Country World Index posted its biggest weekly gain in six weeks: alas, without a coincident rebound in commodity prices, it will be merely the latest dead cat bounce.

With the ECB expected to announce a boost to QE and pushing rates even lower into record negative territory, perhaps Markit did not get the memo to double seasonally adjust the seasonally adjusted European manufacturing and services PMI survey data, when instead of providing cover for Draghi ("look, the economy is slowing down even more, surely you must unleash more printing") it reported that not only the Manufacturing PMI rose to 52.8 from 52.3, a 19 month high and above the highest estimate (range was 51.5 to 52.6), not only the Service PMI rose to 54.6 from 54.1, a 54 month high and also above the highest estimate (range of 53.5-54.4), but the Composite PMI soared to the highest level recorded since May 2011, rising from 53.9 to 54.4.

The U.S. is, in fact, Europe’s enemy - not merely Russia’s enemy. Not merely the truth’s enemy. Not merely democracy’s enemy.

"The EU is increasingly about war," exclaimed the outspoken UKIP leader in 2013 in front of Francois Hollande and his European parliamentarian peers... "taking on fundamentalist, radical Islam in battle is something that will launch ourselves... on a decade of unending, unwinnable misery."

There are so many strands of lies and distortions that it is now almost impossible for Official Washington to disentangle itself from all the false narratives that the neocons and the liberal hawks have spun in support of their various “regime change” strategies. So, the American people are left with the mainstream U.S. news media endlessly repeating storylines that are either completely false or highly exaggerated. Official Washington’s many false narratives about Russia and Syria have gotten so tangled that they have become a danger to the struggle against jihadist terrorism and conceivably a threat to the future of the planet.

Dear Mr. President, your country faces a stagnating economy... The truth is it is too late for our politicians to act, because the speculative peak that precedes the crisis is already upon us.

The global economic order is shifting beneath the feet of Washington and Tokyo as Xi marches ahead with "One Belt, One Road" and prepares to extend the first loans from the China-led development bank that embarrassed the Obama administration earlier this year.