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The recent attacks in Paris evoke strong emotions for many people, but investors need to look through those feelings to the short, medium, and long-term implications. We believe Paris may mark an important turning point for Europe and the global business cycle... but for different reasons than you may think. There is a chance that the slow disintegration of Europe will drive more capital onto US shores, boosting valuations and fueling a blow-off top in the US equity market; but beware global shocks and take any rally as a chance to get defensive.

“If the ECB merely does on 3 December what is effectively priced by the market, we could collectively wake up on 4 December feeling a bit deflated, like a child discovering on Christmas day that his parents ‘only’ gave him what he/she had asked for, without the ‘little extra’ that would have kept him/her smiling all day long."

Forgotten what 2008 was like? What's coming will be far worse.

In the aftermath of last week's dramatic events in Turkey, one would expect that the "democratic, humanistic" western countries would at least issue a harsh condemnation of Erdogan's behavior. That won't happen: instead, the European Union will pay Turkey $3.2 billion to help it stop the flow of refugees to Europe from the conflict in Syria, 2.2 million of whom are currently in Turkey and to prevent Europe's worst refugee crisis from getting even worse.

"As part of an intellectual tradition that saw the salvation of the world in some form of world government... and with the financial backing of the CIA and the US State Department, the Anglo-American establishment was now committed to the creation of a federal United States of Europe." Today, this is still the case. Powerful international lobbies are already at work attempting to prove that any return to democratic self-government will spell doom.

The successful completion of the Balkan Silk Road would lead to a significant sum of European trade being profitably redirected towards China and other booming non-Western locations like India and Ethiopia. The US fears losing its position as the EU’s top trading partner, knowing that the slippery strategic slope that could soon follow might lead to the rapid unraveling of its hegemonic control. The inevitable New Cold War clash that this represents and the extraordinarily high stakes that are involved mean that the Balkans will remain one of the main flashpoints in this dangerous proxy struggle, despite the hierarchical switch of its multipolar protagonists.

How Uncle Sam seeded global Jihad... and cultivates it to this day.

Earlier today, Italian police seized a shipment of 800 pump action shotguns bound for Belgium. Their origin: Turkey. Given what we know about Ankara's connection to Islamic State, one is certainly left to wonder if this isn't one of many "smoking guns" (pun fully intended) that will surface in the weeks and months ahead now that Vladimir Putin has thrust Erdogan's ISIS connections into the limelight.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, we’d encourage you to give thanks that you can see the truth. Give thanks that you’re rational and aren’t giving in to the propaganda.

A society that is given the option to protect itself is not a fearful society, it is a prudent one. The victims of Paris were never allowed the option to protect their lives, nor were they fortunate to have armed defenders present or trained combatants to stop the attack before it reached them. People need the opportunity to secure their own safety since, as the past twelve years has shown, the State will fail them.

So if Draghi pulls a "Draghi" on December 3, and stuns the market by admitting he merely jawboned the ECB's "assured" easing to death, with the EUR now pricing in both a 15 bps rate cut and more QE, and thus making any actual by the ECB meaningless (and why should the ECB actually launch a bazooka round when jawboning is enough) you have been warned.

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.