Switzerland

Over the last 5 years the various Fed QE (quantitative easing) interventions into the capital markets has facilitated dumb luck trading into “genius” status, and no clue analysis into “spot on brilliant” prognostications. The real issue at hand is many believed their own press, and the current state of egg on their face would make many a Denny's blush. As bad as that sounds – it gets worse.

• Crude sinks 4 percent as market braces for more Iranian oil (Reuters)
• Plunge in crude oil prices send stock futures sliding (Reuters)
• Oil Slides, Deepening Gloom in Stocks as Bond Buyers Celebrate (BBG)
• China Stocks Enter Bear Market, Erasing Gains From State Rescue (BBG)
• Friendly no more: Trump, Cruz erupt in bitter fight at Republican debate (Reuters)
• Dollar in Best Run Since July on Haven Bid Even as Fed Odds Fall (BBG)

Norway is in trouble. As we have detailed previously (here, here, here, and here), the world's largest sovereign wealth fund has begun liquidating assets (after its largest quarterly loss) as the nation faces recessionary fears (key data deterioration as oil stays lower for longer) with expectations building (despite denials by the central bank) that ZIRP (or even NIRP) is coming. Why? Simple - as the following real-time map shows - every one of Norway's oil fields are currently underwater!

“We are seeking to understand the risk that corrupt foreign officials, or transnational criminals, may be using premium U.S. real estate to secretly invest millions in dirty money,” said FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery. “Cash purchases present a more complex gap that we seek to address. These GTOs will produce valuable data that will assist law enforcement and inform our broader efforts to combat money laundering in the real estate sector.”

As the towering forces that are prevailing against failing global economic architecture and the pit of debt beneath that structure, as laid out below, it is clear that the 'Epocalypse' - encompassing the roots "economic, epoch, collapse" and "apocalypse" - is here, and it is everywhere. The Great Collapse has already begun. What follows are the megatrends that will increasingly gang up in the first part of 2016 to stomp the deeply flawed global economy down into its own hole of debt.

...the Swiss canton of Zug is asking its citizens to delay paying their taxes for as long as possible, because the cantonal government doesn’t want to take in a pile of cash, only to end up paying the bank interest on all the tax revenue.

“I’m not going to answer that. No, no, no. I don’t want to talk to you”...

The man who ran into a police station in northern Paris wearing a fake explosive vest, waving a meat cleaver, and shouting "Allahu Akbar" on the Charlie Hebdo anniversary once lived in a German refugee center and may have been involved in the New Year's Eve "sex mob" attacks. Walid Salihi used at least seven aliases while roaming around Europe committing what police say was a string of petty crimes including, but probably not limited to: "touching women's behinds at the disco," strangling a roommate, attacking a "passerby," and beating up a homeless man. 

Unique among the countries on earth, the US government insists that its laws and dictates take precedence over the sovereignty of nations. Neoconned Washington claims that as History chose America to exercise its hegemony over the world, no other law is relevant. Only Washington’s will counts.

Reports now suggest the string of sex assaults allegedly perpetrated by asylum seekers on New Year's Eve wasn't confined to Germany as women in Switzerland, Austria, and Finland say they experienced similar attacks to those which occurred in Cologne. Germany now says it's prepared to deport those responsible, while little by little, Angela Merkel's rheotric is shifting.

With a new wave of terrorism, mass shootings and unprecedented social violence around the globe now a part of the daily routine for billions of people across both developed and developing nations, one group wants to be certain there is no chance of "close encounters", violent or otherwise, with the peasantry during its upcoming annual boondoggle at the World Economic Forum in Davos. According to Swissinfo, when the world's billionaires land their private jets in the gorgeous Swiss town (which at 1,560 m is also the highest town in Europe) on January 20, they will have up to 5,000 Swiss army troops protecting them.