Category Archive: 5) Global Macro

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Transforming cities with technology | The Economist

2017-10-31

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Cities are growing faster than at any time in history, straining services and infrastructure. Technology-driven advances are at the forefront of solving this age-old problem Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 By 2050, two thirds of the world’s population will live in cities. Urbanisation is happening faster than at any time …

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Subject To Gradation

2017-10-31

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2017-10-31

US Durable Goods Shipments, Jan 2010 - Jul 2017
Economic growth is subject to gradation. There is almost no purpose in making such a declaration, for anyone with common sense knows intuitively that there is a difference between robust growth and just positive numbers. Yet, the biggest mistake economists and policymakers made in 2014 was to forget that differences exist between even statistics all residing on the plus side.

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Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2017-10-30

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2017-10-30

EM FX gained some limited traction Friday but still capped off another awful week. So far this quarter, the worst EM performers are TRY (-6%), MXN (-5%), ZAR (-4%), COP, and BRL (both -2.5%). We expect these currencies to remain under pressure as political concerns are unlikely to dissipate anytime soon.

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Stagnation Nation: Middle Class Wealth Is Locked Up in Housing and Retirement Funds

2017-10-30

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2017-10-30

Percent of Total Assets and Liabilities
The majority of middle class wealth is locked up in unproductive assets or assets that only become available upon retirement or death. One of my points in Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin was to highlight how few families had the financial wherewithal to invest in bitcoin or an alternative hedge such as precious metals.

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An Unexpected (And Rotten) Branch of the Maestro’s Legacy

2017-10-29

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2017-10-29

China Fixed Asset Investment, March 1998 - Sep 2017
The most significant part of China’s 19th Party Congress ended in the usual anticlimactic fashion. These events are for show, not debate. Like any good trial lawyer will tell you, you never ask a question in court that you don’t already know the answer to. For China’s Communists, that meant nominating Xi Jinping’s name to be written into the Communist constitution with the votes already tallied.

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Japan Is Booming, Except It’s Not

2017-10-29

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2017-10-29

Japan Household Spending, May 2012 - Aug 2017
Japan is hot, really hot. Stocks are up to level not seen since 1996 (Nikkei 225). Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called snap elections in Parliament to secure a supermajority and it worked. Things seem to be sparkling all over the place, with the arrow pointing up: “Hopes for a global economic recovery and US shares’ strength are making fund managers generous on Japanese stocks,” said Chihiro Ohta, general manager of investment research at SMBC Nikko...

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CHARLES HUGH SMITH Central Banks will close and Currency will change

2017-10-28

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and

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Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2017-10-28

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2017-10-28

President Xi Jinping’s concepts of socialist thinking were written into China’s constitution. Malaysia Prime Minister Najib presented an expansionary budget for 2018 ahead of elections. Czech billionaire Andrej Babis’ ANO party won the elections. South Africa's mid-term budget statement acknowledged the deteriorating outlook but offered little in the way of solutions. Press reports suggest Germany is working to cut funding for Turkish banks.

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Why Governments Will Not Ban Bitcoin

2017-10-28

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2017-10-28

Value of Financial Assets for Families with holdings, 1989 - 2016
Those who see governments banning ownership of bitcoin are ignoring the political power and influence of those who are snapping up most of the bitcoin. To really understand an asset, we have to examine not just the asset itself but who owns it, and who can afford to own it. These attributes will illuminate the political and financial power wielded by the owners of the asset class.

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Political Economics

2017-10-28

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2017-10-28

US Real Gross Domestic Product, Jan 1993 - 2017
Who President Trump ultimately picks as the next Federal Reserve Chairman doesn’t really matter. Unless he goes really far afield to someone totally unexpected, whoever that person will be will be largely more of the same. It won’t be a categorical change, a different philosophical direction that is badly needed. Still, politically, it does matter to some significant degree. It’s just that the political division isn’t the usual R vs. D, left vs....

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Charles Hugh Smith Will The Private Sector Grow Fast Enough To Meet The Demands Of The Public Sector

2017-10-27

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Click here for the full summary: http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2017/10/27/the-roundtable-insight-charles-hugh-smith-on-will-the-private-sector-be-able-to-grow-fast-enough-to-meet-the-demands-of-the-public-sector/

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Housing Isn’t Just About Real Estate

2017-10-27

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2017-10-27

US Existing Home Sales, Jan 2011 - Jul 2017
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported today that sales of existing homes (resales) were up slightly in September 2017 on a monthly basis. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.39 million last month, that was practically unchanged from the 5.35 million estimate for August that was the lowest in a year.

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The climate-change experiment | The Economist

2017-10-26

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Climate-change experts are researching ways to cool down the planet using geoengineering. How could spraying chemicals into the stratosphere help counteract global warming? Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 What if you discovered a way to cool down the planet? Extreme weather events are becoming more common and more ferocious. As …

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The World’s Largest ICO Is Imploding After Just 3 Months

2017-10-26

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2017-10-26

Tezos Change for October 2017
Earlier this summer, Tezos smashed existing sales records in the white-hot IPO market after the company’s pitch to build a better blockchain for cryptocurrencies made it one of the buzziest ICOs in the world. As we noted at the time, the company capitalized on that buzz by courting VC firms and other institutional investors with a $50 million token pre-sale. After the company opened up selling to the broader public, demand soared as investors...

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Instagram playboy is also the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea | The Economist

2017-10-25

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Equatorial Guinea’s vice-president records his lavish lifestyle on Instagram, but it is unclear where his money comes from. He is currently being tried for embezzlement and money-laundering in France, where a verdict will be announced this week. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 Meet one of Instagram’s most famous playboys. He …

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Le Liban découvre la politique monétaire non conventionnelle

2017-10-25

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2017-10-25

Banque
S’il y a une chose que les Libanais savent faire, c’est compter! S’il y a une deuxième chose qu’ils savent faire, c’est oser s’exprimer. C’est exactement ce que le député Georges Adwan a fait: Calculer le manque à gagner généré par la Banque du Liban à travers sa politique monétaire, et en faire part.

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review: Yawn

2017-10-24

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2017-10-24

When I wrote the update two weeks ago I said that we might be nearing the point of maximum optimism. Apparently, there is another gear for optimism in this market as stocks have just continued to slowly but surely reach for the sky.

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RMR: Exclusive Interview with Charles Hugh Smith (10/23/2017)

2017-10-23

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Charles Hugh Smith – Of Two Minds Blog joins “V” to discuss the move away from central banks utilizing cryptocurrency, how economic gain is realized by only by the top 1% and how blockchain could transform the internet for the good of society. We are political scientists, editorial engineers, and radio show developers drawn together …

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Emerging Markets: Week Ahead Preview

2017-10-23

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2017-10-23

EM FX ended the week on a soft note. Indeed, nearly every EM currency was down for the entire week, led by ZAR, BRL, and TRY. While higher US rates will pressure EM FX as a whole, we think heightend political risk will continue to hit these three currencies particularly hard, plus perhaps MXN too.

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Which Rotten Fruit Falls First?

2017-10-23

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2017-10-23

US Gross Domestic Product, 1940 - 2017
I predict the current investigations will widen and take a variety of twists and turns that surprise all those anticipating a tidy, narrowly focused denouement. The theme this week is The Rot Within. To those of us who understand the entire status quo is rotten and corrupt to its core, the confidence of each ideological camp that their side will emerge unscathed by investigation is a source of amusement.

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