Category Archive: 5) Global Macro
Japan Is Booming, Except It’s Not
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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Emerging Markets: What has Changed
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
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
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?
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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GDP Is Bogus: Here’s Why
The rot eating away at our society and economy is typically papered over with bogus statistics that "prove" everything's getting better every day in every way. The prime "proof" of rising prosperity is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which never fails to loft higher, with the rare excepts being Spots of Bother (recessions) that never last more than a quarter or two.
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Fraud, Exploitation and Collusion: America’s Pharmaceutical Industry
The rot within manifested by the pharmaceutical industry almost defies description.The theme this week is The Rot Within. America's Pharmaceutical industry takes pride of place in this week's theme of The Rot Within, as the industry has raised fraud, exploitation and collusion to systemic perfection. What other industry can routinely kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and suffer no blowback? Only recently has the toll of needless deaths from...
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Distinct Lack of Good Faith, Part ??
It was a busy weekend in retrospect, starting with Janet Yellen and other central bankers uncomfortably facing a global media that has become (for once) increasingly unconvinced. Reporters, really, don’t have much choice. The Federal Reserve Chairman might not be aware of just how much she has used the “transitory” qualifier since 2015, but others can’t be helped from noticing.
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Donald Trump asks for advice from Xi Jinping | The Economist
Donald Trump asks for help from China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in this week’s Economist cartoon from Kal. Peer inside the mind of our political cartoonist as he conjures up a dragon for the 19th China national congress. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 One of Kal’s favourite things to draw is …
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Broader Slowing in Industrial Production
Industrial Production rose 1.6% year-over-year in September 2017. That’s up from 1.2% growth in August, both months perhaps affected to some degree by hurricanes. The lack of growth and momentum, however, clearly predated the storms. The seasonally-adjusted index for IP peaked in April 2017, and has been lower ever since. This pattern, the disappointment this year is one we see replicated nearly everywhere on both sides (supply as well as demand)...
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