December 2015 archive

From David Stockman’s Contra Corner – davidstockmanscontracorner.com Yellen said at least one thing of importance last week, but not in a good way. She confessed to the frightening truth that the FOMC formulates its policies and actions based on forecasts of future economic developments. My point is not simply that our monetary politburo couldn’t forecast its way …

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Swiss Army Chief Warns Of Social Unrest, Calls Upon Citizens To Arm Themselves Swiss army chief André Blattmann warned, in a Swiss newspaper article on Sunday, the risks of social unrest in Europe are soaring. Recalling the experience of 1939/1945, Blattman fears the increasing aggression in public discourse is an explosively hazardous situation, and advises …

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China Suspends Foreign Banks' FX Trading As Offshore Yuan Spread Signals Massive Outflows For the first time since the August collapse, Offshore Yuan is trading over 1000 pips weaker (relative to the USDollar) than onshore Yuan, signalling outflows are once again escalating. Following the chaos in HIBOR money-markets, Offshore Yuan has crashed to 6.5970 (below …

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Falling Interest Causes Falling Profits by Keith Weiner   Most people assume that prices move as a result of changes in the money supply. Instead, let’s look at the effect of changes in interest. To start, consider a hamburger restaurant. Suppose that the average profit in the burger business is ten percent of invested capital. …

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Something Just Snapped Again In China We have seen this pattern before. In August, the first thing to tumble was Yuan FX rates, then money market rates exploded, and then the stock market tumbled. While it is a little premature, today's sudden plunge in Chinese stocks (as the afternoon session opens) following last week's spike …

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Washington's "Empire Of Chaos" & The Cold War 2.0 'New Normal' Authored by Pepe Escobar, Op-Ed via RT.com, In his seminal 'Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization,' Bryan Ward-Perkins writes, "Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue forever… They were wrong. We would be …

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Caught On Tape: Russian Fighter Jets Destroy Huge ISIS Oil Convoy In Transit To Turkey One month ago, after a farcial year-long campaign to “destroy” ISIS, which achieved absolutely nothing but made the Islamic State grow bigger and stronger, culminating with the numerous terrorist attacks in the month of November, former CIA deputy director Michael …

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US National Insecurity: The Art Of Blaming Russia (For Everything) Submitted by Daniel Spaulding via 21stCenturyWine.com, In American politics the nation of Russia, especially as personified in its leader Vladimir Putin, becomes all things to all men. To American leftists, Russia is a neo-fascist, violently nationalist country that ruthlessly suppressed minority groups, especially homosexuals. To the …

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A Christmas 'Safe-Space' – Cornell Bans Menorahs, Crosses, & Mistletoe Happy Holidays from the ‘friendly’ micro-aggressives at Cornell… From page 2 of Cornell’s “Fire Safety Guidelines For Holiday Displays”   Beware of those dangerous ‘Star of Davids’ and terroristic Mistletoe? It seems ‘inflammatory’ has a whole new meaning.   h/t @JudithShulevitz What Fresh Horror Awaits …

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Something Just Snapped In China While Sweden is over-flowing with excess cash on bank balance sheets, it appears that banks in Hong Kong are desperate to borrow Yuan (or scared to lend) as overnight HIBOR just exploded higher to 9.45% – a record for the interbank offered rate. The HKD and CNY/CNH FX markets remain …

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