Historical Archives

And you can just substitute Mario Draghi’s April 2012 prognostication for anything and everything Christine Lagarde will be saying over the coming weeks maybe months. For however long it is she believes she can plausibly deny reality. That is, until the bond market view is either meaningfully, completely withdrawn for once, or proved correct for […]

Sen. Lindsey Graham and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, uniting against a Trump administration idea to withdraw U.S. troops from part of Africa, pushed back during a fiery exchange with Defense Secretary Mark Esper here over the weekend, according to four people present at or familiar with the meeting.           https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/graham-tells-defense-secretary-esper-he-could-make-your-life-n1137681

….this is just the time that the central bankers should be burning the midnight oil. Not to concoct a scheme for the next round of quantitative easing if needed. We all know what that entails. But to address the harrowing reality that the entire world financial system is is even more inextricably intertwined than 10

Second, it sets the stage for an irrevocable split of the party itself as the Bernie Bros become more convinced the party doesn’t represent them. I’m convinced that the end game for the DNC is to drive Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard from the party through these shenanigans.             https://tomluongo.me/2020/02/07/trump-wins-iowa-new-hampshire/

What doesn’t sell? Fiscal responsibility. The political equivalent of Crystal Pepsi, the Republican Party has given up its long-standing façade of budgetary restraint. As Donald Trump told donors earlier this year, “Who the hell cares about the budget?”       https://mises.org/power-market/state-union-annual-reminder-inevitable-default  

But there’s also a theory that the Coronavirus affords a cover for cascading failures in China’s corrupt and shifty banking system. The country had already stepped across some frontiers in demographics, energy consumption, and industrial growth that were shoving it toward contraction for the first time in two generations. Coronavirus has shut down a lot

 Eurostat’s preliminary estimates show real GDP in the EA19 increased by the tiniest amount, rising just 0.094% in Q4 when compared with Q3 (seasonally adjusted). That was down from the prior quarter’s seemingly anemic +0.274% (revised).           https://www.davidstockmanscontracorner.com/?p=383951&preview_id=383951&preview_nonce=f585ef5661&_thumbnail_id=-1&preview=true    

Government support for large business groups, known as chaebols, via subsidies and trade and investment barriers turned the likes of Samsung, Hyundai, LG, Kia, and Daewoo (now defunct) into global champions. But as Ryan McMaken points out, there are a lot of “unseen” missed economic opportunities behind Korea’s government-corporate “cooperation,” which means that centralized decision-making

Buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in China are bracing for demand to be shattered by a virus epidemic that has killed 361 people, wiped billions off the value of companies in the world’s second largest importer of the fuel and threatens its growth.             https://www.businessinsider.com/china-gas-demand-seen-crumbling-as-virus-threat-spreads-2020-2?r=US&IR=T&nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Opening_bell&utm_campaign=Post%20Blast%20moneygame:%2010%20things%20you%20need%20to%20know%20before%20the%20opening%20bell&utm_term=10%20THINGS%20BEFORE%20THE%20OPENING%20BELL%20-%20ENGAGED%2C%20ACTIVE%2C%20PASSIVE%2C%20DISENGAGED