Another week, another stream of mainstream media headlines that simplify complex economic and geopolitical facts and factors, distilling them down to a reason or two as to why markets move and economies shift. Last week, for example, after the Dow slumped on Tuesday, 8 October after reports of failing trade negotiations between the U.S. and...
Tag: XXVII69
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ECONOMIC FEAR FACTOR
It was reported the week of 7 October that Kristalina Georgieva, the new Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, asked staff members to analyze the risks of a prolonged period of negative interest rates and what the “exit strategy” might be. “Prolonged low rates also come with negative side-effects and unintended consequences,” Ms. Georgieva...
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INDIA’S BANK HOLIDAY?
One of India’s most popular banks, Punjab & Maharashtra Co-operative Bank, with deposits of nearly $1.5 billion, lent most of its money to a Mumbai real estate company now in bankruptcy. As a result, the Reserve Bank of India had to step in and take control of PMC Bank. The central bank also announced depositor...
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BUBBLE, BUBBLE, OIL AND TROUBLE
Following the drone strike on Saudi oil fields by Houthis on 14 September, Brent crude spiked some 15 percent to over $66 per barrel, the largest one-day increase ever recorded. As we go to press on 15 October, Brent crude is around $59 a barrel. With supply continuing to outpace demand and despite having cut...
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STATESIDE STATISTICS
The Average Joe’s Main Squeeze The U.S. labor market is trending down. The number of jobs created in August fell 4 percent from the same time a year earlier, to 7.1 million. The job numbers in June and July also fell. The last time jobs dropped three straight months in a row was in 2009....
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BYE BYE BUCKS?
IMF data show that central banks are subtly ditching the dollar. Goldman Sachs reports dollar reserves slipped 4 percentage points in 2017 and 2018. Still the coin of the global realm, two-thirds of world currency reserves and securities issuance are denominated in the dollar, compared to only about 20 percent for the euro and 2.1...
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TURKEY INVADES, TRUMP FEELS POLITICAL HEAT
Last Wednesday, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched a military offensive into Northern Syria. He said the attack was “to crash the terrorist organization in a couple of days in all of the operation zone.” The “terrorist organization” he referred to, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are Kurdish allies of the United States. Erdogan claims...
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OCCUPY PEACE? NOT FOR TOP DEMOCRATS
Joe Biden, a Democratic frontrunner in The Presidential Reality Show, with “More Murder, No Peace on Earth” as his mantra, he, too, attacks President Trump’s Turkish/Syrian policies. Biden, with his long track record of supporting and encouraging wars, declared, “He [Trump] betrayed our brave troops, who sacrificed alongside them…. He betrayed our word as a...
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WELCOME BACK 9/11?
Almost immediately after pulling out troops from Syria and pledging to “end the endless wars” and that it was “time for us to get out” of Middle East conflicts, President Trump got America in deeper. Last Friday, he ordered some 3,000 additional U.S. troops and two squadrons of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. The “official”...