International Forecaster Weekly

If politics makes strange bedfellows, economic crisis makes even stranger ones. Venezuela is already tens of billions of dollars in debt to China and uses half of its oil shipments to that country to pay down existing debt...

The fact of the matter is simple: there is an economic war being waged on Russia. and that war is starting to take its toll on the Russian economy.

In an echo of the recent Scottish independence referendum, a scare campaign by the Swiss National Bank and all of the main political parties is largely to blame for the turnaround in voter opinion from early polls.

It walks and talks like a government; It quacks like a government; it has a flag and an anthem and all the other trappings of a state. It even dresses like a government... But it isn't really a government.

Given that the audience that still relies primarily on TV for their news is approaching death and given that the phenomenon of people giving up on TV entirely to get all their media online... does anyone but the most deluded TV network execs and newspaper editors doubt that the era of the dinosaur media is over?

Not one Westerner in a hundred could identify the area in question on a map, let alone tell you its significance, but that doesn't make the consequences of a renewed Azerbaijani/Armenian conflict any less grave.

In 2010 the FCC released its Open Internet Order as a response to public fears about the possibility of ISPs abandoning net neutrality. It was an ambitious order that included strict regulations against blocking or slowing down websites arbitrarily.

We're supposed to believe that Hannigan is the crusading hero of the noble and valiant British version of the NSA. We're asked to swallow the line that his op-ed,  is actually a reflection of the fact that the British government loves and cares for the people of the world...

This is make or break time for the BOJ: either they will live up to their promise of reversing Japan's 20-year long stagnation doldrum with this final QE hail mary, or they will likely see two more conservative members appointed to the board next year...

  Some European nations (including Italy, France and perhaps Spain) have become "Greece-i-fied" in that they reject the idea of personal or national responsibility.  They believe that they should be entitled to party hearty at someone else's expense.

...if the “Save Our Swiss Gold” ballot does pass, there are already plans for a second referendum initiative: the creation of a gold franc as a second official currency by the federal government.

So, let me understand... Shutting off the Iranian banking system from the outside world and depriving huge swathes of that population with access to the global economy is fine and dandy because of that country's nuclear research, but the new boogeyman-du-jour can't be sanctioned because of concern for the civilians?

In essence, despite a zero interest rate policy that mainly helps the wealthy; struggling families with falling incomes ought to take steps to accumulate "considerable assets," as retirees take part-time jobs to make ends meet. Let them eat cake, indeed.

...all the reports about this supposed epidemic are based on faulty data provided by governmental agencies that have admittedly lied and covered up such data in the past to promote fear and terror for political and economic ends... ignore it. Tune it out. Turn off the TV and observe the actual world around you.

This does not seem to be the end of the track for the Fed's gravy train just yet, though. The Monday sell-off was not based on any new data or earnings reports, just a general spookiness working its way through the markets...