Africa

Submitted by Ron Paul via The Mises Institute,

[This article appears in the January-February 2016 issue of The Austrian.]

I think the most exciting message for me today is that things are changing.

Earlier today, we highlighted the rather abysmal results reported by Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company.

To the extent the conglomerate is a bellwether for global growth and trade, things are looking pretty grim. Maersk Line - the company's golden goose and the world's largest container operator - racked up $182 million in red ink last quarter and the outlook for 2016 isn't pretty either. The company now sees demand for seaborne container transportation rising a meager 1-3% for the year.

It all started in mid/late 2014, when the first whispers of a Fed rate hike emerged, which in turn led to relentless increase in the value of the US dollar and the plunge in the price of oil and all commodities, unleashing the worst commodity bear market in history.

The immediate implication of these two concurrent events was missed by most, although we wrote about it and previewed the implications in November of that year in "How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed."

While the world’s attention is focused on the Zika virus, a new UN report warns that a future global epidemic could result in millions of deaths and could be far worse than the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa. The hard hitting  report urges the World Health Organization to reform in order to be ready to combat future crises.

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Thirteen years ago my life changed forever.

Colin Powell, then US Secretary of State and the most credible person in George W. Bush’s cabinet, made the case for war in Iraq on February 5, 2003.

As a young military intelligence officer at the time, watching from a makeshift army base in Kuwait not far from the Iraq border.

Back then I was a true believer, trusting that the government was a force for good “making the world safe for democracy. . .”