The biggest event of the weekend, if not the month, was China's FX reserve outflow update, which at $100BN was slightly better than the $120BN expected (it pushed China's reserves to the lowest in nearly 4 years) but it was in the "no man's land" between the BofA best case scenario ($37.5BN), and the GS worst case ($197BN).
By Chris at www.CapitalistExploits.at
Note: The following is a parody. Characters are fictional (some, at least) and any similarities that may exist with people real or imagined are purely coincidental. Really!
December 10, 2015, around 2 AM
Submitted by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,
Last Sunday (31 January) Zero Hedge ran an article drawing attention to the big names in the hedge fund community who are betting heavily that the yuan will suffer a major devaluation any time between the next few months and perhaps the next three years.
The impression given is that this view is universal, almost to the exclusion of any other.
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. . .”
World War 3 could be on the horizon as the Pentagon announces a quadruple increase in its 2017 budget and turns its back on promises made to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. US-NATO troops are to be positioned close to Russia’s borders. And to maintain U.S. hegemony in where half the world’s population lives, China is put under military and economic pressure by Obama’s strategic pivot to Asia.