Both Trump and Carson have threatened to bolt the Republican Party and mount independent campaigns if the party establishment intervenes against them in the presidential campaign. Earlier this week, Trump touted a poll showing that 68 percent of his supporters would follow him out of the Republican Party if he decided to run as an independent.

Authored by F. William Engdahl via New Eastern Outlook,

In recent weeks one nation after another is falling over themselves, literally, to join the turkey shoot known, erroneously, as the war in Syria, ostensibly against the Islamic State or Daesh. The most wanted but most feared question is where will this war frenzy lead, and how can it be stopped short of dragging the entire planet into a world war of destruction?

The build-up in credit or leverage in many Emerging Market economies has been an important focus for EM investors given historical episodes of credit crunches and subsequent growth slowdowns. While broadly speaking, EM stocks began to drastically underperform DM stocks at the start of QE3...

Goldman summarizes in a heat map, the EM nations with greatest potential for the upcoming Fed liftoff to cause a major disruption.

The darkest shaded regions indicate the largest risks.

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

They are going to layer their post-meeting statement with a steaming pile of if, ands & buts. It will exude an abundance of caution and a dearth of clarity.

Having judged that a 25 bps pinprick is warranted, the FOMC will then plant itself firmly in front of the great flickering dashboard in the Eccles Building. There it will repose to a regimen of “watchful waiting”, scouring the entrails of the “incoming data” to divine its next move.

As goes the South African Rand, so goes The World?

Source: BofAML