Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,
Talk about diminished expectations. Friday morning’s estimate of 1.4% Q4 GDP growth is being hailed as a pleasant surprise. Which is odd, considering that for most of the past century a number this low would have been seen as weak enough to require emergency action.
Heinz is no longer to officially considered to be ‘ketchup’ in Israel. Israel’s Health Ministry ruled in 2015 that the brand product did not contain enough “tomato solids” to be labeled as ketchup in Israeli stores and was relegated to the title “tomato seasoning” The Times Of Israel reports: The ruling was the result of a lobbying campaign by Israeli food manufacturer Osem, which produces a large portion of the ketchup consumed in Israel.
The world will soon be facing a tsunami of defaults on bad debts. This will include municipal or local government defaults, governments “defaulting” on promises they’ve made to the people (Social Security, Medicaid), a default on the social contract between society and politicians such as the one in Cyprus (a default on the notions of private property and Democracy), stealth defaults on debts in the form of inflation and finally, of course, outright sovereign defaults.
The sovereign defaults will come last; all other options will be tried first.
Submitted by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,
This wasn’t part of the rosy scenario.
The Merchandise World Trade Monitor by the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, a division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, tracks global imports and exports in two measures: by volume and by unit price in US dollars. And the just released data for January was a doozie beneath the lackluster surface.
One week ago we demonstrated just how massive the second Chinese housing bubble when we showed the ridiculous move at the epicenter of China's latest scramble to reflate "animal spirits" in Shenzhen - one which has put even the recent Chinese stock market bubble to shame - as follows:
It appears that the Chinese Politburo has also noticed that it finds itself straddled with yet another unsustainable housing bubble, not only in Shenzhen, but also Shanghai, and all other Tier 1 cities...