Business

• Oil Drops With Emerging-Market Currencies on Rig Recovery Signs (BBG)
• A plea for help - How China asked the Fed for its stock crash play book (Reuters)
• Obama to meet Raul Castro on historic Cuba trip (Reuters)
• Wall Street's Pile of Unwanted Treasuries Exposes Market Cracks (BBG)
• Dimon's Timing Looks Savvier by the Day as Equities Rebound (BBG)
• Brazilians Brace for More Drama at Top Court, Congress (BBG)
• Captured Paris Terror Suspect Salah Abdeslam Says He Planned More Attacks (WSJ)

The sarcastic highlight of the overnight session was the Chinese stock market, where just one month after injecting a record amount of new loans into the financial system, the PBOC lamented the danger posed by China's tremendous debt load: "Lending as a share of GDP, especially corporate lending as a share of GDP, is too high" People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan told China Development Forum yesterday.

By Charles Mudede Of The Stranger's Slog

Occupancy Rate Becoming Less of a Concern for Downtown's Real Estate Investors

I was recently informed by local economist and manager of IDEAeconomics, a website that promotes post-Keynesian views (and post-Keynesian must not be confused with neo-Keynesians), Alan Harvey that a significant shift has occurred in the market for commercial property in Seattle's downtown area.

The dream of transition to a 'consuming' economy just crashed into the wall of excess debt and leverage. 2016 has started with a 44% collapse in China passenger car sales. This is the biggest sequential crash and is 50% larger than any other plunge in history.

While there is a seasonal effect here obviously, the sheer scale of this 2-month drop - which removes the new year holiday affect - indicates something is terribly wrong in China.

India has banned companies such as Monsanto from conducting GMO seed trials on their land, saying that the risks to public health and the environment are too high.  Bihar’s Agriculture Minister, Narendra Kumar Singh, confirmed that India’s food supply will be protected from GMO companies growing genetically modified corn on Indian land and assured the public that seeds will be protected from contamination from genetic material drift. Naturalnews.com reports: His speech was given at the 2014 Seed Festival at the A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies.