Yesterday, one of the best-known providers of energy market intelligence thanks to its massive private and patented network of land, sea, and satellite monitors, Genscape, held a webinar titled the "Current state of the global oil market" in which it covered all the core aspects that investors in the oil space find concerning, among which the following:
Last year, virtually all the very “serious people” threw in the towel on global growth and trade.
It’s been apparent for quite some time (like say, a couple of years) that the slump in trade growth has likely become structural and endemic as opposed to transient and cyclical in the post crisis world.
Expanded Version: The US Economy Has Not Recovered And Will Not Recover
Paul Craig Roberts
The US economy died when middle class jobs were offshored and when the financial system was deregulated.
Jobs offshoring benefitted Wall Street, corporate executives, and shareholders, because lower labor and compliance costs resulted in higher profits. These profits flowed through to shareholders in the form of capital gains and to executives in the form of “performance bonuses.” Wall Street benefitted from the bull market generated by higher profits.
Americans have been increasingly disgruntled with the economic outlook since March 2015 and today's Bloomberg confidence print at 42.5 sends hope back to near 2-year lows. The early year bounce in expectations has been erased as US equity rallies have done nothing to stymie the growing realization across the states that something dismal this way comes.
The Central Banks hate physical cash. So much so they there will likely try to ban it in the near future.
You see, almost all of the “wealth” in the financial system is digital in nature.
1) The total currency (actual cash in the form of bills and coins) in the US financial system is a little over $1.36 trillion.
2) When you include digital money sitting in short-term accounts and long-term accounts then you’re talking about roughly $10 trillion in “money” in the financial system.