Business

With recent JPY strength not helping, last week ended on a down-note for Japan as its jobless rate ticked up from 3.1% to 3.3% (the biggest rise since January) and Household spending collapsed. However, as the last week of the year begins, things have not improved as a double whammy of awfulness just hit the shores of Abe's nation with retail sales (worst since the tsunami) and industrial production ugly and missing across the board. We are sure, of course, that just one more dose of faith-based QE will fix this.

Submitted by David Collum via PeakProsperity.com,

For those who enjoyed his encyclopedic 2015: Year In Review, this week we spend an hour with David Collum to ask: After processing through all of that information, what do you think the future is most likely to bring?

Perhaps it comes as little surprise that he sees the global economy headed back down into recession, one that will be deeper and more damaging than the 2008 crisis:

While the US economy may have unofficially entered an industrial recession in recent months with the dip in the manufacturing ISM below the critical 50 level, one sector has continued to do surprisingly well: automotive manufacturing, as a result of vibrant car sales. The reason for this, as we have repeatedly demonstrated, has been the record surge in auto loans, which have long surpassed both total credit card debt (and the $1 trillion mark), and continue to fund an unprecedented auto buying spree as they rush to catch up to the $1.2 trillion in total student loans.

Via Investment Research Dynamics,

A friend sent me a news item from U.S. News and World Report which reported that Louisiana’s board of education is going to implement a new policy which requires all students to fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid in order to receive a high school diploma.

Think about that for a moment.  In order to receive a high diploma, the State of Louisiana is requiring that high school seniors fill out an application which would enable them to go into debt the moment they receive their diploma.

When looking at the price of oil in 2015, Canada's Bank of Montreal admits it was wrong. Very, very wrong.