Business

One of the biggest quandaries of this cycle for the US economy has been the amount and growth of commercial bank loans. Virtually non-existent for the first three years of the centrally-planned new normal, something changed in 2012 at which point US bank loans, led by Commercial and Industrial or C&I lending growing at a double-digit pop, started to rise at an impressive pace, asking many to wonder: maybe the biggest driver for a sustainable economic recovery is in fact present, because where there is loan demand, there is velocity of money.

Four days ago, we again profiled Canada’s unraveling economy.

For those who may be late to the story, the inexorable decline in crude prices that’s played out over the past 13 or so months means the country’s oil boom is now its oil bust and nowhere is the sharp reversal in fortunes more apparent than Alberta, the heart oil Canada’s oil patch. 

The Punchline's Abe Gulkowitz is the author of our favorite chart-only newsletter, and as 2015 draws to a close, it is obvious that he has been very busy.

Earlier this week, we told a fascinating story about an unprecedented, multi-year smuggling ring involving Turkey, Iran, and Dubai (as well as China, Russia and countless other nations) which saw corruption reaching to the very top of the political and financial establishment: from president Erdogan in Turkey, to one of Turkey's richest people, Iran-born Riza Sarraf, to Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, the son of the ruler of Abu Dhabi and one of the world's richest people. The smuggled object in question was gold, billions of dollars worth of gold.

Authored by Eric Peters (h/t The Burning Platform),

When most people can’t afford to buy things outright, the cost of money – interest – becomes even more important than the cost of the things themselves.