Business

Via Snake Hole Lounge blog,

The US Statutory Debt Limit, a failed tool to halt the endless growth of Federal debt issuance, is once again in play at nearly $20 trillion. It was only at $6 trillion in 2002.

The problem, of course, is runaway Fed spending which is currently at around twice that of Federal current tax receipts, requiring that the deficit be funded by issuing Federal debt (or raising taxes and/or cutting Federal spending).

Via Global Macro Monitor,

We have posted several pieces over this year noting the high correlation of gold and 10-year bond futures. See here, here and here.

We have noticed a proliferation of pundits, newsletter hawkers, and even mainstream market analysts focusing on one aspect of the bitcoin market. Big money, institutional money, public markets money, is soon to flood into bitcoin. Or so they say.

Following up on last week's story that sent grocer - and Wal-mart - stocks tumbling, when Amazon annonced it would cut Whole Foods prices as soon as Monday, Bloomberg reports that according to channel checks, "Amazon spent its first day as the owner of a brick-and-mortar grocery chain cutting prices at Whole Foods Market" by as much as 43%.

It's official pic.twitter.com/sJcCJNrt5b

— Jason Del Rey (@DelRey) August 28, 2017

After last week's relatively quiet economic calendar and focus on Central Banks, when we finally heard from both Chair Yellen and Mario Draghi on Friday, attention this week turns back to data. In a relatively busy data week ahead - particularly for the US - focus will likely be on Friday's NFP, Q2 GDP revision on Wednesday, ISM manufacturing reports on Friday and inflation prints from the Eurozone.

Key events across the globe: