China

Remember the G-20 "Shanghai Accord" from February 2016, a meeting where the world's political and financial elites were rumored to sit down and unveil a plan how to boost the global economy? Well, according to a new research note out from Deutsche Bank, it was this event - together with the unprecedented credit expansion out of China that immediately followed - that catalyzed the ongoing global economic rebound, a recovery which has had nothing to do with confidence in Donald Trump policies.

After a fiery start to his foreign policy overtures, Trump is gradually normalizing his approach to international diplomacy.

From reports that Japan's giant pension fund, the GPIF, will invest in US infrastructure, to promises that Japan will present a "package" to create 700,000 US jobs, there is a distinct smell of appeasement and nervousness oozing out of Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's every pore two days before his summit meeting, golf game and dinner with Donald Trump on Friday (it is unclear who will pay for Abe's trip, and it could be an issue).

Submitted by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,

In this article, I want to spend a little time reviewing two of the most relatively reliable data sets, population size/growth and energy consumption/growth.  I'll compare the total energy consumption of nations / groupings of nations vs. their core (25-54yr/old) employed populations and total core (25-54yr/old) populations.

The Chinese were bust over the Golden Week holiday... buying Bitcoin (up from 6350 to 7550 in Yuan). But now that the vacation is over, China's central bank is back to its crackdown and following reports of "closed-door" meetings with various Bitcoin exchanges, the virtual currency was sent tumbling this morning.