China

One month ago, when describing the bizarre, not to mention systemically dangerous practice of dozens of small and mid-cap Chinese companies and executives offering to backstop losses on their employees' purchases of company shares, we couldn't quite explain it, although it seemed to revolve around a simple, and fraudulent, ponzi scheme: the same executives who were making the "make whole guarantee" had themselves taken out substantial loans collateralized by a pledge on their own stock.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

China has deployed troops to the country's first overseas military base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, as China's rapidly modernizing military extends its global reach. Beijing says the "support base" will be used for logistical purposes, such as resupplying ships taking part in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions off the coasts of Yemen and Somalia however concerns are growing about China's rising geopolitical influence especially at such a key strategic location.

Overnight China released its latest monthly credit data which showed that even as China is trying to choke off its shadow banking sector, something we showed most recently last month when we discussed the biggest crash in net bond issuance on record, credit to the broader economy continues to flow, although it comes as M2 crashed to a new all time low and has prompted some nervous analysts to say that even this "crazy" loan creation number may not be enough.

Via Disobedient Media