Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
The financial system is loaded with anomalies, deformations and mispricings - outcomes which would never occur on an honest free market. For example, the junk bond yield at just 2% in Europe is now below that of the "risk-free" US treasury bond owing solely to the depredations of the ECB.
As increasingly more analysts and Fed-watchers have suggested in recent months, the one catalyst that could send the market into a tailspin is for the Fed to get what it has so long wanted: a sudden spike in inflation. From Albert Edwards (who looks at record U.S.
From issues such as declining fertility rates to the ongoing complications resulting from China’s famous “One Child Policy”, there are many demographic challenges that the world must grapple with in the coming years.
However, Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes one problem of particular importance – at least in places like Europe and the Americas – is a rapidly aging population. As the population shifts grayer, potential consequences include higher dependency ratios, rising healthcare costs, and shifting economies and cities.
While all eyes (from the left and the establishment right) remain on Trump (daring to shake Putin's hand this weekend), the mainstream media appears to be missing the news that the lobbying firm founded by longtime Democratic operative Tony Podesta is reportedly on the verge of shuttering after being swept up in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
No, not The Onion...
In what is perhaps the least surprising tactic from the Spanish establishment, a government-backed research institute in Madrid has stated that Spain’s struggle to quash separatism in its Catalonia region was disrupted by Russian hackers agitating for a break-up, in a hallmark propaganda effort to fracture Europe.