Europe

Submitted by Bill Blain of Mint Partners

Blain's Morning Porridge, July 26.

“Bankruptocracy is as much a European predicament as it is an American invention.”

Apologies for lack of comment y’day, but my computer decided to auto-destruct just as I about to send it out. Despite many reports saying markets are now in full holiday season, there’s still plenty of serious stuff still going on, and some subtle shifts in direction to figure out.

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The White House indicated that President Donald Trump is preparing to sign a sweeping Russia sanctions measure, which the House took up last night, that requires him to get Congress' permission before lifting or easing the economic penalties against Russia...

A few weeks ago, we wrote a note about how European auto lenders are becoming just about as ridiculously undisciplined as their counterparts in the United States.  Apparently an ever-growing reliance of European millennials on lease financing has auto ABS investors worried about a potential crash in used car prices at some point in the not so distant future...that sound familiar to anyone?  (See: It's Not Just Americans, Europe's New Obsession With Auto Leases Is "Catastrophic For Used Car Prices")

There are many types of maps out there, but one of the most telling ones is a simple satellite image of the Earth at night. As 's Jeff Desjardins writes, on these powerful images, the darkness is a blank canvas for the bright city lights that represent the vast extent of human geography. The bright spots help us understand the distribution of population, as well as what areas of the world are generally wealthier and more urban.

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

“One knowledgeable official estimates that the CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies,” writes columnist David Ignatius.

Given that Syria’s prewar population was not 10 percent of ours, this is the equivalent of a million dead and wounded Americans. What justifies America’s participation in this slaughter?