Europe

Stop us if you've heard this story before.

Insolvent Greece, having last week voted itself into even more austerity in hopes of unlocking some of the money promised it by Brussels so it can then use it to repay debt maturities owed to the ECB (whether it will actually follow through with said austerity measures remains unclear, though most likely not), is dragged to the finish line of yet another Euro finance minister negotiating session with promises that this time a debt relief deal is virtually guaranteed, and then... it all falls apart.

Authored by Valentin Schmid via The Epoch Times,

Whenever someone gets too big and too important, the other players who can’t compete by themselves call for a challenger. This is true in sports, business, and even for currencies.

Because the dollar is so big and important, smaller countries were happy when the euro was launched to provide a counterbalance, if not to challenge the dollar’s position outright.

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

During the 2016 presidential election, Bernie Sanders refused to answer questions about Venezuela during an interview with Univision. He claimed to not want to talk about it because he's "focused on my campaign." Many suggested a more plausible reason: Venezuela's present economy is an example of what happens when a state implements Bernie Sanders-style social democracy. 

Global stocks were mixed to start the week, with Asian stocks higher, European stocks initially advancing then fading gains, while S&P futures are little changed after the biggest weekly drop since April (which for those keeping record was -0.4%). European shares, the euro and the pound all stumbled on Monday as rumblings in Spain, Britain and Brussels reminded investors that the region still has plenty of political uncertainty left in the tank.

In the early days of the Trump administration, when the world was still worried - unnecessarily - that Trump would single out Europe, and especially Germany, as an unfair trading partner, slamming the Euro as too weak, Germany's fallback response was to say the currency is where it is due to the ECB's monetary policy, oh and that the Euro wasn't weak, but merely reflecting fundamentals.