Europe

Every ugly nonfarm payrolls has a silver lining, and sure enough following Friday's disastrous jobs report, global mining and energy companies rallied alongside commodities after the jobs data crushed speculation the Fed would raise interest rates this month.  “The disappointing U.S. jobs report on Friday means that a summer Fed rate hike is off the table,” said Jens Pedersen, a commodities analyst at Danske Bank. “That has reversed the upwards trend in the dollar, supporting commodities on a broader basis.

Submitted by Eric Zuesse, Investigative historian and author of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

What Most Syrians See of Their War

Here is a video of what most Syrians are seeing and experiencing of the war, and it’s titled “Living in the crosshairs, May 29th 2016 ENG SUBS” (the “ENG SUBS” means “English subtitles”).

That the unelected president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude "If it gets serious you have to lie" Juncker, has a problem with alcohol is well-known. At the time of his nomination in 2014, the Financial Times joked that the "booze has always been a subject of Brussels gossip. He has proved his ability to sit through all-night Brussels haggling sessions, fortified by brandy and cigarettes. Perhaps the next EU President could have one of those slogans on the office wall – ‘You don’t have to be drunk to work here, but it helps.”

In Morgan Stanley's Sunday Start note explaining "what's next in global macro", the firm's go-head of economics, Chetan Ahya notes that he remains confused by a "unique cycle" in which "our current conversations would have been centred on whether the global economy is overheating.

This weekend the Swiss population was called upon to make a historic decision, when Switzerland became the first country worldwide to put the idea of free money for everyone, technically known as Unconditional Basic Income (of CHF2,500 per month for every adult man and woman, and CHF625 for every child, for doing absolutely nothing) to a vote.