Europe

Following the latest set of global economic news, most notably a mediocre set of Chinese Official and Caixin PMIs, coupled with a mix of lackluster European manufacturing reports and an abysmal Japanese PMI, European, Asian stocks and U.S. stock index futures have continued yesterday's losses. Oil slips for 4th day, heading for the longest run of declines since April, as OPEC ministers gather in Vienna ahead of a meeting on Thursday to discuss production policy.

Submitted by Joseph Jankowski via PlanetFreeWill.com,

Social media giants Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Google and Microsoft Corp. have vowed to tackle online hate speech in less than 24 hours as part of a joint commitment with the European Union to combat the use of social media by terrorists, reports Bloomberg Technology.

Visiting Hiroshima last week, President Obama expressed the wish that in the future no community would ever have to suffer the horrors inflicted on that city in 1945, and moreover, that the bombing should never be forgotten. Those sentiments were obvious and unexceptionable. Much more debatable, though, was his restatement of his desire to see a world free of nuclear weapons. If expressed as a general platitude, that is fine, but if it represents any kind of serious strategy or policy goal, it is dangerous to the point of insanity.

Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

The most widely-reported result of the recent G-7 meeting was Japan’s attempt to convince the other major economies to admit that a crisis is imminent and take appropriately radical steps. The response seems to have been a bunch of blank stares. As India’s Business Standard noted:

G7 pact offers minimal cover for Abenomics reset

Sadly, everyone has seemingly forgotten that the lessons of the past can help prepare us for the future. For example, one would assume that the sting of owning an truck or SUV during the financial crisis would stick with consumers long enough to deter them from falling back into the same trap again just because oil was trading lower... then again, just as assuming market participants would remember that time period, one would be wrong.