Europe

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Another week of volatility, but with no real resolution to the burning question of “where do we go next?” 

This past week, the release of the FOMC meeting minutes from April did little to solve the overall confusion. On Friday, I noted some key highlights from the minutes:

“Participants generally agreed that the risks to the economic outlook posed by global economic and financial developments had receded over the inter-meeting period.

 

Norbert Hofer from the Euro-sceptic, anti-immigration, far-right Freedom Party is close to winning Austria’s presidential election with 51.9 percent of the vote. Postal votes are to be counted by tomorrow. If confirmed, Hofer could become the first right-wing head of state on the European continent since the death of Hitler and the end of world war 2. Russia Today reports: The Ministry states that Green Party candidate Alexander van der Bellen garnered only 48.1 percent of the ballots cast.

As the US try to force European countries to approve the missile defense system, French officials have said they are reluctant to do so as they are concerned it would be under the control of Washington rather than NATO. France has been leading the resistance against the missile defense shield (which was recently installed in Romania) that would be nominally a NATO program, but in reality it’s a US controlled operation against Europe, according to Katehon Germany and Italy appear be on the same page with France on rejecting US pressure.

Submitted by Matthew Tyrmand, originally posted in BL

Is Soros Funding An Agitprop Protest Movement to Destabilize Poland’s New Democratically Elected Government?

As I have written about at length in these pages; on October 25th the Polish people decisively elected a new government delivering the largest popular mandate in modern Polish history (the post-1989 period) to the right of center Law & Justice party (PiS- Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc).

One month ago, pro-European voices in Austria, and all of Europe, were suddenly muted when in the first round of the Austrian presidential election, Norbert Hofer head of Austria Freedom Party (FPO), described as a "Euroskeptic, right-wing, anti-immigrant party" crushed his opposition buoyed by a migration crisis that has heightened fears about employment and security across the continent, and gathered a whopping 35% of the vote leaving the other five legacy candidates far behind.