Europe

Turkey's conversion into an all out despotic, banana republic is almost complete.

Recall that in November, violence erupted in the troubled nation in which president Erdogan is now actively seeking dictatorial powers after a prominent lawyer and foe of Erdogan, was assassinated on live TV. This occured just days before Erdogan arrests journalists who exposed Erdogan's weapons smuggling to extremist Syrian rebels, among whom was Cumhuriyet editor in chief Can Dundar.

In what may be one of the least relevant payroll reports in a long time as the Fed already knows the labor market is doing better quantiatively (qualitatively it has been all about low-paying jobs gaining at the expense of higher paying manufacturing and info-tech positions) and as has further demonstrated it is no longer jobs data dependent, here is what Wall Street consensus expects: total payrolls +200,000, down from 215K in March; a 4.9% unemployment rate; average hourly earnings rising 0.3% (last 0.3%) M/M and 2.4% Y/Y (last 2.3%); on labor force participation

Ahead of the most important macroeconomic event of the week, US nonfarm payrolls (Exp. +200,000, down from 215,000 and following a very poor ADP report two days ago), the markets have that sinking feeling again.

With her country's political landscape shifting significantly before her, Angela Merkel has now put her political hat on in order to survive politically in Germany.

As France 24 reports, Angela Merkel is urging European Leaders to protect the EU's external borders or risk a "return to nationalism." Merkel said the "freedom of movement" in Europe is at stake as it deals with the worst migration crisis since WWII.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I simply cannot stress enough how important Greece is to freedom, liberty and civilization across the globe. Greece is not a one-off, or merely a small nation in big trouble that holds little relevance for the rest of us. Greece is everything.