Europe

On Friday, the EU and Turkey came to an agreement on a set of proposals to stem the flow of Mid-East asylum seekers into Western Europe.

The focus of the discussions in Brussels was cutting off the sea route to Greece. On the front lines is the Greek island Lesbos where at least half of the 144,000 refugees who have entered Greece in 2016 have landed. More than a million people crossed the Aegean to Greece last year.

Submitted by Michael Lebowitz of 720Global

Hail Mary

Russia and Europe could be heading towards a nuclear war as relations between East and West deteriorates.

Submitted by Bill Bonner of Bonner & Partners (annotated by Acting-Man.com's Pater Tenebrarum),

Dow up again yesterday! According to Wall Street analysts, investors were front running a non-event. The Fed is in a credit “tightening cycle”, but without the tightening. On Wednesday, it announced it was leaving short-term rates unchanged at 0.5%.

(One was already too much…we simply cannot have too many of these sad scenes. Cartoon by Richard Cline)

One of the more surprising market developments of 2016 has been the violent obliteration of those who had taken part in the biggest consensus trade of 2015, namely long the USD. As the Fed finally admitted earlier this week, the US economy is sputtering and is woefully incapable of handling 4 rate hikes, or 3 for that matter.