Europe

Not everyone was delighted by Mario Draghi's decision on March 10 begin monetizing corporate bonds: chief among them was Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann whose opposition to unorthodox monetary policies is well known, and whose "Northern Block" was among those voting against the ECB's QE expansion (Weidmann himself was not among those voting last week). Of course, complaining about it does not mean stopping it, and for three years now the "Germans" on the ECB council have complained loudly even as the ECB is on track to double its balance sheet in the next few years.

Submitted by Ben Hunt via Salient Partner's Epsilon Theory blog,

Five Easy Pieces for the World-As-It-Is

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Whenever Marc Faber appears in the financial media, in this case Bloomberg TV, one can expect the usual fire and brimstone sermon of how micromanagement of the global economy by central bankers will lead to disastrous results, something which we agree with wholeheartedly and as of two months ago, so did virtually every billionaire at Davos. Recall that just at the end of January, the WSJ when reporting from Davos said that "The world’s central banks can’t save us anymore.

Russia is now the United States’ number one threat, followed by China, North Korea and Iran according to Ash Carter The Pentagon Chief made his remarks during a a Senate hearing on the DoD’s (Department of Defense) 2017 budget request. ISIS appeared at the very end of the Pentagon’s ‘priorities list’. The terrorist group was overtaken by China, Iran and North Korea who were all described as “aggressive” countries.

Submitted by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Not so long ago the financial world viewed certain numbers as limits beyond which lay trouble. Interest rates near zero, for instance, were thought to risk destabilizing the banking system. And government fiscal deficits above 3% were considered so dangerous that exceeding this level was prohibited by the Maastricht treaty that all eurozone members were required to sign.