Submitted by Roger Barris of Economic Man, by way of Acting-Man
A Lack of “V”
After the February jobs report, President Obama said “America’s pretty darn great right now.” He then went on to disparage the “doomsday rhetoric” of the Republicans, which he said was pure “fantasy.
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
Our story so far...
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.