Europe

Source: munplanet.com

We have heard a lot of chatter about a potential negative interest rate policy, and whilst the general market consensus in the USA is still expecting to see at least two rate hikes by the Federal Reserve before the end of this year, the situation is completely different in Japan and in Europe. The Japanese central bank was the first central bank to openly discuss a potential negative interest rate in an attempt to boost the country’s economy again, but the grand scheme of things seems to be going much further than that.

NATO member Turkey is using the opportunity of the conflict in Syria to finish off  the genocide of all ethnic minorities in the country which they started with the Greeks and Armenians in the 20th century. Now Turkey seems set to do the same against the Kurdish population in its Southeast, and the silence from Europe is deafening. Russia Insider reports: It appears the EU and Turkey have reached a blood bargain – if the Euros look the other way on the Kurdish “problem,” Erdogan will cut refugee flows into Europe.

In the current time of unprecedented central-planner-focused monetary-policy experimentation and a growing bias towards collectivist and socialist attitudes, the similarities to what Wilhelm Ropke - the European economist who stood up to Hitler - had some seemingly ominous and prescient persepctives in 1933 before everything collapsed:

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its data on U.S. trade in goods by selected countries and world region for 2015. HowMuch.net built three maps to provide a proportional visualization of the trade that occurs between the U.S. and other countries.

Turkish President’s son Bilal Erdogan is reportedly ‘on the run’ in Europe after Russia issued a “kill order” against him following revelations that Bilal actively supports ISIS.  Bilal has returned home to Turkey after texting his father Recep Tayyip Erdogan “Our security in Bologna has become a very sensitive issue both for the Italian and the Turkish government,” the Security Council report.