Europe

Over the past month, one of the more alarming developments in Europe has been the move to eliminate high denomination bank notes like the €500 bill.

Are Americans Too Insouciant To Survive?

Paul Craig Roberts

When one looks at the deplorable state of the world, one cannot help but wonder at the insouciance of the American people. Where are they? Do they exist or are they a myth? Have they been put to sleep by an evil demon? Are they so lost in The Matrix that they cannot get out?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened Europe that unless it provides Turkey more money to tackle the migrant crisis, Turkey would be opening the floodgates for migrants to enter Europe. “In the past we have stopped people at the gates to Europe, in Edirne [in northwest Turkey] we stopped their buses. This can happen once or twice, and then we’ll open the gates and wish them a safe journey,” Erdogan said during an address to the Young Businessmen Confederation of Turkey.

“Forget it.”

That’s Turkish ambassador to the EU Selim Yenel’s message to Europe in response to a Dutch plan that would resettle 250,000 refugees per year directly from Turkey if Ankara can manage to close off the Aegean sea route to Greece.

It appears by the total lack of coverage that the utter collapse of Europe's banking system is entirely irrelevant to the "fortress-like" balance sheets of US banks... but it is not. Once again today, US financials saw bonds dumped across the senior and subordinated segments...

...and while US financial stocks have fallen hard year-to-date, if credit is right - and it usually is on a cyclical basis - US bank stocks have a long way to go (as believe in book values is battered).