The market's slumberous levitation of the past month, in which yesterday's -0.3% drop was the second largest in 4 weeks and in which the market had gone for 15 consecutive days without a 1% S&P 500 move (in March 2015 the sasme streak ended at day 16) may be about to end, after an overnight session, the polar opposite of yesterday's smooth sailing, which has seen a sudden return of global risk off mood.
Submitted by Giulio Melli via The Gatestone Institute,
Among young European Muslims, support for suicide bombings range from 22% in Germany to 29% in Spain, 35% in Britain and 42% in France, according to a Pew poll. In the UK, one in five Muslims have sympathy for the Caliphate. Today more British Muslims join ISIS than the British army. In the Netherlands, a survey shows that the 80% of Dutch Turks see "nothing wrong" in ISIS.
Whether or not the IMF intended to use a Greek credit event to destabilize Europe as the Greek government first alleged, or whether this was "nonsense" as Lagarde responded to Tsipras letter, is irrelevant - ultimately the underlying premise was whether or not Greece gets debt relief, something the IMF has been insisting on since the third bailout package. And as is well-known, it was Germany - not Greece - that stood in the IMF's way.
Greek politicians wasted no time in seeking a response from the IMF over the leaked transcript released earlier today by Wikileaks suggesting the IMF may threaten to pull out of the country's bailout as a tactic to force European lenders to more offer debt relief, and which according to the Greek government was "interpreted as revealing an IMF effort to blackmail Athens with a possible credit event to force it to give in on pension cuts which it has rejected."
Submitted by Dan Steinbock via The Difference Group,
As the Eurozone is amid secular stagnation, its old fiscal, monetary and banking challenges are escalating, along with new threats, including the Brexit, demise of Schengen, anti-EU opposition and geopolitical friction. According to Dan Steinbock, Brussels can no longer avoid hard political decisions for or against an integrated Europe, with or without the euro.