North America

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Housing markets are one itsy-bitsy recession away from a collapse in domestic and foreign demand by marginal buyers.

Long before the invention of modern day maps or gunpowder, the planet’s major powers were already duking it out for economic and geopolitical supremacy.

Today’s chart tells that story in the simplest terms possible. As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, by showing the changing share of the global economy for each country from 1 AD until now, it compares economic productivity over a mind-boggling time period.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Almost lost in all the dollar estimates of property damage is the human loss, suffering and stress.

I am not an expert in repairing flood damage, or in dealing with insurance companies, FEMA or all the other pieces that will go into homeowners getting the funding needed to repair or rebuild their homes.

In a somewhat quieter week for economic news, this week's focus is on BoE and SNB policy meetings as well as on inflation releases in US, UK, China and others. Other releases of note include retail sales in the US, UK and China along with industrial production in US, Eurozone & China.

Key events:

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

When the US government decides it doesn't like a foreign regime, it's become something of a tradition for US politicians — with the help of a compliant media — to portray those leaders as irrational, unhinged, or even downright insane. 

This was true of Saddam Hussein, and it was true of Slobodan Milosevic. In both cases, a foreign head of state was condemned as irrational in order to help justify US invasions and bombings of foreign nations that were no threat to the United States.