Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Financialization incentivizes hot money capital flooding into speculative credit-asset bubbles.
When we speak of capital investments and capital flows, it's presumed all the capital being referenced is equal: a dollar is a dollar, wherever and whenever it's put to use.
Authored by George Friedman, Xander Snyder, and Ekaterina Zolotova via MauldinEconomics.com,
The US Congress has passed new sanctions targeting Russia’s energy companies. Among the other notable aspects of the sanctions is that they take some authority away from the US president (who used to be able to implement some measures but not others at his discretion) and give it to Congress.
Authored by Tyler Rogoway and Joseph Trevithick via TheDrive.com,
A very unique USAF surveillance aircraft has been flying highly defined circles over Seattle and its various suburbs for nine days now. Nobody at the DoD seems to know who the aircraft belongs to or what exactly it is doing flying so many missions over the Seattle area. But based on its visibly exotic configuration, and information collected by open source flight tracking websites, we can get a good idea of its capabilities and guess as to what it’s up to.
Down The Memory Hole Goes The Truth
It was hard to find a bright spot for auto investors in July's auto sales figures released earlier today with GM down 15% YoY, Ford off 7% and Chrysler down 11%.
The companies blamed the drops on lower fleet sales but GM’s retail sales also fell 14.4% from July 2016. Meanwhile, Ford and Fiat Chrysler retail sales had single-digit declines, and their fleet sales fell 26% and 35%, respectively.
Here's a recap of how each of the largest OEM's made out in July:
GM: