North America

Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Speaking in Greece on his valedictory trip to Europe as president, Barack Obama struck a familiar theme:

“(W)e are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude form of nationalism, or ethnic identity, or tribalism that is built around an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ …

 

“(T)he future of humanity and the future of the world is going to be defined by what we have in common, as opposed to those things that separate us and ultimately lead us into conflict.”

While Caterpillar's CEO may have resigned recently, admitting that he misjudged the business strategy, the stock does not appear to be bothered, soaring by 15% since the Trump victory on hopes an infrastructure push would make excavators great again. For now, however, the woes at the heavy industrial manufacturer continue, with yet another month of declining global sales, the company's 47th in a row.

Following a tumultuous year of declining sales as a result of its emissions-cheating scandal, today Volkswagen agreed to cut 30,000 jobs at the core VW, roughly 5% of its global salesforce of 624,000. After months of intense talks, labor and management agreed on a package to balance cost-cutting with investment as the auto industry shifts away from traditional combustion engines and adapts to car-sharing services and self-driving technologies.

Every year, the world's richest and most powerful business executives, bankers, media heads and politicians sit down in some luxurious and heavily guarded venue, and discuss how to shape the world in a way that maximizes profits for all involved, while perpetuating a status quo that has been highly beneficial for a select few, even if it means the ongoing destruction of the middle class. We are talking, of course, about the annual, and always secretive, Bilderberg meeting.

In an overnight session dominated by the latest political developments out of the US where Hillary Clinton officially claimed the democratic nomination, the financial newsflow focused on China's trade data, where exports fell 4.1% from a year earlier, in line with expectations, but imports dropped 0.4% from a year earlier, the smallest decline since they turned negative in November 2014, likely reflecting higher commodities prices but really driven by "imports" from Hong Kong which rose to $2.48b, the highest since at least 1999; and a 243% y/y surge in dollar term, also a historical high.