United States

As this website exclusively reported three weeks ago, under explicit guidance by the Dallas Fed and associated regulatory pressure, US lenders have been instructed to not only not accelerate energy company counterparty defaults but to suspend energy loan book MTM entirely in distressed cases to avoid contagion concerns.

Questionable marks notwithstanding, in their fourth quarter earnings reports and conference calls banks had no choice but to reveal what their existing "publicly appropriate" exposure to oil and gas companies looks like.

Nonfarm Productivity collapsed by 3% QoQ, notably worse than expected as labor costs jump.

Economists are gnashing their teeth to explain this "plunging productivity paradox" - we think it is rather simple...

While only modestly tongue in cheek, here is what is really going on...

After yesterday's torrid, chaotic moves in the market, where an initial drop in stocks was quickly pared and led to a surge into the close after a weaker dollar on the heels of even more disappointing US data and Bill Dudley's "serious consequences" speech sent oil soaring and put the "Fed Relent" scenario squarely back on the table, overnight we have seen more global equity strength on the back of a weaker dollar, even if said weakness hurt Kuroda's post-NIRP world and the Nikkei erased virtually all losses since last Friday's surprising negative rate announcement.

One of the great unknowns facing the US shale industry, and threatening the recurring rumors of its imminent demise, is how it is possible that despite the collapsing number of oil wells, and despite the plunge in crude prices which supposedly are well below all-in shale production costs, does production not only refuse to decline, but in fact has been largely increasing in the past 6 months, with just a modest decline in recent weeks.

Authored by Eric Zuesse,

America’s military budget is roughly 7.2 times that of Russia ($610 billion compared to $84.5 billion), but even Western news-accounts are saying that the weaponry produced in Russia is superior overall to the weaponry produced in the United States.