United States

The U.S. may not be in an official technical recession yet (and it won't be until the NBER retroactively opines at some point in the next few years) but what about a half-recession? After all, nobody debates any more that the U.S. manufacturing sector is now contracting and it is only the services sector which is, at best, still growing (just ignore the last few Service ISM and PMI reports confirming that the manufacturing recession is rapidly spilling over).

As we showed previously, when it comes to banks' exposure to energy, things have gotten beyond nebulous, especially in the aftermath of the (officially denied, even though we stand behind it 100%) report that the Dallas Fed has been "advising" banks how to mark their oil and gas loan exposure in discussions behind closed doors.

A BBC journalist has been stopped from travelling to the US with her family because of her dual Iranian-British nationality. Rana Rahimpour, a presenter for the BBC’s Persian service, was halted from boarding a flight to New Jersey at Heathrow airport yesterday. She was told she could not travel to the US because of the new visa waiver rules that prevents those with dual nationalities of certain countries from entering the US on its 90-day visa-free program. @ranarahimpour My fully #British daughter can’t attend her #American cousin’s bday cos her mum was born in #Iran.

Things are looking increasingly shaky for central planners around the globe.

Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,