United States

Moments ago, the Fed released the latest, November, consumer credit data: it was not good. Rising by just $13.95 trillion, it was a big miss to the $18.5 trillion expected, and below the $15.6 billion downward revised increase in October. In fact, three months after the historic surge in September to the highest print in the revised series, total consumer credit has tumbled to the lowest since January.

But the big problem was not in the total data, but in one of the two key component data sets.

“There are reasonable concerns about the safety and security of the citizenry of the State of Texas regarding these refugees.”

That’s a quote from federal court documents filed in connection with a lawsuit the state of Texas brought against the State Department last year in an effort to block the Obama administration’s plan to settle Syrian refugees in the Lone Star State.

On Thursday, Alabama sued the federal government as well.

Friday, well dressed men in suits and ties set up an encampment at a city owned park in Houston and said they weren't going to leave until the CFTC stops its "tyranny."

It just got weirder from there.

Paul Pillar makes the case against taking either side in the Saudi-Iranian rivalry:

It would be just as much of a mistake for the United States to tilt in favor of Iran in this conflict as it is to tilt in favor of Saudi Arabia. Taking either side in this rivalry, as with many other international rivalries, entails several disadvantages for the United States.

Britain’s foreign ministry  has summoned Hyon Hak Bong, the North Korean ambassador in London, to stress condemnation of Pyongyang’s reported nuclear test. Pyongyang said it had tested hydrogen bomb as a deterrent to curb potential aggression from the United States. “I summoned North Korea’s Ambassador today to stress in the strongest terms the UK’s condemnation of their nuclear test” minister Hugo Swire said in a Foreign Office statement. He added that the test violated U.N. Security Council resolutions.