Two weeks ago, we noted - with some amusement - that Ukraine has defaulted to Russia on a $3 billion obligation. To be sure, the move wasn’t unexpected.
“I have a feeling that they will not pay us back because they are crooks,” Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev said previously.
Here, in a nutshell, is what happened.
Submitted by Steve St.Angelo via SprottMoney.com,
After looking over all the figures, it seems as if something broke in the U.S. Silver Market this year. By that, I mean the normal supply and demand forces no longer make sense. I believe this stemmed from the massive amount of physical silver investment demand beginning in June as financial and geopolitical events pushed the retail silver market into severe shortages.
Temperatures in the north pole could be 35C warmer than usual for this time of year, say meteorologists. The low pressure system that has brought extreme weather to the UK and US, and is the result of the 2015 El-Nino, could make the Arctic’s temperature hotter than Chicago, Vienna or Istanbul on Wednesday. The Guardian reports: The Arctic could reach temperatures about 35C (63F) warmer than average for this time of year, meteorologists have warned.
Update: S&P Futures tumbled back to the lows of the day after hours...
S&P remains just in the green for 2015...
Something surprising emerged in the latest Daily Treasury Statement report showing the sources and uses of operating cash of the US Treasury: the line item for Federal Reserve Earnings exploded to $19.3 billion on December 28, doubling the amount of cash the Fed had remitted to the Treasury for all of 2015.
This record, unprecedented one-day payment is shown in the chart below:
And just like that the Fed, also known as the printer of US currency, gave the Treasury a one time record bonus of $19 billion.