United States

While many in the 'resistance' have vociferously denounced the Senate tax reform bill in the last 48 hours, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers took the proverbial biscuit by warning that "thousands will die as a consequence of this new tax bill."

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the tax bill could reduce insurance coverage by 13m people, which to be conservative we can round down to 10m people.

 

The following article by David Haggith was published on The Great Recession Blog:

As soon as President Trump put his Goldman boys, Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin, in charge of his tax plan, I knew Trump’s tax plan would never fulfill his and his henchmen’s promises of helping the middle class and of not giving additional tax breaks to the rich. The Trump Tax plan, as it now exists, proves those conjoined promises to be the greatest lie Trump ever told.

Plunder Capitalism

Paul Craig Roberts

The first full week of December is shaping up as rather busy, with such Tier 1 data in the US as the payrolls report, durable goods orders and trade balance. We also get UK PMI data and GDP, retail sales across the Euro Area, as well as central bank meetings including Australia RBA and BoC monetary policy meeting.

Key events per RanSquawk

The US and South Korea launched their largest aerial drills yet on Monday, less than a week after North Korea tested its new Hwasong-15 missile which military observers said has the capacity to strike Washington DC, or nearly any other location in the continental US. The launched shattered nearly two months of calm as many suspected the North’s benefactors in China were making good on their promises to rein in the restive state’s belligerent behavior.