Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,
“The Kurds have no friends but the mountains,” is an old lament. Last week, it must have been very much on Kurdish minds.
As their U.S. allies watched, the Kurdish peshmerga fighters were run out of Kirkuk and all the territory they had captured fighting ISIS alongside the Americans. The Iraqi army that ran them out was trained and armed by the United States.
Via VariantPerception.com,
In August, we had reviewed a few charts showing that US high yield valuations were divorced from fundamentals, as well as to other yield products. This week, refreshing those charts, we can see that things are just as bad.
The top-left chart shows that US high yield spreads are diverging from the tightening of bank lending standards relative to credit demand.
European shares are modestly lower as investors monitor tense events in Spain and as focus turns to Thursday’s ECB meeting; US equity futures have rebounded from yesterday's sharp but shallow selloff and are in the green amid rising odds of U.S. tax reform and the imminent unveiling of the next Fed chair while Asian shares rise and Japan extends its winning streak to a record 16 days. The euro edged higher after data showed Europe’s economy is maintaining momentum, while the USDJPY managed to recover all of yesterday's sharp losses.
By George Friedman of Mauldin Economics
A delegation of executives from major German corporations recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Such delegations are not unusual. Sometimes it is routine, sometimes a courtesy. But occasionally, it has significance. In the case of Russia-Germany relations, such meetings are always potentially significant.
Germany’s Unsteady Relations
Two relationships are critical to Germany.
The Baghdad government and its paramilitary forces increasingly see American troop presence as the actual foreign menace.