United States

How close is the US to war with North Korea? That was the question several top military and national security advisors struggled to answer over the weekend, mitigating fears of an imminent nuclear war even as Trump raises geopolitical tensions and boosts bellicose rhetoric with every public appearance.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday", and walking a fine line of backing Trump's tough talk but not wanting to raise the alarm at home, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said there’s no indication war will break out.

Back in April, we reported that the Long-Short Strategy Fund of John Burbank, one of the handful of investors who made a killing from shorting subprime, and head of what was at the time the $2.4 billion Passport Capital, was shutting down after a series of negative returns: according to HSBC, the fund - which had an AUM of $636 million as of March - had lost 2.1% in the first two months of this year and was down 11.8% in 2016.

"Well, that escalated quickly."

Global markets are closed for the weekend, so we will need to wait until tomorrow evening to see how investors react to the latest back-and-forth between the North Korean government and President Donald Trump. In North Korea’s latest salvo in its war of words, a state-run newspaper declared in an editorial that the country’s Paektusan army is now “on standby to launch fire into its [the US’s] mainland, waiting for an order of final attack."

Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,