United States

During her tesimony this morning, Fed Chair Janet Yellen urged Congress to take into account the growth trajectory of the federal debt when making decisions about spending and taxation.

She said lawmakers need to work toward achieving "sustainability of this debt path over time," ...

"Let me state in the strongest possible terms that I agree" the U.S. federal debt trend is unsustainable, may hurt productivity, and living standards of Americans.

Some time ago, Deutsche Bank's chief international economist, Torsten Slok, presented several charts which showed that "Canada is in serious trouble" mostly as a result of its overreliance on its frothy, bubbly housing sector, but also due to the fact that unlike the US, the average household had failed to reduce its debt load in time.

When Trump Jr. took his now-infamous meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya he was promised "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father."  That said, Trump Jr. has since described Veselnitskaya's 'damaging information' as nothing more than "inane nonsense."

So what "information" was Veselnitskaya peddling that could be used as a political weapon in the 2016 presidential election? 

The dollar was broadly weaker after dovish comments from Fed Governor Lael Brainard amid reverberations from reports of Donald Trump Jr.’s contact with a Russian lawyer; European equities rebounded with oil while S&P futures were 0.2% higher at 2,428; Treasury yields are 1-2bps lower across the curve with the 10y at 2.346% ahead of Yellen’s much anticipated testimony this morning (House today, Senate tomorrow) for further clues on the trajectory of monetary policy while the Bank of Canada is expected to hike rates later.

Via Disobedient Media