United States

After North Korea provoked both its neighbors and the US when on Sunday morning it fired off yet another ballistic missile from Kusong near the border with China  - one which this time did not explode upon launch  - just days after the election of a new South Korean president who ironically advocates more engagement with Pyongyang, experts said the missile appeared to be a new type of ballistic missile, and had a far greater range than any other weapon North Korea has successfully launched.

Step aside Citi US Economic Surprise Index, which after a "surprising" streak of negative economic data, recently crashed to the lowest level since October 2016...

... and make way for Morgan Stanley's ARIA, a monthly US macro indicator based on data collected through primary research on key US sectors (consumer, autos, housing, employment, and business investment).

The U.S. economy is suffering from a major long-term problem: business investment is weak. Unless President Trump solves this problem, it will prove to be his Achilles’ heel. 

In the latest Sunday start from Morgan Stanley, the bank's co-head of economics, Elga Bartsch looks at - what else - the eerie, record calm gripping capital markets despite the daily bombardment, so to speak, of deteriorating geopolitical news, US and European political upheaval, deteriorating economic data, and confusion about China's credit impulse.

Authored by Paul Criag Roberts,

“Fifty years ago, the streets of Leningrad taught me one thing: If a fight is inevitable, you must strike first.” Vladimir Putin

In George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel, 1984, information that no longer is consistent with Big Brother’s explanations is chucked down the Memory Hole. In the real American dystopia in which we currently live, the information is never reported at all.