United States

With analyst expectations/hopes in the $2 to $5 billion range (against the initial $14 billion fine), Deutsche Bank said it has reached settlement with US authorities to pay a $3.1 billion civil penalty (and provide $4.1bn in releief to consumers). Removing considerable uncertainty about Deutsche's capital position, one wonders how much this remarkably low-ball settlement had to do with Donald Trump's current loan re-negotiations with the "world's most systemically dangerous bank."

Submitted by Robert Gore via StraightLineLogic.com,

The pathetic attempts to undo Donald Trump’s victory are signs of desperation, not strength, in the Deep State.

Submitted by Eric Zuesse via Strategic-Culture.org,

California alone accounted for all of Hillary’s popular-vote win, plus 1,405,004 votes

America’s Electoral College - the publicly elected representatives who select the U.S. President - voted on Monday, December 19th, and chose Donald Trump as America’s next President, though Hillary Clinton had won nearly three million more of the nation’s popular votes on November 8th than he did.

As the FT first reported yesetrday, in a dramatic development for Sino-US relations, Trump picked Peter Navarro, a Harvard-trained economist and one-time daytrader, to head the National Trade Council, an organization within the White House to oversee industrial policy and promote manufacturing.

President-elect Donald Trump has doubled down on his vow for a “total and complete shut down of Muslims from entering the United States” and dismissed suggestions he will back down from his hardline stance. Speaking at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Thursday, Trump told reporters: “You’ve known my plans all along. I’ve been proven to be right, 100% correct. What’s happening is disgraceful.“ Trump was speaking the day after an Islamist hijacked a lorry, killed the driver and ploughed into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing at least 12 people and injuring 48.