United States

As we explain in our book Splitting Pennies - the world is not as we think!  Every day, our money is worth less and less, and markets become more cumbersome, regulated, and overall disfunctional (except for an elite group of billionaires that can front run orders due to advanced computer-aided execution because of 'order types').  We explained in an article about America's Big Red Forex Button, now we need to elaborate on the 'nuclear option' - considering that leading generals are saying more and more that war with Russia is 'plausible' if not 'likely'.

Now that China's brief infatuation with "rationalizing" excess capacity in its massively glutted (and insolvent) steel sector is over after lasting all of 2-3 months, China is back to doing what it did in late 2015 (and what it has always done) when as we reported, a surge in Chinese exports led to the first salvos in the trade war between China - the world's biggest exporter of various steel products and is responsible for half the entire world's steel output - and countries who are importing dumped Chinese products at the expense of their own steel and mining industries.

Authored by SaxoBank's Michael McKenna via Tradingfloor.com,

The US economy must be truly fixed and all geopolitical conflicts resolved, because as the world enjoys its global utopia on a day when yet another airplane was taken down by terrorist according to the latest news, the US Congress is busy dealing with stuff like this: according to the Hill, "the house floor devolved into chaos and shouting on Thursday as a measure to ensure protections for members of the LGBT community narrowly failed to pass after Republican leaders urged their members to change their votes."

Over a decade ago, the US cracked down on Marth Stewart as an example of all that is wrong with the US financial system. The same US which did not put any  bankers in prison after the financial crisis. We now get a repeat. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara announces charges against William “Billy” Walters and Thomas Davis, the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dean Foods Company, for insider trading.

Meanwhile, the real criminals, the real central banks, the HFTs, all continue to rig and manipulate markets day after day...