Remember the “tea party” revolt in 2009–2010 against government bailouts and government spending? Remember the “fiscal cliff” drama of Dec. 31, 2012, when Congress raised taxes and cut spending to avoid a debt default and government shutdown? Remember the actual government shutdown in October 2013 as Republicans held the line against more government spending? Well,
We’ve been saying for over a year that Chinese growth figures are misleading and a debt-related market crash is just a matter of time. Now the data have confirmed this view, and even the Chinese government can’t cover up the decline any longer. China is between a rock and a hard place. If
The Fed is so confused it’s beginning to confuse the markets too. The basic Fed model set up by Janet Yellen and continued by Jay Powell was that the Fed would raise rates four times per year (March, June, September and December), by 0.25% each time, until the fed funds target rate hit 3.75%,
There’s an old saying in poker: If you’re in a three-sided game and you don’t know who the sucker is, you’re the sucker. This refers to the fact that two players in a poker game can implicitly coordinate their efforts to clean out the third party (the “sucker”). Once that is accomplished, the two
Wall Street and China can’t seem to grasp the fact that the U.S.-China trade war is real and the clock is ticking on massive new tariffs. The wishful thinking since last January is that the trade war is mostly for show, both sides are posturing and a “deal” will soon be worked out that
Intelligence agencies from the CIA to MI6 are practiced in the arts of deception and denial. No one trusts anyone. That tradecraft is useful when you’re outwitting the enemy. But how do you engage in honest exchanges of information with friends? A solution to this conundrum is called the “Five Eyes.” This term refers
On Saturday, Dec. 1, at the end of the G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires, President Trump and his team of trade and finance advisers had dinner with President Xi Jinping of China and his team. The purpose was to discuss the ongoing trade war between China and the U.S. Trump’s team had presented the Chinese
All financial markets experience some kind of fraud and manipulation, but bitcoin trading seems to have a special knack for it. First came the “wash trades,” where miners traded the same coin back and forth at progressively higher prices to create the appearance of a rising market. Then came “painting the tape,” where a single
In the midst of stock market gyrations, revelations about Trump by Robert Mueller and former FBI Director James Comey testifying before Congress came a story that received far less attention but may be far more important in the end. This article reports that the CFO of Huawei was arrested in Vancouver, Canada, on a warrant issued by
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has expressed his disdain for the global U.S. dollar- based payments system so many times that few are still paying attention. The problem is that every time Putin speaks, his position grows stronger from the time before. Russia is buying about 30 tons of gold per month and has increased its
