Economy

Moody’s: Unfunded liabilities for 50 states jump to $1.6 trillion in fiscal year 2017

Total state ANPL, or unfunded liabilities, for fiscal year 2017 reached $1.6 trillion, or 147.4% of state revenue, up from $1.3 trillion and 122%, respectively, in fiscal year 2016, the report said, due to a median return of 0.54% for fiscal year 2016.

Here's what happens when you miss your credit card payments

Let’s say you carry a balance of $3,000 on a card with a 15 percent interest rate and it takes you 18 months to pay off that balance. The Credit Card Payoff Calculator at Bankrate.com shows total interest will be $368. With a default rate of 29.99 percent, that jumps to $761, more than double the carrying cost.

ECB's chief economist warns of risks of easy policy

The central bank has said it expects to stop buying bonds at the end of this year but would keep interest rates at their current, record low “through the summer” of next year.

In China, Less Than 20% Defaulted Bonds Have Been Paid Back

China’s corporate debt market is home to more and more defaults – and if you own one of those bonds, don’t expect much back.

Deficit, Debt and EU Defiance: A Guide to Italy's Budget Battles

Italy's public debt, at 2.3 trillion euros, is already the highest in the euro area after Greece. As a ratio of GDP, it's forecast to be 130.8 percent this year

Central banks’ balance sheets start to shrink

FT research shows that the world’s biggest central banks now hold $15.3tn of assets, of which about two-thirds comprises government bonds — one dollar in every five of the $49tn outstanding debt owed by their governments.

Italy Bond Yields Spike as Rome's Budget Clash Stirs Echoes of EU Debt Crisis

Italy's benchmark borrowing costs hit a four-and-a-half year high Tuesday as investors continued to trim government bond holdings amid concern that the country's populist administration is on a collision course with EU officials in Brussels that echoes the worst of the region's 2012 debt crisis.

Energy

Mexico’s Dramatic Energy Reform (Michael S.)

Mexico is considering a dramatic policy shift, inserting the state into the energy sector in a major way while also flirting with the idea of moving closer to OPEC.

A document seen by Reuters, drafted by advisors to incoming Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), proposes withdrawing Mexico from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and moving closer to OPEC.

Germany Lags Behind In Battery Race (Michael S.)

German carmakers are increasingly going EV. Volkswagen alone has plans for as many as 80 EV models across its brands by 2025. Also by that year, annual production of EVs should hit 3 million vehicles. But there is a small problem with these plans: they might not be competitive enough. Okay, it’s not a small problem; it is potentially a very big one, and it concerns all German carmakers with EV plans. The root of the problem is in the batteries.

Environment

'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention (Matt H.)

Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year.

Gold & Silver

Click to read the PM Daily Market Commentary: 8/28/18

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