Image by sirqitous, Flickr Creative Commons
Once-rich Venezuelans live as beggars in Colombia, but they don’t want to go back
The once wealthy nation — which used to provide billions of dollars in aid to its allies — is caught in a hyperinflation spiral. Around four million people — of the country’s population of 30 million — might already have left the country, according to local polling firms.
Brazil's pension bill short on votes, running out of time
Economists said Brazil’s deficit is unsustainable and mainly driven up by pensions. In GDP terms it has more than doubled between 2014 and 2017. Official figures released last month showed that the social security deficit grew by 18.7% in real terms in 2017, to a record 268.8 billion reais ($82.49 billion).
China’s ageing population is creating a new debt crisis for Beijing as pension shortfall widens
Gap between workers’ contributions and benefits paid out set to reach 600 billion yuan this year and 890 billion yuan in 2020, analyst says
Venezuela announces 99.6 percent devaluation of official forex rate
Venezuela is undergoing a major crisis, with quadruple-digit inflation and shortages of food and medicine. Economists consistently describe the 15-year-old currency control system as the principal obstacle to functioning commerce and industry.
Central banks were behind the complacency in markets, now investors are spooked: Economist
Central banks created an artificial environment that took out "all the volatility, all the uncertainty" from markets, said Karsten Junius, chief economist at Bank J. Safra Sarasin.
ECB increases buying of company debt despite criticism
Aimed at lowering borrowing costs for companies, the ECB’s purchases of corporate bonds have been criticized by some European lawmakers for being too risky.
But with the ECB’s 2.55 trillion euros ($3.2 trillion) bond-buying scheme due to run at least until September, Frankfurt was expected to delve more heavily into credit to avoid hitting a cap on how much sovereign debt it can own in Germany.
This Bond Market Could Get Uglier
A little more than a week into the New Year, billionaire bond guru Bill Gross proclaimed the start of a bond bear market, after an extraordinary bullish run spanning more than three decades. Two weeks later, another billionaire, Ray Dalio of hedge fund firm Bridgewater Associates LP, piled on with a forecast of the worst bear market since the early 1980s.
Click to read the PM Daily Market Commentary: 2/6/18
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"Maybe discovered by some future alien race, thinking what were you guys doing? Did they worship this car? Why did they have a little car? That will really confuse them," Musk said.
Gosh; it even confuses me. Wonder what it gets for mileage?
https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/a16571489/elon-musk-space-tesla-mars/
Guide to the Top Anti-Russia Think Tanks and Who Funds Them
Those of us who don't want to have our lives, homes and families destroyed in nuclear war will want to know who so much wants conflict with Russia.
Who promotes the Russia-is-evil story?
Countering Russia has become a lucrative industry in Washington. In recent years, the think tank business has exploded. ... From the start, let’s be clear, the term "think tank" essentially amounts to a more polite way of saying "lobby group." ...
However, particularly in the United States, the field has become increasingly shady and disingenuous, with lobbyists being given faux academic titles like "Senior Non-Resident Fellow" and "Junior Adjunct Fellow" and the like.
The Atlantic Council
What is it? Essentially the academic wing of NATO. The Atlantic Council serves to link people useful to the organization’s agenda across Europe and North America. However, in recent years, its recruitment has increasingly focused on employees who directly attack Russia, especially on social media. ...
What does it do? Promotes the idea of Russia being an existential threat to Europe and the US, in order to justify NATO’s reason for being.
The Center for European Policy Analysis
Institute for the Study of War
This lobby group could as easily be titled "The Institute for the Promotion of War." Unlike the others, it doesn’t consider Russia its primary target, instead preferring to push for more conflict in the Middle East. However, Moscow’s increased influence in that region has brought the Kremlin into its crosshairs.
German Marshall Fund of the United States
Following the election of US President Donald Trump (ironically a German-American), the lobby group launched the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) project. Its centerpiece is the ‘Hamilton 68 Dashboard’, which seems to classify social media users which reject the US liberal elite’s consensus as “Russian trolls.”
Berlusconi, even though he can't hold office, is taking a page from Trump's book on immigration, and is promising to deport 600,000 illegal immigrants if his party is elected.
The Italian economy has gone nowhere for 20 years - probably because the strong Euro makes it difficult for Italian manufacturing to compete with the Germans. So with a sucky economy, an influx of migrants from Africa - who will happily take any low end work - is bound to cause discord.
Armstrong suggests that when the economy does poorly, immigration is always a front-and-center issue.
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