NATION AND STATE

Authored by Uzay Bulut via The Gatestone Institute,

How does Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan fight his political opponents, including those who have been working hard to expose the atrocities of the Islamic state terror group, ISIS? By throwing them into jail for allegedly “supporting terrorism.”

Since the 2016 botched coup attempt in Turkey, Erdogan has been waging a massive crackdown on his opponents and critics, including politicians, political activists, journalists and members of the Turkish security forces and army. ...read more

Authored by Martin Sieff via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

NATO’s obsession with pulling in as many small, unstable and potentially extremist countries in Eastern Europe as possible makes a world war inevitable rather than deterring one.

The reason for this could not be more simple or clear: Small countries start world wars and destroy the empires and great nations that go to war to defend them. ...read more

Despite soaring trade policy uncertainty and a collapsing yuan, “the equity market has largely looked through the marginal risk from tariffs“, according to Goldman’s David Kostin recently wrote:

No clear relationship exists between reliance on imports from China and recent industry performance. Among at-risk industries, Computer & Electronic Products, which include Semiconductors, have lagged the Russell 3000, while Electrical Equipment stocks have outperformed. As our Tech Hardware and Retail analysts have noted, trade headlines may overstate fundamental risk, as companies have many tools at their disposal to minimize margin pressures. Some firms may be

Authored by Caitlin Fitzsimmons & Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon via The Sydney Morning Herald,

Australia’s version of the sub-prime crisis that ushered in the global financial crisis could be looming, with a significant number of the 1.5 million households with interest-only loans likely to struggle with higher repayments, experts warn.

Martin North, the principal at consultancy Digital Finance Analytics, said interest-only loans account for about $700 billion of the $1.7 trillion in Australian mortgage lending and it was “our version of the GFC”. ...read more

“At the end of the day, the Chinese fundamentally seek to replace the United States as the leading power in the world.” -Michael Collins, CIA Dep. Asst. Dir. East Asia Mission Center

Forget the Russian hysteria: according to Michael Collins, the CIA’s deputy assistant director for the East Asia Mission Center, it is China that is waging a “quiet cold war” against the United States, using all its resources to try to replace America as the leading power in the world.

...read more

It’s been a dreadful, torrid month for UK PM Theresa May whose cabinet has been on the rocks ever since her revised Brexit proposal was revealed, barely scraping by with just a 3 vote margin last week,  amid an exodus of key Brexit voices and a scathing Donald Trump interview.

And it’s about to get even worse because according to a new poll, May’s plans to leave the European Union are overwhelmingly opposed by the British public.  Worse, more than a third of voters would support a new right-wing political party committed to quitting the bloc and headed by, guess

Exactly two months ago, Goldman joined the relatively small group of voices warning that the next big market “event” (politically correct way of saying crash) could be one resulting not from excess leverage but lack of liquidity, driven by “phantom liquidity” provided by HFTs and algo traders which tend to withdraw during times of market stress, as well as central banks which have soaked up a substantial amount of the freely-traded securities in the market.

Specifically Goldman warned that “the rising frequency of “flash crashes” across many major markets may be an important early warning sign that something is not

In a delayed reaction from a Friday evening report by Japan’s JIJI, since confirmed by Reuters, that the BOJ is considering a shift in policy to potentially push 10Y yield wider, and which as we reported on Friday sent JGB futures sliding, the Monday opening of JGBs has been a shock to the system, sending the 10Y yield on Japanese government bonds surging to 0.80%, the highest since February.

Meanwhile, the USDJPY which just last week hit 113, has continued to slide and is now back under 111, catching countless traders who had positioned for further Yen weakness

Via Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Financial and precious metals expert Egon von Greyerz (EvG) vaults gold for clients at two secret locations on two continents. He says his wealthy clients have at least 20% of their net worth in physical gold and silver. Some have much more. Why so much physical metal? EvG says it is because of record risk in the world today.

...read more