1.In his annual address to the nation on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the country's reserve funds, usually earmarked for investment in state projects, should be used to bail out troubled Russian banks. In doing so he revealed just how grim the prospects for financial institutions have become following the rouble's collapse. The Russian private sector appears to be on state-funded life support.
Comment: The price of oil! How the mighty are falling. A word of warning...a wounded animal is at its most dangerous when cornered. A shaky Russian banking system in a global economy, is worse than a shaky Greek economy.
2.China has toppled America to become the biggest economy in the world, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. For the first time in 142 years, the US has been overtaken as the worlds largest economy. Valued at $17.6 trillion, the IMF expects China to surge to $27 trillion in the next five years. After moving sideways for five years, (and while most stock markets jumped 2-300 percent), the Shanghai Stock index has spurted by 37% since July of this year.
Comment: The price of oil! The fall in prices will benefit China immensely.
3. Jihadist rebels have shot their way into the heavily fortified Chechen capital, Grozny, in a night-time attack which left as many as 20 people dead. This is the first attack in many years.
Comment: Do the Jihadists sense the economic weakness in Russia and feel the time has come to make a move?
4.George Friedman: In politics as in economics, the decision-makers usually do things that have unintended consequences, don't understand fully what they are doing, but are caught within impersonal forces that move them in a certain direction. It is interesting watching Obama. Obama had a very different vision for his presidency. History didn’t care. He was going to be dealing with the Middle East, he was going to have bad relations with the Russians, his idea that because he had a marvellous personality he was going to charm for a miracle, all of these went away. The similarities between the presidency of Barack Obama and the presidency of George Bush is startling, and what's interesting to see is he genuinely didn’t think it would be this way. It shows you the limits of power.
5.Stratfor: The Mexican drug cartels have sought to diversify their operations beyond drug trafficking, expanding into fuel theft. Crime groups have the capacity to organize hydrocarbon theft on a massive scale across multiple regions with a high level of efficiency. Although these fuel theft operations are ongoing along virtually every pipeline route, the territories in the east have seen the greatest uptick since 2010.
Comment: Drugs and fuel. Easy money....
Read more: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/amid-mexicos-energy-reform-fuel-theft-poses-risks#axzz3Kys2CPS2
6.The fear of genetically modified (GM) crops, whipped up by environmentalist hysteria in Europe and America, has prompted many African countries to ban ALL U.S. food aid because it may contain GM corn. This occurs even as desperate Zambians and Angolans break into government silos to “steal” donated GM food that is being denied them. There are no restrictions on these foods in industrialized nations, yet people too poor to buy their next meal are denied the same foods even when it’s free. They could realistically starve without it, yet Greenpeace prides itself on stopping shipments of GM food to starving people. The policy borders on genocide. Penn Jillette (always good for a quote) sums it up nicely: “Unless you and yours are starving, you need to SHUT THE $#@! UP.”
“Beware the fury of a patient man.” - John Dryden
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