Statements, comments and forecasts that have no substance, but just might turn out to be relevant.
1.For years there have been rumours that China has been falsifying economic statistics. China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) revealed on its website Wednesday that it had found more than 300 NBS employees guilty of providing data for financial gain. The CCDI didn’t just announce that hundreds of NBS staff had taken money in return for providing official statistics. The investigation has also discovered that NBS funds were used not for data collection, but rather to rent fancy office rooms or vehicles, and that at least 19 people were given promotions within the bureau that were not deserved. COMMENT: Notable that the corruption is so rife that the CCDI published it on a government website!
2.InvestYourself.com: "Central Banks are buying equities to shore up stock markets. Nations have come forward to actually tell you to your face that they're supporting stocks. The Swiss National bank holds 97 billion worth of stocks. In Japan the Central Bank could become the #1 shareholder in about 40 of the Nikkei's companies by the end of 2017, according to Bloomberg calculations." Add to that massive purchases by the Chinese Central Bank and Denmark's Central bank, we can start referring to this as a trend. COMMENT: Folks, when this goes south, the results are not going to be pretty. Don't fool yourselves that the powers that be know what they are doing. They don't!
3.Bloomberg: China’s leading Communist Party mouthpiece acknowledged the risks of a build-up of debt that is worrying the world and said the nation needed to face up to its nonperforming loans. High leverage is the “original sin” that leads to risks in the foreign-exchange market, stocks, bonds, real estate and bank credit, the People’s Daily said in a full-page interview with an unnamed “authoritative person” starting on page one and filling the second page on Monday. COMMENT: Don't look for economic growth in China any time soon.
4.Austria’s chancellor, Werner Faymann, resigned May 9 after losing the support of his Social Democratic party, AFP and The Guardian reported. The move comes amid political turmoil following anti-immigration candidate Norbert Hofer's landslide victory in last month's first round of the presidential election. Hofer, a member of the right-wing Freedom party, is expected to win a run-off scheduled for May 22. COMMENT: The disintegration of the EU has taken another step forward.
5.Donald Trump dubs himself the "king of debt." Experts say he doesn't have a clue -- at least when it comes to U.S. government debt. Only a few weeks ago, Trump said he could eliminate federal debt in just eight years, a nearly impossible task. Trump's own tax plan would add trillions to the debt. Now he says the U.S. should just borrow more and renegotiate the terms later. "I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal," Trump said on CNBC last week.(He obviously thinks the economy is a hotel!)
"Mr. Trump doesn't have a coherent idea of what he's talking about," says Michael Strain, an economic policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "This is the bond market equivalent of 'we're going to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it." COMMENT: This is turning from a reality show into a Mickey Mouse comedy.
6.Defense News: Israel — Imagine an intuitively trained special missions operative endowed with 360-degree vision who works alone or in packs to breach high-risk safe houses and bunkers, ready to shoot to kill within a second of an officer’s command. That’s exactly what General Robotics Ltd., a high-tech firm tucked away in this rural community south of Tel Aviv, has developed with its trademarked Dogo, a 12-kilogram, pistol-packing killer robot for close-quarter combat and counterterrorism operations. Read more: http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/mideast-africa/2016/05/08/introducing-israeli-12-kilo-killer-robot/83970684/
7.May 11 (Reuters) - Shares in Banco Popolare (italy) plunged 14 percent on Wednesday after a surprise first-quarter loss driven by loan writedowns -- the main focus of investor concerns over Italian banks. Italian banks have lost nearly 40 percent of their market value so far this year. COMMENT: This could effect the global economy. Italy is much, much larger than Greece. Red Flag waving!
8. Happy 68th birthday Israel. The more morbid statements we hear predicting that the end is near for the Jewish State, the stronger Israel gets while her enemies continue to implode. Truly a light unto the nations! Lechayim!
The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
~Henry Cate, VII~
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become
President; I'm beginning to believe it.
~Clarence Darrow~
No comments:
Post a Comment