It’s pretty rare for the PBoC to admit that it has paid a “huge” price for a regulatory failure. I wonder just how huge it was.

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via chinabankingnews: The Chi­nese cen­tral bank says it will main­tain strict reg­u­la­tion of the fin­tech sec­tor due to con­cerns over risk in re­la­tion to in­ter­net fi­nance. Pan Gong­sheng (潘功胜), deputy gov­er­nor of the Peo­ple’s Bank of China (PBOC), said that prob­lems with on­line fi­nan­cial risk in China had pro­vided a “deep les­son” for reg­u­la­tors. “We have paid a … Read more

China closed red today (where is the phase 1 euphoria?

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China closed red today (where is the phase 1 euphoria? 🤪) https://t.co/L1uTZPfQD7 — Tracy Shuchart (𝒞𝒽𝒾 ) (@chigrl) December 23, 2019 Full article on that >>Trump says trade deal with China to be signed 'very shortly'https://t.co/TkNgE5VPG6 pic.twitter.com/GxAyAGPEi6 — Tracy Shuchart (𝒞𝒽𝒾 ) (@chigrl) December 22, 2019 More signs of the severity of China's protein deficiency … Read more

Hard pass – Chicago is trying to sell $1.2 billion of bonds. Who wants them?

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Chicago bond shops helping hawk the city’s big $1.2 billion offering stand to earn lucrative fees, but they’ll have to work hard for the money. It’s the city’s largest bond sale since 2017 and perhaps the largest ever in terms of the $3.2 million in fees earmarked for minority-owned underwriters, including Chicago-based Loop Capital Markets and … Read more

The best year financial markets have ever had? We end this year with another massive liquidity impulse by central banks around the globe! Beware of buying tops! 

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We end this year with another massive #liquidity impulse by central banks around the globe! #monetaryeasing pic.twitter.com/skHHv9RGuI — jeroen blokland (@jsblokland) December 23, 2019 Short-term traders exposure to the US equity market (can you say #pilein) $ES_F $SPX pic.twitter.com/0tRB1sWekj — Tracy Shuchart (𝒞𝒽𝒾 ) (@chigrl) December 23, 2019 The best year financial markets have ever … Read more

Open Borders Are a Trillion-Dollar Mistake

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via JACK MCKERRIGAN: As I first read Bryan Caplan’s “Open Borders Are a Trillion-Dollar Idea” in Foreign Policy, besides disbelief, my thoughts were that this person must not get out much or must not read much. A quote from writer Upton Sinclair came to mind as well: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, … Read more

Robert Kyosaki: Who stole your pension? … Gerald Celente: 2020 new world disorder … Max Keiser: Central banks will push gold higher in 2020 …

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BY JOHN RUBINO Robert Kyosaki: Who stole your pension? … Gerald Celente: 2020 new world disorder … Max Keiser: Central banks will push gold higher in 2020 … Peter Schiff: The US economy is the biggest bubble ever … Ted Butler: Gold and silver futures are behaving “in a way I’ve never seen before” … … Read more

Why does the stock market keep going up when earnings growth is negative? “It’s the liquidity, stupid.”

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I get it. Central banks are easing. Why does the stock market keep going up when earnings growth is negative? “It’s the liquidity, stupid.” https://t.co/tbLQy8t47B — David Kudla (@David_Kudla) December 22, 2019 The actual market P/E ratio & company P/E ratios are really DOUBLE what they appear, because both the US + China experienced parabolic … Read more

Of course: Eating out at restaurants and having a large amount of sweets is bad news for your carbon footprint

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by DCG At this point, I expect the “experts” to tell us that the only thing that isn’t bad for your carbon footprint is abortion and doctor-assisted suicide. From Daily Mail: Families that often dine out and consume large quantities of sweets and alcohol are likely to have a higher carbon footprint than meat eaters, a study … Read more

A massive scandal: how Assange, his doctors, lawyers and visitors were all spied on for the U.S.

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La Repubblica has had access to the video and audio recordings of the Spanish company, UC Global, which spied on the WikiLeaks founder, his team of journalists and all of us who visited Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy for the last seven years. Video footage and audio recordings reveal an appalling violation of privacy. All … Read more

The evidence increasingly suggests that the Federal Reserve, desperate to fix a leak in the hull, is lighting the whole ship on fire in the process by blowing a historic asset bubble, setting up markets to fail

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via MarketWatch: Rarely has failure been celebrated so much. But it is of little wonder, after all, as all asset classes rose in 2019 despite slowing economic growth and flat-to-declining earnings. In religious debates, this question is often asked: Why is there something instead of nothing? In financial markets, the corollary may be easier to … Read more

CALIFORNIA: The Homeless Industrial Complex is getting filthy rich, wasting the money, while the homeless population swells.

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Every major city in California is spending tens of millions or more on programs for the homeless. But most of the money is being wasted. Why? Because there is a Homeless Industrial Complex that is getting filthy rich, wasting the money, while the homeless population swells. WHAT IS THE HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX? Here’s how the … Read more

The Fed Is Entrenched in the Repo Market. How Does It Get Out?

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-21/the-fed-is-entrenched-in-the-repo-market-how-does-it-get-out At the Federal Reserve, 2020 will be all about making the repo market boring again. Policy makers will find this easier said than done. The central bank’s liquidity injections — including almost half a trillion dollars earmarked to ensure New Year’s Eve is a snooze — and Treasury bill purchases have nudged the vital … Read more

Politics Aside: What Do We Watch in 2020? The Fed? (Plus Jim Rickards Thoughts)

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by Larry White via Lone Star White House By now it has become obvious that the ongoing political war has completely consumed the US media and overtaken virtually every other storyline. This is actually in line with things we have talked about here for some time. Our best guess analysis was that the enormous political divide that exists, … Read more