Category Archives: Doomsday scenarios

How Europe Will Fail to Address the Migration Crisis in Early 2016

Explaining the reasons for Europe’s gridlock on its migration crisis.

Wolf Richter: Moody’s Explains Why Junk Bonds Will Sink Stocks Further

Why the high risk spreads in the junk bond market bode ill for the stock market.

Ilargi: Square Holes and Currency Pegs

The difficultly of maintaining currency pegs, most important the renminbi and riyal versus the dollar, will put even more stress on financial markets.

Bloomberg Spotlights Poor Private Equity Returns From Last “Peak of Cycle” Mega Deals

Buying at the peak rarely works out, as private equity’s pre-crisis mega deals confirm. Yet general partners fared really well.

Flooded Cities

Major cities are often located in low-lying areas that are flood-prone. Worse, after being flooded out, people and businesses tend to return even when relocating is the better choice.

Funds Hold Most Cash Since GFC

Fund manager cash holdings are at crisis-bottom levels, typically a sound bullish indicator. But will history predict the future this time?

Academics in Turkey Who Stand Up for Human Rights Threatened With Jail, Even Death

Authoritarianism in Erdogan’s Turkey is taking an even uglier turn.

Bond Investors Get Skittish as Record Wave of Acquisitions Push to Close Financings

Standard & Poors warns of the worst drop in the “net outlook bias” for bond investors since the financial crisis.

Why Larry Summers is Wrong and Bernie Sanders is Right on Glass Steagall

Larry Summers, acting as a proxy for Team Clinton, attacked Sanders’ reform proposals, particularly the an updated Glass Steagall. Her’s why Summers is wrong.

How the Labor Cost Competitiveness Myth is Making the Eurozone Crisis Worse

A new article makes a devastating attack on a fundamental belief driving Eurozone policy, that the member economies need to be made more “competitive,” meaning labor needs to be squeezed, for the currency union to achieve more growth.

Marshall Auerback: What US Treasury Yields Might Be Signalling

Bond yields warn of deflation. How real is this worry?

2016: Oil Limits and the End of the Debt Supercycle

How tight linkages among phenomena, such as oil and commodity prices, and flagging non-elite wages, are about to cause substantial economic disruption.

China’s Contradictory Aims, Greater International Role Versus Domestic Economic Control, HIt Breaking Point

China appears to be in denial that it can’t have more open financial markets and maintain the same degree of control over the economy that it once enjoyed.

TTIP and Climate Change: Low Economic Benefits, Real Climate Risks

The TTIP could jeopardize the ability of the European Union and the United States to put in place the proper regulations to meet climate targets.

Identifying Vectors Influencing China’s (and International) Markets

A list of some of the factors driving the recent market upheaval in China. Readers will hopefully add to and refine this compilation.