Austrian chancellor resigns amid tensions over migrant crackdowns

(Hat tip: KimR) - Austria’s chancellor resigned Monday, citing insufficient political support within his party to deal with challenges, including efforts to confront the ongoing migrant crisis. The surprise move by Werner Faymann followed a back-of-the-pack showing last month by his Social Democratic Party in the first round of the presidential election, which was led by the right-wing Freedom Party that favors a harder line against migrants and refugees streaming into Europe. Read more at the Washington Post Read More......

Zimbabweans hunt for US cash as shortages bite

(Hat tip: KimR) - Severe shortages of U.S. dollars that are used as local currency in Zimbabwe have forced many residents into cash hunter-gatherers. This week, Zimbabwe’s central bank imposed measures in an attempt to ease the cash crunch, which reflects the country’s dire economic situation. The measures include reducing the amount of money that travelers can take outside the country and limiting daily cash withdrawals. Read more at the Associated Press Read More......

Michael Burry, Real Market Genius From The Big Short, Thinks Another Financial Crisis Is Looming

If The Big Short, Adam McKay’s adaptation of Michael Lewis’s book about the 2008 financial crisis and the subject of last month’s Vulture cover story, got you all worked up over the holidays, you’re probably wondering what Michael Burry, the economic soothsayer portrayed by Christian Bale who’s always just a few steps ahead of everyone else, is up to these days.

Read more at New York Magazine
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Military vows Maduro support in deepening Venezuela crisis

Venezuela's military pledged loyalty to President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday, ramping up a high-stakes standoff between his socialist government and a center-right opposition that has vowed to use its new legislative powers to oust him. The opposition laid claim to a big majority in the National Assembly, which could empower it to force out Maduro. He has rejected the assembly as illegal and formed a new hardline leftist cabinet to fight it, in a deepening political crisis.

Read more at Yahoo News
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Saudi Arabia stews in policy hell: Spengler

Last week’s mass executions in Saudi Arabia suggest panic at the highest level of the monarchy. The action is without precedent, even by the grim standards of Saudi repression. In 1980 Riyadh killed 63 jihadists who had attacked the Grand Mosque of Mecca, but that was fresh after the event. Most of the 47 prisoners shot and beheaded on Jan. 2 had sat in Saudi jails for a decade. The decision to kill the prominent Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, the most prominent spokesman for restive Saudi Shia Muslims in Eastern Province, betrays fear of subversion with Iranian sponsorship.

Read more at the Asia Times
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Worried About Refugee Crisis, Dutch Voters Flock to Geert Wilders' Anti-Immigration Party

According to a new report from the Dutch social policy institute, the SCP, almost one-third of Dutch voters now believes that immigration and integration are serious issues. Dutch News explains:    Almost 30% now consider immigration and integration to be the biggest problems facing the country, double the figure at the start of the year. In particular, people are afraid of increasing tensions in society and many think it unfair so much money is being diverted to refugees while Dutch people live in poverty, the SCP says...

Read more at PJ Media
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US interest rate rise could trigger global debt crisis

Debt ratios have reached extreme levels across all major regions of the global economy, leaving the financial system acutely vulnerable to monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve, the world's top financial watchdog has warned. --The Bank for International Settlements said the wild market ructions of recent weeks and capital outflows from China are warning signs that the massive build-up in credit is coming back to haunt, compounded by worries that policymakers may be struggling to control events.

Read more at the UK Telegraph
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Reinforcing Failure

Richard Fernandez - Pop quiz. Suppose a whole country decides to live off an imaginary inexhaustible stash promised by its president. One day it runs out of other people’s money and begins to starve. Hospitals start to close. Even the beer runs out. What do you do? What do you do? --According to the International Crisis Group that is the problem the world faces in Venezuela. “Some economists predict a sudden collapse in food consumption and widespread hunger, and public health specialists already say that some surveys are showing chronic malnutrition.” If the Colossus of the North doesn’t save it, then all hell with break loose. Can’t let that happen can you?

Read more at Belmont Club Read More......

Bad Math and a Coming Nationwide Public Pension Crisis

When Jim Palermo was serving as a trustee of the village of La Grange, Ill., he noticed something peculiar about the local police officers and firefighters. They were not going to live as long as might be expected, at least according to pension tables. After Mr. Palermo dug into the numbers, he found that the actuary — the person who advises pension plan trustees about how much money to set aside — was using a mortality table from 1971 that showed La Grange’s roughly 100 police officers and firefighters were expected to die, on average, before reaching 75, compared with 79 under a more recent table. --The four years are significant beyond any interest in macabre statistics.

Read more at the NY Times
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Puerto Rico says it cannot pay its debt, setting off potential crisis in the U.S.

The governor of Puerto Rico has decided that the island cannot pay back more than $70 billion in debt, setting up an unprecedented financial crisis that could rock the municipal bond market and lead to higher borrowing costs for governments across the United States.

Read more at the Washington Post
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Obama exploits immigrant child crisis that he created

The Obama administration’s arrogance and penchant for, charitably speaking, chafing the boundaries of legality, is almost boundless.  But dealing with illegal immigration turns the knob past 11.  Obama’s DHS has renewed DACA, the program that allows illegal immigrant children to stay in the US, sort-of-legally.  DACA created the current child-immigrant crisis, and Obama’s keen to exploit it.

I’ll give Obama credit for one thing:  he didn’t create the immigration problem.  He only made it exponentially worse.  Since passing the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 our government has done little to control our southern border in the last 28 years, and the results are predictable—in fact were predicted by Theodore Hesburgh’s Commission on Immigration Reform.

Read more at Redstate.com
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The Healthcare bill would be Obama's "Enabling Act"

GRAND OLD PARTISAN BLOG, 12/17/2009 by Michael Zak - Why are Barack Obama and other Democrat leaders so intent on passing a government takeover of healthcare now Now NOW? Read Mr. Zak's historical account of the "Enabling Act"... Read More......

Health 'reform' that burdens our young

WASHINGTON POST, 11/23/2009 by Robert J. Samuelson - One of our long-running political stories is the economic assault on the young by the old. We have become a society that invests in its past and disfavors the future. This makes no sense for the nation, but as politics it makes complete sense. The elderly and near elderly are better organized, focus obsessively on their government benefits and seem deserving. Grandmas and Grandpas command sympathy. ∴ Everyone knows that the resulting "entitlements" dominate government spending and squeeze education, research, defense and almost everything else. In fiscal 2008 -- the last "normal" year before the economic crisis -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (programs wholly or primarily dedicated to the elderly) totaled $1.3 trillion, 43 percent of federal spending and more than twice military spending. Because workers, not retirees, are the primary taxpayers, this spending involves huge transfers to the old. Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......

Green Shoots or Scorched Earth?

INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE, 8/14/2009, Bulletins From Clunkerville by Mike Whitney - Is the economy really recovering or is it all just hype? ∴ Here's what we know. The Fed doesn't drop rates to zero unless its facing a 5 alarm fire and needs to pull out all the stops. The idea is to flood the markets with liquidity in order to avoid a complete financial meltdown. It's a last-ditch maneuver and the Fed does not take it lightly. ∴ The Fed initiated its zero interest rate policy, ZIRP, eight months ago (December 16 2008) and hasn't raised rates since. In the meantime, Fed chair Ben Bernanke has pumped huge amounts of money into the financial system using thoroughly-untested and unconventional means. No one knows whether Bernanke can roll up his multi-trillion dollar lending facilities or not (and avoid Zimbabwe-like hyperinflation) because no one has ever created similar programs. It's all "make-it-up-as-you-go" policymaking. What we do know, however, is that the Fed intends to keep rates at rock-bottom for the foreseeable future, which means that the lights are all still blinking red. Read more at ICH... Read More......