Amazing Chinese Economy Grows By 7% - What's Next? & More

China's economic growth beats forecast

World's second-largest economy grows by 7 percent in the second quarter amid dramatic fall on stock markets.

China has released figures of its economic growth for the second quarter showing the country's economy has grown at a steady seven percent, its weakest performance since the global crisis but slightly better than expected.

The figure released on Wednesday was slightly above forecasts and came as the ruling Communist Party is struggling to reverse a stock market plunge that threatens to disrupt its economic reform plans.

The world's second-largest economy has seen sharp downturn in its economic growth raising fears of job losses. Since November, Beijing has cut interest rates four times and pumped money into the economy through spending on construction.

"There are good reasons to think that the latest figures are mirroring a genuine stabilisation of conditions on the ground," said Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics in a report.

The Multi-Trillion Dollar Oil Market Swindle 

I have maintained that oil should have corrected to around $70 in the fall of 2014, tied to U.S. production increases which at the time represented the price at which drillers would continue to add to supply. That price tied to cost reductions has probably been reduced to $60ish currently. But today, with the consensus oversupply widely quoted in the media as some 2 million barrels per day worldwide, it’s clear that if the numbers are correct below, the perceived oversupply wouldn’t exist at all. Suffice it to say prices would be at least at the point where production would need to be added, perhaps around $60-$70 per barrel, if not higher.

Science says no impacts from Shenhua mine: Baird 

Asked what he had said, the minister told reporters: "There's no point in going to cabinet if you are going to express what you said in cabinet on national TV."

Shenhua Watermark is planning to construct an open-cut mine about 25km southeast of Gunnedah to extract 10 million tonnes of coal a year over 30 years.

Greek debt crisis: Goldman Sachs could be sued for helping hide debts when it joined euro 

The deal is based on fresh economic reform proposals submitted by Athens which bear a striking similarity to the creditors’ offer rejected by the Greek people in a referendum last Sunday – sparking claims that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has effectively executed a huge U-turn in order to avoid a catastrophic “Grexit”

Austerity Has Failed: An Open Letter From Thomas Piketty to Angela Merkel

Five leading economists warn the German chancellor, “History will remember you for your actions this week.”

440 cuts and counting - the Abbot Legacy

This post will be regularly updated to keep track of the Abbott Government’s broken promises and everything his Government does to hurt Australians. Each item will have a link to a source.

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Brazil Leader Faces Backlash From Friends, Foes

Venezuela needs debt refinancing, not default - Capriles

1. BlackRock Sees 40% Haircut in Puerto Rico Debt Restructuring

1. Dutch pension costs to rise as assumed investment returns cut
2. 
   
3. Ukraine Gears Up for Debt Talks as Default Deadline Looms

Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth:

What Happens If Global Warming Continues?

 EXISTENTIAL REALITY 

Methane Bomb 

or Archaic 

Fabrications?

Showdown For Greece This Weekend? - & More

Weekend deadline for Greece after negotiations draw blank

Greece’s creditors have set the country a weekend deadline to avoid default and stay in the eurozone, after more than 24 hours of non-stop Brussels negotiations at the highest level resulted in stalemate.

After talks between Athens and its creditors failed to reach an agreement on Thursday, a further meeting of eurozone finance ministers will be held on Saturday in a bid to achieve a breakthrough. With the German chancellor Angela Merkel insisting that a deal must be reached before markets open on Monday morning, Greece is now running out of time to secure an accord and make a €1.6bn payment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday.

Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill

A decade in the making, the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is reaching its climax and as Congress hotly debates the biggest trade deal in a generation, its backers have turned on the cash spigot in the hopes of getting it passed.

“We’re very much in the endgame,” US trade representative Michael Froman told reporters over the weekend at a meeting of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on the resort island of Boracay. His comments came days after TPP passed another crucial vote in the Senate.

S&P moves UK outlook from

 stable to negative on EU 

referendum

Away from Greece and S&P has revised the outlook for the UK from stable to negative, while keeping the country’s credit rating at AAA. It points to the possible departure of the UK from the EU, with the forthcoming referendum:

• 12-Jun-2015 17:10:21 - S&P REVISES UNITED KINGDOM SOVEREIGN CREDIT OUTLOOK DOWN TO NEGATIVE FROM STABLE; CURRENT RATING IS AAA
• 12-Jun-2015 17:12:11 - S&P - POSSIBLE U.K. DEPARTURE FROM EU ALSO RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FINANCING OF THE ECONOMY’S LARGE TWIN DEFICITS AND HIGH SHORT-TERM EXTERNAL DEBT
• 12-Jun-2015 17:12:29 - S&P - U.K. GOVERNMENT’S DECISION TO HOLD REFERENDUM ON EU MEMBERSHIP SHOWS ECONOMIC POLICYMAKING COULD BE MORE EXPOSED TO PARTY POLITICS THAN EXPECTED

Americans households have the highest

 credit card debt since recession

On average, American households are $7,177 in debt, according to a CardHub study. That's a lot of debt, but not necessarily an unconquerable amount. Now's a good time to start digging your way out of it.

Federal Reserve System a Run Away 

Machine-G. Edward Griffin 

On war, Griffin contends, “War is primarily a psychological weapon. The threat of war, the fear of war, that is more useful to governments than actual war. Machiavelli said years ago said that the best way to keep people content and overlook the miseries they have to suffer under their own governments is to embroil the people in wars or rumors of wars. So, they would be so afraid of an enemy that they would tolerate any insult to their liberties as a means of preventing this thing they dread so much. That is certainly the prime operative today.

Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America 

In a country where a sitting congressman told a crowd that evolution and the Big Bang are “lies straight from the pit of hell,” (link is external) where the chairman of a Senate environmental panel brought a snowball (link is external) into the chamber as evidence that climate change is a hoax, where almost one in three citizens can’t name the vice president (link is external), it is beyond dispute that critical thinking has been abandoned as a cultural value. Our failure as a society to connect the dots, to see that such anti-intellectualism comes with a huge price, could eventually be our downfall.

Gold: Will This Summer’s Rally Mark A 

Cyclical  Turning Point? 

It was another volatile week in the markets. The interest rate decision by the U.S. Fed on Wednesday was a non-event with no change in the Fed’s monetary policy. The market reacted with a spike in stocks, bonds, and precious metals, while the U.S. dollar took a dive. Also, the unfolding drama in Greece spooked markets and metals; stock markets are nervous while metals mostly get bids each time the Greek crisis flares up.

Collapse, Part 4: Loss of Faith in Public 

Institutions

Public institutions are now devoted to serving their own vested interests or the interests of private financial Elites.

Though we may think of collapse in terms of ATMs not working and rampaging mobs, collapse actually starts with the intangible loss of faith in public institutions:elected officials, law enforcement, the justice system and the agencies of financial regulation (anti-trust, etc.).

Unsurprisingly to those who discern the structural rot of the status quo,Americans No Longer Believe In Their Institutions:

“Americans’ confidence in most major U.S. institutions remains below the historical average for each one,” a Gallup spokesman said in a news release. All in all, it’s a picture of a nation discouraged about its present and worried about its future,More  and highly doubtful that its institutions can pull America out of its trough.

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The Extinction Debate

Goldman Sachs Warns Brazil Heading For Deep Trouble

Brazil Retail Sales Drop Most On

 Record, Goldman Warns Will Get

 Worse

Just a few months ago, we warned Brazil's economy was on the verge of collapse as the fiscal situation was deteriorating rapidly. It appears, judging by the most recent data from the oil-rich nation, that we were right. Broad retail sales have now declined for five consecutive months with the seasonally adjusted broad retail sales index now at the same level as early 2012. Core retail sales declined 3.5% YoY during April (weakest print since Aug 2003) andbroad retail sales declined by an even larger 8.5% YoY (lowest on record), and as Goldman warns, the outlook for private consumption and retail sales in the near term remains very weak.

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