DPC Court Street, Ames Building, Young’s Hotel, Boston, MA 1906 Well! WTI below $50 and Brent below $53 when I start writing this. Who knows where they’ll be by the time I’m finished?! The euro down below $1.20, US stocks flirting with -2%, major European ones off -3%, Italy and Greece over -5%. Welcome to the real world, baby! Didn’t think you’d see it again so soon, did you? Welcome to the world where the Kool-Aid recovery does not reign
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Lewis Wickes Hine Child Labor in Magnolia Cotton Mills spinning room, Mississippi Mar 1911 • Being Poor Is Getting Scarier in the US (Bloomberg) • The Euro In 2015: A Very Bad Start (CNBC) • Tsipras Says ECB Cannot Shut Greece Out Of Stimulus (Reuters) • Samaras Warns of Euro Exit Risk as Greek Campaign Starts (Bloomberg) • Worried About The UK In 2015? You’re Not Alone (CNBC) • The Credit Boom Is A Ticking Timebomb For UK Plc (Guardian)
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G.G. Bain Bazaar and Greek pageant at Manhattan Trade School for Girls 1909 On January 22, the ECB has another meeting, and investors – as well as EU governments – are still thinking Draghi will announce full-blown QE. With the Germans resisting the way they consistently have for years now, I wouldn’t count on it. It’ll be extremely hard to push through the German court system. But Merkel’s government still ‘leaked’ to Der Spiegel yesterday that a Grexit would have
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Unknown Pontiacs being unloaded from freight cars, San Francisco 1941 • Germany Believes Eurozone Could Cope With Greece Exit (Reuters) • Greek Euro Exit Would Be ‘Lehman Brothers Squared’ (MarketWatch) • A Stress Test For Mario Draghi And The ECB (NY Times) • Ten Warning Signs Of A Market Crash In 2015 (Telegraph) • Bosten Fed’s Rosengren: Rate Increases May Be Bumpy For Markets (MarketWatch) • Wall Street’s Big Problem In 2015 Is Trust (CFA Institute) • Japan’s Cash Helicopter
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James F. Gibson Tent of A. Foulke, Horse Artillery, Brandy Station, Virginia 1864 Iran has a – very – long running dispute with the US about its nuclear technology. The US wants Assad (Bashar Al-Assad) out of Syria, while Iran and Russia support Assad (Russia’s sole proper base in the Middle East), who’s an Alawite (a Shi-ite branch), a people historically persecuted by Sunni’s. ISIS (or Daesh in the region) is Sunni. So are the Saudi’s. Iran is Shi’ite. Bahrain
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Jack Delano Joliet, Illinois. Leaving the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railyard 1943 • Europe’s Bond Yields Fall To Lowest Since The Black Death (AEP) • Dollar Index Soars To Nearly 9-Year High (MarketWatch) • Greek And European Prospects For 2015 (Varoufakis) • Lithuania Joins Eurozone Despite 40% Of Population Being Against (RT) • Obama Sanctions North Korea For Sony Hack It Didn’t Perpetrate (Zero Hedge) • Oliver Stone’s New Movie: “Ukraine: The CIA Coup” (Zero Hedge) • China Zombie
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Gordon Parks A scene at the Fulton Fish Market, New York Jun 1943 In his 1944 play Huis Clos (loosely yet officially translated as No Exit, or Closed Door), French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said: “L’enfer, c’est les autres.” Or: Hell is (the) other people. Which can be very true. And Sartre makes his point in a masterful way. He describes a group of people locked up together with no escape, and for eternity, who have a bitter go at each
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G.G. Bain St. Paul’s Church and St. Paul Building from Woolworth Building, NYC Apr 1919 • The Year Of Dollar Danger For The World (AEP) • Iran Says Saudi Arabia Should Move To Curb Oil Price Fall (Reuters) • Could 2015 Herald A ‘New Oil Order’? (CNBC) • Falling Oil Raises Headache For Developing Nations (MarketWatch) • Russia Oil Output Hits Post-Soviet High (Reuters) • Oil At $14 A Barrel? Here’s How It Could Happen (CNBC) • Draghi Says ECB
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DPC Gillender Building, corner of Nassau and Wall Streets, built 1897, wrecked 1910 1900 • Third Of Listed UK Oil And Gas Drillers Face Bankruptcy (Telegraph) • Occam’s Oil (Alhambra) • AAA Says Motorists May Save $75 Billion on Gasoline in 2015 (Bloomberg) • Bottom On Oil’s Plunge Unknown (CNBC) • US Eases Oil Export Ban In Shot At OPEC As Crude Price Slumps (Telegraph) • Even $20 Oil Will Struggle To Save Self–Harming Eurozone (Telegraph) • ECB’s Draghi Says
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John Vachon Auto of migrant fruit worker at gas station, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin Jul 1940 Let’s see, how do we close this year in a proper manner? I already wrote that 2014 for me has been The Year Propaganda Came Of Age. Likewise, looking forward, I said that The Biggest Economic Story Going Into 2015 Is Not Oil. Moreover, I talked about things that need to be done next year in Things To Do In 2015 When You’re Not Yet
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