I'm not sayin'

...I'm just sayin'

I will refrain from the usual "who dat" or similar boisterous antics when discussing the "remarkable" lowering of bond yields in the U.S. in the face of "crippling" deficit numbers.

Putin...

...channels Peter the Great, except now its America as opposed to Great Britain.

In a biennial speech to Russian ambassadors, Putin also took a shot at the West by condemning any unilateral actions to solve international disputes and underlined the importance of resolving such conflicts through the United Nations.

His remarks suggested that Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, would keep on defending ally Syria at the United Nations over its military crackdown on an popular uprising that has evolved into an armed insurgency.

"Domestic socio-economic problems that have become worse in industrialized countries as a result of the (economic) crisis are weakening the dominant role of the so-called historical West," Putin told a meeting of Russian ambassadors from across the world.

Its Official...

...the Paper Dragon has now capitulated somewhat.  Recall all those silly tomes designed to induce fright regarding the downfall of America and the rise of China as the ascendent hyper-power.

It is Russia that will suprise us with Imperial ambition, not the Middle Kingdom.

HONG KONG — Premier Wen Jiabao of China warned on Sunday of “huge downward pressure” on the Chinese economy, in the clearest expression yet of concern at the top of the country’s leadership about a sharp slowdown in recent months.

How quickly...

the terms of the game change...Remember that time when we had high GDP growth, positive external trade numbers, manageable debt, and social tranquility?

Yeah...Good times...

(Reuters) - France's new Socialist government announced tax rises worth 7.2 billion euros on Wednesday, including heavy one-off levies on wealthy households and big corporations, to plug a revenue shortfall this year caused by flagging economic growth.

In the first major raft of economic measures since Francois Hollande was elected president in May promising to avoid the painful austerity seen elsewhere in Europe, the government singled out large companies and the rich.

An extraordinary levy of 2.3 billion euros ($2.90 billion) on wealthy households and 1.1 billion euros in one-off taxes on large banks and energy firms were central parts of an amended 2012 budget presented to parliament.

The law, which includes tax increases on stock options and dividends and the scrapping of an exemption on overtime, should easily receive approval by a July 31 deadline after the Socialists won a comfortable parliamentary majority at elections last month.

Hollande says the rich must pay their share as France battles to cut its public deficit from 5.2 percent of GDP last year to an EU limit of 3 percent in 2013 despite a stagnant economy and rising debt.

The Ghost cities...

...already booked as fabulously profitable ventures, no doubt.  Doubtlessly, they will end up as emergency housing for well-connected Communist Party members once revolution occurs.

Physics as politics...

The overtones are too obvious to comment upon.  I would caution against any substantial finding in this environment where such "superfluous" distractions are facing either extinction or massive funding cuts.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has confirmed researchers were still analysing data on the so-called God particle.

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are expected to say they are 99.99 per cent certain it has been found - which is known as 'four sigma' level, according to London's Daily Mail.

Finding the Higgs boson would validate the Standard Model, a theory explaining how the universe is built, and could be a gateway to verifying other parts of physics such as superparticles or dark matter. The research would help scientists gain a better understanding of the universe and how galaxies hold together.

Physicists first predicted that the Higgs Boson subatomic particle exists 48 years ago.

The Higgs boson is regarded as the key to understanding the universe. Physicists say its job is to give the particles that make up atoms their mass, says the Daily Mail.

Without this mass, these particles would zip though the cosmos at the speed of light, unable to bind together to form the atoms that make up everything in the universe, from planets to people

If the physicists' theory is correct, a few Higgs bosons should be created in every trillion collisions, before rapidly decaying.

US scientists found some evidence of the existence of the Higgs boson in two independent experiments in March, but the clues weren't strong enough to declare the so-called God particle cornered.

Hastening...

...the Obama Doctrine with respect to Latin America.

Exit polls on Sunday night indicated Enrique Pena Nieto won the country's election, Mexican state television reported. Pena Nieto will restore to power the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which was ousted from office 12 years ago after holding a monopoly for 70 years. Called the “largest and most complex election” ever to be held in Mexico, 79 million people are registered to vote Sunday, including 3.5 million first-time voters.