News diary

Yeah this isn’t just a music blog. (Maybe it should be….)

Cali wildfires. Can this year get any worse for the insurance industry? Possible damage to wine country. As a fan of cali cab’s and zin’s, that one hurts. (what, people? homes? I know….)

Trump vs Iran, DPRK – tweet tweet, tweet tweet…. I honestly thought we set the all-time record earlier, but today’s batch of neo-con’s is so absurdly moronic, we’re at some kind of a fundamental limit here. They’re convinced they make sense, debate isn’t really an option, so might as well enjoy the freakshow.

Trump vs US Congress, health care – tweet tweet, tweet tweet… I hear the NY Times is hiring ornithologists… Alas, I’m just an engineer.

Clinton blame game – tweet tweet, tweet tweet…

Trump vs Bombardier – in what seems to be the first successful instance of the Trump Administration actually intimidating anyone of significance, the Canadian regional jet builder was threatened with exorbitant tarriffs when exporting to the US. (the Administration going to bat for Boeing, in case that’s unclear). Bombardier promptly initiated a merger, selling a controlling stake to Airbus, as a workaround.

Kurdish independence – someone pulled the plug on that one.

Catalan indepenece – Spanish PM set to activate “crush mode”, which they thoughtfully wrote into their constitution. EU seems supportive of that, so if the Catalans choose to fight it, they’re going to have to pull out some Gandhi level moves. However, should we get more videos of riot police bashing unarmed old people in the face, those images may become inconveniently persistent. 2017 is supposed to be a cooling-off period after all the anti-establishment business of the 2016 political year. Now there’s an outside chance the Italians will not draw the right conclusions from the Spanish drama, which of course would lead to further drama.

Speaking of which, Czech election, taking place today – another anti-migrant/euroskeptic party set to get a plurality…

China – big speech by XJP – “modern socialist country”, acknowledges “desire for democracy”, environmental considerations, set to consolidate state power, both domestically and internationally (pretend that wasn’t there), appeals to continued increases in material well being, quality of life, national beautification etc. What does it mean? Who knows.

The FED, US interest rates, US vs Euro rate differentials …. where’s that all going?

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