'The Big Short' exposes and attempts to deconstruct the subprime mortgage collapse and disaster of 2008. Wait until Hollywood hears about derivatives! 'The Big Short' opens nationwide on December 23 and as Variety notes, it details the “sprawling account of the byzantine financial instruments that brought global commerce to its knees.” [...]

On Tuesday, the IMF joined the New Cold War. It has been lending money to Ukraine despite the Fund’s rules blocking it from lending to countries with no visible chance of paying (the “No More Argentinas” rule from 2001). With IMF head Christine Lagarde made the last IMF loan to Ukraine in the spring, she expressed the hope that there would be peace. [...]

The International Monetary Fund has agreed to change its policy on lending to countries that are in arrears to other governments. With Ukraine being among the states that asks for financial aid while owing Russia, the move has angered Moscow. "The IMF's Executive Board met today and agreed to change the current policy on non-toleration of arrears to official creditors," according to the IMF's C [...]

As a way to improve living standards and boosts its economy, the nation of Finland is moving closer towards offering all of its adult citizens a basic permanent income of approximately 800 euros per month. The monthly allotment would replace other existing social benefits, but is an idea long advocated for by progressive-minded social scientists and economists as a solution—counter-intuitive [...]

The Turkish lira is facing its biggest annual fall since 2008 and is nearing new record-lows, as foreign investment continues to leave the country. Investors from abroad have withdrawn $7.6 billion in assets this year, according to Bloomberg. This includes $1.4 billion in November, the month President Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (JDP) managed to win back the majority. [...]

Major defense contractors Raytheon, Oshkosh, and Lockheed Martin assured investors at a Credit Suisse conference in West Palm Beach this week that they stand to gain from the escalating conflicts in the Middle East. Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President Bruce Tanner told the conference his company will see “indirect benefits” from the war in Syria, citing the Turkish military’s rece [...]

Russia is determined to file a lawsuit against Ukraine if Kiev does not repay its state debt to Moscow by December 20, the Russian Ministry of Finance has said, adding that the US has officially refused to give financial guarantees for Ukraine’s debt. “This week, we have received an official rejection from the US government to provide guarantees for Ukraine’s obligations. [...]

A gold-backed ruble and gold-backed yuan could start a 'snowball exit' from dollar F. William Engdahl notes, adding that it will diminish America's ability to use the reserve dollar role to finance Washington's perpetual overseas wars. The irony of the situation is that the central banks of China, Russia, Brazil and other countries "diametrically opposed" to US foreign policy course are forced [...]

12-year old Victoria Grant explains why her homeland, Canada, and most of the world, is in debt. April 27, 2012 at the Public Banking in America Conference, Philadelphia, PA. Support a public bank for YOUR state. Donate and make it happen! Every single charity in the world has got it wrong. They’re focusing on the wrong problem and therefore can’t see the right solution. That solution, whic [...]

Remember those old ads showing a senior couple lounging on a warm beach, captioned “Let your money work for you”? Or the scene in Mary Poppins where young Michael is being advised to put his tuppence in the bank, so that it can compound into “all manner of private enterprise,” including “bonds, chattels, dividends, shares, shipyards, amalgamations . . . .”? [...]

The US investment bank predicts the ruble will be on the list of good performing currencies next year along with the US dollar and the Mexican peso, Bloomberg reports. Goldman Sachs recommends buying Russian and Mexican currencies over South Africa’s rand and Chile’s peso. [...]

The crypto currency is not attached to any single country. It exists at low exchange rates for the entire world and is not manipulated and controlled by central banks, says Jeffrey Tucker from the Foundation for Economic Education. The bitcoin exchange rate surged to above $490 on November 4 - its high point of the last year. [...]

The International Monetary Fund will go ahead with the promised $17.5 billion loan to Ukraine even if Kiev defaults on its $3 billion debt to Russia due in December, reports The Wall Street Journal. Current IMF policy forbids it loaning to countries that default on other governments.   [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin blasted the government for turning a blind eye on US dollar payments in the domestic oil trade. "I would like to mention one crucial issue in the development of the energy industry, and the economy as a whole. It is a question of finally stopping the use of foreign currency in internal trade,” said Putin at the fuel and energy presidential commission on Tuesda [...]

The Middle East’s biggest economy, Saudi Arabia may run out of financial assets within the next five years if the government maintains its current policies, warns the International Monetary Fund. The conflicts have given rise to large numbers of displaced people and refugees, on a scale not seen since the early 1990s, according to the report. [...]

More and more investors are expressing concern that US stocks are overvalued, which may result in a major bear market - characterized by falling prices and widespread pessimism, Nobel laureate in economics Robert Shiller told the FT. Studies have shown that the level of uncertainty among investors has peaked since the end of the dot-com boom in 2000, said Shiller. [...]

As stock markets continue their slide into negative territory, economists debate whether the problems lie in monetary mismanagement by the US Federal Reserve or with China’s domestic concerns “exporting pain” to others via its yuan devaluation. Speaking to RT, economist Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital Inc. said that there is a lot of “scapegoating” surrounding China and the yua [...]

Boeing says it intends to cut "several hundred" jobs due to a decline in US military spending and delays in the number of satellite orders. The move is being blamed over uncertainties regarding future funding from the US Export-Import Bank. The layoffs are set to be implemented by early 2016, according to Reuters, which cited an internal memo within the company. [...]

The mainstream media retains a minuscule attention span which leaves fruit flies resembling long-term thinkers. Thus suddenly misplaced optimism lazily received via an economically illiterate Western political caste, has declared it’s a crash, a meltdown! “Black Monday!” Now, this is pretty ugly and of course in a world where the economy involves 7.3 billion people and an economy worth ci [...]

At the opening bell on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted as much as 1,000 points in the first minutes of trading. Later it corrected to 485 points down or around three percent. The Nasdaq dropped eight percent at the start of trading, but is now down three percent. The S&P 500 had initially sunk five percent and is now down three percent. [...]

American benchmark WTI crude briefly slipped below $40 per barrel for the first time since 2009, showing an eighth straight weekly decline , the longest streak in almost 30 years. During the intraday trading in New York, the benchmark WTI crude price dropped as low as $39.86 per barrel before settling at $40.45 – some 2.1% drop in one day. [...]

The Dow Jones industrial average suffered its worst loss in five years after the market plunged into a correction on Friday. Stock markets around the world lost value amid concerns over the global economy. The Dow plunged nearly 531 points ‒ 3.1 percent ‒ to close the day at 16,459.75. [...]