China’s central bank is running out of ways to stem capital flight and faces a near impossible task trying to manage the fall-out from extreme credit growth, two of Asia’s most influential banks have warned.

“Defense of the currency by the People’s Bank (PBOC) is no longer a viable option,” says Eric Robertson, the head of global macro strategy for Standard Chartered.

Standard Chartered has been in the China since the 1850s and has over 6,000 staff in the country. Its warnings should not be taken lightly.

The Asia-focused lender says powerful forces are driving capital out of the country and the picture is fundamentally more disturbing than it was during last year’s devaluation panic. This is putting the PBOC in an invidious position as it attempts to deal with festering troubles in the banking system.

While the PBOC still has $3 trillion of foreign exchange reserves, they are not as large as they look given the scale of the financial pressures and the structure of the Chinese economy. The ratio of the M2 money supply to reserves has collapsed to a 15-year low and this may prove to be the crucial ratio in a confidence crisis.

[Note by Jack Wheeler:  57 years ago in Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater proclaimed the conservative political dream:

“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution.”

What you are about to read explains the legal mechanism already in place by which this can be easily done.  What Kim Strassel has written will blow you away with what is possible under a Trump Presidency guiding a GOP Congress.  Barry Goldwater was the original American conservative hero.  Somewhere, he is smiling right now.]

Last week (01/25), Todd Gaziano stepped into a meeting on Capitol Hill of free-market attorneys, think tankers and Republican congressional staff to unveil a big idea. By the time he stepped out, he had reset Washington’s regulatory battle lines.

Actually, more than reset.  This is a true game-changer.

As a matter of strict objective fact, Donald Trump’s trade guru Peter Navarro is correct. Germany is the planet’s ultimate currency manipulator, not China.

The Euro – really a de facto Deutsche Mark – is indeed “grossly undervalued.” The warped mechanism of monetary union allows Germany to lock in a permanent ‘beggar-thy-neighbor’ trade advantage over Southern Europe, inflicting mass unemployment on the victim countries and blighting their futures.

Whatever you think of Peter Navarro’s trade philosophy regarding China, he is right that Germany’s chronic, huge, and illegal current account surplus - 8.8% of GDP - saps global demand and seriously distorts the world economy.

And now, President Trump is going to do something about it.

Lone wolf terrorism is the biggest trend in Islamic terrorism. Unlike classic Islamic terrorism, it requires no cells stretching across countries the way that 9/11 did. The perpetrators don’t even need to enter the country under false pretenses the way that the World Trade Center bombers did.

Classic counterterrorism is directed at organizations. It’s inadequate for stopping individual Muslim terrorists like Omar Mateen who was able to murder 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando or closely related duos like the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston or the Farook-Malik husband and wife team who carried out the San Bernardino terrorist attack which took the lives of 14 people.

The reason is simple. Unlike classic Islamic terrorism which required organization and infrastructure, the new brand of Islamic terror only needs one thing… Muslims.

Muslim immigration makes Muslim terrorism worse.  Once we understand this inconvenient truth, then everything else naturally flows from it.

Long-simmering social tensions in Mexico are threatening to boil over as failing neoliberal reforms to the country’s formerly nationalized gas sector are compounded by open corruption, stagnant standards of living, and rampant inflation.

The U.S. media has remained mostly mute on the situation in Mexico, even as the unfolding civil unrest has closed the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, California, for the last four weekends in a row.

Ongoing “gasolinazo” protests in Mexico over a 20 percent rise in gas prices have led to over 400 arrests, 250 looted stores, and six deaths. Roads are being blockaded, borders closed, and government buildings are being sacked. Protests have remained relatively peaceful overall, except for several isolated violent acts, which activists have blamed on government infiltrators.

The few mainstream news reports that have covered the situation blame rising gas prices but fail to examine several other factors that are pushing Mexico to the brink of revolution.

"Democrats lost because they did not know how to talk about race," Aimee Allison told the DNC candidates forum on race.

Aimee Allison is a professional “race talker.” She’s a senior VP at PowerPAC+ which is dedicated to tapping into the “political power of the multiracial majority.”

On Monday (01/23), PowerPAC’s Democracy in Color hosted the DNC Chair Candidates Forum 2017. The qualifications to be the leader of the Democrat National Committee were obvious. It was their job to pander to the “new majority” of non-whites. 

White voters make up 71% of the electorate. Hillary won little more than a third of this “old majority.” 

“I’m a white woman, I don’t get it,” candidate Sally Boynton Brown shrilled. Her job, she declared, was to “shut other white people down” until they admit their “privilege.”  Note the black lady behind her smiling and nodding when she says it:

Has anyone actually worked out yet what that Women’s March over the weekend (01/21) was all about?

According to Madonna it had something to do with blowing up the White House.

According to Michael Moore (not a woman) it was about stopping Betsy De Vos (a woman: how does this work, exactly?) from becoming Secretary of Education.

According to Hamas-supporting, hijab-wearing co-organizer Linda Sarsour, it had something to do with that famous supporter of women’s rights, Islam.

According to Hermione Granger it was a lovely excuse to fly over from England with her Mum, to feel humble and try on some new bright red lipstick.

According to at least one of the girls in the photo above, it’s about “good scince”. Yay! Go, good scince!

There is now no denying that China's economy is slowing sharply, though this can be masked by mini-booms along the way.

China is creating credit at twice the pace of underlying growth and is relying on hazardous bubbles to keep growth running far above the safe speed limit, Fitch Ratings has warned.

Short-term stimulus is papering over deep cracks in the economy and vital reforms are being neglected, storing up serious trouble for the future.

The Fitch credit agency said state control over the banking system will prevent a sudden collapse in confidence or a western-style financial crash, but the Communist authorities are running out of tools to meet their inflated GDP targets.

China's epic catch-up boom since the early 1980s will likely sputter out this year as banks struggle with the legacy of bad debts and chronic malinvestment.  Here’s why.