Is another “Great Depression” on the horizon?

It would be easier to dismiss these words from Nouriel Roubini, Marc Faber or other doom-and-gloom prognosticators. Coming from Christine Lagarde’s team, though, they take on a new dimension of scary.

The International Monetary Fund head isn’t known for breathlessness on the world stage. And yet the IMF sounded downright alarmist in its latest Global Financial Stability report, stating that “large challenges loom for the global economy to prevent a second Great Depression.”

Even some market bears were taken aback. “Why,” asks Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse Blog would the IMF use this phrase “in a report that they know the entire world will read?”

Perhaps because, unfortunately, the findings of other referees of global risks – including the Bank for International Settlements – hint at similar dislocations.

“Something has to be done...How can my government be subsidizing China and driving me out of business?”

Those are the words of Jayme Smaldone, who runs a 12-employee housewares company in Rahway, N.J., who first became aware of the problem when he noticed websites selling Chinese knockoffs of his “Mighty Mug,” a desktop coffee cup he designed with an anti-topple base.

And it appears President Trump has listened to Jayme among many others, as The New York Times reports that he plans to withdraw from a 144-year-old postal treaty that has allowed Chinese companies to ship small packages to the United States at a steeply discounted rate, undercutting American competitors and flooding the market with cheap consumer goods.

Four powerful institutional Facebook investors have co-filed a shareholder proposal to remove Mark Zuckerberg as chairman of Facebook following his "mishandling" of several scandals this year.

As Business Insider reports, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, Rhode Island State Treasurer Seth Magaziner, and Pennsylvania Treasurer Joe Torsella are joining forces to pile the pressure on Zuckerberg, holding over a billion dollars between them.

They have put their names to a proposal, originally filed by activist investor Trillium Asset Management, demanding that Facebook appoint an independent chairman above Zuckerberg

The last time an event of this magnitude took place was back in 1944, when the U.S. Dollar was crowned as the “gold standard” of currencies.

(Because, by law, back then the greenback really was “as good as gold.”)

It created decades of prosperity unlike anything in history…

And it’s a big reason why people who retired 30-40 years ago didn’t have the same worries we have today…

They were less dependent on the stock market… They retired earlier... And they didn’t come out of retirement to work at McDonald’s and Wal-Mart.

Today, The Dollar is worth 6 times less.

People work just as hard (even more!) but get paid less…

We’re seeing riots in the streets…

And—on top of that—we’re now seeing stand-offs between states and the Federal Government on issues ranging from marijuana, gambling to illegal immigration.

It’s all linked together.

And it all has to do with our derelict dollar.

Earlier reports stated that on November 4 a new wave of US sanctions will directly hit Iran's oil exports and banking operations and is expected to disconnect the Middle East state from international financial channels.

The US Treasury announced Tuesday that twenty entities, including four banks, will be targeted by new Iran's sanctions.

"This Iran-based network is known as Bonyad Taavon Basij, which is translated as Basij Cooperative Foundation, and is comprised of at least 20 corporations and financial institutions," the release said.

The main takeaway from the IMF and World Bank Group annual meeting in Bali, which hosted financial ministers and central bank governors from around the world this weekend, was that global trade tensions were having a profound effect on global growth and need to be solved.

Most of the participants - save for China and Mexico - seemed united and in agreement that trade talks have to continue. Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda stated that it was essential to have dialogue on trade while at the same time, the president of Brazil's central bank, Ilan Goldfajn, noted that the trade wars were one of the biggest threats to emerging markets. Indonesia's president Jokowi Widodo said starkly that "winter is coming" for the global economy if there is no solution on trade.

The United States has sold over $55 billion of weapons during the 2018 fiscal year, a sharp year-on-year increase in the wake of President Donald Trump’s push to encourage more US arms sales.

That’s 33 percent more than fiscal year 2017, Trump’s first year in office, when the Pentagon contractors managed to sell almost $42 billion in weapons and military services around the globe, according to the latest report by the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

According ding to the report, the Pentagon funded $4.42 billion of the 2018 foreign purchases while an additional $3.52 billion in arms sales was funded by the State Department. The buyers paid for the rest of the sales themselves.

The deals included the sales of a significant number of aircraft and equipment, including Boeing deals to sell surveillance aircraft in Asia and Europe.

The G-20 in Buenos Aires on November 30 could set the world on fire – perhaps literally. Let’s start with the US-China trade war. Washington won’t even start discussing trade with China at the G-20 unless Beijing comes up with a quite detailed list of potential concessions.

The word from Chinese negotiators is not at all bleak. Some sort of agreement could be reached on about a third of US demands. Debate on another third could ensue. But the last third is absolutely off-limits – due to Chinese national security imperatives, such as refusing to allow the opening of the domestic cloud computing market to foreign competition.

Poland raised its gold holdings to the highest in at least 35 years, data from the International Monetary Fund showed on Monday.

The country increased its holdings by 4.4 tonnes from August to about 117 tonnes in September, a record, according to data going back to January 1983.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has distinguished his company from other big tech firms in declaring its willingness to work with the United States Department of Defense.

“If big tech companies are going to turn their back on the US Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble,” Bezos cautioned in San Francisco Monday at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the tech magazine Wired.

Amazon is bidding for a 10-year contract with the Defense Department known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, JEDI, to offer cloud computing services worth up to $10 billion.

“We are going to continue to support the DoD, and I think we should,” Bezos said.

The blockade’s objective was to force the USSR to withdraw nuclear weapons from Cuba that it had placed there in order to guarantee Cuba’s security from American attack. Fortunately the crisis ended a few days later with the missiles being withdrawn in exchange for the US withdrawing similar missiles from bases in Turkey that threatened the USSR, and a US pledge not to invade Cuba. The blockade proved to be not only a dangerous provocation but also a humiliating fiasco for the US. A year later President Kenned was assassinated.

But today the US leadership is threatening another blockade, this time of Russia, as well as threatening pre-emptive strikes to neutralise Russian cruise missiles, not located in Cuba, but in Russia itself. And the same fleet that conducted the Cuban blockade, that took part in the invasion of Grenada in 1983, the 2nd Fleet, has once again been reactivated with all the ships necessary to attempt just such a blockade.

The Biological Technologies Office, created in 2014, is the newest of DARPA’s six main divisions. This is the office headed by Justin Sanchez. One purpose of the office is to “restore and maintain warfighter abilities” by various means, including many that emphasize neurotechnology—applying engineering principles to the biology of the nervous system. For instance, the Restoring Active Memory program develops neuroprosthetics—tiny electronic components implanted in brain tissue—that aim to alter memory formation so as to counteract traumatic brain injury. Does DARPA also run secret biological programs? In the past, the Department of Defense has done such things. It has conducted tests on human subjects that were questionable, unethical, or, many have argued, illegal. The Big Boy protocol, for example, compared radiation exposure of sailors who worked above and below deck on a battleship, never informing the sailors that they were part of an experiment.

UN warns that famine could overwhelm country in next three months, with 13 million people at risk of starvation.

If war continues, famine could engulf the country in the next three months, with 12 to 13 million civilians at risk of starvation, according to Lise Grande, the agency’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

She told the BBC: “I think many of us felt as we went into the 21st century that it was unthinkable that we could see a famine like we saw in Ethiopia, that we saw in Bengal, that we saw in parts of the Soviet Union – that was just unacceptable.

“Many of us had the confidence that would never happen again and yet the reality is that in Yemen that is precisely what we are looking at.”

Naturally, as long as the housing bubble keeps inflating and prices keep rising, there is nothing to worry about as the population will keep spending money buoyed by illusory wealth appreciation. It is when housing starts to drop that Beijing begins to panic.

Fast forward to today, when Beijing may be starting to sweat because whereas Chinese property developers usually count on September and October to be their “gold and silver” months for sales, this year has turned out to be different. As the SCMP reports, not only were sales figures grim for September, but the seven-day national holiday last week also brought at least two "fangnao" incidents – when angry, and often violent, homeowners protest against price cuts offered by developers to new buyers.

Saudi Arabia warned on Sunday it would respond to any "threats" against it as its stock market crashed the most since 2016 after President Trump's warning of "severe punishment" over the disappearance of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi.

On Saturday, Trump said the U.S. could take “very, very powerful, very strong, strong measures” against the country if its leaders are found responsible for the Saudi citizen’s fate. The kingdom, which denies its involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance, announced it would retaliate against any punitive measures with an even “stronger” response, the Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an official it didn’t identify.

"The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether through economic sanctions, political pressure or repeating false accusations," the kingdom's statement said. "The kingdom also affirms that if it is (targeted by) any action, it will respond with greater action."

US President Donald Trump claims the World Trade Organization (WTO) is biased toward China, resulting in soul searching by member states to remake the bloc’s mandate and methods.

Trump has long claimed that the World Trade Organization (WTO), the intergovernmental body that regulates international trade, favors China, since the country joined the organization in 2001.

"If they don't shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO," Trump said in an August 30 interview with Bloomberg. It's not clear what topic under discussion led Trump to make the remark.

Iran has explored multiple ways to sidestep US sanctions after Washington vowed to bring the country's oil exports down "to zero" and punish any country that continues to buy oil from the Islamic Republic.

Tehran has found new partners ready to buy Iranian crude oil in spite of the impending reinstatement of US energy sanctions next month, Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri said, according to the IRIB broadcaster.

"While some countries have stopped buying oil from Iran, we have found new partners. Furthermore, we have engaged in talks with our existing partners," Jahangiri said. According to the official, even those countries which have stopped imports are looking for workarounds which would allow them to continue to import energy indirectly.

WTI Crude prices are up around 2% in the early Sunday trading after Saudi Arabia appears to be now attempting to go on the offensive and is lashing out as it does damage control in the aftermath of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's alleged murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul nearly two weeks ago.

What likely sparked the risk premium was the fact that Turki Al Dakhil, who heads the Saudi state-owned Arabiya news network, wrote in an article that U.S. sanctions against Saudi Arabia could wreak havoc on the global economy by taking oil prices to $200 a barrel and more. Faisal bin Farhan, a senior adviser to the Saudi embassy in Washington, said on Twitter that these comments didn’t represent the Saudi leadership.

“We have interest rates going up at a clip that’s much faster than certainly a lot of people, including myself, would have anticipated. I think the Fed is out of control.”

Central banks are independent, in theory. But that won’t stop the president of the US from giving his full and frank opinion on their performance.

Before last year, Richard Ochieng’, 26, could not recall experiencing racism firsthand.

Not while growing up as an orphan in his village near Lake Victoria where everybody was, like him, black. Not while studying at a university in another part of Kenya. Not until his job search led him to Ruiru, a fast-growing settlement at the edge of the capital, Nairobi, where Mr. Ochieng’ found work at a Chinese motorcycle company that had just expanded to Kenya.

But then his new boss, a Chinese man his own age, started calling him a monkey.

It happened when the two were on a sales trip and spotted a troop of baboons on the roadside, he said.

“‘Your brothers,’” he said his boss exclaimed, urging Mr. Ochieng’ to share some bananas with the primates.