One day after investors were stunned when troubled California utility, PG&E, drew down the full available balance of its revolving credit facilities, sending the stock into a tailspin, the pain has continued and on Thursday, PG&E shares extended losses, last down more than 21%, and tumbling more than 50% in the past week, with Mizuho the latest bank to cut its price target, saying company could face wildfire-related liabilities of $13 billion.

To be sure, things aren't looking good: as Bloomberg reports, 15 minutes before a fire was reported among the trees north of Sacramento - the spark that would explode into the deadliest blaze in California history - a PG&E power line in the area went offline. A week later, at least 56 people have been found dead - and PG&E Corp. is facing its gravest crisis yet over whether its equipment has ignited another devastating wildfire.

Speaking at at the Greenwich Economic Forum this morning, Jones explained to investors that another hike in interest rates triggered by faster growth from U.S. tax cuts may cause the bubble in credit to pop.

“We’re going to stress test our whole corporate credit market for the first time...”

“From a markets perspective, it’s going to be interesting. There probably will be some really scary moments in corporate credit.”

Even by Wall Street standards of gouging customers this was one hell of a skim.

In 2012 and 2013, the Malaysian government was raising $6.5bn (£5bn) from investors to establish a sovereign wealth fund and finance various domestic infrastructure investment projects. And the cut for Goldman Sachs – the most prestigious investment bank in the world – for arranging the fundraising from the global capital markets? Ten per cent, or $600m.

Now we can have a guess as to why the Malaysian authorities were so insouciant about those extortionate fundraising costs: because they themselves were, apparently, going to loot the pot in one of the biggest frauds in history.

Malaysian politicians, officials and financiers had effectively bought Goldman Sachs’ blue chip reputation to pull in naive investors to the “1MDB” state investment fund. Ten per cent probably seemed a reasonable cut in the circumstances.

The question is: what did Goldman know about the theft?

Iraq has rejected a US deadline to stop importing Iranian gas, warning that any halt to the supplies would create a real power crisis which sparked several days of unrest in Basra and elsewhere this summer.

“Stopping Iranian gas after the deadline will create a real power crisis. We need more time … the Americans are completely aware of how desperately we need Iranian gas,” an Iraqi official was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The announcement came after the US embassy in Iraq said on Thursday that Washington had given Baghdad 45 days to stop purchasing gas and electricity from Iran.

Iraq has extensive trade ties with Iran and heavily depends on Iranian natural gas imports for electricity generation. Basra in southern Iraq was hit by violent protests which spread to other cities this summer, partly because of a halt of Iranian electricity exports.

The world’s most popular cryptocurrency has fallen to a more than a one-year low on Wednesday, breaking through the key support level of $6,000. The price dropped by almost 11 percent in a single day of trading.

The digital currency’s price recovered slightly on Thursday, trading at $5,680.01, down over $800 over the last 24 hours after a relatively calm few months.

In geopolitics events are rarely what they seem to be. This is especially true when we look more closely at the otherwise bizarre “war” launched this spring under the guise of trade war, supposedly redressing America’s huge annual balance of trade deficits, the most extreme being that with China. The true driver behind Washington’s otherwise inexplicable tariff war attacks on especially China make sense when we view them through the prism of a new Administration report on the defense industrial base of the United States .

The U.S. government and the Deep State are monster porkers. Government runs on dollars, debt and devaluation. It spends too much supporting corporations and cronies and buying votes. The Treasury issues debt to fund the revenue shortfall. Prices rise and they devalue dollars as they have since 1913.

The Washington Post's Josh Rogin has revealed stunning comments issued by Vice President Mike Pence during a conversation between the two aboard Air Force Two as the VP traveled for an official trip to Asia this week, where he landed in Singapore for regional summits highlighting Indo-Pacific security, trade and investment.

Pence reportedly said the White House is prepared to undertake take dramatic policy changes regarding China if Beijing does not capitulate to its demands as the trade war continues. In addition to the issue of tariffs, pressing security issues include the US demanding Chinese cessation of what's reported to be widespread intellectual property theft and refusal to recognized America freedom of navigation through and above the South China Sea.

According to Rogin, Pence went so far as to speak of "an all-out Cold War" during the interview, promising that:

With the newly reimposed US sanctions against Iran having little to no perceivable economic impact, national security adviser John Bolton is talking up his plans to continue to escalate the sanctions track, saying he will “squeeze Iran until the pips squeak.”

Bolton shrugged off the reality that Iran is still doing business internationally, saying that he believes Iran is “under real pressure” from the sanctions, and that he’s determined to see it keep getting worse.

Bolton went on to predict that the European efforts to keep trading with Iran would ultimately fail. He said the Europeans are going through the six stages of grief, and would ultimately lead to European acceptance of the US demands.

For years, traditional malls around the United States have been in a state of partial or full collapse thanks to "the Amazon effect": deteriorating conditions, bankrupt or cash-bleeding tenants, with some even transforming into homeless shelters as the retail industry "evolves".

In other words, as Bloomberg writes, "things are getting worse for malls across America." So much worse, in fact, that their owners are simply walking away early from struggling properties, a trend that has sparked fears of material losses among mortgage bond investors.

Investors in and lenders to malls across America are bracing for the fallout from the disappearance of the brick and mortar sub-sector of the industry. With the recent bankruptcy of retail giant Sears, mall operators are continuing to see accelerating defaults in the wake of numerous other retail bankruptcies from stores like Bon-Ton, Wet Seal and RadioShack, and many others, resulting in abrupt declines in rental and lease payments.

We have definitely deviated from the script. According to virtually all of the “experts”, the stock market was not supposed to keep plummeting in November. This was supposed to be the month when the market calmed down and things returned to normal. But instead, November is starting to look a whole lot like October, and many investors are really starting to freak out. U.S. stocks declined for a third day in a row on Monday, and all post-election gains have now been completely wiped out. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost another 602 points, and all of these large daily losses are really starting to add up. It may still be a bit too early to call this a “major financial crisis”, but if stock prices keep plunging like this it won’t be too long before all hell starts breaking loose on Wall Street.

The Russian military jammed GPS signals during a major NATO military exercise in Norway that involved thousands of US and NATO troops, the alliance said Wednesday, citing the Norwegian government.

The NATO exercise, Trident Juncture, concluded Sunday and involved some 50,000 personnel. It was labeled the alliance's largest exercise since the Cold War. Non-NATO members Finland and Sweden also participated in the exercise.
A spokesperson for the Norwegian ministry of defense acknowledged the jamming to CNN, which it said took place between October 16 and November 7, and said it would defer to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on further questions to Russian authorities.

"Norway has determined that Russia was responsible for jamming GPS signals in the Kola Peninsula during Exercise Trident Juncture. Finland has expressed concern over possible jamming in Lapland," NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu told CNN Wednesday.

Amid China's worsening trade-war fueled economic slide, the Communist country's April decision to slap a 25% tariff on imports of US soybeans has remained one of its most rewarding retaliatory maneuvers. So far, at least, the food-price inflation that many feared would follow hasn't materialized - while the plunge in soybean purchases (imports to China fell 94% between the beginning of September and mid-October) has helped maximize the pressure on Trump-supporting farmers in North Dakota, Iowa and across the US farm belt.

When the British took Hong Kong over in the late 1800s, it was nothing more than an irrelevant backwater made up of fishing villages and illiterate fishermen.

But after a few decades, it became one of the most prosperous places in the world.

Russian oil exporters are pressuring Western commodity traders to pay for Russian crude in euros and not dollars as Washington prepares more sanctions for the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Moscow, Reuters reported last week, citing as many as seven industry sources.

New York state is kicking in more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives for getting half of Amazon's second headquarters located in a section of Queens.

The Seattle-based company made its long-awaited announcement Tuesday, saying Long Island City and Alexandria, Virginia, will each get 25,000 jobs. The online retailer also said it will open an operations hub in Nashville, creating 5,000 jobs.

Amazon will also receive as-yet unspecified incentives from New York City.

New York state's incentives are nearly triple those of Virginia's, while Tennessee's are $102 million.

At the most recent International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) conference in Atlanta, Walmart announced new plans to repurpose twelve of its locations into Town Centers -- an outdoor gathering area with seating, community activities, entertainment, dining facilities, jogging paths, fountains, green spaces, playgrounds, and even space for live music.

The idea behind Walmart's seismic shift is that it wants to recreate the downtown of small communities that it was instrumental in destroying.

“We want to provide community space, areas for the community to dwell,” said L.B. Johnson, vice president of realty operations for Walmart in his ICSC keynote speech.

According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, the U.S. trade deficit will almost certainly set a record in 2018 for the first time in 12 years , new data suggests for the first time.

It's been a remarkable run without a deficit. To provide context, prior to 2006, the last record-setting year, the United States had set a record 11 of the previous 12 years.

It is also not without irony that the run of years without a deficit would come to an end under President Trump.

Trump, first as a candidate and since as president, has complained loudly and vociferously about how other countries, particularly but not exclusively China, have taken advantage of the United States, leading to large trade deficits.