“The euro is fragile, it’s like building a castle of cards, if you take out the Greek card the others will collapse.” Varoufakis said according to an Italian transcript of the interview released by RAI ahead of broadcast.

The euro zone faces a risk of fragmentation and “de-construction” unless it faces up to the fact that Greece, and not only Greece, is unable to pay back its debt under the current terms, Varoufakis said.

“I would warn anyone who is considering strategically amputating Greece from Europe because this is very dangerous,” he said. “Who will be next after us? Portugal? What will happen when Italy discovers it is impossible to remain inside the straitjacket of austerity?”

Greenspan bedömer chansen som mycket stor att Grekland måste lämna EU. Frågan är vad som händer med Euro kursen då det enligt Bank for International Settlements finns derivat som är kopplade till kursen i storleksordningen 26,45 triljoner dollar. För att få lite perspektiv på beloppet så är USAs samlade BNP ca 18 triljoner dollar. Den totala globala derivat marknaden är uppskattad till mer än 700 triljoner dollar så det gäller att hålla tungan i rätt mun. 

Mr Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, said: “I believe [Greece] will eventually leave. I don’t think it helps them or the rest of the eurozone – it is just a matter of time before everyone recognizes that parting is the best strategy.

“The problem is that there there is no way that I can conceive of the euro of continuing, unless and until all of the members of eurozone become politically integrated – actually even just fiscally integrated won’t do it.”

Total SGE Withdrawals 255t In January, Up 4 % y/y

In December, 2014, there were 141.483 million jobs in this country. Last month — January, 2015 — there were only 138.728 million. Do the math. That equals a loss of 2.755 million jobs for January.

As I said, it’s perfectly normal for jobs to disappear after the holidays. And that’s why Labor tinkers with its numbers and why it came up with the seasonally adjustment growth of 257,000 jobs that you saw in the press release and all the headlines.

But here’s the thing. Seasonal adjustments can go wacky. And they can be manipulated, although you’ll have to draw your own conclusion on that last point.

Let’s take a look at the seasonal adjustment that occurred one year earlier when employment in January, 2014 — after being seasonally adjusted — rose by a very disappointing 113,000 jobs. (This was later revised to a still-weak 166,000 jobs.)

Remember, I’m comparing apples to apples here — the adjustments for two consecutive Januarys.

The untouched, raw data shows there were 138.327 million jobs in the US in December 2013. That number dropped to 135.516 million in January 2014.

So, before seasonal adjustments there was a loss of 2.811 million jobs in this country during January 2014.

The question is: How can a real-life loss of 2.755 million jobs in January 2015 be seasonally adjusted into a healthy, headline-grabbing gain of 257,000 jobs when a real-life loss of 2.811 million jobs the year before resulted in anemic growth — after seasonal adjustments — of just 113,000 (later revised to 166,000) jobs?

The answer is: it can’t.

The BLS report? Well, according to the January payrolls report, the number of Oil and Gas Extractionworkers declined to 199.5K in January from 201.4K in December, a virtually non-exstant drop of 1,900 workers (and even the not seasonally adjusted, raw data shows a tiny drop of just 3.1K workers).

Visually, the outlier is as follows:

China’s debt has quadrupled since 2007.

The average hourly earnings surged from last month's -0.2% by a whopping 0.5%, the highest monthly jump in average hourly earnings since November 2008. On an annual basis, the increase was a less impressive 2.2%:

It remains to be seen just how this is happening with mass layoffs in the oil patch, but what is now practically assured is that the Fed will have no choice but to hike as soon as June.

Less than 50% of stocks are trading below their 200-day-moving-average and the correlation between the S&P 500 and its internals is remarkably negative. The last 4 times this 'setup' has occurred in the last 20 years, the broad equity market indices eventually gave up the divergence (including 2000's market top and 2007's market top). Simply put - the health of the market is fading fast...

 The Blue ovals show periods when less than 50% of stocks traded above their 200DMA and internals were anti-correlated (52-week rolling) with equity exuberance. In each case things did not end well...

Gold is not a commodity.  Gold is money.  Gold actually performed extremely well last year because it was the second strongest currency after the U.S. dollar.

And everybody who lives in a country where the central bank, with dumb policies, weakens and devalues the paper currency values by printing money like mad, is extremely well-protected by owning gold.  Gold is fulfilling its historic function.

Following last quarter's upward revised 5.0% GDP, driven higher mostly as a result of even more mandatory Obamacare taxation, Q4 GDP had nowhere else to go but down, the only question was how much. Wall Street estimated 3.0%. Moments ago we got the first estimate for Q4 GDP [6]and it was a miss, printing at 2.6%, and nearly 50% below the Q3 annualized number. This also means that the final 2014 GDP is 2.4%, higher than the 2.2% in 2013 as well as the 2.3% in 2012.