Economics and Investing:

This may be a little hard to grasp, but it’s important to understand. Please read and take necessary precautions to protect your savings. Unimaginable 247 Trillion In Derivatives Could Trigger “Financial Armageddon”. Warren Buffett referred to derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction”… – L.G.

Items from Mr. Econocobas:

China Stocks Rout on First Market Day of 2016 Trips National Trading Halt

China’s Seven-Minute Selling Frenzy That Shook Global Markets

The Year Nothing Worked: Stocks, Bonds, Cash Go Nowhere

Items from Professor Preponomics:

US News

Puerto Rico is Greece and These Five States are the Next to Go (Zero Hedge) Excerpt: “It would take a long time for underfunded pension plans (e.g., 60% funded) to run out of cash, given the long duration of plan liabilities. But as investors learned in Puerto Rico and Greece, bond markets can drift along unconcerned with mounting fundamental problems, only to experience a rapid repricing at times that cannot be predicted.” Here’s the Watch List: Illinois, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Kentucky.

Public Lands: The Case for Transfer to the States (Waste Fraud and Abuse) Excerpt: “Utah is at the forefront of the Transfer of Public Lands movement. In 2012, the Utah state legislature passed legislation that lays down the foundation for transferring public lands to state ownership.”

Why First Time Home Buyers are Staying on the Sidelines (Market Watch) Excerpt: “First-time home buyers are staying away for a number of reasons, experts say, including rising home prices, high levels of debt, cultural changes that have younger Americans getting married and merging incomes later, and a general lack of information about, and enthusiasm for, the homebuying process.”

International News

Korea: The Canary in the Coal Mine (Business Insider) Excerpt: “Economists look to Korean exports because they are the world’s imports. Major traded goods are as varied as automobiles, petrochemicals, and electronics, such as PCs and mobile devices.”

More Currency Intervention Madness by the Arrogant Fools Who Run the Swedish Central Bank (Contra Corner) Excerpt: “Why does the Riksbank think it will succeed when nearly every currency intervention in history has failed?”

Greek Central Bank Warns Country “Unlikely to Survive Another Bout of Instability as Bank “Jog” Accelerates (Zero Hedge) Excerpt: “Something unexpected happened on the road to the latest Greek “recovery”: the local population no longer believes one is coming.”

Personal Economics and Household Finance

The Coupon Insider: What’s Stacking? (Living on the Cheap)