Aug 6. Quien es mas macho? Chuck Norris o Steven Seagal?
–Yields fell Friday as non-farms printed lower than expected at 157k. Tens fell 3.3 bps to 295.1 despite facing auction supply this week, (3’s, 10’s 30’s starting Tuesday, to raise over $38b in new cash). The eurodollar curve flattened with reds +2.875, greens +4, and blues +3.875.
–Several interesting stories this morning: From Reuters, BOJ’s architect of ‘shock and awe’ plots retreat from stimulus
From a Bloomberg story: “China is prepared for a “protracted war” and doesn’t fear sacrificing short-term economic interests, according to an editorial in the nationalist Global Times on Sunday evening.” New low Shanghai Comp today.
–The most uplifting read of the day though, is a Zerohedge article reporting that martial arts actor Steven Seagal was appointed by Putin as a “goodwill ambassador” to help strengthen US-Russia ties. I’d feel better if it was Chuck Norris. The article shamelessly works in Seagal’s movie credits:
“US-Russia relations have been under siege since Russian President Vladimir Putin made the executive decision to annex Crimea in 2014
“Out for justice, the US and others imposed harsh sanctions against Russia…”
–Summer markets, and summer in Chicago. ABC news reports “63 people have been shot, ten fatally, since 5 p.m. Friday. 34 of the shootings and five deaths occurred between 10 a.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Sunday, according to police.”
–I joined friends for a beer near the carnival now known as Wrigleyville Saturday. Great afternoon, but I miss the old feeling. Ironically, this article was sent to me the next day. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ae-wrigleyville-20180805-story.html
“Welcome to the boring, tedious confines of the new Wrigleyville”:
“It takes a lot to miss the days of undergraduate vomit splashed against a curb. It takes a lot to make a person pine for fast-food restaurant booths at 2 a.m. full of hardcore punk bands from Des Moines. Or to long to hear terrible white blues bands spilling out of dumb bars again. Or to wish the pavement smelled like cheap beer every Sunday morning, or that every storefront looked as if it were operated by your sketchiest of sketchy cousins.
And yet that’s the kind of perverse melancholy I feel when I visit Wrigleyville these days.
There’s a great joke in “The Blues Brothers” Dan Aykroyd lists his home address as 1060 W. Addison, and when members of the Illinois Nazi Party track him down, they find themselves standing at the corner of Clark and Addison, in front of Wrigley Field. Thirty-eight years later, that joke is dead. No one would imagine a dodgy working-class artist, never mind a penniless white blues musician, living anywhere near the new Wrigleyville.
Amen
http://norewardisworththis.tumblr.com/post/64845798933/snl-quien-es-mas-macho-sketch-from-21719
