In a large room in a nondescript modern office block in Seoul, staff from a recruitment company are staging their own funerals. Dressed in white robes, they sit at desks and write final letters to their loved ones. Tearful sniffling becomes open weeping, barely stifled by the copious use of tissues.  And then, the climax: they rise and stand over the wooden coffins laid out beside them. They pause, get in and lie down. They each hug a picture of themselves, draped in black ribbon. As they look up, the boxes are banged shut by a man dressed in black with a tall hat. He represents the Angel of Death. Enclosed in darkness, the employees reflect on the meaning of life.  The macabre ritual is a bonding exercise designed to teach them to value life. Before they get into the casket, they are shown videos of people in adversity - a cancer sufferer making the most of her final days, someone born without all her limbs who learned to swim.    All this is designed to help people come to terms with their own problems, which must be accepted as part of life, says Jeong Yong-mun who runs the Hyowon Healing Centre - his previous job was with a funeral company. The participants at this session were sent by their employer, human resources firm Staffs. "Our company has always encouraged employees to change their old ways of thinking, but it was hard to bring about any real difference," says its president, Park Chun-woong. "I thought going inside a coffin would be such a shocking experience it would completely reset their minds for a completely fresh start in their attitudes."(BBC news)

I dont think Yellen made a mistake , she knows she had to raise rates because she knows that most American pension funds were modeled on an interest rate of about 6 to 8% which they have been unable to achieve for the last ten years. This would have forced pension funds to take more riskier positions. It is also compulsory for pension funds to have a % in government bonds. If these pension funds come under pressure and they have to liquidate, this could put government bonds under pressure. Most European Nations are bankrupt so if their bonds become under pressure we are looking at a very large problem GLOBALLY. There is 200 trillion in the bond market and for the large movers whom might be looking for a bid on 500 billion of bonds and not receive a bid would cause panic.  Differentials in spreads between the USA and Europe because of negative interests rates will cause large capital inflows into the USA, this will cause equity and asset inflation in the USA which will necessitate even higher interest rates, which will cause the USA dollar to soar, That means all of those countries that borrowed in USA dollars at cheap interest rates will find it harder to make payments, USA rising, there currency in decline.  Then you have to look at the west, socialism has only been born from WWII, we had the population explosion (the bubble) and now we are all coming up to retirement, which has not been funded because politicians thought that we would reproduce at the same rate but we didn't, I come from a family of seven and I have two children, which does not even replace the population. Western nations are in decline. Japan demographics are terrible and so is Germany. If you think Merkel is a nice lady letting in 800 thousand refugees from Syria.... think again. She needs these people to pay taxes to pay for her older generations pensions.

Get ready for a very bumpy ride...

Even in recent weeks, Fed policymakers remained split over whether the economy is finally ready for higher rates. On the one hand, the unemployment rate has fallen sharply from 10% in 2009 and monthly job growth has averaged well over 200,000 the past two years, developments that led Fed Chair Janet Yellen to state that a rate increase was likely before the end of 2015. Still, many Americans continue to work part-time even though they prefer full-time jobs or have given up looking for work, though the ranks of such Americans have fallen. Partly as a result of this surplus labor supply, wage growth has only recently shown signs of accelerating beyond the tepid 2% annual pace that has prevailed throughout the recovery.  Broader inflation has been stuck well below the Fed's annual 2% target, both because of meager pay gains as well as low oil prices and a strong dollar that has kept imports cheap for U.S. consumers. The Fed reiterated Wednesday that it expects energy prices and the dollar to stabilize. In September, global economic troubles, which has combined with the rallying greenback to clobber exports, and related market turbulence stayed the Fed's hand.  Citing those forces and feeble inflation, Fed board members Daniel Tarullo and Lael Brainard were among those who have argued for caution, saying the risks of moving too soon and derailing a still-vulnerable recovery outweighed the hazards of waiting and possibly having to raise rates more rapidly to catch up to inflation.  Since October, though, the mood has shifted. China's economic troubles eased somewhat and failed to spread to other emerging markets, stock markets rallied, and U.S. job growth rebounded strongly in October and November from a late-summer slump. As result, momentum for a rate hike began building, both among some Fed policymakers and in financial markets.

Controversial plans for an EU Border and Coast Guard force are to be set out on Tuesday - part of an EU drive to curb the record influx of migrants.  Some national governments are wary of granting the EU new powers in such a sensitive area of sovereignty.  The European Commission is proposing a force with a stronger mandate than the EU's current Frontex border teams.  Poland says it will oppose any move to send in EU border guards without the host country's approval.  Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said such powers "would mean that this would be an undemocratic structure, not controlled by the member states".  But he said strengthening Frontex "is necessary in every sense"....Frontex - an EU agency based in Poland - is already poised to send border guards to Greece, where almost 800,000 migrants have arrived by sea this year. Most of them are refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Frontex says its role is to help enforce border controls, but the deployed officers work "under the command and control of the authorities" in the host country.   The deployment on the Greek islands near Turkey will boost the number of land and sea patrols, meaning more migrants will be identified and properly registered, a Frontex statement said.  Of those who have come ashore this year only one in five was intercepted by border guards, Frontex said.

Russia claims to have the strategic depth to sit out a long siege. It is pursuing an import-substitution policy to revive its industrial and engineering core. It can ultimately feed itself. The Gulf Opec states are one-trick ponies by comparison.  The deputy premier, Arkady Dvorkovich, told The Telegraph in September that Opec will be forced to change tack. “At some point it is likely that they are going to have to change policy. They can last a few months, to a couple of years," he said.  Kremlin officials suspect that the aim of Saudi policy is to force Russia to the negotiating table, compelling it join Opec in a super-cartel controlling half the world’s production.  Abdallah Salem el-Badri, Opec’s chief, came close to admitting this last week, saying the cartel is no longer big enough to act alone and will not cut output unless non-Opec producers chip in. Russia is in effect calling Opec’s bluff, gambling that it has the greater staying power. It cannot easily cut output since its main producers are listed companies, answerable to shareholders. Any arrangement would have to be subtle.

Mr Dvorkovich gave an oblique answer when asked whether Russia would ever do a deal. "We are not going to cut supply artificially. Oil companies will act on their own. They will look at market forces and decide whether to invest more or less. If prices stay low, it is in the nature of oil companies to stabilize production, or even to cut production," he said.  Whether Russia really can withstand the strain for years is an open question. The economy is in deep recession. Output has contracted by 4pc over the last year. Real incomes have fallen by 9pc. The latest gambit may in reality be a negotiating ploy.

Truth and dicussion...about QE . UE and the Dollar

There is no jobs growth. The total hours worked in the US economy is the same as 15 years ago and most of the other economic indicators have been going south for months. The Fed is trapped and there is no way they can raise rates other than by a purely token amount without sending the whole thing rapidly to the dogs; in fact a recession next year is odds even if the Fed does nothing. We will get Big Bust 2 within the next 18 months...THERE WILL BE NO RATE RISE! Yellen knows full well you can't taper a Ponzi, so unless Goldman Sachs has massively shorted the markets and ordered its central banker minions to hike rates to crash the markets, Yellen will come up with yet another in her endless list of excuses to punt yet again on a rate hike. THERE WILL BE NO RATE RISE. Period. It's not like the Fed has any credibility left to lose. ..According to some soothsayers, there will be a 0.15% Fed rise BUT....after New Year there will be some more easing, say....$50 Billion. This time around the money printing will be in subsidies for the middle income earners. If the FED does not do this there will be turmoil and public protests. The Obama admin does not want this, not after the California shootings and most probably some more in the Christmas holiday season. The Obama gov needs the support of the public NOW more than ever....The Fed exists solely to further enrich the already super-rich. That means facilitating the looting and asset-stripping of the "middle income earners" (a soon to be extinct class) as part of the Fed's "No Billionaire Left Behind" monetary policy. The Fed will NEVER subsidize or otherwise give a damn about "middle income earners," much less savers, pensioners, and non-speculators, with whom it is in a state of undeclared financial warfare...The whole casino economy is built around perceptions. There are no relations between economic fundamentals and the value of the stock markets or the amount of public and private debt. A simple lack of confidence or misplaced rumor can cause a panic among investors. And then there's the trillions of debts owed in US dollars by entities who don't use the U.S. dollar as there native currency., Yellen will not raise rates in the absence of some exogenous event, i.e. a phone call from Goldman Sachs or the bond market going haywire as "investors" belatedly realize Yellen & her central banker cohorts are going to inflate away all government and TBTF banker debts and liabilities. 

THE AMERICAN WAY...

A company doesn’t find its way on Fortune‘s 100 Best Companies to Work For list by skimping around bonus time. That goes double for Houston-based Hilcorp, which landed at No. 20 on this year’s list on the strength of its generous bonus policy. The company told us earlier this year that if employees meet certain goals, that every one of them would receive a generous $100,000 bonus.  Well, it would appear that Hilcorp employees have fulfilled those goals because the firm just issued the bonuses as an early Christmas present, according to a report on KTVU in Houston.  “It’s just a true gift and I don’t think that myself along with everyone is not going to give less than 100% every day,” receptionist Amanda Thompson told the TV station.  This isn’t the first time that Hilcorp employees have been treated so generously by CEO Jeff Hildebrand. Fortune described the company’s attitude toward compensation earlier this year:  A “we are all in this together” culture, installed by Jeff Hildebrand when he founded this oil and gas company in 1989, manifests itself in open book management, rich bonuses averaging 33% of pay and outrageous rewards for meeting certain goals. In 2011 every employee received a voucher for $50,000 to buy a new car, or $35,000 cash (prorated based on hire date).  Fortune has reached out to Hilcorp and will update this story if the company responds.