OPEC production went from 30 million barrels a day to 33 million. They flooded the market, and it's lost them a lot of money. Look at the Saudis: they just floated a $17.5 billion debt offering, they earlier borrowed $10 billion from a group of international banks; they're selling part of Aramco - they're desperate for money.
Gary ShillingYes, we're in a protectionist era because when you have lack of domestic growth, everybody tries to unload the problem on foreigners with protectionism, devaluations, cutbacks on imports. But is there going to be a dramatic change? TPP is dead anyway, and similar deals in the eurozone are going nowhere.
Gary Shilling[Donald Trump] is so unpredictable that foreigners are going to look around and say "boy, we've got to head for the safe havens." And one of the safe havens is Treasurys and [another is] the dollar.
Gary ShillingA [Donald] Trump win might be bad for stocks, but it would be very positive for the dollar and Treasurys.
Gary ShillingIf you look back historically at the post-WWII period on average, if you get a 100-basis-point increase in Fed funds, the spillover to the ten-year is only 35 basis points, and 25 basis points into the 30-year - it's a fairly small spillover effect.
Gary Shilling