Some headlines today are about the US unemployment rate falling to a 50-year low of 3.5% on Friday, which they did against a payrolls report showing no major wage pressures and very slightly weaker-than-expected job gains. Has anything changed on that front really? No. Labour markets still lag, not lead, and won't be leading us into a US, then global, downturn.

Some headlines today are about second sets of first-hand whistleblowers, as the US #Ukrainegate scandal continues to blow on and on - alongside more leaks of alleged past presidential phone calls to world leaders that underline why they might have needed to be made more secure of late. Has anything changed on that front really? No. This is still political and as partisan as it gets – and Trump is doing his usual thing of escalating rather than retreating when under pressure, upping the ante for both sides.

Another major headline today is that we are, once again, in a crucial Brexit week. French President Macron has apparently given UK PM Johnson until the end of this week to come up with a final, final plan B for Brexit, after which the die is apparently cast as it will be too late to offer anything substantial to the EU Summit on 17 October. We have genuine suggestions in the UK press that if the Plan B is only fit for the Plan Bin, and so Hard Brexit looms, that BoJo may then variously: 1) Refuse to quit as PM, even if another Prime Minister is selected by the Rebel Alliance in parliament, instead waiting in 10 Downing Street for the Queen to fire him or the police to arrive; 2) Ask Hungary to veto an EU extension to the end-October Brexit date; or 3) Sign an extension, but make clear he will appoint Nigel Farage as UK EU Commissioner, and will then veto the next EU budget and sabotage the union from within. Clearly a massive game of Brexit bluff and double-bluff is going on. So no change there. And epic miscalculations are close to being made. So no change there either.

Yet perhaps the most important headline today is Bloomberg reporting that Chinese trade negotiators arriving in the US this week are apparently showing reticence to address any of the structural causes of China's trade surplus (i.e., subsidies and non-tariff barriers, etc.) because they feel Trump is weakened and hence desperate for a deal. There should be no surprise on the Chinese refusal to address its structural economic model: that is something I have reiterated would be the case time and again, and is the key reason why we do not expect a real deal to be done. So no change there.