Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 23 January 2018
Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, published Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.
Please share this article – Go to very top of page, right hand side for social media buttons.
​Global
- Asian stocks close mixed; investors focus on political developments (CNBC) Most Asian markets closed mixed on Monday as investors kept an eye on political developments in the U.S. after a government shutdown began last week. The dollar index traded up at 90.665. Brent crude futures were at $68.79 at 0053 GMT, up $0.18, or 0.26%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $63.53 a barrel, up $0.16, or 0.25%. Spot gold was mostly unchanged at $1,331.57 an ounce by 0310 GMT.
- Comparative Corporate Income Tax Rates (The Daily Shot) The new tax law brings the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate down to the middle of the pack. Of course this says nothing about the relative effective tax rates across the various countries.
- Oil Has Still Not Risen Enough for Many Countries (The Daily Shot) Which oil producing nations are still running fiscal deficits at the current crude oil price levels?
U.S.
- Senate adjourns without deal to end government shutdown; vote postponed until noon Monday (The Washington Post) The government shutdown headed into its third day after frantic efforts Sunday by a bipartisan group of moderate senators failed to produce a compromise on immigration and spending. The effects of the shutdown over the weekend were relatively limited – halting trash pickup on National Park Service property, canceling military reservists’ drill plans, and switching off some government employees’ cellphones.
But the shutdown continuing into Monday, the start of the workweek, means that hundreds of thousands of workers will stay home and key federal agencies will be affected. Passport and visa applications will go unprocessed, federal contractors will see payments delayed, and the Internal Revenue Service will slow its preparations for the coming tax season.
- The lesser-known effects of a government shutdown (CNN) What do NASA tours, Air Force Academy athletics and military base commissaries have in common? All have come to a halt during the current government shutdown. Military personnel will continue on duty but not be paid until the shutdown is resolved.
- Dreamers: Public Opinion (Fox News, Twitter)
- Graham: Stephen Miller makes immigration deal impossible (The Hill) GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) warned on Sunday that the White House staff is undercutting President Trump and Congress’s ability to get a deal on immigration. Graham told reporters as he headed into a closed-door negotiation with a bipartisan group of senators:
“Every time we have a proposal it is only yanked back by staff members. As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we’re going nowhere.”
- White House fires back at Graham: ‘He’s been an outlier for years’ (The Hill) The White House hit back at Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) comments calling White House aide Stephen Miller an “outlier” on immigration, using the same phrase to describe Graham’s stance on the topic. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement Sunday night, according to several reports:
“As long as Sen. Graham chooses to support legislation that sides with people in this country illegally and unlawfully instead of our own American citizens, we’re going nowhere. He’s been an outlier for years.”
- ‘Defiance Disorder’: Another new book describes chaos in Trump’s White House (The Washington Post) Like the books that came before it, and almost certainly like the ones still to come, Kurtz’s book, “Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press, And The War Over The Truth,” offers a portrait of a White House riven by chaos, with aides scrambling to respond to the president’s impulses and writing policy to fit his tweets, according to excerpts obtained by The Washington Post.
- Naturalization rate among U.S. immigrants up since 2005, with India among the biggest gainers (Pew Research Center) The total number of naturalized immigrants in the U.S. increased from 14.4 million in 2005 to 19.8 million in 2015, a 37% increase. Most of the United States’ 20 largest immigrant groups experienced increases in naturalization rates between 2005 and 2015, with India and Ecuador posting the biggest increases among origin countries, according to Pew Research Center estimates of immigrants eligible for U.S. citizenship.
EU
- Euro Advances (Twitter)
UK
- UK government questions Scottish bid to show Britain can alone revoke Brexit (Reuters) The British government believes the question of whether it alone can stop Brexit is irrelevant, since it does not intend to change its mind about leaving the European Union, according to its response to a legal challenge by Scottish lawmakers opposed to Brexit. But see also next article.
- How Britain Could Change Its Mind About Brexit (Project Syndicate) Anatole Kaletsky writes:
Nigel Farage, the former UK Independence Party leader, now says that the June 2016 Brexit referendum could be overturned. He’s right, and the first requirement is to dispel the aura of inevitability surrounding Britain’s withdrawal from Europe.
… diehard Euroskeptics would never have won a majority without some 20% of voters who cared little about Europe, but treated the referendum as a protest vote. Many of these low-conviction voters are now dismayed that Brexit has distracted attention from their real grievances about health, inequality, low wages, housing, and other issues. Yet, for this very reason, they want the inevitable departure from Europe to happen as quickly as possible so that the country can get back to business as usual.
Now suppose these voters began to believe that Brexit, far from being inevitable, might never happen. They would demand that politicians “should stop banging on about Europe” and start dealing with the people’s real concerns.
Germany​
- Merkel readies for intense German coalition talks after tight SPD vote (Reuters) German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives start preparing for formal coalition talks with the Social Democrats (SPD) on Monday, wasting no time after the center-left party narrowly voted to go ahead following months of political deadlock.
Turkey
- Turkish forces push into Syria, battle Kurdish militia (Reuters) Turkey’s army and rebel allies battled U.S.-backed Kurdish militia in Syria’s Afrin province on Sunday, stepping up a two-day-old campaign against YPG fighters that has opened a new front in Syria’s civil war.
Japan
- Japanese capital holds first North Korean missile attack drill (Reuters) Tokyo held its first missile evacuation drill on Monday with volunteers taking cover in subway stations and other underground spaces that would double as shelters for the Japanese capital in the event of a North Korean missile strike.
China
- China’s top paper says U.S. forcing China to accelerate South China Sea deployments (Reuters) China’s top newspaper, decrying Washington as a trouble-maker, said on Monday U.S. moves in the South China Sea like last week’s freedom of navigation operation will only cause China to strengthen its deployments in the disputed waterway.
