Early Bird Headlines 26 August 2015
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, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.
Global
- World trade suffers biggest fall in 6 years (Financial Times) World trade recorded its biggest contraction since the financial crisis in the first half of this year. Has globalization has peaked?
- Why banning the mammoth ivory trade would be a huge mistake (The Conversation) There is widely held belief that the only way we can protect globally endangered species that are being poached for the international wildlife trade is to completely ban the trade. This is a dangerous misconception and will speed up extinction rather than prevent it. With mammoth tusks being dug up in Siberia and sold as elephant tusks there are arguments that these materials should be included in the elephant tusk ban. This author disagrees and quotes research that has found a variety of bans significantly increased demand.
- How to Build Industrial Robots That Don’t Kill Humans (Bloomberg Brief) In June this year a robot crushed a man to death in a Volkswagen factory in Germany. The 22-year-old maintenance worker became trapped between a large robotic arm and a metal plate, in an area usually off-bounds to humans. The tragic incident highlighted a major technological challenge: As we move towards an increasingly automated world, how do we reach a point where robots and humans can exist side-by-side, sharing space and collaborating on tasks?
U.S.
- Support of Iran deal grows in Congress (Financial Times) The White House is on the verge of securing the votes it needs to prevent Congress from blocking the nuclear agreement with Iran despite fierce opposition from Republicans and a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign against the deal. A steady trickle of Democrats has come out in favor of the deal in recent days.
- Larry Summers and Ray Dalio flag return of quantitative easing (Financial Times) Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary, and Ray Dalio, head of the world’s biggest hedge fund manager, this week indicated that the US central bank should consider restarting its “quantitative easing” program to counter deflationary dangers and ameliorate tensions on financial markets.
UK
- Severe weather warning for Met Office as BBC freezes it out (The Conversation) At a time when government is reducing spending, it is natural that the Met Office should seek to maximize income and the BBC should seek to cut costs, leading to the current schism. The result is the weather contract for the BBC, held by The Met since 1922 is not up for renewal. This article concludes that both parties are losers in this outcome, and thus so is the public.
Turkey
- Turkey: Erdoğan is forcing his people to take sides (The Conversation) Ever since the June 2015 elections, which thwarted the proposed presidential system that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long craved, Turkey has been hurtling into one of its most turbulent periods in decades. And with a snap election called for November 2015, the country’s political factions are facing off in an ever more violent and bitter fashion. Polarization has been a problem for Turkey for a long time: right versus left, Kurd versus Turk, Alevi versus Sunni, secular versus non-secular. But now, the division between supporters of the AKP – Erdoğan’s party – and their rivals has become one of the country’s biggest fissures.
Japan
- A Sprawl of Ghost Homes in Aging Tokyo Suburbs (The New York Times) Hat tip to Rob Carter. Japan’s population peaked two years ago. Now in a population downtrend the country needs fewer homes but developers are still building. Older structures end up being abandoned.
- Japanese Nikkei Rebounds, up 3.2%. (Investing.com)
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China
- Questions over Li Keqiang’s future amid China market turmoil (Financial Times) The China-led turmoil that has rocked global markets in the past two weeks has also shaken the ruling Communist party and left Li Keqiang, the prime minister, fighting for his political future, according to analysts and people familiar with the internal workings of the party.
- China gives banks more leeway and pumps liquidity to the system (Merco Press) China’s central bank cut interest rates and lowered the amount of reserves banks must hold for the second time in two months on Tuesday, ratcheting up support for a stuttering economy and a plunging stock market that has sent shock waves around the globe.
- China Continues Crash, but Slower (Investing.com) At the close the Shanghai Composite is down ‘only’ 1.3%, the smallest daily decline in the last five sessions.
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