Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 11 January 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
Asian shares extend losses as China sows confusion (Reuters) Asian shares sank to their lowest in over four years on Monday as doubts mounted about Beijing’s ability to manage the world’s second-biggest economy. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slid 1.8% to its lowest since late 2011. China’s main indexes .CSI300.SSEC slumped more than 3% at one point, Australia slipped 1.25% percent and the Philippines .PSI dropped 3.8%. Financial spreadbetters IG predicted opening losses of 0.5% for the FTSE 100.FTSE, 1.5% for the DAX .GDAXI and 1.2% for France’s CAC .FCHI.
Around the world in 80 payments – global moves to a cashless economy (The Conversation) The near death of personal cheques, increase in debit and credit card use, and innovations such as PayPal, Square, Apple Pay and Bitcoin, have led us to believe the cashless society is well within our reach. But data from Retail Banking Research, one of the most authoritative sources in the area, suggests that even though cashless payments are growing rapidly across the world, hard currency remains resilient.
U.S.
With no weekend winner, Powerball jackpot swells to $1.3B (Associated Press) There were no winners in the $949 million Power Ball Lottery Saturday. The next drawing is scheduled for Wednesday when the jackpot is expected to exceed $1.3 billion.
UK
Housing crisis hits 1960s levels as tenants battle to cope, says Shelter (The Guardian) More than half of the people living in private rented accommodation say they are struggling to pay for it. A YouGov poll of more than 4,500 people for housing charity Shelter shows that 53% were finding it hard to pay their rent, and a further 3% were falling behind on payments.
Where can you afford to buy a house? (The Guardian) For the average annual income, 91% of locations have average house purchase prices beyond a family’s means. For southern England, much of house purchase requires more than 6x the average annual income, and drawing a circle around London that would include Cambridge, Oxford, Canterbury and Brighton the income required in more than half the locations is more than 10x average income.
Click for interactive graphic at The Guardian.
Germany
Sex attacks row forces Merkel to defend her policies from racism (The Conversation) Germans are divided on the refugee issue.
Egypt
Egypt holds first parliament in more than three years (Al Jazeera) Among items before legislature are presidential decrees to severely restrict demonstrations and curb press freedoms.
Saudi Arabia
Exclusive: Saudi Aramco would sell downstream ops, not upstream – sources (Reuters) The public company would be a spin-off of refining ventures with foreign oil firms but would not offer a stake in the crude oil exploration and production operations of state oil giant Saudi Aramco. The Saudis will keep full ownership of their reserves.
South Korea
U.S. may deploy more strategic assets to Korean peninsula: South Korea (Reuters) The United States and its ally South Korea are in talks toward sending further strategic U.S. assets to the Korean peninsula, a day after a U.S. B-52 bomber flew over South Korea in response to North Korea’s nuclear test last week.
China
China will find it tough to achieve over 6.5 percent growth over 2016-2020: state adviser (Reuters) China will face great difficulty in achieving economic growth above 6.5 percent over the 2016-2020 period due to slowing global demand and rising labor costs at home, the China Securities Journal quotes a top state adviser as saying. Li Wei, president of the State Council’s Development Research Centre, made the comments at a conference over the weekend, the newspaper reported on Monday. He said the main impeding factors were a likely global economic slowdown, rising labor costs that were eroding China’s competitive advantage, and growing environmental concerns which meant that the country could not industrialize arable land at as rapid a pace as before.
Venezuela
Maduro Hands Venezuela’s Economy to Socialist Inflation Denier (Bloomberg) Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro named new economy and finance ministers, appointing a man (39-year-old Luis Salas, a university professor) who has blamed the world’s fastest inflation on the country’s “parasitic” business class in a move that will heighten tension with the new opposition-dominated congress.
Canada
Ontario’s Nipigon River bridge fails, severing Trans-Canada Highway (CBC) A newly constructed bridge in northern Ontario has failed, indefinitely closing the Trans-Canada highway – the only road connecting Eastern and Western Canada. Spectators say that a gust of wind lifted the roadbed of the bridge and set it down displaced by about half a meter (more than 1 and a half feet). It took police more than 30 minutes to arrive. Meanwhile several vehicles smashed front ends into the concrete roadway after flying over the displaced bridge.
