Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 19 May 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
Asia markets pricing in possibility of imminent Fed hike; Nikkei gains, ASX, HSI down (CNBC) The Federal Reserve’s April minutes upped the prospect of an interest rate hike, sending the dollar higher and spurring divergent performance in Asia markets on Thursday.
Japan’s Abe: G7 sees need to boost demand, address supply constraints (Reuters) G7 leaders agree on the need to take measures to boost global demand and eliminate factors that hamper productivity amid lingering risks to the world economy, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday. Japan will host a summit of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies in western Japan next week, where policy steps to address subdued global growth will be high on the agenda.
LinkedIn Warns Users To Reset Passwords As 117M Logins For Sale On Dark Web (Forbes) LinkedIn has confirmed a significant breach from 2012 was worse than first thought, with the number of leaked usernames and passwords rising from 6.5 million to a purported 117 million. Earlier this week, fresh LinkedIn credentials went on sale on a dark web market known as The Real Deal. The same dealer, who goes by the name Peace, recently flogged millions of details on users of the Naughty America porn website at just $300. He is now offering 117 million LinkedIn usernames and passwords for a considerably higher price: 5 Bitcoin, worth approximately $2,200.
Migrant crisis: Majority would welcome refugees – survey (BBC News) A majority of people (80%) would accept refugees in their country, with many even ready to take them into their own home, a global survey suggests. The Refugees Index, research commissioned by Amnesty International, indicates that China, Germany and the UK are the most welcoming nations. It also suggests that the most negative attitudes towards refugees are in Russia, Indonesia and Thailand. The survey questioned 27,000 people in 27 nations.
The new normal that never was (Voxeu.org) This is a perceptive critique of the global economy since the Great Financial Crisis. Here is the intro:
The ‘New Normal’ never was, isn’t, and should be replaced by the ‘New Abnormal’. In the wake of the Global Crisis, the idea that the global economy had entered a low-growth equilibrium gained a curious acceptance. In reality, the situation is far from ‘normal’, and the attempt to characterize it as such has been deceptive, disingenuous, and dangerous.
Instead, economists, policymakers, and investors would be better advised to think of the world economy as being in a period of profound disequilibrium, as the aftershocks of the Crisis collide with and complicate a range of structural changes. Ever since the onset of the Crisis in 2007-08, the global economy has been repeatedly flirting with a descent into an even more damaging deflationary depression. Policymakers have averted this only by a combination of luck, judgment, and experimentation.
U.S.
Why US cities are segregated by race: New evidence on the role of ‘white flight’ (Voxeu.org) The traditional view that “white flight” which produced a rising concentration of blacks in urban centers was a post-WW II phenomenon.. This study has found otherwise:
In new research, we argue that whites began resorting themselves away from black arrivals in the first decades of the 20th century, decades before the opening of the suburbs (Shertzer and Walsh 2016). Our analysis isolates the channel of white flight from institutional barriers that constrained where blacks could live in cities. We argue that accelerating white population departures in response to black arrivals at the neighborhood level can explain up to 34% of the increase in segregation over the 1910s and 50% over the 1920s. Importantly, our analysis suggests that, while discriminatory institutions faced by blacks were clearly important, segregation may have emerged in US cities even in their absence simply as a consequence of market choices made by white families.
Here’s the Thing So Many Americans Can’t Grasp About Bernie Sanders (Observer) A matey from Oz describes how the rest of the world sees the man Americans perceive as “the reincarnation of Karl Marx” who wants to “turn the U.S. into a communist state“. And that he is “so far left of center that he’s basically off the chart“. This author says that the countries in the world that far outrank the U.S. in happiness metrics see Sanders as a slightly left of center politician.
Holy Smokes! USA Today Doesn’t Know Where Colorado Is (The Huffington Post) USA Today has corrected the map – see When smuggling Colo. pot, not even the sky’s the limit. Here is what they published originally:
UK
Superforecasters See 23% Brexit Chance as Economy Wins Out (Bloomberg) Polls have been indicating a close call for the Brexit referendum next month, but forecasters see the probabilities much more definitive for a “stay” outcome.
Egypt
EgyptAir says flight from Paris to Cairo missing with 66 on board (Reuters) National carrier EgyptAir said a plane carrying 66 passengers and crew on a flight from Paris to Cairo went missing on Thursday, disappearing from radar over the Mediterranean Sea.
Japan
Japan’s GDP growth surprises with 1.7% gain (Market Watch) Japan’s economy grew much more than expected in the first three months of 2016 due to stronger than forecast consumer and government spending and demand for Japanese goods overseas, possibly easing pressure on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to launch more fiscal stimulus to help spur growth. Gross domestic product expanded an annualized 1.7% on quarter in the January-March period, according to government data released Wednesday. That was larger than a 0.3% increase forecast by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal, and came after a revised 1.7% decline in the last quarter of 2015. So, for the last two quarters Japan cumulative GDP growth was nearly flat.
China
Earlier imbalances in China’s economy are making a comeback (Business Insider) China appears to be pumping the housing market to try to offset weakness in other sectors. Chinese new home prices continued to push higher in April, logging the fastest annual increase in two years. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), new home prices rose by 6.2% from April 2015, an acceleration on the 4.9% pace seen in the 12 months to March.
Australia
Aussie economy slowing as wage growth falls to lowest rate on record: stats (Xinhuanet) The average Australian salary rose just 2.1% in the last year – the lowest rate in recorded history, in a further sign the nation’s economy continues to slow. See also next article.
Hours Worked Decline Accelerates (Twitter) See also preceding article. Hours worked has declined nearly 6% since 2009 and 1.2% so far this year.
Brazil
Will Brazil be able to overcome domestic turmoil ahead of the Olympic Games? (The Conversation) With the president impeached and removed from office and the country in the grip of a crippling recession, some are starting to question whether Brazil is still in a position to host the sporting mega-event. There are fewer than 100 days to go until the opening of the games.
Venezuela
Venezuela security forces block anti-Maduro protesters (Reuters) Venezuelan security forces fired tear gas at protesters in Caracas on Wednesday amid nationwide rallies demanding a recall referendum to end President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist rule. In the third day of opposition rallies in the past week, several thousand protesters descended on downtown Caracas for a march to the national election board, witnesses said. But National Guard soldiers and police cordoned off the square where they planned to meet, so protesters instead milled in nearby streets waving flags, chanting “the government will fall” and pressing up against lines. Authorities shot tear gas to disperse them several times, sending hundreds of panicked people running down streets. A few demonstrators were arrested and one young man was carried off unconscious, according to Reuters witnesses.
