Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 29 June 2016
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 higher as markets calm after post-Brexit jitters spurred $3 trillion global rout (CNBC) Asia markets traded higher on Wednesday, following gains across U.S. and Europe on Tuesday as jitters eased after the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union (EU) spurred a $3 trillion post-Brexit global rout.
U.S.
Oil-rigged states face a full-blown economic budget crisis (CNBC) Legislators in a handful of oil-rich states are struggling to do the seemingly impossible as the 2016 fiscal year draws to a close this week: balancing their budgets, as required by law, despite massive declines in revenues due to falling oil prices. The National Conference of State Legislatures says nearly a dozen states still had not enacted budgets for the new fiscal year as of mid-June. Some – including oil states Louisiana and Alaska – are facing a full-blown budget crisis. Even after painful cuts, budget gaps in those two states alone total nearly $4 billion.
I, Snowbot (New York Magazine) A man that the CIA reportedly had on a drone-kill list in 2013 (and may still have him there, for all Econintersect knows) has been freely roaming around the U.S. recently.
Trump Returns the Republican Party to Its 19th-Century Protectionist Roots (New York Magazine) This article says that Donald Trump has called for a turn “back to the spirit of Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley, whose tariff of 1930 may have deepened and lengthened the Great Depression“. We had a video of Trump’s speech in What We Read Today (yesterday) which had some technical hiccups so we will try again with the video below. Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from this article:
Throughout the 2016 presidential cycle, Donald Trump has been that rare Republican willing to attack not only future (like the Obama-sponsored Trans-Pacific Partnership) but past (NAFTA) multilateral trade agreements. But by and large, this candidate who never really embraced systematic thinking mostly talked of trade policy as something that he would improve via his personal negotiating genius. Uncle Sam might still play the trade game, but he’d no longer be Uncle Sucker, being constantly out-maneuvered by swarthy or sallow foreigners.
But now, in a speech delivered in the Rust Belt state of Pennsylvania, Trump has gone High Protectionist, rejecting not just this or that trade deal but the whole idea of globalization, which he regards as a politicians’ trick on The Folks, who have watched helplessly as Bill and Hillary Clinton sold out their birthright of manufacturing jobs for a mess of Wall Street pottage. Trump sounds like Bernie Sanders on a very bad, dyspeptic day
On right, some Benghazi panel members wanted to get tougher with Clinton (The Hill) Reps. Mike Pompeo (Kan.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio) released their own 48-page addendum to the GOP majority’s 800-page report released by the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Tuesday. While the main report is critical of the Obama administration’s response to the terror attack, the addendum is more scathing of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in particular. Pompeo and Jordan accuse Clinton, the State Department and the Obama administration of inventing a cover-up story to avoid risk of losing the presidential election which was just 56 days away.
Ambassador’s sister: I don’t blame Clinton for Benghazi (The Hill) The sister of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, said she doesn’t blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for what happened. Anne Stevens told The New Yorker:
“It is clear, in hindsight, that the facility was not sufficiently protected by the State Department and the Defense Department. But what was the underlying cause? Perhaps if Congress had provided a budget to increase security for all missions around the world, then some of the requests for more security in Libya would have been granted. Certainly the State Department is underbudgeted.”
Is Elizabeth Warren Native American? Here’s the Mass. Senator’s Heritage Explained (News.MIC) As Hillary Clinton further aligns her campaign with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump continues to double down on his attacks on Warren’s Native American ancestry. The reality TV star and real estate billionaire routinely accuses Warren of lying about her heritage, sarcastically referring to the senator as “Pocahontas.” “She’s got about as much Indian blood as I have,” Trump told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in March. “Her whole life was based on a fraud. She got into Harvard and all that because she said she was a minority.” This article says that “Warren’s great-great-great-grandmother Sarah Smith was of the Cherokee tribe. Smith’s 1894 marriage license application described her as Cherokee” as reported in a family genealogy newsletter in 2006. The document has not been located. In 2012 CNN reported that: “The New England Historic Genealogical Society provided CNN with initial research last week, showing several members of Warren’s maternal family claiming Cherokee heritage.”
UK
Labour crisis: Jeremy Corbyn refuses to resign after losing confidence of 172 MPs as Angela Eagle eyes up leadership challenge (The Telegraph) Jeremy Corbyn is expected to continue his battle for control of the Labour Party on Wednesday after losing a vote of no confidence in his leadership (172 votes to 40). Angela Eagle has emerged as a likely challenger to the embattled leader and was the most senior member of the shadow cabinet to resign amid the chaos as scores of members of Mr Corbyn’s top team deserted him. Tom Watson is considered another potential candidate.
Cameron tells EU leaders they must offer UK more control over immigration (The Guardian) British Prime Minister David Cameron warned Europe’s leaders that they will have to offer the UK more control over immigration at the end of a fractious day where politicians across Europe clashed over the meaning and consequences of last week’s Brexit vote. Cameron used his last Brussels summit to tell Angela Merkel, François Hollande and other European heads of government that anxieties about unrestricted freedom of movement were at the heart of the decision by Britons to reject the EU.
EU Referendum: Did the polls all get it wrong again? (BBC News) While a few of the pollsters got the referendum result almost spot-on, others meant that studying the polls failed to give a clear indication of what the outcome would be on the morning of 24 June. Many people believed that there would be a late shift to Remain in the final days. And the very final polls to be published gave credence to that view. Clearly, they gave a misleading picture. Looking at the last polls published by each of the main pollsters, the majority of them over-estimated support for Remain, by varying amounts.
Germany
Merkel Says No Way Back From Brexit as Cameron Regrets Loss (Bloomberg) European Union leaders said there could be no turning back for the U.K. after Prime Minister David Cameron used his last EU summit to express disappointment at his failure to win the referendum he called on Britain’s membership. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the meeting in Brussels on Tuesday:
“As of this evening, I see no way back from the Brexit vote. This is no time for wishful thinking, but rather to grasp reality.”
German town hails Syrian refugee ‘hero’ for turning in €150,000 (The Guardian) Police in Minden, Germany, say a Syrian man who arrived last year as a refugee is their “hero of the day” after he found €150,000 (£124,000, $167,000) and handed it to authorities. The 25-year-old discovered the money in a cupboard he had been given by a charitable organization. Minden police said on Tuesday that the man had found about €50,000 in cash and savings books containing more than €100,000 hidden under a board while assembling the furniture.
Turkey
Turkey airport attack: 36 killed in explosions at Istanbul Atatürk (The Guardian) A series of deadly explosions tore through crowds at Istanbul’s Atatürk international airport on Tuesday evening, leaving at least 36 people dead and scores more injured in an attack officials blamed on the Islamic State terror group. Shortly before the blasts, assailants armed with AK-47 rifles became involved in a firefight with security and police near the airport’s x-ray security checkpoint. When last evening’s What We Read Today was published the death toll stood at 28.
Japan
Japan’s entire yield curve BELOW 0.1% for the first time on record (Twitter) (Econintersect: Could the entire yield curve out to 40 years go negative? What would an entirely negative positively sloping yield curve mean? Note: for the second graphic here is the link contained therein – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okonomiyaki)