Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 24 June 2017
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.
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Global
Oil recovery loses steam as supply concerns persist (Investing.com) A modest recovery by oil Friday from 10-month lows lost steam as the commodity remained on track for its fifth weekly loss in a row as supply concerns persist. U.S. crude was up $0.07, or 0.16%, at $42.81 at 07:10 ET. Brent was up $0.09, or 0.20%, to $45.31. An increase in U.S. output has undermined the impact on inventories of output cuts by major producers. OPEC and non-OPEC producers have agreed to curb output by 1.8 million barrels a day. The accord was extended in May for another nine months to March of next year.
Capitalism Can Thrive Without Cooking the Planet (Bloomberg) Many countries are producing more while cutting carbon emissions. In environmentalist circles, there’s a common trope that for humanity to prevent catastrophic climate change, economic growth must stop. This idea has helped to turn what should be a hard-headed, rational debate into a partisan political one — many on the right suspect that climate-change activism is a thin veneer for a socialist plot to throttle the economies of the rich world, while some on the left embrace the notion of an inherent contradiction between capitalism and sustainability. But this partisanship is unnecessary, because the trope is wrong. Economic growth is perfectly compatible with cutting pollutants that contribute to global warming like carbon dioxide.
U.S.
Why I Dissented Again (Medium) Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari explains why he did not support the Fed’s rate hike this week:
” … at the same time the unemployment rate was dropping, core inflation was also dropping, and inflation expectations remained flat to slightly down at very low levels. We don’t yet know if that drop in core inflation is transitory. In short, the economy is sending mixed signals: a tight labor market and weakening inflation.
For me, deciding whether to raise rates or hold steady came down to a tension between faith and data.”
Trump Didn’t Record Comey, White House Tells House Intel Panel (Bloomberg) President Donald Trump didn’t record his conversations with ousted FBI Director James Comey, the White House confirmed in a notice sent to the House Intelligence Committee on Friday. The two-paragraph letter to the committee, signed not by White House Counsel Don McGahn but by Marc Short, assistant to the president for legislative affairs, simply referred the committee to a statement Trump made on Twitter earlier in the week.
A Second, Even Bigger Foreclosure Reaches NYC Billionaires’ Row (Bloomberg) Another luxury condo at Manhattan’s One57 is scheduled for a foreclosure auction — the second time in a month that a property seizure is being sought at the Billionaires’ Row tower following a mortgage default. And it might be the biggest in New York City residential history. See also The Hidden Mortgage Delinquency Crisis.
Apartment 79, a full-floor penthouse that was the eighth-priciest sold in the building, is scheduled for auction on July 19, according to real estate data firm PropertyShark. The owner of the condo, a shell company listed in public records as One57 79 Inc., bought the 6,240-square-foot (580-square-meter) residence in December 2014 for $50.9 million, according to New York City records.
In September 2015, the company took out a $35.3 million mortgage from lender Banque Havilland SA, based in Luxembourg. The full payment of the loan was due one year later, according to court documents filed in connection with the foreclosure. The borrower failed to repay, and now Banque Havilland is forcing a sale to recoup the funds, plus interest.
UK
Hundreds of high-rise homes in London evacuated over fire risk fears (MarketWatch) Some 800 households are being moved from five residential towers in north London, a local authority said late Friday, after the buildings failed to pass fire safety checks prompted by last week’s lethal blaze in a public housing high-rise.
The decision was made Friday evening after checks revealed that the external cladding on the public housing buildings was not fire retardant and after residents of the towers in London’s Camden district expressed concerns over fire safety arrangements, said Georgia Gould, head of the Camden borough council in north London.
Brexit One Year Later, in Five Charts (Frank Holmes, U.S. Global Investors) FH has contributed to GEI. In some areas (but not all) the UK has fallen behind. Here are four of the charts:
China
China’s top banking regulator tells banks to push forward with reform (Investing.com) China’s top banking regulator has told banks to reform by tackling China’s “zombie firms”, control regional housing market bubbles and push forward with debt to equity swaps, according to a statement posted on the regulator’s website late Friday.
Guo Shuqing, who was appointed chairman of China’s banking regulator in February, met with representatives from a number of the country’s largest commercial banks on Friday to check up on their progress implementing the central government’s reform agenda.
Beijing is promoting supply-side structural reform as a solution to industrial capacity and cutting its reliance on debt-driven growth policies. Guo has vowed to clean up “chaos” in the country’s banking system.
Australia
Three charts on: how part-time work is growing more slowly, but more men are doing it (The Conversation)
