Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 27 March 2018
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, published Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 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
- Asia markets get a boost as trade tensions ease; Nikkei adds more than 2% (CNBC) Asian stocks rose on Tuesday after Wall Street rebounded on the first day of the trading week as China and the U.S. moved to ease trade tensions. The dollar index was steady at 89.066 at 11:47 a.m. HK/SIN. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $65.71 a barrel at 0142 GMT, up $0.16 (0.2%). Brent crude futures were at $70.25 per barrel, up $0.13, or 0.2%. Spot gold fell 0.1% to $1,352.40 per ounce at 0111 GMT.
- Overstretched cities (The Guardian) In just two generations Lagos, Nigeria, grew 100-fold, from under 200,000 people to nearly 20 million. This explosive rate of growth indicates that future cities might reach or exced 100 million each. Will this means mankind’s salvation or the advent of an eco-disaster? The question: Is 21st century urbanisation out of control? See Population predictions for the world’s largest cities in the 21st century (Environment and Urbanization)
- Corporate Balance Sheets are Overleveraged (The Daily Shot) According to Merrill Lynch, a record number of fund managers now say that “global corporate balance sheets are overleveraged“.
U.S.
- Poll: Trump’s approval rating highest in nearly a year (The Hill) President Trump’s approval rating jumped to its highest point in roughly 11 months but remains underwater, a survey released Monday found:
The CNN poll, conducted from March 22-25, showed Trump with a 42 percent approval rating, up 7 points from the network’s same poll last month. Meanwhile, 54 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance.
Trump got positive marks on his handling of the economy, where 48 percent of people approve of his performance, compared to 45 percent who disapprove.
- ‘It’s chaos. . . . It’s not good for anything’: After rejecting Trump’s offer, Ted Olson admonishes him (The Washington Post) See also Two more attorneys turn down offer to represent Trump (The Hill). Former George W. Bush administration solicitor general Ted Olson last week turned down President Trump’s entreaties to join his legal team for the Russia investigation. And now Olson is explaining what seems to be his reasoning. Olson said Monday on MSNBC‘s Andrea Mitchell Reports:
“I think everybody would agree: This is turmoil, it’s chaos, it’s confusion, it’s not good for anything. We always believe that there should be an orderly process, and, of course, government is not clean or orderly ever. But this seems to be beyond normal.”
- White House attacks Stormy Daniels’ credibility after TV interview (The Guardian) The White House has attacked the credibility of Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who spoke out on US TV on Sunday night about her alleged affair with the president and threats she said she received. Concurrently, the legal battle between Daniels and Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, grew fiercer. In response to letter from Cohen’s attorney, Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) added Cohen to a lawsuit previously filed against Trump, saying he had defamed her by claiming she lied about her relationship with the president. Speaking from the podium of the White House press briefing room on Monday afternoon (hours after Cohen’s own lawyer, Brent Blakely, wrote to Daniels’ attorney to say she had made false and defamatory comments, “namely that [Cohen] was responsible for an alleged thug who supposedly visited” and threatened her) administration spokesman Raj Shah said:
“With respect to that interview, I will say the president strongly, clearly has consistently denied these underlying claims. The only person who’s been inconsistent is the one making the claims.”
- Renewables Now Contribute Nearly One-Fifth of U.S. Electricity Generation (EcoWatch) Renewable energy now makes up 18% of total electrical generation in the U.S., roughly double the amount a decade ago, a new report shows. According to the sixth annual Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, which outlines key U.S. energy trends, renewable energy output in the power sector soared to a record high last year and could eventually rival nuclear.
- Is West Texas Sinking Into a Hole of Its Own Making? (LiveScience) Parts of West Texas are sinking (and other parts quaking and shaking) thanks to oil and gas extraction. A new study using satellite data to measure ground changes near Pecos, Monahans, Wink and Kermit, Texas, finds multiple disturbances, including places where the ground is sinking up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) a year. In one spot, the ground dropped so much that it formed a new lake, Lake Boehmer. This area of the oil-rich Permian basin is relatively sparsely populated, but hydrocarbon extraction there is booming, and the area is crisscrossed with roadways and pipelines for moving oil and gas.
EU
- The EU’s misguided tax on tech giants is doomed to fail (City A.M.) Amid the moral panic about “tech giants“, trust the European Union to lead the way with a ham-fisted proposal to “level the playing field“. Politicians on the continent have worried for years about the tax planning of these (usually American) super-firms. Last week, they issued a proposal to deal with the perceived problem: allow individual countries to tax the local revenues of these giants at a 3% rate.
The aim? To compensate for the fact that, according to the EU, digital firms pay an effective corporate tax rate of 9.5 per cent, compared to the 23.3 per cent faced by “bricks and mortar” firms.
Developing a whole new tax base (revenues rather than profit) for a relatively small number of companies seems a dramatic – and arbitrary – course of action. And it throws up all sorts of problems, some of which require further carve-outs and convolutions of the tax system.
- Don’t rule out EU-US trade renegotiations after Trump’s tariff ‘threats’ (CNBC) In what has transpired so far it seems that the EU may have some negotiation leverage with the Trump administration after all.
UK
- Taxman to face grilling as MPs question where missing VAT billions go (City A.M.) The Treasury Select Committee will investigate the so-called tax gap, with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) collecting significantly less value-added tax (VAT) than it estimates it should every year. In the 2015-2016 tax year as much as £12.6 billion ($17.9 billion) was not collected. HMRC defends itself by saying the UK has one of the smallest tax gaps in the world, and that investments in new digital technology will further improve its collection efforts.
Russia
- The next Russian attack will be far worse than bots and trolls (Brookings) Russian government hackers infiltrated critical infrastructures in the U.S. – including “energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.” According to the DHS-FBI report, malicious Russian activities have been ongoing since at least March 2016. The Russian malware, which has been sitting in the control systems of various U.S. utilities, allows the Russians to shut off power or sabotage the energy grids. And they have done it before: The same malware that took down Ukraine’s electrical grid in 2015 and 2016 has been detected in U.S. utilities. The potential damage of a nationwide black out – let’s say on Election Day – would be significant, to say the least. And while Russian trolls and bots have captured public attention, they are already yesterday’s game. As the author wrote in a recent Brookings paper, the future of political warfare is in the cyber domain. See also A New Cold War With Russia? No, It’s Worse Than That (The New York Times)
China
- China’s radical plan to limit the populations of Beijing and Shanghai (The Guardian) In the weaving alleys of Shanghai’s Laoximen district, swathes of residential buildings sit empty. The historic area in the heart of the city is being slowly demolished, and many residents have already abandoned it, leaving behind rows of traditional terraced houses with boarded-up windows and demolition signs on the doors. Laoximen is one of a number of neighbourhoods in Shanghai to be “upgraded” in the city’s relentless race for modernity. The redevelopments are a reaction to the city’s runaway growth, and key contributors to the first population falls in Shanghai and Beijing for decades. Shanghai and Beijing implemented population caps last year – and official data shows the policy might already be having an effect.
- U.S. Asks China to ‘Immediately Halt’ Ban on Foreign Waste (EcoWatch) Last year, China, which is the world’s largest importer of waste, announced it no longer wanted to take in other countries’ trash so it could focus on its own pollution problems. This unexpected policy shift, which took effect Jan. 1, has left exporters in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Germany and other European countries scrambling for solutions for their growing mountains of trash, the The New York Times reported.
Australia
- You’re paying too much for electricity, but here’s what the states can do about it (The Conversation) A new report has found that Tasmanians, Queenslanders and New South Welshmen are paying $100-$400 a year for unnecessary infrastructure.
- The great tax swindle: how concessions and exemptions benefit the wealthiest (The Guardian) Econintersect: Another example that raises again the question of who are the makers and who are the takers. In Australia, according to ythis author, more is spent keeping the wealthiest households wealthy than on Newstart or the disability support pension:
A report by Anglicare has found that eight of the largest tax concessions and exemptions cost just over $135bn a year in revenue foregone, and all disproportionately benefit high income and high wealth households. Anglicare’s report, The Cost of Privilege, uses research undertaken by Per Capita to highlight that some $68.5bn worth of taxation concessions and exemption goes to the wealthiest 20% of Australian households – more than the $68.1bn annual cost of the disability support pension (DSP) and assistance to families and children.
