Written by Econintersect

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries (and sometimes longer ones) of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number included.

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Topics today include 20 articles and 11 graphics:​

• White Meat Can Raise Cholesterol As Much As Red Meat, New Study Shows
• Effects of red meat, white meat, and nonmeat protein sources on atherogenic lipoprotein measures in the context of low compared with high saturated fat intake: a randomized controlled trial
• Here Is A New Disease That You Can Get From Ticks
• A New Segmented Virus Associated with Human Febrile Illness in China
• The Great Depression: A Real Estate Boom Gone Bust
• A Brief History Of Doom: The New Kindleberger And Mackay
• Tariffs Are Taxes: Raising Costs And Killing Jobs
• Hidden Pivot Method: An Intoduction
• House Dems to supercharge legal battle against Trump admin with new powers for committee chairs
• House Oversight votes to hold Barr, Ross in contempt
• Trump says he didn’t expect cameras to capture contents of secret Mexico deal
• Early Voting Has Become More Popular
• Americans Say Government, Immigration Are Lead U.S. Woes
• Trump’s Approval and Disapproval Ratings are At or Near Records
• 25 maps that explain the English language
• Ancient invaders transformed Britain, but not its DNA
• Trump says he is ‘in no rush’ to make a nuclear deal with North Korea
• U.S., allies accuse North Korea of violating U.N. cap on fuel imports
• Uneasy calm in Hong Kong after day of violence over extradition bill
• A Cruel Irony: U.S.-China Tariffs Could Cripple U.S. Manufacturing And U.S. Economy
• And More

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Articles about events, conflicts and disease around the world

U.S.

• House Dems to supercharge legal battle against Trump admin with new powers for committee chairs (Fox News) House Democrats last Thursday unveiled a proposed resolution that would grant congressional committee chairs sweeping new powers to unilaterally “initiate” judicial proceedings to enforce subpoenas in federal court, as long as they first obtain the sign-off of a small, Democrat-dominated group of House leaders.
• House Oversight votes to hold Barr, Ross in contempt (The Hill) The House Oversight and Reform Committee voted largely along party lines on Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas. Rep. Justin Amash (R, MI) broke with his party to vote with the Democrats on the panel.

The high-stakes vote took place just hours after the Justice and Commerce departments announced that President Trump had asserted executive privilege over the subpoenaed documents, which were tied to the Trump administration’s addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

• Trump says he didn’t expect cameras to capture contents of secret Mexico deal (The Hill) President Trump on Wednesday expressed surprise that cameras captured some of the contents of a sheet of paper he claimed contained details of an undisclosed agreement between the U.S. and Mexico. Trump pulled the sheet of paper from his breast pocket as he left the White House on Tuesday for a trip to Iowa. He did not reveal any details about it, saying he would let Mexico share the specifics when it was ready to do so.
• Early Voting Has Become More Popular (A Shot of Politicis)

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• Americans Say Government, Immigration Are Lead U.S. Woes (Gallup)

• Nearly one in four Americans, 23%, name government as top problem
• Roughly two in 10, 21%, see immigration as nation’s major challenge
• Far more Republicans than Democrats cite immigration

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• Trump’s Approval and Disapproval Ratings are At or Near Records (A Shot of Politics)

UK

• 25 maps that explain the English language (Vox) Here are two interesting history maps. See also Ancient invaders transformed Britain, but not its DNA (New Scientist) – second map.

North Korea

• Trump says he is ‘in no rush’ to make a nuclear deal with North Korea (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was “in no rush” to make a deal with North Korea to get it to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, and touted what he called his positive relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
• U.S., allies accuse North Korea of violating U.N. cap on fuel imports (Reuters) The United States and dozens of allies have accused North Korea of breaching a U.N. sanctions cap on refined petroleum mainly through illicit transfers between ships at sea, according to a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

China

• Uneasy calm in Hong Kong after day of violence over extradition bill (Reuters) Hong Kong riot police and protesters braced for possible further clashes across the city’s financial district on Thursday after a day of violence over an extradition bill that would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial.
• A Cruel Irony: U.S.-China Tariffs Could Cripple U.S. Manufacturing And U.S. Economy (Seeking Alpha) Tariffs on virtually all Chinese imports (totaling about $540 billion annually) are scheduled to rise to 25% within the next few months unless an agreement is reached between the US and China and/or both sides postpone the implementation of the threatened tariffs.

Economists as a group – including those on President Trump’s economic team – have badly underestimated the impact that a US-China “trade war” could have on the US economy.

Ironically, the US manufacturing sector will be severely harmed by a sharp increase in US-China bilateral tariffs.

Most economists severely underestimate the importance that a shock to the US manufacturing supply chain would have on the overall US economy.

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Other Scientific, Health, Political, Economics, and Business Items of Note – plus Miscellanea

• White Meat Can Raise Cholesterol As Much As Red Meat, New Study Shows(LiveScience) White meat, such as chicken, may raise blood cholesterol levels as much as red meat does, a new, small study details. The finding surprised researchers, who didn’t expect that eating large amounts of poultry would lead to higher blood cholesterol levels. Of the three diets in the study – red meat, white meat and nonmeat proteins – only the plant-based diet was associated with healthy blood cholesterol levels, the researchers found. For research details see Effects of red meat, white meat, and nonmeat protein sources on atherogenic lipoprotein measures in the context of low compared with high saturated fat intake: a randomized controlled trial (The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)
• Here Is A New Disease That You Can Get From Ticks (Forbes) A new tick-born virus has been discovered in China called the Alongshan virus (ALSV), named after the town where it was discovered, Alongshan in Inner Mongolia, China. For research details see A New Segmented Virus Associated with Human Febrile Illness in China (The New England Journal of Medicine). Testing of the blood of other people in the region found 86 others who had been infected by this same type of virus and had histories of tick bites. According to the publication:

The most common symptoms in the patients assessed in this study were headache (69 patients) and fever (67 patients). Other clinical findings included fatigue (51 patients), depression (32 patients), coma (30 patients), poor appetite (27 patients), nausea (26 patients), myalgia or arthralgia (23 patients), and rash or petechiae (22 patients).

• The Great Depression: A Real Estate Boom Gone Bust (Delancyplace.com) Hat tip to Steve Keen. This is a brief exerpt from the book A Brief History of Doom by Richard Vague. This book was recently reviewed by Steve Keen: A Brief History Of Doom: The New Kindleberger And Mackay. Contrary to the explanation found in many histories of the Great Depression, that calamity was a massive real estate boom gone bust. Residential construction more than tripled, and the housing boom was every bit as large as in the Great Recession on a per capita basis. In Manhattan more skyscrapers were built in the late 1920s than during any other comparable span in its history, and the skylines of most major U.S. cities are still testimony to the excesses of that era:

“The Great Depression brought a level of misery rarely seen in American history. … [and] was a massive residential and commercial real estate crisis. The financial records of the 1920s, which have largely been overlooked, indelibly show this. During the 1920s, annual housing and commercial real estate construc­tion almost tripled — andnearly all of it was financed by debt.”

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• Tariffs Are Taxes: Raising Costs And Killing Jobs (Forbes) As higher tariffs and the threat of more tariffs slow the economy and rattle financial markets, President Trump is doubling down on what he says are tariffs’ benefits. But many economists don’t agree. The conservative Tax Foundation estimates the total price of Trump’s tariffs – existing, proposed, and retaliatory tariffs imposed in response by other countries – will cost $196.7 billion of GDP (about 0.7% of economic output) and 609,644 jobs. And if broad tariffs are enacted against Mexico, these costs will increase.
• Hidden Pivot Method: An Intoduction (Rick Ackerman, YouTube) RA is a GEIcontributor. Rick is a professional floor trader and market maker with 12 years on the Pacific Coast Exchange. Other experience includes 3 years as a private eye (office of Hal Lipset), 3 years as a columnist for the San Fransisco Examiner, 7 more years as a newspaper reporter and editor, and more than 20 years contributing to a variety of investment and trading publications, including Barron’s. Rick Ackerman is the editor of Rick’s Picks and a partner in Blue Fin Financial LLC, a trading firm. The video below is a very brief introduction to what constitutes the process called “The Hidden Pivot Method”, Rick’s proprietary trading method which is aimed at trading risk reduction. He uses the word “hidden” because (from the Rick’s Picks website):

Hidden pivots are at the exact middle and end points of these zigs and zags, and determining where they lie can tell us with remarkable precision the prices at which a stock is most likely to change direction. I call them “hidden” pivots because they cannot be detected using such conventional technical tools as trendlines, support and resistance lines, Fibonacci levels, Gann angles, momentum oscillators or stochastic indicators.

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