Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 18 June 2019
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.
Please share this article – Go to very top of page, right hand side for social media buttons.
​Global
- Asia markets mostly higher; Fed meeting set to kick off (CNBC) Markets in Asia were mostly higher on Tuesday as investors awaited the start of a closely-watched meeting by the U.S. Federal Reserve, set to kick off later stateside. China markets were up. The U.S. dollar index was higher at 97.427 after seeing levels below 97.4 yesterday. Brent crude futures contract dipped 0.61% to $60.57 per barrel, while U.S. crude futures declined 0.48% to $51.68 per barrel. Spot gold gained 0.5% to $1,345.81 per ounce as of 0643 GMT. Treasury yields were lower, with the 10-year yield hitting a new cycle low.
- Facebook releases plan for Libra crypto (Seeking Alpha)
- Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is up 2.5% premarket after unveiling a consortium to create an open-source digital currency called Libra, set to launch in the first half of next year, which would allow consumers to send money around the world easily and for free.
- Other members include payments companies Visa (NYSE:V), Stripe (NYSEARCA:STIP) and PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), as well as tech companies eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT), Uber (NYSE:UBER) and Spotify (NYSE:SPOT).
- While Libra won’t be run by Facebook – but rather by a nonprofit association and backed by relatively stable government money – the company does have a plan to profit from it with a new subsidiary, Calibra, which is building a digital wallet for storing and exchanging the currency.
- World Population 1950-2100 (Pew Research Center)
U.S.
- Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Expand Double-Jeopardy Protections (Bloomberg) The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed that a state and the federal government can press separate prosecutions over the same conduct, ruling in a case that might have extended the impact of President Donald Trump’s pardon power. The justices, voting 7-2, left intact the “separate sovereigns” doctrine, a decades-old rule that limits the scope of the constitutional ban on double jeopardy. Elimination of the separate-sovereigns rule would have meant that a presidential pardon might block some state charges as well.
The case was being watched for any possible impact on Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman. Manafort has been sentenced to a total of 7 1/2 years in prison in two federal cases, and he is now facing New York state charges for residential mortgage fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records. The ruling means:
- A presidential pardon cannot be given for a conviction under state law.
- A presidential pardon of a violation of federal lawhas not affect on charges under a state law.
- Trump’s order to trim science advisory panels sparks outrage (The Hill) Former agency heads and environmentalists are blasting a new executive order issued late Friday evening as a stealthy means to remove scientific oversight from agency rulemaking. Previous heads of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Interior Department say President Trump’s directive last week for all agencies to cut at least a third of their advisory committees by September would weaken the science-based regulations process that the administration has pushed back against since Trump took office.
- Trump vows mass immigration arrests, removals of ‘millions of illegal aliens’ starting next week (The Washington Post) President Trump said in a tweet Monday night that U.S. immigration agents are planning to make mass arrests starting “next week,” an apparent reference to a plan in preparation for months that aims to round up thousands of migrant parents and children in a blitz operation across major U.S. cities.
- Trump hits polling on Fox News: ‘Something weird going on at Fox’ (The Hill) President Trump on Monday dismissed a new poll from Fox News that showed him losing to multiple 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, saying “something weird” is happening at the network favored by conservatives.
- Paul Manafort Seemed Headed to Rikers. Then the Justice Department Intervened. (The New York Times) Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is serving a federal prison sentence, had been expected to be transferred to the notorious Rikers Island jail complex this month to await trial on a separate state case. But last week, Manhattan prosecutors were surprised to receive a letter from the second-highest law enforcement official in the country inquiring about Mr. Manafort’s case. The letter, from Jeffrey A. Rosen, Attorney General William P. Barr’s new top deputy, indicated that he was monitoring where Mr. Manafort would be held in New York. On Monday, federal prison officials weighed in, telling the Manhattan district attorney’s office that Mr. Manafort, 70, would not be going to Rikers. Instead, he will await his trial at a federal lockup in Manhattan or at the Pennsylvania federal prison where he is serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence for wide-ranging financial schemes.
- His keyless car killed him while he slept. New legislation could save others (USA Today) People are dying from carbon monoxide poisoning after accidentally leaving a keyless ignition auto running in their garage. Four people have died so far this yeat in the U.S. Auto safety experts say it’s an ongoing problem. They want legislation mandating that automakers install automatic engine shutoffs – along with software that would make a car immobile if a driver left it in gear.
Since 2005, 37 people have died by unknowingly leaving their vehicles running in their attached garage, according to data from Safety Research & Strategies Inc., which specializes in car safety.
For 2012-14, NHTSA data show that 142 people died in rollaway accidents, though it’s not clear how many of those involved keyless vehicles.
- The Growing Risk of a 2020 Recession and Crisis (Project Syndicate) Nouriel Roubini (“Dr. Doom”) writes:
Across the advanced economies, monetary and fiscal policymakers lack the tools needed to respond to another major downturn and financial crisis. Worse, while the world no longer needs to worry about a hawkish US Federal Reserve strangling growth, it now has an even bigger problem on its hands.
- 5 Rivers in America That Are Running Dry (24/7 Wall St) All but one river are in the southwestern quadrant of the U.S. and 9 involve Texas, New Mexiuco, or both.
EU
- Fiscal Money Can Make or Break the Euro (Yanis Faroufakis, Project Syndicate) YV has contributed to GEI. Fiscal spending and the use of local “parallel” currencies can be used to save the euro or to destroy it. Yanis explains what is invovled.
- Euro Freefall (Twitter) A drop in a major currency of nearly half a percent in a few minutes is huge.
​UK
- Johnson gets further boost in race to become British prime minister (Reuters) Boris Johnson got a further boost in his campaign to become Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday when a second former rival in the race backed him to lead the country out of its Brexit crisis.
France
Egypt
- Mohamed Morsy, ousted Egyptian president, dies in court (CNN) Ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, who was the country’s first democratically elected leader, has died. Morsy, 67, had been on trial Monday for an espionage case when he suffered a heart attack, Egypt’s state-run Al Ahram online reported. Egypt’s public prosecution office said in statement that Morsy had been granted a request to speak before the trial ended. After a five-minute statement, the court adjourned and Morsy was brought back inside a cage inside the court, where he fell unconscious. He was dead when he arrived to the hospital at 4:50 pm (10:50 a.m. ET). No apparent injuries were found on his body, according to the statement.
Iraq
- U.S. Base in Iraq Hit By Rockets as New Photos Released Claiming to Show Iran Behind Gulf Attacks (Newsweek) An Iraqi military base where U.S. and allied coalition troops are stationed has been targeted by a rocket attack just as the Pentagon released new photos purporting to show Iran was behind recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.
The Iraqi military’s official Security Media Cell reported Monday that “a short time ago, three Katyusha rockets fell on Camp Taji,” a military installation also known as Camp Cooke, located about 17 miles north of Baghdad. The apparent attack came just two days after unknown assailants fired rockets at Balad air base, another Iraqi installation where U.S. military personnel were present.
Iran.
- U.S. says to send more troops to the Middle East, cites Iran threats (Reuters) Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced on Monday the deployment of about 1,000 more troops to the Middle East for what he said were defensive purposes, citing concerns about a threat from Iran.
- Iran Warns It’s ‘Heading Towards a Confrontation’ with the U.S. (Newsweek) Iran’s envoy to the United Kingdom has warned that his country and the U.S. are getting closer to a potential conflict, one he warned Washington would regret. Asked by CNN where escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran could lead, Tehran’s ambassador to London, Hamid Baeidinejad, said that, “unfortunately, we are heading towards a confrontation, which is very serious for everybody in the region.”
Baeidinejad stopped short of predicting the possibility of U.S. plans for a limited strike in the Persian Gulf, but argued that such plans may already be underway in a bid to spark a fight.
China
- Hong Kong leader says sorry again after fury at extradition bill (Reuters) Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam apologized again on Tuesday and said she had heard the people “loud and clear” after some of the most violent protests in the Chinese-ruled city against an extradition bill that she promoted and then postponed. See also next article.
- Two Million from Above (South China Morning Post, Twitter) Click tweet for video.
- Clear Trend in Chinese Industrial Production (Twitter) See also next article.
- World’s top bicycle maker says the era of ‘Made in China’ is over (Bloomberg) Giant Manufacturing Co. saw the writing on the wall early on. The world’s biggest bicycle maker started moving production of U.S.-bound orders out of its China facilities to its home base in Taiwan (pictured below) as soon as it heard Donald Trump threaten tariff action in September.
Giant is part of a growing number of global firms that are pivoting production out of China in reaction to the increasingly hostile trade relations between the two superpowers. Intel Corp. this week became the latest to say it’s reviewing its global supply chain, while Li & Fung Ltd., the world’s largest supplier of consumer goods, said the trade war is spurring it to diversify away from China.
.
