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:
- The last woolly mammoth died 4,000 years ago on an island in the Arctic
- A 12-year-old snags a mammoth discovery while on vacation in Ohio
- Thriving or surviving? The isotopic record of the Wrangel Island woolly mammoth population
- Ancient Mayans caused their own ‘climate change,’ shocking study says
- Ancient Maya wetland fields revealed under tropical forest canopy from laser scanning and multiproxy evidence
- Mysterious lost Maya cities discovered in Guatemalan jungle
- AAII Investor Surveys
- Annual Sector Returns 1990-2019
- World’s Best-Run Pension Funds Say It’s Time to Start Worrying
- Refuse, block, stonewall – but Trump’s strategy leaves little margin for error
- Clear majority of Americans support Trump impeachment inquiry, poll finds
- Oct. 1-6, 2019 Washington Post-Schar School poll
- 10 Least Tax-Friendly States: 2019
- Top 10 Tax-Friendly States: 2019
- Shooting near German synagogue leaves 2 people dead; 1 suspect arrested: police
- Turkey announces ground troops in northern Syria as first deaths reported from assaults
- Trump calls Turkey assault on Syria a ‘bad idea,’ at least 7 civilians reported dead
- Turkish incursion into Syria would force Kurds to flee, freeing captured ISIS members, Gen. Keane says
- Iran Holds Military Drills Near Turkey, Tells It to Stop Syria Attack As Russia Accuses U.S. of ‘Dangerous Game’
- Super Typhoon Hagibis may bring widespread damage across Japan, impact ‘lucky’ day for weddings
- October 7, 2019 – Intermediate-Term Weather Report – Might El Nino Return?
- China offers to buy extra US goods to ease trade war
- And More
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Articles about events, conflicts and disease around the world
U.S.
- Refuse, block, stonewall – but Trump’s strategy leaves little margin for error (The Guardian) In the opening exchanges of the impeachment inquiry against him, Donald Trump has adopted a hardline strategy of angrily denying congressional requests for documents and testimony and attacking the proceedings as illegitimate. Analysts say this is risky. For now, a Republican majority in the Senate insulates Trump against the threat of removal from office. But that advantage does not appear to be guiding the president’s hand.
In contrast with Bill Clinton’s deflect-and-minimize approach, Trump has taken a more Richard Nixon-like route, treating impeachment as an existential attack and digging in for a gunfighter’s last stand.
- Clear majority of Americans support Trump impeachment inquiry, poll finds (The Guardian) See next article. A clear majority of Americans now support the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, according to a new poll (next article). Even among Republicans, support for the inquiry has jumped 21 points since July. The poll released on Tuesday shows 58% support for the impeachment inquiry being conducted by Democrats in the House of Representatives, with 38% against. Almost half of those polled, 49%, said the House should impeach Trump and recommend that he be removed from office.
- Oct. 1-6, 2019 Washington Post-Schar School poll (The Washington Post) Support for impeachment investigation grows.
- 10 Least Tax-Friendly States: 2019 (Think Advisor) Slide show gives the tax details for each state. The list, starting with the worst state for taxes:
- Illinois
- Connecticut
- New York
- Wisconsin
- New Jersey
- Nebraska
- Pennsylvania
- Ohio
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Top 10 Tax-Friendly States: 2019 (Think Advisor) Slide show gives the tax details for each state. The list, starting with the best state for taxes:
- Wyoming
- Nevada
- Tennessee
- Florida
- Alaska
- Washington
- South Dakota
- North Dakota
- Arizona
- New Hampshire
Germany
- Shooting near German synagogue leaves 2 people dead; 1 suspect arrested: police (Fox News) A shooting near a synagogue in Germany on Wednesday that left two people dead is being regarded as a hate crime, according to a top security official, who said prosecutors believe the attack might’ve been spurred by anti-Semitism and far-right motives.
Turkey
- Turkey announces ground troops in northern Syria as first deaths reported from assaults (Fox News) See Trump calls Turkey assault on Syria a ‘bad idea,’ at least 7 civilians reported dead. President Trump called Turkey’s ongoing military assault in Syria a “bad idea” Wednesday as activists and war monitor reported at least seven civilians killed in the strikes.
Trump’s comments come hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the launch of Operation Peace Spring — a mission that will “neutralize terror threats against Turkey and lead to the establishment of a safe zone, facilitating the return of Syrian refugees to their homes,” escalating the long-standing feud between Ankara and Kurdish forces.
Trump was heavily criticized throughout the week following his decision Sunday to pull American troops out of northern Syria, leaving the Kurdish forces — who have been longtime U.S. allies in the fight against ISIS in Syria — in peril. Ankara views the Syrian Kurdish forces as terrorists allied with a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.
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Syria
- Turkish incursion into Syria would force Kurds to flee, freeing captured ISIS members, Gen. Keane says (Fox News) Retired U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane warned a military incursion into Syria by Turkey could cause the American-ally Kurds to flee, leaving thousands of ISIS prisoners unguarded.
Iran
- Iran Holds Military Drills Near Turkey, Tells It to Stop Syria Attack As Russia Accuses U.S. of ‘Dangerous Game’ (Newsweek) Iran launched unannounced drills Wednesday near its border with Turkey as the Islamic Republic warned its neighbor not to move forward with its military operation in northern Syria and Russia criticized the United States for setting up a potentially deadly scenario in the region. Iranian army chief Major General Abdul Rahim Mousavi oversaw what was described as surprise exercises designed to “measure the readiness, mobility and speed” of his forces in the country’s northwest.
Japan
- Super Typhoon Hagibis may bring widespread damage across Japan, impact ‘lucky’ day for weddings (Fox News) The strongest storm currently on the planet is roaring across the northwestern Pacific Ocean Wednesday as forecasters warn the super typhoon is taking aim at the Tokyo region by this weekend. The National Weather Service in Guam said that Super Typhoon Hagibis has maximum sustained winds of 160 mph and is located about 665 miles north-northwest of Guam, moving northwest at 7 mph. For latest information updates see October 7, 2019 – Intermediate-Term Weather Report – Might El Nino Return?
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China
- China offers to buy extra US goods to ease trade war (Financial Times) Chinese officials are offering to increase purchases of US agricultural products as they seek an interim agreement between Beijing and Washington that will stave off a new round of tariff hikes on October 15, according to people briefed on the two countries’ ongoing negotiations. China’s lead trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, is scheduled to begin two days of talks with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday, followed by a meeting with President Donald Trump on Friday if the discussions go well.
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Other Scientific, Health, Political, Economics, and Business Items of Note – plus Miscellanea
- The last woolly mammoth died 4,000 years ago on an island in the Arctic (CNN) See also A 12-year-old snags a mammoth discovery while on vacation in Ohio. The last woolly mammoths roamed the Earth as recently as 4,000 years ago, on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean. Learning about what led to their extinction could potentially save existing species from a similar fate, researchers said. Those mammoths outlived other members of their species by avoiding the environmental factors that led to their extinction, according to a study published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. They might’ve even lived longer, if short-term events hadn’t tainted their water and drained their food supply. Mammoths once roamed the entire northern hemisphere, researchers said. But when the last ice age ended and global warming followed 15,000 years ago, shrinking ice and rising sea levels isolated populations. For recent research see Thriving or surviving? The isotopic record of the Wrangel Island woolly mammoth population (Quaternary Science Reviews).
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- Ancient Mayans caused their own ‘climate change,’ shocking study says (Fox News) Research looks at newly found evidence in Belize that shows the Mayans responded to increases in population and environmental pressures by creating canals and wetlands. They also had regular “burn events” while farming their lands, which may have caused a rise in carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. The newly discovered evidence, based on aerial scans, is thought to have occurred between 1,800 and 1,000 years ago. Before recorded history, the largest increase in methane around the globe is thought to have occurred between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago, coinciding with the increase in the Maya wetlands, as well as those seen in South America and China. See research report Ancient Maya wetland fields revealed under tropical forest canopy from laser scanning and multiproxy evidence (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.). See also Mysterious lost Maya cities discovered in Guatemalan jungle (Fox News).
“”Even these small changes may have warmed the planet, which provides a sobering perspective for the order of magnitude greater changes over the last century that are accelerating into the future.”
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- AAII Investor Surveys (American Association of Individual Investors) For the week ending 02 October 2019, bearish sentiment surged and bullish sentiment dropped significantly tom a 10-month low which came 2 weeks befor ethe 20% decline ended late in December 2018.. (See first graphic below.) However, the sentiment changes were not reflected in the asset allocation survey for September which covered the period ending only 2 days earlier. (See second graphic below.)
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- Annual Sector Returns 1990-2019 (Bespoke) Below is a reference table showing S&P 500 sector total returns by year since 1990. The color-coding shows how each sector performed relative to other sectors in each specific year. Read across each row, colors in vertical columns have no meaning.
Most sectors have had their day in the sun at some point over the last 29 years. Industrials is the only sector that hasn’t been the top-performing sector in any year over this time period, and it has only ranked second once (1993).
Technology has been the top-performing sector in terms of average annual returns as well as consistency. Tech has ranked as the top sector on a total return basis in nine years since 1990, and it has only been the worst-performing sector twice (2000 and 2002). Health Care and Energy are typically either big winners or big losers. Both have been the top-performing sector in four years, while Energy has been the worst sector five times and Health Care has been the worst six times.
You’ll notice that big gains or losses typically come in bunches for sectors. Lately, Energy has been a significant loser, while Tech is on a winning streak. The contrarian in us would bet that these trends are due to reverse sometime soon.
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- World’s Best-Run Pension Funds Say It’s Time to Start Worrying (Confounded Interest) Hat tip to Lee Adler at The Wall Street Examiner. State and Federal pension funds are plagued by extravagant promises to pensioners and low yields on pension assets caused, in part, by Central Banks, like the European Central Bank and Federal Reserve. Because interest rates are at all-time lows, and even negative is parts of Europe, the traditional fixed income portions of pension fund investments no longer work. Some pension funds have started reducing projected retiree benefits and others are certain to follow. Some funds my not survive at all. So pensions have reduced direct governemnt bond holdings and turned to derivatives in an attempt to maintain required yields. As derivatives are bid up by the increased demand, their yields decline and a spiral toward partial or complete collapse continues. The structure of pension plans is such that as yields decline the rules require increasing investment in low-risk assets which then produce even lower pension plan returns.
To calculate liabilities, pension firms use a complex mathematical formula constructed by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA). The formula is intended to shield funds from erratic market swings that artificially inflate or hollow out balance sheets. But with negative rates more entrenched, there are signs the EIOPA curve, as it’s called, may not be working as intended.
“When pension funds across Europe de-risk simultaneously, it may actually become pro-cyclical: it increases the price movements, and it could result in yet more downward pressure on the EIOPA yield curve, exacerbating the problem,”
The curve is comprised of several elements. Its backbone – the euro interest-rate swap curve – has sunk since its implementation about four years ago, driving up the value of liabilities.
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