Early Headlines: Asia Stocks Mostly Up, Dollar Up, Oil Up, Gold Down, Yields Up, Global Debt, Trump Tax Case To SCOTUS, Trump - 'Dead' Impeachment, US Oligarchy, US Mfg Losing Trade War, Swine Flu, Plus More - 23 Articles, 7 Graphics

Early Bird Headlines 15 November 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.

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Notice: We have changed the form of content coverage for Early Bird. We will provide discussion only for Asia Markets news and a small number (often 1 or 2) other articles. The remainder of the content will be headlines (with links) only.

Key Articles

Global

Asia stocks mostly higher as investors digest US-China trade developments (CNBC) Asia markets were mostly higher on Friday, as investors digested recent developments on U.S.-China trade. Mainland Chinese stocks, on the other hand, declined on the day. The U.S. dollar index was last higher at 98.164 after seeing an earlier low of 98.122. Oil prices edged higher in the afternoon of Asian trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up slightly to $62.30 per barrel. U.S. crude futures gained 0.11% to $56.83 per barrel. Spot gold declined 0.4% to $1,465.77 per ounce at 0415 GMT, but was still set to rise more than 0.5% this week. U.S. gold futures were down 0.5% at $1,466.30 an ounce. U.S treasury yields were higher after a big overnight drop in the U.S.

Global debt surged to a record $250 trillion in the first half of 2019, led by the US and China (CNBC)

The report, released by the International Institute of Finance (IIF) on Thursday, showed that global debt surged by $7.5 trillion in the first six months of 2019.
Rising debt across the world has been a big concern for investors and has also been flagged as the next breaking point by a number of economists.
The IIF states that global government debt will top $70 trillion in 2019, up from $65.7 trillion in 2018, driven higher by the surge in U.S. federal debt.

U.S.

Trump asks the Supreme Court to save him from a criminal investigation (Raw Story) President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to block Manhattan prosecutor Cy Vance from obtaining his tax records via a grand jury subpoena as part of a criminal investigation.

This appeal is the president’s last chance to avoid handing over the materials after the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the legitimacy of the subpoena. If the Supreme Court declines to take the case, Trump will be obligated to hand over his financial records and tax returns, which have been the subject of much speculation and controversy since he failed to release them during the 2016 campaign, despite his promise to do so.

Donald Trump Is All Alone (The Atlantic) Presidents have long relied on attentive aides to help them cope with the stresses of office. Not Trump.

Any president can lose sight of what he needs to weather a crisis or stay mentally and physically fit for the most demanding job imaginable; that’s when he needs a staff attentive to his larger interests. Past presidents relied on aides to ease pressures and tell them hard truths – all of which help deter poor decisions. Trump doesn’t seem to have any of that, and as the stressors of impeachment grow, so does the prospect of more erratic behavior and self-sabotage.

Trump declares impeachment ‘dead’ – and demands apology – in late night Twitter outburst (Raw Story) Trump did not say why he was taking the word of a foreign official over multiple sworn testimonies from members of his own administration.