Donald Trump has named Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn to head the White House National Economic Council, marking his third top appointment from the ranks of the bank despite his pledge to sever links between Wall Street and Washington. The appointment of Mr Cohn, who serves as chief operating officer, leaves Goldman nursing another big departure from its leadership team just weeks after the news that the […]
By Toni Clarke Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a partner at one of the world’s largest venture capital funds and a former deputy commissioner at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is being considered by President-elect Donald Trump to run the agency, according to sources close to the transition team. Gottlieb, 44, a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative […]
WASHINGTON Donald Trump on Monday criticized Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet program as too expensive, the latest attack by the U.S. President-elect on large defense contractors. Lockheed shares dropped 5.1 percent and shares of several other defense contractors also tumbled. “The F-35 program and cost is out of control,” Trump said on Twitter, echoing campaign promises to cut waste in federal spending. “Billions of dollars can and […]
ABU DHABI // Women members of parliament have an important role in brokering peace in the Middle East and beyond, a conference heard on Monday. About 50 women who preside over parliaments met in Abu Dhabi for the Global Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament. For the first time men were invited to participate, including Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister, who […]
Crude oil surged to the highest in 17 months amid efforts to cut production, pushing up the outlook for global inflation and sending 10-year Treasury yields above 2.5 percent for the first time since October 2014. Chinese equities tumbled. Oil jumped more than 4 percent in New York and London after Saudi Arabia signaled it will cut output by more than previously agreed amid a weekend deal to […]
Submitted by Michale Shedlock via MishTalk.com, The eurozone cannot survive without Italy. The serious problem at the moment is the Eurozone also cannot survive with Italy. Two of Italy’s three largest parties are anti-Euro. The only party in Italy that does support the euro is ex-prime minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party. And with Renzi gone, there’s a huge risk the party splinters. Regardless, there are no likely […]
By Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD Several thousand Iraqi federal police are ready to join the assault against Islamic State in east Mosul, a spokesman said on Monday, reinforcing troops who have faced weeks of fierce counter-attacks from the militants. The extra forces are being deployed as the gruelling U.S.-backed campaign to crush Islamic State in its Iraqi stronghold enters its ninth week. Elite army troops have […]
The prospect of a more aggressive Federal Reserve and a surge in the oil price hit global bonds on Monday, sending the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note above 2.5 per cent for the first time since 2014. Treasuries have led a sharp sell-off in sovereign bonds since Donald Trump’s victory in last month’s US election, raising the prospect that Fed officials will have to raise […]
Photo Credit Angie Wang More than 25 years ago, at the height of the effort to pass hate speech codes on college campuses, I wrote a monograph about how to do it without censorship. It began with a quotation from a student who had been bullied because he was Asian-American: “I wish they had hit me.” If he had been beaten, he said, the damage would have […]
The recent deal to keep Carrier jobs in the United States is not at all unusual. It only received so much press because Trump made it a campaign issue and saw an opportunity to record a big early PR victory before he even took office. Government and corporations cooperate, negotiate deals, scratch each others backs, kickback ill-gotten gains, and function as a career advancement funnel for corrupt […]
By Howard Schneider | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve inaugurates the Trump era this week with a near-certain interest rate increase and new economic forecasts providing a first glimpse into whether the U.S. election has reshaped the central bank’s growth and inflation outlook. Fed fund futures show a 97 percent probability that the Fed will lift rates by a quarter of a percentage point at the end […]
IT management and consultancy firm ASG Group expects to be wholly acquired by Japan’s Nomura Research Institute (NRI) before the year is out, after the Federal Court of Australia gave the nod to the arrangement on Monday. Announced in September, NRI will pay approximately AU$349 million for 100 percent ownership of ASG. ASG told shareholders on Monday that a copy of the court’s order is to be […]
Monday 02.15 GMT Overview Markets around Asia were mostly higher, buoyed by a surge in oil prices and following on from another set of records for Wall Street on Friday. Hot topic Ahead of the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting on Wednesday, government bond yields are hovering at their highest levels in months. Of note, the yield (which moves inversely to price) on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury […]
First it was the Fed, then the ECB (which last week tapered when it reduced the monthly amount of bond purchases under its QE program). Now attention shifts to the Bank of Japan, because as the WSJ writes, one of central banking’s most aggressive easers – Kuroda’s Bank of Japan – may soon have to think about tightening for the first time since 2007. While it has […]
As Democrats continue to spin the fake news narrative, because it’s simply impossible that Hillary (the candidate who lost both Wisconsin and Michigan to a Socialist in the Democratic primary) lost fair and square, Former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, penned an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday that suggested registering RT and Sputnik as “foreign agents,” claiming that they “campaigned openly for one candidate, Donald […]
More than ever before, these articles pulled the curtain back on how an estimated $100 billion in undeclared money has been siphoned from Canada into offshore tax havens. Since the first investigations were published, the federal government has invested almost $500 million in the Canada Revenue Agency aimed at tougher tax enforcement, launched investigations into 85 Canadians identified in the Panama Papers and compelled banks to divulge […]
When there is news about banks having a security issue or a systems-related problem, the story often ends with customers having their sensitive information compromised and banks scrambling to chase after the hackers who breached their systems. Earlier in the year, hackers were found to have stolen $80 million from the Bank of Bangladesh due to its poor security system, and another report revealed that the central bank of […]
By Angus McDowall | BEIRUT BEIRUT When President Bashar al-Assad turns from the wreckage of Aleppo to assert his authority across a fractured Syria, it will be as a figure who is virtually unassailable by rebels, but still faces great challenges in restoring the power of his state. The expected fall of Aleppo would mean rebels have almost no chance of ousting Assad, but their revolt has […]
A team of researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the ETH Zurich, have produced artificial beta cells for the treatment of diabetes. Artificial Beta Cell Production The artificial beta cells produced by ETH Zurich researchers are capable of performing all the functions of typical pancreatic cells. It is noted that the cells have the ability to measure the concentration of glucose in the bloodstream and produce […]
By Caroline Valetkevitch | NEW YORK NEW YORK Next week’s Federal Reserve meeting and possible signals on the pace of rate hikes for next year could pose the biggest risk yet to the rally the U.S. stock market has seen since last month’s presidential election. While investors have long anticipated the Fed will raise rates at the Dec. 13-14 meeting – in what would be its first […]
Ahead of next week, here are the big questions we are asking at FT Markets What signal will the Federal Reserve send? The last US central bank meeting of the year will unfold on Wednesday with all eyes on officials’ latest assessment of the economy and the press conference of Fed chief Janet Yellen. Plenty has changed since their previous gathering just before the US election. Dollar […]
By Dominic Evans and Stephanie Nebehay | BAGHDAD/GENEVA BAGHDAD/GENEVA The Iraqi army said it took full control of two more districts of east Mosul on Saturday, pushing back Islamic State militants in a slow and hard-fought advance into the city whose 1 million residents face growing shortages of fuel, water and food. A military statement said elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) troops took over the neighbourhoods of […]
Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com, There just isn’t a lot of good news here. The middle class is still struggling for something tangible, but things remain pretty frustrating for most people. It could actually feel like things are going in reverse… and that each piece of economic interaction squeezes just a little bit harder. via the Washington Examiner: A new report on the economy finds that […]
NEW YORK U.S. insurer Prudential Financial (PRU.N) is investigating whether Wells Fargo (WFC.N) employees signed up customers for its life insurance policies without their knowledge, a spokesman said on Saturday. Sales practices at Wells Fargo have been under a spotlight since September when federal regulators ordered the San Francisco-based bank to pay $190 million in fines and restitution because they said its high pressure sales environment pushed […]
