Lots of ground to cover, plus the first day [or is it] of removing that deadly spent radioactive fuel from Fukushima, so let’s get straight to it.
From the Washington Post, the beneficiaries of crisis in stark relief:
How to get rich in the new Washington
Over the past decade, big spending on government contracts and lobbying has created a wave of well-heeled insiders and transformed Washington.
A second Washington Post headline raises a concern we share:
150 years after the Gettysburg Address, is government by the people in trouble?
From Reuters, about time someone said it:
Icahn warns stock market could face ‘big drop’
Activist investor Carl Icahn on Monday said there was a chance the stock market could suffer a big decline, saying valuations are rich and earnings at many companies are fueled more by low borrowing costs than management’s efforts to boost results.
Reuters again, noting a chord struck:
Dow, S&P pull back from records after Icahn’s caution
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq ended lower on Monday while the Dow failed to close above its milestone level of 16,000 as stocks sold off late in the session following Carl Icahn’s cautious comments on the equities market.
The Economic Times reported on the market before Icahn dropped his bomb:
Dow, S&P 500 at new highs: China reform plans buoy stocks
Benchmark US stock indices rose to record highs on Monday, buoyed by the prospect of continued Federal Reserve stimulus, while the dollar slipped and global equity markets climbed, driven by economic reform plans in China.
From the Washington Post, loathsome vs. despicable:
Sheldon Adelson, top 2012 donor and casino magnate, readies to fight Internet gambling
Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, whose record-breaking campaign spending in 2012 made him an icon of the new super-donor era, is leveraging that newfound status in an escalating feud with industry rivals over the future of gambling.
From the Globe and Mail, yet more business as usual:
Federal judge orders MF Global to pay $1-billion to customers
A federal judge in New York has ordered MF Global Inc to return more than $1-billion to harmed customers and pay an additional $100-million penalty as part of a civil settlement with U.S. derivatives regulators.
CNBC notes a harsh reality:
America’s cities on the edge
Federal funding cutbacks, combined with the economic damage from the Great Recession, continue to challenge Main Street. Eight cities have filed for bankruptcy since 2010, including Detroit; Scranton, Pa.; and Stockton, Calif. That’s not surprising, considering that all but four of the 384 local economies tracked by Moody’s Analytics’ Business Cycle Index had fallen into recession by 2009. Of those, 255 moved into recovery in 2010.
From the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg drops the ax:
Bloomberg’s News Division to Lay Off About 50 People
Bloomberg LP’s news division will lay off about 50 people or about 2% of its newsroom, according to people familiar with the company’s plans, the latest financial news and data provider to make job reductions.
And from AlterNet, the rich call on the the poor to feed to poorer:
Wal-Mart Asks Workers To Donate Food To Its Needy Employees
Wal-Mart logic: instead of paying workers a living wage, we can encourage low-wage workers to donate to less well-off workers.
Off to Canada with the National Post as the Toronto City Council strips the mayor of his last vestiges of power:
‘You just attacked Kuwait!’ Wounded Rob Ford declares war as council strips him of key powers
Council erupted in chaos Monday as the mayor charged the public gallery, bowling over councillor Pam McConnell. He later plugged his new TV show
Next, a global story from Mother Jones:
Natural Disasters Cost $3.8 Trillion Since 1980, World Bank Says
Using data from Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurance (insurance for insurers) agency, World Bank analysts found that 74 percent of that cost arose from weather-related disasters like hurricanes and droughts.
Now to Europe, first with EUobserver:
Eurozone trade surplus doubles, boosts crisis countries
The prospects of the eurozone’s nascent economic recovery were boosted on Monday (18 November) after figures revealed that the bloc’s trade surplus in 2013 was on course to double 2012.
But Reuters casts a skeptical eye:
Euro zone rebound weaker than hoped: ECB’s Nowotny
The economic situation in the euro zone has started to improve but is still weaker than the European Central Bank had hoped, ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said on Monday.
While France tries to fight intolerance by banning some of its targets, the folks California used to call braceros. From EurActiv:
French EU minister seeks solutions to fight social dumping
In an interview with EurActiv.fr, the French Minister in charge of European affairs, Thierry Repentin, expressed his worries of a surge by far-right in next year’s EU elections. He calls for better regulation of posted workers and a general minimum wage across the EU.
As social tensions mount in France, especially in Brittany where farmers and food sector workers have protested against government taxes for weeks, Repentin expressed serious concern about “posted workers”, who often pay fewer social contributions and taxes than local employees.
The London Telegraph notes German bankster umbrage:
Bundesbank says Italian and Spanish banks still hooked on home state debt
There is still an acute credit crunch for small business in Italy and Spain. The banks are hunkering down and living off their coupons from the state, even as the rest of the economy screams for credit. Their appetite for sovereign debt – boosted first by the ECB’s €1 trillion long-term loans (LTRO), then by Mario Draghi’s debt backstop (OMT) — is touted as a sign of recovery, but it is equally a sign of deformed EU policy.
And EUobserver covers doublespeak and pussy-footing:
Trade deal ‘won’t loosen standards,’ EU and US officials ay
The latest round of talks on an EU-US trade deal concluded on Friday (15 November) with negotiators playing down suggestions that an accord would undercut a raft of rules on consumer protection and environmental standards.
Despite fresh revelations about the extent of phone-hacking and surveillance by the US National Security Agency, data protection was not on the agenda of the second round of talks, which was delayed by the US government “shutdown” in October.
And EurActiv discovers hypocrisy as usual:
Member states backtrack on corporate reporting pledge
A pledge made by heads of state and government this summer to beef up corporate social responsibility reporting for European companies is set to be ditched because too few member states are prepared to support it, EurActiv has learned.
From Reuters, a darn good idea:
Swiss outrage over executive pay sparks a movement in Europe
Here’s an idea for how to end corporate greed and reverse the trend of growing income inequality worldwide: impose a new rule that would limit the pay of top executives to just 12 times that of the lowest-paid employees at the same firm. In other words, prevent CEOs from earning more in one month than the lowliest shop-floor worker earns in a year.
And EUbusiness covers another, more disturbing movement:
Six European far-right groups join forces: Austrian party
Six European far-right parties are joining forces ahead of EU-wide elections in May, in a bid to contain Brussels and take back national powers, Austria’s Freedom Party (FPOe) announced Monday.
Representatives of France’s Front National (FN), Italy’s Lega Nord, the Sweden Democrats, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and the Slovak National Party met Friday in Vienna to discuss an alliance that will put Europe “back on the right track,” FPOe leader Heinz-Christian Strache told reporters.
On to Old Blighty, heftily boosted by the London Telegraph:
UK growing at fastest rate in developed world, says OECD
The UK economy grew faster than any of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) 34 nations in the third quarter, think tank says
Bloomberg Pursuits Magazine covers on of the reasons for all that “prosperity”:
London Lures Billionaires as Mansions Seen as Safe Haven
Since 2009, more super-prime properties have traded hands in London than in any other city, including Hong Kong, New York and Singapore; last year, the city accounted for about a third of the approximately 300 super-prime sales globally, according to research from Savills.
While a headline in the Washington Post hints at a dark side:
Why the rise of the ultra-rich in London is bad for the rest of Britain
The prosperity of London has diverged drastically from that of the rest of Britain in the last decade, in ways that contain economic lessons for the rest of the world.
From The Independent, notable posterior osculation:
Boris Johnson says super-rich are ‘put-upon minority’ like homeless people and Irish travellers
Mayor says wealthiest should get automatic knighthoods and “our humble thanks”, in comments deemed “deeply offensive” by London Assembly’s Labour group
Off to Norway, with a nasty little twist form TheLocal.no:
Norway gov mulls Arctic prisons for foreigners
Norway’s new right-wing government is considering sending foreign criminals to abandoned military camps in Norway’s Arctic north to free up prison space for Norwegian inmates.
And another nasty little Norwegian twist, also from TheLocal.no:
Graves in Norway bagged for late payment
A company contracted to run a cemetery in Norway has started putting black plastic bags over gravestones, along with late-payment notices to warn relatives that the grave will shortly be removed.
Germany next, and a pending job action from TheLocal.de:
Union plans Christmas Amazon strikes
Germany’s service-sector union Verdi has confirmed it will hold strike action against online retail giant Amazon over the busy Christmas holiday period, according to reports on Sunday.
France next, with a somber judgment from Deutsche Welle:
Downgraded France has ‘bundle of problems’
France’s economy is in a bad state. Analysts are saying the eurozone nation’s industry, labor market and social system are all chronically ill. The question is is which remedies the country’s citizens will tolerate.
And on to Spain, first with a mixed blessing by way of EUbusiness:
EU welcomes Spanish bank reform, warns on deficit
The European Union on Monday welcomed efforts by Spain to repair its banking sector but warned that the country risked missing its public deficit-cutting targets. Spain is poised in January to exit a programme to shore up its banks’ balance sheets, swamped in bad loans since a property bubble imploded in 2008.
El País cites an exclusion:
ECB won’t include public debt in bank asset quality review
Supervisor still to decide on treatment of these holdings in stress tests
And TheLocal.es cites a troublesome trend:
Spanish bank bad loans surge to record high
Bad loans at Spanish banks struck a new record high in September, official data showed Monday, despite the near completion of a €41 billion eurozone-financed bailout of the battered financial sector
From El País, gone but not forgotten:
UN demands more support from Spain for Franco victims
Committee on Enforced Disappearances approved report by visiting panel urging government to help relatives locate the dead
From thinkSPAIN, another job action — or not:
Ambulance strike partially cancelled
A WEEK-LONG ambulance strike planned throughout the north-eastern region of Catalunya has been partly called off after an initial agreement was reached between workers and their employers.
Thumbs down on secession via El País:
Catalan Socialists close ranks against nationalists’ sovereignty plan
Party’s council votes overwhelmingly to oppose plan to ask Congress to approve holding of status referendum
And from El País again, divisions hit the ruling Popular Party:
Rajoy’s PP suffers painful splits just as the economy perks up
Many party chiefs are asking for more leadership as corruption scandals continue to mount
Off to Italy with a sharp poke at the Baron of Bunga Bunga from Corriere della Sera:
Heart of Darkness-style Power without Heirs
No place for critical thinking in Colonel Kurtz’s camp. Only devotion, obedience and gratitude permitted
Silvio Berlusconi is not Kurtz. Yet. But his inability to manage succession has become disquieting. One by one his political heirs have been disappointed and dismissed as soon as they showed any hint of independence
After the jump, the Greek meltdown accelerates, a Latin American radical prepares for office, China continues its rush to Reaganomics, and the latest chapter of Fukushimapocalypse Now!, and more. . .
Capital.gr provides our first Greek item, a beacon for vulture capitalists:
NYT: Window of Opportunity for Greece and Its Investors
Greece has been the markets’ whipping boy for most of the past four years. But in the past few months sentiment has changed and international investors are bottom fishing — in particular for banking assets.
According to New York Times, this gives the country a double opportunity: Lenders can use it to clean up their balance sheets by selling nonperforming loans — loans overdue for more than 90 days — and the state can privatize its stakes in the banks. Both should grab the chance while it lasts.
Europe Online offers a somewhat optimistic assessment:
Greece races to clinch agreement with troika on fiscal gap
Greece was racing against the clock for an agreement to be found on closing the country’s fiscal gap as it resumed bailout talks with international creditors on Monday. Athens is hoping that it can clinch a deal with its lenders, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), collectively known as the troika, before the Eurogroup meeting of eurozone finance ministers on December 9.
ANA-MPA isn’t so sure:
Troika negotiations ‘still have a long way to go,’ Finance ministry officials say
Greek authorities on Monday completed a second round of negotiations with troika officials with a meeting between Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and the representatives of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank troika.
The negotiations, which government officials said “still have a long way to go”, focused on ways to cover a fiscal gap for 2014 which the Greek Finance ministry estimates at around 1.3 billion euros.
And To Vima sounds downright glum:
Troika not convinced by government figures, gap remains
Government will have to revise proposals for tackling budget gap, tax evasion, dismissals and suspensions
For every solution suggested by the government’s financial staff, the troika representatives seem to identify a new problem, meaning that there is still a lot that needs to be done before an agreement can be reached.
To Vima again, conveying a rejection:
Schäuble rejects a further Greek debt haircut
German Minister of Finances appeared dismissive of such a possibility in a recent interview for “Bild”
Neos Kosmos picks up a very misleading story from the OECD, which recorded only salaries of upper level civil servants, whereas most teachers, hospital staff physicians, and cops make less than California minimum wage:
Private sector pays far less than the state
The disparity between public and private sector salaries in Greece ranges between 30 and 58 percent in favor of civil servants, an EC report has revealed
From ANA-MPA, a striking surprise:
Health minister ‘surprised’ at EOPYY doctors’ strike next week, urges dialogue
Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis on Monday urged doctors at the National Organisation for the Provision of Healthcare Services (EOPYY) to hold off strike action due to start next week until they had seen the ministry’s final plans and presented their counter-proposals.
Greek Reporter covers another strike:
UOA and NTUA Administrative Employee Strike Continues
After the 10-week strike at the University of Athens and the National Technical University of Athens, the federation of university administrative employees decided to go on two more 48-hour strikes despite the request to start courses on Tuesday. The Council of State dismissed the administrative employees who wanted the government suspension and dismissal plans suspended.
While ANA-MPA covers a notable schism:
Athens University Senate resigns en masse; Rector Pelegrinis files lawsuit against university council
All members of the University of Athens (UoA) Senate resigned en masse on Monday in response to a decision by the university’s administrative staff to continue industrial action. The resignations were handed to UoA Rector Theodossis Pelegrinis after a rowdy senate meeting earlier in the day.
And from Greek Reporter, fear behind the badge:
Hellenic Police on “Red Alert”
Hellenic Police is on “Red Alert” from this morning under the fear of a new armed attacked. According to some sources from the police counter-terrorism division, the attack’s target this time will be the Hellenic police. The Greek Minister of Public Order, Nikos Dendias, seems to be aware of this situation too.
Latin America next, where a radical prepares for officer, reports The Guardian:
Camila Vallejo, student leader, gets ready for a seat in Chilean congress
In 2011 she was the face of an uprising. Today, with Chile in a ‘new era’, she and fellow activists are poised to become MPs
From MercoPress, an inflationary given:
Astori forecasts Uruguay’s inflation in the range of 3 to 7% in the next two years
Uruguay’s Vice-president argues that the current foreign exchange policy has helped contain the impact of volatility
Vice-president Danilo Astori confirmed that Uruguay will continue with its current flexible foreign exchange policy, because “this has helped us reduce volatilities”, but also admitted concern about inflation, the third highest in South America and fourth in Latin-American and the Caribbean.
Off to Asia, first with a regional story from China Daily USA:
Asia’s middle class a trend for 2014
Rising societal tensions in the Middle East and North Africa is ranked as No 1 among the 10 most globally significant trends for 2014 in the annual report released on Friday by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which placed the growth of Asia’s middle class as number eight.
The Guardian takes us to Bangladesh and harsh realities:
Ten Bangladesh Walmart factories fail safety inspections during review
Half of Walmart’s Bangladesh factories have been audited so far by Bureau Veritas, hired after the deadly Rana Plaza collapse
The retailer hired Bureau Veritas to check some 200 factories it uses in Bangladesh after the April collapse of the Rana Plaza building killed more than 1,100 people and highlighted often grim conditions in the country’s garment industry.
And on to China, first with CBC News:
Chinese province experiments with land reform
Farmers would be able to transfer, mortgage or sublet their land, which could make them more prosperous
Reuters notes positive feedback for neoliberal moves:
Markets reward China’s reform ambition, await follow-up
Investors rewarded Beijing on Monday for its ambitious reform plan, sustaining a stocks rally led by consumer goods shares seen as direct beneficiaries of the promised easing of China’s one-child policy and efforts to boost consumption.
Xinhua notes a bubble still inflating:
Home prices continue to rise in China
Home prices in China’s major cities continued to rise in October despite the government’s efforts in cooling the property market, official data showed on Monday.
Of a statistical pool of 70 major Chinese cities, 65 saw month-on-month rises in new home prices in October, and 62 reported price gains in existing and second-hand housing, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced in a statement.
From People’s Daily, headhunting honing:
Global talent lacking in China
Nation needs to offer incentives to attract foreign executives: experts
China needs to develop better policies to attract professionals from abroad to work in Chinese companies, helping to power the shift from “Made in China” to “Created in China”, according to experts.
People’s Daily again, with latter-day plutocratic Mao-Maoing:
Mao-era art fetching high prices at auction
A calligraphic album of 37 poems by Mao Zedong with sound provenance fetched 14.26 million yuan ($2.34 million) at an auction in Beijing on Saturday night. The calligraphic works were painted in running script (xing shu) by Guo Moruo (1892-1978), a government official and leading author and scholar of 20th-century China.
International Business Times notes ornamental austerian:
China’s Austerity Measures Cause 40% Fall In High-End Crab Sales
Free hairy crabs should be flying off the shelf onto elaborate banquet tables for government officials this time of year in eastern China, but this year, these hairy-limbed delicacies are not moving at all, thanks to President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption measures, the Financial Times reported Sunday.
A hop across the sea with the Japan Times, with a harvest of austerian fruits:
Japan Inc. doubles profit on quick cost-cutting moves
Companies that made tough decisions about exiting businesses, closing factories and revamping management led to a doubling of corporate earnings last quarter, now at the highest level since 2007.
Net income jumped to about ¥5.5 trillion at more than 1,280 of the largest listed nonfinancial firms, the most since the Great Recession six years ago, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. The figure was up from ¥2.25 trillion a year ago, the fastest jump since 2010.
On to Fukushimapocalypse Now!
The Japan Times covers the anxiety producing lead story of the day:
Reactor 4 pool fuel removal begins
Yearlong effort aims to lower potent rods to safer storage
Tokyo Electric Power Co. started a yearlong operation Monday to remove hundreds of nuclear fuel assemblies stored atop reactor 4 at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant to prevent the rods from causing another radiation catastrophe.
But the Japan Daily Press casts doubts:
TEPCO may postpone removal of Fukushima fuel rods in light of new leaks
After announcing last week that it is set to start the highly complicated operation of removing the fuel assemblies from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear, utility operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) may reportedly have to postpone said process. This is due to the discovery of new leaks as well as recent reports that show that some of the fuel rods may have been damaged even before the meltdown last 2011, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
While Kyodo News says it’s all systems go:
Fuel removal starts at Fukushima Daiichi No. 4 spent fuel pool
The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station started a yearlong operation Monday to remove fuel from a pool at a damaged reactor building, in a move to address one of the major hazards remaining at the disaster-stricken plant.
And The Asahi Shimbun highlights systemic problems:
Nuclear power plants in disarray: Lack of waste burial site to delay Tokai reactor decommissioning
Work to decommission the nation’s first commercial nuclear reactor cannot start for the simple reason there is still no disposal site for radioactive waste.
Japan Atomic Power Co. looks set yet again to postpone dismantling of the reactor of the Tokai nuclear power plant in Ibaraki Prefecture, sources said. The task was originally scheduled for fiscal 2011 and then put off until fiscal 2014.
The Guardian covers nuclear developments elsewhere:
British nuclear energy industry could attract South Korean investment
Korean companies tipped to follow France and China into UK market in wake of deal for new Hinkley Point reactor
And the McClatchy Washington Bureau covers the massive problem of 56 million gallons of nuclear and chemical waste leaking away in underground tanks at Hanford, Oregon, home to nuclear production since the Manhattan Project:
Hanford nuclear cleanup slow, workers frustrated
The government’s multi-billion-dollar effort to clean up Hanford, the nation’s largest former nuclear-weapons site, has become its own dysfunctional mess, critics say.
And to Spain and its solar SWAT teams with TheLocal.es:
Spain’s solar police to kick in your door
The latest nail in the coffin for Spain’s solar energy producers is an Energy Law amendment which allows inspectors to enter private properties without a court order. It’s a move lawyers believe could set a worrying precedent.
Next up, Channel NewsAsia Singapore and food poisoned by a toxic legacy:
Largest study widens rice, arsenic link in Bangladesh
An unprecedented probe into high levels of arsenic in Bangladesh’s groundwater strengthens suspicions that eating rice boosts exposure to the poison, scientists said on Monday.
And our final item, an anaconda invasion, comes from Business Insider:
The Largest Snake In The World Has Invaded The United States
