Global Macro:
- Hugo Chavez visits site of refinery explosion that killed 41. CNN. Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, accounting for 94% of the nation’s exports, is in a shoddy state. With accidents like this he’ll have to work extra hard to rig the next election.
- Deep political problems also plague Saudi Arabia. Financial Times
- Assad regime accused of killing 200. Guardian
United States:
- Republicans defy a gathering storm. Washington Post
- Twelve US cities where the housing recovery is still a dream. Business Insider
- And before the recovery’s even gotten started, Wall Street invents a new way to add system risk to the property market. Naked Capitalism. It’s called securitised rentals.
- And on a similar topic, why America still won’t seek justice for the crisis. Credit Slips
- They just punish banks for dealing with the Iranians. BBC. Unicredit is the latest.
- The decline of America’s ‘Empire of Illusion.’ Jesse’s Café Americain. But is US finance really at its fin de siecle?
- Luckily the US arms industry is booming. NY Times. Weapons sales tripled in 2011.
Europe:
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- The ECB should promise bond purchases, if not target yields. Wolfgang Munchau
- Indeed. The pain in Spain is about to intensify. Bloomberg
- Unsurprisingly, more London bankers want to move to Singapore. CNBC
Asia:
- China has two weeks to deliver stimulus or it faces embarrassment. Reuters. But is embarrassment enough in a single-party state?
- Like America, China’s weapons industry is doing pretty well. Washington Post
- Meanwhile in Waziristan, has China’s bin Laden been killed? Long War Journal
- Indian PM denies impropriety in coal license deal. Wall Street Journal. Sure, but someone in the government was getting his hands dirty.
- Meanwhile. India follows China’s lead in censoring objectional online content. The Diplomat. No real news here. India has been censoring for decades.
- Samsung shares drop on Apple intellectual property suit. BBC
- For more China-focussed links, check out the post by Sinocism later today.
Australia:
- Australia’s finance sector ranks third in market cap to China and the US. Deal Journal Australia. For a country of less than 30 million, we are either the new Switzerland or the new bubble.
- But is Switzerland, not Australia, the new home of mining profits? Daniel Woker in The Interpreter
- Tony Abbott: there is no going back to the past. The Australian. Welcome to the brave new world instead.
- Is the China growth story a fairy tale? AFR. You tell me.
- No, the investment pipeline is strong says Cameron Clyne. AFR
- Ad spending growth forecasts slashed. The Australian
Other:
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- Belarus is the new hot tech hub. Business Week. Lots of smart engineers in the former Soviet republic, but without an open society don’t call it Silicon Steppe yet.
- A similar story on Kenya’s burgeoning IT scene. The Economist. And yes, they do call it Silicon Savannah.
- Intellectual power and responsibility. Daniel Drezner. Here, an academic-celebrity writes about academic-celebrities who get upset about other academic-celebrities.
- The haunting story of China’s economic migrants. The Guardian