Macro/Markets
- Investors Are Betting That the Fed Hits Pause on Rate Hikes Wall Street Journal
- Yanis Varoufakis | The Euro Has Never Been More Problematic YouTube
- The World Is Getting Quietly, Relentlessly Better Wall Street Journal
- Asset Management’s Squeezed Middle Faces a Bleak 2019 Wall Street Journal
- Apple warns on Q1 results CNBC
Americas
- Trump-loving economist caught red-handed ’making up numbers’ by CNN guest – Raw Story
- US PMI slips to 15-month low in December Markit
- Romney’s attack prompts call to protect Trump from 2020 primary challenger Washington Examiner
- US Trade Rep. Lighthizer thinks more tariffs could be needed to get meaningful China concessions CNBC
- Trump Escalates His Assault on Civil-Military Relations The Atlantic
Europe/Middle East
- ’The Euro is a suicide pact’ Economist Prof. Steve Keen on Brexit & European Central Bank ending QE Patreon
- Growth of eurozone manufacturing economy continues to falter Markit
- Most Labour members believe Corbyn should back second Brexit vote The Guardian
- Britain is on the brink of an historic strategic decision chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com
- Economists predict the UK economy’s trajectory in 2019 Financial Times (tip: don’t use “economist” and “predict” in same headline)
- Italian health czar resigns over government’s ‘anti-scientific positions’ – DW
- Donald Trump says Afghanistan “made” Soviet Union into Russia, wants Moscow back there: President Donald Trump has called for Russia and others to take a more active role in the conflict in Afghanistan after claiming that involvement there was responsible for the collapse of the Soviet Union. – Newsweek (Vlad says so, so there!)
Asia/Sub-continent
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- Baidu CEO warns that ‘winter is coming’ amid slowing growth, economic restructuring South China Morning Post
- Censoring China’s Internet, for Stability and Profit New York Times
- In search of fluctuations: Another look at China’s incredibly stable GDP growth helsinki.fi
- U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday mocked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for funding a library in Afghanistan, suggesting it was of no use. – Voanews (well, we all know that Trump’s library will have bars on it, and lots of empty shelves)
- India’s Retaliatory Tariffs to Hit US Exports Worth 900 Million Dollars: The tariffs were in retaliation to President Donald Trump’s decision to impose heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items. – News18 (tremendous tariffs, just the best, very nice)
Australia/New Zealand
- Two men stabbed at Scientology headquarters in Sydney – ABC
- A missing Australian’s body could have been found 18 months earlier if police had not relied on incorrect Google Maps data, a coroner has said – BBC
- Taxpayers foot Barnaby Joyce’s $6,000 travel bill – SBS
- Australia finally has a US Ambassador – ABC (only took two years – maybe same response time for next military adventure callup?)
- Australia, as designed in the 1890s, is past its use-by date – SMH
Miscellaneous
- Showtime is set to air a dramatic comedy on the ’87 financial crash. It looks a lot like the current Wall Street melodrama. Washington Post
- Elon Musk’s Tunnel: It Doesn’t Scale, so it Doesn’t Matter humantransit.org
- Netflix pleads with people to stop doing the ’Bird Box’ challenge TechCrunch
- Hasan Minhaj responds after Netflix pulls episode of his comedy show in Saudi Arabia – “Clearly, the best way to stop people from watching something is to ban it, make it trend online, and then leave it up on Youtube.” – TIME (heh heh – go get those barbarians!)
- Nasa’s New Horizons: ‘Snowman’ shape of distant Ultima Thule revealed – BBC