Economy

Chinese investment in the United States has plummeted 92% this year (Adam)

A number of major deals involving Chinese investors were called off in the first half of 2018 by companies who cited problems with CFIUS. This includes Alibaba (BABA) affiliate Ant Financial’s $1.2 billion attempt to takeover Moneygram (MGI), and conglomerate HNA Group’s bid for Skybridge Capital, a hedge fund.

What happened when Walmart left (Thomas R.)

Much has been written about what happens when the corporate giant opens up in an area, with numerous studies recording how it sucks the energy out of a locality, overpowering the competition through sheer scale and forcing the closure of mom-and-pop stores for up to 20 miles around. A more pressing, and much less-well-understood, question is what are the consequences when Walmart screeches into reverse: when it ups and quits, leaving behind a trail of lost jobs and broken promises.

How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country (Sparky1)

At the heart of their effort is a network of activists who use a sophisticated data service built by the Kochs, called i360, that helps them identify and rally voters who are inclined to their worldview. It is a particularly powerful version of the technologies used by major political parties.

In places like Nashville, Koch-financed activists are finding tremendous success.

Trade Brawls Get World’s Top Central Bankers Worried for Growth (Adam)

A trade war would be a headache for central banks given it would likely deal stagflationary blows to their economies by forcing consumer prices up and demand down. The policy makers would then be forced to decide whether to act to support growth or cap the inflationary pressures, for example by hiking interest rates.

Puerto Rico’s new law moves to privatize power grid nine months after Hurricane Maria (Thomas R.)

Customers in Puerto Rico have been paying nearly double compared to those in the U.S. for unreliable service that has resulted in multiple blackouts across the island in the past months, even after post-hurricane repairs. Over 5,000 households in Puerto Rico are living without power since Hurricane Maria.

Ethics on the battlefield (blackeagle)

I would slowly learn that, as Gray put it, ‘destructive human conflict is rooted in flaws within human beings themselves’ – flaws unveiled in Iraq by grievances on a historical timescale we in the West no longer understand. The international architects of the new Iraq, who were being helicoptered from one protected compound to another, moving blindly over the carnage of sectarian and tribal violence below, seemed not to acknowledge this in the PowerPoints on good governance that they showed each other.

Why More Young Married Couples Are Keeping Separate Bank Accounts (Thomas R.)

Some of this has to do with Millennial marriage trends more generally. Compared to previous generations, Millennials get married later in life, and thus significantly more of them live together before marriage. Because cohabiting couples are far more likely than married couples to keep finances separate, a certain inertia develops. “Once you’ve established your relationship norms,” Pepin asked, “why would you change them?”

More Americans living without partners, especially young adults (Thomas R.)

“They feel like they’re not financially stable, and so they just don’t think that they’re ready to enter into a partnership like that,” said Kim Parker, director of social trends research at Pew.

“In the past, it seems like young adults sprung right into marriage, whether or not they felt financially ready, and then built a life and built financial stability as a couple,” Parker said.

Housing markets across the country show dire warning signs — in West Coast tech hubs, it’s worse (Thomas R.)

For the lowest-earning quarter of American households, real median incomes grew just 3 percent between 1988 and 2016. The median income for adults 25 to 34 grew just 5 percent. As wages for young people and low-income Americans lagged, median rents rose 20 percent faster than inflation between 1990 and 2016 and median home prices grew 41 percent faster.

Heavy Rains Bring Floods To Areas Of Texas Hit By Harvey (Thomas R.)

KHOU television reported that emergency management officials in Orange County say that as many as 15 homes flooded, several of which were still empty after being damaged during Harvey.

The Big Cycle (Jesper A.)

It is reasonable to see the cycles with our past, in my simplistic take here of; the discontinuation with our past (such a view is evidenced in a ‘new’ earth movement involving thinkers such as Graham Hancock). The loss of our Big past. This seeking of our past is helpful and it develops larger sophistication in a world lost in some cases to its own devices. Devices (obvious word-play on decieve and the word ‘vice’ are holding us as in a vise) of opulence and psychological over-reach in face of a more dire future of less.

Is Detroit Really Making a Comeback? (Thomas R.)

Two major conclusions emerged from our data. First, by a number of measures Detroit continues to decline, and even when positive change has occurred, growth has been much less robust than many narratives would suggest. Second, within the city recovery has been highly uneven, resulting in increasing inequality.

Wednesday Cannabis and Metal Explorer Update (DG)

In ABC’s case you are on the geologic trail of Historic Gold Cities in Latin American’d Cordillas, while with MNO.Lz Mining you are beginning to exploit a serious Energy deposit in a stable and friendly jurisdiction. Given your appetite for risk, there is a choice.

The Permian Faces Shut Ins Due To Oil Pipeline Shortage (Michael S.)

The Permian pipeline bottleneck is unlikely to ease for at least one year, Sheffield told Bloomberg, noting that this constraint will continue to affect U.S. oil prices, with WTI at Midland, in the heart of the Permian, likely to trade at a huge $25 discount to the WTI priced at Cushing, Oklahoma.

How Are Farmers Affording High Land Prices? (Thomas R.)

There are more farms coming to the market in March and April as we approach planting season, and there’s new interest from investor buyers and groups that are bidding the price up at auctions. Investors are now competing against the neighbor farmer who usually is the unchallenged bidder and then ends up buying the ground. Interest in purchasing recreational ground is also on the rise. We’ve received calls from out-of-state investors who were interested in seeing recreational ground during their stay in Iowa for the Iowa Deer Classic.

Time to Get Real. There Aren’t Plenty of Fish in the Sea and It’s Our Fault (Thomas R.)

Fears that we are taking far too much from our oceans – without making adequate efforts to replace what has been lost – have been building for years. After WWII, the development of sonar technology began to take off and with it, so did the methods used to locate and capture large swaths of fish for consumption. The proliferance of large-scale commercial fishing operations has pushed many species of fish to the brink of extinction, with some conservation experts predicting that our oceans could be empty by the year 2048 if fishing continues at its current rate.

Looking for signs of global warming? It’s all around you (Thomas R.)

Evidence is in the blueberry bushes in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond, the dwindling population of polar bears of the Arctic and the dying corals worldwide. Scientists have documented 28,800 cases of plants and animals “responding consistently to temperature changes,” a 2008 study in the journal Nature said.

Gold & Silver

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