KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Wednesday March 15 2017 Housing and Economic stories

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Wednesday March 15 2017 Housing and Economic stories

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$21,714 For Every Man, Woman And Child In The World - This Global Debt Bomb Is Ready To Explode - (www.zerohedge.com) According to the International Monetary Fund, global debt has grown to a staggering grand total of 152 trillion dollars. Other estimates put that figure closer to 200 trillion dollars, but for the purposes of this article let’s use the more conservative number. If you take 152 trillion dollars and divide it by the seven billion people living on the planet, you get $21,714, which would be the share of that debt for every man, woman and child in the world if it was divided up equally.

So if you have a family of four, your family’s share of the global debt load would be $86,856. Very few families could write a check for that amount today, and we also must remember that we live in some of the wealthiest areas on the globe. Considering the fact that more than 3 billion people around the world live on two dollars a day or less, the truth is that about half the planet would not be capable of contributing toward the repayment of our 152 trillion dollar debt at all. So they should probably be excluded from these calculations entirely, and that would mean that your family’s share of the debt would ultimately be far, far higher.

Snap’s IPO Shares Should be “Junk Equity”: CalPERS - (www.wolfstreet.com) The scam around the shares of Snapchat’s parent, and a revolt by institutional investors that may have to buy the shares. The publicly traded shares without any voting rights in a company totally controlled by just two guys should be labeled “junk equity,” said Anne Simpson, an investment director at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest public pension fund in the US. “You’re constraining the capital markets in a way you’ll come back to regret,” she told the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee on Thursday, as reported by the LA Times. “Innovation, we’re interested in that; but this is an immature attempt to avoid accountability.”

After $225 Billion in Deals Last Year, China Reins In Overseas Investment - (www.cnbc.com) China struck $225 billion in deals to acquire companies abroad last year, a record-breaking number that signaled to the world that Chinese business leaders were hot to haggle. Now, China — with a worried eye on the money leaving its borders — is telling some of its companies to cool it down. On Saturday, in the strongest public signal yet that Beijing was changing course, China's commerce minister castigated what he called "blind and irrational investment." At a news briefing during the annual meeting of China's congress, Zhong Shan, the minister, said officials planned to intensify supervision of what he called a small number of companies. "Some enterprises have already paid the price," said Mr. Zhong, a protégé of President Xi Jinping. "Some even have had a negative impact on our national image."

Brexit Drains Swamp in London, Creatures Crawl to Luxembourg – (www.wolfstreet.com) In its report on the “world’s worst corporate tax havens” last December, Oxfam rated Luxembourg in 7th place, behind Bermuda, Cayman Islands, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, and Ireland. But the “City of London,” a largely autonomous square mile within London where the threads of global finance meet, was given a special mention: The number one “unexpected absence” from the list of the top 15 worst tax heavens. Oxfam’s report put it this way: The UK’s City of London is at the centre of a web of Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories, over which the UK wields both official and informal influence. The 14 Overseas Territories include the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda, and Jersey is one of the UK’s three Crown Dependencies. As Jersey Finance, the official marketing arm of the Jersey offshore financial centre, puts it, “Jersey represents an extension of the City of London.”

Turkey's Erdogan Calls Dutch `Fascists' After Minister Grounded - (www.bloomberg.com) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Dutch were “fascists” after the government of the Netherlands blocked his foreign minister from attending a political rally in the country out of fear of public disorder. In response, Turkey closed off access to the Dutch diplomatic posts in Ankara and Istanbul, citing security reasons. Landing rights for the flight of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu were withdrawn, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said Saturday in a statement. The government acted after an invitation for Turks to “participate in a public meeting” with Cavusoglu in Rotterdam put “safety in jeopardy.” “These are cowards, remnants of Nazis, these are fascists,” Erdogan said Saturday at a televised rally in Istanbul. “Lets see how your planes will come to Turkey. I mean here diplomatic planes, not the travel of normal citizens.”

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