Americans just aren’t “miserable” enough to elect Donald Trump

The impressive non-farm payrolls of 242,000 and an unemployment rate that remained at 4.9% put even more downward pressure on what’s known as the “Misery Index,” an unofficial economic measure calculated by adding the unemployment rate and inflation.

This indicator, created by economist Arthur Okin, has become a staple of election-year commentary and has an impressive record of predicting the outcome of U.S. presidential elections since the middle of the last century. The current index, at a 25-year low, suggests the Democrats will retain control of the White House this year, according to Bloomberg’s Chief U.S. Economist Carl Riccadonna.

“Historically, gains in the index as Election Day approaches have augured poorly for the incumbent party. But with the jobless rate tumbling and inflation only inching higher, the signal this year points toward a Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders victory,” Riccadonna said.

The latest strong jobs number, along with meager inflation–core CPI registering 2.2%–puts the effective level of the Misery Index at 7.1, which can be seen in the red line below.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-just-aren-t-%E2%80%9Cmiserable%E2%80%9D-enough-to-elect-donald-trump–150004686.html

Brazil on course for worst recession in century

The slump has made Brazil increasingly toxic on the investor landscape. Last week, Moody’s became the third big credit rating agency to downgrade Brazil to junk status, warning of slow recovery and political uncertainty.

A Markit Brazil Services survey of the private sector released Thursday found a record contraction in economic activity in February, as “companies continued to link the adverse operating environment to the ongoing economic, financial and political crises.”

“The Brazilian economic downturn took a real turn for the worse in February, as the financial and political difficulties in the country drove down output and led to reduced order intakes,” said Rob Dobson, author of the report.

“The domestic market is especially weak” and “the labor market also appears to be in dire straits.”

Brazilian economists warn that 2016 could turn out to be worse than the IMF’s prediction, with the economy shrinking even more than in 2015.

“Brazil has never had such a high level of uncertainty and this is freezing everything up. There is no consumption or investment or credit with this historic level of uncertainty,” Daniel Cunha, an analyst at XP Investimentos in Sao Paulo, said.

http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-growth-plunges-3-8-percent-biggest-fall-005105335.html

Germany deems passports issued from IS territory invalid

Germany has declared Syrian and Iraqi passports issued in territory controlled by the Islamic State group invalid.

The Interior Ministry confirmed a report Saturday by the weekly Der Spiegel that German authorities stopped recognizing the passports Dec. 10. The measure was taken less than a month after French police found Syrian passports on the bodies of two men involved in the deadly Nov. 13 attacks in Paris.

Security services believe IS seized large numbers of blank passports and passport-making equipment when they captured Deir el-Zour, Raqqa and al-Hasaka in Syria, and Mosul and Anbar province in Iraq.

The Interior Ministry said all documents issued from those cities since Jan. 1, 2015, are invalid in Germany and their bearers’ identities are considered unconfirmed unless they can provide other documents.

http://news.yahoo.com/germany-deems-passports-issued-territory-invalid-141209039.html

 

 

Obama presents plan to close Guantanamo prison

President Barack Obama presented a long-shot plan to shutter Guantanamo Bay prison Tuesday, hoping to fulfill an elusive campaign promise before he leaves office next year.

Describing the jail as a stain on America’s reputation and a catalyst for jihadists, Obama said “I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president.”

“For many years, it’s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security. It undermines it,” Obama said from the Roosevelt Room.

He outlined a $290-$475 million plan to move the 91 remaining detainees abroad and to one of 13 possible — unnamed — facilities in the United States.

Obama has tried for almost eight years to close the jail, but has been thwarted by Congress, his own Department of Defense and some in his own party.

As a candidate and as president, Obama has argued that the detention without trial and torture of orange jumpsuit-clad suspects harms America’s image and makes it less safe.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-says-guantanamo-undermines-national-security-154019594.html

GOP candidates keep warning of an EMP attack. Here’s what that is.

What do the James Bond film “A View To A Kill,” the dystopian John Carpenter flick “Escape from L.A.,” and the grisly, made-for-TV movie “The Day After” have in common with the battle for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination? All have raised, to varying degrees, the possibility that an enemy of America could unleash a devastating electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that would fry U.S. electronics.

Last week, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush became the latest GOP White House hopeful to express his concerns about what he called the “scary as crap” possibility of an EMP strike on the U.S.

In an interview with Politico, Bush described a back-and-forth on the subject with a woman at a town hall-style meeting in Concord, N.H.

“She said, ‘I’m worried about EMPs. Are you?’” he recalled in the interview. “I had just read an article about electromagnetic pulse and [how it could] take out the grid. It’s scary as crap. It’s one of the scariest things that could happen.”

It’s not often you hear a presidential candidate describe something as “scary as crap.” Not in public, anyway. But Bush is hardly the first 2016 hopeful to declare himself worried about EMPs — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former senator Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee have all weighed in.

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/gop-candidates-keep-warning-of-1367993939435574.html

NSA chief: ‘Paris would not have happened’ without encrypted apps

National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers warns that encryption is making it “much more difficult” for the agency to intercept the communications of terrorist groups like the Islamic State, citing November’s Paris attacks as a case where his agency was left in the dark because the perpetrators used new technologies to disguise their communications.

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo News, Rogers confirmed speculation that began right after the attack: that “some of the communications” of the Paris terrorists “were encrypted,” and, as a result, “we did not generate the insights ahead of time. Clearly, had we known, Paris would not have happened.”

Rogers’ comments were made on Friday, just days before the FBI obtained a court order requiring Apple to provide a “backdoor” into the data on the iPhone of one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, Calif., terror attack in December — an order the company is resisting. But his remarks are likely to fuel the debate over encryption that has sorely divided the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community, on one side, and privacy advocates and U.S. technology companies. (A spokesman for the NSA had no comment today on the court order or on Apple’s response.)

Rogers has at times sought to steer a middle ground in this debate, acknowledging that encryption is “foundational to our future” and even saying recently that arguing about it “is a waste of time.” In the Yahoo News interview, he frankly acknowledged, “I don’t know the answer” to unencrypting devices and applications without addressing the concerns over privacy and competitiveness, calling for a national collaboration among industry and government officials to solve the problem.

But he left little doubt about the impact encryption is having on his agency’s mission.

“Is it harder for us to generate the kind of knowledge that I would like against some of these targets? Yes,” Rogers said. “Is that directly tied in part to changes they are making in their communications? Yes. Does encryption make it much more difficult for us to execute our mission. Yes.”

Rogers also provided new details about his agency’s efforts to implement the USA Freedom Act, a law passed in the wake of the Edward Snowden disclosures, which he said has made it “more expensive” for his agency to access the phone records of terror suspects inside the United States and has resulted in a “slightly slower” retrieval of data from U.S. phone companies.

But Rogers said the delay in retrieving phone records is measured “in hours, not days or weeks,” and he has not yet seen any “significant” problems that have “led to concerns … this is not going to work.”

“When I say more difficult to do the job, it’s certainly a little slower,” he said. “There is no doubt about that. It is not as fast.”

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/nsa-chief-paris-would-not-have-happened-without-184040933.html

Wellard insists sheep shipshape

The Australian Securities Exchange-listed company was forced to unload about 7400 sheep at Fremantle last month after they spent more than 10 days in limbo on one of its vessels that suffered engine problems soon after leaving port.

The unloading pushed the boundaries of Australia’s strict quarantine laws and Wellard said the sheep would be processed at its Beaufort River Meats abattoir near Kojonup.

Wellard said yesterday that about 2600 of the sheep, which have been held at its pre-export quarantine feedlot at Baldivis, would be processed at BRM.

It said the remainder had been sold for export, but declined to reveal the buyer or their final destination.

It is understood the sheep were sold to rival exporter Livestock Shipping Services, that they were loaded on the Ghena at Fremantle at the weekend and are bound for the Middle East.

“It was our intention and our preference to process all of the sheep in WA,” Wellard chief executive Mauro Balzarini said.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/countryman/a/30821126/

Gold surges to one-year high on fears of financial uncertainty

Gold surged nearly 4 percent on Thursday to its highest in a year as fears about financial instability, a lower dollar and U.S. Treasury yields persuaded investors to seek refuge in the precious metal.

Traders said financial instability fears were fuelled by European bank shares slumping to multi-year lows, with concerns mounting over banks’ profitability in a low-growth and low-interest rate environment.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gold-jumps-eight-half-month-011708953.html

New Hampshire may be now or never for Jeb Bush

The son and brother of two US presidents, Bush cracked jokes at the expense of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and delighted a friendly crowd drawn by his pedigree, moderate conservatism and experience.

He admitted he may not be the best debater, but said he has the best temperament, experience and knowledge to be commander-in-chief.

If he falters, experts warn, Bush would confirm the narrative painted by critics: that he is a tarnished candidate unable to generate enthusiasm for yet another Bush presidency amid the current appetite for outsiders like Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

http://news.yahoo.com/hampshire-may-now-never-jeb-bush-030042722.html

 

China’s economic struggles are of particular concern to Europe – Nowotny

China’s growth, though seemingly still rapid, is “meagre” compared to its social and demographic challenges, and its transformation will hurt its trading partners in the short term, said Nowotny, who is also the head of the Austrian central bank.

“The most urgent issue here is the financial volatility and economic weakness in various emerging market economies,” Nowotny told a conference in Budapest. “Recent developments in China – since last year, world’s largest economy in terms of GDP based on purchasing power parity – are of particular concern.”

The euro zone has struggled with weak growth and ultra-low inflation for years and its problems have been exacerbated by Chinese growth slowing to its lowest level in 25 years.

The ECB eased policy with a rate cut and an expansion of its asset purchase programme in December and signalled last month it may have to ease policy further in March.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/30707941/china-s-economic-struggles-are-of-particular-concern-to-europe-nowotny/