Securing a lasting peace in the southern Philippines has been an ongoing problem for the Philippine government. Marginalised Moros in the southern Philippines have legitimate grievances against the Philippine government. This much the Philippine government has recognised in signing peace agreements, most recently with the insurgent group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The Federal Reserve has boosted one estimate of second quarter GDP as housing and small business data improves. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow indicator rose 50 basis points to 2.2% as Fed economists cited expectations for higher consumer spending and fixed investment.
The upgrade comes amidst a report from CoreLogic, a real estate research firm, which showed a tremendous decline in foreclosures. Total foreclosures in America fell 14.9% on a year-over-year basis in March, with just 427,000 foreclosures on the market. That represents 1.1% of homes.
India recently revised its tax treaty with the island nation of Mauritius. The revisions should help close loopholes that allowed investors to use the island nation as a tax shelter. The move comes after the infamous “Panama Papers” revealed similar tax sheltering and thrust the issue to the forefront of the public consciousness around the world.
Charles Dickens’ character Oliver Twist is perhaps best known as the boy who wanted more. Of course, he got none. Instead, his efforts prompted Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle (official) to offer a princely £5 to anyone who would take the boy off his hands.
The environment is something of a modern Oliver Twist in the budget workhouse. There’s certainly no more porridge on offer – indeed significantly less counting the changes to renewable energy funding announced on 23 March.
A memo on the subject of housing taxation from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is stirring up debate on proposed changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax in the election campaign. The memo, dated December 9 2014, does counter the government’s claim that changes to negative gearing will have an adverse effect on housing prices, although this was never its intended purpose.
The superannuation changes announced in last week’s federal budget will better target super towards its core purpose of supplementing the Age Pension. However, in such a complex area as super, appearances can deceive. Parts of the budget package may make the system even more generous to high-income earners – and more expensive for the government.
Carry forward won’t help women and carers to ‘catch up’
The Indonesian government recently announced it would start to regulate app-based ride-sharing services such as Uber and Grab Taxi. This followed a large strike by taxi drivers in Jakarta to protest against the ride-sharing companies.
The current slump in world commodity prices is forcing Africa to rethink its traditional dependence on raw material exports. This is why the time for African nations to lay the foundations for transitioning from extractive to learning economies is now.
The jolts are real. The International Monetary Fund has projected that the continent will grow by 3% in 2016. This is well below the 6% average growth over the past decade and the lowest rate in the past 15 years.
As job growth remains extremely weak and labor market indicators stay negative, the Federal Reserve is considering ignoring inflation in the short-term as it sets monetary policy. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans said in a conference in London that the central bank might need to ignore high inflation in setting its monetary policy.
“Overshooting a little bit just to make sure you get to 2% strikes me as quite sensible,” he said, while acknowledging that inflation has been above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target for several months.
Jackson Martinez, Alex Teixeira, and Ramires – formerly among Europe’s top footballers – are now the centrepiece of the Chinese Super League’s recent £200m acquisition of footballing talent. Out
