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Roger Stone Suspended From Twitter After Expletive-Laden Tweets

October 29, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Then his Twitter account was suspended, but there was some confusion. On Saturday, Mr. Stone wrote on Facebook that Twitter had notified him that the suspension would last only a few hours.

But on Sunday, the account remained suspended. It was unclear whether that would be permanent. Mr. Stone told The Wrap he would sue Twitter. “The battle for free speech has just begun,” he said.

“I have been inundated on Twitter with bloggers threatening to kill me, my wife, my kids and even my dogs, yet Twitter seems unconcerned about that,” he told The Wrap. “This is just part and parcel of the tech left’s effort to silence conservative voices.”

Mr. Stone has since promised to speak out on other Twitter accounts, including those associated with his blog and the biographical movie “Get Me Roger Stone.” He has also started a petition calling for Twitter to reinstate his account.

Emails sent to Mr. Stone via his blog, StoneColdTruth, were not answered immediately on Sunday.

As a corporation, Twitter has the right to suspend accounts. A spokeswoman said on Sunday she could not comment on any specific users but pointed to the company policy on abusive behavior.

She highlighted the lines that said users “may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others” and that an account may be considered abusive if it is “inciting others to harass another account.”

There has been scrutiny over the company’s suspension policies given Twitter’s growing role in public discourse, especially because Mr. Trump uses it to bypass traditional news outlets and reach his supporters — and detractors — directly.

Mr. Trump has tweeted to promote policies and to lob insults at various targets, including mainstream media outlets like The New York Times, politicians on both sides of the aisle, celebrities who criticize him and the mayor of San Juan, P.R.

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He has also retweeted images and videos with violent content, including one that showed him wrestling and repeatedly punching a man with a CNN logo imposed over his face, and another clip edited to show the president hitting a golf ball and striking his former campaign rival Hillary Clinton in the back.

Some targets of Mr. Trump’s criticism have endured additional insults and threats from the president’s supporters, leading some to wonder whether the president has encouraged harassment and should be banned from Twitter himself.

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Mr. Stone left Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2015 amid widespread speculation about the reason for his departure.

Mr. Trump said Mr. Stone was fired; Mr. Stone said he left voluntarily, suggesting that the candidate’s comments about the news anchor Megyn Kelly — comments that referred to “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” — had prompted his departure.

But Mr. Stone remained loyal to the president and maintains that the two still have a close relationship.

On Monday, InfoWars published an article in which Mr. Stone said he urged Mr. Trump, in a “friendly phone call,” to release government documents about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Mr. Trump ordered the release of more than 2,800 of the documents on Thursday.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/us/politics/roger-stone-twitter-suspended.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

How Do You Stop Bullying? Advertisers Try to Help

October 29, 2017 by Leave a Comment

The impetus to take on bullying is not only altruistic. Social media increasingly has made brands the target of rumors, boycotts and other attacks.

“Now that word of mouth and social are playing such a large role, and more and more consumers have figured out how to use social, they can get on their soapbox,” said Allen Adamson, a brand strategy consultant. “The angrier they are, the more effective they are online.”

As a result, advertisers have a greater sense of what bullied individuals face — and are learning what kind of communication serves to counter it. “I think maybe more brands, more people, more entities are experiencing it,” said Heidi Arthur, the Ad Council’s head of campaign development.

These insights have helped shape the conversation around bullying in the past few years, said Ross Ellis, the founder of STOMP Out Bullying, a nonprofit that is promoting the first Wednesday in November as “National Block It Out Day,” an anti-cyberbullying initiative.

“The shoot we did was really emotional,” Monica S. Lewinsky said of the anti-bullying commercial. Damon Winter/The New York Times

Five years ago, the Ad Council spearheaded an anti-bullying campaign that targeted parents; today, it speaks directly to bystanders, both kids and adults. The group has homed in on the language used to characterize harassment and abuse to sharpen the focus on what bullying looks like. It now urges people who witness such behavior to intercede.

“Just saying ‘bullying’ is fairly broad and speaks to you being on one side of it,” Ms. Arthur said. “When you can connect it be back to specific behaviors, you can have more of those ‘aha’ moments.”

Ms. Lewinsky hopes that her work will help. The campaign’s flagship video depicts what would happen if internet trolls confronted their targets in public rather than online.

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“There’s an online disinhibition effect, where people hiding behind anonymity and a screen will tend to depart from their normal persona,” she said.

The video depicts confrontations like one woman mocking another’s weight in a cafe, a pedestrian accosting two men with homophobic hate speech and a woman being labeled a terrorist. The perpetrators and targets were played by actors, but the stunned responses of passers-by who intervened were unscripted.

In Real Life #be Strong Video by Whats Trendy

“The shoot we did was really emotional, not only for the actors, but also for the crew,” Ms. Lewinsky said. “We all had very strong reactions to ones that hit home in different ways.”

Mr. Hahn said the hateful comments the actors used were taken verbatim from social media accounts. “Sadly, it was all too easy to find them,” he said.

Of course, advertisers were well-versed in navigating unacknowledged or buried emotions long before the advent of the internet, which some experts suggest has made the industry uniquely positioned to take on today’s trolls. And if the industry can position its clients at the forefront of this conversation, those brands stand to benefit.

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“I think advertising is really a reflection of what’s going on in the times,” said Val DiFebo, the chief executive of Deutsch in New York. “I think the value proposition is really about creating a contact point with your consumer that’s meaningful to them beyond the product that you’re selling.”

Mr. Adamson noted that attempting to fight bullying through advertising will have to rely on some of the time-tested strategies marketers have long used.

“Most brands have always been sold on an emotional basis,” Mr. Adamson said. “People buy a coffee because it says something about who they are. The only way to deal with this is to make people emotionally motivated to say something. Ultimately, if they’re going to change behavior, it’s not about a rational argument.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/business/media/monica-lewinsky-bullying-ad.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

‘Jigsaw’ Carves Up Clooney’s ‘Suburbicon’ at the Box Office

October 29, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Contributing to dismal weekend results in North America was “Suburbicon,” which is Mr. Clooney’s sixth film as a director and his fourth misfire. Bludgeoned by critics — “a tonal disaster from start to finish” is how RogerEbert.com put it — “Suburbicon” cost about $25 million to make, and took in roughly $2.8 million in the United States. It was distributed into 2,046 theaters, giving Paramount its worst wide-release result on record.

“Suburbicon” is George Clooney’s sixth film as a director and his fourth misfire. Jordan Strauss/Invision

“Suburbicon” is not a financial catastrophe for Paramount. After initially passing on the script, the studio ended up paying about $10 million for domestic rights. Foreign distributors covered the balance of the cost. The problem is that Mr. Clooney — an Oscar-winning actor and producer — has now had more misses than hits as a director, which is usually when studios cut off the money. (Especially if you are a female director.)

Mr. Clooney’s last film, “The Monuments Men,” was also a critical and commercial disappointment in 2014. So was “Leatherheads” in 2008. His first stab at directing, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” got good reviews in 2002 but fizzled at the box office. Mr. Clooney’s successes as a filmmaker have been “The Ides of March” in 2011 and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” for which he received an Oscar nomination for best director in 2006.

Also flopping over the weekend was “Thank You for Your Service,” which cost Mr. Spielberg’s Amblin Partners $20 million to make and took in roughly $3.7 million. “Thank You for Your Service,” which received mostly positive reviews and was distributed by Universal Pictures, may have suffered from a lack of audience interest in films involving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “American Sniper” was a smash hit in 2014, but ticket buyers have rejected entries like “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (2016), “Green Zone” (2010), “In the Valley of Elah” (2007), “Lions for Lambs” (2007) and “Home of the Brave” (2006).

Also notable: “Amityville: The Awakening,” a low-budget horror movie from Dimension, a division of the embattled Weinstein Company, and Blumhouse Productions, was made available in 10 theaters on Saturday. The fate of this movie, which was released on GooglePlay for free earlier this month, was decided long before the sexual harassment crisis that has enveloped the Weinstein Company in recent weeks. But it nonetheless adds to the poor recent track record of Dimension, run by Bob Weinstein.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/movies/jigsaw-suburbicon-george-clooney.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

The rise of the petro-yuan

October 29, 2017 by Leave a Comment

China’s launch of ‘petro-yuan’ in two months sounds death knell for dollar’s dominance

Since the 1970s, the oil trade has almost entirely been conducted in US dollars, even when buyers and producers are not American. The ramifications of the dollar-denominated oil trade are immense: Because oil is priced in dollars, there is huge demand for dollars, lending the US economic and strategic power.  

Beijing hopes to challenge the dollar by setting up a futures market with its own currency, the yuan. To that end, reports indicate that China is set to introduce an oil benchmark priced in yuan in the coming months.

For China, there are a lot of upsides to this gambit. An oil futures market based in yuan will stimulate demand for the Chinese currency, which China believes will lend it strategic clout. That money is also more likely to be recycled back into the Chinese economy. The US has been able to run huge budget deficits, borrowing money at extremely low rates because of the demand for its currency. Petrodollars continuously flow back into the US economy, creating investment and economic growth that might not otherwise occur. The dollar has also long been one of the premier safe havens for investors around the world.

China hopes to replicate this dynamic. And as the largest oil importer in the world, there is a great deal of logic in having oil contracts trade in yuan.

But it won’t be easy to unseat the greenback. The plan is to launch an oil futures contract on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE), but there are obstacles in convincing large oil producers and consumers in using the yuan and investing in the Shanghai benchmark. Without some major countries participating, like, say, Saudi Arabia or Russia, it will be difficult to create a market that is deep and liquid enough to make a difference.

© Jason LeePetrodollar end looming as China allies dump it in oil trading – Jim Rogers

Moreover, because the yuan does not float freely – it is fixed to the dollar and adjusted daily – major investors will be wary of trading in the Chinese currency. “My biggest reservations are the role of the Chinese central government, potential state intervention and favoritism toward Chinese companies,” said John Driscoll, director of JTD Energy Services, according to CNBC.On the other hand, China has slowly loosened its grip on its currency.

“Game changer it is not — at least not yet,” Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, told CNBC. “But it is another indicator of the beginning of the glacial, and I emphasize the word glacial, decline of the dollar.”

Others see much more dramatic change coming from the launching of the Shanghai benchmark. Juerg Kiener, managing director and chief investment officer of asset manager Swiss Asia Capital, told CNBC that the petro-yuan is “well-advanced” and already “structurally in place.”

Up until now, there have been some transactions in yuan, but only in trade specifically with China, and typically only with some smaller countries. Iran in particular was an early adopter of yuan-based oil sales, an unsurprising fact given Tehran’s eagerness to avoid the long arm of the US Treasury department.

A more significant development was Russia agreeing to some yuan-based oil trade in 2015, also the result of US sanctions.

China could shatter petrodollar by compelling Saudi Arabia to trade oil in yuan

Many believe that key to the success of the benchmark is convincing a country like Saudi Arabia to participate. Saudi Arabia is one of the largest oil producers in the world, and sells a little more than one million barrels of oil each day to China. Russia is still the top supplier to China, exporting 1.545 mb/d in September, and in fact, Russia has been taking market share away from Saudi Arabia in China. If Riyadh wants to avoid losing more ground, the thinking goes, it may need to agree to yuan-denominated sales. Recent reports that China’s large state-owned oil companies are considering an outright purchase of five percent of Saudi Aramco, a move that Saudi Arabia is rumored to be considering in lieu of the Aramco IPO, should be seen in this context.

“I believe that yuan pricing of oil is coming and as soon as the Saudis move to accept it — as the Chinese will compel them to do — then the rest of the oil market will move along with them,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said on CNBC earlier this month.

At that point, things would really start to change, and the dollar would start to lose its top status. Some see that as unlikely, as Saudi Arabia would likely be met with blowback from the US. But it would be a difficult choice for Riyadh – lose the Chinese market or spark the ire of Washington.

It may not happen right away, but the launching of the crude oil benchmark on the Shanghai exchange could mark the beginning of the end of the petrodollar.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/408147-china-dollar-petroyuan-oil/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Virtual Reality Gets Naughty

October 28, 2017 by Leave a Comment

“You can pretend like you are in the bedroom with me, and it is someone you have a crush on,” she said. “You are in the experience.”

Ela Darling Molly Matalon for The New York Times

While virtual-reality pornography may feel like something out of a science fiction movie, it already has a formidable, if underground, presence. According to website Pornhub, views of VR porn are up 275 percent since it debuted in the summer of 2016. Now the site is averaging about 500,000 views (on Christmas Day in 2016, this number shot up to 900,000.)

By 2025 pornography will be the third-largest VR sector, according to estimates prepared by Piper Jaffray, an investment and management firm. Only video games and N.F.L.-related content will be larger, it predicted, and the market will be worth $1 billion.

“We’re getting more and more of it every day,” said Mark Kernes, a senior editor at AVN Media Network, which covers the industry. “We are leading the technology in this area. Sex sells, and where there is money to be made, there will be entrepreneurs who want to adopt it and make money from it,” some by offering it for free to increase clicks.

Pornography is what rushed along the first printing press, and spurred developments in the internet, online payment systems and other technology. Now it’s time for virtual reality, Mr. Kernes said: “I’m pretty sure there is more porn VR out there than regular VR.”

Headsets Are Just the Beginning

Ms. Darling first experienced regular old VR at E3, a conference for the video-game industry. Excited by the pornography possibilities, she found a college student on Reddit who knew the technology but lacked a star. Before long, Ms. Darling started streaming weekly VR segments live from her bedroom in Los Angeles.

Matt McMullen adjusting the brain of Harmony, a virtual reality sex robot made by Realbotix. Graham Walzer for The New York Times

She was one of the first VR webcam women, according to Mr. Kernes. She then started a company named VRTube.xxx, which now employs over 40 performers.

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Though the pornography industry as a whole is challenging to regulate, considering the potential for abuse, disease and exploitation, the virtual kind comes with extra moral and maybe legal issues. For example, can you use someone’s likeness to have sex with them in virtual reality?

“Virtual reality is like the Wild Wild West,” said Bryony Cole, the host of “Future of Sex,” a podcast that explores technology and sexuality.

At this year’s AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, a convention and trade show held each January in Las Vegas, the latest advancements in virtual reality pornography were on display.

CamSoda, a website that specializes in live sex videos, had an exhibit featuring pornography stars dressed in plunging bathing suits and waving visitors into the booth. They were showing off OhRama, a small canister that attaches to virtual reality headsets and releases scent during the action. “Believe it or not, the scents were created by the girls,” said Mr. Kernes, who was there. “It’s sweet and musty. They know what they like.”

Different heads in the lobby of Realbotix. Graham Walzer for The New York Times

There are also companies that are adding taste and touch to the experience.

Another big player is CamasutraVR, a start-up using 142 cameras that all look at one person, or one body part. “They are creating images from that, which they are hoping will be indistinguishable from an actual person,” Mr. Kernes said. “I’m sure those people wished they had been using that VR system at home.”

Still other virtual reality companies were showing off their partnerships with sex toy companies to create vibrators or penis pumps that link to VR material. “As the action ramps up so does the vibrations of the vibrator,” he said.

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One of the most buzzed-about inventions has been the sex robot. The first one, Harmony, was introduced in May by a company named Realbotix. In seductive videos posted on YouTube, Harmony shows off her long legs, her firm breasts, her full lips, her lifelike hand gestures, even her intellect.

“How do you feel about sex?” an unknown presenter asks her in one video.

“Sex is one of the most fascinating things in the world,” she responds in a raspy voice. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.” Harmony can connect with virtual reality so the user can interact with her in that space; she can perform all the acts the viewer is watching.

“It’s a little bit of a video game combined with sci-fi,” said Matt McMullen, the C.E.O. and creative director of Realbotix. The company has been making dolls for 20 years that were linked to artificial intelligence but not virtual reality. “Based on our experiences with thousands of clients,” Mr. McMullen said, “people do use them for sex, but there is something more that exists. We focus on companionship.”

Mr. McMullen in the VR lab at his company’s headquarters in San Marcos, Calif. Graham Walzer for The New York Times

Virtual reality has been nicknamed the empathy machine because it allows people to feel like they are truly connected to the action. “It’s neurological,” said Holly Richmond, a somatic psychologist based in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore. “You aren’t just watching and thinking about it. You are feeling it, and it’s not just your genitals. There is literally a mind-body connection.”

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When Ms. Darling does live X-rated performances, users can leave comments and chat to one another on the side of the screen. “The people who are in virtual reality tell the other people watching me in 2-D to stop being jerks and knock it off,” she said. “They feel like they know me and are in the bedroom with me.”

Many sex therapists and educators are interested in the new technology, just as a dentist might be with the latest plaque-detection gizmos. Ms. Richmond worked with BaDoinkVR, a virtual-reality company in Rochester, N.Y., to create Virtual Sexology, a series of free videos that help men and women overcome common sex problems.

A recent video, updated in June, takes women into the bedroom where they see how one blond, busty woman arouses herself before sex. She sits in front of her partner massaging her arms, her legs, her breasts. As her breathing heats up, a voice-over says that some women need to be physically touched before feeling any desire for sex. The first video, aimed at men, was the most downloaded video on BaDointVR.com in 2016 — an impressive feat considering it was competing with noneducational pornography.

Ms. Cole, the podcast host, is most excited about how virtual reality can be used in sex education.

“What if we had young people watch videos where they practice consent or practice identifying at-risk behaviors?” she said. “Or they can be in a room with someone who said, ‘I contacted herpes and this is my experience.’ That is way more informative than a gonorrhea slide.”

Harmony’s brain. Graham Walzer for The New York Times

Indeed.

Barbara Rothbaum, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine and the director of Emory’s Veterans Program, is studying how virtual reality can help treat people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by military sexual trauma.

The program is building scenes that take victims to barracks, tents, private living quarters, latrines, offices or remote buildings and vehicles, where the trauma may have taken place. The idea is that going back to these places virtually will help victims confront their memories so they can move forward with more internal peace.

But for virtual reality to work, the scenes have to be so lifelike that users get lost in them and take them for reality. They have to feel like they are participants, not just observers. “We can create 3-D bodies in virtual reality and do whatever we want with them,” Ms. Cole said. As the technology becomes good enough to make that happen, issues are bound to arise.

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Mr. McCullen said an issue his company has is clients commissioning dolls that look exactly like people they know in real life, maybe an ex-girlfriend they never got over or someone about whom they fantasize. His company requires written consent from the model for his or her likeness to be used.

Ms. Cole said VR companies are going to have to address this same problem as they get better at customizing avatars to look exactly like what their customers desire. “What are the lines between reality and fantasy and what can we do in this space?” she said. “What does consent mean in virtual reality? Can you do something to your girlfriend in virtual reality that you wouldn’t do in real life? If you are using someone’s likeness in virtual reality, do you require their permission? And what about revenge porn? That will be even harsher in virtual reality.”

She is worried about the technology assimilating into the culture as easily as dating apps, drawing people away from flesh-and-blood encounters.

Certainly partners will also have to negotiate whether virtual-reality sex constitutes cheating. It is, after all, much more lifelike than traditional pornography.

But Mr. McCullen said a lot of people accuse his sex robot of doing that, but he believes he is helping alleviate a bad situation, not causing it. “There are people who are already lonely, and people who live their lives being alone. They work all day and come home to an empty house,” he said. “This is just offering an alternative to those types of people. They don’t have anyone else.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/28/style/virtual-reality-porn.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

Future Tense: Amazon Key Is a Lot Less Scary Than My Post-1-Click Remorse

October 28, 2017 by Leave a Comment

So, too, may more information about our choices, according to a 2008 study, “The Blissful Ignorance Effect: Pre‐ versus Post‐Action Effects on Outcome Expectancies Arising From Precise and Vague Information,” published in The Journal of Consumer Research. Researchers found that the less knowledge consumers had about something before a purchase, the better they expected it to be — and the more they convinced themselves that they liked it afterward.

This reduction of cognitive dissonance is easier inside and after leaving a store, which never reveals anything negative about its products and doesn’t typically burden the consumer with an onslaught of information that might impede an impulse purchase. But the sprawling internet bazaar is filled with scathing critiques, and every pertinent spec exists somewhere online for the diligent buyer to seek out. That one-star rating is hard to forget when your product is failing in the exact way the unhappy reviewer described.

The most obvious difference between brick-and-mortar and online shopping is physicality, both of the item itself and the consumer’s presence in the store. Beyond the potential pitfall of not getting exactly what you thought you were buying online, a problem that is minimized when you can assess the product in person, the lack of tactile interaction may reduce our connection to the object.

Martin Lindstrom, the author of several books on branding, has conducted studies on what makes consumers buy a product and how they feel about it after. In one, 34 percent of people who asked an employee for a product in a supermarket and were made to touch it ended up buying it; just 21 percent did if the employee merely pointed it out to them.

In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of 20 subjects, when the senses of smell and touch were paired with pictures of a product, the right medial orbitofrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved in the perception of pleasantness, was activated more strongly than when those senses were independently engaged. (On its own, smell was the most important sense.)

The tactile experience doesn’t end in the checkout line. After purchasing an item, the consumer typically takes it home. This act of carrying it into one’s domestic space can bolster one’s proprietary pride: You are now responsible for its existence in your world. That act, plus roaming through aisles beforehand and going from shop to shop, can also be physically and mentally tiring.

But ordering online for an anonymous deliveryman to leave the item at one’s doorstep — or, with the help of Amazon Key, just inside — is impersonal and not enervating. It’s the difference between the estrangement of ordering takeout and the intimacy of cooking for oneself. And a pavement-pounding, shop-till-you-drop marathon may recall an even more primal method for acquiring nutrients.

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“You’re coming back to hunters and gatherers,” Mr. Lindstrom said of in-store purchases. “Dopamine kicks in when we’re buying stuff — there’s a reptile brain that tells us we need to gather things before winter happens. The more we have to fight for things, the less likely we are to return it after. When it’s delivered on Amazon Prime, you forget it was so hard to get this product.”

The tactility of how one finalizes the transaction itself can have an effect on remorse, too. Mr. Lindstrom found that 93 percent of consumers feel a stronger connection to cash than to credit cards and are more careful when spending with it. Likewise, for the least tactile connection he studied, Amazon’s 1-Click Ordering, 70 percent of respondents said it made them spend more money than even with a credit card.

But whereas cash-based transactions lead to more immediate remorse, 89 percent of shoppers said they feel guiltier when they receive their credit card statements after 1-Click orders than when they pay in cash. The remorse still exists with online shopping; it’s just deferred, with extra pain later.

Shopping on a website featuring attractive models or beautiful homes may engender the same sense of inadequacy that leafing through catalogs can, unlike picking them up in person, and that visual memory may linger when the object has been delivered, leading to remorse. Buying something online can also lead quickly to a social-media search after the fact for friends’ and strangers’ superior products (or “better” use of the same product).

The sneakers I bought in this troublesomely bottomless marketplace were for casual wear, but I also needed a new pair of running shoes, a purchase that I undertook with more serious online research: reading reviews from specialized publications and individual users, comparing models from different years, taking quizzes to determine what was best for my particular stride.

But even the highest-rated sneakers had their detractors, and those damning, all-caps review headlines (“SHODDILY MADE,” “THEY RUINED IT”) made me hesitate whenever I was on the verge of adding them to my virtual shopping cart.

A week after searching in vain and the ensuing deluge of targeted ads, I visited a nearby running store. I tried on a few pairs and solicited opinions from one employee, then picked the sneakers that felt best.

Within 20 minutes I was walking out with them, glad to have given my money to a local business over a soulless national chain. There is undoubtedly a better running shoe out there for me, and I could probably find it if I spent enough time scouring the internet. But je ne regrette rien.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/28/style/amazon-key-1-click-buyers-remorse.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Small Business

Qatar blockade could cause a regional recession

October 28, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Qatar restores diplomatic ties with Iran amid Gulf states row, envoy to return to Tehran

Doha has stood its ground: It refuses to shut down its renowned news station Al Jazeera or abide by the sectarian politics orchestrated by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia and its allies (the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and others) maintain that Qatar’s relationship with Iran and other Shi’ite regimes contributes to disharmony in the Middle East.

A series of ultimatums, diplomatic talks, and regional sanctions have yielded no results. Kuwait volunteered to mediate between the sparring parties a couple of months ago, but despite international encouragement for its leadership, the country has made no progress in resolving the impasse, which could lead to a regional economic recession if not remedied soon.

In 1982, the collapse of Kuwait’s Souk al-Manakh, the nation’s stock exchange established after the discovery and production of oil in the small emirate, demonstrated how the collapse of one Gulf state can quickly affect its neighbors.

The Souk al-Manakh started in 1981, just as oil profits began rolling into the bank accounts of Kuwait’s biggest fossil fuel investor. Soon after, lack of government oversight paired with uncontrolled speculation caused a market crash that created $94 billion in debt—a figure that totaled over four times the value of Kuwait’s national GDP at the time.

Bahrain and the UAE developed special committees to determine the scope of economic damage they suffered as a result of Kuwait’s malfeasance. The collapse of the “camel market,” as it was known colloquially, drained foreign capital from the Gulf and noticeably discouraged new foreign investment for at least a few years.

Qatar was immune from Kuwait’s first dalliance with Souk al-Manakh because the nation didn’t set up its first trading center until 1997. The oil price drop of the 1980s, which followed soon after the Kuwaiti market crash, did concern Doha, however. Regulators tightened their grip and cut infrastructure spending to keep budgets balanced without having to cut welfare spending.

Kuwait is now preparing to launch its “grown-up” stock market sometime next year, just as Saudi Arabia prepares for its state-run oil company to undergo an initial public offering. The Gulf’s financial sector is undergoing major changes, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s tough anti-Iran stance is adding fuel to a centuries-old, fiery clash of civilizations between Persia and Arabia.

Arab economic boycott forces Qatar $9bn bond sale

For Qatar and Iran, the relationship is one of necessity. The two nations share a stake in the South Pars gas field, which is the largest reservoir of its kind in the world. Doha’s resilience in producing and delivering liquefied natural gas to its customers via an Omani port demonstrates the country’s independence and resolve to keep its politics non-partisan. But the continued excision of Qataris and their wealth from the rest of the Gulf nations will begin affecting regional development in due course.

Saudi Arabia is on course with a Saudization policy that aims to reduce its reliance on immigrant labor in the public and private sector. In a sense, the banishment of Qatari workers from Riyadh and other economic centers speeds up this process, but at an unnatural rate. Forcing companies or government agencies to turn over jobs held by Qataris to other workers in 14 days isn’t likely to lead to positive outcomes in the short and medium terms.

The latest on the Gulf row has Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah concerned about the future of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the main organization that binds the region.

“An escalation would be an explicit invitation for regional and international intervention, which would have serious consequences for the security of the Gulf nations and their people,” the emir said. “History and future generations will not forgive anyone who contributes, even one word, to fueling this dispute.”

The economic consequences won’t be forgiving for the region, either.

This article was originally published on Oilprice.com

Article source: https://www.rt.com/business/408066-qatar-blockade-regional-recession/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

Filed Under: Global Business

Mark Halperin Apologizes to Women He ‘Mistreated’

October 27, 2017 by Leave a Comment

“Toward the end of my time at ABC News, I recognized that I had a problem,” Mark Halperin, the veteran political journalist, said in a statement on Friday. Richard Shotwell/Invision, via Associated Press

One day after losing a TV gig, a book deal and an HBO project in the wake of several sexual harassment claims, the political journalist Mark Halperin has released a long statement apologizing to the women he said he “mistreated.”

In his statement, posted to his Twitter feed on Friday evening, Mr. Halperin owned up to what he described as several years of “inappropriate” behavior.

“Toward the end of my time at ABC News, I recognized that I had a problem,” he said. “No one had sued me, no one had filed a human resources complaint against me, no colleague had confronted me. But I didn’t need a call from HR to know that I was a selfish, immature person, who was behaving in a manner that had to stop.”

Mr. Halperin said that he took weekly counseling sessions after he left ABC News in 2007, while adding that “some of the allegations that have been made against me are not true.”

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In the statement, he also said that his workplace misconduct stopped after he left ABC.

“Those who have worked with me in the past decade know that my conduct in subsequent jobs at Time, Bloomberg, NBC News and Showtime has not been what it was at ABC,” he wrote. “I did not engage in improper behavior with colleagues or subordinates.”

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CNN reported late Wednesday that five women had accused Mr. Halperin of sexual harassment in his time at ABC. Since then, additional women have accused him of unwanted sexual advances, including claims made in a new CNN article that published around the same time that Mr. Halperin posted his statement. The Daily Beast also published an article Friday evening naming a woman who accused Mr. Halperin of inappropriate behavior as recently as 2011.

By the end of Thursday, Mr. Halperin’s media empire had begun to collapse.

MSNBC, where Mr. Halperin was a regular on “Morning Joe,” said it was parting ways with Mr. Halperin “until the questions around his past conduct are fully understood.” HBO said it was dropping a planned television adaptation of his coming “Game Change” book because it “has no tolerance for sexual harassment within the company or its productions.” Penguin Press then said it would not publish the book, which is about the 2016 presidential election. As with titles about previous elections, Mr. Halperin was writing the book with John Heilemann.

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/business/media/mark-halperin-apology-accusers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business

U.S. Economy’s 3% Spurt Emboldens Tax Cut Supporters (and Critics)

October 27, 2017 by Leave a Comment

“There hasn’t been anything concrete in terms of spending or tax cuts that we can point to that’s fueling the acceleration,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco. If anyone deserves credit for the good news, he said, it is the Federal Reserve chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen.

G.D.P. Change

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OCT. 27, 2017

By The New York Times | Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis

The economy is experiencing its fastest growth spurt in two consecutive quarters since 2014, after hitting 3.1 percent in the spring, a level that prompted President Trump to suggest that “we’re really on our way” to sustaining that pace year-round. “On a yearly basis, as you know, the last administration, during an eight-year period, never hit 3 percent,” Mr. Trump said during a speech in Missouri in August.

But economists say it is highly unlikely that growth for the year will reach 3 percent. The first quarter was tepid, and projections for the current quarter hover around 2.8 percent.

With legislation embodying the party’s tax proposals expected next week, the figures released on Friday also highlight the fine line Republicans are walking in selling their policy: They are celebrating faster growth while arguing that tax reform is needed to accelerate it further.

Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement on Friday that “our economy produced solid growth last quarter” and went on to say that tax reform was a way to “continue this growth” and “reinvigorate America’s economy.”

On Friday, Mr. Hassett and the Council of Economic Advisers released projections of how one prospective provision of the tax plan — a reduction in corporate tax rates to 20 percent from 35 percent — would affect economic growth. They said it would expand output by 3 to 5 percent over the long run, a period left unspecified.

The complication is that faster growth could undermine the party’s case that tax cuts are needed to add fuel to an economy that is already running with low unemployment — and it could lead the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates more quickly, which could dampen the effects of any tax bill.

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Liberal economists said the report showed the success of Ms. Yellen at the Fed and undermined the case for the Republican tax bill. “The underlying trend in G.D.P. growth is clearly telling us two things,” Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama who is now at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said by email. “Keep on rockin’ steady with Yellen at the Fed, and there’s no need for a big, wasteful tax cut.”

The Fed, judging that the economy is growing about as fast as it can, is on course to raise its benchmark interest rate in December to a level Fed officials have described as likely neither to encourage nor to discourage growth. The Fed’s plans do not reflect the potential economic impact of a tax cut.

Aside from the details of the legislation, the Fed’s reaction may also depend on its leadership. Mr. Trump is expected to announce next week whom he will nominate to lead the Fed after Ms. Yellen’s term ends in early February.

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The growth figure released on Friday was the government’s first estimate of economic output for the quarter, and it will be revised twice. Economists initially expected that Hurricanes Harvey and Irma would deal a blow to the country’s steady growth — a prospect reinforced by a net job loss in September — but became more optimistic in recent weeks.

After the shock dissipates, the recovery from an extreme weather event can help the economy by creating new reasons for consumer spending, which represents roughly 70 percent of national output. After the damage is done, people must often rebuild their homes or replace their cars, an effect that began to show up in the third quarter and will most likely continue through the end of the year.

“If you don’t go out to eat during a hurricane, maybe you bought plywood for your house,” said Robert Dye, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “If you have the insurance and support, that tends to be a stimulus to the economy.”

The destruction wrought by the storms was outweighed by the continued spending of consumers and businesses. The job market is lively, and the stock market has rallied to record highs. Chief executives and consumers are more confident than they have been in more than a decade, recent surveys show.

“There are no real headwinds to growth for the first time since the expansion began,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “We are at full employment and we are in full swing; let the good times roll.”

Spending on equipment increased at a rate of 8.6 percent, as companies poured money into capital improvements. One reason companies may be investing more in their business is that the labor market has tightened and wages are rising.

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“Businesses are going to be looking for more ways to produce than just adding bodies,” said Mr. Anderson of Bank of the West.

Personal consumption, although down from the previous quarter, grew at a 2.4 percent rate, and nonresidential fixed investment, a measure of business spending, expanded at a robust 3.9 percent. Mr. Zandi said the numbers were “a sign that consumers are hanging tough.”

At the same time, with a weak dollar making American goods more competitive abroad, international trade contributed positively to output for the third quarter in a row. Imports decreased.

The weak dollar through much of this year has been a boon to exporters like David Ickert, vice president for finance at Air Tractor Inc. The company, which is based in Olney, Tex., a town of about 3,100 people west of Dallas, makes crop dusters and forestry firefighting planes for markets including European countries along the Mediterranean Sea, sub-Saharan Africa and South America. Half of its sales are international.

Chasing Growth

The United States has been a pace setter among developed economies, but Europe is no longer a laggard.

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By The New York Times | Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

“Things are picking up — I sense it in Europe,” Mr. Ickert said. He emphasized that the positive impact of trade at a broad level filtered down to rural communities. “Trade helps create and sustain jobs in small-town America with a small business,” he said.

The American economy has performed considerably better this year than in 2016, when it grew at a halting 1.5 percent. And things have been looking up, economically, for much of the world, which is enjoying a rare moment of widespread expansion. The International Monetary Fund upgraded its forecast for the pace of world growth twice this year.

“This is happening globally,” Mr. Zandi, the Moody’s economist, said. “There isn’t a single major economy that is in recession.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/business/economy/economy-quarter-gdp.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News

Trump’s Latest Show: Choosing a Fed Chairman

October 27, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Mr. Trump, by contrast, announced in July that he was considering candidates to replace Ms. Yellen. The White House later confirmed the names of five finalists, and then Mr. Trump said publicly he had narrowed his focus to Mr. Powell and Mr. Taylor.

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On Tuesday, he conducted an informal poll of Senate Republicans, asking them to raise a hand for either Mr. Powell or Mr. Taylor. Some refused.

“I don’t think that’s a very good way to pick a Fed chair, so I declined to participate,” said Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, an increasingly outspoken critic of Mr. Trump’s style of governance.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump sought advice from a TV personality, turning the tables on Lou Dobbs of Fox Business Network in the middle of an interview.

“Tell me who your preference is,” Mr. Trump said. He pressed repeatedly for an answer from the visibly flustered host. Mr. Dobbs finally endorsed Ms. Yellen.

Mr. Trump responded: “She was very impressive. I liked her a lot. I mean, it’s somebody that I am thinking about.” But, he continued, “I have to say you’d like to make your own mark,” suggesting that he might be inclined to nominate someone else.

Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University, said the most unusual aspect of Mr. Trump’s deliberations was the diversity of the candidates.

Janet L. Yellen in 2014. Her term as Fed chairwoman ends in February. Gabriella Demczuk/The New York Times

Presidents generally decide what kind of chairman they want and then pick a nominee.

President Jimmy Carter, who chose twice, first decided that he wanted an industrial executive, settling on G. William Miller, the head of Textron. Nearly 17 months later, deciding he wanted someone respected by financial markets, Mr. Carter picked Paul Volcker.

President Ronald Reagan renominated Mr. Volcker, then chose Alan Greenspan, draining the drama from the process for almost two decades. In 2003, President George W. Bush offered Mr. Greenspan a fifth term a year before the end of his fourth term.

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When Mr. Greenspan retired in 2006, Mr. Bush chose Ben S. Bernanke from a list of three Ivy League economists who had served as Republican policy advisers.

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President Barack Obama renominated Mr. Bernanke, then sought a replacement among Democratic economists who embraced the Fed’s power to reduce unemployment. Supporters of Ms. Yellen and her main rival, Lawrence H. Summers, battled publicly, but it was a contest over personalities, not ideas.

Mr. Trump’s choice, by contrast, could have significant consequences for the direction of Fed policy. Mr. Powell, who supported the Fed’s efforts to stimulate economic growth, now favors a gradual unwinding of those policies. Mr. Taylor opposed the stimulus campaign, and he has called for the Fed to retreat more quickly.

“If you’re taking seriously reappointing Yellen or nominating Powell, well, that’s light-years away from Taylor,” Ms. Binder said. “It just raises the question: What is the basis on which the president is conducting the search?”

One possible explanation is that Mr. Trump is struggling with the imperatives of a polarized political environment. He has repeatedly praised Ms. Yellen for her performance as Fed chairwoman. The economy is growing and the stock market is rising, and Mr. Trump wants both trends to continue. But conservatives are pressing Mr. Trump to seize the opportunity to shift the approach of the central bank by appointing Mr. Taylor.

Three House Republicans, including Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio, sent a letter to Mr. Trump on Wednesday pressing for new leadership at the Fed. Republicans want to constrain the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy, and to install a Fed chairman who is supportive of efforts to reduce financial regulation.

Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, favor the nomination of Mr. Powell as a kind of middle road: a Republican likely to maintain the Fed’s course on monetary policy, but with greater sympathy for relaxing financial regulation.

Ms. Binder said that replacing Ms. Yellen would reinforce the growing tendency to view the Fed as a partisan political institution, with every president picking a new chairman.

“If anything is being broken here, it’s the norm of bipartisan continuity at the Fed, and it is always to the Fed’s benefit to look bipartisan and to be bipartisan,” she said. “It raises fewer questions about what is motivating the Fed’s choice of monetary policy.”

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But Peter Conti-Brown, a legal studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania who is writing a political history of the Fed, said that Mr. Trump was simply making explicit the longstanding reality that presidents seek to influence the course of monetary policy.

Indeed, Mr. Conti-Brown said he saw a silver lining in Mr. Trump’s showmanship, and in the diversity of the candidates, because it was providing a rare opportunity for the public to compare and debate different views of the Fed’s role in the economy.

“I think it’s all to the very good to generate discussion about what the Fed is, what the different approaches are, whether they’re good or bad,” he said. “This is the only time the public gets to weigh in. If you don’t think the Fed should operate in the shadowy corners of the administrative state, this is exactly what accountability looks like.”

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Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/us/politics/trump-fed-chairman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News
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