The templates for recent relationships between the American Head of State and the British Head of Government have not been inspiring. We had Mr Blair’s obsequiousness to Mr Clinton and Mr Bush; Mr Brown’s near-invisibility to Mr Obama; and the conspiracy of cynicism between Mr Cameron and Mr Obama that led to the disastrous (from Mr Cameron’s point of view) interference by the last president in our referendum campaign. Watching the press conference held by Mrs May and President Trump, it seemed this Prime Minister had, commendably, adopted a dignified approach of her own.  Indeed, I would go further: from what emerged, Mrs May seemed to have done a superb job in furthering British interests, and those of the West, in her meeting with Mr Trump. She should be congratulated. She acted precisely in accordance with the realities of our present politics. There was no fawning.

The AP and other media outlets reported earlier this week that emails sent internally to EPA staff mandated a temporary blackout on media releases and social media activity, as well as a freeze on contract approvals and grant awards.  Ericksen said Tuesday that the agency was preparing to greenlight nearly all of the $3.9 billion in pending contracts that were under review. Ericksen said he could not immediately provide details about roughly $100 million in distributions that will remain frozen.  The uncertainty about the contract and grant freeze coupled with the lack of information flowing from the agency since Trump took office have raised fears that states and other recipients could lose essential funding for drinking water protection, hazardous waste oversight and a host of other programs. The agency also took a potential first step Tuesday toward killing environmental rules completed as President Barack Obama's term wound down. At least 30 were targeted in the Federal Register for delayed implementation, including updated pollution rulings for several states, renewable fuel standards and limits on the amount of formaldehyde that can leach from wood products.  Jared Blumenfeld, who served until last year as EPA's regional administrator for California and the Pacific Northwest, compared what is happening to a "hostile takeover" in the corporate world.  "Ericksen and these other folks that have been brought in ... have basically put a hold on everything," said Blumenfeld, who regularly speaks with former colleagues still at the agency. "The level of mismanagement being exercised during this transition is startling and the impact on the public is alarming."  For example, he said EPA employees aren't clear whether they can direct contractors who handle all of California's Superfund sites. Some EPA employees have taken to their own social media accounts to say what's happening inside the agency, despite fears of retaliation.  "There's a strong sense of resistance," Blumenfeld said.

The Trump administration is scrutinizing studies and data published by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, while new work is under a "temporary hold" before it can be released.  The communications director for President Donald Trump's transition team at EPA, Doug Ericksen, said Wednesday the review extends to all existing content on the federal agency's website, including details of scientific evidence showing that the Earth's climate is warming and man-made carbon emissions are to blame.  Ericksen clarified his earlier statements he made to The Associated Press, which reported that the Trump administration was mandating that any studies or data from EPA scientists undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public. He said he was speaking about existing scientific information on the EPA website that is under review by members of the Trump administration's transition team. He said new work by the agency's scientists is subject to the same "temporary hold" as other kinds of public releases, which he said would likely be lifted by Friday. He said there was no mandate to subject studies or data to political review. Former EPA staffers under both Republican and Democratic presidents said the restrictions imposed under Trump far exceed the practices of past administrations. Ericksen said no decisions have yet been made about whether to strip mentions of climate change from epa.gov

 

 

Bucharest - the extremely optimistic estimate of the evolution of the economy in the next four years is not the only weak spot of the budget. Even if we overlook "transparency" easily, what about prudency? Hasn't the CNP learned anything, and more so our authorities, from the lesson of the crisis that began in 2008? Where does this optimism concerning the evolution of the economy over the next four years come from, when the global trade "landscape" is precisely in the process of undergoing a transformation following the victory of the Trump administration, and the problems of the EU are going through a new phase of worsening? The report also states that the "potential GDP will increase at an annual growth rate of 5.1%", whereas "the gap between the GDP and the potential GDP levels expressed as a percentage of the potential GDP will be closed in 2018". But don't we have the opinion of some NBR officials, that the output gap was closed as early as 2013 or Q2 2016? Aside from "faith", we must not forget that the methods for estimating the difference between the potential GDP and the real GDP are more or less mechanical, as they are heavily influenced by the growth of lending. Does the new government believe that we are back to the period of "growth" based on cheap loans and ultra-lax lending norms? It would seem so, because the report concerning the macroeconomic situation in the next years reflects an unrealistic approach of the evolution of borrowing costs. The governmental report also shows that "the yields of government bonds have followed a downward trend in the first three quarters of 2016, and then rise was mostly due to a number of foreign events". Unfortunately, we are not given a forecast of borrowing costs until 2020. Even though the president of the PSD has participated in the festivities for the instatement of the new president of the United States, the "expertise" he gained from that has not included the transparency provided by institutions such as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) or Government Accountability Office (GAO), even though their forecasts are unrealistic as well.

NIS, subsidiară a Gazprom, începe operaţiunile de foraj în perimetrele concesionate în vestul României

Lucrările de forare la prima sondă de explorare a ţiţeiului şi gazelor naturale în perimetrul EX-7 Periam din Bazinul Panonic, din vestul României, au început pe 21 ianuarie 2017. Sonda va fora la o adâncime de 2.500 de metri, iar lucrările de forare şi testare a sondei vor dura între 50 şi 60 de zile, în conformitate cu standardele ecologice, se arată în anunţul companiei.  Firma NIS, subsidiară a gigantului rusesc Gazprom, împreună cu firma canadiană East West Petroleum, are în concesiune patru perimetre petroliere în Bihor şi Timiş (EX-2 Tria, EX-3 Baile Felix, EX-7 Periam şi EX-8 Biled) cu o suprafaţă de peste 4.000 de km pătraţi în Bazinul Panonic. Arealul a fost anterior controlat de Petrom, dar nu a fost activ explorat în ultimii 20 de ani. Perimetrele sunt deţinute în proporţie de 85% de NIS şi 15% de compania canadiană  NIS va finanţa 100% din cheltuieli şi va duce East West prin fazele 1 şi 2 ale explorării, în schimbul a 85% din perimetru, spune East West Petroleum, companie listată pe Bursa de la Toronto.  În octombrie 2011, East West Petroleum a intrat într-un acord cu Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS), subsidiară a gigantului Gazprom, care va finanţa în totalitate costul primei faze a programului, estimat de canadieni la 60 de milioane de euro. Această primă fază include date seismice 3D şi forarea a 12 sonde, pe o perioadă de doi ani.  Dacă partenerii extind lucrările la oricare dintre cele patru perimetre în cea de-a doua fază, NIS va continua să finanţeze costurile de explorare, estimate tot la 60 de milioane de euro.  Sârbii de la NIS a început 2014 operaţiunile de explorare petrolieră în perimetrele Periam şi Biled şi au realizat lucrări de prospectare seismică.NIS mai deţine în România, pe lângă concesiunea perimetrelor din vestul ţării, şi o reţea de benzinării, operată sub brandul Gazprom.(sursa NIS press)

Donald Trump is planning a new deal for Britain this week as Theresa May becomes the first foreign leader to meet him since the inauguration. 

With hundreds of thousands of people across the world protesting his presidency, Mr Trump’s team was working with Number 10 to finalise plans for White House talks.

Mr Trump has even taken to calling Mrs May “my Maggie” in reference to the close Thatcher-Reagan relationship he wants to recreate, according to sources....

The historic trip comes as: 

• A deal to reduce barriers between American and British banks through a new “passporting” system was being considered by Mr Trump’s team
• A US-UK “working group” was being prepared to identify barriers to trade and scope out a future trade deal
• A joint statement on defence was expected to demand EU countries spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence and promise collaboration in tackling Isil

More than 60 million people in this country are hopeful — they want Mr. Trump to work on behalf of them to restore jobs in their dilapidated towns, to improve the education for their children, to help unite this fractious Republic, by making the American dream obtainable to all Americans.  They’ll dance at the balls this weekend, or toast champagne from within their homes. All are uncertain at what a Trump presidency may bring, but they are willing to give the man a chance.  All but the mainstream media that is.  Network heads and newspaper editors are filled with anxiety — yes, Mr. Trump’s supporters are jubilant, but the other half of this nation (including most within their own newsrooms) are devastated. And to them, that devastation is more powerful, more convincing. And thus, their coverage has reflected those fears, and none of the optimism.

In the centre of Trappes, in Paris’s western suburbs, a group of young men are handing out flyers urging locals to vote for Benoît Hamon. Neither the name nor the face is familiar in Britain, but that could well be about to change today.

“Vote for this man and you will see the real France,” says one, thrusting a leaflet into my hand. It sounds more like a threat than a promise, but this rather gritty Parisian banlieue – the subject of several billion euros’ worth of regeneration investment – is Hamon’s home ground.  One of seven candidates in the first round of the Socialist party’s (PS) primary election to choose a presidential candidateon Sunday, Hamon, 49, was considered an outsider only a fortnight ago, but is fast gaining ground. To some, he is the French Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn – albeit a considerably younger version.  Hamon’s anti-capitalist programme includes a “universal wage” (a form of basic income), work sharing, the use of referendums to decide policy and the legalisation of cannabis. It has been dismissed as utopian by centrist critics, but that will not worry Hamon overly.  This is about the socialist movement showing that it can do populism and protectionism better than the far right.  France’s Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, is profiting from dissatisfaction among working-class voters who feel abandoned by both the left and the right. Hamon, his Socialist primary rival Arnaud Montebourg, 54, and the hard left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, 65, who is standing “outside the frame of political parties”, all argue that the Socialist party has abandoned the working class by shifting to the centre ground. This is embodied by Manuel Valls, the former prime minister and another primary contestant – who once reportedly suggested dropping the word “Socialist” from the party’s name.

The global economy faces a multitude of risks in 2017, ranging from rising protectionism spearheaded by Donald Trump to a severe slowdown in China, the International Monetary Fund has warned. The Washington-based fund used an update to its economic forecasts to highlight popular antipathy towards international trade and a widening in the gap between rich and poor. It called on governments to tackle inequality by helping people find work in fast-changing jobs markets shaken up by technology and globalization.  The IMF made no changes to its October forecast for global economic growth to edge up this year after a sluggish 2016. But it upgraded its outlook for the UK economy, bringing the IMF more in line with other forecasters following signs that the British economy grew at a solid pace in the second half of 2016, despite the Brexit vote. The UK outlook for 2018 was cut, however.

Britain could suffer from having no access to the European Union’s markets after Brexit and "will not take it lying down", Philip Hammond has admitted.

The Chancellor admitted in an interview with a German magazine that the “UK we could suffer from economic damage at least in the short-term” if it is left with no access to the EU.  But he suggested that Britain could cut taxes to encourage companies to move to the UK if it were shut out from trading with the EU...The Telegraph disclosed Mrs May is preparing to set out plans for a ‘clean’ Brexit’ when she delivers her major speech at Lancaster House on Tuesday.  This would see the UK pulling out of the single market and the customs union in order to regain control of immigration and end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.  A government source told The Sunday Telegrpah: “She's gone for the full works. People will know when she said 'Brexit means Brexit', she really meant it.”  The comments alarmed pro-Remain MPs. Former education secretary Nicky Morgan, who was sacked by Mrs May, said the Prime Minister should put "maximum participation" in the single market at the heart of her negotiating strategy and warned her not to do anything to damage the economy.

Persoanele fizice care vor să-şi izoleze termic locuinţa vor putea cere de la stat o sumă nerambursabilă de până la 40.000 de lei, în cadrul programului „Casa verde Plus”, se arată într-un act normativ al Ministerului Mediului, Apelor şi Pădurilor (MMAP), ce a fost publicat ieri în Monitorul Oficial. Totuşi, pentru a putea beneficia efectiv de bani, cetăţenii trebuie să aştepte stabilirea sesiunii de înscriere.  Regulile pentru participarea în programul denumit, pe scurt, „Casa verde Plus” sunt incluse în Ordinul MMAP nr. 2.425/2016 pentru aprobarea Ghidului de finanţare a Programului privind efectuarea de lucrări destinate eficienţei energetice, beneficiari persoane fizice. Acesta a fost publicat astăzi în Monitorul Oficial, Partea I, nr. 34 şi se aplică deja. Însă înscrierea cetăţenilor va fi posibilă abia după ce autorităţile vor stabili o perioadă anume în acest sens.

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Prin intermediul programului „Casa verde Plus”, statul vrea să încurajeze folosirea materialelor izolatoare organic-naturale pentru a reduce consumul energetic al clădirilor, cu scopul de a îmbunătăţi calitatea mediului. Banii nerambursabili vor fi acordaţi persoanelor fizice atât pentru casele aflate în construire, cât şi pentru cele deja existente, însă, aşa cum reiese din actul normativ, numai dacă acestea au cel mult parter şi două etaje.  Concret, persoanele fizice vor putea cere o sumă de până la 40.000 de lei (dar nu mai mult de 120 de lei pe metru pătrat izolat şi finisat), care va fi acordată sub forma unei prime de eficienţă energetică. „Finanţarea se acordă sub forma unei prime de eficienţă energetică în valoare de maximum 40.000 de lei, aferentă cheltuielilor eligibile, dar nu mai mult de 120 lei/mp izolat şi finisat, pentru izolarea locuinţelor aflate în faza de construcţie şi pentru izolarea locuinţelor existente”, scrie în ordinul recent publicat, citat de avocatnet.ro.

Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. For more than a year now, it has been scarcely possible to think or read about anything else. Seemingly all other economic discourse has been eclipsed by this over-riding prospect.  In the circumstances, it’s an understandable obsession. Yet the fact is that far bigger challenges lie ahead for the UK economy than leaving the European Union, a point that the Governor the Bank of England, Mark Carney, seemed to acknowledge this week in admitting that Brexit was no longer the main domestic risk to financial stability. As it happens, it never was. Since the Brexit vote, the economy has continued to motor, and so far there seems to have been zero impact on financial stability...Over the last five years, the FTSE 100 has closed lower on seven of the 10 Friday 13ths.  It could be a coincidence – or is there something else at play?

On Friday 13th July 2012, China’s GDP growth dropped to a three-year low of 7.6pc, marking a new stage for the country’s economic slowdown....Superstitious beliefs run so high in the UK that some people refuse to fly on Friday 13th, stay in hotel rooms bearing the unlucky digits or buy houses that bear the number 13.  In fact, the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in North Carolina estimates that businesses lose up to $900m (£585m) in sales and productivity when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday as customers refrain from activities such as flying and anxious employees stay home from work.  The phenomenon even has a name: paraskavedekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday 13th, while triskaidekaphobics are scared of the number 13 more generally.  More than a quarter of Britons admit that they consider Friday 13th to be unlucky, according to a survey of 500 adults conducted by the conference call provider Powwownow.  One in 10 people avoid travelling by train on Friday 13th, 11pc refuse to stay in hotel room number 13 and 16pc of people won’t take flights on this inauspicious day, the survey found.

Germany - Inflation rage is coming to the boil in Germany. Leaders of the country's prestigious institutes warn that the economy is hitting capacity constraints and risks spiraling into a destructive boom-bust cycle.  In a series of interviews with The Telegraph they said that the ultra-loose monetary policy of the European Central Bank is now badly out of alignment with German needs. It has begun to threaten lasting damage, and is fast undermining political consent for monetary union.  "The ECB wants to inflate away the debt of the southern European countries. This is a clear conflict of interest with net creditors like Germany," said Clemens Fuest, president of the IFO Institute in Munich....Governments in the rich world are now the biggest debtors globally, piling up debts even as financial firms, other businesses and households moderate their borrowing. Total global debts have hit a new record high, driven largely by government borrowing, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF). The organisation is warning that the borrowing spree comes at a dangerous time, as debts increase sharply as the era of low interest rates comes to an end, leading to substantially higher borrowing costs....Total global debts rose to more than $217 trillion (£175 trillion) at the end of the third quarter last year, the IIF said, amounting to a record high of more than 325pc of GDP.

 

LONDON - Three of the City’s most powerful figures face a grilling from MPs over suggestions banks and other financial services firms exaggerated the threat posed by Brexit. Douglas Flint, chairman of HSBC, London Stock Exchange boss Xavier Rolet, and Elizabeth Corley, vice chairman asset manager Allianz Global Investors, will appear before the Treasury Select Committee (TSC) on Tuesday.  The influential panel of MPs has launched an inquiry into the future of Britain’s economic relationship with Europe once it leaves the EU. It is understood MPs’ will investigate whether City firms have embellished the likely impact of Brexit on the Square Mile, in an attempt to pressure the government into prioritising the financial services industry during negotiations with Brussels....It comes after the chief economist of the Bank of England conceded last week that the warnings of an economic downturn forecasters sounded before the EU referendum had been a “Michael Fish” moment - the infamous episode in 1987 when the BBC weatherman said there would be no hurricane the night before the Great Storm.

The surge in public borrowing has several important effects, exposing governments to higher interest rates as well as constraining their options at a time when economists would like extra fiscal stimulus from some countries.

“Higher borrowing costs could raise concerns about debt sustainability,” warned the IIF. “With the focus in 2017 likely to be on prospects for fiscal stimulus, already-high levels of mature market debt may act as a constraint.”. Borrowers in Britain have been working hard to pay down their debts, slashing the total debt to GDP ratio by 65 percentage points between 2011 and 2015. That is now in reverse, as the government keeps borrowing and banks stop deleveraging – in the first nine months of the year, debts rose by 15 percentage points to more than 465pc of GDP. Governments in emerging markets have increased their debt more slowly – debt to GDP increased by only two percentage points. Those nations could be particularly hit by higher interest rates in the US, however, as investors looking for yield in riskier markets may be tempted back to the States, as they were in the so-called taper tantrum of 2012.  The biggest emerging market borrower in 2016 was China – it accounted for $710bn of the total $855bn of bond issuance from the governments.

The country’s households were also keen borrowers in the nine-month period. Individuals took on loans amounting to an additional 3pc of GDP, while overall emerging market household debt hit a new high of 35pc of GDP.
“This suggests that for some households, debt service capacity could be challenged in a rising interest rate environment,” the IIF warned.

Good on Andy Haldane, the chief economist of the Bank of England, for telling it as it is. In an explosive intervention, Haldane has just compared the financial crisis and Brexit to the Bank of England’s Michael Fish moments. He was referring, of course, to the day just before the greatest storm for 300 years hit Britain on Oct 15, 1987, when the famous weather forecaster got it spectacularly wrong. “Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way… well, if you’re watching, don’t worry, there isn’t!” he said.  In the case of the Great Recession, the analogy is perfect. In the case of Brexit, the error was a reverse Michael Fish, another case of the Y2K millennium bug: a prediction of immediate disaster which failed to materialise. The Bank expected a hurricane but none came, as it was put to Haldane (it’s a “fair cop”, he replied).

Wages in the US grew at their fastest pace since 2009 last month, pointing to continued momentum in the labour market and putting the country on course for a string of interest rate rises this year. Average hourly earnings increased by 2.9pc compared with the year before, the largest annual increase in more than seven years, while 156,000 jobs were created in December. Although the employment figure fell short of the 178,000 widely expected by economists, it was enough to suggest that the economy is steaming ahead.  The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.7pc in December, from a nine-year low of 4.6pc in November, as more people entered the labour market, in a sign of confidence in the economic recovery. Over the course of 2016, more than two million jobs were created in the US.  This set of jobs data will be the last for President Obama, as he makes way for Donald Trump, who is set to take office later this month.  President elect Trump has pledged to increase spending on the country's infrastructure, cut taxes and reduce red tape, three measures widely expected to boost growth this year.  The US jobs market is expected to hit full employment this year, and the country's central bank, the Federal Reserve, is set to push through interest rate rises in response.  Last month, the Fed increased the benchmark rate by .25 percentage points to a range of 0.25pc to 0.50pc. A further three rate increases are forecast for this year.  Kully Samra, managing director of Charles Schwab in the UK, said that despite December’s numbers missing forecasts, the US economy still had a robust labour market.

The US vice-president, Joe Biden, has said it is “absolutely mindless” for Donald Trump not to have confidence in the intelligence community, as the heads of the US agencies prepared to present their findings on Russian election interference to the president-elect.  The unprecedented dispute between Trump and the intelligence services he will soon control broke into the open at a congressional hearing on Thursday as the head of US intelligence publicly defended his analysts, who he said “stand more resolutely” than ever behind their conclusion of “Russian interference in our electoral process”.  Former Indiana lawmaker and member of the Senate intelligence committee has been banned from entering Russia: ‘I’m not a big fan of Putin’  Biden said it would be legitimate to question intelligence and ask for more detail or disagree but “dangerous” to publicly criticise the agencies and claim to know more than them.  “For a president not to have confidence in, not to be prepared to listen to, the myriad intelligence agencies, from defence intelligence to the CIA, is absolutely mindless,” he said in an interview with PBS.  “The idea that you may know more than the intelligence community knows – it’s like saying I know more about physics than my professor. I didn’t read the book, I just know I know more.”

The Bank of England’s chief economist has admitted his profession is in crisis having failed to foresee the 2008 financial crash and having misjudged the impact of the Brexit vote.  Andrew Haldane, said it was “a fair cop” referring to a series of forecasting errors before and after the financial crash which had brought the profession’s reputation into question.  Blaming the failure of economic models to cope with “irrational behaviour” in the modern era, the economist said the profession needed to adapt to regain the trust of the public and politicians.... Haldane described the collapse of Lehman Brothers as the economics profession’s “Michael Fish moment” (a reference to when the BBC weather forecaster predicted in 1987 that the UK would avoid a hurricane that went on to devastate large parts of southern England). Speaking at the Institute for Government in central London, Haldane said meteorological forecasting had improved markedly following that embarrassing mistake and that the economics profession could follow in its footsteps.  The bank has come under intense criticism for predicting a dramatic slowdown in the UK’s fortunes in the event of a vote for Brexit only for the economy to bounce back strongly and remain one of the best performing in the developed world.  Haldane is known to be concerned about mounting criticism of experts and the potential for Threadneedle Street’s forecasts to be dismissed by politicians if errors persist.  Former Tory ministers, including the former foreign secretary William Hague and the former justice secretary Michael Gove, last year attacked the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, for predicting a dramatic slowdown in growth if the country voted to leave the EU.

Donald Trump's reflation rally will short-circuit. Rising borrowing costs will blow fuses across the world before fiscal stimulus arrives, if it in fact arrives.

By the end of 2017 it will be clear that nothing has changed for the better. Powerful deflationary forces retain an invisible grip over the global economy. Bond yields will ratchet up further and then come clattering down again – ultimately driving 10-year US yields below zero before the decade is over.  There are few ‘shovel ready’ projects for Trump’s infrastructure blitz. The headline figures are imaginary. His plan will be whittled down by Congress....The House will pass tax cuts for the rich but these are regressive, with a low fiscal multiplier. The choice of an anti-deficit Ayatollah to head the budget office implies swinging cuts to federal spending. These will hit the poor, with a high multiplier.  This Gatsby mix is mostly self-defeating...

   BMPS stock yesterday reached a new all-time low (see chart 1) and then recovered for no apparent reason, as if the current and potential shareholders were hoping for a miracle that would save them from the imminent bail-in.
The solution of nationalization, regardless of the way it will be promoted and called by the authorities, was somewhat predictable long before the application of the recapitalization program backed by the Italian state. Beyond the precarious lending standards, which are reflected in the quality of the portfolio of corporate loans and mortgages, most banking analysts claim that the beginning of the end for Monte dei Paschi was the fateful decision to the buy the Antonveneta bank, at the end of 2007, for 9 billion Euros. The merger process ended in 2013, precisely when the losses of BMPS, which had been hidden through various derivatives trades, were revealed and the bank "benefited" from an initial bail-out, of almost 4 billion Euros. It will be interesting to see if the nationalization process will also include a complete analysis of the way the bank was managed, as well as the naming of those who bear the blame. Between June 2006 and October 2011, it was Mario Draghi who was the Governor of the Bank of Italy.  What exactly did the Bank of Italy oversee during all this time? As a national oversight authority, the Bank of Italy oversees "the careful management of financial institutions and the stability of the financial system", according to its website.