Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Donald J. Trump called on Monday for the United States to bar all
Muslims from entering the country until the nations leaders can
figure out (to think about sb/sth until you understand it) what is
going on after the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., an
extraordinary escalation of rhetoric aimed at voters fears about
members of the Islamic faith.
A prohibition of Muslims an unprecedented proposal by a leading
American presidential candidate, and an idea more typically associated
with hate groups reflects a progression of mistrust that is rooted in
ideology as much as politics.
Saying that hatred among many Muslims for Americans is beyond
comprehension, (impossible to understand) Mr. Trump said in a
statement that the United States needed to confront where this hatred
comes from and why.
Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the
dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of
horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no
sense of reason or respect for human life, Mr. Trump said.
Asked what prompted his statement, Mr. Trump said, death, according
to a spokeswoman.
Repudiation (reject, deny, disown)of Mr. Trumps remarks was swift
and severe among religious groups and politicians from both parties. Mr.
Trump is unhinged,(mentally ill) said one Republican rival, former
Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, while another, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida,
called the ban offensive and outlandish. Hillary Clinton said the idea
was reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive. Organizations representing
Jews, Christians and those of other faiths quickly joined Muslims in
denouncing Mr. Trumps proposal.
Wouldnt this cause the same furor (uproar) George Osborne created with
his threatened tax credit cuts? Tory advocates of this solution to the EU
conundrum(a confusing pbm that is difficult to solve, riddle) say a fouryear delay would be more politically acceptable as it would deny benefits to
new claimants rather than taking cash from existing ones. After all, the tax
credit U-turn merely shifted the cuts to new claimants of universal credit:
so long as you dont snatch benefits from any current recipients, it seems no
one notices.
But theres another wicked twist* in all this. After Duncan Smith had
sounded somewhat sanguine(optimistic ,cheerful) on the Marr show
about the possibility of imposing a four-year wait on UK citizens, sources
close to him suggested something very different: no, he would be strongly
opposed as it would be so unfair, depriving too many young people and
families of benefits they need.
Really? This was a surprising softening of the heart from the man who has
overseen (superwise) colossal(very large) benefit cuts and the bedroom
tax with another 12bn of cuts to come. As the Child Poverty Action
Group protests, his welfare reform bill gives up poverty targets and stops
measuring it altogether. So why the sudden attack of empathy?
Here is where the two snakes intertwine (to become very closely
connected with). Remember Duncan Smith is one of John Majors
original anti-EU bastards, and sits on the cabinet sub-committee
overseeing EU negotiations. By refusing to let UK citizens suffer this fouryear benefit delay, might he be ushering the country towards the Brexit gate
hes always favored? If he is sacked or resigns for not accepting the
renegotiated conditions, how principled he can sound.
If you need another reminder of just how crazed the Leave campaign is,
consider its response this week to rumors that Cameron may campaign for
out if he cant win his impossible benefit demand. The Brexits say they
dont want him to lead them: hes toxic, and they prefer Boris Johnson as
Its easier said than done, this keep calm and carry on business. I wonder if
we need to get away (bayata padadam) from this idea that you can
control fear, and that there is a kind of moral superiority to not feeling
frightened. Im not saying that we should all run around like headless
chickens(to be very busy trying to do sthg ,but not very organized ,with
the result that you do not suceed), but lets at least admit that many of us
are feeling anxious, paranoid, suspicious, hyper vigilant and generally
freaked out.
Since the attacks in Paris, I have heard older people speak of the blitz and
the IRA bombings, and how they simply went about their business, got on
*(to manage to do a particular thing)as normal. I wonder how much of this
is a result of the sense of security offered by hindsight, of looking back and
thinking: I was fine. Which makes me grateful for my grandmother, who
told me that being bombed in Hartle pool during the second world war was
terrifying and traumatising, and the friend who got caught up in 7/7 and
who confessed how, a few days later, she hit the floor when she heard a loud
bang. Theres a solidarity that comes from saying Im scared too that I
find absent in the posturing of the stiff upper lip.
At the very best, fear can be somewhat managed, but it is a primitive, fightor-flight impulse that kicks in when you feel your life is in danger (whether
rationally, because of a terrorist with a gun, or irrationally, because of a
rucksack left unclaimed for only a minute). When experiencing such
emotions, human beings can respond differently. Some will see a ranting
man waving a knife on the tube and will grab their children and run,
screaming. Others will film it on their phones or tell him, You aint no
Muslim, bruv. No one reaction is more virtuous than the other. You deal
with a threat to your life in a way that is almost entirely involuntary.
But at least Mr. Cuomo proposed them. And he also made promising news
with a $20 billion plan on housing. It would build 100,000 units of
affordable housing, and a lot of supportive housing with social services to
protect vulnerable people from the streets 6,000 units in five years, and
20,000 units in 15 years. He also wants the state and city comptrollers to
audit homeless shelters in New York, Buffalo and other cities, and failing
shelter systems to be put into state receivership if local officials fail to fix
them.
Its possible to see these proposals as a rebuke to Mayor Bill de Blasio,
whom Mr. Cuomo has accused of ineptitude on homelessness, citing the
citys appallingly unsafe shelter system. Even so, Mr. de Blasio should
overlook the criticisms and take any money the state offers. By plunging
into (to jump into sthg)this problem, the governor said, We can say to the
public of this state, Everything that can be done, we are doing. If political
one-upmanship leads to safer shelters and clears the streets, then the two
men should hold hands and go for it.
Every time we walk by a homeless person we leave a piece of our soul on
that curb, Mr. Cuomo said. In moments like those he was vivid and
eloquent, reminding voters of his ability at times to rise above political
calculation and empty promises. He was at his most persuasive when he
was committing to an unabashedly progressive agenda: farsighted and
compassionate.
We can raise the minimum wage to $15 and we can show this nation what
real economic justice means, he said, claiming ownership of that urgent
issue. He noted that McDonalds and Burger King, by paying wages too low
to live on, were relying on the government to give workers the benefits they
need to survive. He also laid into the cost, the waste, the inefficiency of
New Yorks 10,500 local governments, and promised $100 billion in
infrastructure projects that would make Governor Rockefeller jealous.
Washington just cant get it done, Mr. Cuomo said, wrapping up his pep
talk. In New York, we can and we will. That claim is believable, as long as
it includes ethics reform, the hard part, which remains Mr. Cuomos Job 1.
The fact that Americans start voting in a matter of weeks loomed over(to
appear imp or threatening and likely to happen) President Obamas
final State of the Union address Tuesday. I know some of you are
antsy(not able to keep still,impatient) to get back to Iowa, he cracked, as
he began the speech.
But as president, Mr. Obama gets to take time to crow about(boast) whats
good in the economy, not just focus on fixing whats bad, as nearly all
candidates of both parties are doing. Its a tricky line to walk and a nearly
impossible one on the campaign trail, because, according to recent polls,
voters mostly feel that the economy still has a way to go until they will
personally feel financially secure.
Early in his speech, the president sought to quell(stop) the fears that
the economy is on anything but stable footing*. Anyone claiming that
Americas economy is in decline is peddling (to spread an idea to make
people believe)fiction, Mr. Obama said, adding later that any statement to
the contrary is political hot air. He listed a number of indicators of how
strong the economic recovery he has overseen has been. And hes right.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the unemployment rate has
been slashed, from 7.8 percent when he took office to 5 percent in the most
recent jobs report. The private sector added more than 9 million jobs over
that time. When it comes to the job market, the Great Recession is a thing
of the past.
But the pain of it isnt. While Americans have by and large gone back to
work, theyre not seeing a whole lot more money in return. Wage growth
has only chugged along below or slightly above 2 percent since about mid2009 as productivity growth how much economic growth Americans are
generating through their work has grown much faster. That has come
after decades of wage stagnation for the majority of American workers.
Things are better for the rich, as income inequality has continued to grow
and income gains have been heaped at the top of the income scale.
According to an analysis by the economist Emmanuel Saez, the bottom 99
percent of Americans recovered just 40 percent of the income they lost in
the recession by 2014. On the other hand, the richest 1 percent captured 58
percent of all income growth in the first five years of the recovery. Income
inequality has in fact gotten worse after the Great Recession and under
President Obamas watch. That dynamic makes people less happy.
In his address, the president acknowledged that people still view the
economy with some malaise. For the past seven years, our goal has been a
growing economy that works better for everybody, he said. Weve made
progress. But we need to make more.
Signs of that progress are largely absent from the campaign trail, which
may reinforce a negative view in the publics mind. During the debates,
nearly every Republican candidate has brandished(kathulu nooradam)
the fact that wages have been stagnant for decades. The Democratic
candidates focus has been on how to increase middle class incomes.
Theres little room for talk about the remarkable turnaround the economy
has experienced over the last seven years. Given that positive change has
yet to filter down into most peoples pockets, its a tough selling point.
Thats before we even deal with foreign policy. We all know of Bushs Iraq
folly (stupidity), opposed by Obama himself; but, as Isis marches across
*the coast of chaos-ravaged Libya, we spend too little time addressing the
presidents own foreign calamity. Drones that former US service personnel
have described as recruiting sergeants for Isis; the failure to redeem his
promise to shut Guantnamo; the failure to secure a just peace in Palestine.
Across the western world, popular discontent is either being funnelled
into (to make or move sthg through a narrow space)the ranks of the
xenophobic populist right, or new progressive movements of the left. For all
too many struggling middle-income and poor Americans, it is Trump who
has become the answer, directing their anger at anyone but the powerful.
But whether or not Bernie Sanders secures the nomination, his movement
offers some hope to cure the ills of modern America.
Without the support of Big Money, Sanderss grassroots campaign
raised $73mlast year. With primary elections looming, Hillary Clinton is
now in a dead heat (when two or more people are in same posn in a
competition) with Sanders in Iowa; in New Hampshire, he is ahead. His
movement could transform the Democrat party.
None of this is to scapegoat Obama. Even the most well-intentioned
president will struggle against a system described last year by Princeton
researchers as anoligarchy, where the median net worth of a senator in
2013 was $2.8m. But fewer Americans are self-identifying as conservative;
younger Americans have far more progressive views than their elders. Black
Lives Matter and Occupy have forced long-ignored issues on to the agenda.
Obamas presidency has failed to build the just America its citizens deserve.
But the US has a proud history of bottom-up* movements that have
overcome injustice. Their time may have come again.
Ive done enough shifts myself when Ive stared enviously at the patients
beige (yellowish-brown color) meals being served as my stomach
grumbled (to complain in a bad tempered way). We get punched, kicked,
and screamed at by patients. We undertake procedures that potentially put
us at risk of hepatitis and HIV.
Yet the debate has been framed around pay, while ignoring the basic
safeguarding issues that are evident in the proposed new contracts: that
9pm, for example, is not classified as night; Saturday is equivalent to a
weekday, and work conducted at 2am does not qualify as part of a night
shift.
If anyone has worked five 13-hour night shifts in a row which the
government finds acceptable, compared with the British Medical
Associations proposed maximum of three Im sure theyd agree that
quality of decision-making by the fifth night can be very hit and miss.
Its a matter of pride that I could work part time and look after my father
after his stroke, and that the time I took out of training allowed me to be
there when he passed away. Its a matter of pride that I took the decision for
a risk-reducing bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction (again out of
training, no pay involved) owing to my genetic risk. So its confusing
that the BMAs proposal to support doctors starting a family, or
undertaking research the kind of life-saving research we see in action
every day without punitively affecting their pay has also been rejected.
It leads to patients being treated by tired, overworked doctors at risk of
poor judgment. It leads to doctors feeling as if theyre not being treated as
real people.
The NHS will always need more money. This is not because its a
decrepit(very old and not in good condition) leaking ship, as often
depicted, but because every modern healthcare system in the world will
always need more money, more research and more beds, to give patients
the best chance of treatment. That is what an ethical and humane system
does. Healthcare for our ageing and increasing population will require far
more investment to make it remotely *sustainable. Cutting staff pay and
fudging (to avoid giving clear and accurate info) what constitutes
unsociable hours is a strange way to do it.
And my familys experience in hospital on this strike day? Largely positive.
The consultant took on the juniors role without question. My family, and
other patients I spoke to, are grateful emergency care hasnt been
suspended, that it appears their consultant is well briefed on the situation,
and that they are not being forced into a discharge that isnt right for them.
Not once did they feel a loss of sympathy or care.
In return, they understood that the industrial action needs to be taken.
After all, with three generations of family with complex medical needs, they
are not going to begrudge the voice of doctors in the future of the NHS.
The potential suspension of emergency services sits very uneasily with
junior doctors. We know that other health staff and consultants are willing
to provide cover for us, which is reassuring. But not one of us doesnt hope
some way will be found to resolve this dispute before any further action.
Patients and doctors are united on this. The government should listen.
We all remember the bad kids from high school: the pregnant teen, the
kid who was always getting into fights, the truant (school eggotte pillalu)
student, or the one who just couldnt keep *up (to move, make progress at
the same rate) with the rest of us.
We take kids who cant seem to stay on track and write them off (a period
which you did not achieve anything), dismissing them with summary
labels. Its simpler that way if we know what they are, we dont really
have to think about why. So more often than not, the roots of a bad kids
difficulties are left unexplored, as they would most likely force us to look at
histories of abuse, neglect, abandonment, addiction or possibly even that
huge unspoken problem that plagues our public education system:
intractable, generational poverty.
This Op-Doc video profiles one of those kids, a talented art student named
Summer Jordan, who attends Black Rock High School in the Mojave Desert
town of Yucca Valley, Calif. An alternative public school for at-risk students,
Black Rock is cautiously regarded, even in its own community, as the school
where the bad kids go, despite consistently high graduation rates. But at
Black Rock High, the staff does not judge at-risk students as failures;
rather, they see them as fragile youths who are more than likely dealing
with problems outside of school that would daunt most adults. And as youll
see in this Op-Doc, the students and their problems are much more
complicated than they may initially seem.
Luckily for kids like Summer, the schools staff is not afraid of asking what
impediments might be keeping its students from doing their best in school.
The approach seems obvious, but its quite revolutionary: It is the simple
understanding that for a student whos hungry, or not sure where he is
going to sleep that night, or afraid of someone she lives with, learning is
impossible, no matter how innovative the curriculum or teaching methods.
The first is that Indias rise is certainly unlikely to be linear and uniform;
after all, very little else in the chaotic, immensely varied nation of 1.3bn
is. The Indian growth calculations were made according to a new and
generous formula. A year ago, Rushir Sharma, an expert on emerging
economies, banker and best-selling author, dismissed them as a bad
joke. More recently, other commentators have been less scathing.
No one claims the blunt GDP growth statistics describe ground reality,
however. Anyone who has spent any time in India knows that the
country still suffers enormous problems: grossly inadequate
infrastructure and a deep skills deficit that could easily turn the
demographic dividend of a youthful population into soaring inequality,
massive corporate debt, political gridlock , patchy(uneven) rule of law,
poor governance and horrendous environmental degradation.
Still, to dismiss the rise of India would be wrong. Whatever the doubts, it
is difficult to deny the huge wealth generated over the past 30 years, and
the powerful motors of urbanisation and aspiration. It is likely that the
coming years will see more of the same.
So what does this mean for the rest of the world? So far India has not
converted its new-found wealth into commensurate (matching sthg in
size and quality) global clout (power and influence). This vast nation
has always punched below its weight(punch above your weight=to be or
try to be more successful than others in doing sthg which requires more
skill, experience ,money than you have) on the international stage, other
than perhaps during the 1950s, when Jawaharlal Nehru, the
independence leader and prime minister, converted moral prestige into
influence.
One reason has been the absence of a UN Security Council seat, and the
often urgent distractions of a tough neighbourhood. Another is, as
former prime minister Manmohan Singh said as recently as 2013, that,
despite the boom years, India remains a poor country. But others
majoritarian strand in India that has existed for at least 150 years, yet
barely affects the image of the country overseas.
Some have claimed Modi was elected primarily through the support of
industrialists and sections of the media. This is not the case. He won
because his nationalist rhetoric and his promise of development was
attractive to a large number of his compatriots. This link will not weaken
as Indias economy grows and with it, however haphazardly, its
influence. The nation is likely to behave on the international stage much
like any other power: with a strong sense of its own interests and that its
foreign policy goals are legitimate and attainable, with or without
western approval.
This does not mean violent clashes, or active animosity, but it will mean
an awful lot of arguing, and some serious rethinking, in the chancelleries
of Paris, Washington, London and elsewhere.
The White House hardly needed to prod (to try to make somebd to do sthg
especially when they are not interested) the interest groups during the
Tuesday call. The outcome of this battle could determine the fate of a vast
array of contentious issues for decades to come: immigration, climate
change, gun rights, campaign finance, health care, affirmative action, gay
rights and abortion.
So in record time, the liberal and conservative Washington lobbying and
advocacy machines have roared to life (started noisely) as both sides
prepare for a fight on a battlefield that includes the White House, Congress
and the campaign trail. Advocacy groups are vowing to spend millions of
dollars.
Its going to be the entire progressive movement up against the entire
conservative movement, said Frank Sharry, an immigration activist whose
organization was represented in Tuesdays White House call. I do think its
going to be a battle of a different order.
On Wednesday, White House officials responded to Republican accusations
of hypocrisy by Mr. Obama, who voted to filibuster(a long speech in
parliament to delay voting) President George W. Bushs nomination of
Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the court. Mr. Obama, who is now demanding a quick
hearing and vote for his next nominee, regrets that vote, said Josh Earnest,
the White House press secretary. Mr. Earnest said the president did not
believe Democrats should have been looking for an opportunity to throw
sand in the gears.
That admission is unlikely to satisfy conservatives. Like their liberal
counterparts, the leaders of conservative groups have jumped to reorder
their priorities as they begin dividing up the tasks: raising money, lobbying
senators, firing up constituents, planning radio and television ads, writing
letters to editors and creating talking points for television appearances.
Moments after Justice Scalias death became public, the American Center
for Law and Justice, a conservative organization, organized a team of five
lawyers to scour(to search for a place or a thing to find sbd/sthg) the
backgrounds of potential nominees, and another team to research the
Senates procedural rules. The group has so far sent out a million emails to
its members and is preparing videos to post on its Facebook page early next
week.
The stakes are as high as anything we have dealt with in Washington in a
decade, said Jay Sekulow, the chief counsel for the law center. This is not
even the beginning of what this fight will be. Its full-media, full-legal
research, full-government affairs, full-throttle on this.
The struggle to shape the courts future is also drawing combatants from
groups that have not typically played central roles in Supreme Court fights.
The League of Conservation Voters, for example, which sees the courts
outlook on environmental issues as critical, has begun calling and emailing
its 1.5 million members, asking them to reach out to their senators and urge
them to confirm Mr. Obamas nominee this year.
Its hugely important that the president nominate someone and the Senate
acts, said Gene Karpinski, the president of the league. We will be more
engaged in this effort than we ever have before in a Supreme Court
nomination. Well urge our members to create pressure on the Senate. We
want to make sure that message is heard loudly and clearly.
Both sides agree that the battle will be long, with many advocates using
words like incredible and monumental to describe it. They also say it
will play out in at least three distinct phases, the first of which is underway.
Phase 1 will last for the next several weeks, activists on both sides say, and
will continue until Mr. Obama announces a nominee. During this phase,
the sides will focus on establishing a process that works to their benefit.
The shift in policy has come in part because the government is less
concerned about opposition from civil society groups, most of them more
closely aligned with the previous ruling party, the Indian National
Congress. Officials were also spurred(motivation) by a medical disaster in
the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, where 13 women died in 2014 after
undergoing tubal ligation at a high-volume government sterilization
camp.
I thought it was incumbent on the government to provide it as a choice,
said C. K. Mishra, additional secretary in the Ministry of Health and Family
Welfare, of the contraceptive Depot medroxy progesterone acetate, or
DMPA, which has been used in the private sector since 1993. Still, the
method will be introduced gingerly, limited at first to select district
hospitals and medical colleges and then expanded next year to hospitals
throughout the country. Implanted contraceptives may follow.
We want to be very careful, Mr. Mishra said. We dont want to put a
single step wrong.
In the context of Indias recent history, it is no wonder officials have been
risk-averse and advocates mistrustful. In 1975, the government of Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi led an aggressive campaign, in some cases forcing
young or childless men to undergo vasectomies to meet quotas. More than
six million sterilizations were performed, igniting a widespread protest
movement.
More than a decade later, when India began exploring the public use of
injectable contraceptives, activist groups filed cases with the countrys
Supreme Court seeking to ban the drugs, contending that they had not been
proved safe and could be used coercively.
The court forwarded the matter to Indias Drug Technical Advisory Board,
which in 1995 allowed private use to continue but recommended against
offering them in government clinics. The decision was not revisited for 20
years, even as use of the method became widespread in neighboring
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Opponents contend that Indias health infrastructure is too weak to
regulate use of the drugs, monitor side effects or ensure that patients have
given informed consent. Indias government spends just over 1 percent of
its gross domestic product on public health, compared with around 3
percent in Russia and China and 8 percent in the United States.
Eventually you found what fit, made a wager, joined a team and assented to
a belief system that was already latent within you. When I joined National
Review at age 24 I joined a very self-conscious tradition. I was connected to
a history of insight and belief; to Edmund Burke and Whittaker Chambers
and James Burnham. I wanted to learn everything I could about that
tradition what I accepted and what I rejected as a way to figure out
what I believed.
When you join a movement whether it is deconstructionist, feminist or
Jungian you join a community, which can sometimes feel like family in
ways good and bad. You have a common way of seeing the world, which you
want to share with everyone. When you join, people are always pressing
books into your hands.
Believing becomes an activity. People in movements take stands, mobilize
for common causes, hold conferences, fight and factionalize and build
solidarity. (I remember late night at one conference dancing near four
generations of anti-communists.)
There are opportunity structures for young people to rise and contribute.
First you set out the chairs for the meetings; later you get to lead the
meetings. Young people find that none of the mentors is perfect, so they
cant be completely loyal to any particular leader, but they can be loyal to
the enterprise as a whole, because it embodies some real truth and is
stumbling* toward some real good.
The whole process arouses the passions. Today universities teach critical
thinking to be detached, skeptical and analytic. Movements are marked
by emotion division and solidarity, victory and defeat.
There are fervent (ardent)new converts, and traitors who break ranks.
There are furious debates over strategy; the future design of society is at
stake. There are inevitably love affairs and breakups. People learn ardently,
with their hearts.
As in any love, theres an idealistic early phase, then a period of
disillusionment, and then, hopefully, a period of longer and more stable
commitment to the ideas. The movement shapes ones inner landscape. It
offers a way to clarify the world; a bunch of books to consult if you need to
think through some problem.
Of course there is often rigidity and groupthink, but people can also be
smarter when thinking in groups. For example, movements pool
imagination. Its very hard to come up with a vision so compelling that it
can provide a unifying purpose to your life. But such visions emerge in a
movement collectively, and then get crystallized by a leader like Martin
Luther King.
It all depends on taking steps that are less in fashion today: committing
to a collective, accepting a label, keeping faith, surrendering self to a
tradition that stretches beyond you in time.
Forbes' 2016 richest list: Zuckerberg zooms up(informal:to increase
a lot quickly and suddenly)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the biggest gainer in Forbes' 2016
billionaires list of the world's richest people, moving up 10 spots from last
year to claim the ranking as the world's sixth richest person, the business
magazine said Tuesday.
We fought hard but not hard enough .Batting has to improve big
time.
I feel like the batting plan was all over the place .Well done
Bangladesh
I think the 6.5 percent growth target is very challenging, Shen Jianguang,
the Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia, said
after hearing Mr. Lis plans. They want to choose a path that maintains
real growth now and defers tough times for later.
A growth rate of 6.5 percent a year is the minimum needed to achieve
President Xis often-declared goal of doubling the size of the Chinese
economy by 2020, relative to its size in 2010.
As the government report said, setting this target is also aimed at
anchoring expectations and confidence, Tao Wang, the chief China
economist for UBS in Hong Kong, said in emailed comments. We think
this ambitious growth target signals more policy easing.
But such financial easing implies more debt, at a time when many Western
economists and policy makers are already worried that total leverage in the
Chinese economy has far outstripped (surpass)economic output. The
increased debt may help the government achieve its target of 6.5 percent to
7 percent economic growth this year, but at the price of burdening banks
with even more loans to struggling businesses, or even effectively insolvent
ones. That policy may also water down leaders promises to shut companies
that are producing unwanted industrial goods.
Some economists said the Chinese government had little choice but to
shore up demand through such policies until the benefits of restructuring
accumulated. But several also warned that the gains from such spending
were tapering off and that the efforts to revamp the economy had lagged,
despite bold promises made by Mr. Xi at a Communist Party meeting in
2013.
In China we have a new saying: Reform running idle, said Yao Yang, an
economics professor at Peking University.
We talk of the reforms, but the reforms are never being implemented.
Thats the problem, Mr. Yao said. We know that monetary expansion is
not going to have a huge effect.
In his speech, Mr. Li appeared guarded about saying how any cuts would be
administered. He did not specify how many workers could lose their jobs as
part of the governments plan to close, merge or restructure mines and
factories weighed down by excess capacity.
The government will set aside $15.3 billion to support laid-off workers and
hard-hit areas, he said. On Monday, a labor official estimated that 1.8
million workers in the steel and coal sectors would be laid off, around 15
percent of the work force in those industries.
They definitely are relatively cautious in those areas like how boldly we
tackle excess capacity, because they still want to grow, said Louis Kuijs, the
chief Asia economist for Oxford Economics, an independent research firm.
What I am particularly worried about is the overcapacity is probably going
to get worse before it gets better, given the timidity of the approach.
To a surprising extent, the economic vision unveiled by Mr. Li echoed
policies in the United States, the European Union and Japan, all of which
have depended heavily on their central banks to expand money supply and
keep growth aloft(high in air). The International Monetary Fund and
many independent economists have strongly called for the world to shift
from this reliance on monetary policy.
Of the Chinese governments plan, Mr. Kuijs said: The wording is that we
will have proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy, but if you
look at the numbers, its actually the other way around.
The governments plan said the target for this years fiscal deficit at the
national level would rise to 3 percent, from a target of 2.3 percent last year.
But by most estimates, the actual deficit last year was already over 3
percent.
Chinas central bank, like the Federal Reserve and the European Central
Bank, has been wary of carrying almost the entire burden for sustaining
economic growth through monetary policy, and one of its officials even
publicly suggested recently that the fiscal deficit could be safely pegged as
high as 4 percent.
Chinas central government has a fairly low debt by international
standards; what are deeply indebted are the countrys corporate sector and
local governments. But the Ministry of Finance has nonetheless been
reluctant to allow a large, persistent deficit to form, particularly as China
may yet face very heavy costs to help banks with the costs of large loans to
nearly insolvent state-owned enterprises.
To be sure, the plan announced Saturday did call for some structural
changes. One of the most surprising was a proposal to expand Chinas
value-added tax to financial services. Banks would face a 6 percent tax on
the interest that they collect on loans.
Since the global financial crisis, there have been many calls in the West for
broadening value-added taxes to encompass financial services, which could
encourage more orderly and systematic accounting for many transactions.
But Lachlan Wolfers, the head of indirect taxes in China for KPMG, a global
accounting and professional services firm, said he was not aware of any
countries other than Argentina and Israel that had taken steps as specific as
Chinas to tax financial services.
Premier Li Keqiang argued that China can cut back bloated industries
without mass layoffs or derailing the nations growth trajectory.
Policy makers will employ "innovative measures" to keep the economy
on track as economic performance diverges across provinces and
"sluggish" global growth weighs on prospects. "There are both difficulties
and hopes," Li told reporters at a news conference in Beijing Wednesday
that marks the conclusion of the 12-day National Peoples Congress.
China is still at an early stage of industrialization and urbanization, and
retains room to grow on those fronts, while new drivers will also help
fuel the nations expansion. Acknowledging there will be "ups and
downs," Li said policy makers will remain focused on structural reforms.
"We believe that as long we stay on the course of reform and opening up,
Chinas economy will not suffer a hard landing," Li said. "Reform and
development are not in conflict. By pursuing structural reforms, we can
release market vitality and drive economic development."
Lis comments come amid waning international confidence in Chinas
economic stewardship after surprise currency moves and a $5 trillion
equities rout last year rattled markets around the world. Li is striving to
restructure Chinas economy away from an over-reliance on investment
and cheap exports after growth slumped to a 25-year low last year,
balancing the need for cyclical support with structural reform.
Li got 98.4 percent support for his annual economic work report from
the largely rubber-stamp parliament. While that was actually the
highest disapproval rate he has received, its the kind of backing a U.S.
president could only dream of in Congress.
China Headwinds
China faces headwinds from slumping(to fall in price,value ,number)
exports and stocks, to slowing industrial production and retail sales.
Currency volatility and surging capital outflows following a shock
devaluation last year have prompted plans to draft a Tobin tax on
currency trading.
The government is committed to delivering at least 6.5 percent average
expansion over the next five years, a target that risks fueling debt and
adding to depreciation pressure on the yuan. Gavekal Dragonomics calls
the target incredible. JPMorgan Chase & Co. says a sustainable pace is
much lower than the 6.5 percent to 7 percent range officials are
targeting for this year.
Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said Saturday that excessive
monetary policy stimulus wasnt needed to meet the target and that,
barring big economic or financial turmoil, the central bank would keep
prudent monetary policy. Zhou has already stepped up efforts to cushion
the economic slowdown, announcing on Feb. 29 a 0.5 percentage point
cut to the amount of deposits banks must hold as reserves.
Escape to victory
Nerves were shredded, nails got chewed and throats turned hoarse
(sounding rough and unpleasant) as a rousing Wednesday night
witnessed India effect a remarkable turnaround and snatch a one-run
victory over Bangladesh in the ICC World Twenty20 Super 10 Group 2
match at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here.
Pursuing Indias 146 for seven, Bangladesh needed 11 from the last over
with four wickets in hand. Hardik Pandya conceded a single to
Mahmudullah, suffered two fours at the hands of Mushfiqur Rahim and
when it boiled down to two from three deliveries, M.S. Dhonis men set a
miracle in motion, helped largely by the visitors desire to go for glory
instead of a humble single or two.
Rahim and Mahmudullah perished to wild hoicks(to raise or pull
something, usually with a quick movement and with effort ) and a
nervous Mustafizur Rahman was no match for a sprinting Dhoni, who
knocked down the stumps to leave the batsman and Bangladesh
stranded(unable to leave somewhere because of a problem such as not
having any transport or money ). The visitor finished with 145 for nine
and crashed out of the tournament.
Riding on Tamim Iqbals (35, 32b, 5x4) impetus and Shakib Al Hasans
brief but bludgeoning (to hit someone hard and repeatedly with a
heavy weapon ,force someone to do something )blade, Bangladesh
threatened at different points before committing hara-kiri. Tamim
helped Bangladesh tide over Mohammad Mithuns dismissal in the third
over after R. Ashwin tempted the batsman to clear the ropes where a
leaping Pandya caught well.
Southpaw Tamim, who was a doubtful starter on match-eve, was
evidently in his element. He pummeled(to hit someone or something
repeatedly, especially with your fists ) a few, edged some and made it
worse for Jasprit Bumrah, who had dropped him off Ashwin. Tamim
pinched four fours off a Bumrah over and threatened to do more before
he danced down and missed one from Ravindra Jadeja for Dhoni to
whip off the bails with glee(happiness, excitement or pleasure ).
You have local level and you have federal level, and there is no
collaboration, said Franoise Schepmans, the mayor of
Molenbeek, the district where the sole surviving suspect from
the Paris attacks was arrested last week after evading the
authorities for 125 days. They dont have to talk to me about
their investigation, she said in an interview with CNN.
Belgium, a tiny country of 11 million people, has long had an identity
crisis. It lives in the shadow of its larger and more powerful cousin,
France. Brussels, the capital, doubles as the capital of the European
Union and headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
giving it global heft(to lift, hold or carry something heavy using your
hands ) but also subsuming(to include something or someone as part
of a larger group ) its already fragile and fragmented persona to
plodding(to work slowly and continuously, but without imagination,
enthusiasm or interest ) bureaucratic institutions.
The city center has been eerily quiet since Tuesdays attacks,
with the usually bustling streets near the Grand Place, a
handsome square graced by imposing buildings, mainly from the
17th century, largely deserted. Soldiers in military fatigues
patrolled the chic Place du Grand Sablon on Thursday, an
incongruous sight on a square where truffle emporiums, luxury
shops and bourgeois residents walking their dogs are more
common.
Some residents said they were too scared to take the subway.
Reflecting on the attacks, Mr. Gallet, the 19-year-old student, said many
Belgians were resigned and angry. He argued that the countrys
fractious(easily upset or annoyed, and often complaining ) identity
politics were at least partly to blame for distracting successive
governments from improving the integration of immigrants and
preventing terrorism. But his friend Antoine Staru disagreed.
I am sorry, but this is not Belgiums fault, said Mr. Staru, 20.
These are crazy people. These are people born here, and yet
they are attacking this country.
Employers may feel differently if the economy turns down and the
labor market is less robust or if there is a sudden spike in health care
costs. Because workers can no longer be denied an insurance policy
because of poor health, companies may be willing to drop coverage
under the right circumstances, knowing that insurance is more
available to everyone.
But there are no plans for a mass exodus.
The demise of employer-based coverage was definitely
overstated, said Michael Thompson, the chief executive of the
National Business Coalition on Health, which represents
employers and other buyers of insurance.
But religions appeal has been eroding in the United States since
the end of the 1980s, according to research by Michael Hout of
New York University and Claude Fischer of the University of
California, Berkeley. In 1987, only one in 14 American adults
expressed no religious preference. By 2012, the share had
increased to one in five.
Scholars like Professor Voas argue Americans are undergoing a
process similar to what has happened in Europe, where secular
institutions took over many of the jobs once performed by the
church. Professors Hout and Fischer argue, instead, that the
erosion reflects the shocks and aftershocks from the 1960s: like
churches censureship of premarital sex and young peoples
growing acceptance of homosexuality.
Organized religion gained influence by espousing(to become involved
with or support an activity or opinion ) a conservative social agenda that
led liberals and young people who already had weak attachment to
organized religion to drop that identification, they wrote. By 2012, 36
percent of liberals preferred no religion, compared to just 7 percent of
conservatives.
Regardless of the deeper dynamics, Mr. Trumps campaign poses
a critical question: Is the alignment of interests on the right,
entwining religious fervor with free market economics, fraying?
If so, what will take its place?
The notion that evangelical voters are nonresponsive to
anything other than abortion and homosexuality overstates the
power of religion on political choice, said Nolan McCarty,
professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton.
Republicans longstanding strategy has been showing signs of
wear for a while. By 2012, Professor Hout argued, it was clear
that they had pretty much gotten as much as they were going to
get out of religion. They couldnt expand the base any further by
appealing to devout Christians, he said, because they had
rounded them up already.
Still, it took Mr. Trump to identify the real Achilles heel in the
Reagan coalition: an economic policy built around tax cuts for
the wealthy that has failed to deliver the goods to the Republican
base for far too long.
Two words that almost guarantee you will stop reading and flick to the next
page: dividend imputation.
Eye-glazing right? In the blizzard of words in the current federal election
contest, this cryptic term is unlikely to fire much passion. What's dividend
impu-thingemy got to do with me you might ask.
But stick it out because the answer is, more than you think.
In fact, because of this barely-understood provision in Australian tax law,
a promised 10-year tax cut trajectory for business, taking it from 30 per
cent down to 25, and set to turbo-charge jobs and economic growth, will
have no perceptible effect.
Indeed, the budget centrepiece around which the Turnbull government's
central case turns, amounts to, well, eight tenths of bugger all.
That is, nothing for most companies because their owners, through
imputation, get back all their company tax, and ditto for economic growth
as well even according to the Treasury's own predictions. An improvement
in economic output or GDP of just 0.1 per cent per year and that's after
year 10, 2015-26.
That is, in reality, only an estimating margin for error. It's that small.
The gains will be barely noticeable unless that is, you're a foreign investor
in an Australian company, in which case a 5 cent company tax cut goes
straight to you bottom line and is a straight-out gift.
And again, that's down to dividend imputation. Here's why.
For Australian owners of Australian companies and lets face it, there are
hundreds of thousands of small businesses registered as companies simply
to limit their owners' personal liabilities dividend imputation means they
effectively pay no company tax.
The system is designed so that the company pays its 30 per cent tax and
then "distributes" its profit to its owner(s) as dividends in many cases
this will be simply an owner-operator. In Australia, some 81 per cent of
company income is distributed in this way.
In order to avoid the double-taxation of those dollars, that dividend
received is fully franked, which means the Australian recipients are able to
claim back the tax already paid (by the company) and offset that against
their own personal income. Net result? No company tax is paid.
This is Turnbull's problem: it's hard to give the benefit of a company tax cut
to a shareholder that never pays company tax.
His claim that four dollars of value springs from every dollar of tax reduced
on business, can be both true, and at the same time, entirely academic if
there is no material reduction in costs.
It is different for foreign investors who, because they don't get franking
credits, are the only ones who currently pay the 30 per cent rate and do not
have it returned to them.
As Fairfax Media's Peter Martin noted on Thursday, referring to the
promised 25 per cent rate a decade from now: "It means most of the $8.2
billion per year tax cut, lands offshore, as a gift."
It stands to reason, if you are not paying the 30 per cent rate at all, a cut to
25 per cent will have zero impact on your investment decisions.
Whether your company pays 30 per cent or 25 per cent makes no
difference you get it back anyway.
So, there you have it. An immeasurably small economic growth
improvement, and a permanent loss of revenue overseas, which may or
may not be ever made up for by a stronger economy.
Labor's alternative is however is hardly more tangible and may be
even less immediate.
It turns on the claimed economic benefits of spending extra billions over
the next decade on education some $37.3 of them.
Of the two plans, this is the more instinctively believable. Voters want
reinvestment in under-funded schools. And the idea that better education
leads to better jobs seems axiomatic(obviously true and therefore not
needing to be proved ).
But is it? What is the economic boost of Labor's schools reinvestment?
Well, that too is the subject of a gap between feeling and fact wide enough
to drive a debt truck through. On Tuesday Labor's Chris Bowen used his
budget reply speech at the National Press Club to claim a 2.8 per cent
dividend in terms of stronger economic growth from Labor's 10-year
school spending.
That's encouraging getting on for three times the benefit of the company
tax cut at 1.0 per cent after 20 years. But wait, it too is intangible over a
shorter time frame. "The OECD has identified it, a 2.8 per cent lift in GDP, if
we can get every school student with the basic skills they need when they
graduate," he told the luncheon, calling it a "real impact" and a "clear and
unmistakeable economic dividend".
But the OECD modelling stops some way short of defining a clear and
unmistakeable dividend over a decade as implied. Rather, as the
government gleefully pointed out, it models that kind of positive outcome
in closer to eight decades or by 2095. It also uses a figure of 11 per cent in
20195 but it seems the latter is the non-inflation adjusted figure for
the growth of the economy.
To be fair to both narratives, there are credible backers for each who
support their respective policies. Labor cites the Reserve Bank as
advocating the economic dividends of "investing in human capital".
The government has the backing of some economists for its company tax
cut-related growth gains.
But after a start that has felt more like the traditional post-budget
week than the first days of a federal election campaign, voter confidence in
either approach is unlikely to be enhanced. The short answer, it turns
out, is a long way off.
In practice, neither side has the capacity to spend up in the way of
campaigns past, leaving them with the harder task of selling policies that
cost a lot up front for only long-term and potentially illusory gains.