Showing posts with label Catalonia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catalonia. Show all posts

2017-10-07

Tech Review | Amazon $AMZN & Apple $AAPL: 'The TAX Man Cometh'

Tech Review (TR 2017-10-07)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Amazon $AMZN & Apple $AAPL: 'The TAX Man Cometh', 2)  The Wrong Kind of Entrepreneurs, 3) Investing: Catalonia to Tech (video), Not a Time to Buy Anything, Portfolio Builder, Junk Bond Bubble, Disintermediation, Q3 2017, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Amazon $AMZN & Apple $AAPL & Facebook $FB & Google $GOOG $GOOGL: The Tax Man Cometh--EU orders Amazon to repay $295 million in Luxembourg back taxes--Reuters.com. EU takes Ireland to court for not claiming Apple tax windfall--Reuters.com (up to 13 billion euros ($15.3 billion) of tax due from Apple Inc.). More in the video and text below:

Amazon hit with EU back taxes bill

Financial Times (FT.com) video published Oct 4, 2017: Brussels (EU) handed Amazon on Wednesday a bill for Luxembourg back taxes of up to €250m in the latest fallout from the EU crackdown on tax avoidance by big multinationals.

Germany, France, Italy, and Spain have proposed an ‘equalisation tax’ under which internet giants Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon would be taxed where they generate revenues rather than where they are registered. Right now the companies pay minimal taxes in Europe due to locating subsidiaries in low tax rate countries like Ireland and Luxembourg (profits are currently reported where the subsidiary is located, even if revenues are generated in other countries). Under the virtual permanent establishment concept advanced by Estonia, companies would be taxed ‘where the value is created’ rather than where the companies are registered. Existing tax rules are inadequate for the digital economy, say France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, which also maintain that ‘economic efficiency is at stake, as well as tax fairness and sovereignty’. While supporting existing initiatives at the G20 and OECD, these EU 'big four' countries also want to 'move ahead quickly’ within the EU--see DIG.watch (pdf) Sep 2017.

2) The Wrong Kind of Entrepreneurs--"When economists say “rent,” they mean money that one person extracts from another without producing anything of value ... Robert Litan and Ian Hathaway, writing in Harvard Business Review, have a more dire hypothesis. They surmised that many American entrepreneurs are no longer looking for ways to produce more useful stuff, and are instead looking for new techniques for extracting money from each other and from the government ... crony capitalism may be slowly cannibalizing productive capitalism"--Bloomberg.com. See also Special Pump-and-Dump Scheme Spikes to High Heaven | WolfStreet.com. 

3) Investing
Charts that matter: Catalonia to tech

Financial Times (FT.com) video published Oct 5, 2017: The FT.com's markets team on what to watch for in markets this month: US credit, Catalonia bonds, bond covenants, rotation into energy and what the S&P 500 needs.

a. Quick Notes:
  • Hurricane Nate Aims At New Orleans--Category One Landfall Early Sunday.
  • Coming: another interest rate hike by the Fed likely this year: U.S. Dollar hits 10-week highs, U.S. yields jump on strong wages data | Reuters.com.
  • "This Is Not A Time To Buy Anything" --Sam Zell warns retail real estate market is a "falling knife"--"An area that's in this much disarray, with so many weak players, is not an area where I would want to deploy capital at this time. And I'm generally a contrarian but I think what we're dealing with here is very significant."--ZeroHedge.com Sep 26, 2017. WolfStreet.com: Landlord’s View of the Brick and Mortar Meltdown: “We are faced with weekly tenant bankruptcies, defaults, and requests for rent or space reductions ... even the biggest liars you ever met will admit to challenges facing their portfolios."-- (emphasis added).
  • Portfolio builder: How To Profit From The Online Data Boom | SeekingAlpha.com.
  • World’s Biggest Ever Junk Bond Bubble in Pictures: What Hath Draghi Wrought?--MishTalk.com. 
  • Disintermediation: FedEx $FDX and UPS $UPS DOWN on report of Amazon's $AMZN own delivery service--Reuters.com.
  • One man's pain is another's gain--Hurricane Stimulus in Auto Sector: "Hurricane Harvey and highest discounts in US history did the trick--GM, Ford, and Toyota were the biggest winners. Fiat-Chrysler and Hyundai got crushed."--WolfStreet.com.
  • JPMorgan Updates By-laws In Case Of "Nuclear Disaster" Or World War III--ZeroHedge.com
b. Q3 2017 Earnings Season
4) ICYMI Tech News:
  • Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups? | TheAtlantic.com: Sweden's strong safety net, low corporate taxes, and deregulation of industries to promote competition, have aided its thriving startup community.
  •  Amazon-Whole-Foods Already Rattles the Grocery Sector | WolfStreet.com: "...  foot traffic of new customers remained at elevated levels through September 16. On that day – a Saturday – the index of foot traffic spiked to one of its highest levels since the price cuts ..."
  • Intel and Intelsat partner on plan to free up 5G airwaves | Axios.com.
  • India approves Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo retail stores, Apple next?--Reuters.com and Manufacturing Smartphones In India Hits Hurdles--lack of skilled labor and part suppliers along with a complex tax regime--Reuters.com.
  • Entitled & Tone-deaf: Mark Zuckerberg wanted Facebook employees to work for his separate personal entity "Chan Zuckerberg Initiative" until senior staff complained to board member Marc Andreessen who passed it along to Zuck--BusinessInsider.com. See also Facebook Lies | iain.learmonth.me: Think you can "escape" from Facebook? Think again.
  • Foreign government software code reviews 'problematic' says White House--Reuters.com.
  • Uber’s path to win back London: data, fines and fees | Reuters.com
  • SEC Exposes Two Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)--"The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a businessman and two companies with defrauding investors in a pair of so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs) purportedly backed by investments in real estate and diamonds ..."--SEC.gov
  • Swiss regulator probes ICOs: "Ten days after shutting down a fake cryptocurrency scam, the Swiss financial regulator said it is investigating the procedures for setting up new companies in the rapidly expanding sector."--SWI | swissinfo.ch. See also Bitcoin “Probably Worth Zero”--MishTalk.com.
  • Blockchain: Commerzbank, other banks join UBS and IBM trade finance blockchain--Reuters.com.
  • Google Retooling User Security: "Google is preparing to upgrade its security tools for online accounts to better insulate users from cyberattacks and politically motivated hacks"--Bloomberg.com
  • Apple iOS 11’s Misleading “Off-ish” Setting for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is Bad for User Security--Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org.
  • OK Google, Get Out of My Face | MIT--TechnologyReview.com.
  • Yahoo says all three billion accounts hacked in 2013 data theft--Reuters.com
  • ChinaInternetWatch.com: Tencent launches digital bank card--"WeBank Card"--on WeChat. 
  • Take the politics out of broadband progress reports: "... many consider the Federal Communications Commission’s existing data to be inaccurate and unreliable. With the FCC now having launched its 13th annual inquiry into the status of broadband deployment in America ..."--rstreet.org
  • FCC's market-based solution for toll-free numbers: "RespOrgs solicit toll-free numbers from a master database of available numbers, like registrars do for internet domain names. But RespOrgs have incentives to engage in strategic behavior such as warehousing or hoarding the limited supply of numbers, particularly with regard to valuable numbers such as vanity numbers (like 1-800-LAWYERS) and easy-to-remember numbers ..."--aei.org
  • Beyond mainstream media's fake news, false narratives, and daily D.C. dramas, Trump begins to alter American life--Reuters.com 

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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2017-09-30

Tech Review | Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, Hackers, Thieves, Cybercrime

Tech Review (TR 2017-09-30)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, Hackers, Thieves, Cybercrime, 2) Investing: $MU, Q3 2017 closes higher, Fed Watch, Trump's WTO reforms, Independence Votes & Black Swans, 3) Fake News = Data & News Media + Confirmation Bias, Liberal Bias, Groupthink, and False Narratives, 4) ICYMI Tech News, 5) Coming October 4.

1) Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, Hackers, Thieves, Cybercrime
Not a good week for Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies:
However, the news wasn't all bad--Japan's FSA gives official endorsement to 11 cryptocurrency exchanges | Reuters.com.

2) Investing:
$MU
Sun Co-Founder Gets Secretive Hedge Fund to Make a Huge Chip Bet | Bloomberg.com: "Bill Joy sees DRAM chip market shedding its cyclical past - Joy persuades Water Street to stop shorting Micron and go long ..." Micron $MU (NASDAQ:MU) (domain: micron.com).

Stocks closed the 3rd Quarter (Q3 2017) this week higher--S&P 500 ends at record; stock indexes close out strong month and quarter | MarketWatch.com:
SP500
Technology and Financial Stocks Drive S&P500 & NASDAQ to Record Highs: "President Donald Trump’s meeting with former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to discuss his potential nomination as Fed chairman was seen as a trigger for financial shares."--Reuters.com

Fed Watch (domain: federalreserve.gov):
Why Hurricanes Won't Force the Fed to Ditch a December Rate Hike | TheStreet.com: This year's third rate hike may be followed by three more in 2018, the Federal Reserve has indicated. Fed Chair Janet Yellen: "Growth will likely bounce back as activity resumes and rebuilding gets under way."  The likelihood of further hikes is good news for banks from JPMorgan Chase & Co. $JPM (NYSE: JPM) to Citigroup Inc. $C (NYSE:C), which often boost margins by passing increases on to borrowers more quickly than to the depositors whose money is used to fund loans.

Trump wants WTO reforms (domain: wto.org):
U.S. [Trump's WTO rep] shocks WTO with a novel take on trade dispute rules | Reuters.com: “I think it’s the first time somebody said you need positive consensus. It means that any member can block the whole thing" said one trade diplomat who was in the meeting. “It’s power politics,” said another.

Independence Votes & Black Swans:
Catalonia Vote a Black Swan for EU, ECB, Spain, Markets, Economy? | DomainMondo.com--continuing LIVE coverage thru the weekend on the October 1 independence referendum in Catalonia. See also Last flight departs as Iraq imposes ban for Kurdish independence vote | Reuters.com.

3)  Fake News = Data & News Media + Confirmation Bias, Liberal Bias, Groupthink, and False Narratives:
The Media Has A Probability Problem | FiveThirtyEight.com--by Nate Silver: "The media keeps misinterpreting data ... the media has often overestimated the precision of polling, cherry-picked data and portrayed elections as sure things when that conclusion very much wasn’t supported by polls or other empirical evidence ... documented throughout this series, polls and other data did not support the exceptionally high degree of confidence that news organizations such as The New York Times regularly expressed about Hillary Clinton’s chances. (We’ve been using the [New York] Times as our case study ... because their 2016 coverage had so many problems.) ... Probably the most important problem with 2016 coverage was confirmation bias — coupled with what you might call good old-fashioned liberal media bias ..."

Here's more #FakeNews from mainstream media debunked this week:

4) ICYMI Tech News:
  • EU ready to move on digital tax even if no global deal--Reuters.com
  • China's HNA Group says it will keep investing in the United States: "We still have a strong belief U.S. and China will have a very good relationship, we will keep on investing (in) related business." --Nasdaq.com
  • YouTube no longer available on Amazon Echo Show after Google pulls it off, saying it violated the Terms of Service (ToS) and was a “broken user experience” implementation by Amazon.--TheVerge.com
  • Why It Took Google So Long to End Shady Rehab Center Ads: "In May, scores of people on the front lines of America’s opioid crisis packed the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers conference in Austin to listen to a Google contractor named Josh Weum. Google LLC doesn’t have anything to do with treating addicts, and the company didn’t send Weum there to talk about helping people get clean. He was explaining how to use Google to cash in on America’s $35 billion addiction treatment market ..."--Bloomberg.com
  • Ikea has bought TaskRabbit | Recode.net: "The Swedish home goods giant is looking for some digital help from the contract labor marketplace."
  • Bill Gates now uses an Android phone | TheVerge.com 


-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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2017-09-29

Catalonia Vote LIVE: a Black Swan for EU, ECB, Spain, Markets, Economy?

Catalonia Vote LIVE: a Black Swan for EU, ECB, Spain, Markets, Economy? | DomainMondo.com (graphic)
Black Swan: "an unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences."--Wall Street and City of London Press Panic Button on Catalonia | WolfStreet.com: "Sometimes you have to keep the black swans in mind.” 
UPDATE 1 Oct 2017: Catalonia’s Dark Days Ahead | WolfStreet.com: "It isn’t just about what happens on Sunday; it’s about the ensuing days and weeks."
LIVE France 24 English 24/7 video stream below:


UPDATES:
  • Oct 4: Catalonia to move to declare independence from Spain on Monday--Reuters.com
  • Oct 2: Reuters.com: European Commission says Catalan vote was not legal; Catalonia worries knock euro against stronger dollar--Reuters.com.
  • UPDATE Oct 1: Catalan referendum: Catalonia has 'won right to statehood'--BBC.com--Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says the region has won the right to statehood following Sunday's contentious referendum which was marred by violence.
  • Catalonia Independence Referendum Vote, Sunday, October 1, 2017.
Catalonia shuts down in protest Oct 3

Financial Times (FT.com) video above published Oct 3, 2017.

How Did Things Get So Bad in Catalonia? | WolfStreet.com: The answer, to borrow from Ernest Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises, is “gradually, then suddenly.”

Catalonia's referendum explained (video):

Above video published by FT.com Sep 26, 2017. LIVE Twitter Feed:


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2017-09-24

News Review: ICANN Interactive Webinar, Editor's Comment on DNS Abuse

News Review | ©2016 DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2017-09-24) with analysis and opinion: Features • 1)  ICANN Interactive Webinar on DNS Abuse Sept 25, 2)Other ICANN news a. Editor's Comment on DNS Abuse in gTLDs, b.Latest on Spain vs .CAT, c. ICYMI RegistrarSG to ICANN Letter, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks: Please No Emoji in Domains, 4) ICYMI Internet Domain News: Internet Censorship, 5) Most Read Posts.

1) ICANN Interactive Webinar on DNS Abuse September 25
ICANN WEBINAR: Compliance & Consumer Safeguard Overview | ICANN.org: ICANN will host an interactive webinar on 25 September 2017 to discuss Compliance and Consumer Safeguard matters within ICANN’s remit, including:
  • Review and discuss existing safeguards within ICANN’s contracts and By-laws.
  • Identify types DNS abuse that may fall within ICANN’s remit.
  • Discuss voluntary efforts to address abuse within the DNS.
  • Consider possible topic(s) for discussion during a session at ICANN 60.
"This webinar will allow for an open discussion on these topics as well as any other related issues raised by members of the community. Hosted by ICANN’s Contractual Compliance and Consumer Safeguards team, the webinar will also include representatives from ICANN’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer and the Global Domains Division."--ICANN

Webinar Date & Time: 25 September 2017, 1500-1600 UTC | time convert 11am EDT (US)
Join via Adobe Connect: https://participate.icann.org/safeguardsandcompliance/
Dial-In Conference Number(s)--Participant Code: 1941584829:
  • US (Toll): 1-605-475-5603
  • US (Toll): 1-712-770-4202
  • US (Toll Free): 1-888-619-1583
  • Canada, Montreal (Local): +1 514 669 5944
  • Canada, Toronto (Local): +1 647 426 9168
  • Additional access numbers: here
The webinar will be conducted in English. Recordings will be published here. More info:

 2) Other ICANN news
a. DomainMondo.com Editor's comment (pdf) re: Statistical Analysis of DNS Abuse in gTLDs (SADAG) Report, submitted 19 Sep 2017 (comment period now extended to 27 Sep 2017), excerpt:

"Conclusion: With its 2012 round of expanding gTLDs from just 22 to more than 1200, ICANN has made a mess of the DNS and given multistakeholderism a bad name. And it’s not as if ICANN wasn’t warned, repeatedly, as noted hereinabove. No, this disaster wasn’t any force majeure, but a disaster of ICANN’s own making, founded upon a mixture of arrogant power and greed:
"I really can’t see a legitimate upside where new benefits [of the new gTLDs] outweigh costs, and everyone I mention this to feels the same way. People just shake their heads. It’s all about the money. They [ICANN] are creating these extensions because they can."--University of Pennsylvania Wharton School marketing professor Peter Fader, co-director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative (source: Knowledge@Wharton May 21, 2014).
"ICANN’s new gTLDs program is a systemic failure of both the organization and the “ICANN community”—they need to own it and be held accountable. It is as important to understand “how we got here” as “what happened.” The failed ICANN leadership that got us into this mess includes Peter Dengate Thrush (former ICANN Board Chairman), Steve Crocker (ICANN Board member and Chairman), ICANN ex-CEOs Rod Beckstrom and Fadi Chehade, former ICANN Chief Strategy Officer Kurt Pritz (“architect of ICANN's new gTLD program”), and lastly but not least, Akram Atallah, interim ICANN CEO (twice) and President of ICANN’s “Global Domains Division.”" (emphasis added)

Full comment embedded below. Other comments submitted may be read here.


b.  Latest on Spain vs .CAT--gTLD .CAT domain names judicial seizure warrant
.CAT statement 22 Sep 2017: Our Director of Innovation and Information Systems has been released | fundacio.cat: "... Pep Masoliver, has been released on September 22, after more than 60 hours of detention, accused with charges of embezzlement, prevarication and disobedience ..." (emphasis added)

Background: Intervention at Fundació puntCAT's headquarters | fundacio.cat 20 Sep 2017: "Fundació puntCAT wants to express its utmost condemnation, indignation and reprobation for the actions that it has been suffering lately with successive judicial mandates, searches and finally the arrest of our Director of Innovation and Information Systems, Pep Masoliver ..." (emphasis added)

 See also 17 September 2017 Letter from Fundació puntCAT CEO Eduard Martin Lineros to ICANN CEO Göran Marby (pdf) published by ICANN 20 September 2017, embed below:
See also: Spain and Catalonia Wrestle Over .Cat Internet Domain - The New York Times: "Given the web’s rich cat history, you’d think that domain names ending in .CAT would be another online feline gold mine."--For the love of god, not everything is about cats | theoutline.com: "The foundation that administers the .CAT domain for Catalonians just got raided by the Spanish police, but all the media wants to talk about is cats."

 UPDATE--Catalonia Police Reject Madrid Orders: Barring Invasion, the Vote Will Take Place October 1st--"Given the importance of the story, Western media is amazingly silent. Stories are few and far between."--MishTalK.com.

c.  ICYMI: ICANN’s “Proposal Regarding Feasibility Analysis of Cross-Field Address Validation Services.”--Letter from Graeme Bunton to Jennifer Gore | ICANN.org embed below, highlighting added:
(Editor's Note: Graeme Bunton is manager of public policy at Tucows, and was elected as Chair of the Registrar Stakeholder Group in July 2016. Jennifer Gore is ICANN Director, Registrar Services & Engagement since July, 2016; prior to that she was employed by Web.com.)

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks
•  Emoji in Domains? Don't, just don't: Worth Repeating Again--SAC 095 | SSAC Advisory on the Use of Emoji in Domain Names | ICANN.org--Advisory from the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) 25 May 2017 (pdf): "... the practical implication is that domain names with emoji will not be accepted or processed consistently by applications ... Currently, it is already difficult to get people to accept the new labels that have appeared with IDNs and the new generic TLD (new gTLDs) program. Adding emoji to domain name labels will only make this problem worse ... Recommendation 1: Because the risks identified in this Advisory cannot be adequately mitigated without significant changes to Unicode or IDNA (or both), the SSAC recommends that the ICANN Board reject any TLD (root zone label) that includes emoji. Recommendation 2: Because the risks identified in this Advisory cannot be adequately mitigated without significant changes to Unicode or IDNA (or both), the SSAC strongly discourages the registration of any domain name that includes emoji in any of its labels. The SSAC also advises registrants of domain names with emoji that such domains may not function consistently or may not be universally accessible as expected ..." (emphasis and link added)

•  IT Contractor Convicted of Wire Fraud for Defacing Website of Arizona Company | USAO-AZ | US Department of Justice | justice.gov: "... According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, [Defendant] Tso provided information technology (“IT”) services for a company located in Phoenix, Ariz. Tso subsequently used the company’s account information to make changes to the company’s website. These changes prevented the company’s employees from using their email accounts and redirected the company’s homepage to a blank page. Tso then offered to return everything to normal for $10,000. When the company refused to pay the requested amount, Tso redirected the company’s homepage to a pornographic website. Visitors to the company’s website were redirected to the pornographic website for several days before the website was returned to normal ..."

•  IP in the Digital Age: Protecting Against Domain Name and Social Media Infringement | New Jersey Law Journal | njlawjournal.com

•  Don’t Fall for a Scam: Trademark Owners Targeted | Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, LLP - JDSupra.com: "These scamming organizations, which often use names that resemble government agencies, will obtain freely accessible information regarding a registration or application ... and then create an official-looking letter or invoice seeking payment regarding the referenced trademark."

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 
•  Internet Censorship: The Terrifying Power of Internet Censors | NYTimes.com: "Because of the precise nature of Cloudflare’s business, and the scarcity of competitors, its role censoring internet speech is not just new, it’s terrifying."

 Iceland authorities weighing options after neo-Nazi site registers there | ArsTechnica.com: “What we worry about is the reputation of the .is domain,” ISNIC CEO Jens Pétur Jensen told the Reykjavik Grapevine. “ISNIC does not want to have the reputation that we’re a safe haven for criminals.”
See also: ​Why many Russians have gladly agreed to online censorship | osu.edu and Iran: Policing the Internet and Social Media | AEI.org.

  • China's Great Firewall: Chinese man jailed for helping others break Internet firewall | newsbytesapp.com. See also U.S. seeks partners to help Internet users evade foreign censors--bgov.com: "The Office of Internet Freedom (OIF), part the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, is looking for vendors that have systems and software to counter internet censorship by foreign governments, according to a notice published Sept. 6."--helping dissident groups set up web proxies and secure email.

•  Net Neutrality: FCC Chair’s “chat” with tech execs draws protest | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org .See also: "... the FCC blatantly ignored the evidence that the agency had in its possession throughout its push to scrap the vital consumer protections established by the Open Internet Order," NHMC Policy and Legal Affairs Director Carmen Scurato said in a press release last week."  See also Technology is outsmarting net neutrality | AEI.org.

•  EFF Resigns from W3C over EME: An open letter to the W3C Director, CEO, team and membership | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org: ".... The W3C process has been abused by companies that made their fortunes by upsetting the established order, and now, thanks to EME, they’ll be able to ensure no one ever subjects them to the same innovative pressures. So we'll keep fighting to keep the web free and open. We'll keep suing the US government to overturn the laws that make DRM so toxic, and we'll keep bringing that fight to the world's legislatures that are being misled by the US Trade Representative to instigate local equivalents to America's legal mistakes. We will renew our work to battle the media companies that fail to adapt videos for accessibility purposes, even though the W3C squandered the perfect moment to exact a promise to protect those who are doing that work for them. We will defend those who are put in harm's way for blowing the whistle on defects in EME implementations. It is a tragedy that we will be doing that without our friends at the W3C, and with the world believing that the pioneers and creators of the web no longer care about these matters. Effective today, EFF is resigning from the W3C. Thank you"--Cory Doctorow, Advisory Committee Representative to the W3C for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (emphasis added).

•  Internet Freedom: How supporting internet freedom in Cambodia makes America great | R Street Institute | RStreet.org

• Internet Regulation: FEC Dems renew bid to regulate Internet, Drudge, 'not done fighting' | washingtonexaminer.com

 •  Internet Shutdowns: Togo latest country to lose web access as regimes increasingly shut down Internet to control protests | theglobeandmail.com

•  China Connecting The Unconnected: "... as new players enter the race to connect the 4 billion people who remain offline, new questions are emerging about who is providing that connection and what their agenda is. As China’s interest in global development has grown, so too has its influence in the telecommunications sector, with two companies in particular — the privately owned Huawei and state owned ZTE — making up the majority of China’s efforts to connect the unconnected."--China's role in the race to connect the next billion | Devex.com.

5) Most read posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this past week on DomainMondo.com: 
1.  News Review: ICANN New gTLDs Declining, But Other Domains Growing
2.  Hurricane Maria: 2017 Hurricane Season, Satellite Views .... LIVE Feeds
3.  EU Antitrust & Competition Policy, EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager
4.   MacroView: Election in Germany (video), ECB, EU, Spain, IMF & Greece
5.  Jeff Bezos Empire: Amazon $AMZN, Blue Origin, WaPo, Bezos Expeditions

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo 

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2017-09-22

MacroView: Election in Germany (video), ECB, EU, Spain, IMF & Greece

Germany election 2017 UPDATE 24 Sep 2017: Far-right AfD stuns German establishment by finishing third with 13.5% and will enter parliament for the first time, but Merkel wins fourth term--"Of course we had hoped for a slightly better result." said Angela Merkel, who must now form a coalition government, a potentially difficult task that could take months trying to woo unwilling potential coalition partners.

The Latest: German election: Merkel vows to form stable govt | The Washington Post: "Center-left challenger Martin Schulz, whose Social Democrats were the junior partners in Merkel’s outgoing government, said shortly after exit polls showed his party headed for a historic election defeat Sunday that it would go into opposition. In a television discussion involving major party leaders, he accused Merkel of conducting a “scandalous” campaign that avoided debate and created “a vacuum” that the nationalist Alternative for Germany party filled."

The German Election Explained

Wall Street Journal (WSJ.com) video published Sep 18, 2017: German voters head to the polls this Sunday in an election that determines whether Chancellor Angela Merkel remains at the helm of Europe’s biggest economic power. WSJ.com's Niki Blasina explains how the election will be won and why the race for third place is all important. See also: German election polls 2017 | FT.com

Germany's AfD Tests Merkel's Leadership, Says Posen

Bloomberg.com video published Sep 19, 2017: Adam Posen, president at Peterson Institute for International Economics, previews the upcoming German election. He speaks with Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua on "Bloomberg Surveillance."

How German Elections Can Influence the ECB's (European Central Bank) Future:

Video above published Aug 18, 2017, by Bloomberg.com: Themis Themistocleous, head of European investments at UBS Wealth Management, explains how choices made by voters in the German election on 24 Sept 2017, can impact the European Central Bank (ECB). He speaks on "Bloomberg Markets: European Close." See also:
"It's been a lost decade for investors in the world's banks. For Europe's lenders in particular, the wounds are far from healed."--Bloomberg.com
"The IMF remained upbeat about the soundness of the European banking system ... this lapse was largely due to the IMF’s readiness to take the reassurances of national and euro area authorities at face value"--IEO report, infra
IMF admits disastrous love affair with the euro and apologises for the immolation of Greece | telegraph.co.uk: "The three main bailouts for Greece, Portugal and Ireland were unprecedented in scale and character. The trio were each allowed to borrow over 2,000pc of their allocated quota – more than three times the normal limit – and accounted for 80pc of all lending by the fund between 2011 and 2014 ... “Before the launch of the euro, the IMF’s public statements tended to emphasise the advantages of the common currency," ... Some [IMF] staff members warned that the design of the euro was fundamentally flawed but they were overruled." (emphasis added)

The IMF and the Crises in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal | ieo-imf.org executive summary excerpt:
"The IMF’s handling of the euro area crisis raised issues of accountability and transparency, which helped create the perception that the IMF [International Monetary Fund] treated Europe differently. Conducting this evaluation proved challenging. Some documents on sensitive issues were prepared outside the regular, established channels; the IEO faced a lack of clarity in its terms of reference on what it could or could not evaluate; and there was no clear protocol on the modality of interactions between the IEO and IMF staff. The IMF did not complete internal reviews involving euro area programs on time, as mandated, which led to missed opportunities to draw timely lessons." (emphasis added)
Press release (highlighting added):


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