Showing posts with label WTO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WTO. Show all posts

2019-03-27

UK Dysfunction | Brexit Or Not, Final Days Or Kick The Can Again? (video)

Time Left Under First Extension of Brexit Date, London time: 11:00 P.M., Friday, 12 Apr 2019

Original Countdown to Brexit: 11:00 pm UK time on Friday, 29 March 2019

UPDATES at Emergency European Summit on Brexit, Wednesday, April 10--EU leaders agreed to extend UK's exit date until October 31, 2019.
9-10 Apr 2019: Before an emergency European summit on Wednesday (Apr 10), UK Prime Minister Theresa May will travel to Paris and Berlin on Tuesday (Apr 9), to "make the case for extending article 50" to Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel.

8 Apr 2019:
4-5 Apr 2019: Talks between Labour and the government over Brexit aren’t going anywhere, reports @JGForsyth (Apr 5).

Theresa May asks for Brexit extension to June 30; EU could offer a year.
See also: EU's Juncker Warns UK Parliament To Reach Brexit Deal by April 12 (video)

2-3 Apr 2019: Wednesday House of Commons and Prime Minister's Question time.
Bring it on! May has to go!
1 Apr 2019, results of 2nd Day of Indicative Votes (no proposal approved):
Five reasons to love Brexit

"The 29th of March, 2019, should have been our independence day but as Brexit struggles on, Asa Bennett reminds readers of the five reasons they voted for Brexit in the first place."--The Telegraph video above published Mar 29, 2019.

 Friday 29 Mar 2019, UK Prime Minister Theresa May put her 'Brexit deal' to MPs for a vote for the third time, and it was defeated 344 "no" votes to 286 "aye." May said the defeat of her strategy had “grave” implications for the country, while the European Commission said an economically damaging no-deal split is now “a likely scenario.” See also Theresa May faces her day of reckoning on Brexit - and is warned it will not end well--telegraph.co.uk. Highlights from the EU Withdrawal Agreement Debate (video).

Editor's note 29 Mar 2019: the best or  "least dirty shirt" option at this point appears to be the default option, leaving with no deal on April 12, in view of the inability of the government or parliament to come up with an acceptable alternative, since uncertainty is starting to negatively impact the UK economy (video). Under a No Deal Brexit the UK would leave the EU on  April 12th on WTO terms. Though a "no deal" Brexit is disliked by a majority in the HoC, it still remains the "default option" under the Brexit legislation passed following the referendum on June 23, 2016. See also Brexit: Yanis Varoufakis (video) on May's mistakes and the best road ahead.

Why May's 'Deal' Was Rejected 3 times? It Wasn't Really Brexit.
Links:
Mar 27, 2019 update after the indicative votes, Peston LIVE video via Twitter.

Mar 27, 2019, House of Commons video, MPs' voted on a series of options to try to find a path forward, even though the "indicative votes" would not be binding on the government as it goes against the Tory manifesto. No alternative path gained a majority:
The statutory instrument proposing a new exit day for the UK to leave the EU has been passed. House of Commons voted 441 to 105 in favour. This amends the definition of “exit day” to ensure it is 22 May or 12 April depending if the Commons approves the "Withdrawal Agreement."

Mar 26, 2019 video: UK lawmakers once again frustrated Prime Minister Theresa May's plans for Brexit. On Monday evening MPs voted to take control of the parliamentary agenda. They're now set to hold a series of indicative votes on the country's departure from the EU, in an effort to find a solution backed by a majority. May has said she won't be bound by the results, but observers say this latest development shows just how much authority she's lost  over the Brexit process. See also ERG lawyers dispute May's delay (thread).

Previously on DomainMondo.com:


Meanwhile in Germany:

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2018-12-22

Tech Review | Amazon Reviews: What's Fake, What's Real? (video)

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Tech Review (TR 2018-12-22)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Amazon Reviews: What's Fake, What's Real?, 2) How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Focus on Europe, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Amazon Reviews: What's Fake, What's Real?

Amazon.com, Inc. $AMZN has a program where reviewers get free products in exchange for legitimate reviews. In other scenarios, vendors give products free to buyers who rate them five stars. WSJ's Joanna Stern caught up with a professional Amazon reviewer to find out how to spot the fakes. Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published Dec 20, 2018.

$AMZN

2) How Scammers in China Manipulate Amazon

Chinese sellers resort to a wide range of cunning techniques to manipulate product listings on Amazon and boost sales. WSJ’s Jon Emont investigates their strategies and explains how consumers can detect sham listings. Wall Street Journal (wsj.com) video above published Dec 17, 2018.

See also: Amazon to lower some fees for third-party sellers.

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week: NASDAQ Composite -8.4% | S&P 500 Index -7.1% | DJIA -6.9%
Editor's note: the markets appear to be "spooked." U.S. consumer sentiment remains at record favorable highs:
source: University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey.
"Consumer confidence remained in December at the same record favorable levels as it has throughout the year. The Sentiment Index averaged 98.4 in 2018, the best year since 107.6 in 2000 ... Over the past half century, sentiment was higher in only two other time periods: 1964-65 and 1997-2000. These periods correspond to the two longest prior expansions since the mid 1800's. If the current expansion lasts past mid-2019, as is likely based on current data, it will become the longest expansion ever recorded."--University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey.
The Long View:
Trendline (graphic) ©2018 DomainMondo.com
Investing Notes: Focus on Europe

"While the U.S. economy remains solid, our international business weakened during the quarter, especially in Europe"--FedEx lowers outlook on slowdown in Europe (Dec 18, 2018).

 Europe’s Still Not Ready to Shore Up the Monetary Union ... Planned reforms are a start, but they won’t be much help in a crisis.--bloomberg.com.

 Germany: "Germans are enthusiastic savers but reluctant shareholders. As a cohort, they demonstrate a counter-productive preference for fixed-income products. This inclination has barely changed even as income has fallen due to the European Central Bank (ECB)’s low interest rate policy."--“German Angst” Shapes Investment Decisions: Study | cfainstitute.org.

France to tax tech giants from 2019 as EU fails to act ... French economy minister says the country will introduce its own digital tax, dubbed “GAFA tax”, on large internet and technology companies from January 1--dw.com.

A WTO Brexit: "I have still not heard a scare story I believe, and do not think the EU will be able to mount some kind of self harming blockade of their trade with us after we leave. I find myself in the position of having more confidence in our Ministers’ abilities to make it (Brexit) work than they sometimes express in themselves. I have this confidence because most of what happens to ensure imports and exports work is nothing whatsoever to do with governments. It rests on a willing buyer and a willing seller, who will still  be there in abundance the day  we leave the EU"--John Redwood, Dec 18, 2018 (Redwood was Chief Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher).

4) ICYMI Tech News:
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
Apple $AAPL in India: only 24% of people in India own smartphones, and "the number of users is growing faster than in any other country," but "the number of iPhones shipped in India has fallen 40% so far this year compared with 2017, and Apple’s market share there has dropped to about 1% from about 2%."--wsj.com. See also Apple to pull some iPhones in Germany as Qualcomm $QCOM extends global patent wins--reuters.com.

Facebook $FB shares drop as data privacy fallout spreads--reuters.com. See also: As FAANG stocks falter, fund managers make bets on survivors--reuters.com. FAANG: Facebook Inc. $FB, Amazon.com Inc., $AMZN, Apple Inc., $AAPL, Netflix Inc., $NFLX, and Google (Alphabet) $GOOG, $GOOGL.

SoftBank's Vision Fund nearing $1.5 billion investment in SE Asia's Grab--reuters.com.

Cisco $CSCO announced it will pay $660 million in cash and assumed equity awards to acquire privately held semiconductor company Luxtera that uses silicon photonics technology to build integrated optics capabilities for webscale and enterprise data centers, service provider market segments, and other customers.

 China hacked HPE, IBM and then attacked HPE's and IBM's clients--reuters.com. See also China resumes approvals of video games | technode.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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2018-12-02

News Review | Another ICANN New gTLD Disaster: .AMAZON

graphic "News Review" ©2016 DomainMondo.com
Domain Mondo's weekly internet domain news review (NR 2018-12-02 with analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Another ICANN New gTLD Disaster: .AMAZON,  2) ICANN news: EPDP Team Meetings Dec 4 & 6, and the EPDP Initial Report, 3) Names, Domains & Trademarks,  4) ICYMI: a. China & WTO, b. US vs Assange, c. France vs Google, d. Russia vs Google, e. Dragonfly, 5) Most Read.

 1) Another ICANN New gTLD Disaster: .AMAZON  
Trouble in the .AMAZON: ICANN's ill-conceived, 'horribly implemented' new gTLDs program, including its "extortion racket .BRAND new gTLDs" [a "privatizing" of global public resources and a corruption of the principles set forth in RFC1591 by Jon Postel] is suffering another controversy and series of embarrassing events, this time in regard to new gTLD .AMAZON:

28 Nov 2018 Letter from ICANN CEO Göran Marby to GAC Chair Manal Ismail: 
"I am writing to you as ICANN’s CEO and President, to inform you of some issues and facts related to the facilitation process associated with the application for a .AMAZON top-level domain. As you are aware, ICANN has been conducting this facilitation process consistent with and according to the ICANN60 Government Advisory Committee (GAC) communiqué advice with the participation of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) and Amazon, the corporation (Amazon Corporation [sic]) and the applicant for .AMAZON. I will refer to myself throughout the letter as ICANN’s CEO. 
"Unfortunately, at this time, we regret to inform you that this facilitation process has been unsuccessful. The facilitation has not been able to reach its desired conclusion. I was hoping to meet with the ACTO countries in Bolivia following an invitation from ACTO’s Secretary General. This visit and meeting were scheduled for 29 November 2018. I was hoping to be able to explain any misunderstandings and or statements made by ICANN which might have been misinterpreted, during that meeting, however, we have received a letter dated 22 November indicating that the ACTO Member Countries requested that this scheduled meeting be postponed ...."
26 Nov 2018 Letter from *HE Jacqueline Mendoza to ICANN Board Chair Cherine Chalaby [Published by ICANN 28 Nov 2018] *Mendoza is Secretary General | Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO). Letter embed below:

UPDATES: Dec 7. 2018 Letter from HE Mendoza with official note (pdf) adopted by the Member States of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) at the XXI Ordinary Meeting of the Amazon Cooperation Council, held in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, on November 28-29, 2018. (pdf);
and Dec 3, 2018, letter from ICANN Board Chair to HE Jacqueline Mendoza (pdf).

Related previous correspondence:
Among the other disasters in ICANN's .BRAND new gTLDs:
 Zombie .BRAND TLDs--DOHA and ZIPPO Make Forty Five--"... it does make me wonder how much other destroyed value is hiding in new TLDs. The zone files for over 500 active new [.BRAND] TLDs contain less than 10 names each, even though each is paying the ICANN fixed fee of $25,000/yr. That's $12.5 million of ICANN's budget from zombie TLDs. No doubt a few of those still have plans to do something, but even so, we're looking at a lot of failures."--John Levine.
Remember the IGF 2018 Speech by French President Emmanuel Macron just a few weeks ago:
"... That is also why I believe we need to move away from the false possibilities we are currently offered, whereby only two models would exist: that, on the one hand, of complete self-management, without governance, and that of a compartmented Internet, entirely monitored by strong and authoritarian states. To be very politically incorrect, we are seeing two types of Internet emerge: as I said earlier, there is a Californian form of Internet, and a Chinese Internet. The first is the dominant possibility, that of an Internet driven by strong, dominant, global private players, that have been impressive stakeholders in this development, that have great qualities and with which we work, but which at the end of the day are not democratically elected. Personally, I don’t want to hand over all my decisions to them, and that is not my contract with France’s citizens. That is the self-management model, but it doesn’t really have any governance and it is not democratic. On the other side, there is a system where governments have a strong role, but this is the Chinese-style Internet: an Internet where the government drives innovations and control, where the major players in artificial intelligence are held by the government ... We do a lot with China, but we do not have the same democratic preferences, we do not have the same cultural references on all subjects, we do not have the same relationship with individual freedoms – that is a reality. And so in that Internet, the state has found its place, but it is hegemonic. We therefore need, through regulation, to build this new path where governments, along with Internet players, civil societies and all actors are able to regulate properly ... What we need to do is learn to regulate together, on the basis that all Internet players, including civil societies, private actors, NGOs, intellectuals, journalists and governments, are co-guarantors of this common interest that should drive us precisely to work in cooperation. And it is no coincidence that the notion of “commons” has seen such success in the digital era. The Internet, the depth of data and knowledge hosted by it, and the essential services it gives access to, are collective treasures that we need to manage together in order precisely to pass them on to future generations. And so it is here that we need to invent a new multilateralism both suited to the reality of cyber space and effective. That is why I am here today to propose a new collegial method ..."
Editor's note: indeed, there has to be a better way than "the ICANN way."

2) Other ICANN News: EPDP Team Meetings and the EPDP Initial Report
EPDP meetings Tuesday Dec 4 and Thursday Dec 6 starting 14:00 UTC (9am EST). Observers use Adobe Connect, or audio cast (browser or app).

Thursday's Agenda wiki page includes Purpose O, draft letter to European Data Protection Board (EDPB), WHOIS accuracy. Adobe replay, and meeting chat transcript (pdf) embed below. Meeting transcript (pdf), high level notes and action items--summary:
  • Action Item #1: EPDP Chair Kurt Pritz to edit the latest version of the EDPB (European Data Protection Board) letter and notify the GNSO Council that the EPDP Team will not send a communication to the EDPB at this time.
  • Action Item #2: EPDP Team to provide any proposed updates to the draft Statement of Work to obtain independent legal advice on GDPR issues by the end of the week.
  • Action Item #3: EPDP Support Team to send an email to the Team with a list of additional topics for discussion, and EPDP Team members who suggested or who would like to discuss the topics to provide the objective for the discussion in writing to the Team.
  • Action Item #4: EPDP leadership to contact ICANN org or facilitate contact with ICANN org to gain their participation in the “Purpose O” discussion regarding processing data for ICANN research purposes.
Chat Transcript 6 Dec 2018:


Tuesday's Agenda wiki page has links to the Meeting's Adobe Recordings. Meeting items included a proposed  "Letter to the EDPB" (European Data Protection Board), review of topics #3, #4, #5 #6 (pdf) embed below, and Phase 2 work items (pdf).  Chat Transcript (pdf). Dec 4th Meeting transcript here (pdf), high level notes and action items here.

See also GNSO Council EPDP page and updates. Links to all EPDP meetings' transcripts and recordings are on the GNSO calendar. Other EPDP links: wiki, mail list, action items, Temp Spec, EPDP Charter (pdf), Data Elements Workbooks (pdf).

Editor's note: I have started working on a comment to the EPDP Initial Report and hope to have more to say in next week's News Review including tips for anyone wishing to submit their own comment by December 21, 2018.

Schedule of next EPDP meetings and topics (updated as of Dec 3):

3) Names, Domains & Trademarks
graphic "Names, Domains & Trademarks" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
a. Over a million website domains seized in global operation | ICE.gov Nov 26, 2018: "More than 1 million copyright-infringing website domain names selling counterfeit automotive parts, electrical components, personal care items and other fake goods were criminally and civilly seized in the past year through the combined efforts of law-enforcement agencies across the world, high-profile industry representatives and anti-counterfeiting associations. The ongoing intellectual property enforcement initiative targeting fake websites, dubbed Operation In Our Sites, was facilitated by the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center), a joint-task force agency led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The IPR Center, which stands at the forefront of the U.S. government’s response to IP theft, worked directly with key international law-enforcement authorities and industry organizations representing the electronics sector, luxury brand-name designers, film and entertainment and several entities specializing in apparel and accessories through the major enforcement effort ..."

b.  HTTPS & Phishing Scams: half of all phishing scams are now hosted on Web sites whose internet address includes the padlock and begins with “https://”.--krebsonsecurity.com.

c.  New Zealand Domain Name Suspension 19 Nov 2018 | dnc.org.nz: "On 21 November 2018 the following domain names were suspended: wex.nz; wexbet.nz; wexcash.nz; wexcoin.nz; wxcash.nz; wxcoin.nz.
"wex.nz and the associated domain names above, were displaying a cryptocurrency website.  The names were suspended following the Domain Name Commission’s enquiries in to the accuracy of the registration details for each of these domains. The Commission initiated an investigation following complaints made to it. The Domain Name Commission has suspended the domain names for fake registration details in accordance with enforcing data validation measures under the .nz Principles and Responsibilities policy. The Commission wants .nz to be a safe, trusted and secure domain name space which is supported by its data validation process. The individual who registered the domain names was not able to verify their contact details - and having valid contact details is a prerequisite for any .nz domain name holder. If you are New Zealand based and have been affected by the cancellation of wex.nz and associated domain names - and have reason to suspect any fraudulent or criminal activity - we urge you to immediately contact your local Police station and report a crime or make a report via Netsafe https://www.netsafe.org.nz/report/ ."
d. Does ICANN registrar accreditation protect registrants?--consumeraffairs.com.

4) ICYMI Internet Domain News 
graphic "ICYMI Internet Domain News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
China opposes global e-commerce rules--China closer to India’s stance on developing global trade rules for e-commerce, opposing binding provisions for cross-border data flow, preventing data localization, and protection of source code. The US, Japan, Australia and Singapore, proponents of ambitious rules for global e-commerce, suffered the setback at the World Trade Organization (WTO) after China issued a strong statement--livemint.com.

US vs Assange: Why You Should Care About the Julian Assange Case | RollingStone.com

 France Says Goodbye Google: Both the French National Assembly and the French Army Ministry have said their digital devices will stop using the Google search engine, but instead will use French search engine Qwant.com: Qwant is a search engine that respects your privacy and eases discovering and sharing via a social approach. But also see Breaking ground for Google’s first data center in Denmark | blog.google.

Russia opens civil case against Google over search results--reuters.com.

90+ Google employees join Amnesty International in calling on Google to cancel Project Dragonfly, its censored search engine for China--medium.com.

5) Most Read this past week on DomainMondo.com: 
graphic "Domain Mondo" ©2017 DomainMondo.com



-- John Poole, Editor • Domain Mondo 

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2018-03-24

Tech Review | Nvidia CEO On The Future of Autonomous Vehicles (video)

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Tech Review (TR 2018-03-24)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Nvidia CEO On The Future of Autonomous Vehicles, 2) Uber’s Self-Driving Trucks Delivering Cargo for Real Customers, 3) Investing: The Week,Investing Notes, 4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) The Future of Autonomous Vehicles | Nvidia CEO Full Interview

The future really is now—or at least sooner than it seems, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Speaking at Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Las Vegas, Huang, a co-founder of Nvidia, the gaming giant turned artificial intelligence powerhouse, said the full expression of the technology is a mere decade away. NASDAQ: NVDA (domain: nvidia.com).

2) Uber’s Self-Driving Trucks Are Delivering Cargo for Real Customers

Fortune Magazine video above published Mar 6, 2018: Uber’s self-driving trucks moving consumer goods for real customers near Topock, Arizona and utilizing the Uber Freight app.

See also: Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street | Reuters.com: “I suspect preliminarily it appears that the Uber would likely not be at fault in this accident,”--Tempe Police Chief.

3) Investing
graphic: "INVESTING" ©2017 DomainMondo.com
The Week: S&P 500
S&P500 now in negative territory for 2018
 S&P500 now in negative territory for 2018
Markets got sidelined this week by Facebook's data debacle and Trump attacking all the "bad deals" other U.S. administrations made in good times--Trump may be testing the adage, "Bad deals are made in good times ... It takes bad times to be able to make good deals."--WolfStreet.com.

Trump vs. the WTO?  The U.S. has much lower tariffs on some foreign goods than other countries have on the same US-made goods. For example cars: the European Union has a 10 percent tariff on all imported cars, including those manufactured in the U.S., and China hits all foreign-made cars with 25 percent tariffs. But the U.S. only charges 2.5 percent on foreign cars imported into the U.S. market--Axios.com.

How far is Trump willing to take this? Watch Steven Mnuchin--US will consider re-entering TPP, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says | CNBC.com 21 March 2018: "The U.S. will consider re-entry to the 12-nation trade agreement once Washington accomplishes its other trade goals, Mnuchin said."
Above left, Fed Chair deflects question about Trump's tariffs.
Above right, President Trump signs Presidential Memorandum re: China
Investing Notes:
  • Caveat Emptor: Obama-era fiduciary rule on retirement planners overturned--a federal appeals court has ruled that the Department of Labor overstepped its authority when it wrote a rule that required financial professionals, including brokers and insurance agents, to put their customers’ financial interests ahead of their own.
  • Outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says farewell | CBSnews.com: "This [Washington, D.C.] can be a very mean-spirited town," Tillerson said, to applause. "But you don't have to choose to participate in that." [Editor's note: that's one reason I cut the cord on cable TV.]
  • We don’t actually see the world as it is--"Expertise and filtering [can] work together. The better we know our subject matter, the easier it is to filter out irrelevant noise ... Clarity ... [versus] biases and beliefs, reactive emotions ...."-- cfainstitute.org.

4) ICYMI Tech News:
graphic: "ICYMI Tech News" ©2017 DomainMondo.com

 -- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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2018-03-02

MacroView: Hard Brexit or Else? When Will The EU and UK Face Reality?

UPDATE: Theresa May's Brexit speech March 2, 2018

UPDATE March 2, 2017: UK Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her Brexit speech on Friday, March 2, 2018. “We all need to face up to some hard facts ... Neither of us can have exactly what we want, so we need to strike a new balance. But we will not accept the rights of Canada and the obligations of Norway”--UK Prime Minister Theresa May. See May pitches mixture of concession and detail in Brexit vision | Reuters.com.

So Far, Brexit Negotiations Have Been Going Nowhere Fast:
Unclear Brexit vision from a divided cabinet

Financial Times (ft.com) video above published Feb 15, 2018: Political columnist Janan Ganesh and FT editor Lionel Barber discuss how Boris Johnson's call for national unity comes at a time when the Conservative cabinet remains divided on Brexit.

Boris Johnson’s Brexit Speech at Policy Exchange (video)

Jacob Rees-Mogg on Boris's speech and the transition period (video)

At best, the UK may not be able to strike anything other than an ordinary trade deal with the EU in its Brexit negotiations. Late last year, the EU produced a graphic which warned that the UK is heading for a hard Brexit. The  infographic below is based on that, and shows how Theresa May's demands may be incompatible with the current relationship Norway (a non-EU nation) enjoys with the EU, or  Iceland and Liechtenstein. Included in UK's previous demands were to be free of European courts, trade rules, migration, regulation and financial contributions, which would mean it could not use Switzerland as a future template, or the Ukraine and Turkey deals with the EU. So the UK-EU deal may reflect the same type of relationship as that agreed upon by the EU with Canada and South Korea, or if there is no deal, the UK and EU would be left with the WTO rules to govern trade with each other. Why the UK hasn't already opened up trade negotiations with the U.S., Canada, and others, is shortsighted, if it is serious about Brexit. Unfortunately, the EU is also being shortsighted as a "hard Brexit" will actually hurt the EU countries, particularly Germany, harder--the UK imports more than it exports to the EU.

The current trajectory of Brexit negotiations, in the short term, with the delay and uncertainty, is hurting the UK economy, and in the long term, the EU is "cutting off the nose to spite the face."

Infographic: Why Hard Brexit Could Be Inevitable | Statista Statista.com

Related links:


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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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