USA: America is falling apart at the seams -by David Brooks

In June a statistic floated across my desk that startled me. In 2020, the number of miles Americans drove fell 13% because of the pandemic, but the number of traffic deaths rose 7%.

I couldn’t figure it out. Why would Americans be driving so much more recklessly during the pandemic? But then in the first half of 2021, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, motor vehicle deaths were up 18.4% even over 2020. Contributing factors, according to the agency, included driving under the influence, speeding and failure to wear a seat belt.

Why are so many Americans driving irresponsibly?

While gloomy numbers like these were rattling around in my brain, a Substack article from Matthew Yglesias hit my inbox this week. It was titled “All Kinds of Bad Behavior Is on the Rise.” Not only is reckless driving on the rise, Yglesias pointed out, but the number of altercations on airplanes has exploded, the murder rate is surging in cities, drug overdoses are increasing, Americans are drinking more, nurses say patients are getting more abusive, and so on and so on.

Read more at: David Brooks: America is falling apart at the seams | Commentary | myheraldreview.com

USA: Joe Biden faces major test building US credibility at climate summit - by Oliver Milman

Joe Biden’s desire to re-establish US leadership on the climate crisis will face a severe test this week at a summit the president hopes will rebuild American credibility and kickstart a spluttering international effort to stave off the effects of global heating.

Biden has invited 40 world leaders to a two-day virtual gathering starting on Earth Day, Thursday, as the opening salvo in negotiations leading to crunch United Nations talks in Scotland later this year. Scientists say the world is severely lagging in tackling the climate crisis and its heatwaves, storms and floods, with planet-heating emissions set to roar back following a dip due to coronavirus shutdowns.

Read more at: Joe Biden faces major test building US credibility at climate summit | US foreign policy | The Guardian

EU credibility as a people’s union rests on the social pillar – by Liina Carr

Next week, the European Commission is set to unveil its Action Plan for putting the European Pillar of Social Rights into practice. The European Trade Union Confederation is pressing hard for an ambitious plan, which provides the means to achieve and monitor tangible social progress.

Read more at: EU credibility as a people’s union rests on the social pillar – Liina Carr

USA: Trump says: Saudi Explanation for journalist's death is credible The US president also says he doesn't want it to impact arms sales to Saudi Arabia. 'Because it means 600,000 jobs' - by W.G. Dunlop

US President Donald Trump said Friday he found Saudi Arabia's explanation about the death of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi credible and termed it an "important first step."

Trump added if the US takes action, he does not want it to impact arms sales to the kingdom, which said Khashoggi was killed in a fight at its Istanbul consulate. Turkish officials pointed to a state-sanctioned hit.

"I do, I do," Trump said when asked if he found the Saudis' explanation credible, adding: "It's early, we haven't finished our review or investigation, but... I think it's a very important first step."

"I would prefer, if there is going to be some form of sanction or what we may determine to do, if anything... that we don't use as retribution canceling $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs," he said during a visit to Arizona, referring to a major arms deal with the kingdom.

Trump has sent mixed messages about Khashoggi for days, vowing a severe response but also saying that the United States wants to preserve its close relationship with the conservative kingdom.

Members of the US Congress were far harsher in the wake of the kingdom's admission that Khashoggi was dead.

Read More: Trump: Explanation for journalist's death is credible The president says if the U.S. did take action over Jamal Khashoggi's death, he doesn't want it to impact arms sales to Saudi Arabia. 'Means 600,000 jobs' »

USA: More dark clouds are gathering over Donald Trump's credibility as the President of the USA

Even though the US President is not openly showing much anguish over the troubles surrounding his Presidency, it is becoming very apparent that his credibility to govern the US is more and more in doubt.

Specially in light of the recent court verdicts against many of his close associates, and damaging daily press reports, including :

David Pecker, CEO of National Enquirer Publisher, Granted Immunity in Michael Cohen Case

Sessions hits back at Trump: DOJ won't be 'improperly influenced'

The only reason that Trump hasn’t been indicted is that he’s the president

Embattled Trump Startles Israel by Demanding 'Higher Price' for His Delusional Achievements on Jerusalem

Bottom-line, this is not a pleasant time in the history for the United States.  Who would have thought that after the Republican President Nixon was impeached, that another Republican President possibly faces the same fate as Richard Nixon did and,  as a consequence, had to resign on August 9, 1974.

copyright: the above report can be copied
 only if the source - EU-Digest- is mentioned.

EU-Digest 

Tax Havens: EU blacklist of tax havens is a sham says EPSU

After months of screening some 90 jurisdictions and countries  in light of EC criteria of lack of transparency and harmful tax measures such as 0 or near 0 corporate tax rates, EU Finance Ministers have  agreed  a tiny  list of 17 countries: American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea, Macau, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates are the countries listed, officials said.

The second list includes countries like EU candidates Turkey, Serbia and Montenegro, as well as Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Morocco, Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

It also includes entities that are considered as being among the main tax havens but which have promised to change their legislation: Bermuda, the Cayman Islands as well as UK-associated Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Eight countries and territories recently hit by hurricanes - Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Turks and Caicos, US Virgin Islands - were given a grace period until February to come up with commitments.

The list excludes the most active harmful tax countries or jurisdictions including Benelux, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, Switzerland, British channel islands,  US Delaware, Singapore or  Hong-Kong. Even Bermuda, that hosts the Paradise’s offshore services firm Appleby, did not make it to the list.

Jan Willem Goudriaan, General Secretary of EPSU, said “This tax havens list is a big sham. EU Finance Ministers have failed to agree a  coherent and transparent blacklist with deterring sanctions to make it effective. Coupled with the cuts in corporate taxes in many EU countries, today’s decision means that tax competition in and outside Europe will continue to run the show at the expense of workers’ wages and quality public services. 

It also means that trade unions, NGOs, investigative journalists and whistleblowers will need to  continue to do the transparency job that governments are not willing to do.”

Nick Crook, head of international for the UK's largest public services trade union UNISON said: “It’s disappointing that this list fails to name some of the world’s biggest tax haven offenders. The international community needs to do much more to tackle tax avoidance, and offshore tax scams that are happening on a grand scale. The richest individuals in our society should be making the biggest contribution to our public services –  not hiding money abroad, and shirking their obligations”

On the international scene, as tax rules for the digital economy are being discussed, this list is a sign that the  EU is losing its credibility on fair tax.

EPSU is the European Federation of Public Service Unions. It is the largest federation of the ETUC and comprises 8 million public service workers from over 260 trade unions; EPSU organises workers in the energy, water and waste sectors, health and social services and local, regional and central government, in all European countries including the EU’s Eastern Neighborhood. EPSU is the recognized regional organization of Public Services International (PSI). For more information please go to: http://www.epsu.org

EU-Digest

Trump Administration Credibility: Wall Street Journal editorial examines Trump credibility 'crisis'

The words of President Donald Trump and his White House staff are, in no small way, a matter of national security and credibility, and all of those things have entered the danger zone, a Wall Street Journal editorial argued on Tuesday.

The conservative-leaning editorial board pointed to Trump's debunked claim that domestic and international entities had colluded with the Obama administration to spy on Trump's campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump and his staffers have not backed away from the allegation despite having been rebuked publicly by FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers during congressional testimony on Monday.

The Journal painted a stark image of Trump's refusal to back down: "Yet the president clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle, rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims."

An example of that came last week when White House press secretary Sean Spicer cited commentary from a Fox News commentator who claimed that US intelligence sources told him that the Obama administration had recruited Britain's Global Communications Headquarters to wiretap Trump Tower during the election.

All parties mentioned by the White House in its attempts to establish Trump's wiretapping claims have denied involvement in any such operation.

Still, Trump and his White House have persisted, and The Journal wrote that the gravity of Trump's headstrong motivations carried potentially devastating consequences.

The editorial board concluded: "If he doesn't show more respect for the truth, most Americans may conclude he's a fake president."

Read more: Wall Street Journal editorial examines Trump credibility 'crisis' - Business Insider

Central Banks: Timid central bankers have failed to convince sceptical audience

The job of central bankers more like that of technicians, carefully turning knobs as they fine-tune the economy, or magicians, manipulating the audience into the suspension of disbelief? Most of the time it is the former. Monetary maestros nudge interest rates up and down with meticulous precision.

Yet in extreme cases—such as when economies become trapped in a low-growth rut—central bankers must try to conjure up a change in the public’s economic outlook. Just as uncertain magicians often fail to pull off their tricks, so central banks are finding their audiences in an ever-more sceptical mood.

Economists have long acknowledged the role of mass psychology in business cycles. In 1936 John Maynard Keynes described the “animal spirits” that could drive swings in spending or investment.

The power of an abrupt change in market beliefs came sharply into focus in the early 1980s, when many economies were struggling to clamp down on stubbornly high inflation. Economists at the time worried that using interest rates to rein in inflation would be enormously costly.

Because the public had come to expect high inflation, they reckoned, growth-crushing rate rises would be needed to force down prices and create new consumer expectations. A common estimate at the time had it that reducing America’s inflation rate by just one percentage point would cause economic damage of nearly 10% of GDP.

In this fraught world, central bankers risk falling into what Mr Krugman has called a timidity trap. The longer that knob-turning fails to get an economy out of the zero-rate rut, the less credible markets are likely to find subsequent attempts at regime change. Recent efforts to push interest rates into negative territory seem to have unnerved markets rather than sparked confidence.

Perhaps more importantly, central bankers tend not to adopt major shifts in mandates and targets unless urged to do so by popularly elected governments. It is difficult to muster Rooseveltian resolve without a Roosevelt. Expect growing scepticism about the power of knob-turning until voters choose politicians confident enough to wave a magic wand.

Read more: Slight of hand | The Economist

EU steps up attack on major credit ratings agencies - by David Gow

The EU is to set out contentious plans to clamp down on the "oligopoly" of the three main credit ratings agencies and encourage newer European rivals.

On Friday the author of the proposals, EU internal market commissioner Michel Barnier, fired a shot across the bows of the dominant US trio of agencies after the hugely embarrassing error committed by Standard & Poor's on Thursday, when it issued a downgrade of French sovereign debt by mistake.

Barnier, who will unveil his plans on Tuesday, said pointedly that they would create a European framework for civil liability "in the case of serious misconduct or gross negligence" indicating that this was especially relevant in the current case.

"This incident is serious and shows that in the current tense and volatile market situation, market players must exercise discipline and demonstrate a special sense f responsibility," he said. "This is all the more important since we are not talkig about just any market player but one of the biggest rating agencies."

Note EU-Digest: Great initiative by EU internal market commissioner Michael Barnier It is also recommended that not only the credit rating agencies should be scrutinized but also the Anglo Saxon corporate controlled financial communication/news agencies who are continuously on the war path against the EU while downplaying the problems in their own market areas. Its high time we get some balance in financial reporting.

For more: EU steps up attack on major credit ratings agencies | Business | The Guardian

MarketWatch: Wolfowitz plans to weather storm at World Bank - by Greg Robb

For the complete report in the MarketWatch click on this link

Wolfowitz plans to weather storm at World Bank - by Greg Robb

Paul Wolfowitz, the president of the World Bank, said Sunday he intends to remain at the helm of the bank despite the recent storm over his handling of a female friend's promotion and salary.
"I believe in the mission of this organization and I believe I can carry it out," Wolfowitz told a press conference Sunday, where he was asked repeatedly if he had the credibility necessary to run the bank.

In an extraordinary scene at World Bank headquarters on Thursday, World Bank staffers heckled Wolfowitz by shouting "resign" as he attempted to apologize for his handling of the issue.