China is getting hit with eye-watering new tariffs on steel to stop it flooding the market

• Oscar Williams-Grut and David Lawder, Reuters

• 9h
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REUTERS/StringerAn employee works at the Maanshan steel and iron factory in Hefei, Anhui province, China, September 25, 2010.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) and LONDON - Corrosion-resistant steel from China will face final US anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties of up to 450% under the US Commerce Department's latest clampdown on a glut of steel imports, the agency said on Wednesday.

The EU is also threatening to levy similar tariffs on Chinese steel, ahead of the G7 summit in Japan this week.

The Financial Times reports that European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said in a speech: "If somebody distorts the market, Europe cannot be defenseless."

China has come under increasing fire from industrialized countries worldwide that have accused it of dumping steel at prices far below production costs to avoid cutting excess capacity in the sector, which faces slowing demand at home.

Beijing has insisted that it would eliminate 100 million to 150 million tons of annual capacity and said last week it would persist with a steel tax rebate plan to support the sector's restructuring.

The escalating steel trade fight has grown into a major irritant as senior US and Chinese officials prepare for bilateral economic and foreign policy meetings in Beijing in early June.

It also comes at a difficult time for the UK, which is trying to position itself as a favoured trading partner to China but is facing a crisis in its steel industry. Indian conglomerate Tata announced earlier this year that it was putting its UK steel business up for sale and would shut it down if a buyer could not be found. The business was reportedly losing £1 million a day.

The US Commerce Department on Wednesday also issued anti-dumping duties of 3% to 92% on producers of corrosion-resistant steel in Italy, India, South Korea and Taiwan, it said in a statement.

The department hit producers of the flat-rolled steel, which is coated or plated with zinc, aluminum or other metals to extend its service life, with anti-subsidy duties in China, South Korea, Italy and India. Taiwan was exempted.

The final US anti-dumping duties on the Chinese products replace preliminary ones of 256% issued in December 2015.

China's Commerce Ministry said it was extremely dissatisfied at what it called the "irrational" move by the United States, which it said would harm cooperation between the two countries.

"China will take all necessary steps to strive for fair treatment and to protect the companies' rights," it said, without elaborating.

Last week the US Commerce Department slapped punitive tariffs of more than 500% on Chinese cold-rolled flat steel, which is widely used for car body panels and appliances.

The Commerce Department issued anti-dumping duties of 210% on all Chinese-produced corrosion resistant steel. Final anti-subsidy duties ranged from 39% for many producers to 241% for some of the largest ones including Baosteel, Hebei Iron & Steel Group and Angang Group.

Anti-dumping duties for Indian producers were far lower at 3% to 4.4%, while their anti-subsidy duties ranged from 8% to 29.5% for JSW Steel.

In 2015, US imports of corrosion-resistant steel products from the five countries totaled $1.87 billion, the Commerce Department said. About $500 million of that came from China. The original anti-dumping and anti-subsidy complaint was brought by major US steelmakers.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Leslie Adler and Richard Chang)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2016. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

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Fed's Bullard: tight U.S. labor market may put upward pressure on inflation

• Reuters

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Thomson ReutersSt. Louis Fed President James Bullard speaks about the U.S. economy during an interview in New York

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. labor markets are relatively tight and may put upward pressure on inflation, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said on Thursday.

"By nearly any metric, U.S. labor markets are at or beyond full employment," Bullard said in an OMFIF lecture in Singapore.

"In short, labor markets are relatively tight," he said. "This may put upward pressure on inflation going forward."

Bullard noted that there was a divergence between the financial market's expectations for U.S. interest rate rises and the median projections among Fed policymakers.

"The FOMC has laid out, via the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP), a data-dependent 'slow normalization,' whereby the nominal policy rate would gradually rise over the next several years provided the economy evolves as expected," he said.

"Market-based forecasts of FOMC policy, in contrast, envision 'almost no normalization,' whereby the policy rate would be changed only a few times in the next several years," Bullard said.

(Reporting by Marius Zaharia and Masayuki Kitano; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2016. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

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Japan's prime minister is warning world leaders about a 'Lehman-scale crisis'

• Matt Spetalnick and Minami Funakoshi, Reuters

• 7h
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REUTERS/Toru HanaiJapanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visiting the Ise Grand Shrine, the holiest site in Japan's Shinto religion, in Ise, Japan, on Wednesday.

ISE-SHIMA, Japan — Group of Seven leaders voiced concern about emerging economies on Thursday as their host, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, made a pointed comparison to the global financial crisis eight years ago.

Abe presented data showing that commodities prices had fallen 55% since 2014, the same margin they fell during the global financial crisis, Nikkei reported, interpreting this as "warning of the re-emergence of a Lehman-scale crisis."

Abe said the G-7 leaders agreed on the need for flexible spending to spur world growth but the timing and amount depended on each country, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko told reporters, adding that some countries saw no need for such spending.

Britain and Germany have been resisting calls for fiscal stimulus.

"G-7 leaders voiced the view that emerging economies are in a severe situation, although there were views that the current economic situation is not a crisis," Seko said after the first day of a two-day G-7 summit in Ise-Shima in central Japan.

Abe presented data showing that global commodities prices fell 55% from June 2014 to January 2016, the same margin as from July 2008 to February 2009, after the Lehman collapse.

Lehman had been Wall Street's fourth-largest investment bank when it filed for Chapter 11 protection on September 15, 2008, making its bankruptcy by far the biggest in US history. Its failure triggered the global financial crisis.

Abe hopes, some political insiders say, to use a G-7 statement on the global economy as cover for a domestic fiscal package including the possible delay of a rise in the nation's sales tax to 10% from 8% planned for next April.

The G-7 leaders are also expected to reaffirm their previous commitment to stability in the foreign exchange market.

European Council President Donald Tusk said earlier he would seek G-7 support for more global aid for refugees. A flow of migrants from Syria and elsewhere to Europe has confronted the continent with its biggest refugee crisis since World War II.

"If we (G-7) do not take the lead in managing this crisis, nobody would," Tusk told reporters.

REUTERS/Carlos BarriaPresident Barack Obama at a news conference with Abe after a bilateral meeting during the 2016 Ise-Shima G7 Summit in Shima, Japan, on Wednesday.

Maritime security

Other summit topics include terrorism, cybersecurity, and maritime security, especially China's increasing assertiveness in the East and South China Seas, where Beijing has territorial disputes with Japan and several nations in Southeast Asia.

At a news conference late on Wednesday, Abe said Japan welcomed China's peaceful rise while repeating Tokyo's opposition to acts that try to change the status quo by force and urging respect of the rule of law — principles expected to be mentioned in a statement after the summit.

Asked whether a G-7 summit was the right place to discuss the South China Sea, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a briefing in Beijing that it was up to the G-7 to decide.

"But we believe that no matter what the topic is, they should all adopt impartial and fair positions, and not apply double standards or strike alliances, and especially not take actions to escalate or provoke regional tensions," he said.

Summit pageantry began when Abe escorted G-7 leaders to the Shinto religion's holiest site, greeting US President Barack Obama and other G-7 partners one-by-one at Ise Grand Shrine in central Japan, dedicated to sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami, the mythical ancestress of the emperor.

Led by a white-robed priest, each leader walked across a bridge, took part in a tree-planting ritual, strolled through the expansive grounds and posed for a group photo.

Abe has said he hopes the shrine visit will provide an insight to the heart of Japanese culture. Critics say he is catering to a conservative base that wants to put religion back in politics and revive traditional values.

On Wednesday night, Abe met Obama for talks dominated by the arrest of a US military base civilian worker in connection with the killing of a young woman on Japan's southern Okinawa island, reluctant host to the bulk of the US military in Japan.

The attack has marred Obama's hopes of keeping his Japan trip strictly focused on his visit on Friday to Hiroshima, site of the world's first atomic bombing, to highlight reconciliation between the two former World War II foes and his agenda against nuclear proliferation.

The G-7 is made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the US.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Wilson, Kiyoshi Takenaka, Kylie MacLellan, Ami Miyazaki; Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2016. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

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BRENT CRUDE HITS $50

• Paul Colgan, Business Insider Australia

• 14h
• 950
 
• 1

Reuters

Oil is back at $50 a barrel. 

The Brent Crude price just popped above the threshold in the Asian trading session, following a steady rally over recent weeks which has been driven by a range of global supply constraints.

It’s the first time Brent has been above $US50 since November last year.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures in New York also crossed the threshold on Thursday. 

Today’s rally in Asia builds on two solid days of trade on European and North American markets after Energy Industry Association inventory data showed inventories fell 4.226 million barrels against expectations of a just 2.5 million barrel draw. 

That confirmed previous night’s release of inventory data from API which also showed a much bigger than expected draw. 

While some of the buying in Brent, and West Texas Intermediate in the US, has been technically based, these big draws on inventories and the attraction of the $US50 level has helped propel prices higher. 

Here’s the chart of Brent, via investing.com:

via Business Insider Australia

And of WTI:

Investing.com

Read the original article on Business Insider Australia. Copyright 2016. Follow Business Insider Australia on Twitter.

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Science says parents of successful kids have these 13 things in common

• Rachel Gillett and Drake Baer

• May 6, 2016, 2:00 PM
• 23,981,815
 
• 54

Clive Rose/Getty ImagesRichard Branson and his mother, Eve.

Any good parent wants their kids to stay out of trouble, do well in school, and go on to do awesome things as adults. 

And while there isn't a set recipe for raising successful children, psychology research has pointed to a handful of factors that predict success.

Unsurprisingly, much of it comes down to the parents.

Here's what parents of successful kids have in common:

 

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1. They make their kids do chores.

AngryJulieMonday/flickr

"If kids aren't doing the dishes, it means someone else is doing that for them," Julie Lythcott-Haims, former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford University and author of "How to Raise an Adult" said during a TED Talks Live event. 

"And so they're absolved of not only the work, but of learning that work has to be done and that each one of us must contribute for the betterment of the whole," she said. 

Lythcott-Haims believes kids raised on chores go on to become employees who collaborate well with their coworkers, are more empathetic because they know firsthand what struggling looks like, and are able to take on tasks independently.  

She bases this on the Harvard Grant Study, the longest longitudinal study ever conducted.

"By making them do chores — taking out the garbage, doing their own laundry — they realize I have to do the work of life in order to be part of life," she tells Tech Insider.

2. They teach their kids social skills.

REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University and Duke University tracked more than 700 children from across the US between kindergarten and age 25 and found a significant correlation between their social skills as kindergartners and their success as adults two decades later.

The 20-year study showed that socially competent children who could cooperate with their peers without prompting, be helpful to others, understand their feelings, and resolve problems on their own, were far more likely to earn a college degree and have a full-time job by age 25 than those with limited social skills.

Those with limited social skills also had a higher chance of getting arrested, binge drinking, and applying for public housing.

"This study shows that helping children develop social and emotional skills is one of the most important things we can do to prepare them for a healthy future," said Kristin Schubert, program director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded the research, in a release.

"From an early age, these skills can determine whether a child goes to college or prison, and whether they end up employed or addicted."

3. They have high expectations.

www.flickr.com

Using data from a national survey of 6,600 children born in 2001, University of California at Los Angeles professor Neal Halfon and his colleagues discovered that the expectations parents hold for their kids have a huge effect on attainment. 

"Parents who saw college in their child's future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of their income and other assets," he said in a statement.

The finding came out in standardized tests: 57% of the kids who did the worst were expected to attend college by their parents, while 96% of the kids who did the best were expected to go to college.

This falls in line with another psych finding: the Pygmalion effect, which states "that what one person expects of another can come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy." 

In the case of kids, they live up to their parents' expectations.

4. They have healthy relationships with each other.

Shutterstock

Children in high-conflict families, whether intact or divorced, tend to fare worse than children of parents that get along, according to a University of Illinois study review.

Robert Hughes, Jr., professor and head of the Department of Human and Community Development in the College of ACES at the University of Illinois and study review author, also notes that some studies have found children in nonconflictual single parent families fare better than children in conflictual two-parent families.

The conflict between parents prior to divorce also affects children negatively, while post-divorce conflict has a strong influence on children's adjustment, Hughes says.

One study found that, after divorce, when a father without custody has frequent contact with his kids and there is minimal conflict, children fare better. But when there is conflict, frequent visits from the father are related to poorer adjustment of children.

Yet another study found that 20-somethings who experienced divorce of their parents as children still report pain and distress over their parent's divorce ten years later. Young people who reported high conflict between their parents were far more likely to have feelings of loss and regret.

5. They've attained higher educational levels.

Merrimack College/Flickr

A 2014 study lead by University of Michigan psychologist Sandra Tang found that mothers who finished high school or college were more likely to raise kids that did the same. 

Pulling from a group of over 14,000 children who entered kindergarten in 1998 to 2007, the study found that children born to teen moms (18 years old or younger) were less likely to finish high school or go to college than their counterparts. 

Aspiration is at least partially responsible. In a 2009 longitudinal study of 856 people in semirural New York, Bowling Green State University psychologist Eric Dubow found that "parents' educational level when the child was 8 years old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child 40 years later."

6. They teach their kids math early on.

Flickr/tracy the astonishing

A 2007 meta-analysis of 35,000 preschoolers across the US, Canada, and England found that developing math skills early can turn into a huge advantage.

"The paramount importance of early math skills — of beginning school with a knowledge of numbers, number order, and other rudimentary math concepts — is one of the puzzles coming out of the study,"coauthor and Northwestern University researcher Greg Duncan said in a press release. "Mastery of early math skills predicts not only future math achievement, it also predicts future reading achievement."

7. They develop a relationship with their kids.

Dubova/Shutterstock

A 2014 study of 243 people born into poverty found that children who received "sensitive caregiving" in their first three years not only did better in academic tests in childhood, but had healthier relationships and greater academic attainment in their 30s. 

As reported on PsyBlog, parents who are sensitive caregivers "respond to their child's signals promptly and appropriately" and "provide a secure base" for children to explore the world.

"This suggests that investments in early parent-child relationships may result in long-term returns that accumulate across individuals' lives," coauthor and University of Minnesota psychologist Lee Raby said in an interview.

8. They're less stressed.

Flickr/Oleg Sidorenko

According to recent research cited by Brigid Schulte at The Washington Post, the number of hours that moms spend with kids between ages 3 and 11 does little to predict the child's behavior, well-being, or achievement. 

What's more, the "intensive mothering" or "helicopter parenting" approach can backfire. 

"Mothers' stress, especially when mothers are stressed because of the juggling with work and trying to find time with kids, that may actually be affecting their kids poorly," study coauthor and Bowling Green State University sociologist Kei Nomaguchi told The Post.

Emotional contagion — or the psychological phenomenon where people "catch" feelings from one another like they would a cold — helps explain why. Research shows that if your friend is happy, that brightness will infect you; if she's sad, that gloominess will transfer as well. So if a parent is exhausted or frustrated, that emotional state could transfer to the kids. 

9. They value effort over avoiding failure.

China Stringer Network/Reuters

Where kids think success comes from also predicts their attainment. 

Over decades, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck has discovered that children (and adults) think about success in one of two ways. Over at the always-fantastic Brain Pickings, Maria Popova says they go a little something like this: 

A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens that we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled.

A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of un-intelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. 

At the core is a distinction in the way you assume your will affects your ability, and it has a powerful effect on kids. If kids are told that they aced a test because of their innate intelligence, that creates a "fixed" mindset. If they succeeded because of effort, that teaches a "growth" mindset.

10. The moms work.

Getty Images/Daniel Berehulak

According to research out of Harvard Business School, there are significant benefits for children growing up with mothers who work outside the home.

The study found daughters of working mothers went to school longer, were more likely to have a job in a supervisory role, and earned more money — 23% more compared to their peers who were raised by stay-at-home mothers.

The sons of working mothers also tended to pitch in more on household chores and childcare, the study found — they spent seven-and-a-half more hours a week on childcare and 25 more minutes on housework.

"Role modeling is a way of signaling what's appropriate in terms of how you behave, what you do, the activities you engage in, and what you believe," the study's lead author, Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, told Business Insider.

"There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother," she told Working Knowledge.

11. They have a higher socioeconomic status.

EagleBrookSchool

Tragically, one-fifth of American children grow up in poverty, a situation that severely limits their potential.

It's getting more extreme. According to Stanford University researcher Sean Reardon, the achievement gap between high- and low-income families "is roughly 30% to 40% larger among children born in 2001 than among those born 25 years earlier." 

As "Drive" author Dan Pink has noted, the higher the income for the parents, the higher the SAT scores for the kids. 

"Absent comprehensive and expensive interventions, socioeconomic status is what drives much of educational attainment and performance," he wrote.

12: They are 'authoritative' rather than 'authoritarian' or 'permissive.'

Spencer Platt / Getty

First published in the 1960s, University of California, Berkeley developmental psychologist Diana Baumride found there are basically three kinds of parenting styles [pdf]: 

• Permissive: The parent tries to be nonpunitive and accepting of the child 
• Authoritarian: The parent tries to shape and control the child based on a set standard of conduct  
• Authoritative: The parent tries to direct the child rationally 

The ideal is the authoritative. The kid grows up with a respect for authority, but doesn't feel strangled by it. 

13: They teach 'grit.'

Chris Hondros / Getty

A West Point cadet at graduation.

In 2013, University of Pennsyvania psychologist Angela Duckworth won a MacArthur "genius" grant for her uncovering of a powerful, success-driving personality trait called grit. 

Defined as a "tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals," her research has correlated grit with educational attainment, grade point average in Ivy League undergrads, retention in West Point cadets, and rank in the US National Spelling Bee. 

It's about teaching kids to imagine — and commit — to a future they want to create.