Wednesday, August 23, 2017

TRUMP: 'If we have to close down our government, we're building that wall'

TRUMP: 'If we have to close down our government, we're building that wall'

Business Insider Australia
  • 13h
  • 4,341
trump virginiaDonald Trump. Getty Images
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to shut down the government in hopes of securing the funding to build his proposed wall on the border with Mexico.
"The obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it, but believe me, if we have to close down our government, we're building that wall," Trump said at a campaign rally in Arizona.
He went on to say that he had been elected to help boost national security and keep people from entering the country illegally and that those opposing the wall were hindering those efforts.
"We are building a wall on the southern border, which is absolutely necessary," he said.
"Let me be very clear to Democrats in Congress who oppose a border wall and stand in the way of border security," he added. "You are putting all of Americans' safety at risk."
Republicans in Congress need support from Democrats by the end of September to raise the federal government's debt limit.
Trump is seeking federal funding for the wall, and he is now threatening to veto any legislation that comes to his desk until it gets the required support in Congress.
Earlier this month, Jonathan Swan at the news website Axios looked at Trump's potential path to funding the wall. He concluded: "The wall is no metaphor to Trump. He will accept no substitutes to a huge, long, physical wall, which he believes his voters viscerally want. He told GOP Hill leaders in June he wants it to be 40 to 50 feet high and covered with solar panels. Hill Republicans privately mocked that idea, but some of those same people now recognize that Trump's big, beautiful — and in their minds, ridiculous — wall could be the thing that brings the US government to its knees."
Many suggest Trump's attacks on key Republican lawmakers such as Sens. John McCain, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Lisa Murkowski have hurt his chances of accomplishing such legislative priorities. This latest move is expected to inflame those tensions.
Earlier in the day, the Democratic National Committee caused a stir after it sent out a release detailing Trump's "empty promises on border wall."
"Trump has failed to deliver on his signature promise to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it," the DNC release said. "Trump even admitted in a private conversation with Mexico that his border wall promise was 'the least important thing.'"
In July, the House of Representatives granted $1.6 billion toward the wall — enough to pay for 74 miles of barriers along the southwest border.
The Department of Homeland Security has estimated that a wall would cost approximately $21.6 billion in total.
Read the original article on Business Insider Australia. Copyright 2017. Follow Business Insider Australia on Twitter.

NOW WATCH: Venezuela was Latin America’s richest country and now it is in complete crisis — here’s how it fell apart

More: Donald Trump Phoenix Arizona Business Insider Australia
Posted by at No comments:

Hong Kong markets were shut down because of a typhoon

Hong Kong markets were shut down because of a typhoon

IMAGE: HTTPS://SECURE.GRAVATAR.COM/AVATAR/E635EEC6DE6F2D0FF4507AE92349DA0D?S=32&D=MM&R=G
SAM JACOBS

The HSBC building in Hong Kong. Photo: Isaac Lawrence / AFP / Getty Images
Hong Kong’s stock exchange (HKSE) was closed for morning trade as a severe typhoon hit the island.
Authorities yesterday raised the storm warning to its highest level for the first time in five years due to Typhoon Hato.
Flights to and from Hong Kong airport were cancelled and the city’s public transport was shut down, according to Bloomberg.

A short time ago, the storm landed with strong winds and heavy rain lashing the city.
If the strongest weather warning signal is still in place at midday Hong Kong time (2pm AEST), then equities trading will be scrapped for the day.
The Hang Seng index rose by 1.3% over the first two days of this week and closed yesterday at 27,401, just shy of its 2017 high.

NOW WATCH: Money & Markets videos


Read more at https://www.businessinsider.com.au/hong-kong-markets-were-shut-this-morning-as-a-fierce-storm-lashes-the-island-2017-8#sSVjrEKBJe8mZwCj.99
Posted by at No comments:

US Afghanistan: Tillerson ups pressure on Pakistan

US Afghanistan: Tillerson ups pressure on Pakistan



US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addresses reporters on Afghanistan, 22 August 2017Image copyrightREUTERS
Image captionMr Tillerson suggested Pakistan could lose some privileges

American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has increased pressure on Pakistan over its perceived backing for the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Pakistan denies sheltering the Taliban, but Mr Tillerson suggested it could lose US privileges if the government failed "to change their posture".
He was speaking a day after President Donald Trump unveiled a new strategy, vowing to commit US forces to back Afghan forces fighting the insurgents.
The US is a key ally of Pakistan.
The country enjoys a special status as a non-Nato alliance partner and has received billions of dollars in aid.
But Mr Tillerson said this "could be on the table for discussion if in fact they are unwilling to change their posture or change their approach to how they are dealing with the numerous terrorist organisations that find safe haven in Pakistan.
"It is in Pakistan's interest to take those actions."

Nuclear power

Mr Tillerson also stressed that having a stable Pakistan was in US and other countries' interests.
"They are a nuclear power and we have concerns about the security of their weapons. This is not a situation where the US is saying 'this is us and you'."
Mr Tillerson said the Taliban must be made to understand that they could not win a battlefield victory in Afghanistan. But he suggested the US might not either.
"We may not win one but neither will you," as he put it, adding that negotiation was the way to bring the conflict to an end.

Analysis: Barbara Plett-Usher, BBC State Department correspondent

Pakistan has for years deflected US criticism over the issue of safe havens for Taliban and other militants active in Afghanistan.
That's partly because Islamabad sees the groups as leverage to prevent its arch-rival India from gaining influence there. It's unlikely that the Trump administration will be able to change Islamabad's strategic calculations, especially as the president has now encouraged India to play a greater role in Afghanistan.
Rex Tillerson did mention ways that Washington could press Pakistan, such as withholding military aid and reassessing its status as a major non-Nato US ally.
But he also acknowledged concern that too much pressure could destabilise Islamabad.
He offered US help to deal with any blowback from a crackdown on the militants. And he suggested that India take some "steps of rapprochement" to ease Pakistan's concerns.
On Monday night, Mr Trump unveiled a new Afghan strategy, committing the US Army to the open-ended conflict, despite previously advocating its withdrawal.
President Trump warned a hasty US withdrawal from Afghanistan would leave a vacuum for terrorists to fill and said he had decided to keep troops there to "fight to win" to avoid the mistakes made in Iraq.





Media caption"We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists," President Trump said

He said his new approach would be more pragmatic and based on conditions on the ground rather than idealistic and time-based, and would switch from nation building to "killing terrorists".
But Mr Trump refused to be drawn on how many extra troops, if any, would be deployed and gave no timeline for ending the US presence in the country.


Graphic showing top 10 foreign troop contributors in Afghanistan

Washington is thought to be ready to send up to 4,000 additional troops.
Mr Trump also, for the first time, left the door open for an eventual peace deal with the Taliban, saying: "Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan."
Read more on Trump's presidency:





Media captionThe BBC is given rare access to see life under the Taliban

Pakistan's foreign office denied the country allowed militants to operate from its soil.
"Instead of relying on the false narrative of safe havens, the US needs to work with Pakistan to eradicate terrorism," a statement said.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani thanked the US for supporting "the joint struggle against the threat of terrorism" in Afghanistan.
The Taliban promised to make Afghanistan a "graveyard" for US forces.
India's foreign ministry said it shared Mr Trump's concerns over safe havens and "other forms of cross-border support enjoyed by terrorists".
US combat operations against the Taliban officially ended in 2014, but more than 8,000 special forces continue to provide support to Afghan troops.
The Afghan government continues to battle insurgency groups and controls just half of the country.
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

There's a $136,400 reason so many Americans feel they haven't made economic progress

There's a $136,400 reason so many Americans feel they haven't made economic progress

  • 6h
  • 5,232
 More Charts
    •  
  •  
    •  
Wage stagnation has become a running theme in America's political and economic debate, yet so many statistics get thrown around it's hard to discern truth from rhetoric.
A new paper titled "Lifetime Incomes in the United States over Six Decades" sheds some fairly definitive light on the lack of economic progress millions of Americans have experienced.
Among the most striking findings, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and summarized here: The median male who turned 55 in 2013 earned $136,400 less in lifetime income, measured in 2013 dollars, than a 55-year-old 16 years earlier.
8 22 17 income stagnation COTDNational Bureau of Economic Research
Median lifetime income slumped by 10% to 19% for men who entered the labor market in 1983 compared with those who started working in 1967, the study found.
Fatih Guvenen of the University of Minnesota and his coauthors also echo a well-documented trend of economic gains accumulating to the very rich, finding "little-to-no rise in the lower three-quarters of the percentiles of the male lifetime income distribution during this period."
Lifetime earnings increased across the spectrum for males entering the workforce from 1957 to 1967, but they rose for only the top 20% of richest men for job-market entrants in the 1967-to-1983 period. The rise of employer-based health and retirement benefits partly offsets the findings but does not alter them in a substantive way, the authors said.
But don't feel bad just for the men — women have also had a hard time.
Median lifetime income increased about 22% to 33% for women entering the job market in 1983, compared with 1957, "but these gains were relative to very low lifetime income for" women in the 1950s, the paper said.
The researchers also found that "inequality in lifetime incomes has increased significantly within each gender group."
Women's median income has more or less flattened since 1979 after inflation, the report said.
The paper also suggests income levels at the start of one's professional life can have lasting implications, as seen in the hit to starting salaries following the Great Recession.
"Our findings point to the substantial changes in labor market outcomes for younger workers as a critical driver of trends in both the level and inequality of lifetime income over the past 50 years," Guvenen and his colleagues wrote.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

728 X 90

336 x 280

300 X 250

320 X 100

300 X600