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Mike Norman Economics

The Washington Post Editorial Board — The West must prepare for a wounded Putin to become even more aggressive

The West also should not shrink from the destabilization of Mr. Putin’s regime. Imagine if a paper of record in Russia had published an editorial like that about destabilizing the US "regime." Oh, right, the head of the US "regime" is Donald Trump, and the New York Times are trying to remove him, or failing that, neuter him.The Washington Post — The Post's ViewThe West must prepare for a wounded Putin to become even more aggressiveEditorialSee alsoFred Hiatt is the editorial page editor of...

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Reuters — Ford to base Fusion production in China, ship to U.S. – sources

As with the Focus move, the decision to build the Fusion in China also signals a shift in strategy at Ford, which is responding to dwindling U.S. consumer demand for passenger cars in favor of more expensive and more profitable trucks and SUVs. Last week, Ford said it plans to relocate production of a future battery electric vehicle to Cuatitlan, Mexico in 2020 to free up capacity at its Flat Rock, Michigan, plant to build self-driving vehicles in 2021. Reuters Exclusive: Ford to base...

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Reuters — U.N. expert says inmate U.S. torture continues at Guantanamo Bay

“By failing to prosecute the crime of torture in CIA custody, the U.S. is in clear violation of the Convention against Torture and is sending a dangerous message of complacency and impunity to officials in the U.S. and around the world,” [U.N. special rapporteur on torture Nil] Melzer said in the statement.… There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials in Geneva.  ReutersU.N. expert says inmate U.S. torture continues at Guantanamo Bay Tom MilesUPDATED:U.N. expert says torture...

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Jan Oberg — Aleppo’s Liberation one year ago – Anybody ashamed today?

Remember the flurry about Aleppo and its "fall" to the regime from the "moderate opposition"? Here is an eye-witness report from a journalist who was there that debunks it. Did any Western media report this?  So much for the free Western media – proving excellently their place as the second M in the MIMAC – the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex – that is always ready to promote violence and omit or marginalise the voices of conflict understanding and peace.... TFFAleppo’s...

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Gabriel Rockhill — The U.S. is Not a Democracy, It Never Was

American history. The Establishment and its propagandists regularly insist that a structural aristocracy is a “democracy” because the latter is defined by the guarantee of certain fundamental rights (legal definition) and the holding of regular elections (procedural definition). This is, of course, a purely formal, abstract and largely negative understanding of democracy, which says nothing whatsoever about people having real, sustained power over the governing of their lives.…...

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Alexander — Russia defies Western expectations; ends 2017 with minimal budget deficit, bigger reserves

The US thinks it can "bankrupt" Russia with sanctions. Contrary to Western claims Russia in 2017 did not ‘run out of money’… What is extraordinary is not that Russia has not run out of money. It is that supposedly serious people in the West ever thought it would. The dismal truth is that no economic catastrophe in Russia is too farfetched to prevent some people in the West predicting it, whilst there is never any penalty for these people when regular as clockwork the predicted economic...

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Andrew Gelman — Yes, you can do statistical inference from nonrandom samples. Which is a good thing, considering that nonrandom samples are pretty much all we’ve got.

To put it another way: Sure, it’s fine to say that you “cannot reach external validity” from your sample alone. But in the meantime you still need to make decisions. We don’t throw away the entire polling industry just cos their response rates are below 10%; we work on doing better. Our samples are never perfect but we can make them closer to the population. Remember the Chestertonian principle that extreme skepticism is a form of credulity. Making assumptions is necessary. However, it is...

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Dani Rodrik — The great globalisation lie

Third way evangelists presented globalisation as inevitable and advantageous to all. In reality, it is neither, and the liberal order is paying the price.... The fundamental thing to grasp is that globalisation is—and always was—the product of human agency; it can be shaped and reshaped, for good or ill. The great problem with Blair’s forceful affirmation of globalisation back in 2005 was the presumption that it is essentially one thing, immutable to the way that our societies must...

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The Guardian: Rita de la Feria – There’s a simple way to stop big corporations avoiding tax. Here’s how

If multinationals had to pay their dues where they make their sales, the kind of activities revealed in the Paradise Papers would be a thing of the past Companies can set up their headquarters in tax havens and then they become difficult to tax, also, countries end up competing with each other to offer the lowest taxes to attract companies, but in 2008 two professors suggested a solution, impose a type of sales tax on the products sold in a country related to the profit the companies...

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