Google Censored Chinese Search Engine Back On
According to an “internal investigation” by Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) employees, Google is back at it in building a search engine for China that complies with Chinese censorship that don’t really strike such a good chord with American ears. Employees of the company are pretty peeved at this, and the project was supposedly previously abandoned following harsh backlash both internally and from politicians as well, but apparently it’s back on the table now. For it’s part, Google continues to deny the rumors, a spokesperson saying, “As we’ve said for many months, we have no plans to launch search in China and there is no work being undertaken on such a project. Team members have moved to new projects,” a spokesperson said. The evidence that was found, reported in The Intercept regarding the continuation of “Project Dragonfly” comes from code discovered that seems to have come from the project, according to Google employees who found it. CEO Sundar Pichai denies that any launch is imminent, but didn’t deny that a launch could happen in the future, which means that something is happening, we just don’t know exactly what.
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China’s Solution To Slowing Economy: Even More Debt
Not much of a surprise here, as this is pretty much every government’s solution to slowing economic growth, which has come to be the job of every government to constantly stimulate without thought of consequence. China, in order to goose its official economic numbers, will slash taxes and increase spending, piling on the public debt like there was no tomorrow, except that creditors assume there is a tomorrow because they’ll want their money back. Premier Li Keqiang, in typical politician fashion, had some nice contradictory things to say about the whole situation, like “There will be more risks and challenges that are either predictable or unpredictable and we must be fully prepared for a tough battle.” Of course if a challenge is unpredictable one cannot be prepared for it by definition, but in any case, the money spigots in China are going to loosen. In any case, taxes will be cut, a plus, but bond issuance limits for local governments will be raised, allowing local government to go deeper into debt. (NYSEARCA:FXI)
Congress to Reject Trump’s Border Emergency
Attempting reallocate money that Congress has already earmarked for other purposes to his border wall, President Donald Trump had declared a state of emergency at the border, but Congress looks set to reject that state of emergency, insisting that there is no state of emergency. The resolution passed the Democrat controlled House of Representatives easily, and it looks like the bill has enough support in the Republican controlled Senate as well, thanks to crossover votes from Senators Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Thom Tillis. They could be joined by others perturbed by Trump’s power-grab call for funds without congressional approval. The bill does not have enough support (yet) to pass over Trump’s veto. It will need a two-thirds majority to pass over a veto. It will likely be fought over in court if there aren’t enough votes to override a veto.
Trump To Restrict US Trade With Turkey, India
Those rich Turks with their hyperinflation and those wealthy Indians exploiting the poor Americans with their cheap goods without being taxed won’t get away with it for much longer. Trump has given notice to Congress that after ending the trade war with China signing the greatest deal ever made in hominid history, he feels like stirring up trouble with India and Turkey now. “I have determined that India has not assured the United States that it will provide equitable and reasonable access to the markets of India,” Trump wrote in a letter to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate. India supposedly has been abusing Americans by selling American companies $5.7 billion in goods that American companies independently chose to import. Now American companies will have to pay more if they want to continue doing business with Indian companies. Turkey enjoys $1.7 billion in tariff free exports to the United States. Oh the humanity. (BATS:SMIN) (NASDAQ:TUR)
Papa John’s Settles With Papa John Schnatter
Papa John’s (NASDAQ:PZZA) has signed a settlement with company founder John Schnatter, who will withdraw his name from consideration for reelection to the board of directors. Both Schnatter and the rest of the company will collaborate on nominating an independent director who will replace Schnatter, who was peeved about being set up on a phone call with a public relations firm that portrayed him as some sort of racist, at least insofar as headlines are concerned, and that’s most of what people have the patients to read anyway, hence Twitter’s popularity. The stock is down 30% in a year, which could mean that Schnatter is instrumental to the company. Better management, better pizza. Papa John’s.