#PRESIDENT
TEMER REMEMBERING ROUND ONE (THE ECONOMIST), TRUMP GOVERNMENT NEWS
AND PETITION #WIN-WIN RATIONAL USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxVCqSG8zAw
#PRESIDENT
TEMER REMEMBERING
ROUND ONE ON THE EVE
OF SECOND VOTE BY LAWMAKERS NEXT WEDNESDAY (FROM THE ECONOMIST)
Round
One to the president
Brazil’s
congress decides not to put Michel Temer on trial
But more corruption
charges may followPrint edition | The Americas
Aug 5th
2017 | SÃO PAULO
BRAZILIANS
care little for Michel Temer, their scandal-plagued president. More
than a month after the chief prosecutor, Rodrigo Janot, indicted him
for accepting bribes, his approval rating stands at 5%. But Mr Temer
retains support where it counts most: in congress. On August 2nd
lawmakers in the lower house voted not to refer the case against him
to the supreme court, which has the power to try him. A vote the
other way would probably have led to Mr Temer’s suspension from
office. After an uproarious debate, to which anti-Temer deputies
brought suitcases stuffed with fake cash, the president won a
comfortable victory: 263 deputies voted against referring the case to
the supreme court while 227 voted in favour. Mr Temer needed just 172
votes to block the motion.
But his
troubles are not over. Mr Janot is expected to bring at least two
more indictments against him, which may be put to a similar vote in
the lower house. The more time Mr Temer spends defending himself, the
less he will spend promoting his programme of economic reform, which
is vital to stabilising the country’s public finances and to
sustaining Brazil’s incipient recovery from its worst-ever
recession.
Latest updates
The charge
that Mr Temer fought off stemmed from evidence provided by Joesley
Batista, a former chairman of JBS, a meatpacking firm, who secretly
recorded a conversation with the president in March. This prompted a
sting operation by police in which Rodrigo Loures, Mr Temer’s
former aide, was filmed receiving 500,000 reais ($159,000) from Mr
Batista’s envoy. Mr Janot suspects that the cash, plus 38m reais
promised by Mr Batista, was destined for Mr Temer. In return, Mr
Janot alleges, the president interceded with Brazil’s antitrust
agency on Mr Batista’s behalf. Mr Temer denies all this.
The
president is nothing if not a shrewd political operator. Armed with a
spreadsheet listing legislators according to whether they were
leaning for or against him, he spent weeks securing support in the
lower house. The savvy septuagenarian met with more than 160 of the
513 deputies and freed up 4.2bn reais to spend in legislators’ home
areas, according to Contas Abertas, a watchdog. Some legislators
backed him enthusiastically. Wladimir Costa, a deputy from the
Amazonian state of Pará, tattooed the president’s name on his
shoulder. Mr Temer avoided trial by a bigger margin than many
analysts had expected. “Those who tried to divide us got it wrong,”
he crowed after the vote.
He will now
attempt to shift attention back to his economic agenda. Despite the
charges against him, Mr Temer signed into law a controversial labour
reform on July 13th. That has raised hopes that he can reform the
budget-busting pension system. The real has held its value in the
face of Mr Temer’s legal troubles, a sign of confidence.
But
confidence will be hard to maintain as the charges mount up and
national elections approach in October 2018. Public opinion may begin
to weigh more heavily with politicians facing re-election (Mr Temer
is unlikely to run). One survey, taken before the lower house voted
on the charges, found that 81% of Brazilians want Mr Temer to face
trial. That will make it harder to enact the unpopular pension
reform. Mr Temer will try to pass a slimmed-down version, predicts
Christopher Garman of Eurasia Group, a risk-analysis firm. Much may
depend on how meagre it is.
Mr Temer
may well survive the congressional votes likely to be coming his way.
Though angry, Brazilian voters are also weary. The president’s
predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached last year in part because
of big protests against her. Few Brazilians demonstrate against Mr
Temer. Apathy is an ally. “Muddling through until next year’s
election remains the likely scenario,” argued Paulo Sotero of the
Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington. The
chief prosecutor will try to prove him wrong.
This
article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition
under the headline "Round One to the president"
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==//==
Trump Says He’s ‘Very, Very Close’ to Naming Fed Chair Nominee
By Jennifer Jacobs
23 de outubro de 2017 14:38 BRST
Ray Dalio Says Fed Needs to Watch
Bottom 60% of Earners
Morgan Stanley's Kindler Says Uncertainty Hurts M&A
How Markets Would React to a Powell, Taylor Fed
President
Donald
Trump told reporters Monday he is “very, very close” to
announcing his nominee for chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Trump
gave the timeline in answer to a reporter’s question at the
start of an Oval Office meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee
Hsien Loong, but he didn’t elaborate.
Trump
said in an interview with Fox Business Network aired Sunday and
Monday he’s considering Stanford University economist John
Taylor and Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell for the top job
at the central bank, and indicated Fed Chair Janet Yellen remains
in the running for renomination to a second four-year term.
Trump’s
closest advisers are steering him toward either Taylor or Powell
for chairman, several people familiar with the process said on
Thursday, after the president finished interviewing candidates for
the job by meeting with Yellen.
The
White House has said he’ll make a decision before he leaves for
a trip to Asia on Nov. 3. Yellen’s term ends in February.
Trump’s shortlist for Fed chair also includes Gary Cohn,
director of the White House National Economic Council, and former
Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
Before it's here, it's on the
Bloomberg Terminal.
THE
END
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