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QUICK OVERVIEW

• (NYT) A quarter of India’s 1.25 billion people are younger than 15. Every month, until 2030, nearly a million Indians will turn 18 European Central Bank 

• (ECB) President Mario Draghi said 2016 marked the first year when gross domestic product (GDP) in the Eurozone recovered to above its pre-crisis level since 2008.

• (Economist) Global wealth distribution: Where you fit in - If you had only $2,220 to your name, you might not think yourself terribly fortunate. But you would be wealthier than half the world’s population. With $71,560 or more, you’d be in the top tenth. If you were lucky enough to own over $744,400, as 18m Americans do, you are a member of the global 1% that voters everywhere are rebelling against. Some of those railing against the global elite probably do not know they belong to it.

• (538) 82% of U.S. middle school students who weren’t able to determine the difference between sponsored content and a real news article, according to a new Stanford University study.

• (Bloomberg/538) $146 million, estimated size of the market for aloe vera products in the U.S. Well, for products that claim to contain aloe vera, anyway. It turns out that store-brand aloe products sold in Target, Walmart and CVS didn’t contain any aloe at all, according to a lab analysis sponsored by Bloomberg News, despite listing it as one of the top two ingredients.

• The Federal Trade Commission struck a blow for reality when it declared that homeopathic products may no longer make claims to treat any condition unless those claims are backed up by hard scientific evidence.

• (Economist) Arctic sea ice: On the rocks Scientists are interested in sea ice as a marker—and amplifier—of climate change. In recent years the melting season in the Arctic has been ending later in the year. As a result, the total sea-ice extent in September 2016 was over 3m sq km smaller than in September 1980—though not quite as small as in 2012, the worst year so far. In the Arctic, it is around 2m sq km below average, the lowest figure on record for November (Economist)

• Donald Trump said this week that on his first day in office, America would quit the TPP, a trade pact nearly a decade in the making. It would have covered almost 40% of the global economy. The deal was meant to be strategic as well as economic; its other signatories consider it pointless without American participation. Observers expect China to fill the void and assume economic leadership in Asia.

• CME Group, announced it set a total open interest record of 116,999,368 on Nov. 23, 2016. The new record surpassed the previous open interest record of 116,427,935 contracts set on June 9, 2016. Interest Rate open interest also hit a record of 69,493,548 contracts, surpassing the previous open interest record of 68,147,202 set on Nov. 22, 2016.

9/11, global elites and goblins: How America's top conspiracy theorist helped Donald Trump win (NZ Herald)

Mr Jones offered his followers $US1000 if they appeared on national TV for more than five seconds wearing the shirt, and $US5000 if they shouted the phrase "Bill Clinton is a rapist".

The Drums of War George Monbiot

The combination of automation, complexity and climate change is dangerous in ways we haven’t even begun to grasp.

 
Dow Trend Earnings (aka Fed model) is up-to-date

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Capesize etc. is up-to-date

Trump voters will not like what happens next


..millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. I'll be one  of them - back whenever..

 

An American Tragedy

David Remnick (The New Yorker)