Monday Morning Briefing: Tax cut has no major impact on business capex plans

Highlights

The Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion cut tax package appeared to have no major impact on businesses’ capital investment or hiring plans, according to a survey released a year after the biggest overhaul of the U.S. tax code in more than 30 years. “A large majority of respondents, 84 percent, indicate that one year after its passage, the corporate tax reform has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans,” said The National Association of Business Economics’ President Kevin Swift.

Trump expressed skepticism on Sunday that U.S. lawmakers seeking to avoid another government shutdown could reach a deal on border security that he would accept, as he renewed his vow to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico.

“Of course we don’t seek a permanent military presence in Afghanistan,” an official said in the capital Kabul. The senior U.S. government official, speaking after six days of talks between a U.S. team and the Afghan Taliban, said that Washington was committed to the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan after 17 years of war.

President Trump’s administration lifted sanctions on the core empire of Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, including aluminum giant Rusal and its parent En+, despite a Democrat-led push to maintain them. The move, which sent the Russian stock index to an all-time high, has watered down the toughest penalties imposed since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, following a lobbying campaign in the United States that lasted almost 10 months.

World

Grief over the hundreds of Brazilians feared lost in a mining disaster has quickly hardened into anger as victims’ families and politicians say iron ore miner Vale SA and regulators have learned nothing from the recent past.

Venezuelan President Maduro, is confronting an unprecedented challenge to his authority after opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself interim president, citing a fraudulent election. Guaido has won wide international support and offers amnesty to soldiers who join him. Maduro oversaw a display of the army’s Russian hardware on Sunday, with anti-aircraft flak and tank rounds pounding a hillside to show military force and loyalty in the face of an international ultimatum for new elections.

Who is behind the Philippine church bombings? Philippines security forces investigating a deadly twin bombing at a church on a predominantly Muslim southern island. Twenty people were killed and more than 100 wounded in Sunday’s attack on Jolo island, shocking a region that only days earlier delivered a resounding “yes” in a plebiscite on greater autonomy for the Muslim-dominated south.

Hundreds of taxis blocked a central traffic artery in Madrid during Monday’s morning rush hour, in their biggest show of strength yet as a protest seeking tighter regulation of Uber and other ride-hailing services entered its second week. The city’s taxi drivers started the protests last week against the private services, which offer rides that often undercut taxi prices and can be hailed via the internet rather than in the street.

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8:10 AM - 28 Jan 2018

Business

Long winter's nap? Global slowdown, market fears could extend Fed pause

Ebbing global growth and shaky financial markets threw the Federal Reserve off course in early 2016, and it took nearly a year for officials to regain confidence growth would continue and convince investors they would again raise interest rates.

6 min read

Breakingviews - Chinese markets may wait longer for bold changes

China’s stock markets could use a more ambitious overseer. State media reported over the weekend that the head of the country’s securities regulator, Liu Shiyu, would be replaced by Yi Huiman, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s chairman. Stability often took precedence over bigger changes under Liu, an approach that achieved only mixed results, writes Christopher Beddor.

3 Min Read

You're hired! Thai startup fills gap in tech talent recruiting

When app developer Sattha Puangput was looking to move from a startup to a new role, he updated his profile on GetLinks, a website that pairs technology professionals with companies looking to beef up their tech teams. Chinese tech giant Alibaba, Thai conglomerate Siam Cement Group and Australian employment marketplace SEEK Group participated in a funding round for GetLinks last year which raised “eight figures” in U.S. dollars, said 26-year-old French-born Djoann Fal who is the startup’s co-founder.

5 min read

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