Asia

The US may be closed, but nothing stands in the way of merger Monday, which today struck in Europe with the announcement that Italy's Ray-Ban maker, Luxottica, and France's lens company Essilor agreed to a €46 billion ($49 billion) merger to create a global eyewear giant with annual revenue of more than €15 billion.

The deal, one of Europe's largest cross-border tie-ups, brings together Luxottica, the world's top spectacles maker with brands such as Oakley and Ray-Ban, with Essilor, the world's leading manufacturer of ophthalmic lenses.

While US markets take the day off for MLK holiday, the rest of the trading world has been busy, perhaps nowhere more so than the sterling which continued its volatile session in advance of May's pre-hard Brexit speech, falling below $1.20 for the first time since October after the Sunday Times said May is ready to withdraw from tariff-free trade with the region in return for the ability to curb immigration and strike commercial deals with other countries.

Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org,

The preceding three parts of this series analyzed the mechanisms that drive great powers.

 

The most in-depth understanding of the issues concerned the determination of the objectives and logic that accompany the expansion of an empire.

 

Can Trump Take Back The Presidency From The CIA?

Paul Craig Roberts

Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Here’s an interesting graph from the World Economic Forum from their article Which countries are on the right track, according to their citizens?

Discontent spreads

 

Between October and November 2016, the percentage of people who believe things are on the right track in their country dropped by 2 percentage points to 37% globally.