Business

Apparently German government officials have finally woken up to the realization that it's utterly ridiculous to use tax revenue generated primarily from middle and low-income households to fund subsidy payments to rich people buying $100,000 luxury sports cars.  As Business Standard notes this morning, the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Controls announced that it will no longer subsidize the Tesla Model S as it can not be delivered in a configuration that meets the 60,000 euro price limit.

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke.

Markets were thrown for a loop in the past 24 hours, with the Dow first soaring nearly 400 points on Thursday on expectations that tax reform was a done deal, when drama emerged just after the close when the Senate tax bill came this close to falling apart when the proposed "Trigger" was ruled as invalid, pushing a Thursday tax vote to this morning, and as of this moment the bill appears in limbo with the GOP scrambling to find ways to appease the sudden loud opposition among budget hawks. UBS economist Paul Donovan summarized it best this morning:

Neil Woodford is the founder of Woodford Investment Management, with $20 billion under management, and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the economy in the Queen’s 2013 Birthday Honours List. However, he’s not very happy in his latest outlook for equity markets, nor is he happy with the recent performance of his funds, although he’s been in this situation before - ahead of the tech crash in 2000 and the sub-prime crisis in 2008. According to the Financial Times.

We always shudder slightly when we discuss ABN Amro, since nothing ever seems straightforward in the ongoing saga of the Dutch bank. However, this time at least nobody has died. In 2015, we noted that Chris Van Eeghen, head of the bank’s corporate finance and capital markets “startled” friends and colleagues after the “always cheerful” banker reportedly committed suicide. Van Eeghen was the fourth ABN banker suicide since the financial crisis.