Category Archives: Resource Based Economy

The Haisla First Nation's Kitimaat Village across Douglas Channel from Kitimat. The Haisla have plans of the books for a floating natural gas liquefaction plant.DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

The benefits to First Nations that participate in the expanding energy sector in B.C. will be measured in billions of dollars.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted unanimously by the B.C. legislature throws open the door to economic reconciliation on an unprecedented scale.

The implementation of UNDRIP will reduce uncertainty for business, said Fort Nelson First Nation Chief Sharleen Gale.

Fort Nelson First Nation Chief Sharleen Gale.handout / PNG

A consent-based model means that business leaders will need to form partnerships with First Nations and incorporate that into their business model, she said.

When companies come to First Nations on Day 1, it promotes certainty that projects will be built on time, that they align with our values and that there wont be litigation, said Gale, chairwoman of the First Nations Major Projects Coalition. We dont want to be in the courts, we want to take equity stakes and participate in the economy in our territories.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the emerging LNG export industry.

Northern B.C. has reserves of natural gas that could fuel domestic consumption and exports for the next 150 years, nearly all of it on territory that was not ceded by its Indigenous occupants, according to the First Nations LNG Alliance.

First Nations are seizing the opportunity to get full value from those resources for the long-term benefit of their members, said Gale.

The Haisla First Nation has a 25-year export licence and plans for a floating LNG plant south of Kitimat. It also has a partnership with the Lax Kwalaams, Metlakatla and Nisgaa First Nations with a goal to use LNG to fight climate change.

The Squamish Nation recently signed a $1.1 billion benefit agreement with Woodfibre LNG to build a plant on the site of a decommissioned pulp mill.

More than two dozen First Nations have signed benefit agreements related to natural gas expansion in the past four years and 16 First Nations are partners in the Pacific Trail Pipeline, which will end in Kitimat.

First Nations leaders and businesspeople will gather in Vancouver on Jan. 14 at the Finding a Path to Shared Prosperity conference to share lessons from an Indigenous economy that is poised to grow exponentially in the next five years.The conference will feature Indigenous entrepreneurs and First Nations engaged in property development, tourism, transportation, aquaculture and resource extraction.

The Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business is projecting Canadas Indigenous economy will grow from $30 billion a year today to $100 billion by 2024.There are about 50,000 Indigenous businesses in Canada, and they are growing at nine times the rate of non-Aboriginal businesses, according to the Council.

Chief Crystal Smith, head of the First Nations LNG Alliance.handout / PNG

It gives me goosebumps to think of the opportunities that are coming over the next ten years, said Haisla Nation Chief Crystal Smith, chair of the First Nations LNG Alliance.

The LNG Canada project will mean jobs, training, capacity-building and spinoff business opportunities, all accomplished in alignment with Haisla values and goals.

Global demand for LNG is projected to grow by 45 per cent over the next 20 years, with much of that demand in China and India, according to the International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook.

Smith will get a technical briefing this week on how LNG might reduce greenhouse gas emissions by displacing coal in those markets.

We dont live in a bubble, so the global consequences of being in the energy sector are part of our thought process, she said. We see LNG as a transitional fuel while we make the technological advances that we need to create power with less impact.

Canada, B.C. and B.C. Hydro signed an agreement in August to spend $680 million on electrification and power transmission projects aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of the natural gas industry, which produces 18 per cent of B.C.s carbon pollution.

Green Leader Andrew Weaver condemned the deal as another subsidy for the dinosaurs of fossil fuel development, rather than the industries of tomorrow.

Mike Downie will be the headline speaker at the conference where he will share the story of the multimedia project Secret Path, which he developed with his brother Gord Downie, the late vocalist of The Tragically Hip. Secret Path recounts the story of Ojibwe 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack who escaped his residential school in the 1960s.

rshore@postmedia.com

With a file from Canadian Press

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Billion dollar boom: UNDRIP opens the door to First Nations partnerships - Vancouver Sun

As planning got underway in 1970 for the inaugural European Management Symposium in Davos, an obscure ski town in the Swiss Alps, the idea that companies should be mindful of far more than the bottom line was still fairly novel. That first version of what would become the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting helped establish the idea that businesses should serve society as a whole, and not just shareholdersa stakeholder concept memorialized in 1973sDavos Manifesto.

Fast forward nearly 50 years, and the mainstreaming of stakeholder capitalism is in full swing. One example: the Business Roundtable, an organization that includes the CEOs of the biggest US companies and once defined a companys purpose as serving shareholders, recently re-defined that purpose to include acommitment to all stakeholders. Other major shifts to occur in the past five decades include the rising influence of technology firms, the growing prominence of multinationals from the developing world, an expansion of the global talent pool, and a troubling increase in income inequality.

A social bent

Could a company like Patagonia, the outdoor clothing maker that identifies its reason for being assaving the planet, have thrived 50 years ago? The rise of social innovation intended to have positive environmental or social impactin much the same way outlined in the Davos Manifestohas been a particularly striking trend in recent decades. Just since 2014, the number of certified B Corporations, or companies with verified commitments to balancing profit and purpose by tackling issues like inequality and workers rights, has increased by about 366%:

A different kind of corporate giant

How have the worlds most influential companies changed over the past 50 years? In short: more technology, less natural resource extraction. One measure of this is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the benchmark US stock index. The 30 companies in the Dow in 1970 included names like American Can and Texaco, and only one, Eastman Kodak Company, was a technology firm. There are now five technology firms in the index (including Apple and Microsoft), and while half of the included companies in 1970 were manufacturers, that has dwindled to eight, as oil companies have slipped in number from three to two, and chemicals and mining concerns have fallen from five to one. Here we see the Dows composition by sector, then and now:

The rise of the developing world

Its not just the type of companies impacting the global economy that has changed in the past half-centuryits also their location. Back in 1970, multinational firms from emerging economies accounted for just 0.4% of global outward foreign direct investment, which wouldjump to 15.8% by 2008. Now, two of the ten biggest companies in the world in terms of market capitalisation are from Greater China: Tencent and Alibaba (the remainder are from the US). Here we see increases in market capitalisation since 2009 of those companies that are among the 100 biggest in the world, according to where theyre basedfor Chinese firms in this group the increase has been 141%, while for firms from the rest of the world excluding the US and Europe its been 40%:

A bigger talent pool

The global population has become a lot more mobile in the past half-century. According to the UN, the total number of international migrants increased by 78% between 1990 and this year, to nearly 272 million. Places that have opened up their job markets to candidates from abroad have seen their options multiply for recruiting much-needed labour. Singapore, whichtoppedthe Forums Global Competitiveness Index for 2019, provides a vivid example. Here we see breakdowns of Singapores population in both 1970 and 2010, where Nonresidents are foreigners with an employment pass or work permit in the city state:

Increasing Income Inequality

Not all trends have necessarily been positive over the past 50 years. Income inequality has increased in many parts of the world, helping to stir social unrest and the rise of populist rhetoric. According to a reportpublished this yearby the OECD, the gap between rich and poor has widened in the large majority of member countries during the past few decades. A separate OECDreportconveyed rising income inequality in member countries between 1970 and 2000 where lower Gini Coefficient scores mean less inequality, and higher scores mean more inequality. Here we see rising scores (and increasing income inequality) in three of those countries:

For more context, heres a set of links to deeper reading courtesy ofthe World Economic Forums Strategic Intelligence platform:

Why are Americas CEOs talking about stakeholder capitalism? For one thing, activist investors have made their lives uncomfortable. For another, politics and public opinion are shifting in the USwhere two leading contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have called for big changes in the ways that corporations are run. (Project Syndicate)

For almost 50 years, the gospel that companies know best and regulation is bad has been corporate Americas default policy positionand permissionless innovation has led to permissionless exploitation. Now, were waiting for the first concrete evidence that this is changing. (Brookings)

Singapore is touted as one of the biggest economic success stories of the past half-century, but that is due to its split personalityas both a low-tax, low-regulation locale that attracts global capital, and a place with interventionist policies aimed at fostering social cohesion when it comes to housing and education. If the UK really wants to follow the city states model post-Brexit, it is well-advised to pursue both sides of that personality. (CityMetric)

The UK doesnt have a great track record over the past half-century when it comes to fostering social cohesion. In fact, it contributed significantly to inequality in the European Union over the yearswhether through Margaret Thatchers role in completing the single market, influencing the EU response to the 2008 banking crisis, or impacting EU strategy for building a knowledge-based economy. (LSE)

Opponents of globalisation have increased in number in recent decades, whether theyre Trump voters or French farmers. But inherent anti-globalisation biases often contribute to misguided public policy that benefits no one. One example: starting a trade war with China, when US sectors that rely on Chinese equipment enjoy faster job growth and bigger wage increases than others. (Project Syndicate)

John Letzing,Digital Editor, Strategic Intelligence, World Economic Forum

This article was originally published in World Economic Forum

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The Timeline of Davos: 1973 to 2020 - Qrius

If you want to uncover hidden market gems, you need to look where others havent. And one of the places that my Gucci-loafer-wearing peers arent looking are frontier markets.

Frontier markets?

Youve heard of emerging markets and perhaps youve even invested in them. But investors mostly ignore frontier markets. And boy, are they missing out!

As a cryptocurrency-savvy investor, the question isn't why you need to know about frontier markets. Rather, it's WHAT you need to know about them. Which is this

Frontier markets are those countries that are less established and poorer than even emerging markets. But this could all be about to change, and soon.

That's because widening adoption of the technology that powers the cryptocurrency universe Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), or blockchain is set to bring attention to these overlooked markets because it is being used right now to include their citizens in the world's financial system.

I'll tell you more about this developing trend, and I'll give you a few ways to help you get ready for it.

Frontier markets generally have small, undeveloped stock exchanges and currency markets. MSCI Inc. looks for a market to have at least a pair of companies worth $800 million each, and a willingness to consider foreign investment.

The MSCI Frontier Markets Index is composed of 29 countries: Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Benin, Croatia, Estonia, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Mauritius, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Romania, Serbia, Senegal, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Togo, Tunisia and Vietnam.

Most people probably couldnt find half of those on a map. But with the right investments, you can tap into a world of undiscovered profits.

Frontier markets are small; real small. The market cap of all the stock of those 29 countries is only 0.3% of the global total.

For perspective, the market cap of emerging markets such as Brazil and China is 8.8% of the global total.

While frontier markets are small, the opportunity is not.

Just take a look at the sheer size of Africa: The U.S., China, India and several other countries would all fit neatly within the borders of the African continent.

With all that land, and all those people, there are plenty of opportunities.

Heres why you should consider investing in frontier markets.

Natural resources. Africa is one of the richest natural resource continents on the planet. It is a leading producer of diamonds, sugar, salt, lumber, gold, iron, cocoa beans, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver and oil.

Rapidly growing middle class. Africa, for example, has the fastest-growing middle class in the world. It has doubled to 313 million people in the last two decades. That growing middle class translates into consumers with money to spend.

So, if the worlds biggest markets are going down, theres only about a 50/50 chance that frontier markets will follow suit. This provides an extra layer of diversification and risk management for your portfolio.

Now, here's the frontier-market/crypto connection

Many frontier markets are associated with poverty. In some, only about 35% of households have electricity, and some 20% own a TV.

In fact, some 2 billion adults in frontier markets dont even have a bank account. But what they do have, in increasing numbers, are smartphones and a willingness to use them as "mobile money."

For the "unbanked," Everex (EVX) is a blockchain startup that provides remittance services, microfinance and fiat-currency conversion.

But the beauty of blockchain is that its uses are far bigger than sending and receiving payments. The blockchain is also home to real estate documents and collectibles. Heck, it can even protect the very networks we are conducting transactions on.

Another company, CrowdForce, is trying to get the blockchain revolution into motion in frontier markets.

This Nigeria-based startup is working on an app called PayForce. It incentivizes trusted local retail agents in each community to offer financial services.

Remember, in this trustless, cash-based economy, many trusted retailers already provide a similar service to their communities.

This app would then allow those previously unrecognized in the economy to participate more actively. It would act primarily as a bank account but would also offer microservices such as managing bill payments, buying and selling cryptocurrencies, and hosting crypto-fiat exchanges.

By bringing this change through trusted individuals in each community, CrowdForce believes it can bring these frontier markets into the digital age and onto the world stage.

The PayForce Mobile App could also help solve the trust issue. Not only since a trusted member of the community is recommending it, but it uses blockchain, which is decentralized. Decentralization means there is no one person or government verifying transactions. And it means that all information is completely safe from hackers and other neer-do-wells.

Frontier markets are not without risk. In fact, they are more volatile than developed markets, can be politicaly unstable, have poor liquidity, have questionable financial/accounting reporting and sometimes see large currency fluctuations.

However, I believe that there are huge profits to be made in frontier markets. And I believe that blockchain will be instrumental in bringing them into the world economy with a solid foundation.

It's not possible to invest in CrowdForce because it's not publicly traded. And Everex gets an extremely low "E+" (or, "Very Weak") grade from the Weiss Crypto Ratings.

But there are other ways to invest in frontier markets that come with far less risk. And you can do so from the U.S. stock exchanges you are familiar with.

If you are an ETF investor and are interested in frontier markets, there are three ETFs you should look at:

Long-term investors with a high tolerance for volatility should consider a 5% to 10% allocation to frontier markets.

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Blockchain & the Changing Face of Frontier Markets - FXStreet

Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique in 1963 because believed women were suffering and it needed a name. When psychotherapist Randy Flood founded the Mens Resource Center in Grand Rapids Michigan in 2000, he realized the same was true for men. They are suffering because of an outdated idea of what it means to be a man that no longer works. A decade before the phrase toxic masculinity became ubiquitous in the broader culture, Flood and his colleagues came up with a more clinical term: Mascupathy.

I dont care what we call it, some people call it toxic masculinity. We need to name it for what it is so that men are inspired to work on developing a more balanced form of masculinity, Flood explains. This is our way of talking about a pathological form of masculinity thats not healthy, fit, or whole for the world we live in.

The notion that masculinity in some forms might be diseased unsurprisingly pissed a lot of men off, at least initially. Masculinity is an integral part of the male identity that boys learn to perform, protect, and defend at all costs at a young age. Floods attempts to pathologize (and to some, even police) masculinity were perceived as a threat. People initially thought he hated men and was trying to emasculate them.

We think masculinity is a wonderful part of humanity, Flood, who co-authored the book Mascupathy: Understanding and Healing The Malaise of American Manhood in 2014, says. We just believe that there is a disease process that goes on when we raise boys to cut off half of their humanity in order to pursue the pinnacle of masculinity.

Like a growing amount of mental health professionals, academics, and thought leaders Flood is not trying to get rid of masculinity, but upgrade it in order to make it work better for men and everyone around them. Flood explains how increased emotional intelligence, community, and humility among men can help with that.

There is something about the word masculinity that makes men instantly defensive. How do you get around this in your work with mascupathy?

Language is so triggering for people, and depending on where theyre at in terms of the whole process of understanding gender constructs and such, I may not even use the word we coined. Instead, well talk about the statistics: Women are graduating from college at higher levels, the male suicide rate is four times that of women, men have a harder time moving out of their parents homes than women. There are so many statistics that are telling us that men are struggling. Ninety-eight percent of mass shooters are men, but when there is a shooting we dont talk about mens mental health. We talk about mental health in general, or we talk about gun control. If women were shooting at the rate men were, I guarantee wed be asking about whats going on with our girls. Wed have a public health strategy for addressing it, but were not doing that with men.

Sometimes those statistics are used by groups like Proud Boys and Mens Rights Activists to blame feminism or liberalism for mens problems. Have you run into this?

They are essentially trying to explain the statistics with a different construct or idea. Theyre saying that those statistics tell us that feminist belief systems, immigration, and the more diversity we have in the world is marginalizing men, in particularly white males. But were seeing these statistics that societies are becoming sicker and sicker and men are suffering as a result of it. So its just a different framework for looking at the same statistics.

Ninety-eight percent of mass shooters are men, but when there is a shooting we dont talk about mens mental health. We talk about mental health in general, or we talk about gun control.

So how do you convince men who feel marginalized that outdated masculine norms are responsible for this instead?

If were in a service economy, instead of a manufacturing-based economy, in order to be employable you have to have emotional and relational intelligence in order to be able to function in that economy, then you better be teaching boys how to have those skills. Otherwise, youre going to see them failing to launch and learn the requisite skills to thrive. Then people will argue that we need to just create more manufacturing jobs, then well have more jobs for men, but there will always be those kinds of jobs for men. There will always be different types of skilled labor. The skills trade sector is struggling to recruit people to do those types of specialized labor. So theres a need for that, but its not a zero-sum game. A lot of people think its immigration thats taking jobs, but were trending towards a lot of artificial intelligence and robotics taking jobs that men used to use their bodies for. That trend is saying men need to have more than brawn to function in society. Our society requires more human skills that robots cannot do.

How does Mascupathy work?

With mascupathy there are four domains:

The first domain is a weak self-concept. Fundamentally, many men feel inadequate as men because the ideal man is not attainable. They may feel adequate today after winning the softball tournament, but tomorrow it all starts over. They might get recognized in their profession, but that doesnt help you tomorrow because tomorrow youre performing masculinity day-in and day-out. Thats why the first domain is a weak self-concept.

The second one is inadequate emotionality, or emotional literacy. We train boys to turn away from emotions and see emotions as weakness, so they dont want anything to do with emotions. And any sadness, fear, loneliness, or anxiety gets transformed into anger because anger is a masculine emotions. You dont talk about emotions because thats what women do.

The third domain of mascupathy is relational deficiencies. We have this idea that were rugged individualists and a mature man is someone who doesnt need others. Thats not true. Everything we know about psychology, humanity, and social sciences is that we do need others, we do function better as a community, we are pack animals.

Finally, the fourth domain is externalization. We train boys and men to act out their feelings. That which you dont talk out you act out. Thats why you see more criminal behavior in men. You see more shootings in men. You see more bar fights and domestic violence in men because we train men not to talk about what is going on inside of them, but to pass their pain onto others.

We dont assume someone whos advocating for clean water or air is anti-water and air. Thats how people treat masculinity.

Mascupathy seems to require therapy to treat it, and yet therapy avoidance seems like it would be a symptom of mascupathy. Is this accurate?

It is true that women have been the primary consumers of mental health counseling and its not because women have more problems than men. It is because its not antithetical to being female to ask for help. Its not unfeminine to know that we are better individuals when we live in a community and share our emotions and problems. For men, its just another form of failure and weakness to say they need help for a mental or emotional problem. At the Mens Resource Center, we really help men revision masculinity and realize they ask for help on their golf swings and financial portfolios. Its also an act of wisdom and courage to ask for help for other kinds of complex emotional problems.

How do you get men to ask for help?

We try to expand their definition of what it means to ask for help. When they go to war, its very clear that they need the help of their platoon to keep everyone safe. They have this idea that they are not warriors in and of themselves, but when it comes to their own mental well-being men think they can make it alone and the ones who dont are weak. So a lot of men secretly feel inadequate.

Ive read that men may respond group therapy may be more helpful for men than individual therapy. Is this true?

Group therapy helps because men are socialized in what we call the man pack to believe that men are to make it on their own. Developmental psychologist Niobe Way talks about how in middle school, boys turn away from their male friends for intimacy and begin to pursue intimacy through sexuality. So if you get men in a therapy group and there are other men who are their peers who have been working at the process of personal growth longer, theyre the ones who are going to have the power and respect to talk to other men about the benefits of getting connected to their heart and other peoples hearts, and that doesnt make them weak. I can connect with compassion and that doesnt emasculate me, that humanizes me. Men get that more in a group process than when they have a therapist telling them what it means to be healthy. They dont buy it, they dont trust it, and they dont make progress, so theres a huge attrition rate for men in mental health services.

Are there any areas where men are making more progress than others?

Look at the change in the role men are playing as dads. It used to be that being a father meant you were providing clothes on their backs, food on the table, and a roof over their head. But now men need to provide nurturing and other forms of support beyond economics. Being able to help men see how much fathering has evolved in such a significant way my dad wasnt even allowed in the delivery room.

For many men, their weakest part is emotional intelligence and relational intimacy, so why not spend time working on that?

Where can progress be made? How can men keep working towards a healthier from of masculinity?

When we talk about toxic water and toxic air, we dont assume someone whos advocating for clean water or air is anti-water and air. Thats how people treat masculinity. You dont go to a cardiologist who treats cardiomyopathy and say he hates hearts, thats why he went into the business. Its really hard to get people to understand what were trying to do. For myself, I played baseball in college, I grew up hunting and fishing, and Ive competed in triathlons in my adult life. I do traditionally masculine things, but I also participate in a mens group, see a therapist, attend retreats. All the things were trying to get men to work on Ive worked on myself as a man.

And what have you learned from this that you want men to understand the most?

When youre trying to help men cross-train, the way you would for a triathlon but with a different party of their humanity, you have to work on where you have the weakest performance. I hated swimming, so I had to spend more time in the pool. For many men, their weakest part is emotional intelligence and relational intimacy, so why not spend time working on that? Its not going to make you bad at construction work.

The post Masculinity Is Not Toxic, But It Might Be Diseased appeared first on Fatherly.

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Masculinity Is Not Toxic, but It Might Be Diseased - Yahoo Lifestyle

The current Government, though it has claimed victory in the recent local government election (as has the opposition, United National Congress), admitted that it has lost control of Sangre Grande and some seats in other councils, even though it has won the majority of seats throughout the island. If we were to also consider these elections as a statistical exercise to gauge the change of confidence in the PNM based on the sample of the population that votedsome 360,000 it is clear that the view held by the population of the Peoples National Movement has shifted away from that of 2016 and immediately after the last general elections it won. There is less confidence in the PNM given the reduction in the percentage of votes cast for the PNM and the extremely low error of the sample. Indeed, compared with the local elections of 2016 the PNM dropped statistically (48.3 per cent in 2016 and 43.38 per cent in 2019) considering that for both elections the sampling error was some 0.18 per cent. Of course the sample could be biased; as some say that the PNM voters stayed at home.

However, the setback could be laid at the doorstep of the difficult economic circumstances of our plantation in which this Government has found itself during the past four years; it suffered a loss of income (rents) of some $20 billion and even though it resorted to borrowings and drawdown from the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF), it had to reduce its spendingspending that stimulates the on-shore economy. These, coupled with the employment disaster it incurred at Petrotrin, could have damaged its reputation as a caring government in certain quarters. Hence the budgets attempted to offset these by increases in the minimum wage and further the wages of URP, CEPEP and OJT, a reduction in VAT, and other grants were givenall to alleviate some of the hardships of the economic downturn.

However, Governments decreased financial circumstances were not by choice, nor an independent input to the economy, with the resulting woes to the public. As a plantation the economic performance of the on-shore economy is a function of the rents, the US$, left in the country- taxes, local expenses of the petroleum sectorsin the exploitation of the resource. We have found ourselves in the position of exploiting a depleting high cost resource in a world market of cheaper oil and gas and production shortfalls of gas, forcing some of the petrochemical plants to be shut down; one of them an ancient and inefficient plant. Still, the up-streamers have recently found some high-price gas in the deep.

If we were to take a wider view; all of our governments are to blame, given our low risk private sector, for not taking the initiative to effectively diversify the economy and create new global competitive export companies. What was attempted were abject failures, useless incentives and industrial parks. If instead one were to look at the restricted economic circumstances of this recession, then one may blame the government for not levelling with the population about the dire economic situation in which we have found ourselves. Instead, the government insisted that (they were getting it done) by their effort the economy was turned around, we had avoided the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and are now on a growth path, given our allegedly low inflation and unemployment rates- we can see clearly now!

Whatever the actions taken by Government with an extended period of low retained rents from the petroleum sector, the on-shore economy that employs some 96 per cent of the workforce will contract, though the rate of doing so may be slowed by the use of our foreign reserves and such borrowings, and drawdown from the HSF in an attempt to maintain import levels. Any such reduction in rents restricts the quantity of imports upon which the bulk of the on-shore activity depends. This forced project slowdown, downsizing and/or closure of some businesses, unemployment, reduced income particularly of the low and middle income groups- this is the natural response of our economic system. The reduced capacity of the population to spend TT$s automatically reduced aggregate demand (much of which is for imports) in synch with the reduced capacity to earn rents.

Some are calling for the devaluation of the TT$, which would more quickly force the contraction of the economy, the speed of our race to the bottom of the economy and, of importance, establish the volatility of the TT$ and the risk it and wealth so denominated, holds. Though government actions may have slowed the rate of the economic contraction, its message to the population was, unfortunately, that we are again moving upwards towards the good times, a situation not reflected by circumstances on the ground- precipitating a loss of confidence in the government.

Similar to what Singapore did many years ago, the immediate response of this government should have been to set about with the R&D institutions to create a diversified economy via the process of the Triple Helix and create a new class of entrepreneurs, something which even the Vision 2020 promised. Surely the building of highways and a Toco port, infrastructure, on their own will not encourage exports even if, unfortunately, the government claims that this will open up economically the North and East of the country.

It was an error of major proportions that the EADB was disbanded since it showed the promise of becoming an entity that understood the economic development process. Something has to be put in its place to take us along that path.

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Diversification, recession and elections | Columnist - Trinidad & Tobago Express Newspapers

The American fracking for oil and natural gas boom will continue on through the 2020s. And why not? Since fracking took off in 2008, we have more than doubled our proven oil reserves to ~65 billion barrels. Natural gas reserves have surged over 80% to ~430 trillion cubic feet. Already the largest oil and gas producer, the U.S. is set to increase its share of ~17% of global oil production and ~23% of gas. In the 2020s, the U.S. is set to supply over 60% of new oil and gas (see Figure below).

This is according to experts at Rystad Energy, an independent energy consulting services and business intelligence data firm based in Norway. Rystad says the U.S. shale industry will continue to mount production even if prices drop. The reality is that oil and gas companies already have. Oil prices have been sliced in half since the triple-digits seen in mid-2014, yet U.S. crude oil production has still jumped over 50% to nearly 13 million b/d. For 2019 alone, the weekly oil rig count has plummeted 25% to 663 rigs as of Friday, yet weekly output has risen another 1.2 million b/d. Natural gas prices have fallen 17% this year and gas rigs are down 34%, yet gas U.S. output has still risen over 10%.

As companies focus on cash flow discipline and free cash flow generation, Rystad says that even with an 11% reduction in shale oil investments next year, U.S. tight oil production alone will be closing in on 11 million b/d by 2022, up from 9.1 million b/d this month. This jump in shale output comes even as WTI prices fall to $54 in 2020 and 2021. For natural gas, although the associated gas supply coming from the Permian will help keep U.S. prices low, another 10% rise in U.S. shale gas output to above 100 Bcf/d is to be expected over the next two years. This means that we will soon be producing 50% more gas than Russia, just having passed it in 2009.

Indeed, Rystads bullish outlook for U.S. shale is hardly alone. The Paris-based International Energy Agency reported in November that the U.S. will supply 85% of the new oil and 30% of the new gas through 2030. The current bear oil and gas market will not last forever - nothing ever does. Surviving through the pain of lower pricing, the industry has so sharpened its knife that higher prices will offer drastically easier times.

Ultimately, 1) oil having no significant substitute, 2) gas rising toward being 50% of all U.S. power capacity, and 3) a surging export complex to export both fuels ensure that our massive resource base will be developed. Simply put, those pushing divestment should realize that it obviously cannot work: divestment does nothing to reduce demand.

The U.S. will extend its lead in oil and gas production in the 2020s.

So when looking at the individual U.S. state level, the ongoing rise of our shale oil and gas output is staggering. All presidential candidates should think about this: in the 2020s, the state of Ohio alone is expected to add as much oil and gas to global supply as Russia (see Figure below). This is our greatest geopolitical leverage and not-so-secret weapon: shale not only made us the worlds largest oil and gas producer but will make us the largest seller in just a few years. Next year, the U.S. Department of Energy reports that we will become a net exporter of oil on an annual basis for the first time ever.

Vladimir Putin knows that U.S. shale production and surging associated exports are throwing a big wrench into his grand strategy of energy domination. Russias position as the largest oil and gas exporter rakes in over $300 billion each year. No wonder then that Putin has been funding NGOs whose job is to persuade governments to stop shale development. Without Fracking For Natural Gas, The U.S. Loses And Putin Wins, making anti-shale positions the real Russian collusion story.

The clear reality of mounting global demand for oil and gas explains why Russia is advancing oil and gas interests with China, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Further, Rystad reports that Russias Gazprom (+1,200,00o boepd) and Beijings PetroChina (+ 730,000 boepd) were easily the two largest suppliers of new oil and gas from 2014 to 2018. We unquestionably must counter this or we will be handing irreplaceable and growing markets to rivals.

As for the end of shale, be....very careful with that. You should know that not even the industry itself ever saw the revolution coming in the first place. I really do think, however, that the next energy revolution could be CO2-EOR, for which we have literally hundreds of billions of barrels of oil in mature fields primed for development, while also storing CO2 safely in the ground to cut emissions. Now yielding ~450,000 b/d, the industry itself does not promote CO2-EOR nearly enough. But to its credit, the Natural Resources Defense Council calls CO2-EOR a win-win-win for our environment, energy, and economy.

Individual U.S. states are supplying more new oil and gas than entire major producing nations.

See the rest here:

The U.S. Dominates New Oil And Gas Production - Forbes

Charles Okonji

THE Federal Government has announced that it will soon produce a National Nanotechnology Policy to guide the operation of Nanotechnology in the country.

The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, Mr. Bitrus Bako Nabasu disclosed this in Abuja over the weekend, at the Inaugurated the Committee on the First Validation Exercise on the Draft National NanoTechnology Policy Document.

He said; When it is eventually produced, the policy will spearhead the use of nanotechnology in the country and would make products to be lighter, smaller, stronger, cleaner and precise.

Nabasu urged the Committee to produce a National Nanotechnology policy to guide the operation of Nanotechnology in the country, assume responsibility and come up with a draft National Nanotechnology policy document.

He pointed out that the Nanotechnology is an emerging technology set to revolutionalise the manufacturing technology process by making most products lighter, smaller, stronger, cleaner and very precise.

Mr. Nabasu said that application and utilisation of this technology is being made in various fields such as agriculture, health, medicine, and chemical industries to enhance the quality of lives of citizens.

He commended the efforts of the Minister and the Minister for State of Science and Technology for providing the needed support and guidance to ensure that Nigeria moves from a resource-based economy to a knowledge based one.

Earlier in his opening speech, the Director, Department of Chemical Engineering, Engr. Akinyemi Oyefeso said the purpose of the validation programme is to start from within themselves, adding that this is why they invited mainly scientific officers and some non-scientific officers in order to critique the policy document before passing to the Minister for further necessary action.

Continue reading here:

FG to harness benefits of nanotechnology - The Nation Newspaper

However, at the time of writing, Packaging News online poll has the Liberal Democrats narrowly leading on 32% followed by Labour (31%), the Conservatives (19%), Brexit Party (13%) and the Greens (2%). Other parties accounted for 2% of the poll.

While Brexit and NHS have dominated the national headlines, the environment remains a key issue for voters. This is reflected in the parties manifestos, which outline several pledges on reducing greenhouse gases.

The focus has also resulted in all the national parties making major pledges on packaging, likely to shape the future of the industry regardless of who wins the General Election. Here is a brief summary of where the main five UK parties stand on the packaging industry.

The Conservative Party

The Tories have vowed to lead the world in tackling plastics pollution.

Its environmental plans outline the partys desire to tackle plastics pollution both in the UK and abroad. It reaffirmed its commitment to introduce a new levy designed to increase the proportion of recyclable plastics in packaging.

The partys manifesto added: We will introduce extended producer responsibility, so that producers pay the full costs of dealing with the waste they produce and boost domestic recycling. We will ban the export of plastic waste to non-OECD countries, consulting the industry, NGOs and local councils on the date by which this should be achieved.

The Conservatives added that it will introduce a deposit return scheme to incentivise people to recycle plastic and glass.

The party pledged to also set up a new 3bn National Skills Fund alongside other major investments in skills and training.

The Labour Party

Labours manifesto for next months General Election outlines an ambition to take on the global plastics crisis by investing in a new plastics remanufacturing industry creating thousands of jobs, ending exports of plastic waste and reducing our contribution to ocean pollution.

In addition, Labour claimed that would make producers responsible for the waste they create and for the full cost of recycling or disposal, encouraging more sustainable design and manufacturing.

The manifesto added: In government in Wales, Labour has transformed the position of recycling, placing them in the top five globally for recycling rates. A UK Labour government will learn from Wales example, and will also back bottle-return schemes.

The party also committed to a Green Industrial Revolution and aims to achieve the substantial majority or our emissions reductions by 2030 in a way that is evidence based.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats have pledged to ban non-recyclable plastics and aim to reduce packaging.

The partys manifesto vows to replace non-recyclable plastics with affordable alternatives. The party added that non-recyclable plastics would be eliminated within three years as a first step towards ending the throwaway society culture and an ambition to end plastic waste exports by 2030.

The party wants to establish a statutory waste recycling target of 70% in England as well as extending food waste collections to at least 90% of homes by 2024. It also wants to strengthen incentives to reduce packaging and reduce waste sent to landfill and incineration.

In addition, the Liberal Democrats claim that it would extend deposit return schemes for all food and drink bottles and containers. It would aim to work with the devolved administrations to ensure consistency across the UK.

The manifesto said: The successful economies of the future will be those which adopt circular economy techniques, cutting resource use, waste and pollution by maximising recovery, reuse, recycling and remanufacturing. This will cut costs for consumers and businesses, protect the environment and create new jobs and enterprises. We will introduce a Zero-Waste and Resource Efficiency Act to ensure that the UK moves towards a circular economy.

Green Party

The eye-catching line in the partys manifesto is the pledge to ban all single-use plastics for use in packaging. It also sims to invest in research and development for plastic alternatives.

The Greens said: We will also extend the successful tax on plastic bags to cover plastic bottles, single-use plastics and microplastics, and extend plastic bottle deposit schemes.

The party has also pledged to develop and implement a reformed waste strategy where manufacturers and retailers are required to pay the full cost of recycling and disposing of the packaging they produce.

It added: A circular economy will underpin this green industrial revolution, designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems. Recycling and repairing will be made easier for all, reducing the need to buy new, expensive products on a regular basis.

Brexit Party

The partys Contract with the British People pledges to recycle our own waste and make it illegal for it to exported across the world to be burnt buried or dumped at sea.

Read more:

General Election 2019 | Where the parties stand - Packaging News

Published by the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), The Food and Drink Industry Report 2020 looked at the growth opportunities and challenges for the sector in the year ahead.

Top of the agenda was the impact of UK exports, including the key markets that food and drink manufacturers should be setting their sights on.

Ireland remained the top market for UK exports, worth 20bn. However, the value fell 1.9% in the first half of 2019 for the first time since the first half of 2015. The FDF attributed this fall to weaker exports of cereals and flours and meat-based products.

Top five export markets

Despite the decline in exports to Ireland, the rest of the UKs top five markets saw growth France up 6.5% to 1.1bn, the US up 11% to 1.1bn, the Netherlands up 6.2% to 851.6m and Germany up 2.5% to 730.4m.

Exports to south-east Asian countries Japan, Taiwan and South Korea saw the largest growth. Exports to the Japanese market, in particular, have grown 85% over the last decade, boosted by spirits (142.7m) and whisky in particular (128m).

Japan and the US were just two of the top five markets that producers should keep an eye on in 2020, as well as India, China and the United Arab Emirates.

Santander UK head of food and drink sector Andrew Williams said: Despite an uncertain UK economic environment and the continual need to invest in technology and innovation, huge opportunities remain to sell more great British food and drink in particular overseas. Its key that we identify how best to harness this growth potential and improve productivity.

Automation

The report also looked at automation in food and drink manufacturing, an area that presented a potential 55.8bn value to the industry through the adoption of known digital technology over the next decade.

Despite the possible financial gain achievable though automation, the FDF found that most businesses struggled to engage with the opportunities available, even with known and well-used technology and engineering innovation. This reticence was linked to a shortage of time, resource and expertise.

On the topic of sustainable packaging, the report recognised the commitment of the FDFs members toward reducing packaging waste and promoting a circular economy. It called on the Government to further engage with manufacturers to push for more sustainability and recognise the specificities of food and drink packaging, including the legal constraints on using recycled content.

Read the rest here:

Export opportunities and challenges highlighted in report - FoodManufacture.co.uk

World OvernightSPI Overnight (Dec)6715.00 14.00 0.21%S&P ASX 2006730.00+ 23.000.34%S&P5003135.96 9.95 0.32%Nasdaq Comp8621.83 34.70 0.40%DJIA27909.60 105.46 0.38%S&P500 VIX15.64+ 2.0214.83%US 10-year yield1.83 0.01 0.71%USD Index97.64 0.06 0.06%FTSE1007233.90 5.76 0.08%DAX3013105.61 60.97 0.46%

By Greg Peel

Settling Down

After a wild week of index-based selling and buying last week on trade news volatility, the local market settled down to a more normal session yesterday with a greater foucus on fundamentals. Volumes were below average, likely as investors prepare for this weeks major events.

Wall Street had posted solid gains on Friday night on a very strong US jobs report and on a trade deal being close. The ASX200 rallied 34 points in the first 15 minutes. But then someone pointed out that while the US labour market might be strong, the Australian labour market is not, and on the trade front, that the villagers are getting pretty tired of having to jump out of bed when the sheep are quite safe.

At midday the index was up 6 points.

But from there the buyers regrouped and led the market to a positive close featuring mixed ups and downs among sectors. Individual stock moves were influential.

The resource sectors were the winners on the day, with energy rising 1.6% on the OPEC production cut and materials putting in a solid 1.2% on a bit of a rise in iron ore and copper and despite a big drop in the gold price.

Funds to buy resources were sourced from taking profits in healthcare (-0.8%).

Utilities (+1.0%) and telcos (+0.5%) made the day otherwise looked defensive but then a -0.5% drop for staples seemed otherwise. Given discretionary also fell (-0.2%) we might say investors are not expecting a particularly happy Christmas.

The fall in staples did nevertheless include a -3.9% drop for a2 Milk ((A2M)) after the CEO of 18 months either jumped or was pushed, however one might interpret it.

Otherwise it was a day for profit warnings.

Salary packager McMillan Shakespeare ((MMS)) kicked off the profit warnings with its trading update, citing challenging conditions. It fell -7.5%. Residential aged care provider Estia Health ((EHE)) pointed to lower occupancy and competition for its earnings downgrade and fell -7.1%. Caltex rival Viva Energy ((VEA)) also blamed competition, and volatile oil prices, for its downgrade, and fell -6.6%.

Moves to the upside were unremarkable. Beach Energy ((BPT)) led out the sector rally with a 5.2% gain.

Wall Street drifted off last night and this morning our futures are down -14. Ahead of the Fed, the UK election and the tariff deadline it could be a quiet few days before something actually happens.

Biding Time

President Trump and the majority House Democrats reached a tentative agreement on the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal (Nafta 2.0) last night.

I knowI didnt realise that one was still ongoing either. Doesnt get much oxygen for obvious reasons.

Otherwise, the euphoria of Fridays jobs-led rally gave way to a bit of a hangover last night on Wall Street as investors there, too, await the weeks developments. All the major indices closed lower, but no one was much concerned.

There were no economic data releases of note last night and all-up is was a nothing-to-see-here session.

More attention was being paid to the Golden Globe nominations, which Netflix completely dominated. And it was not just Netflix. Across television and movies, streaming services shared the spoils, with traditional production houses mostly MIA.

Toto, I dont dont think were in Kansas anymore.

In other news, a Tesla on autopilot managed to crash into two other cars, one of them being a cop.

Dont blame me officer.

Driverless vehicles? Not in my life time. The technology might get there but the insurance implications will keep us behind the wheel for decades to come.

Commodities

Friday nights Chinese copper data were reinforced by Chinas import/export numbers for November released on the weekend. Copper imports have exceeded expectations, suggesting demand for copper in China is greater than anyone believed given a slowdown in the economy.

Copper thus stood out on an otherwise weak day on the LME.

Iron ore was the star of the show yesterday nonetheless. According to CBA economists, the 5.5% jump is attributable to demand optimism after China's leaders vowed to maintain growth and pursue domestic reforms in 2020.

The Aussie is a tad weaker at US$0.6832.

Today

The SPI Overnight closed down -14 points or -0.2%. No one seems that excited about iron ore.

China releases inflation data today while locally the NAB business confidence survey is due.

Philip Lowe will deliver a speech today.

Bank of Queensland ((BOQ)) holds its AGM and IOOF ((IFL)) hosts an investor day.

The Australian share market over the past thirty days

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