Aurelia Butler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. jury on Thursday convicted U.S. Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican from Nebraska, of lying to FBI investigators about illegal contributions to his 2016 re-election campaign.Following a trial in Los Angeles federal court, the jury found Fortenberry guilty of scheming to falsify and conceal material facts, along with two counts of making false statements to federal investigators.Prosecutors accused Fortenberry of lying to investigators during two interviews in 2019 about $30,000 in campaign contributions he received in 2016 from Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury.Federal law prohibits foreign nationals from donating to federal election campaigns.Fortenberry’s lawyers said he did not mean to mislead FBI agents but was caught off-guard by their interview request and suffered from a faulty memory.Prosecutors alleged that an associate who hosted a 2016 fundraiser for Fortenberry told him in a 2018 telephone call that the donations in question “probably did come from Gilbert Chagoury” but were routed through intermediaries to avoid individual donor limits.According to the U.S. Justice Department, when FBI agents quizzed Fortenberry about the campaign contributions he denied being aware of any illegal donations.”If we want to expect anyone to follow the law, ultimately it starts with the law-makers,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mack Jenkins told media outside the courthouse after the verdict was announced. “I think that’s even more paramount when the investigation itself goes to election integrity.”Fortenberry, 61, has served in Congress since 2005.The three felony charges each carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 28 before U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld in Los Angeles. More

Do you remember the Plan for Growth? Probably not. Does Rishi Sunak? Unclear.This was supposed to be the government’s long-term blueprint for the UK economy after it scrapped the 2017 industrial strategy. Strategic economic thinking shifted from the business department to the Treasury and was watered down in the process. Faced with an outcry, the chancellor and the business secretary wrote a joint letter arguing that the Plan went further than ever on “critical policies and guides the government’s longer-term growth strategy as we build back better”.It has barely been heard of since — despite the fact that the building back doesn’t seem to be going so well. The Plan didn’t get a mention in this week’s disastrous Spring Statement, an effort rightly panned for its failure to address near-term challenges of surging energy prices, a cost-of-living crisis and protecting vulnerable households. The longer-term ambition to boost business investment may not fare much better. And the Plan for Growth is part of the issue.The chancellor on Wednesday promised more tax breaks against business investment, after his two-year super-deduction ends next April. Weak UK capital investment underpins half the productivity gap to Germany and France; a higher corporate tax rate with more generous incentives is a new approach to stimulating investment after years of cutting business tax rates failed. The Office for Budget Responsibility, however, on Wednesday halved its peak estimate of the investment brought forward by the super-deduction. Amid waning confidence, investment intentions have fallen, it noted. A Deloitte survey last December found only a quarter of CFOs expected the policy to have a positive effect on their spending.In fairness, there were always limits to a shortlived tax break: the average investment cycle in manufacturing, say, is seven years. Sunak’s people-capital-ideas of the Spring Statement also echoed the thinking from his Mais lecture last month, and the skills-infrastructure-innovation framework of the Plan for Growth. The apparent approach is to pull a fiscal lever or two and hope the result happens to fit with the priorities of the government or the needs of the country. That is unlikely to be sufficient. “Companies invest because they see opportunities for growth and profit down the line, not because you shift their marginal tax rate,” says George Dibb, at the IPPR. “You need both co-ordination of the economy and the government to give very clear signals as to its direction of travel.” What’s odd is that other parts of the government are still talking in far more strategic language. The levelling-up white paper, co-authored by former chair of the Industrial Strategy Council Andy Haldane, had 12 “missions” to define what is required in a cross-government effort on a seemingly intractable problem. The various strategies launched across government in recent months — from innovation to net-zero — sometimes struck a more activist tone. There are several problems here. First, it is hard for businesses to keep up with this fragmentation in strategic thinking. Second, these aspirations will struggle without cross-department co-ordination and political oomph of the sort unlikely to be provided by Treasury (which is just worried it will be asked for cash, which by the way it will be).Third, that lack of harmonisation and backing results in slow and ineffectual “market making”, to borrow a phrase from that noted standard-bearer for big government and interventionism, the CBI. This isn’t just about public money (though some helps). The market, say, is still waiting for a policy framework to underpin investment in hydrogen, something that has clearly held back spending and is absent despite the likelihood that it will ape the success of contracts for difference in offshore wind. The energy transition has taken on greater urgency, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a new energy strategy, expected next week, could unlock huge investment but requires a vast push across policy, regulation, planning and more.One option, beyond a reverse ferret on the idea of a proper industrial strategy with associated institutions, would be an emergency council of the type put in place after the financial crisis, the National Economic Committee. The Treasury’s ambitions to boost UK business investment may fall short without a more explicit plan and more muscular implementation than what’s currently on [email protected]@helentbiz More

TOKYO (Reuters) -Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Friday reiterated his view a weak yen benefits the economy as a whole, brushing aside concern the currency’s slide to multi-year lows could do more harm than good to the resource-poor, import-reliant country.Due to structural changes in Japan’s economy, the benefit from a weak yen comes more through an increase in the value of profits companies earn overseas, rather than a rise in export volume, Kuroda said.”There’s no change now to my view a weak yen is generally positive for Japan’s economy,” he told parliament.The yen was headed for its worst week in two years, pummelled by Japan’s rising import costs and ultra-low low interest rates. It fell to a fresh multi-year low of 121.84 to the dollar on Friday.Kuroda said the recent rise in import prices was driven mostly by global commodity inflation, rather than the weak yen.While consumer prices may accelerate to around the BOJ’s 2% target from April, the central bank is in no rush to withdraw stimulus as any increase in inflation must be accompanied by steady rises in wages, jobs and corporate profits, Kuroda said.”Cost-push inflation that is not accompanied by wage hikes will hurt Japan’s economy,” by weighing on households’ real income and profits of import-reliant firms, he said.”As such, it won’t lead to sustained achievement of our price target. That’s why the BOJ will continue to maintain powerful monetary easing,” Kuroda said.Speaking at the same parliament session, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said the government will continue to keep a close eye on currency moves, including recent yen declines, and their impact on the economy.”Exchange-rate stability is important, and sharp volatility is undesirable,” Suzuki said, repeating his verbal warning against excessive yen declines.Kuroda also said it was desirable for currency rates to move stably reflecting economic fundamentals.Such warnings, however, will likely have little effect in reversing a weak-yen trend driven by a hawish Fed, analysts say.”The more you do it, the less impact it tends to have,” Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst of Asia Pacific at OANDA, said of the policymakers’ jawboning.Some market players see the yen’s decline as a sign of the erosion of the currency’s status as a safe-haven.Recent data showed Japan recorded its second largest current account deficit on record in January as a jump in oil import costs offset gains in investment income, highlighting the economy’s vulnerability to commodity swings.”Up till now, Japan was able to stably issue huge amount of government bonds at low interest rates due to households’ massive financial savings and the country’s current account surplus,” finance minister Suzuki said.”There’s no guarantee such market conditions will continue when we look at how energy price moves led to Japan running a current account deficit.” More

The 2022 list of industries that are either restricted or prohibited has been cut to 117, according to a document released by the National Development and Reform Commission, from 123 on the 2020 list. Industries not on the list are open for investment to all and require no approval. More