Kids learning the truth about Santa – News and views for Saturday 21 December

News and views noted along the way.
2013-12-21_santa
  • Surprising Academic Data on What Happens When Kids Learn the Truth About Santa
  • The Old King is Dead. Long Live the King! – “It’s time to realize that focusing on the horse race aspect of American presidential politics is precluding actual governance.”
  • Hockey’s massively dishonest budget fiddle – “It’s only in the full light of day, having had the opportunity to consider the full scale of Treasurer Joe Hockey’s, budget dishonesty that its gravity can be understood. Out of his $68 billion in additional accumulated deficits over the next four years, $54 billion comes from his forecasting fiddle and the rest is spending decisions he’s taken since being elected just over three months ago.”
  • Expected to be China’s biggest, Guangdong carbon mkt begins briskly
  • Chinese local government debt hits new high – “Local governments in China have taken on more new debt in 2013 than ever before as they use shadowy bonds to splurge on infrastructure projects, stoking concerns over potential risks to the nation’s financial stability.”
  • Government sees Pacific trade pact talks taking time – “Negotiations on a trade pact between a dozen countries around the Pacific Rim will take whatever time they need as the deal has to be both ambitious and comprehensive, U.S. trade representative Michael Froman said on Saturday.The U.S.-backed deal, which Washington had wanted to conclude this year, aims to establish a free-trade bloc stretching from Vietnam to Chile and Japan, encompassing about 800 million people and almost 40 percent of the global economy. But differences over farm tariffs between the United States and Japan have proved to be one of the major roadblocks and it will now not be finalized this year.”
  • The Terrible Twos Are Actually the Worst - “The rate of violence peaks at 24 months, declines steadily through adolescence and plunges in early adulthood.”

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