Comment by Riaz Haq on February 6, 2017 at 5:28pm

#Princeton, #Harvard, 45 top #American colleges delivered a searing letter to #Trump. #MuslimBan http://read.bi/2k9WyEt via @bi_strategy

On Thursday, the presidents of 48 American colleges and universities delivered a searing letter to President Donald Trump taking aim at his executive order on immigration.

The letter, drafted by Princeton's president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, and the University of Pennsylvania's president, Amy Gutmann, and signed by 40 other college presidents said:

"This action unfairly targets seven predominantly Muslim countries in a manner inconsistent with America's best principles and greatest traditions. We welcome outstanding Muslim students and scholars from the United States and abroad, including the many who come from the seven affected countries ... This executive order is dimming the lamp of liberty and staining the country's reputation. We respectfully urge you to rectify the damage done by this order."

Their words come amid backlash over an executive order signed by Trump, who cited security concerns, that bars citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days and bars all refugee immigration to the US for 120 days.

"It really is a statement that felt very personal for me and also a statement about values that I think are defining for Princeton and other universities," Eisgruber told Business Insider.

Eisgruber noted that the order directly affected more than 50 students and faculty members at Princeton. Some of those people are overseas and having difficulty returning to the US, he said, with the rest residing in the US and worried they will be unable to travel internationally to visit family.

Eisgruber, the son of immigrant parents, also spoke about how his family history made the issue personal to him.

"My mother's family fled first from Germany and then from France — they were Jewish and they fled when the Nazis came to power — and they made it to this country in May of 1940," he said. "If we had a refugee ban in place in May of 1940 and my mother and her family had been turned away, they almost certainly would have been murdered."

His father, too, came to the US as an immigrant, as an exchange student from Germany in 1950.

"When I look at these families that are being affected by this order I see my parents and I see the dreams and aspirations that they had the threats that they faced," he said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 7, 2017 at 8:35am

#Investment Guru Warns: “ #Trump is high volatility, and investors generally abhor volatility and shun uncertainty”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/business/dealbook/sorkin-seth-kl...

He is the most successful and influential investor you have probably never heard of. His writings are so coveted and followed by Wall Street that a used copy of a book he wrote several decades ago about investing starts at $795 on Amazon, and a new copy sells for as much as $3,500.

Perhaps that’s why a private letter he wrote to his investors a little over two weeks ago about investing during the age of President Trump — and offering his thoughts on the current state of the hedge fund industry — has quietly become the most sought-after reading material on Wall Street.

He is Seth A. Klarman, the 59-year-old value investor who runs Baupost Group, which manages some $30 billion.

While Mr. Klarman has long kept a low public profile, he is considered a giant within investment circles. He is often compared to Warren Buffett, and The Economist magazine once described him as “The Oracle of Boston,” where Baupost is based. For good measure, he is one of the very few hedge managers Mr. Buffett has publicly praised.

In his letter, Mr. Klarman sets forth a countervailing view to the euphoria that has buoyed the stock market since Mr. Trump took office, describing “perilously high valuations.”

“Exuberant investors have focused on the potential benefits of stimulative tax cuts, while mostly ignoring the risks from America-first protectionism and the erection of new trade barriers,” he wrote.

“President Trump may be able to temporarily hold off the sweep of automation and globalization by cajoling companies to keep jobs at home, but bolstering inefficient and uncompetitive enterprises is likely to only temporarily stave off market forces,” he continued. “While they might be popular, the reason the U.S. long ago abandoned protectionist trade policies is because they not only don’t work, they actually leave society worse off.”

In particular, Mr. Klarman appears to believe that investors have become hypnotized by all the talk of pro-growth policies, without considering the full ramifications. He worries, for example, that Mr. Trump’s stimulus efforts “could prove quite inflationary, which would likely shock investors.”

And he appears deeply concerned about a swelling national debt that he suggests could undermine the economy’s growth over the long term.

“The Trump tax cuts could drive government deficits considerably higher,” Mr. Klarman wrote. “The large 2001 Bush tax cuts, for example, fueled income inequality while triggering huge federal budget deficits. Rising interest rates alone would balloon the federal deficit, because interest payments on the massive outstanding government debt would skyrocket from today’s artificially low levels.”

Much of Mr. Klarman’s anxiety seems to emanate from Mr. Trump’s leadership style. He described it this way: “The erratic tendencies and overconfidence in his own wisdom and judgment that Donald Trump has demonstrated to date are inconsistent with strong leadership and sound decision-making.”

He also linked this point — which is a fair one — to what “Trump style” means for Mr. Klarman’s constituency and others.

“The big picture for investors is this: Trump is high volatility, and investors generally abhor volatility and shun uncertainty,” he wrote. “Not only is Trump shockingly unpredictable, he’s apparently deliberately so; he says it’s part of his plan.”

While Mr. Klarman clearly is hoping for the best, he warned, “If things go wrong, we could find ourselves at the beginning of a lengthy decline in dollar hegemony, a rapid rise in interest rates and inflation, and global angst.”

Mr. Klarman is a registered independent and has given money to politicians from both parties. He has donated to Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, John McCain and Rudolph W. Giuliani as well as Hillary Clinton, Cory Booker and Mark Warner.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 16, 2017 at 8:40pm

#American #Stocks Could Continue Climbing with #Trump's Big Corp Tax Cut http://seekingalpha.com/article/4046580-5-stocks-still-jump-25-perc... … $DGX $LUV $NSC $ORLY $RSG $SCHW $TSCO $VVC

Summary

A “phenomenal” tax plan is expected to be released in the coming days.

Many high tax paying stocks have seen their share prices reach new highs.

5 companies could still see their shares jump on positive news.

Trump Tax Reform

Stocks are at all time highs three months following President Trump's November victory as the nation's 45th President continues to peddle tax reform and infrastructure spending. A "phenomenal" tax plan is expected to be released in the coming days while many analysts continue to believe it will include a proposal to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15%.

As soon as Trump took office, Wall Street strategists started recommending various stocks with high effective tax rates seeing that they would benefit most from a tax cut. Not surprisingly, many companies have seen their share prices reach new highs including Goldman Sachs' recommendations: Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW), Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX) and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV).

But are there any stocks that still appear fundamentally undervalued if President Trump does indeed follow through on his "phenomenal" tax reform?

5 Stocks That Could Still Jump 25% on a Trump Tax Cut

In order to find stocks that would benefit most from a US corporate tax rate cut, we searched for companies that:

1) Have historically paid an effective tax rate of over 30%, and 
2) Generate more than 75% of total revenues domestically.

Then using finbox.io's google speadsheet add-on (will be released in the next few weeks to all members), we filtered through our discounted cash flow (DCF) analyses to find stocks that are still trading below their intrinsic value when the tax rate assumption driving the model is reduced to 15%.

Five stocks immediately jumped out: O'Reilly Automotive (NASDAQ:ORLY), Republic Services (NYSE:RSG), Tractor Supply Company (NASDAQ:TSCO), Norfolk Southern (NYSE:NSC) and Vectren Corporation (NYSE:VVC).

Below is a side-by-side comparison of each company's projected free cash flows when adjusting the tax rate assumption. The left column calculates free cash flows and the resulting fair value when using the company's historical effective tax. The right column does the same but applies a 15% rate. Every other assumption driving the models is held constant.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 26, 2017 at 7:13pm

‘Everyone’s nervous’: Some students in #India rethink U.S. study plans after #kansaskilling. #xenophobia #Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/everyones-nervous-some-student...

Anupam Singh, a master’s student, once dreamed of coming to the United States for his PhD studies. But Wednesday’s seemingly racially charged shooting of two Indian men in Kansas reaffirmed his growing belief that the United States isn’t a hospitable place for foreign students.

“I would be scared to study in the U.S.,” he said Saturday outside a tea stall on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. “Did you read the newspapers yesterday? Two Indians were shot.”

A Navy veteran who had allegedly been intoxicated was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of two Indian software engineers in a crowded bar in Olathe, Kan., Wednesday evening. The assailant reportedly shouted, “Get out of my country!” One man died, and the second was injured. A patron who intervened was also hurt.

The possible hate crime has prompted anger in India and concern that the Trump-era United States is no longer a safe place for its thriving community of visiting Indian students, scholars and tech workers. The father of Alok Madasani, the Indian injured in the attack, appealed Friday from the Indian city of Hyderabad to “all the parents in India” not to send their children to the United States under “present circumstances.”

On a sunny day at one of India’s most prestigious science and technology campuses, the effects of Wednesday’s violence were keenly felt.

Graduate students said they were changing their postgraduate plans from the United States to universities in Canada or Australia. Others were fielding telephone calls from anxious parents.

And parents who brought younger students to a Rubik’s Cube competition said they hoped the situation was temporary, because studying abroad in the United States remains the goal for many of the country’s brightest students.

The number of international students at U.S. universities topped 1 million last year, according to government data, with the number of Indians up 14 percent, to 206,584.

“I used to think of America as a place where there is greater racial equality than exists in India,” said Dhriti Ahluwalia, 26, a master’s student who wants to attend a public policy program in the United States. “Now people are afraid. There is inequality. There is racism.”

Concern over the troubled U.S. political climate, beginning with its rhetoric-charged presidential campaign, has reverberated through India’s thriving industry for test preparation and admissions coaching, which prepares students for study abroad.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 26, 2017 at 7:13pm

#India's tech graduates fear #America may shut them out. #Trump http://cnnmon.ie/2lnKkq1 via @CNNMoney

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/26/technology/india-engineers-immigrat...

Ayush Suvalka has a lot going for him. He's about to graduate from one of the best engineering colleges in India and has already secured a job with the Bangalore branch of JPMorgan (JPM).
The 21-year-old computer science student isn't planning to spend his career in India's version of Silicon Valley. He hopes the big American investment bank will move him to its U.S. headquarters after a few years.
"It's always been America because the companies, all the big companies, are there," Suvalka said. "The life there is... really amazing."
President Trump and his desire to put "America First" could throw a wrench in those plans.
Related: Tech industry braces for Trump's visa reform
The Trump administration is looking to make changes to a host of visa programs, including restricting the H-1B visa that allows thousands of Indian techies to work in the U.S.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said last month that this may be done "through executive order and through working with Congress."

That could spell the end of the American Dream for Suvalka and many of his peers.
"Probably America is now out of the picture," he said.
Efforts to restrict foreign workers through legislation are already in progress -- multiple bills seeking curbs on the H-1B program have been introduced by Republican and Democrat lawmakers this year.
Dr. Savita Rani, head of career counseling at the Ramaiah Institute of Technology where Suvalka studies, says jobs at outsourcing companies are in high demand because of the potential to move to the U.S.
But the possibility of America's doors slamming shut is already sowing confusion among students.
"They were shattered and they did not know what to do," Rani said. "At this juncture, America has got a cold and India is sneezing."

-----------

In Bangalore, meanwhile, Suvalka is already sketching out a Plan B.
"I'm thinking of Canada or New Zealand," he said, mentioning two countries whose immigration websites saw a huge surge in traffic as Trump closed in on his election win last November.
"Canada is a bit cheaper than America and it has amazing job opportunities," the young engineer added. "You can get a visa easily." 

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 13, 2017 at 8:38pm

Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslims-and-islam-k...


Pew Survey of Muslims

Our 2017 survey of U.S. Muslims finds that Muslims in the United States perceive a lot of discrimination against their religious group. Moreover, a solid majority of U.S. Muslims are leery of President Donald Trump and think their fellow Americans do not see Islam as part of mainstream U.S. society. At the same time, however, Muslim Americans overwhelmingly say they are proud to be Americans, believe that hard work generally brings success in this country and are satisfied with the way things are going in their own lives.


U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society, but Continue to Believe in the American Dream
Findings from Pew Research Center’s 2017 survey of U.S. Muslims

http://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/findings-from-pew-research-cente...

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 14, 2017 at 10:33pm

Under #Trump, non-immigrant #US visas for #Muslim nations fall 44% overall. Down 26% from #Pakistan to 4,200 a month
http://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/trump-travel-ban-muslim-v...

The monthly average of such visas issued to the six countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — has fallen 44 percent this year when compared with the monthly average in fiscal year 2016, according to State Department data.

Some South Asian countries also have seen declines. Pakistan, for instance, received 26 percent fewer non-immigrant visas in 2017 compared with its monthly average in fiscal year 2016.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 8, 2019 at 10:23pm

Eugenics, Anti-Immigration Laws Of The Past Still Resonate Today, Journalist Says

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721371176/eugenics-anti-immigration-...

Nearly 100 years ago, Congress passed a restrictive law that cut the overall number of immigrants coming to the United States and put severe limits on those who were let in.

Journalist Daniel Okrent says that the eugenics movement — a junk science that stemmed from the belief that certain races and ethnicities were morally and genetically superior to others — informed the Immigration Act of 1924, which restricted entrance to the U.S.

"Eugenics was used as a primary weapon in the effort to keep Southern and Eastern Europeans out of the country," Okrent says. "[The eugenics movement] made it a palatable act, because it was based on science or presumed science."

Okrent notes the 1924 law drastically cut the number of Jews, Italians, Greeks and Eastern Europeans that could enter the country. Even during World War II, when hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and dying, access remained limited. The limits remained in place until 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act ended immigration restrictions based on nationality, ethnicity and race.

Okrent sees echos of the 1924 act in President Trump's hard-line stance regarding immigration: "The [current] rhetoric of criminality, the attribution of criminality — not to individual criminals but to hundreds of thousands of people of various nationalities — that's very similar to the notion of moral deficiency that was hurled by the eugenicists at the Southern and Eastern Europeans of the 1910s and '20s."


On what immigration was like at the turn of the 20th century, before the Immigration Act of 1924

Ellis Island opens in 1892 and within a few years it becomes one of the busiest port spots anywhere in the U.S. Ellis Island was a teeming hive of activity as hundreds of thousands — in some years more than a million — immigrants came pouring through. [It] was a very, very busy place and a very alienating place for a lot of people, because of the examination that people had to go through, particularly for tuberculosis, trachoma and other diseases. But once through the line, and then onto the ferry boat that took people to Manhattan, it was really a wonderful place to have been.

On the Immigration Act of 1924, and the quotas set up to restrict immigration

First, there is an overall quota. At various times it was 300,000 people, then it got chopped down to ... 162,000 people. ... The second part is where did these people come from? And it was decided that, well, let's continue to reflect the population of America as it has become, so we will decide where people can come from based on how many people of their same nationality were already here. ...

If 10 percent of the current American population came from country A, then 10 percent of that year's immigrants could come from country A. Except — and this is probably the most malign and dishonest thing that came out of this entire movement — they didn't do this on the basis of the 1920 census, which had been conducted just four years before, or the 1910, or even the 1900. But those numbers were based on the population in 1890, before the large immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe had begun. So to any question about whether there was any racist or anti-Semitic or anti-Italian intent, this established there clearly was. ...

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 25, 2020 at 9:36am

#Somalia has a huge global diaspora of over 2 million, over 10% of Somalia's population, many of them in #America & #Europe. Some of them are well-educated and highly skilled. #US #Muslim Congresswoman @IlhanMN is probably the most prominent among them. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/01/5-facts-about-the-...

Here are five facts about the increasingly global Somali diaspora:

1Number of Somali migrants living abroadBetween 1990 and 2015, the total number of people born in Somalia but living outside the country more than doubled, from about 850,000 to 2 million. The share of Somali migrants abroad grew 136% between 1990 and 2015, according to United Nations estimates. At the same time, the population of Somalia itself has grown less quickly at 71%, increasing from 6.3 million in 1990 to 10.8 million in 2015. (The global Somali diaspora includes all migrants, both refugees and other migrants.)

2The number of Somali refugees displaced by ongoing conflict continues to rise. In 1990, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees estimated that about 470,000 of the total Somali global diaspora (about 55%) was living in a temporary refugee situation. By 2014, that number had grown to 1.1 million – still about 55% of all Somalis living outside of Somalia. Even though refugee camps are meant to be temporary, some Somali refugees have lived in camps located in neighboring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia for decades.

3Somalia’s global diasporaAlmost two-thirds of the global Somali diaspora live in neighboring countries. At nearly half a million, Kenya hosts the largest number of Somali migrants (both refugees and nonrefugees) of any other country, according to UN estimates. Not far behind is Ethiopia with 440,000 Somali migrants. Combining Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen (across the Gulf of Aden), nearly two-thirds of the world’s Somali migrants lived in neighboring countries in 2015. At the same time, Somalis have become increasingly dispersed across the world. In 1990, an estimated 90% of Somali migrants lived in the four nations near Somalia, a share that dropped to 64% by 2015.

4An estimated 280,000 Somali immigrants live in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, largely due to a steady flow of asylum seekers. The EU, Norway and Switzerland are home to 14% of the world’s Somali migrant population. Since 2008, these countries have received nearly 140,000 asylum applications from Somalis, according to the EU’s statistical agency Eurostat. The annual flow of Somali asylum seekers has held relatively steady since this benchmark year, but their destination countries within Europe have changed. In 2015, Germany and Sweden received about half of these Somali asylum seekers. In earlier years, the Netherlands and Italy were more common destinations for Somali asylum seekers.

5The U.S. Somali immigrant community continues to grow. Estimates from the United Nations indicate that the total number living in the U.S. was around 2,500 in 1990, but had grown to between 140,000 and 150,000 by 2015. In all, the U.S. is home to about 7% of the world’s Somali migrant population. Between fiscal years 2001 and 2015, the U.S. admitted more than 90,000 refugees from Somalia, according to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. This refugee flow continues today, with nearly 9,000 refugees from Somalia entering the U.S. in fiscal 2015. The U.S. also approved 1,645 green cards in 2014 for Somalis sponsored by U.S. citizen immediate family members, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 25, 2020 at 9:40am

50 different interventions. 2300 smart lockdowns covering 47mn people based on data driven evidence. A fall in positivity from over 22% to below 10%, & excluding Sindh, near 5% for the country.

@MBilalLakhani

talk with SAPM Zafar Mirza on controlling C19

https://youtu.be/CEafplkFuUc

https://twitter.com/javedhassan/status/1287063746976849920?s=20

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