Straight...

Yemen's warring parties met Sunday for the fourth day of U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Sweden to try to hammer out details of a prisoner exchange.

Speaking later at the venue, a castle north of Stockholm, the head of the Houthi delegation said a committee was discussing the swap and that the rebels were ready for the exchange.

The war has killed tens of thousands and made Yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 22 of its 29 million people in need of aid, according to the U.N. The airport in rebel-held capital, Sanaa, has been closed since August 2016 by order of the Saudi-led coalition, leaving the rebel-held north of Yemen heavily relying on the Red Sea port of Hodeida, which is controlled by the Houthis, for delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid and fuel supplies.

Yemen's conflict pits the Iran-backed Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, against the internationally recognized government supported by a U.S.-sponsored Saudi-led coalition.

Apparently, the support for the Yemeni-Gov. and the Saudi coalition over four years has taken the country no where but straight to misery.

Trust...

Leaders who’ve gotten carried away with their power drive often sound narcissistic when they speak. Specifically, they use the words “I,” “me” and “my” a lot. They might say things like: “I believe in this strategy.”  “This is my team.”

Power-hungry leaders believe that Bad news will damage their reputation; so it gets suppressed or denied. And their employees, having received this message loud-and-clear, stop bringing bad news to the power-hungry boss.

We’ve all had moments of irritation watching a colleague mangle a presentation. Or mismanage a meeting. We’ve all thought to ourselves ‘I would have done this so much better.’ As long as we’re capable of keeping those thoughts private, and we’re able to silently endure the meeting, we’re okay. It’s when we can’t control our emotions, when irritation turns to Anger, that we’ve got a problem.

A clear sign that you’ve gotten too power-hungry is when you Distrust your employees to complete their work properly, or you’re wary of how they’ll represent you in a meeting. This paranoia comes from focusing so intensely on gaining your own power that you see the world as zero-sum and become suspicious of those around you.

Power is not inherently bad and wanting power does not make you evil. It’s only when we get carried away.  [Mark Murphy is a NY Times bestselling author.]

Point...

Ramsey...

A former Miss Kentucky who is a teacher in West Virginia has been charged with sending nude pictures to a 15-year-old former student.  Ramsey Bearse was arrested and charged with four felony counts of distributing or displaying obscene matter to a minor.

A criminal complaint says the student's parent informed authorities of lewd pictures sent by Bearse that were found on the teenager's phone.  

I wonder if these nude pictures were available on the internet already. 

Down ...

Economists, historians and your stock broker will all tell you that China's stock market should not have a profound impact on your stocks. The key word here is "should," and this advice may no longer be true.

On Jan. 4, the Shanghai Composite index dropped 7%, forcing Chinese authorities to halt trading in stocks. The selloff sparked selling in markets around the globe, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank as much as 450 points that day. 

The prospect of a significant slowdown in China has serious repercussions for other emerging-market nations.

Obviously, Beijing is aware that it faces some big economic and financial challenges. China's leaders are under pressure to keep their economy going, and the obvious motivation for devaluation is to make exports cheaper. But a weaker yuan could lead to a flow of capital out of China, which would causes the value of the yuan to fall further. 

Would the china market take the world economy all together down? May be 2019 is the year for it.

Mouthpiece...

Showman and ambitious Machiavellian porn lawyer Michael Avenatti has just learned an important lesson. It is easy to sue anyone, even the president of the United States. It is harder to prevail and even harder when, after you lose, the court orders you to pay the fees of opposing attorneys.

Avenatti or his client – adult film star – may have to pay an undetermined amount of money to reimburse President Trump for what it cost the president to defend against their spurious lawsuit.

U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero reasoned that the president has the same First Amendment right to freedom of speech as his critics. And the judge found that the exercise of that freedom includes the use of “rhetorical hyperbole,” like when the president called Daniels’ allegations a “con job.”

Avenatti is a charismatic critic of the president, more charming than Sen. Elizabeth. Avenatti has been rewarded for his activism with more cable news airtime than North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and leaders of many other nations.

Trend...

Everybody has answers to the stock market’s collapse,  800-point loss on the Dow, one of the worst on record.  Apparently that was seemingly obvious – interest rates! trade wars! George Soros!

But if these were so obvious, then why did nobody see the collapse coming? The truth is, “the random walk thesis of how markets move is the best explanation we have.”  Many points out certain forces pushing markets around in fairly obvious ways. 

The world has transitioned from one in which markets are fueled with an IV drip of liquidity from the Federal Reserve and other central banks to one in which fundamentals matter more.  This require withdrawal of all these liquidity, close to 6 trillion Dollars out of the market. This comes from somewhere.

New Labor Department data shows that workers' wages in the U.S. continue to rise. This was followed up by a sell-off of government bonds and has refocused the markets attention towards the near-inevitable 25 basis point hike from the Fed late this month. The consumer-price index release from earlier today indicates that a rate hike it still likely.

When the U.S. dollar is strong compared to many other currencies, imports are less expensive. This is because every American dollar you have will buy more corresponding foreign currency.  However International companies find it problematic as they transfer the money back to the strong US dollars. The revenue becomes less.

The stock market has a big impact on the economy. When the stock market goes down 20% or more, the individuals, companies will feel less valuable and try to control their expansion, activities, and or worse. It is the cycle as investors start fleeing the market. This will end up into recession.

Off...

Mess...

With the stock market that high, unemployment that low 3.7 percent, you can do so much.

Arrogance...

Arrogant people think their time is more important than anybody else’s. Being late means nothing to them. 

Some well-known business leaders have been known to put down others.

 Arrogant people are only concerned about themselves, they’re not really listening to you. Not only are they always on the lookout for someone else to talk to, they interrupt the conversation frequently.

Psychologists say that arrogance is a compensation for insecurities and weaknesses. An arrogant person will rarely say, “I don’t know the answer.

They always tried to one-up everything you say. Arrogant people is so common that the famous Dilbert cartoon strip has a recurring character named “Topper.” 

They seek to minimize those competitors by bad-mouthing them. This simply makes the arrogant person look even smaller.