It is inconceivable to imagine Africa without its elephants. Yet as poaching reaches critical levels, we are heading ever-closer to that grim reality. We take an in-depth look at why the demand for ivory skyrocketed, how the illegal wildlife trade is a threat to global security and what is being done to save Africa’s elephants from extinction.

Claims of resigned Ukraine’s Economic Development Minister Aivaras Abromavicius about corruption in the government could indicate failure of introduced reforms, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde said.

“His [Abromavicius’s] recently announced resignation is of concern,” Lagarde stated. “If the allegations that he makes in his resignation are correct, then it is obviously an indication that the anti-corruption measures that were committed to by the government are not yet working.”

Abromavicius announced his plans to resign because he was unable to work effectively. In his resignation letter, the minister named corruption and political pressure as reasons for the decision.

Lagarde noted that Abromavicius conducted “good and solid reforms” in Ukraine, and paid tribute to his effort.

“We have known all along that in relation to corruption, a lot of work needs to be done,” she added.

In March 2015, the IMF approved a four-year $17.5-billion assistance package to Ukraine to help the recovery of its ailing economy. To receive the financial aid, Kiev has committed to complex reforms, including enhanced anti-corruption policies.

Thomas PIketty writes:  It will be important for European leaders—the French and Germans in particular—to acknowledge their errors. We can debate endlessly all sorts of reforms, both small and large, that ought to be carried out in various eurozone countries: changed opening hours for shops, more effective labor markets, different standards for retirement, and so on. Some of these are useful, others less so. Whatever the case, however, the failures to make such reforms are not enough to explain the sudden plunge in GDP in the eurozone from 2011 to 2013, even as the US economy was in recovery. There can be no question now that the recovery in Europe was throttled by the attempt to cut deficits too quickly between 2011 and 2013—and particularly by tax hikes that were far too sharp in France. Such application of tight budgetary rules ensured that the eurozone’s GDP still, in 2015, hasn’t recovered to its 2007 levels.  A New Deal for Europe

Mark Adomanis writes:  You know that Russia is in real trouble when liberal economic policies start getting batted around. This is particularly true of “privatization,” a typically boring and technical term studiously avoided during periods of stability and then suddenly thrust back into the public consciousness during periods of crisis.

In 2009, the last time that oil prices tanked and the government’s coffers became a bit sparse, the Kremlin talked openly about privatizing a number of state-owned companies. Impressive sounding plans were released, and officials mouthed the pieties about “attracting investment” and “improving efficiency.” Nothing came of this campaign (oil prices rebounded quickly enough that the pressure on the state’s finances quickly abated and the state’s economic role actually grew), but it established a precedent that is being repeated.

As the economy experiences a nasty recession and pressure on the government’s budget mounts, the Kremlin is once again mulling the initiation of a large-scale program of privatization.

Both in 2009 and in 2016, the official justification for privatization is familiar: privatization will both raise money to plug holes in the budget and, perhaps even more importantly, will make the economy as a whole more competitive. It’s no secret that government-owned companies almost always lack the incentives needed for long-term profitability.

Compared with private sector peers, state-owned firms tend to have some combination of bloated payrolls, unrelated assets (think golf courses), or suspiciously large capital expenditures.

Gazprom’s capex as a percentage of sales was somewhere between three and four times the level of comparable publicly-traded companies. It’s easy to imagine that more profit-oriented managers would do a better job.

If the government’s main goal is to increase the economy’s efficiency, privatization is an excellent tactic. But, rare indeed is the instance in which a government single-mindedly pursues greater efficiency.

According to the Kremlin’s public statements, privatization is going to achieve the following goals simultaneously: 1) increase the economy’s competitiveness, 2) raise funds to plug the hole in the budget, 3) maintain state control of “strategically important companies,” 4) avoid a “fire sale” in which the government “gives away” valuable assets, 5) limit the involvement of state banks and 6) attract foreign investors.

It is simply impossible to design a privatization scheme that achieves all of these goals simultaneously.

Alternately, the government could drastically limit the involvement of state banks. This would likely improve the quality of management but would significantly depress valuations.

Unless the government significantly changes its stated goals, foreign investors will remain uninterested.

The Russian government needs to decide what it values most highly. Does it want to involve foreigners or keep everything registered in Russia? A properly-structured program of privatization would marginally boost the country’s growth rate and bring in fresh management, but would require such economic de-regulation that, by all accounts, the Kremlin deems unacceptable.

I would expect a reprisal of 2009’s performance — self-satisfied talk of privatization with very little action. The real question is whether oil prices will rebound like they did last time.

A draft deal to reform Britain’s relationship with the European Union has fiercely divided the Square Mile, prompting cheers from big business groups and drawing sharp criticisms from sceptical economists and industry leaders.

European Council President Donald Tusk tabled a tentative agreement yesterday for a “new settlement” for the UK in the EU, and in a letter to the leaders of all 28 EU member states, Tusk said his proposals go “really far in addressing all the concerns raised” by Prime Minister David Cameron.

But Tusk added: “This has been a difficult process and there are still challenging negotiations ahead. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”

The circulation of the draft kicks off another two weeks of high-stakes negotiations ahead of a meeting of EU leaders later this month. Cameron has said that he wants to secure a final deal at the meeting, paving the way to hold an in/out vote as soon as June.

TheCityUK and Confederation of British Industry (CBI) welcomed yesterday’s draft, calling it a “milestone” in the reform process, while the Institute of Directors said the proposals were “better than expected”.

Economists and industry leaders, however, slammed the deal, saying it fell short of earlier promises made by the Prime Minister and chancellor George Osborne.

“Britain’s business leaders and finance professionals will remain to be convinced that today’s draft deal is the right formula for a better future in Europe,” said ICAS chief executive Anton Colella.

Quidnet Capital Partners chief executive Richard Tice agreed, telling City A.M.: “There is no genuine reform in any of this. The Prime Minister talks about substantial changes, but this is a restatement of the existing system.”

Osborne wrote in City A.M. last September: “One of the greatest threats to the City’s competitiveness comes from misguided European legislation. A central demand in our renegotiation will be that Europe reins in costly and damaging regulation.”

But Jon Moynihan, former executive chairman of PA Consulting Group, said he saw little in the draft that would curb harmful regulations.  “Even the small set of concessions achieved will either be just ignored by the EU as such agreements have in the past,” Moynihan said. “They are sort of meaningless as far as business is concerned.”

Among the proposals included in the draft is a so-called safeguard mechanism protecting non-euro countries from being discriminated against by the Eurozone.

The draft calls on Eurozone countries to “respect the competences, rights and obligations of member states whose currency is not the euro” and allows the UK to call a summit of EU leaders if it is concerned about punishing Eurozone rules, including those related to financial services. But the draft stops short of allowing the UK and others to veto Eurozone legislation.

“It’s not a mechanism that has any actual impact,” Europe Economics executive director Andrew Lilico told City A.M., calling the measure “completely worthless”.

Michael Haltman writes: The December increase was implemented despite inflation remaining well below the Fed’s target rate of 2% and in the face of a recovery that could be, at best, termed tepid.

At the time some speculated that the Fed needed to raise rates so that they would have the ability to lower them again should the economy weaken. Still others thought that to retain any credibility they needed to make a move.

Neither one of those could be called solid reasoning when making decisions impacting the U.S. economy.

And since the rate hike suggests the counterintuitive track of 2-year treasury note yields courtesy of treasury.gov…

The Federal Reserve has acknowledged that the U.S. economy has slowed down but provided little guidance about when it would raise interest rates again.

The central bank began pulling back its support for the recovery in December and signaled it anticipated increasing its benchmark rate four times this year. But weeks of turmoil on Wall Street have spurred doubts about whether the Fed will forge ahead.

For now, the central bank is standing pat. In a unanimous vote Wednesday, the Fed left the range for its benchmark interest rate unchanged between 0.25 and 0.5 percent. Its official statement emphasized the resilience of the job market despite the weakened recovery and pointed out strength in consumer spending and the housing sector.

So do we feel that the Fed as an institution with HUGE responsibilities, has a firm grasp on accomplishing its mandate?

Is the Federal Reserve, in effect the arbiter of the global financial system is run by academicians with little to no actual experience with business.

The Federal Reserve has no need to innovate or to push the envelope.

Government in effect has no responsibility to a bottom-line or a need to grow in any way other than raising taxes to bring in more revenue or to increase infrastructure to create more jobs.

Either way, whether through taxes or through government growth, the cost is borne by you and I, the taxpayer.

To further compound the problem of government bureaucrats setting policy for businesses and individuals is that I would venture to guess that many if not the majority have little to no actual business experience.

A perfect example might be the government mandated minimum wage of $15 an hour that might sound great to the voter, but will undoubtedly have unintended consequences politicians can’t be bothered with worrying about.

The above mentioned description certainly seems to be the case with Fed Chair Janet Yellen, an appointed government official who has much of the worlds financial future (at least in the near to medium-term) in her hands.

Emily EIsner of the NY Fed writes: The main liabilities of central banks are typically currency (banknotes) and reserves, a form of money that can only be held by banks at the central bank  Banks use reserves to make payments among themselves and to the central bank. In addition, some central banks issue deposits to the government. These accounts function as the government’s “checking account” at the central bank.

The Federal Reserve was a central bank that, before the crisis, held mostly currency as its main balance sheet liability. Currency represented 93 percent of the Fed’s liabilities in December 2006, with reserves only 1.5 percent and the Treasury’s general account half a percent. Currency is a sizable liability on most central bank balance sheets in normal times.

Other central banks had a much larger share of their liabilities as reserves before the crisis. One reason to issue a lot of reserves in normal times is to help interbank payments run smoothly; if the supply of reserves is small, banks concerned about running out of reserves at the end of the day may choose to delay payments to other banks, which can create “gridlock.”

As an example, the Norges Bank issued a relatively large amount of reserves before the crisis – 7 percent of its liabilities. Almost 50 percent of the liability side of the Norges Bank balance sheet at the end of 2006 was made up of treasury deposits, and currency represented only 16 percent of liabilities, so its balance sheet looked more like the figure below.

Currency and reserves are “immediate” maturity liabilities, since they can be instantly transferred to other parties for payment. Some central banks also issue term maturity liabilities, either term deposits, which are only available to counterparties that hold a central bank account, or term repos, which are collateralized and available to counterparties beyond depositing institutions. Some central banks have the authority to issue bills. Like Treasury bills, central bank bills are available to nonaccount holders in the secondary market, although some central banks restrict primary issue to account holders. Term liabilities can be issued both to reduce the amount of reserves in the system and to control the central bank’s target interest rate. (This composition is depicted in the figure below.)

For instance, the Bank of England (BoE), the European Central Bank (ECB), the Fed, and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) have been fine-tuning term deposit facilities and repo instruments that have longer maturities than overnight. The BoE, the ECB, the Swiss National Bank, and the RBA are among the central banks that have the ability to issue bills, the Fed does not currently have this authority. Central Bank Assets