Bloomberg (July 18)
“The growing focus on the risks associated with the BOJ’s monetary stimulus program—which includes enormous asset purchases, particularly of Japanese government bonds, as well as negative interest rates and yield curve control—comes as its inflation target remains elusive. With no end to its program in sight, the BOJ is under increasing pressure to mitigate risks and explain its thinking about an eventual exit.” Bloomberg calculated that the BOJ already owns over 70 percent of all shares in Japan-listed ETFs and could soon own most of the free float in companies like Fast Retailing.0000000000000
Tags: Asset purchases, BOJ, ETFs, Fast Retailing, Free float, Inflation, Japan, JGBs, Monetary stimulus, Negative interest rates, Risks, Yield curve control
New York Times (July 18)
“There is simply no credible way to address climate change without changing the way we get from here to there, meaning cars, trucks, planes and any other gas-guzzling forms of transportation. That is why it is so heartening to see electric cars, considered curios for the rich or eccentric or both not that long ago, now entering the mainstream.”
Tags: Cars, Climate change, Credible, Electric cars, Gas-guzzling, Mainstream, Planes, Transportation, Trucks
The Guardian (July 17)
“Desperate with hope,” many Brits are “drawn to the crescendo of signals that Brexit can’t and won’t happen, to stories that say the sheer impossibility of leaving the EU gets clearer by the day.” The signals are everywhere. “Fall off the EU cliff and put a third of our just-in-time food supply at risk. No flying to the EU, warns Ryanair, as easyJet moves its new HQ to Austria….car sales are down 10%, credit card debt up 10%, wages are falling behind rising inflation.” Yet even as the UK’s economy “sinks, while the EU’s charges ahead,” there is no guarantee that Brexit will ultimately prove reversible.
Tags: Austria, Brexit, Car sales, Credit cards, Debt, Desperate, EasyJet, Economy, EU, Food supply, Hope, HQ, Ryanair, UK, Wages Inflation
The Atlantic (July/August Issue)
Although Donald Trump called Kim “a madman with nuclear weapons,” North Korea’s leader “appears to be neither suicidal nor crazy.” In fact, “he has acted with brutal efficiency to consolidate that power; the assassination of his half brother is only the most recent example. As tyrants go, he’s shown appalling natural ability…. his moves have been nothing if not deliberate and even cruelly rational.” With only bad options for dealing with the North, this is “perhaps the most reassuring thing.”
Tags: Ability, Assassination, Brutal efficiency, Deliberate, Kim, Madman, North Korea, Nuclear weapons, Power, Rational, Reassuring, Trump, Tyrant
The Economist (July 15)
While it is unlikely to solely account for all of the weakness in productivity plaguing developed countries, “there is a growing belief that the persistence of zombie firms—companies that keep operating despite a poor financial performance—may explain the weak productivity performance of developed economies in recent years.”
Sydney Morning Herald (July 13)
“The Grenfell tower fire in London has opened the eyes of the world to the dangers of building with materials that do not conform to safety standards.” But this comes three years after Australia’s “own wake-up call…when fire ripped through Melbourne’s Lacrosse building.” Since then “all the solutions to the problem have been presented by expert bodies to the Senate inquiry,” yet not enough has been done. An “audit of apartment buildings undertaken by the Victorian Building Authority has shown that half contained non-compliant materials.” It is “time for governments to advance from talking and thinking to actually doing something.”
Tags: Dangers, Experts, Fire, Grenfell, Lacrosse building, London, Melbourne, Non-compliant materials, Safety standards
Mother Jones (July 12)
“One of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke off Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf…permanently altering the coastline of our planet’s frozen continent. Twice the size of Long Island and packing a trillion tons of ice—fully melted, that’s enough water to fill Lake Michigan—the newly birthed iceberg seems like a perfect symbol for our overheating world.” And yet, that is slightly misleading. Other than posing a shipping hazard, “as long as the parent ice shelf remains stable, A68 should have no measurable impact on the rest of the planet.”
Tags: A68, Antarctica, Hazard, Ice shelf, Iceberg, Largest, Larsen C, Melted, Overheating, Ships, Stable
LA Times (July 11)
Worried about an explosion of diabetes, California is investing $5 million in prevention efforts. The cause for alarm is a recent study which found that “46% of adults in California have prediabetes” while 9% of Californians are already diabetic. “Implementing the program should save $45 million a year because of those who end up not developing diabetes — and requiring less medical treatment — as a result of the intervention.”
Tags: Alarm, California, Diabetes, Intervention, Invest, Medical treatment, Prediabetes, Prevention, Savings
Reuters (July 11)
As its first family fights publicly in an unprecedented and ugly manner, the “shrinking returns” of its sovereign wealth fund, GIC, “are adding gloom to Singapore. The sovereign wealth fund, which manages an estimated $343 billion of assets, has delivered its worst annual performance since 2001 barring the financial crisis.” Moreover, the “outlook is depressing too” as GIC prepares for “a protracted period of low returns.”
Tags: Assets, Fight, Financial Crisis, First family, GIC, Gloom, Outlook, Performance, Returns, Singapore, Sovereign wealth fund, Ugly, Unprecedented
Nikkei Asian Review (July 9)
“Japan’s listed companies saw their aggregate sales surge 20% from fiscal 2000 to 2016, while their net profit soared by nearly 40%. A look at some of the best performers suggests the growth can be chalked up to two key factors: globalization efforts and new business models.”
Tags: Best performers, Business models, Globalization, Growth, Japan, Net profit, Sales, Surge
