New York Times (February 26)
“Japan can’t handle the coronavirus. Can it host the Olympics?” The nation’s leaders have a “sense of entitlement.” This “breeds indifference and incompetence,” which was on full display during “by the unmitigated epidemiological and public relations disaster that was the saga of the Diamond Princess cruise ship.”
Tags: Coronavirus, Diamond Princess, Disaster, Entitlement, Incompetence, Indifference, Japan, Leaders, Olympics
Financial Times (January 17)
Next week at Davos, “representatives of the Big Four accounting firms… are scheduled to meet Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan and other corporate leaders to thrash out green audit standards. Their decisions could be a crucial for the next wave of green reform as any eye-catching speech by Ms. Thunberg, since they will help direct capital flows.”
Tags: Big Four, BoA, Capital flows, Davos, Green audit standards, Leaders, Moynihan, Thunberg
New York Times (December 12)
“If there is one singular issue that defines the intersection of business and policy at this moment, it is a deepening trust deficit…. Businesspeople and policy leaders are scrambling for new ways to engender trust with constituents, including shareholders, employees and regulators. Some are trying to be more transparent. Others are diving into political and social issues that used to be verboten. Perhaps more than anything, they’re speaking publicly more about their thinking.”
Tags: Business, Businesspeople, Constituents, Employees, Intersection, Leaders, Policy, Regulators, Shareholders, Singular, Trust, Trust deficit
Reuters (December 4)
The “broadly positive headlines” from the G20 meeting “are only half the picture. For all the efforts to keep it on track, the meeting in Buenos Aires also served to showcase an alarming rise in the number of international differences.” To make matters worse, “a growing number of leaders appeared openly hostile or dismissive of each other. The primary diplomatic breakthrough of the summit—a joint declaration to reform the World Trade Organization—may simply be a precursor to more arguments.”
Tags: Breakthrough, Buenos Aires, Differences, Diplomatic, Dismissive, G20, Hostile, Joint declaration, Leaders, Positive, WTO Arguments
Wall Street Journal (June 18)
Helmut Kohl’s “vision shaped post-Cold War Europe for the better. Among the many leaders who shaped modern Europe, few have been as consequential…. He saw his country through the death of the Cold War and the birth of a reunited Germany at the center of a more deeply integrated European Union.”
Washington Post (January 5)
“It’s an existential moment for all of Europe’s leaders, most of whom are only just beginning to grapple with the fact that Russia wants to destroy the Euro-American alliance.” Alas, with the inauguration of Donald Trump, they may “have to prepare for an American government that wants to do so too.”
Tags: Destroy, Euro-American alliance, Europe, Existential, Government, Leaders, Russia, Trump, U.S.
Washington Post (June 24)
“British voters have defied the will of their leaders, foreign allies and much of the political establishment by opting to rupture this country’s primary connection to Europe in a stunning result that will radiate economic and political uncertainty across the globe.”
Tags: Allies, Establishment, Europe, Leaders, Stunning, UK, Uncertainty, Voters
New York Times (May 30)
Though European leaders are congratulating themselves for the latest debt agreement for Greece, “there is little to celebrate. Greece is bankrupt in all but name…. The reality is that Greece can’t be squeezed any harder.” The latest agreement is more of the same. “This crisis will never end if European leaders keep pushing policies that have repeatedly failed.”
USA Today (May 29)
The work of U.S. federal prosecutors “will not be done until they find a way to force the soccer governing body to enact meaningful reforms and get rid of leaders who, at the very least, tolerated the corruption.”
Tags: Corruption, FIFA, Governing, Leaders, Prosecutors, Reforms, Soccer, U.S.
Bloomberg (March 30)
“In order to steer China off its current trajectory, leaders are going to have to tolerate a bigger hit to GDP. They must also quickly build a transfer mechanism to allow banks, state-run enterprises and entire municipalities to dispose of bad loans.” China’s total debt to GDP ratio “now exceeds America’s 269 percent and Germany’s 258 percent. Even more worrying: If the credit buildup continues at its current pace, that ratio will explode to 400 percent by 2018.”
