Financial Times (October 5)
“Japan’s demographics — for all the socio-economic hand-wringing they cause — are now arguably the biggest ‘buy’ signal the country has sent for decades…. In several critical areas, Japan’s demographics are aligned to work strongly in favour of companies and investors.” One of these stems from “from labour shortages and the profound psychological difference they make to corporations’ ability to restructure.” This will enable corporations to “divest everything non-core and focus instead on what they are best at.”
Tags: Buy signal, Companies, Demographics, Divest, Hand-wringing, Investors, Japan, Labour shortages, Non-core, Psychological, Restructure, Socio-economic
Barron’s (January 12)
“President Xi Jinping’s men thought they’d escaped 2015’s woes, only to see the floor fall out from under them in the first 10 days of this year. The root causes of instability that’s panicking global markets can be traced back to Jan. 1, 2015, when Xi opted for a muddle-through policy akin to Tokyo’s in the late 1990s.” Xi and crew can still conceivably avoid Japan’s fate by “acting assertively to restructure the economy and repair the bad-debt-heavy national balance sheet. Increasingly, though, Xi’s government is acting like Tokyo’s, circa 1998.”
Tags: Bad debt, Economy, Global markets, Instability, Japan, Panic, Restructure, Tokyo, Xi Jinping
Wall Street Journal (February 8)
“Is there a better tutorial in government failure than a monopoly that loses about $25 million every day, like the U.S. Postal Service now?” With first-class volumes down a quarter in six years, drastic change is needed. The USPS wants to restructure, but is largely hamstrung by Congress. The latest plans will end Saturday delivery to save about $2 billion a year, but this would “still only solve about one-eighth of its financial problem.”
Tags: Congress, First-class, Mail, Monopoly, Restructure, Saturday delivery, U.S., USPS
