Forbes (September 9)
“There is a country that, more than any other, needs the Federal Reserve to embark on QE3.” A third program of quantitative easing “may not help the U.S., but China certainly stands to gain.” QE3 is expected to weaken the dollar. “A weak American currency means a weak Chinese one, and a weak Chinese currency helps the nation’s struggling exporters on global markets.”
New York Times (September 7)
“In the long euro crisis, there is almost always a sobering morning-after whenever European leaders appear to have made a major breakthrough. And so it went again Friday.” There is again “further uncertainty about the survival of the euro zone.”
“In the long euro crisis, there is almost always a sobering morning-after whenever European leaders appear to have made a major breakthrough. And so it went again Friday.” There is again “further uncertainty about the survival of the euro zone.”
Politico (September 7)
President Obama set a Twitter record. His “speech Thursday night in Charlotte boomed across the Twitterverse, more so than any speech at the Democratic National Convention or last week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa. There were 52,757 tweets per minutes at the end of his speech.” In comparison, First Lady Michelle Obama peaked at 28,003 tweets per minute (TPM), Bill Clinton at 22,087 TPM, and Mitt Romney at 14,289 TPM during their speeches at the two events.
The Economist (September 6)
“The world’s most vibrant economies are shifting gear, away from simply building wealth towards building a welfare state.” Indonesia will become the world’s largest single-payer national health insurance program in 2014 when it provides universal health insurance. China has brought “pension coverage to an additional 240m rural folk, far more than the total number of people covered by Social Security, America’s public-pension system.” And in India pension coverage and a guaranteed work scheme have been extended. “The speed and scale of this shift are mind-boggling.”
Tags: China, Health insurance, India, Indonesia, Pension, Social security, U.S., Welfare state
Institutional Investor (September 5)
GDP targeting may be “the real message from Jackson Hole.” At this annual meeting of central bankers a paper presented by Michael Woodford advocated GDP targeting. “The Fed has already promised to keep rates low through 2014, but if it were to switch gears, it would instead promise to keep rates low indefinitely, until nominal GDP, or GDP adjusted for inflation, was showing clear signs of a recovery.”
Tags: Central bankers, Fed, GDP targeting, Inflation, Interest rates, Jackson Hole, Michael Woodford
Financial Times (September 4)
“Eighteen months ago, Brussels issued an ultimatum to business leaders—appoint more women to Europe’s boards or legal quotas would be introduced. Now the European Commission wants to carry out its threat by proposing laws that will require at least a 60-40 split between men and women by 2015.” ” While there “are still too few women on Europe’s boards….deciding to set a legal quota is misguided.” Quotas “will not resolve the obstacles that keep women from rising to the top.”
Tags: Board members, Brussels, EU, Europe, European Commission, Legal quotas, Women
Wall Street Journal (September 4)
A potential agreement with Russia for an LNG terminal in Vladivostok is “the latest sign of how Japan’s heightened quest for energy is shaping its relations with the rest of the world.” The $13 billion terminal could be finished by 2018 and provide 10 million tons of LNG annually (about 12% of Japan’s imports). The new focus on securing stable energy supplies is warming “Japan’s long-frosty relations with Russia.”
Los Angeles Times (September 2)
“A relentless focus on share price can hurt not only employees, taxpayers and society, but shareholders too. Managers who are pressured to raise stock price quickly often resort to tricks — selling assets, cutting payroll and investment, draining cash through dividends and share repurchase programs — to bump up stock price for a year or two. But such strategies often hurt a company’s long-term ability to grow and prosper.”
New York Times (September 2)
The 2012 Summer Paralympic Games began in London with a big bang. The “opening ceremony that was truly cosmic. It featured the physicist Stephen Hawking as master of ceremonies and Sir Ian McKellen as Prospero, wearing a gown of stars and telling Miranda, who was floating above the stadium in a wheelchair, to “shine your light on the beautiful diversity of humanity.” Going on to reenact the Big Bang, the ceremony got the Games off to a spectacular start.
The Economist (September 1)
The Economist (September 1)
“The much bigger questions raised by this case [Apple versus Samsung] are whether all Apple’s innovations should have been granted a patent in the first place…. To award a monopoly right to finger gestures and rounded rectangles is to stretch the definition of ‘novel’ and ‘non-obvious’ to breaking-point.”
