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New York Times (May 30)

2014/ 05/ 31 by jd in Global News

Following the recent coup in Thailand, “the military is operating an increasingly authoritarian government intent on silencing all forms of dissent or disobedience.” If the military truly intends to deliver a “genuine democracy,” it needs to “provide a plan for a return to civilian rule, including setting a date for an election.”

 

Financial Times (May 29)

2014/ 05/ 30 by jd in Global News

Britain’s GDP is set to increase by £10 billion as the Office for National Statistics begins to include illegal drug sales and prostitution in its calculations. To move into alignment with EU standards many countries have already taken this step. Italy is also advancing plans to include “among other activities, the sale of cocaine and prostitution.” Estonia, Austria, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden and Norway have already added prostitution and illegal drugs to their GDP calculations.

 

USA Today (May 28)

2014/ 05/ 30 by jd in Global News

“Despite what politicians say,” entrepreneurs don’t create many jobs. “Successful entrepreneurs almost always create real value in the economy and grow the economic pie for all of us,” but they “do not always create enormous numbers of jobs, particularly for the middle class.” In fact, “the creative destruction that accompanies entrepreneurship today often destroys middle-class jobs.”

 

Euromoney (May Issue)

2014/ 05/ 29 by jd in Global News

“Dollar-denominated debt capital market volume in Asia reached almost $27 billion in April, the highest monthly volume on record…. These record volumes underline the fact that global investors remain keenly focused on Asia, despite continuing worries about a slowdown in China and India.”

 

Washington Post (May 27)

2014/ 05/ 28 by jd in Global News

The EU’s many achievements have been “accompanied by an ever-expanding bureaucracy and a loss of any purpose higher than crisis management, as if the powers that be in the European Union see ‘Europe’ as an end in itself, independent of its actual impact on the daily lives of ordinary people.” It is this disconnect that must be fixed, “otherwise, the very real benefits that union has brought will be at risk.”

 

5/28 Issue

2014/ 05/ 28 by jd in IRCWeekly

The EU elections dominated much of the news cycle. Leading up to the event, the New York Times worried that voter apathy would allow “the election of fringe parties whose ultimate goal is to dismantle the very union they’re supposed to be serving.”

Populist candidates did ultimately do very well, especially in France. The Wall Street Journal lamented that France “produced a spectacle of nihilism that damages the West and delights Vladimir Putin.”

The Washington Post said the vote should serve as a wakeup call to a bureaucracy bogged down in crisis management. They need to rediscover the EU’s higher purpose to ensure “the very real benefits” of the union continue.

The Financial Times perceives that Asia has also been transformed by elections. “Each of Asia’s four most powerful nations is now led by a combative nationalist.” And the move from multilateralism to power struggles may likely have global implications as well.

Despite all the talk of oligopolistic pricing, Euromoney finds that customers are benefiting as increased competition and other changes in trading fixed income, currencies and commodities tighten margins and squeeze banks, who are not surprisingly less enthusiastic about this transformation.

According to Institutional Investor, upstart businesses that succeed in disrupting traditional businesses target “multiple industries at once.” Companies like Tesla and Uber leave traditional companies threatened as they “seek to fill customers’ every need.” They skirt barriers and “work themselves into new markets however possible.”

China is also trying to skirt barriers. The New York Times asserts China bears responsibility for “the most aggressive effort by any country to steal secrets from some of the most prominent and successful American companies.” And the recent U.S. indictment of five PLA members appears to have done little to thwart China’s economic espionage.

The more things change… well sometimes they don’t. The Economist finds that despite the turbulence of the Great Recession, the Great Moderation has resumed as volatility returns to extremely low levels. This raises a troubling question. Will this prompt “a return of the sort of risk-taking that produced the crisis” in the first place?

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To see the overseas media’s takes on these and other developments, you can browse Global News highlights below or at http://www.irken.jp/gn/. Links to the original sources are provided above, but please note these are frequently updated. Links that were valid at publication may later be broken.

 

Wall Street Journal (May 26)

2014/ 05/ 27 by jd in Global News

Populist, anti-EU candidates did well in the recent election for European Parliament. Nowhere more so than France where Marine Le Pen’s National Front party swept by both the Socialists and the Gaullists. Compared with “the milder populist advances elsewhere in the European vote, France produced a spectacle of nihilism that damages the West and delights Vladimir Putin.”

 

New York Times (May 25)

2014/ 05/ 26 by jd in Global News

China is responsible for “the most aggressive effort by any country to steal secrets from some of the most prominent and successful American companies.” Despite the indictment of five PLA members, China’s massive economic espionage continues. “China, as a rising economic power, believes that ferreting out the business secrets of foreign companies is a national security interest. One day, however, it will have its own pathbreaking achievements and will want to protect them.”

 

Institutional Investor (May Issue)

2014/ 05/ 25 by jd in Global News

“New innovative business models by upstarts Tesla and Uber are poised to disrupt multiple industries at once.” Both companies have been driving around barriers thrown up by conventional businesses that feel threatened. “The real winners to watch — the companies that will shape the landscape of American business and tech — are those that seek to fill customers’ every need, that work themselves into new markets however possible.”

 

The Economist (May 24)

2014/ 05/ 24 by jd in Global News

“Obituaries of the Great Moderation may have been premature.” Following the financial crisis, volatility has again returned to low levels characteristic of the Great Moderation. “The big question is whether the return of the Great Moderation has also prompted a return of the sort of risk-taking that produced the crisis. There are troubling signs.”

 

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