Wall Street Journal (October 20)
“On the eve of Tuesday’s talks with student leaders of the democracy movement, Hong Kong’s embattled Chief Executive has a message for the world: No compromises, and no apologies. Which means that Hong Kong’s upheavals are likely to continue.”
Tags: Apologies, Compromise, Democracy movement, Hong Kong, Leaders, Leung Chun-ying, Students, Upheavals
New York Times (October 19)
“The regulatory woes seem to be never ending for the newest wave of tech start-ups.” Start-ups like Uber and Airbnb are facing regulatory hurdles and legal battles in numerous jurisdictions. A naïve “belief that problems can be solved without involving people is probably why many of these companies did not meet with regulators and officials before starting services in new cities. And it has come back to haunt them.”
Tags: Airbnb, Officials, Problems, Regulators, Regulatory, Services, Start-ups, Tech, Uber
Institutional Investor (October Issue)
“Six years ago the common threat of a global financial collapse inspired a collective response that averted a depression. Today the threats seem to be coming from everywhere, and they are geopolitical as much as economic.” This makes any coordinated solution “hard to imagine.”
Tags: Collective response, Depression, Economic, Financial collapse, Geopolitical, Global, Solution, Threat
The Economist (October 18)
At 250% of GDP, China has a debt problem. Still, this “is unlikely to cause a sudden crisis or blow up the world economy. That is because China, unlike most other countries, controls its banks and has the means to bail them out.” The lack of crisis may drive China down the same road Japan took in the post-bubble decades. “The biggest risk is complacency: that China’s officials do too little to clean up the financial system, weighing down its economy for years with zombie firms and unpayable loans.”
Tags: Banks, China, Complacency, Crisis, Debt problem, Economy, Financial system, GDP, Japan, Loans, Risk, Zombie
Washington Post (October 17)
“You could feel a shiver of panic coursing through the American body politic this week as the country struggled with a metastatic set of crises: the spread of the Ebola virus, the surge of Islamic State terrorists and the buckling global economy.”
Tags: Crises, Ebola, Islamic State, Panic, Terrorists. Economy, U.S.
The Telegraph (October 16)
“Instead of changing a structure of employment that clearly does not work for women, Apple and Facebook are offering employees the chance to freeze their eggs and have children later.” Egg freezing and storage is the latest Silicon Valley perk designed “to attract more female employees” and “tackle the Gender Pay Gap.” But to some, this sounds surreal. “Women freeze the source of life itself? That’s not a perk, it’s an outrage.”
Tags: Apple, Children, Eggs, Employment, Facebook, Freezing, Gender, Outrage, Pay gap, Perk, Silicon Valley, Women
New York Times (October 15)
“Monday’s vote suggests that Israel is increasingly seen as needing to do more to end the stalemate.” The British House of Commons “endorsed diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state.” Though a symbolic gesture, “Israel and its allies should not ignore the message. The vote is one more sign of the frustration many people in Europe feel about the failure to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement despite years of promises.”
Tags: Allies, Europe, House of Commons, Israel, Palestine, Peace, Promises, Recognition, Stalemate, UK, Vote
Bloomberg (October 15)
Vladimir Putin is losing “his best friend: expensive oil.” Petro revenue makes up 70% of Russia’s export revenue and “oil has been the key to Putin’s grip on power since he took over from Boris Yeltsin in 2000, fueling a booming economy that grew 7 percent on average from 2000 to 2008.” To balance its budget, Russia needs a per barrel price of over $100. “At $90, close to the current level, Russia will have a shortfall of 1.2 percent of gross domestic product.”
Financial Times (October 14)
“As the WTO’s membership has grown, the need for complete consensus to agree any deal has made it almost ungovernable.” It is high “time to rethink the way WTO takes its decisions.”
Wall Street Journal (October 12)
Japan’s dilemma over whether to proceed with the sales tax increase to 10% “mirrors the dynamics in Europe, where France and Italy recently delayed deficit-reduction plans, fearing that spending cuts could tip their fragile economies back into recession.” With much of the developed world facing aging demographics and similar quandaries, all eyes are on Japan. “In a world haunted by stubbornly slow growth and low inflation, Japan’s clinical trial—whether it ends up cure or toxin—will inform other countries when they reach Japan’s state.”
Tags: Deficit reduction, Demographics, Dilemma, Economies, Europe, France, Growth, Inflation, Italy, Japan, Recession, Sales tax, Spending cuts
