Washington Post (August 20)
“If you care about climate change or air pollution, you cannot casually write off nuclear power, which produces virtually no carbon dioxide emissions while generating a tremendous amount of reliable power.” Renewables simply can’t fill the gap quickly enough. Without nuclear, burning additional fossil fuel is the alternative. “No one concerned about climate change should be willing to take it off the table…. The right response to Fukushima is to make sure reactors meet high safety standards, not to make the fight against global warming much harder.”
Tags: Air pollution, Climate change, CO2, Emissions, Fossil fuel, Fukushima, Global warming, Nuclear power, Renewables, Safety
Bloomberg (August 19)
“Beijing still believes money can buy the trust and soft power it craves, which explains the new $100 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank it has sponsored. But as long as analysts don’t feel the Chinese government’s pronouncements are genuinely reliable, skepticism about the yuan will only grow.”
Tags: AIIB, Beijing, Government, Money, Reliable, Skepticism, Soft power, Trust, Yuan
New York Times (August 18)
“Brazil is in tatters. The economy is in a deepening recession.” On top of that Petrobras is facing a “massive corruption scandal” and the country’s credit rating was just downgraded by Moody’s. “In all this turbulence, it is easy to miss the good news: the fortitude of Brazil’s democratic institutions.” Specifically, “in pursuing bribery at Petrobras, federal prosecutors…have not been deterred by rank or power, dealing a blow to the entrenched culture of immunity among government and business elites.”
Tags: Brazil, Bribery, Business, Corruption, Credit rating, Democratic institutions, Downgraded, Economy, Elites, Government, Immunity, Moody's, Petrobras, Power, Prosecutors, Rank, Recession, Scandal
Wall Street Journal (August 16)
“Some Japanese complain, with justification, that no apology would satisfy critics in China and South Korea who have their own nationalist axes to grind. But reasonable foreigners—including Americans—find it hard to credit Japan’s apologies as sincere when school textbooks whitewash atrocities…. We and other friends of Japan share Mr. Abe’s desire to see it become a normal nation not shackled by its past, not least so it can be trusted to stand with other democracies against potential Chinese aggression. Mr. Abe would bring that goal closer if he took his own advice and faced history squarely.”
Tags: Abe, Apologies, Apology, Atrocities, China, Japan, Nationalists, Sincere, South Korea, Textbooks, U.S., Whitewash
Institutional Investors (August 15)
“As earnings season winds down, investors around the globe are left to consider how a shifting macro environment will impact different asset classes and geographies.” Fears of a continuing yuan devaluation “will factor into perceptions of nearly all the major data points that will emerge.”
Tags: Asset classes, Data points, Devaluation, Earnings, Geographies, Investors, Macro environment, Yuan
The Economist (August 15)
“This is the year that the economic plan of Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, should be taking wing…. Yet the economy’s performance has been underwhelming. The problems have been weak industrial production, thanks to a slowdown in exports to America and China, and anaemic household consumption.”
Tags: Abe, China, Consumption, Economy, Exports, Industrial production, Problems, Slowdown, U.S., Underwhelming
Bloomberg (August 13)
“China’s devaluation becomes Japan’s problem.” The surprise action raises the question of “what China’s move means more broadly for Abenomics. A sharply devalued yen, after all, is the core of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s gambit to end Japan’s 25-year funk.” But China’s move is not necessarily the death knell of Abenomics, which has been sputtering. “China’s move may catalyze Abe to act. By undercutting Japan’s devaluation, China might increase Abe’s urgency to boost competiveness, innovation and wages.”
Tags: Abe, Abenomics, China, Competiveness, Devaluation, Innovation, Japan, Sputtering, Wages, Yen
Chicago Tribune (August 13)
“China’s adolescent angst” is to be expected. Apparent wealth and strength aside, “it’s helpful to keep some perspective on a place that was impoverished and practically irrelevant 35 years ago. Despite its size, the Chinese economy is still an underdeveloped work in progress, fumbling through the transition from closed communism to some form of market-driven capitalism.”
Tags: Adolescent, Angst, Capitalism, China, Communism, Economy, Fumbling, Impoverished, Transition, Underdeveloped
Financial Times (August 11)
Fears are growing of a meltdown in the aluminum market as Chinese output soars and, much like the oil market, supply outstrips demand. “China now accounts for more than half of global supply, up from 18 per cent in 2003 thanks to cheap power and the world’s most efficiently built smelters. Established producers from North America to Russia and the Middle East—facing the lowest prices since the financial crisis, reduced margins and profits—are anxious but do not want to cut capacity for fear of losing market share.”
Tags: Aluminum, Capacity, China, Fears, Margins, Market share, Meltdown, Middle East, North America, Oil, Output, Profits, Russia, Smelters
Institutional Investor (August 10)
Greece’s ongoing problem “seems to have been kicked down the road yet again—as ever, the question is, For how long?…. Early elections could quickly bring the issue back into market focus.”
Tags: Elections, Greece, Market focus, Problem
