USA Today (December 20)
“No administration in history has been as fraught with financial conflicts of interest as the incoming Trump administration, from the president-elect on down. If steps are not taken to manage these conflicts, the Trump administration is likely to become one of the most scandal-ridden in memory.”
Financial Times (December 20)
“Fear and rage must not be used as an excuse to destroy America’s core institutions.” Britain and other western democracies are also at risk of falling into the hands of despots. “The core institutions of democracy do not protect themselves. They are protected by people who understand and cherish the values they embody. Politics must respond to the fear and rage that brought Mr Trump to power. But it must not surrender to them. They must not be an excuse to destroy the republic.”
Tags: Core institutions, Democracies, Despots, Fear, People, Politics, Rage, Trump, UK, Values
Chicago Tribune (December 19)
“The Dow’s dalliance with 20,000 feels especially tenuous because investors are betting on expectations for a pro-business Donald Trump presidency, rather than on concrete corporate performance.”
Wall Street Journal (December 18)
“China is testing U.S. resolve to maintain freedom of navigation in international waters that Beijing illegally claims as its own” with its recent theft of a U.S. underwater drone. “Whether China today is responding to Mr. Trump or offering a final insult to President Obama is beside the point because the drone theft is part of a larger Chinese pattern. China’s behavior shows its intention to intimidate its neighbors and establish hegemony in East Asia.”
Tags: China, Drone, East Asia, Freedom of navigation, Hegemony, Intimidate, Obama, Theft, Trump, U.S.
LA Times (December 17)
‘’Uber built its business by challenging regulators and entrenched assumptions about how best to assure public safety. It successfully evaded the strict local rules that the taxi industry faces on fares, licenses and driver background checks by arguing that smartphone-summoned rides were different from taxis and should be regulated under new state standards. It has also avoided a variety of mandates on employers by classifying its drivers as independent contractors, not employees.” But when it comes to testing driverless vehicles on California roads, the technology company should play be the rules.
Tags: ” Driverless vehicles, Assumptions, California, Contractors, Drivers, Employees, Employers, Fares, Licenses, Mandates, Public safety, Regulators, Rules, Smartphone, Taxi industry, Uber
Institutional Investor (December 14)
It’s difficult for analysts to rise above groupthink since they “tend to use the same quantitative information…and similar methodologies.” Remarkably, some do. Institutional Investor recognizes them annually. Still, it seems that one day algorithms will “displace analysts entirely, meaning that these algorithms will themselves become eligible, in principle, for election to the II All-America Research Team.”
Tags: Algorithms, All-America Research Team, Analysts, Groupthink, Information, Methodologies, Quantitative
Reuters (December 13)
“In time, Syria may be seen to define the early 21st century the way the Spanish Civil War did the 1930s – a perfect storm of all the worst trends in global politics and conflict. If it is, then Aleppo will be its Guernica, the Spanish town carpet bombed by Nazi aircraft in 1937 in a savage precursor to the horrors of the coming World War Two.
Tags: Aleppo, Carpet bombed, Conflict, Global politics, Guernica, Nazi, Perfect storm, Spanish Civil War, Syria, Worst trends, WWII
New York Times (December 13)
Donald Trump’s choice of CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State looks certain to face opposition, even within his own party. “Why would Mr. Trump choose as his top diplomat a man whose every decision or action would be tainted by suspicion that he’s capitulating to Russian interests or those of the oil industry, having spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil?”
Tags: CEO, Diplomat, Exxon Mobil, Oil industry, Opposition, Rex Tillerson, Russia, Secretary of state, Tainted, Trump
Washington Post (December 12)
Can Canada, “a nation so multicultural and immigrant-heavy (Canada ties with Germany for the G8’s highest per-capita immigration rate) hope to escape the racial and religious tensions that have consumed Europe and the United States?” While the consensus says yes, there are some concerning rumblings.
Tags: Canada, Europe, G8, Germany, Immigrants, Multicultural, Tension, U.S.
Bloomberg (December 11)
“Even for a country with a modern history as tumultuous as South Korea, 2016 has been an eventful year. This was the year that a confluence of business failures, political scandal and economic malaise brought the strongest signs yet that the system that made South Korea a global industrial powerhouse may be about to change.”
Tags: 2016, Business failures, Economic malaise, Eventful, History, Political scandal, Powerhouse, South Korea, Tumultuous
