The Economist (December 10)
“For the first time since oil prices plunged in 2014, Big Oil is putting its head above the parapet to seek substantial new sources of crude that will tide it through the 2020s.” While this signals renewed confidence, the players remain extremely cost conscious, with the aim of staying lean to maintain profitability even if oil stays stuck around $50 per barrel.
Tags: Big oil, Confidence, Cost conscious, Crude, Lean, Oil, Plunge, Prices, Profitability
The Week (December 8)
“Donald Trump is obviously a great man…. But you don’t have to be good to be great.” Trump is has proven himself to be a “unique force.” He will soon “be president of the United States, for good or ill, and if one thing is certain, it’s that it will have momentous consequences one way or another.”
Nikkei Asian Review (December 9)
“Overall, Japan’s preparations for 2020 are in chaos. But memories are short, and it is worth remembering that this is roughly the same thing that happened in the run-up to the previous Tokyo Olympic Games, held in 1964.” But history does not always repeat itself and “if the Olympic effort turns out to be as much of a travesty as the Toyosu venture, the second Tokyo Olympics will not turn out well.”
Wall Street Journal (December 8)
“Donald Trump is Lady Gaga.” He is also Andy Warhol. “He is a performance artist. He is challenging what we think is normal—first for a presidential campaign and now for the presidency.” Trump is no mere entertainer. “Performance artists challenge, subvert and alter. They may be slightly crazy, but they’re crazy serious, though usually a little unclear about where they’re going.”
Time (December 7)
“To his believers, he delivers change—broad, deep, historic change, not modest measures doled out in Dixie cups; to his detractors, he inspires fear both for what he may do and what may be done in his name.” Time magazine named Donald Trump their Person of the Year because he “had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year.”
Tags: Change, Detractors, Fears, Historic, Influence, Inspires, Person of the Year, Time, Trump
IR Magazine (December 7)
“New CEOs who present their strategy within the first 100 days of their appointment can see stock prices rise by an average of 5.3 percent on presentation day (around $2.8 bn in market value). The average stock price gain for presentations by new CEOs appointed from outside the organization is 9.3 percent (just under $5 bn), and for new CEOs from outside the company’s home industry it’s 12.4 percent (around $6.6 bn).” Despite these impressive results, “only 40 percent of new CEOs present on strategy in their first 200 days.”
Tags: Appointment, CEOs, Industry, Presentation, Stock prices, Strategy
Newsweek (December 5)
“The Made in China 2025 plan can be read as a ‘go it alone’ strategy for Beijing; it’s in effect saying, Thank you very much for all of your foreign direct investment over the last 20 years, we’ll be OK from here on—and by the way, we’re going to eat your lunch.”
Tags: 2025 plan, China, FDI, Go it alone, Made in China, Strategy
Bloomberg (December 4)
In India, “the chaos accompanying ‘demonetization’ hasn’t eased up noticeably. It seems likely the disruption to the economy…will hit growth sharply for at least a few quarters. It’s tough to say for how long and by how much; we are in uncharted territory here and guesses have varied widely.” There is a very loose consensus, however, that the move by Prime Minister Modi to invalidate 86% of the currency in circulation could cause GDP growth to fall by approximately 2 percentage points.
Tags: Chaos, Currency, Demonetization, Disruption, Economy, GDP, Growth, India, Modi
LA Times (December 4)
China “has been quick to size up the environmental implications of a Trump victory, and officials in Beijing are contriving to cast China in a fresh role, to project the country as a—perhaps the—global leader on climate change.” The U.S. looks “poised to become the new climate-action outcast.” In contrast, “China is betting that clean energy and green technology will be what powers the global economy of the 21st century.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Clean energy, Climate change, Economy, Environment, Global leader, Green technology, Outcast, Trump, U.S.
CNN (December 1)
“Nearly every piece of plastic ever made still exists today. More than five trillion pieces of plastic are already in the oceans, and by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish, by weight… Some 8 million tons of plastic trash leak into the ocean annually, and it’s getting worse every year. Americans are said to use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.” The potentially catastrophic impact largely lies beyond our gaze in remote places, like Midway Atoll, where birds are dying from plastic consumption. There is now also “growing evidence that fish may prefer eating plastic to food,” and that the nano-plastics and styrene that make their way into the food chain could have profoundly negative consequences for humankind.
Tags: Birds, Consequences, Consumption, Evidence, Fish, Food, Food chain, Midway Atoll, Nano-plastics, Oceans, Plastic, Remote, Styrene
