Washington Post (April 18)
“Remember that U.S. aircraft carrier that was headed to the Korean Peninsula as both the Trump administration and North Korea began to talk tough with one another? It turns out it wasn’t…. Despite talk of a military strike, Trump’s ‘armada’ actually sailed away from Korea.”
US News & World Report (April 17)
“Clearly, Trump’s foreign policy, if it can be called that, is to ratchet up tensions and trouble and keep the world at bay, wondering what he will do next… Trump’s character is a terrible limitation as an unpopular president, yet it has taken him to the pinnacle of power.”
Tags: Character, Foreign policy, Limitation, Power, Tension, Terrible, Trouble, Trump, Unpopular
New York Times (April 17)
Donald Trump is finally paying attention to North Korea, “but not in a helpful way. His intemperate talk is adding to regional tensions, unnerving allies and likely reinforcing North Korea’s longstanding fear that it could one day be attacked by America.” Trump should avoid letting “overconfidence and bombast, expressed in tweets and public statements, box him into some kind of showdown with the North’s ruthless leader, Kim Jong-un, who has displayed similarly macho traits.”
Tags: Allies, Fear, Intemperate, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, Overconfidence, Regional tension, Trump, U.S.
The Economist (April 15)
“Despite an influx of 1.2m refugees over the past two years, Germany’s population faces near-irreversible decline. According to predictions from the UN in 2015, two in five Germans will be over 60 by 2050 and Europe’s oldest country will have shrunk to 75m from 82m.”
Reuters (April 14)
“While individual companies are hesitant to criticize China for fear of backlash, critics from U.S. business groups accuse Beijing of unfairly subsidizing domestic firms and restricting foreign investment into much of the world’s second-biggest economy.” Meanwhile, U.S. business leaders may also be wary of offending President Trump even thought they are concerned given the “skin-deep results from Trump-Xi trade talks.”
Tags: Backlash, China, Critics, Economy, Foreign investment, Subsidies, Trade, Trump, U.S., Unfair, Xi
Institutional Investor (April 13)
“The sell side doesn’t quite get it yet,” but a major shift will soon transform their very existence. With Phase two of the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) scheduled to take effect in January, broker-dealers must “explicitly price a dark art whose cost was previously wrapped into trading commissions (on equity products) or spread (on fixed income). And that, in turn, could put a lot of analysts out of work in Europe, the U.K….and, in time, the U.S. and everywhere else.” Current predictions are that by 2020 global research volume will decrease by around 25% to 60%… or even more.
Tags: Analysts, Broker dealers, EU, MiFID, Research, Sell-side, Spread, Trading commissions, U.S., UK, Volume
Bloomberg (April 12)
“U.S. public companies are moving away from the traditional shareholders’ meeting, opting instead to interact with investors online. Sensible as this might seem in the internet age, it’s important to ensure that it becomes a way to improve — rather than stifle — communication.”
Tags: Communication, Companies, Investors, Online, Shareholders' meetings, Stifle, U.S.
Los Angeles Times (April 11)
“The sad reality is that Monday’s murder-suicide committed in a special needs classroom at North Park Elementary School was as mundane as American gun violence gets—because it was not an act of terrorism or an attack by disgruntled students on their classmates. Rather, it was an act of domestic violence, the kind that occurs every single day in the United States.”
Tags: . Murder-suicide, Domestic violence, Elementary school, Gun violence, Mundane, Sad, Terrorism, U.S.
Financial Times (April 10)
“Japan’s progress on stewardship and corporate governance reform has looked wobbly of late. The ROE gains made in the first 30 months of Abenomics (up from an average of 5.8 per cent in December 2012 to a mid-2015 peak of 8.8 per cent) have been in steady reversal since then.”
Tags: Abenomics, Corporate governance, Japan, Progress, ROE, Stewardship, Wobbly
The Week (April 9)
“Corporate America almost uniformly craves tax reform. But businesses are deeply split over whether to support the…20 percent tax on imports coming into the U.S….. Major U.S. manufacturers like Boeing and Caterpillar are behind the idea. But retailers like Target and Ikea, as well as other companies that import most of their goods, are lobbying furiously against it.”
Tags: Boeing, Caterpillar, Corporate America, Ikea, Imports, Manufacturers, Reform, Retailers, Target, Tax, U.S.
