The Economist (July 8)
“Despite lots of martial talk from Mr Trump, a pre-emptive strike against North Korea is a terrifying option. It would risk setting off a war on the Korean peninsula that could claim millions of lives.” The best options are still deterrence and containment, “But if deterrence is to be effective, America’s threats must be credible. So Mr Trump must stop making promises he is not ready or able to honour—promises like stopping North Korea from developing an ICBM.”
Tags: Containment, Credible, Deterrence, ICBM, North Korea, Pre-emptive strike, Promises, Risk, Terrifying, Threats, Trump, U.S.
Institutional Investor (July 6)
“For private equity managers, it is a tale of two markets. Fundraising is going through the roof, but valuations are sky-high and exits are on the decline—a sign, market observers say, that the private equity market is nearing the end of its cycle, which could be bad news for managers looking to put new capital to work.”
Tags: Capital, Cycle, Exits, Fundraising, Managers, Markets, Private equity, Sky-high, Valuations
Chicago Tribune (July 5)
“The greatest threat facing America is President Donald Trump…. Daily he shows he lacks the character, discipline, intellect, judgment or respect for the office to be president of the United States.” One might “have to go back to King George III to find a head of state who so threatened America. But there is no precedent for one whose character is so obviously ill-suited to the presidency.”
Tags: Character, Discipline, Ill-suited, Intellect, Judgment, Presidency, Respect, Threat, Trump, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (July 5)
“The bosses of America’s biggest and best-known companies are learning a common lesson this year: The pay is great, but job security has rarely been shakier.” During the first five months of 2017, CEO turnover at large companies more than doubled. The “churn reflects a broader reality for the country’s business elite: An array of challenges—from increasing impatience on Wall Street and in boardrooms to a corporate landscape rapidly transformed by new technologies and rival upstarts—have made the top job tougher and more precarious than just a few years ago.” Today, “even the biggest companies are vulnerable to shareholder disapproval and competitive forces that their size and stature once helped them fend off.”
Tags: Boardrooms, CEO, Challenges, Elite, Impatience, Job security, Pay, Shareholders, Technologies, Turnover, U.S., Upstarts, Wall Street
Financial Times (July 5)
If Japan and the EU sign their free trade agreement, it “will stand as a powerful rejection of Donald Trump’s protectionist posture…. It will also highlight the challenge facing Britain. A hard Brexit would leave UK companies in some sectors on worse trade terms with their neighbour Europe than Japanese competitors halfway around the world.” There’s no shortage of irony as “the UK and the US risk being left behind — or forced to rethink their repudiation of the global order they built.”
Tags: Brexit, Competitors, EU, Free trade, Global order, Japan, Protectionist, Trump, UK
Washington Post (July 4)
“Trump’s most unpardonable offense isn’t his implied threat to members of the fourth estate but his minimizing of the nation’s stature in the world. Our allies must shudder while our enemies devise new ways to celebrate…. We look like fools because our president so convincingly plays one.”
Bloomberg (July 3)
“Strenuous efforts by Chinese regulators to ensure market stability are having the opposite effect.” The rationale is unimportant. “Whether such efforts are meant to protect important companies, stabilize markets or avoid national embarrassment, they’re preventing China’s markets from growing up. And it’s increasingly clear that they’re unnecessary.” Furthermore, “infantilizing Chinese firms…prevents the professionalization of management and improvements in corporate governance.”
Tags: China, Corporate governance, Embarrassment, Infantilizing, Management, Market stability, Professionalization, Rationale, Regulators
The Guardian (July 2)
“As the true extent of the Brexit farce becomes more apparent, it is now open warfare between the Brexiters, while the rest of the world…look on in sympathetic bewilderment.” Amid growing “evidence for concern about Brexit-induced potential loss of trading and investment opportunities,” there are growing hopes that the “transition” may be extended indefinitely.
Tags: Bewilderment, Brexit, Farce, Investment, Loss, Opportunities, Sympathetic, Trading, Transition
The Economist (July 1)
The European Commission levied a record-setting fine on Google. “The size of the fine the tech giant will have to pay for abusing its monopoly in online search, €2.4bn ($2.7bn), sets a record for European antitrust penalties,” but it remains to be seen whether Google will have to cough it up. The tech firm has promised an appeal. By no means is this case clear-cut, but its resolution should further thought on the extent to which “network effects create high barriers to entry in online markets.”
Tags: Antitrust, Barriers to entry, European Commission, Fine, Google, Monopoly, Network effects, Search, Tech
Financial Times (June 20)
“Six months into its financial crisis, Toshiba is shaping up as the Sistine Chapel of corporate catastrophes: you have to lie on your back to appreciate its scale, and once you get your eye in, the beauty is mesmerising.” Toshiba’s sweeping catastrophe “encapsulates much that investors — both foreign and domestic — have long despaired.” And “for a Japanese government apparently committed to reversing decades of shoddy corporate governance… Toshiba provides the perfect example of why it is pushing for change.”
Tags: Catastrophe, Corporate governance, Despair, Financial Crisis, Government, Investors, Japan, Scale, Shoddy, Sistine Chapel, Toshiba
