Bloomberg (December 20)
“Japan has gained a tremendous amount of manufacturing competitiveness. A 2016 study by consulting firm Deloitte ranked Japan the fourth-most competitive country for manufacturing, a huge leap from the No. 10 position it held three years earlier.”
Tags: Competitiveness, Deloitte, Japan, Manufacturing, Rank
LA Times (December 19)
While the Trump administration is busy removing references to issues it would rather not acknowledge and covering them up with doublespeak, “the reality is that…the burning of fossil fuels by humans, spewing carbon and other greenhouse gases into the air… has increased the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. And unless we take quick and radical steps… the world as we know it will change, with species die-offs, coastline changes, more intense major storms and altered drought and rain patterns. And it will happen whether Trump uses the words ‘climate change’ or not.”
Tags: Carbon, Climate change, Die-offs, Doublespeak, Drought, Fossil fuels, Greenhouse gases, Reality, Storms, Trump
Time (December 18)
“It became a hashtag, a movement, a reckoning. But it began, as great social change nearly always does, with individual acts of courage.” They have toppled titans and brought hope, yet we are only in “the beginning of this upheaval,” and have yet to learn how far its ultimate impact will reach. “For giving voice to open secrets, for moving whisper networks onto social networks, for pushing us all to stop accepting the unacceptable, the Silence Breakers are the 2017 Person of the Year.”
Tags: Courage, Hashtag, Hope, Impact, Movement, Silence breakers, Social change, Social networks, Upheaval
WARC (December 18)
With wireless giant China Mobile leading the rankings, “domestic brands are outperforming foreign rivals when it comes to connecting with Chinese consumers via corporate social responsibility activities.” The next spots were occupied by Dairy group Mengniu and Lenovo.
Tags: Brands, China Mobile, Consumers, CSR, Domestic, Foreign rivals, Lenovo, Mengniu, Outperform, Rankings, Wireless
Investment Week (December Issue)
“Quantitative forecasts are based on probability models that cannot help but assume the future will be correlated to the past, and qualitative scenarios are based on, well, a combination of experience and common sense. Either way, most methodologies it would seem leave little room for discussion of true outliers and surprises.”
Tags: Forecasts, Future, Outliers, Probability models, Qualitative scenarios, Quantitative, Surprises
New York Times (December 15)
“There’s been a lot of backpedaling U.S. since Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “With the president having made a typically grandiose and poorly thought-through political gesture…wiser heads in the administration are trying to mollify Palestinians and other Arabs antagonized by his posturing.” Their efforts aren’t having much effect. “Mr. Trump could lessen the damage by specifying that the embassy, when moved, would be in West Jerusalem, and by indicating that the United States wants to recognize East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital as part of a peace agreement.”
Tags: Antagonized, Arabs, Backpedaling, Damage, Grandiose, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinians, Peace agreement, Trump, U.S.
1843 (December 13)
There is “a new golden age in board games…. One reason for the tabletop-gaming boom is simply that the products have improved. The best modern games are sociable, engaging and easy to learn, but also cerebral, intriguing and difficult to master. The slow triumph of what used to be called “nerd culture” – think smartphone gaming and “Game of Thrones” on television – has given adults permission to engage openly in pastimes that were previously looked down on as juvenile. And the increasing ubiquity of screens has, paradoxically, fuelled a demand for in-person socialising. Board gaming is another example of an old-style, analogue pastime that, far from being killed by technology, has been reinvigorated by it.”
Tags: Analogue, Board games, Boom, Engaging, Golden age, Nerd culture, Reinvigorated, Sociable, Technology
Chicago Tribune (December 12)
“Dynamic pricing models are popping up on express toll lanes. Proponents “say it encourages motorists to carpool, use mass transit or pick alternate routes. And if a commuter is willing to pay a premium to get to work faster, that’s their choice.” But some systems price “out people who can’t afford $40 to drive a 10-mile stretch of pavement. It creates what detractors call ‘Lexus lanes.’”
WARC (December 11)
“While China’s slowdown will continue to influence the economic landscape for other Asian markets – many marketers have seen budgets cut – bright spots are emerging, particular as India’s ‘mainstream’ consumer demographic continues to grow at pace.” Now expected to outpace China, India looks poised to add more mainstream consumers than China over the coming decade.
Gizmodo (December 11)
“Over the past year, Australia released an estimated 140 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in greenhouse gases,” excluding unreliable estimates for land use-related emissions. This marks a new record for down under and places Australia as one of “the worst polluters per capita among countries in its class.”
