Chicago Tribune (February 7)
A shadow is hanging over the Olympiad, which “is set against the looming menace posed by one of the world’s most dangerous regimes — North Korea. Whether Pyongyang and the U.S. continue to trade threats of nuclear destruction is a challenge for politicians, diplomats and military strategists.”
Tags: Dangerous, Looming, Menace, North Korea, Nuclear destruction, Olympiad, Regime, Shadow, Threats, U.S.
Forbes (February 6)
“The dollar-euro exchange rate is the most important price in the world…. How so? These are two surpassingly large economic areas, and they trade and invest more than enough with each other—such that each imports the other’s entire relative price structure…. Change that exchange rate in a big way—a fifth is plenty big—and all sorts of new decisions will come in terms of where one plans to invest, produce, and sell.”
Tags: Dollar, euro, Exchange rate, Imports, Invest, Price structure, Produce, Sell, Trade
New York Times (February 6)
Investors believe “policies to stoke growth are going to work so well that they will overheat the economy, and force the Federal Reserve to try to slow things down by raising interest rates faster than expected. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. Don’t forget what set off the plunge on Friday: better-than-expected job growth numbers.”
Tags: Economy, Fed, Growth, Interest rates, Investors, Job growth, Overheat
Inc (Winter 2018)
“This is the beginning of the end of smartphones…. There’s already evidence of the next wave of computers, which we’ll wear and command using our voices. The transition from smartphones to smart wearables–earbuds that have biometric sensors and speakers; rings and bracelets that can sense our motion; glasses that record and display information–will forever change how we experience the world…. All of which is to say that, in the not-too-distant future, we’ll be making the physical and digital realms interchangeable. Think smartphones are addictive? You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Tags: Augmented reality, Biometric sensors, Computers, Earbuds, Glasses, Smartphones, Voice, Wearables
The Economist (February 3)
University degrees are becoming more widespread. In South Korea, for example, 70% “of pupils who graduate from the country’s secondary schools now go straight to university… up from 37% in 2000.” The cost of a degree is also rising and evidence suggests ROI is falling. Still, “most young people will want a degree. It may not boost their earnings as much as they had hoped, but without one, they will probably fare even worse,” as a degree has also become the entry level threshold for many positions.
Tags: Cost, Degrees, Earnings, Entry level, ROI, South Korea, Threshold, University, Widespread
The Indian express (February 1)
“This is a revolutionary Budget. It has major, big-ticket announcements which will help India take a giant leap in our aspirations to establish a New India.” Perhaps the most ambitious is a measure to expand health insurance to half a billion people. “With this added health cover benefit, we can be truly proud of being a growing economy with concerns of the marginalized and the disadvantaged being well taken care of. In a way, this is a redistribution of wealth generated in favour of the poor and the impoverished.”
Tags: Benefit, Budget, Disadvantaged, Health insurance, Impoverished, India, Marginalized, Redistribution, Revolutionary, Wealth
CNN (February 1)
Richard Nixon “proved unable to shut down an FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in and ultimately resigned over the attempted coverup.” Some “extreme Nixonites” believe President Nixon “should have fought harder. Trump, who loves to talk about himself as a fighter, isn’t making that mistake. For this reason, we should expect more of the same…and a deepening crisis for the nation. All of this in service to one man’s state of mind.”
The Independent (January 31)
“There’s still time for a Suez style retreat from Brexit… There is no cosmic law mandating the continuation of a folly simply because it is begun; no rule of primogeniture giving an older expression of the democratic will precedence over any that might follow…. an epochal global humiliation is a far smaller price to pay than 8 per cent, 5 per cent or even 2 per cent of GDP.”
Tags: Brexit, Democratic will, Folly, GDP, Global humiliation, Retreat, Suez
Institutional Investor (January 31)
“Bitcoin’s wild price swings have investors wondering how to short the digital currency, as there would be a lot of money to be made in the latest craze in investing.” Alas, this isn’t so easy. Though Bitcoin futures trade openly, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is charging “an initial margin of 47 percent of the futures’ value owing to the volatile nature of Bitcoin.”
Tags: Bitcoin, CME, Craze, Digital currency, Futures, Investing, Investors, Margin, Price Swings, Short, Volatile, Wild
