Washington Post (April 18)
“Nothing like this has happened in human history…. Men outnumber women by 70 million in China and India.” The results are “far-reaching: Beyond an epidemic of loneliness, the imbalance distorts labor markets, drives up savings rates in China and drives down consumption, artificially inflates certain property values, and parallels increases in violent crime, trafficking or prostitution.” Moreover the consequences extend all the way to Europe and the U.S.
Tags: China, Consequences, Consumption, Distortions, Europe, Imbalance, India, Labor markets, Loneliness, Men, Property values, Savings, U.S., Violent crime, Women
Bloomberg (April 17)
“China’s economic expansion held up amid robust consumer spending, underpinning global growth and giving authorities room to purge excessive borrowing, while the industrial sector showed signs of modest slowdown.”
Tags: China, Consumer spending, Economic expansion, Excessive borrowing, Global growth, Industrial, Slowdown
Automotive News (April 16)
“With multiple electric vehicles coming, buyers need a strong charging network to alleviate range anxiety” and so Porsche now “plans to have at least 500 fast chargers available at dealership and highway locations across the U.S. by the end of 2019.” Porsche expects to have one electric vehicle (EV) on sale by that time and another “is planned for deliveries in 2020.” In addition, the car maker is considering “EV variants of established models such as the Macan, Panamera and Cayenne.”
Tags: Cayenne, Charging network, Dealerships, EVs, Macan, Panamera, Porsche, Range anxiety, U.S.
PBS News Hour (April 15)
President Trump is now “trying to confront a dilemma that haunted his predecessor, Barack Obama. Syria’s seven-year civil war presents few fast or easy solutions for the U.S., yet the geopolitical rivalries at play, the presence of the Islamic State group and other extremists, and the atrocities perpetrated by the Assad government make the situation impossible to ignore.”
Tags: Assad, Atrocities, Civil war, Confront, Dilemma, Extremists, Geopolitical, Islamic State, Obama, Rivalries, Solutions, Syria, Trump, U.S.
Dallas Morning News (April 15)
“We’ll give President Donald Trump this: The coordinated strikes over the weekend that apparently destroyed the heart of Syria’s chemical weapons program were a serious, disciplined and appropriate response to a regime seemingly bent on using such weapons against its own people.” We now hope he’ll “now offer a clear plan for what’s next” in Syria.
Tags: Appropriate, Chemical weapons, Destroyed, Disciplined, Plan, Strikes, Syria, Trump, Weapons
The Independent (April 14)
“This is a democratic outrage. If parliament–certainly reflecting public opinion on this occasion–would not support air strikes, then British forces should not have taken part in them, no matter how compelling the arguments may seem to the prime minister. We respect the view that the use of chemical weapons should be punished, but the democratic principle must come first.”
Tags: Air strikes, Arguments, Chemical weapons, Compelling, Democratic, Outrage, Parliament, Public opinion, Support, UK
The Economist (April 14)
“Germany is entering a new era. It is becoming more diverse, open, informal and hip.” As the Merkel era draws to a close, “many of the country’s defining traits—its ethnic and cultural homogeneity, conformist and conservative society, and unwillingness to punch its weight in international diplomacy—are suddenly in flux.”
Tags: Conformist, Conservative, Diverse, Era, Flux, Germany, Hip, Homogeneity, Informal, Merkel, Open, Traits
Bloomberg (April 13)
A “$105 billion ‘ghost stock’ blunder” created market upheaval in Korea. An error at the South Korean brokerage Samsung Securities Co. gave employees 1,000 Samsung Securities shares each instead of 1,000 won (less than $1). “In total, the company distributed 2.83 billion shares, worth—on paper—about 112.6 trillion won. That was more than 30 times the company’s market value.” As employees sold the ghost shares, the stock price “plunged” 12% and “many retail investors got burned.”
Tags: Blunder, Brokerage, Burned, Employees, Market upheaval, Retail investors, Samsung Securities, South Korea, Stock
Wall Street Journal (April 12)
“It’s not the Trump Administration, it’s an adventure, and on Thursday there was a glint of good news on trade of all things…. President Trump directed his advisers to examine if the U.S. could negotiate its way back into the Pacific trade deal he walked away from in 2017.” Then again, this might just “another please-the-crowd attempt that will vanish like a tweet.”
Reuters (April 12)
“At New York’s Trump Tower, condo prices have lost their glitter.” It’s not just because of the recent deadly fire, it’s also “the constant presence of armed guards and Secret Service agents,” as well as the unwanted association with the President. “Since 2015, prices at Trump Tower have dropped 30 percent per square foot compared with an 8 percent fall in comparable properties on Manhattan’s Midtown East Side.”