Reuters (June 28)
“British consumers have turned gloomier about the economy and the outlook for their personal finances,” according to a consumer-sentiment survey. “The GfK consumer sentiment index—which has been negative since shortly before the June 2016 Brexit referendum—fell to -13 in June from May’s seven-month high of -10.” This is just one of the signs pointing to “a lacklustre second quarter for the economy.”
Tags: Brexit, Consumer sentiment, Consumers, Economy, GfK, Gloomier, Lacklustre, Negative, Outlook, Personal finances, Referendum, UK
Wall Street Journal (June 28)
As “the U.S. and India stumble toward a trade war,” it’s time to take a step back. “America has legitimate grievances, but both sides have a strategic interest in avoiding a serious conflict.”
Tags: Grievances, India, Legitimate, Strategic interest, Trade war, U.S.
Bloomberg (June 26)
“China is losing the war against shadow banking. Look beneath the headline numbers and you’ll see that activity is picking up, a sign of the economy’s overreliance on this opaque funding channel.” In the first quarter, “financing using trust assets climbed 4.4%” and the “proportion prone to default and repayment risks climbed to a record high of 90% from a year earlier.” Despite the talk of deleveraging, “what’s clear is that China needs its shadow banks now more than ever.”
Tags: China, Default, Deleveraging, Opaque funding, Overreliance, Repayment risks, Shadow banking, Trust assets
Financial Times (June 25)
“The latest Brexit fantasy is the most absurd of all. Article 24 of the WTO’s underlying treaty is not a solution to no-deal.” If Boris Johnson wins the election, “he needs to have a plan ready to deal with the disappointment of his followers when it turns out they were sold policies under false pretences. A unilateral invocation of part of Article 24 is not a way out of the UK’s Brexit predicament. If Mr Johnson and his followers do not know that, they soon will.”
Tags: Absurd, Article 24, Brexit, Disappointment, Election, False pretences, Fantasy, Johnson, No-deal, Treaty. Solution, UK, WTO
San Francisco Chronicle (June 25)
“San Francisco became the first major U.S. city to ban the sale of electronic cigarettes after supervisors gave the measure its second and final vote Tuesday.” The west coast city “celebrates its marijuana culture, but it appears deeply opposed to other vices. Last year, voters approved a ban on the sale of flavored tobacco and in 2016, a tax on sugar-sweetened drinks.”
Tags: Ban, Electronic cigarettes, Flavored tobacco, Marijuana, San Francisco, Sugar-sweetened drinks, Tax, U.S., Vices
Washington Post (June 24)
“When we look back on June 2019, we’ll say that this was the time when a credible allegation of rape was made against the president of the United States, and he had already shown himself to be such a loathsome character that it was treated as a third-tier story, not worthy of much more than a passing mention here and there in the news.”
Tags: Allegation, Credible, Loathsome, News, President, Rape, Third-tier, Trump, U.S.
Investment Week (June 24)
“The highly-publicised suspension of Neil Woodford’s flagship LF Woodford Equity Income fund has significantly damaged the UK general public’s relationship with investing…. There will ‘clearly be ramifications’ for the active management industry.”
Tags: Active management, Damage, Flagship, Fund, General public, Investing, Ramifications, Suspension, UK, Woodford
New York Times (June 23)
President Trump has made a mess of Iran. His “decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal and impose crippling sanctions, when Iran was in full compliance, was foolish and, predictably, has backfired.” Still, “we are where we are” and fortunately that’s not yet full-scale war. “Finding a way to leverage his massive mistakes while demonstrating the will and capacity to climb down is our least bad option.” If he can act rationally, “with uncharacteristic clarity and resolve,” the President “now has an opening to restart talks on Iran’s nuclear program.”
Tags: Backfired, Compliance, Foolish, Iran, Mess, Mistakes, Nuclear deal, Opening, Sanctions, Trump, War, Withdraw
The Economist (June 22)
Already “one in five Americans calls Texas or California home.” The behemoths are now “the biggest, brashest, most important states in the union, each equally convinced that it is the future.” But their vision is “heading in opposite directions, creating an experiment that reveals whether America works better as a low-tax, low-regulation place” or a “high-tax, highly regulated one.” Given Washington dysfunction, “the results will determine what sort of country America becomes almost as much as the victor of the next presidential election will.”
Tags: Biggest, Brashest, California, Dysfunction, Election, Experiment, Future, Regulation, Tax, Texas, U.S., Washington
South China Morning Post (June 20)
The trade war between the U.S. and China “is pushing the world economy closer to the edge. The longer it goes on, the harder it will be to undo the damage,” which clearly already is being inflicted. “Compared to pre-2008 crisis levels, world economic growth has plummeted by half and is at risk of a long-term, hard-to-reverse stagnation. Returning to global integration and multilateral reconciliation could dramatically change the scenario.”
Tags: China, Crisis, Damage, Economic growth, Integration, Plummeted, Stagnation, Trade war, U.S., World economy