Bloomberg (November 29)
“From rural bank runs to surging consumer indebtedness and an unprecedented bond restructuring, mounting signs of financial stress in China are putting the nation’s policy makers to the test.” It’s becoming “an increasingly difficult balancing act” as they struggle to “to support the world’s second-largest economy without encouraging moral hazard and reckless spending.”
Tags: Reckless spending
Wall Street Journal (November 28)
“American voters, beware. Politicians promising that Medicare for All and a Green New Deal can be financed by the rich are lying to you. The middle class will pay because that’s where the real money is.”
Tags: Beware, Green New Deal, Lying, Medicare, Middle class, Money, Politicians, Rich, U.S., Voters
Investments & Pensions Europe (November Issue)
“In India, where there is next to no focus on ESG, there is a growing realisation that externalities matter in areas like water management or rice production, which is highly water intensive. A small but growing band of investors is seeking to put ESG on the map.”
Tags: ESG, Externalities, India, Intensive, Investors, Rice production, Water management
New York Times (November 26)
“Citizens voted overwhelmingly for pro-democracy candidates” in Hong Kong’s local election this Sunday. “If the Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping had thought that there was a silent majority opposed to the disruptive protests, the turnout and result made clear that a vast majority of Hong Kongers treasure their relative freedoms and have no intention of letting Beijing whittle them away.”
Tags: Candidates, China, Citizens, Election, Hong Kong, Leadership, Overwhelmingly, Pro-democracy, Protests, Turnout, Vote, Xi
South China Morning Post (November 25)
“China’s restrained stance on the increasingly violent Hong Kong protests is burnishing its image as a responsible stakeholder in the international system…. While China cannot afford Hong Kong to become the next Tiananmen, it can well afford to see the city recede into global economic irrelevance. What does not matter economically hardly matters politically.”
Tags: China, Economically, Hong Kong, Irrelevance, Politically, Protests, Responsible, Stakeholder, Stance, Tiananmen, Violent
Financial Times (November 24)
Britain might do better if it tried a page from the Athenians. “If, instead of a general election, Britain held an ostracism vote, there would be plenty of ballots bearing not only the prime minister’s name but those of other party leaders. We would be selecting the most unpopular individual rather than the most popular party—arguably a more precise method of improving the democratic landscape, given the potential for deterring bad leadership. Mr Johnson, take note.”
Tags: Athenians, Bad leadership, Ballots, Brexit, Democratic landscape, Election, Individual, Ostracism, Party, UK, Unpopular
Inc (November Issue)
“Culture is not about providing a company keg. It’s hiring people who actually want to have beers together.”
Tags: Corporate culture, Hiring, Kegs, Together
The Economist (November 23)
Management consulting is being disrupted. “Advice on strategy, which used to be meat and potatoes for firms like McKinsey and its peers, Bain and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), is now a side dish; it accounts for about a tenth of revenues.” These days clients “want consultants to provide and install products, including new technologies, that transform them from top to bottom and keep disrupters at bay.”
Tags: Advice, Bain, BCG, Clients, Disrupted, Management consulting, McKinsey, Revenues, Strategy, Technologies, Transform
LA Times (November 21)
“With each witness who testifies in the House impeachment inquiry, it becomes clearer: The president was trying to orchestrate a filthy, self-interested operation that his former national security advisor John Bolton memorably derided as a ‘drug deal.’” It is becoming obvious that “the president of the United States was using his office to coerce an ally into smearing the family of a political rival.”
Tags: Ally, Bolton, Coerce, Drug deal, Filthy, Impeachment, NSA, Rival, Self-interested, Testifies, Trump, Witness
Washington Post (November 20)
“Even Republicans’ preferred witnesses are implicating Trump.” At Tuesday’s hearings by the House Intelligence Committee, “it was striking that the stories” told by the witnesses selected by the President’s party, “simply added to the evidence that President Trump abused his office and twisted long-standing U.S. policy in Ukraine to serve his personal political interests.”
Tags: Abuse, Evidence, Hearings, House Intelligence Committee, Implicating, Republicans, Trump, U.S., Ukraine, Witnesses