Bloomberg (March 20)
Paul Clements-Hunt coined the acronym. ESG. He now thinks “the ESG fund industry is headed for a ‘shakeout’ over the next five years.” In successfully attracting trillions of dollars to these investments, “the finance sector has ‘sprinkled ESG fairy dust’ on products that do little to account for environmental, social and governance risks.” These and other shenanigans will increasingly come into “jeopardy.”
Tags: Clements-Hunt, ESG, Fairy dust, Finance sector, Fund industry, Investments, Jeopardy, Risks, Shakeout, Shenanigans
Fortune (March 20)
“More than 30 companies are ‘digging in,’ defying public demands to exit Russia or reduce their activities in the pariah state.” The list compiled by Yale’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld has been revised with five categories to better capture corporate presence in Russia: “withdrawal,” “suspension,” “scaling back,” “buying time,” and “digging in.” Included in the final category are “AstraZeneca, Credit Suisse, Emirates Airlines, Koch Industries, SC Johnson, and Subway, which has nearly 450 franchise locations in the country.”
Tags: 30 companies, AstraZeneca, Credit Suisse, Digging in, Emirates Airlines, Exit, Koch Industries, Pariah state, Public demands, Reduce, Russia, SC Johnson, Sonnenfeld, Subway, Yale
New York Times (March 18)
Financial markets took the Fed’s higher rates in stride. “The stock market rose, bond yields wavered and commodity prices moderated. But whether the economy can withstand rising rates during a period of geopolitical turmoil and a lingering pandemic is a question without an immediate answer.”
Tags: Bond yields, Commodity prices, Economy, Fed, Financial markets, Geopolitical turmoil, Pandemic, Rising rates, Stock market, Withstand
Washington Post (March 17)
In terms of seizing Ukraine, “the extent of Putin’s failure is breathtaking.” He has, however, successfully “unified the West, prompted NATO to beef up its military spending, kick-started a resurgence of pro-democratic sentiments… and made himself the poster boy for war crimes.… Meanwhile, Russia’s economy is in shambles, losing decades of progress and perhaps permanently damaging the country’s energy markets.”
Tags: Breathtaking, Economy, Failure, Military spending, Nato, Pro-democratic, Putin, Resurgence, Russia, Ukraine, War crimes, West
Reuters (March 15)
“China posted a steep jump in daily COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, with new cases more than doubling from a day earlier to hit a two-year high, raising concerns about the rising economic costs of the country’s tough containment measures.” The nation’s “zero tolerance approach is not only becoming more costly, but also suffering diminishing returns against the highly infectious Omicron.”
Tags: China, Containment, COVID-19, Diminishing returns, Doubling, Economic costs, High, Infections, New cases, Omicron, Zero tolerance
Wall Street Journal (March 15)
This week, the Fed meets “to address the worst inflation in 40 years amid new risks to economic growth.” The mess is “largely of the Fed’s own making. The central bank’s inflation target is 2% for personal-consumption expenditure inflation, and the rate in February was probably three times higher.” The Fed’s “historic exertions were needed” when Covid struck, but it continued them for “too long, even as the money supply exploded and clear signs of inflation began to appear.”
Tags: Central bank, Covid, Economic growth, Fed, Inflation, Inflation target, Mess, Money supply, Personal consumption, Risks
Bloomberg (March 13)
“Trade’s share of global GDP peaked in 2008, and has been falling for the past decade. So the war in Ukraine doesn’t necessarily mark sharp a break in history. But it underlines and will perhaps cement the decline of globalization.”
Financial Times (March 12)
As “crude oil hit 14-year highs,” the mood at Houston’s CERAWeek conference was decidedly upbeat. “Industry executives who have felt maligned during the onset of a global energy transition” were “again feeling at the centre of epochal events.” Supply security clearly topped climate.
Tags: CERAWeek, Climate, Crude oil, Energy transition, Epochal, Executives, Highs, Houston, Industry, Maligned, Supply security
The Atlantic (March 10)
“Russia’s economic blackout will change the world. Like all novel experiments, the group punishment of Russia is a leap into the unknown.” In mere days, “the United States, Europe, and others have excommunicated Russia from the world stage, isolating the 11th-largest economy financially, commercially, and culturally.” The measures are largely unprecedented and, taken collectively, “amount to a radical worldwide experiment in moral retribution.”
Tags: Commercially, Culturally, Economic blackout, Europe, Excommunicated, Experiments, Financially, Leap, Punishment, Radical, Russia, U.S., Unknown, Unprecedented, World stage
Foreign Policy (March 10)
“Putin’s war could save the global economic order. In this crisis, Western countries have shaken off decades of economic policy lethargy.” Though “the short-term economic costs will be steep, the conflict might end up being the savior of the global economic order.”
Tags: Conflict, Costs, Global economic order. Crisis, Lethargy, Policy, Putin, Savior, Short term, War, Western countries
