Wall Street Journal (June 3)
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine calls into question the wisdom of the environmental, social and governance movement’s policy centerpiece: restricting oil and gas investment.” Moreover, “the coordinated effort to depress oil and gas production is potentially a violation of American antitrust law. This combination of bad policy and legal risk will likely” cause the movement to “lose much of its support.”
Tags: Antitrust law, Coordinated, ESG movement, Gas, Invasion, Investment, Legal risk, Oil, Policy, Production, Restricting, Russia, Support, U.S., Ukraine, Violation
Financial Times (June 2)
“Cloudy with chance of hurricanes for Wall Street.” Jamie Dimon the head of JPMorgan Chase, started the rush to use “meteorological metaphors to make sense of the economic turbulence.” After speaking of big storm clouds and a hurricane striking the economy, other bankers followed suit. Only a few, like Goldman Sachs chief John Waldron, refused to play along. He rejected the use of “any weather analogies,” but largely agreed the outlook is complex and dynamic, “The confluence of the number of shocks to the system, to me, is unprecedented.”
Tags: Bankers, Cloudy, Complex, Dimon, Dynamic, Economic turbulence, Economy, Goldman Sachs, Hurricane, Hurricanes, JPMorgan Chase, Metaphors, Meteorological, Shocks, Storm clouds, Unprecedented, Waldron, Wall Street
New York Times (June 1)
“While the United States of America seems to be coming apart, the United States of Europe — the 27 members of the European Union — have stunned everyone, and most of all themselves, by coming together to make a fist, along with a number of other European nations and NATO, to stymie Putin’s invasion.”
BBC (June 1)
“It was supposed to last just nine days – a staggered lockdown to lessen the impact on Shanghai’s economy…. It lasted 65 days. It crippled the city and scarred its people. Restrictions are now being eased as quickly as they were imposed.” Like a “big bang,” most of the pervasive measures “are simply being lifted.”
Tags: 65 days, 9 days, Crippled, Eased, Economy, Impact, Imposed, Lockdown, People, Restrictions, Scarred, Shanghai, Staggered
Bloomberg (May 31)
“Power-hungry, fossil-fuel dependent Japan has successfully tested a system that could provide a constant, steady form of renewable energy, regardless of the wind or the sun.” The Kairyu prototype is designed to harness the Kuroshio current. “The advantage of ocean currents is their stability. They flow with little fluctuation in speed and direction, giving them a capacity factor…of 50-70%, compared with around 29% for onshore wind and 15% for solar.”
Tags: Capacity factor, Dependent, Energy, Fossil fuel, Japan, Kairyu, Kuroshio current, Ocean, Power-hungry, Prototype, Renewable, Solar, Steady, Tested, Wind
New York Times (May 31)
“Drone warfare is pushing human pilots to the side. Some next-generation military drones rely on artificial intelligence to circle over an area, pick out enemy units and destroy them.” As drone technology advances and cost decline, “the frightening truth is that troops and civilians in future conflicts will find fewer and fewer places to hide from the gaze of both man and machine.”
Tags: AI, Civilians, Cost, Destroy, Enemy units, Frightening, Future, Human pilots, Military drones, Next-generation, Troops, Warfare
Financial Times (June 29)
Hong Kong elite are visiting Japan on posh tours to invest in Tokyo. Property brokers say the tours demonstrate “the appeal of the weak yen” and “the way in which the Tokyo market seemed immune from the recessionary worries swirling around other capitals.”
Tags: Capitals
