Foreign Policy (November 28)
After engineering “changes in China’s leadership succession rules so that he can preside over his country for life,” Xi is now confronting “a crisis that may come to be seen as an ideal test of the middle-income trap theory.” Deep down, Xi probably realizes “that at some point China’s political system will have to adapt for the country to continue to modernize” and avoid this trap. But for Xi, much like other “leaders who concentrate immense power in their own hands,” the problem is that “no moment ever quite looks like a good one to make serious, substantive change.”
Tags: Adapt, China, Concentrate, Crisis, Leaders, Leadership, Middle-income trap, Modernize, Political system, Power, Rules, Substantive change, Succession, Test, Xi
Reuters (November 28)
“Thousands of people are taking to the streets in several cities across the country in an unprecedented protest against the government’s stringent COVID restrictions.” This sort of unrest “does not happen very often, and the world is watching intently to see how Beijing handles the brewing crisis.”
Tags: Beijing, China, Cities, COVID restrictions, Government, People, Protest, Stringent, Thousands, Unprecedented, Unrest
Forbes (November 27)
“It’s an omnichannel holiday!” This Black Friday weekend, Americans re-embraced “in-person shopping…returning to stores and malls in big numbers.” That did not, however, lessen their “love affair with online shopping.” On Black Friday, a “record $9.12 billion was spent online,” up more than 2% since 2021.
Tags: $9.12 billion, Black Friday, Holiday, In-person shopping, Malls, Omnichannel, Online shopping, Record, Stores, U.S.
Bloomberg (November 25)
“Since the Brexit vote in 2016, the UK government is yet to deliver major legislative change with significant benefits for businesses. Instead, companies have had to grapple with higher paperwork costs on trade, a tighter labor market spurred by a reduction in EU migration and a weaker pound increasing import costs. Brexit has also had a political cost of aggravating tensions in Northern Ireland and hurting diplomatic relations with the EU.”
Tags: Benefits, Brexit, Businesses, Costs, EU, Government, Import, Labor market, Migration, Northern Ireland, Paperwork, Pound, Trade, UK, Weaker
Wall Street Journal (November 25)
“China’s zero-Covid reckoning” is approaching as “record infections and new lockdowns lead to rising public frustration and slower economic growth.” China’s economy is expected to slow further, “with growth estimates falling for the fourth quarter and the year below 3%. That’s assuming Chinese officials aren’t gilding the books. China’s official GDP target for this year had been 5.5%.”
Tags: China, Economy, GDP, Infections, Lockdowns, Public frustration, Q4, Reckoning, Record, Slower economic growth, Zero COVID
Institutional Investor (November 23)
“Plan fiduciaries investing according to environmental, social, and governance principles may be breathing a sigh of relief after the Department of Labor finalized the rule allowing retirement plans to take these factors into consideration.” The new DOL rules “reversed two regulations issued under the Trump administration, which banned plan fiduciaries from investing in ‘non-pecuniary’ instruments.”
Tags: Banned Non-pecuniary, Department of Labor, ESG, Factors, Fiduciaries, Investing, Regulations, Relief, Retirement plans, Reversed, Rule, Trump administration
The Guardian (November 23)
“A crisis is brewing” in Scotland. “Ms Sturgeon intends to demonstrate such demand for separation that a Westminster government using its constitutional power of obstruction would appear to be in egregious violation of democratic principle. If unionists do not want to be caught in that position, they need something more than a legal veto over a referendum. They need the political arguments that can win one.”
Tags: Brewing, Constitutional power, Crisis, Demand, Democratic principle, Egregious, Obstruction, Referendum, Scotland, Separation, Sturgeon, Unionists, Veto, Violation
Financial Times (November 21)
“We’ve been sceptical of the asset management craze for ESG…. So it’s only fair that we highlight some intriguing work that shows that just maybe some of all this is actually having a clear, measurable and positive impact.” Female representation on U.S. corporate boards remains low, but “grew by over 50 per cent in 2016-19, going from a pretty pathetic 13.1 per cent of directors to a still-bad-but-much better 19.7 per cent.” Some attribute “this to the role played by the passive investment industry’s ‘Big Three’ — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street — which started to very publicly make a lot of noise about this issue a few years back.”
Tags: “Big Three”, 2016-19, Asset management, BlackRock, Corporate boards, Craze, Directors, ESG, Female representation, Measurable, Passive investment, Positive impact, Sceptical, State Street, U.S., Vanguard
Vox (November 21)
“College enrollment began slowly receding after the millennial enrollment wave peaked in 2010, particularly in regions that were already experiencing below-average birth rates while simultaneously losing population to out-migration.” Still worse is coming to higher education in the U.S. “The empty factories and abandoned shopping malls littering the American landscape may soon be joined by ghost colleges, victims of an existential struggle for reinvention, waged against a ticking clock of shrinking student bodies”
Tags: Abandoned, Birth rates, Colleges, Empty factories, Enrollment, Higher education, Millennial, Out-migration, Peaked, Population, Receding, Shopping malls, Shrinking, Student bodies, U.S.
Washington Post (November 19)
“In 1798, British economist Thomas Malthus forecast that an increasing population would soon outstrip, disastrously, nature’s capacity to feed so many people…. And yet here we are: The world’s population has octupled since Malthus’s day, more than doubled since 1968, and living standards around the world have vastly, though unevenly, improved during that time.” It is worth celebrating November 15, the day “Planet Earth welcomed its eight-billionth living inhabitant.”
Tags: 1798, Celebrating, Earth, Economist, Forecast, Inhabitant, Living standards, Malthus, Nature’s capacity, Octupled, Outstrip, Population
