American Banker (December 9)
“Fintechs turned cross-border payments into a hotbed of innovation over the last five years. Now the card networks and banks are responding with disruptions of their own. It’s not just the competitive threat from fintechs developing faster, cheaper and more transparent cross-border payment options. The changing economy is now adding urgency for legacy cross-border providers to modernize their services.”
Tags: Banks, Card networks, Cheaper, Competitive threat, Cross-border, Disruptions, Economy, Faster, Fintechs, Hotbed, Innovation, Legacy, Modernize, Payments, Services, Transparent
Reuters (December 9)
“Wherever you think inflation is coming from, it’s not China – not yet at least…. China said its factory-gate prices showed an annual fall for a second month in a row last month – the latest in stream of numbers revealing the impact of the government’s draconian COVID curbs, now being gradually lifted.”
Tags: China, COVID curbs, Draconian, Factory-gate, Fall, Government, Impact, Inflation, Prices
Financial Times (December 7)
“Not only does Bankman-Fried appear to be lacking in shame; he seems almost contemptuous towards those who feel complex moral emotions.” Feeling embarrassed is not sufficient “when we are talking about as much as $8bn having gone missing, as many as 1mn creditors having lost their money, and a collapsed $32bn crypto empire being investigated by criminal prosecutors for alleged fraud on a vast scale (which Bankman-Fried denies).”
Tags: $8bn, Bankman-Fried, Collapsed, Complex, Contemptuous, Creditors, Criminal prosecutors, Crypto, Embarrassed, Feeling, Investigated, Lacking, Missing, Moral emotions, Shame, Sufficient
Los Angeles Times (December 7)
“The defeat of Walker, a comically flawed candidate pushed by Trump, might also contribute — one can certainly hope — to a waning of the former and would-be future president’s influence in his party and in the country.”
Tags: Candidate, Comically flawed, Country, Defeat, Influence, Party, President, Trump, Walker, Waning
New York Times (December 2)
“The dictatorship remains, and those detained as a result of the street protests are presumably still in jail. But Wednesday’s announcement is a remarkable turnabout. Historically, popular protests in modern China have not resulted in more freedom but in less.” “The dictatorship remains, and those detained as a result of the street protests are presumably still in jail. But Wednesday’s announcement is a remarkable turnabout. Historically, popular protests in modern China have not resulted in more freedom but in less.”
Tags: China, Detained, Dictatorship, Freedom, Jail, Popular protests, Remarkable, Street protests, Turnabout
Institutional Investor (December 6)
“Hedge funds have outperformed public markets but are now suffering from redemptions as investors find they are overweight alternatives.”
Tags: Alternatives, Hedge funds, Investors, Outperformed, Overweight, Public markets, Redemptions, Suffering
Bloomberg (December 2)
“If Sam Bankman-Fried isn’t lying, crypto is in trouble.” If “systematic incompetence” was the reason behind FTX’s implosion, “it’s perhaps more damaging to the industry’s ambitions than if its problems were caused by premeditating Madoff-like criminals who could be brought to justice.”
Tags: Ambitions, Criminals, Crypto, Damaging, FTX, Implosion, Incompetence, Lying, Madoff, Premeditating, Reason, SBF, Trouble
Oilprice.com (December 2)
“OPEC+ will meet this Sunday to discuss its production targets for January 2023, amidst a widening discrepancy between oil market watchers as to what we should be expecting next year…. The IEA’s global oil demand growth for 2023 stands at a mere 1.7 million b/d whilst OPEC expects 2.55 million b/d.”
Tags: 1.7 million b/d, 2.55 million b/d, 2023, Demand growth, Discrepancy, Global, IEA, January, Oil market, OPEC, Production targets
Newsweek (December 2)
“The failure to conduct basic due diligence of Bankman-Fried is after all what led to his ability to take so many people for a ride. That refusal to investigate reflects the complexity of the crypto industry and the difficulty involved in tracking the flow of funds and risk on the blockchain. But it’s also further evidence of how the media gets hoodwinked by Robin Hood narratives, something many technology leaders have learned to leverage well.”
Tags: Bankman-Fried, Blockchain, Complexity, Crypto industry, Difficulty, Due diligence, Evidence, Failure, Funds, Hoodwinked, Investigate, Media, Risk, Robin Hood, Tracking
Irish Examiner (December 1)
“Why did Elon Musk purchase Twitter? His official answer — to defend free speech and democracy — is so unconvincing that the question won’t go away. Musk’s repeated appeals to these ideals to justify important decisions he has made since taking over are so confounding that they raise deep suspicions about his motives.”
Tags: Confounding, Decisions, Deep suspicions, Democracy, Free speech, Ideals, Important, Justify, Motives, Musk, Purchase, Twitter, Unconvincing
