Washington Post (November 29)
“Henry A. Kissinger, who died on Wednesday at 100, was one of the most consequential statesmen in U.S. history. Though his greatest triumphs occurred a half-century ago, his legacy is complex and contested and contains lessons that should inform Americans facing complicated foreign policy challenges now.”
Tags: 100, Challenges, Complex, Complicated, Consequential, Contested, Died, Foreign policy, History, Kissinger, Legacy, Lessons, Statesmen, Triumphs, U.S.
Euromoney (November 29)
“The travails of Zhongzhi, a key player in China’s poorly regulated $3 trillion shadow financing market, underline why a future crisis in the country is more likely, not less.” The government “continues to let problems mount perilously before stepping in… and to kick cans down roads in the hope that unsteady local banks will resolve bad-debt woes or find their own way out of insolvency…. Eventually, one of these financial mini-crises will mutate into a real monster. One that it cannot control.”
Tags: $3 trillion, Bad-debt woes, Banks, China, Control, Crisis, Government, https://www.euromoney.com/article/2cile3c8qd50c9ovnnrwg/opinion/zhongzhi-shows-chinas-fear-of-losing-control Travails, Insolvency, Perilously, Poorly regulated, Shadow financing, Zhongzhi
Institutional Investor (November 27)
“Retail beef prices hit a record in July, as base demand across all grades, from prime to select, remained ‘incredibly good’…. Cattle supplies are tight and are likely to stay that way for the next few years as drought and high input prices will limit herd expansion.”
Tags: Beef prices, Cattle supplies, Demand, Drought, Grades, Herd expansion, High, Input prices, July, Prime, Record, Retail, Select, Tight
Wall Street Journal (November 27)
“So far there are signs that U.S. shoppers are shelling out cash on gifts and other items. More shoppers visited stores and online spending grew on Black Friday this year compared with last year.” For many retailers, however, the rub is that “consumers are shifting away from store credit cards,” which had “been a lucrative source of revenue for retailers…. But the stream is drying up.”
Tags: Black Friday, Cash, Consumers, Gifts, https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/black-friday-spending-was-strong-how-people-pay-for-gifts-is-upending-retailers-e783ba2e?mod=itp_wsj U.S., Lucrative, Online spending, Retailers, Revenue, Shoppers, Store credit cards, Stores
Reuters (November 24)
“The German government is working hard to demonstrate the foolishness of the country’s iron-clad ban on large budget deficits.” Though it is suspending the “debt brake” for 2023, “the welcome relief is only temporary, and the harm is done. The budget crisis will cripple the economy for years to come.”
Tags: 2023, Ban, Budget deficits, Cripple, Crisis, Debt brake, Economy, Foolishness, German, Government, Harm, Iron-clad, Relief, Suspending, Temporary
Financial Times (November 23)
“China’s repeated attempts to tackle its worsening property crisis resemble firework displays — full of light and sound, quickly extinguished. Property stock prices have burst upwards with each new set of government measures to boost the market, only to collapse shortly thereafter. This week’s rally should not differ.”
Tags: Attempts, Boost, Burst, China, Collapse, Crisis, Extinguished, Fireworks, Government, Market, Property, Stock prices, Tackle, Worsening
The Guardian (November 23)
“The OpenAI farce has moved at such speed in the past week that it is easy to forget that nobody has yet said in clear terms why Sam Altman – the returning chief executive and all-round genius… – was fired in the first place.” Since “the worst outcome from the adoption of artificial general intelligence could be ‘lights out for all of us’, somebody needs to find a voice here.”
Tags: Lights out
CNN (November 21)
“Given the life-altering potential of AI – that even if it doesn’t kill us all, it will almost certainly change human existence in unprecedented ways at unprecedented speed – we all have a stake in how it’s being developed…. And we all have a stake in whose interests AI will serve – and right now, its development is being funded with billions of dollars by people expecting to make a huge profit.”
Tags: AI, Development, Funded, Human existence, Interests, Life-altering, Potential, Profit, Stake, Unprecedented
Washington Post (November 21)
Some take “last week’s meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping as a sign that the two great powers are growing closer. But on the most important issue in the relationship — Taiwan — Washington and Beijing are moving further apart. Xi’s rhetoric indicates he’s getting impatient with the status quo — and his actions are even more worrisome.”
Institutional Investor (November 21)
“After saving $1.6 billion since implementing its high-profile Collaborative Model in 2017, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System plans to focus on even more sophisticated cost savings efforts.” It already directly “manages 85 percent of its fixed income portfolio, and 75 percent of the global equities book in-house.” Now it plans to extends its Collaborative Model to encompass more private investments while shifting “its exposure from global equity to private credit, private equity, and infrastructure.”
Tags: 2017, CalSTRS, Collaborative Model, Cost savings, Credit, Fixed income, Global equities, Implementing, In-house, Infrastructure, Portfolio, Private equity, Sophisticated
