Bloomberg (July 8)
“Since its commercial introduction in 2007, the Airbus A380 has brought a long-lost sense of glamour back to travel…. Financially speaking, it’s a disaster of similarly grand proportions.” Airbus has “acknowledged it will never recoup the €25 billion ($32 billion)” of initial development costs. If production falls below 30 planes a year, there’s also a chance production could go back into the red, after only one year of profitability. “Axing the A380 outright” still remains “hard to do. Besides the embarrassment of admitting defeat on the program,” write downs that would ripple through the company and much of Europe.
Tags: A380, Airbus, Development costs, Disaster, Embarrassment, Europe, Glamour, Planes, Production, Profitability, Recoup, Write-downs
Washington Post (June 24)
“British voters have defied the will of their leaders, foreign allies and much of the political establishment by opting to rupture this country’s primary connection to Europe in a stunning result that will radiate economic and political uncertainty across the globe.”
Tags: Allies, Establishment, Europe, Leaders, Stunning, UK, Uncertainty, Voters
Financial Times (May 20)
“The plunge in yields on corporate and sovereign bonds in Europe and Asia — the value of bonds with a negative yield is nearly $10tn, according to Fitch — has sent investors racing into the US market.” This surging demand “has allowed companies to issue debt at lower yields, though US yields are still more attractive than in other parts of the world.”
Tags: Asia, Bonds, Corporate, Debt, Demand, Europe, Fitch, Investors, Negative yield, Plunge, Sovereign, U.S., Yields
The Economist (April 23)
With a dominant European market share, Google has come under fire from the European Commission. Google deserves to profit from its acumen, but this “has to be balanced against the need to inspire innovations that might complement Android or Google Search—or even displace them. It is now up to Google to demonstrate that its mobile strategy does not harm competition, and thus consumers.”
Tags: Android, Competition, Consumers, Dominant, Europe, European Commission, Google, Innovation, Market share, Mobile strategy, Profit, Search
Wall Street Journal (April 21)
“For Europe to grow faster, the political class will eventually have to stop looking to the ECB as the growth engine of first and last resort.” On Thursday, Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, was unusually blunt in his criticism of other European politicians because they “have used the relief of low interest rates as an excuse not to do reforms.”
Tags: Blunt, Criticism, Draghi, ECB, Europe, Excuse, Growth engine, Interest rates, Politicians, Reforms
Wall Street Journal (March 22)
“Europe seems determined to keep treating this as a policing problem, or at least as anything other than a call to bolster military efforts in Syria…. There’s a role for policing in a counterterror strategy, but also a limit. Brussels…can’t live in perpetual lockdown. Until the West is prepared to fight this terrorist threat at the source, Tuesday’s victims in Brussels won’t be the last.”
Tags: Brussels, Counterterror, Europe, Lockdown, Military, Policing, Strategy, Syria, Terrorist threat, Victims
Wall Street Journal (February 23)
Europe is again sputtering, which is the “cost of ignoring Mario Draghi’s pleas for reforms.” Quantitative easing “without accompanying policy reforms such as looser labor-market rules and liberalized product markets is losing traction fast. Only those reforms could boost European resilience in the face of global developments such as China’s slowdown that weigh on growth.”
Tags: China, Draghi, Europe, Growth, Labor-market rules, Quantitative easing, Reforms, Resilience, Slowdown, Sputtering
Wall Street Journal (January 21)
“Amid China’s economic tremors, political uncertainty in the U.S. and policy sclerosis in Europe, ECB President Mario Draghi is the only policy maker in town who seems determined to keep the party going.” While the European Central Bank (ECB) left rates and its quantitative easing program unchanged, Draghi the “lonely agent of good cheer” suggested the ECB would review its policy, possibly easing the spigot as early as March.
Bloomberg (November 19)
“As the rest of the world looks for ways to rein in high-frequency trading, Japan is making a mistake by letting it expand unchecked.” High-speed trading accounted for nearly half of TSE trading last year, but officials have done little to examine or regulate high-frequency trading. In contrast, stricter rules are being implemented overseas in Europe, the U.S. and even China.
Wall Street Journal (September 9)
While Europe is rescuing teeming masses of immigrants, neighboring Arab states are proving they are “not their brothers’ keepers.” They have done “pretty much nothing,” with Gulf leaders “worrying that a large influx of refugees will upset the political balance of their brittle kingdoms.”
Tags: Arab states, Europe, Gulf, Immigrants, Kingdoms, Political balance, Refugees