The Straits Times (February 20)
“In spite of a substantial budget surplus,” Singapore is planning to raise taxes to meet “the challenges that lie ahead—in the form of financing healthcare in an ageing society, meeting infrastructure needs and ensuring security.” This approach starkly contrasts with the U.S., which has cut taxes despite running an enormous budget deficit, but fiscal sustainability has been “a mainstay of Singapore’s economic planning since independence.”
Tags: Budget surplus, Challenges, Deficit, Economic planning, Fiscal sustainability, Healthcare, Independence, Infrastructure, Security, Singapore, Taxes, U.S.
Institutional Investor (February 14)
“Record-high fundraising has resulted in some growing pains and new challenges for private market managers.” In 2017, “fund managers raised a record sum of nearly $750 billion. Much of this fundraising was driven by so-called mega funds, or funds larger than $5 billion,” which more than doubled their take over 2016. According to McKinsey & Co., the largest firms are now increasingly challenged by where to deploy capital, rather than how to raise it. Maintaining “the persistency of firm performance” is also growing more challenging “as the biggest firms get bigger.”
Tags: Capital, Challenges, Fundraising, McKinsey, Mega funds, Performance, Record high
Wall Street Journal (July 5)
“The bosses of America’s biggest and best-known companies are learning a common lesson this year: The pay is great, but job security has rarely been shakier.” During the first five months of 2017, CEO turnover at large companies more than doubled. The “churn reflects a broader reality for the country’s business elite: An array of challenges—from increasing impatience on Wall Street and in boardrooms to a corporate landscape rapidly transformed by new technologies and rival upstarts—have made the top job tougher and more precarious than just a few years ago.” Today, “even the biggest companies are vulnerable to shareholder disapproval and competitive forces that their size and stature once helped them fend off.”
Tags: Boardrooms, CEO, Challenges, Elite, Impatience, Job security, Pay, Shareholders, Technologies, Turnover, U.S., Upstarts, Wall Street
Korea Times (May 9)
“Moon Jae-in of the largest Democratic Party of Korea couldn’t take office as president in more trying times ― the country is besieged by big challenges from within and without.” To succeed, he “should ditch partisan politics” and “adopt partnership governance.”
Tags: Besieged, Challenges, Korea, Moon, Partnership, Politics, President, Trying times
Washington Post (December 27)
“Europe has been so weakened by the tumultuous events of 2016 that it is left unprepared to deal with the three big foreign policy challenges of 2017:” 1) Donald Trump, 2) “the increasing power of Vladimir Putin,” and 3) terrorism.
Tags: 2016, 2017, Challenges, Europe, Foreign policy, Putin, Terrorism, Trump, Tumultuous events, Weakened
Financial Times (July 26)
“There is a welcome sense among the world’s policymakers—at least, those outside the UK—that life is returning to the pre-EU referendum normal. The tasks of the Fed and the BoJ are not easy, particularly for the latter. But at least the challenges and the risks involved are looking a great deal more familiar.”
Tags: BOJ, Brexit, Challenges, EU, Fed, Policymakers, Referendum, Risks, UK
Institutional Investor (June 1)
Nearly a decade after the financial crisis, financial institutions still face challenges. However, the “savvy” ones are simplifying their structures and realizing efficiency gains. “For the past nine years, investments have poured into regulatory compliance and reporting initiatives. The rapid development of disruptive technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence is helping firms automate many of those processes and redirect their energy toward growth activities. Big data, analytics and digital technology shed light on what they do best—and most profitably—and enhance the customer experience.”
Tags: AI, Analytics, Big Data, Challenges, Customers, Digital technology, Disruptive technologies, Efficiency, Energy, Financial Crisis, Growth, Investments, Profit, Regulatory compliance, Reporting, Robotics, Savvy
Washington Post (May 22)
“With the Asian economic juggernaut coming to an end, due to lower growth in China, an aging Japan and South Korea, and India’s ongoing problems with corruption and a bureaucracy that impedes structural reform, the continent must be viewed from another angle: as a department store of many of the world’s gargantuan political and military challenges. Indeed, unless Asia’s strategically consequential states can significantly mitigate, if not resolve, the region’s political and military deficits, Asia’s rise will never be completed.”
Tags: Aging, Asia, Bureaucracy, Challenges, China, Corruption, Economic juggernaut, Growth, India, Japan, South Korea, Structural reform
New York Times (April 19)
“Civilization’s understanding of Earth has expanded enormously in recent decades, making humanity safer and more prosperous.” But a new “dark age is a growing possibility” as our ability to predict future weather patterns is disrupted by climate change. Without the ability to accurately forecast long-term phenomena, “we will face huge challenges feeding a growing population and prospering within our planet’s finite resources.”
Tags: Challenges, Civilization, Climate change, Dark age, Disrupted, Earth, Forecast, Humanity, Patterns, Population, Predict, Prosperous, Resources, Weather
The Economist (August 8)
“Germany is back in its old dilemma: too weak for hegemony, too large for balance. No other country can think of imposing solutions, but Europe will not allow Germany to do so either. That may mean that the EU’s biggest challenges—from immigration to preventing a British exit and fixing the euro—will continue to go unmet.”
Tags: Balance, Brexit, Challenges, Dilemma, euro, Europe, Germany, Hegemony, Immigration, Solutions
