Washington Post (April 17)
“Unlike the planners of D-Day or Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Russians organizing the invasion of Ukraine don’t need an immediate victory. They have flexible goals, and they are prepared to adjust their strategy depending on how much resistance they encounter.” In the short term, they are entirely flexible. “In the long term, Russia clearly hopes to annex eastern and southern Ukraine.”
Tags: Annex, D-Day, Flexible, Freedom, Goals, Invasion, Iraqi, Resistance, Russia, Strategy, Ukraine, Victory
Bloomberg (July 26)
“Everyone from officials at the U.S. Treasury to punters in London trading pits to salarymen in Osaka are so ecstatic to see a Japanese leader acting boldly that they’ve forgotten to study his strategy. It’s great that Abe wants to shake Japan Inc. out of two decades of complacency. It’s equally important, though, that his fixes are the right ones and are implemented carefully.”
Tags: Abe, Bold, Japan, Japan Inc., Leader, London, Osaka, Salarymen, Strategy, Trading, Treasury, U.S.
Institutional Investor (August Issue)
With ￥108 trillion in assets under management, Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) is almost six times the size of CalPERS. “Even more striking than the fund’s gargantuan size is its composition: Fully three quarters of the GPIF is invested in bonds, including ￥58.4 trillion of domestic bonds and ￥14.4 trillion of government agency debt.” This “mountain of government bonds” is “a low-return and potentially high-risk strategy,” and stands in contrast to other pension funds which are “trying to grow their way out by continuing to bet heavily on equities and making ever-larger allocations to private equity, hedge funds, real estate, infrastructure and other illiquid assets.”
The Independent (April 25)
In the UK, the economy slid “back into negative growth – it shrank by 0.2 per cent in the first quarter, after contracting by 0.3 per cent in the last quarter of 2011,” marking the first double-dip recession since 1975. A “more aggressive growth strategy” is needed. This should involve “targeted tax breaks and a serious assault on red tape to help instil business confidence.”
Tags: Double-dip, Economy, Negative growth, Strategy, UK
