Reuters (August 31)
“Parents will feel the change” of new restrictions limiting minors to a single hour of video game time on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. “Workaholics will find it harder to … use addictive games and apps as de-facto babysitters, but then the government is trying to reduce overtime too. Over the longer term, this could be healthy for Chinese families, but not so much for businesses.”
Tags: Addictive, Apps, De-facto babysitters, Families, Government, Healthy, Hour, Minors, Overtime, Parents, Restrictions, Video games, Workaholics
Wall Street Journal (August 23)
The Government of Japan “is already on the hook to pay out nearly $10 trillion to its creditors.” This may appear *an impossibly large sum to rustle up” when annual tax collections amount to “less than $600 billion.” But today’s “economists talk more about the risk of issuing too little debt” and the U.S. may soon follow Japan’s lead. “Congress is debating trillions of dollars more in proposed spending that would push America’s borrowing toward levels policy makers in Tokyo have long embraced.”
Tags: $10 trillion, Borrowing, Congress, Creditors, Debt, Economists, Government, Japan, Risk, Spending, Tax collections, U.S.
Washington Post (July 9)
“Tokyo’s newly rebuilt, 68,000-capacity National Stadium… will be empty throughout the Games, symbolizing the vast sums of money invested in these Olympics with little reward for the people of Japan or the country’s economy.” The spectator ban “highlights the government’s failure to get its vaccination program underway early enough to allow the Games to take place safely with fans.”
Tags: Economy, Empty, Failure, Government, Japan, Money, National Stadium, Olympics, Reward, Spectator ban, Tokyo, Vaccination program
Seattle Times (July 1)
“And on the 476th day, Washington returned—sort of, mostly, cautiously, officially if not practically—to normal.” COVID-19 related restrictions began across the state on March 11, 2020. “One year, three months, two weeks and five days later, the last of those major restrictions melted away on Wednesday.” It’s not as easy as flipping a switch. COVID-19 and government-issued restrictions effectively “pulled the emergency brake on Washington’s economic and social life.” It is going to “take more than just releasing that lever to get the engine back to full throttle.”
Tags: 476 days, Brake, COVID-19, Economic, Emergency, Government, Life, Normal, Restrictions, Social, Washington
New York Times (June 26)
“The ouster of the chairman, Osamu Nagayama, 74, represents a major win in a battle between Toshiba and foreign investors who have pushed the conservative company to clean up its governance. It is also a breakthrough in a broader effort to increase investor oversight of Japanese corporations, following a series of government-led changes meant to make companies more transparent and accountable.”
Tags: Battle, Breakthrough, Chairman, Clean-up, Conservative, Foreign investors, Governance, Government, Japanese corporations, Nagayama, Ouster, Oversight, Toshiba, Transparent, Win
Miami Herald (June 24)
“There’s a sense of déjà vu to the new grief in our community over the collapse of… a 12-story building packed with residents, Surfside’s Champlain Towers South Condo…. Just as the FIU bridge collapse taught us many lessons about ignoring cracks on new construction, and about raising structures while people are driving underneath it, this condo collapse must also come under the most rigorous of investigations.” Today’s horror, “should serve as an urgent alert that older Florida structures need auditing and stricter oversight by the government.”
Tags: Building, Champlain Towers, Collapse, Condo, Construction, Déjà vu, FIU bridge, Government, Grief, Investigations. Oversight, Rigorous
Bloomberg (June 15)
“If Toshiba Corp. tried to bully hedge funds through the government, that’s a bad look all around. The only parties who come off well are the activists the company allegedly aimed to suppress…. In the end, it looks like activist hedge funds aren’t so big and bad after all. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do. Now it’s open season for Japan Inc.”
Tags: Activist, Activists, Bad look, Bully, Government, Hedge funds, Japan Inc., Suppress, Toshiba
Wall Street Journal (June 11)
A report on Toshiba “harked back to the days when Japan Inc. was a popular term to describe the perceived tight linkage between big business and government in blocking foreign influence in Japan.” The company-commissioned report found that Toshiba Corp. “worked closely with Japanese government officials to block foreign-based shareholders from exercising their rights, using inappropriate threats and language such as ‘beat them up.’”
Tags: Big business, Foreign, Government, Inappropriate, Influence, Japan Inc., Linkage, Report, Rights, Shareholders, Threats, Toshiba
Financial Times (June 10)
“The depth of collusion between Toshiba, the Japanese government and the former investment head of the world’s biggest pension fund to influence board nominations last year has been laid bare by an independent probe” and “represented an attempt to unfairly restrict the exercise of shareholder rights.”
Tags: Board, Collusion, Depth, Exercise, Fund, Government, Independent, Influence, Investment, Japan, Nominations, Pension, Probe, Restrict, Shareholder rights, Toshiba, Unfairly
Reuters (June 9)
“Like the banking system, the internet looks simple from the outside but is really an elaborate patchwork. Tuesday’s outage involving Fastly (FSLY.N), a so-called content delivery network, is a reminder for people with their lives in the cloud that pieces of the puzzle can fail. And unlike with banks, there’s little government oversight and no backstop, so it’s good for users to be reminded that instant online gratification is not guaranteed.”
Tags: Banking system, Cloud, Content delivery, Elaborate, Fastly, Government, Internet, Network, Outage, Oversight, Patchwork, Simple
