Washington Post (June 6)
The U.S. stands to benefit if Abenomics succeeds in strengthening its key ally in Asia. Prime Minister Abe’s first two arrows have hit their marks. The third yet-to-materialize arrow, however, has by far the hardest target of tackling the entrenched “source of Japan’s woes: a vast web of regulations, subsidies and trade barriers whose net effect has been to support inefficient sectors, and the voters who live off them, at the expense of growth and innovation. Japanese productivity has remained essentially flat for the past two decades, a dangerous state of affairs in a country with a shrinking labor force and a growing dependent elderly population.”The U.S. stands to benefit if Abenomics succeeds in strengthening its key ally in Asia. Prime Minister Abe’s first two arrows have hit their marks. The third yet-to-materialize arrow, however, has by far the hardest target of tackling the entrenched “source of Japan’s woes: a vast web of regulations, subsidies and trade barriers whose net effect has been to support inefficient sectors, and the voters who live off them, at the expense of growth and innovation. Japanese productivity has remained essentially flat for the past two decades, a dangerous state of affairs in a country with a shrinking labor force and a growing dependent elderly population.”
Tags: Abe, Abenomics, Arrows, Asia, Japan, Regulations, Subsidies, Trade barriers, U.S.
Washington Post (April 15, 2013)
“The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) faces a financial death spiral. Burdened by excess infrastructure, outmoded regulations and high labor costs — not to mention facing digital-age obsolescence — USPS posted an operating loss of $15.9 billion in fiscal 2012 and is on course to lose an estimated $7.9 billion in fiscal 2013.”
Tags: Digital age, Infrastructure, Labor, Operating loss, Regulations, U.S., USPS
The Economist (March 16)
America’s “debt is rising, its population is ageing in a budget-threatening way, its schools are mediocre by international standards, its infrastructure rickety, its regulations dense, its tax code byzantine, its immigration system hare-brained—and it has fallen from first position in the World Economic Forum’s competitiveness rankings to seventh in just four years.” But “dysfunction in Washington is only one side of America’s story…. There is also another America, where things work.” The successful side of America can be seen in the improving performance of the real economy where “businesses and politicians are not waiting for the federal government to ride to their rescue.”
Tags: Businesses, Debt, Dysfunction, Government, Population, Real economy, Regulations, U.S., WEF
The Economist (September 15)
With the tighter capital requirements of Basel III and more stringent regulations, investment banking has been radically downsizing. “The financial industry in London, the world’s most international banking hub, will probably have shed 100,000 jobs by the end of this year from its peak of 354,000 in 2007.” While “some of the industry’s shrinkage is overdue” and “this is broadly a good thing,” politicians and regulators need to be careful about moving to the other extreme and “regulating too fiercely.”
Wall Street Journal (June 21)
In a move that “could add to the unease plaguing global markets,” Moody’s “downgraded more than a dozen global banks, including the five largest U.S. banks with global trading arms, to reflect declining profitability in an industry that is being rocked by soft economic growth, tougher regulations and nervous investors.”
Washington Post (January 6)
The Post declares the oil drilling industry is “in over their heads.” The industry has raced to tap deeper, riskier drilling environments without making proper adjustments in processes and technology. Released portions of a presidential report on the BP Horizon oil spill demonstrate that government regulations and oversight must be strengthened. Most of all, “every company involved in oil drilling—not just BP—must individually and in concert with others evaluate industry standards and safety research programs. And none should assume that BP’s mistakes could not occur elsewhere.”
Tags: BP, Horizon, Oil drilling, Regulations, Safety
