New York Times (September 4)
“What does Kim Jong-un want?” That is the question that still plagues intelligence officials. “Six years after Mr. Kim took power and began executing those who challenged his rule…there is no issue that confounds analysts more than the motives of a 33-year-old dictator whose every move seems one part canny strategy, one part self-preservation, and one part nuclear narcissism.”
Tags: Canny, Challenge, Dictator, Executions, Intelligence, Kim, Motives, Narcissism, Nuclear, Power, Self-preservation, Strategy
US News & World Report (January 17)
“Kim Jong Un may try to accelerate the timetable. North Korea’s growing strategic capabilities suggest that Washington – which has long chosen to ignore and minimize the problem posed by Pyongyang – will need to come up with a serious strategy to deal with the DPRK, and do so sooner rather than later.
Tags: Accelerate, Capabilities, DPRK, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, Pyongyang, Strategy, Timetable
IR Magazine (December 7)
“New CEOs who present their strategy within the first 100 days of their appointment can see stock prices rise by an average of 5.3 percent on presentation day (around $2.8 bn in market value). The average stock price gain for presentations by new CEOs appointed from outside the organization is 9.3 percent (just under $5 bn), and for new CEOs from outside the company’s home industry it’s 12.4 percent (around $6.6 bn).” Despite these impressive results, “only 40 percent of new CEOs present on strategy in their first 200 days.”
Tags: Appointment, CEOs, Industry, Presentation, Stock prices, Strategy
Newsweek (December 5)
“The Made in China 2025 plan can be read as a ‘go it alone’ strategy for Beijing; it’s in effect saying, Thank you very much for all of your foreign direct investment over the last 20 years, we’ll be OK from here on—and by the way, we’re going to eat your lunch.”
Tags: 2025 plan, China, FDI, Go it alone, Made in China, Strategy
The Economist (July 9)
“Smaller rivals are assaulting the world’s biggest brands” causing some to wonder if billion dollar brands remain a viable strategy. Though “they make some of the world’s best-loved products,” large consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies are under assault. “For a time, size gave CPG companies a staggering advantage,” but their advantages are weakening and in some cases becoming Achilles heels. “The lumbering giants are finding it hard to keep up with fast-changing consumer markets.”
Tags: Advantage, Brands, Consumer markets, Consumer packaged goods, Fast changing, Lumbering, Rivals, Size, Strategy, Weakening
Bloomberg (March 25)
There are lots of questions for the Bank of Japan about its negative rate strategy, which “has caused bond yields to fall below zero, money market funds to stop accepting money, and lawmakers to summon Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to parliament a record number of times to explain it.”
Tags: BOJ, Bond yields, Kuroda, Lawmakers, MMF, Negative rates, Parliament, Strategy
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
Financial Times (February 18)
The conditional deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia delivered “maximum rhetorical impact for the minimum genuine commitment.” Ultimately, it “will not take a single barrel of oil off the market to ease the glut that has driven crude prices down about 70 per cent since the summer of 2014.” The deal reveals “nervousness among the world’s two largest oil producers. But the fact that Saudi Arabia is not already cutting its output, in spite of mounting signs of financial strain, shows that while its strategy might be painful, it is still rational.”
Tags: Deal, Financial strain, Glut, Market, Oil, Output, Producers, Rational, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Strategy
Washington Post (October 28)
Ten Republican candidates (Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul) faced off in the latest debate. They seemed “to be testing a strategy of winning by whining. Certainly, voters are discontented and even angry. But do they want a leader who campaigns by kvetching?”
Tags: Angry, Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Debate, Discontented, Fiorina, Huckabee, Kasich, Paul, Republican, Rubio, Strategy, Trump, Voters, Whining
Washington Post (April 1)
“Deal or no deal, the Iran talks have borne fruit” by engaging Iran with the outside world. “Iran is now a diplomatic and political factor in regional and world politics, for better or worse. The right U.S. strategy was to prevent this rising Iran from getting nuclear weapons, not to pretend that it didn’t exist.”
Tags: Deal, Diplomatic, Engaging, Iran, Nuclear weapons, Political, Pretend, Strategy, U.S.
