Wall Street Journal (September 12)
“Investors and policymakers alike are eager for big-bank mergers in the European Union. U.S. banks, which have the benefit of scale and cheaper funding, rule the roost when it comes to dealmaking even in Europe, with France’s BNP Paribas as the only universal bank that comes close to posing a challenge.” With the possible merger of UniCredit and Commerzbank, “technocrats in Brussels might finally get their wish for bigger European banks. But Wall Street still shouldn’t expect any real competition to emerge from this.”
Tags: Big-bank mergers, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, Dealmaking, EU, Funding, Investors, Policymakers, Scale, Technocrats, U.S. banks, UniCredit, Wall Street
The Guardian (July 26)
“The political sphere, so dull and grey a few years ago, is now populated by preposterous exhibitionists. This trend is not confined to the UK – everywhere the killer clowns are taking over. Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Jair Bolsonaro, Scott Morrison, Rodrigo Duterte, Matteo Salvini, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Viktor Orbán and a host of other ludicrous strongmen – or weakmen, as they so often turn out to be – dominate nations that would once have laughed them off stage. The question is why? Why are the technocrats who held sway almost everywhere a few years ago giving way to extravagant buffoons?”
Tags: Clowns, Dull, Duterte, Erdogan, Exhibitionists, Farage, Johnson, Modi, Orbán, Political sphere, Preposterous, Salvini, Strongmen, Technocrats, Trend, Trump, UK
New York Times (June 9)
“Americans have been far too vulnerable for far too long when they venture online. Companies are free today to monitor Americans’ behavior and collect information about them from across the web and the real world.” U.S. lawmakers have fallen behind their European peers. In fact, widespread compliance with the EU’s GDPR means that “technocrats in Brussels are doing more for Americans’ digital privacy rights than their own Congress.” Finally, however, “there finally seems to be enough momentum to pass a federal law.”
Tags: Behavior, Brussels, Collect Web, Compliance, Congress, DPR, EU, GDPR, Lawmakers, Online, Technocrats, U.S., Vulnerable
