Barron’s (August 6)
“President Donald Trump has touted major trade partners’ pledges to invest billions in the U.S. as a win for his fluctuating tariff policy. But trade experts say these commitments leave more questions than answers.” Important details like enforcement mechanisms are unknown and there is no effective way for trading partners to compel “private-sector companies to invest.” In addition, “analysts and veteran trade experts note that investment pledges—as well as commitments to buy U.S. goods—haven’t lived up to expectations in the past.”
Tags: Analysts, Commitments, Enforcement mechanisms, Experts, Fluctuating, Investment pledges, Private-sector, Tariff policy, Touted, Trade partners, Trump, U.S., Unknown
Reuters (March 1)
“Strong investor inflows into bond markets this year mean traders and bankers are confident the European Central Bank will have a smooth start to unwinding its huge bond holdings, but the long term impact of its ‘quantitative tightening’ is a big unknown.”
Tags: Bankers, Bond markets, Confident, ECB, Holdings, Impact, Inflows, Investor, Long term, Quantitative tightening, Smooth, Strong, Traders, Unknown, Unwinding
The Atlantic (March 10)
“Russia’s economic blackout will change the world. Like all novel experiments, the group punishment of Russia is a leap into the unknown.” In mere days, “the United States, Europe, and others have excommunicated Russia from the world stage, isolating the 11th-largest economy financially, commercially, and culturally.” The measures are largely unprecedented and, taken collectively, “amount to a radical worldwide experiment in moral retribution.”
Tags: Commercially, Culturally, Economic blackout, Europe, Excommunicated, Experiments, Financially, Leap, Punishment, Radical, Russia, U.S., Unknown, Unprecedented, World stage
Reuters (January 29)
The UK is hurtling “into the Brexit unknown” as “a dis-United Kingdom exits the European Union” on Friday. Alas, more “Brexit fatigue” is likely in store. “Trade talks with every major power—including the EU—loom while there is little clarity on what the United Kingdom’s pitch to global investors will be.”
The Economist (August 27)
The discovery of the star Proxima Centauri is piquing imaginations. “What is exciting about this new world is not what is known—which, so far, is almost nothing…. It is what is unknown and the possibilities it may contain. It is the chance that there is life beneath that turbulent red sun, and that humans might be able to recognise it from 40 trillion kilometres away.”
Tags: Discovery, Exciting, Humans, Life, Possibilities, Proxima Centauri, Star, Sun, Turbulent, Unknown
