TAG: Bloomberg
The Dollar is more armoured division than currency
There’s just no getting past the supremacy of the dollar, much as skeptics of American influence wish for it or lonely yen bulls cry for relief. The greenback has been frequently tipped to retreat, only for it to blow away everything in front of it. This...
6 months ago
How many gig workers are there? Depends on how you ask
Our understanding of the US labour market is based to a remarkable extent on a few questions asked each month as part of the Current Population Survey, which is conducted by the Census Bureau in cooperation with the Bureau of Labour Statistics. The most i...
6 months ago
The Trump tax cuts were neither panacea nor rip-off
Back in 2017, the debate around President Donald Trump’s tax cuts was a case study in how quickly a discussion around legitimate policy can descend into partisan nonsense. On one side, Republicans spouted unfounded claims that the tax cuts would pay for t...
6 months ago
Yellen junks 200 years of economics to block China clean tech
Imagine if a Chinese company announced plans to build the biggest electric-vehicle battery factory the world had ever seen.Up to $5 billion would be spent on a single plant to manufacture more power packs every 12 months than the world produced last year....
6 months ago
US: $200 billion of M&A wasn't enough in oil patch
Even after a record $200 billion dealmaking frenzy last year, US oil and gas producers haven’t consolidated nearly enough. On a-per-barrel basis, there are still too many companies, too many chief executives, and too many drilling rigs wooing a limited po...
6 months ago
The Fed choked clean energy. It’s about to start reviving that
Think of the people who have done most to impede clean power over the past few years, and a few obvious figures suggest themselves: Vladimir Putin. Mohammed Bin Salman. Donald Trump. Jerome Powell?That last one may seem out of place. The Federal Reserve g...
6 months ago
Why write a shareholder letter? Ask Dimon or Buffett
Jamie Dimon has a lot to say.The JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO’s annual letter to shareholders, which was released on Monday, clocked in at just under 28,000 words. That count does not include the 58 footnotes or the reprint of a 1992 Wall Street Journal o...
6 months ago
Mohamed A. El-Erian: Fed faces a big risk, but it’s not the one many think
I have been arguing for almost a year now, here and elsewhere, that US consumer price inflation would become sticky after a period of favourable disinflation going into the end of 2023. Wednesday’s hotter-than-expected data release, the third in a row, is...
6 months ago
British consumers are being asked to defy gravity again
Simon Wolfson, chief executive officer of Next Plc, said recently that he had not been this optimistic about the retailer’s outlook for seven years. Then this week, Ken Murphy, CEO of Tesco Plc, said he was seeing a “gentle improvement” in consumer sentim...
6 months ago
Why people in finance should lift weights and do strength training
Graham Ambrose has never felt stronger. He can barbell back squat 145kg (320 lbs) for four sets of six repetitions and bench-press more than 100kg for a single rep. His friends and colleagues notice that his clothes fit tighter and he’s fond of posting mi...
6 months ago
Elon Musk’s Tesla bait-and-switch is getting old
In case you didn’t know that Tesla Inc is on the cusp of a new wave of growth, it is now slashing its workforce by more than one-in-ten. It’s all there in the memo.Chief Executive Elon Musk informed the ranks this weekend that more than 14,000 of them — b...
6 months ago
Central bankers should retire the 2 percent inflation target
With the end of great inflation scare in sight, it's time the central bank hive mind contemplated what it might learn from the failure of its economic models.The most obvious lesson: Steering multitrillion-dollar economies to land with laser precision ont...
5 months ago
Social media's age limits won't protect your kids
Momentum has been building to force social media companies to make their products safer for kids. But some of the solutions getting the most attention, while well intended, don’t address the underlying problem: the way these apps prey on developing brains...
5 months ago
Asian currencies can't fight the dollar on a rampage
Paul O'Neill, a Treasury secretary under George W Bush, ran into controversy on his first overseas trip when he had the temerity to question the often celebrated, and sometimes bemoaned, strong-dollar policy. O'Neill inherited the mantra from the Clinton...
5 months ago