Bloomberg With Miami still on Amazon.com Inc.’s short list for a new headquarters, entrepreneurs gathered at the Endeavor Miami ScaleUP Summit to assess the city’s prospects as a technology hub. The takeaway? Amazon or not, most speakers thought the city was uniquely placed to benefit from its location between US and Latin American business hubs, as long as it could ...
Read More »Admin
Harley is winning in Europe—without a trade war
Bloomberg Willi Breuckmann could have gone for the BMW motorcycle—it was a comfortable and affordable machine. And it made sense for him to stick with a ride made in his own country, Germany. Instead, he chose a Harley-Davidson. The Road King. “It comes down to a feeling,†what the Germans call “ein Gefühl,†said Breuckmann, a 54-year-old web developer who ...
Read More »The future is in Africa, and China already knows it
During the past decade, China has been investing a lot of money in sub-Saharan Africa: Some Western observers worry that this represents a new form of colonialism. Given the continent’s history with European conquerors and rich countries trying to cheaply exploit its natural resources, that suspicion is understandable. But although China can sometimes be predatory — for example, when uneconomical ...
Read More »UK’s brave stand against Bitcoin
It’s good to see politicians belatedly waking up to the risk of crypto-currencies. British lawmakers are banging the drum for the regulation of Bitcoin, Ethereum and their brethren in order to protect consumers. It may be too late for all those unfortunates who got burned this year, but it’s still a better look than George Osborne eagerly using a Bitcoin ...
Read More »Donald Trump’s most surprising nomination
President Trump’s planned nomination of Nellie Liang to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, which oversees everything from interest-rate policy to financial stability, is a little surprising. She’s admirably well-qualified and in every way a good choice. Trump hasn’t always shown such good judgment. Some of the officials he’s appointed elsewhere are even at odds with the missions of the ...
Read More »How skeptics at central banks could be vindicated
Just when it looked like big central banks were swimming in the same direction, they are starting to come apart. The gaps this time are not explained simply by inflation or employment, but are driven by the international outlook and how that may affect domestic economies differently. Central banks all have domestic mandates, but the world is so inter-connected and ...
Read More »Space junk presents a clear and present danger
Last week, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) launched the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2, which will monitor Earth’s ice sheets, recording changes in ice thickness as small as half a centimeter. The satellite will allow us to see one consequence of our collective pressure on the planet’s environment. And yet it will, in a small way, also ...
Read More »The best thing about Citi? It’s the worst
Citigroup Inc. has struggled to regain its footing since the financial crisis. The stock is still down more than 60 percent since the fall of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the worst performance by far of the big US banks. But there’s one thing for which Citi and Michael Corbat, CEO for the past six years, have been praised: cost control. ...
Read More »The junk bond market looks like a runaway train
Bond investors often say that “No one wants to be a forced seller.†And that makes perfect sense: If you need to sell during a rout, no matter the price, you’re going to take a big hit. But it should be equally as scary to be a forced buyer. Increasingly, that’s what happening in the US high-yield corporate bond market. ...
Read More »Danske threat to Danish AAA rank triggers political action
Bloomberg As Denmark comes to grips with its role in one of Europe’s worst dirty money sagas, its parliament is working overtime to stop the nation’s credit rating from being dragged down by the scandal. Danske Bank A/S has admitted that about $234 billion flowed through a tiny unit in Estonia between 2007 and 2015, and is treating a “large†...
Read More »