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Obama was indeed transformational, ‘alas’

Any summation of Barack Obama’s impact on domestic policy and politics should begin with this: In 2008, he assured supporters, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Soon he will be replaced by someone who says, “I alone can fix it.” So, Americans have paid Obama the compliment of choosing continuity, if ...

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Fantasy land is where deposits fuel an Indian loan boom

  Three months ago, Gadfly advised India’s state-run banks to stop lending because they didn’t have the capital to keep up appearances. That was before the surprise November 8 cash ban, which led to a deluge of low-cost deposits into the system. Add a government eager to dispel criticism that getting rid of 86 percent of the currency in circulation ...

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Leave the high seas to the fish

  The high seas — all that deep water beyond 200 nautical miles from a coastline — are this planet’s last frontier. And like all previous frontiers, they’re ripe for plunder. But there may be a surprisingly simple solution to the scourge of overfishing on the high seas: a ban on commercial fishing in international waters. The proposition may sound ...

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Powers work in concert to contain N Korea N-ambitions

  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed in his New Year’s message that the development of banned intercontinental long-range missiles is in ‘final stages’. US president-elect tweeted the following day: it won’t happen. Kim also vowed to further enhance his country’s military capability unless the US ends war games with rival South Korea. Trump is confident that Pyongyang will ...

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Actually, active-investment management never went away

  This is the year that active-investment management makes its return to form. It is the year, or so we are told, when active fights back, scores some points, and gets its revenge on passive indexers. For the record, active management never went away. The claim that it has returned, after a run of fairly horrific performance, is likely little ...

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Try breathing in Beijing

  When the temperature drops to freezing in a country of almost 1.4 billion people, the power needed to keep the population warm soars. That’s one of the main reasons China’s northern cities have spent much of the past month choking on smoggy, toxic air. Particulate concentrations in areas north of Shanghai that once qualified for state heating subsidies and ...

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Why Alibaba can’t stop counterfeiters

  It’s hardly a happy new year for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Just before Christmas, the US Trade Representative added Alibaba’s Taobao e-commerce site to a list of “notorious markets” that traffic in counterfeits. That’s an unseemly place for a publicly held company: Other members include a Chinese shopping mall that specializes in counterfeit leather goods and a Paraguayan border ...

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Faraday Future charges ahead with ‘fastest’ e-car

  Bloomberg Faraday Future staked its claim to the world’s fastest electric car with its FF91 production model, showing footage of it outracing Tesla Motors Inc.’s Model S at CES (Consumer Electronic Show) in Las Vegas. The startup electric-car maker backed by Chinese billionaire Jia Yueting is counting on its debut offering to drum up support from investors, many of ...

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Lenovo launches ‘home assistant’ with Amazon Alexa

  Relaxnews Chinese tech giant Lenovo announced it was launching a smart home assistant powered by Amazon’s Alexa, becoming the latest firm to enter the market for voice-activated devices. The new Smart Assistant, to go on sale for $129, will compete with Amazon’s Echo speakers using the artificial intelligence developed by Amazon. Lenovo made the announcement ahead of the opening ...

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