October, 2017

• 15 October

  Trump is turning and turning in a widening gyre

  

  With eyes wide open, Mike Pence eagerly auditioned for the role as Donald Trump’s poodle. Now comfortably leashed, he deserves the degradations that he seems too sycophantic to recognize as such. He did Trump’s adolescent bidding with last Sunday’s pre-planned virtue pageant of scripted indignation — his flight from the predictable sight of players kneeling during the national anthem at …

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• 15 October

  Economic slowdown reflects an investment in India’s future

  

  India is an emerging market standout. The country was one of only a handful of large economies marked down in forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this week. India’s GDP is expected to rise 6.7% this year, compared with a previous projection of 7.2%. Next year’s estimate was also lowered. Midway through their term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his …

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• 15 October

  China prices for perfection with dollar bond awaited

  The state of the union is strong in China. The nation not only holds $1.1 trillion of US debt, it’s also able to issue bonds, in dollars, at the same price as Treasuries. The Ministry of Finance announcement this week that it plans to sell $2 billion of dollar bonds marks China’s first offering in that currency since 2004. The …

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• 15 October

  A flawed climate plan is better than none at all

  The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan was never the best way to lower US greenhouse-gas emissions. A national tax on carbon dioxide emissions would have been far simpler and more effective. By making sure that all fuels are priced to account for their effects on climate, it would have let the market find the most efficient ways to cut emissions. …

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• 15 October

  Angela Merkel wins despite disappointing everyone

  

  By accepting an upper limit to the number of immigrants Germany will accept for humanitarian reasons, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made one of her trademark compromises: no one is happy, but her solution will work well enough for now. Forming a governing coalition in the next few months will require a few more of these. Merkel and Bavarian prime minister …

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• 15 October

  Higher oil prices may not be so temporary

  

  Oil prices have been subject to big swings this year. Since June, though, fundamental demand factors have been supportive, and with global economic growth firming, the outlook for oil is bright. The significant — and surprising — midyear crude oil price selloff was triggered at the beginning of June by China’s Caixin PMI for May, which showed a contraction in …

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• 15 October

  Driverless cars give engineers a fuel economy headache

  

  Judging from General Motors Co.’s test cars and Elon Musk’s predictions, the world is headed toward a future that’s both driverless and all-electric. In reality, autonomy and battery power could end up being at odds. That’s because self-driving technology is a huge power drain. Some of today’s prototypes for fully autonomous systems consume two to four kilowatts of electricity—the equivalent …

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• 15 October

  Policy makers signal comfort on stocks as bankers urge caution

  

  Bloomberg The guardians of the world economy brushed aside soaring stock and asset prices as a threat to economic and financial stability even as some bankers warned that investors risk repeating their pre-crisis complacency. The rare turnabout in which central bankers and finance ministers expressed comfort with the level of markets—even as private-sector executives urged caution—took place in and around …

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• 15 October

  Saudi falls, markets trade narrowly

  

  Reuters Most Middle East stock markets traded in narrow ranges on Sunday while Saudi Arabia was dragged down by several major blue chips. The Saudi index dropped 0.7 percent as Al Rajhi Bank lost 1.0 percent and miner Ma’aden sank 1.9 percent. Petrochemical producer Saudi Basic Industries fell 0.7 percent. Insurers were roughly evenly split between gainers and losers after …

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• 15 October

  Draghi says ECB is confident about reaching inflation goal

  

  Bloomberg With the European Central Bank’s (ECB) next policy update less than two weeks away, the institution’s chief is expressing both confidence and patience about achieving its inflation goal. “We are confident that as the conditions will continue to improve, the inflation rate will gradually converge in a self-sustained manner, as we’ve defined many times, and in a durable way …

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