December, 2019

• 29 December

  S’pore goes on offensive to defend ‘fake news’ law

  

  Bloomberg Singaporean diplomats are taking the lead in defending a two-month-old fake news law, challenging international media outlets it says are publishing misleading claims on the contentious legislation. Since the law was enacted in October, authorities in the Southeast Asian city-state have invoked it four times against critics and once against Facebook Inc, which was required to attach a government-issued ...

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• 29 December

  China expands drug-buying programme to cut costs for patients

  

  Bloomberg China is expanding its generic drug-procurement programme to include an additional 33 drugs, pitting domestic and international drugmakers in a price war that could see Chinese players dominate. Less than three months after China went nationwide with a pilot bulk-buying programme for 25 medicines, the government on Sunday announced a second batch of 33 drugs treating everything from diabetes ...

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• 29 December

  Musk’s Tesla secures tax break from China

  Bloomberg Tesla Inc secured a tax break in China hours before the delivery of its first locally built cars, marking a major milestone for Elon Musk’s company as it pushes to expand in the world’s largest electric-vehicle market. The China-built Model 3 was included on a list of vehicles qualifying for an exemption from a 10% purchase tax in the ...

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• 29 December

  Sugar traders hold tight: India’s to roil markets again

  

  Bloomberg India may roil the global sugar market again as prospects for next year’s cane crop have brightened due to brimming reservoirs. Bountiful monsoon rains this year have led to above average water levels in reservoirs, which will in turn boost the amount of sugar cane that’s planted, according to industry and Indian government officials. Sugar output in the country ...

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• 29 December

  Trump’s economy keeps tripping up Democrats

  

  Democrats are facing a challenge they haven’t confronted since the 1988 presidential election. They are trying to persuade enough Americans to kick a Republican out of the White House even though the economy is doing well. They failed that year – and as their latest presidential debate showed, so far they haven’t figured out how to meet the challenge this ...

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• 29 December

  Online retailers aren’t so different

  

  Amid the grim march of the retail apocalypse, the industry has derived some hope in recent years from the rise of scores of digital-centric startups. There is cause for optimism, but there’s also reason to be skeptical of the hype surrounding these brands — not just because their business models aren’t proving durable, but also because many of them are ...

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• 29 December

  Andrew Bailey is perfect choice for the Brexiters

  The suspense is over. After a seemingly endless carousel of candidates mulled over in the media, the next Bank of England governor will be the longstanding favorite Andrew Bailey. Seen as the ultimate safe pair of hands and respected across government and the City of London, he was always the logical choice — if not necessarily the most exciting. His ...

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• 29 December

  Deflating a bubble before it busts would be huge

  Economists may be finally closing in on the reason for asset bubbles. How to pop them before they grow too large, however, is a much harder problem. The study of bubbles has steadily gathered urgency during the past four decades as crashes became more spectacular and more damaging. The stock crash of 1987 was a wake-up call for those who ...

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• 29 December

  Worst case for climate change actually doesn’t look realistic

  

  In recent years, much of the commentary about climate change has gone from sternly serious to wildly despairing. A new report from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that the effects of climate change are accelerating and that the world has barely more than a decade to make deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and limit ...

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• 29 December

  Banks are impossible for us to understand

  

  A simple lesson we should have learned from the financial crisis is that complexity begets abuse, and undermines stability. Yet the key measure we use to determine banks’ health is so fiendishly difficult to understand that outsiders have no choice but to accept what we’re told by the lender. That’s the conclusion of a broad UK government review of the ...

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