December, 2019

• 28 December

  China finally takes a risk on GenZ’s love affair with debt

  China has a mounting debt problem. Not just over-leveraged companies, but a rapid build-up on household balance sheets that is hitting records. You can blame youth for a borrowing binge that, if left unchecked, could be China’s next credit bubble. Household debt hit levels of 57% of gross domestic product in the third quarter, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew ...

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• 28 December

  Bailing out bankers is all the rage again

  After the financial crisis, Europe’s political leaders put together a complex set of rules to make it harder for future governments to bail out banks. That system is looking so full of holes that one wonders what the point of it is. Two episodes in a fortnight show that taxpayers are still very much on the hook for the financial ...

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• 28 December

  Indian finance is in need of reforms updated for 2020s

  

  Thirty years ago, India endured its last big financial crisis when it had to send gold held in the central bank’s vaults over to London to borrow hard currency from the Bank of England. Luckily, the flights landed safely, and so did India. The turnaround in economic thinking triggered by that balance-of-payments humiliation saw the state shed controls on production ...

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• 28 December

  Warren’s wealth tax to hurt US investors

  

  According to Elizabeth Warren, economists who say that her proposed wealth tax would stifle investment and growth are “just wrong.” Leaving aside the question of whether economic projections, which by definition require assumptions about future human behaviour, can be right or wrong, it is true that her proposal has spurred a vigorous debate among economists. A lot of the points ...

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• 28 December

  What happens when internet gets less American?

  

  America is going to have to reckon with an internet that is becoming less American. Some US lawmakers on both sides of the partisan divide have said they are worried about TikTok, the app that lets users record and share short videos or dance routines to music. The app quickly became popular in the US and some other countries, and ...

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• 28 December

  Inside YouTube’s year of responsibility

  

  Bloomberg YouTube spent 2019 answering critics with some of the most drastic changes in its 15-year history. With each step, it gave those activists, regulators and lawmakers more reasons to attack its free-wheeling, user-generated business model. Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s chief executive officer, announced her goals in April. “My top priority,” she wrote, “is responsibility.” Her company spent the year trying ...

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• 28 December

  Sony can’t make image sensors fast enough to keep up with demand

  

  Bloomberg Sony Corp is working around the clock to manufacture its in-demand image sensors, but even a 24-hour operation hasn’t been enough. For the second straight year, the Japanese company will run its chip factories constantly through the holidays to try and keep up with demand for sensors used in mobile phone cameras, according to Terushi Shimizu, the head of ...

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• 28 December

  Dish beefs up Sling TV with cable news channels, hikes price

  

  Bloomberg Dish Network Corp’s Sling TV is gearing up for a big election news cycle, with the addition of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN’s HLN to its live TV streaming service. But the change comes with a price increase, the second since its launch almost five years ago. Subscriptions to the multiscreen Blue plan will rise to $30 a month ...

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• 28 December

  China to scrap benchmark rate in shift to new system

  

  Bloomberg China’s central bank ordered lenders to adopt a new loan-pricing regime for all credit from next year, marking an end to the previous benchmark and another step towards liberalising the financial system. Financial institutions should stop using the old lending rate as the pricing reference for all credit from January, while gradually converting existing loans to a new base ...

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• 28 December

  IADB’s Arturo Jose Galindo joins Colombia central bank’s board

  

  Bloomberg President Ivan Duque named a University of Illinois-trained economist with policy-making experience to take a seat on the board of Colombia’s central bank. Arturo Jose Galindo was chief of the Inter-American Development Bank’s strategy development division. He previously worked as an economist at the Colombian central bank and as an adviser to the nation’s banking association. He will replace ...

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