January, 2020

• 7 January

  Uber, Hyundai unveil flying car model for air taxi service

  

  Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc. is working on a flying car with Hyundai Motor Co., the first automaker to buy into Uber’s dream for a network of air taxis dotting the skies of major cities. The two companies outlined their partnership at the CES technology conference and plan to show off a full-scale model of the vehicle this week on the ...

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• 7 January

  We’ve been inching at war with Iran for decades

  

  War with Iran has been coming at us in slow motion since 1979. Now, ominously, it’s really here, but we don’t seem any better at deflecting revolutionary Iran from its destructive course than we were at the beginning. The Iranian-backed militiamen with their battering ram at the gate of the US Embassy in Baghdad last week looked eerily similar to ...

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• 7 January

  This man holds Europe together

  

  Michel Barnier, the European Union’s top Brexit negotiator, is the Brussels equivalent of a rock star. For three years, the unflappable 68-year-old Frenchman has been hashing out the terms of the UK’s departure while making sure the remaining 27 members stick together. He is the real survivor of the Brexit saga. The fact that Barnier is still in the job ...

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• 7 January

  Black holes’ photos will blow our minds again this year

  The seemingly impossible, paradoxical news that astronomers had taken a picture of a supermassive black hole captured our imaginations in 2019 for good reason. What they actually showed us was a sort of shadow — a spherical blackness surrounded by a cosmic hurricane of matter and energy — but that was enough to qualify as a sign of real human ...

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• 7 January

  China’s war on shadow banking can’t last forever

  Cause and effect. Action, reaction. As China cracks down on shadow finance, private companies and state giants alike are learning that the karmic wheel of money can come to a screeching halt. In April 2018, China unveiled far-reaching rules for its financial industry as part of an effort to curb risk. Banks were asked to spin off their wealth-management arms, ...

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• 7 January

  Jack Ma hailing a cheaper Singapore ride than Grab

  

  The much-anticipated arrival of virtual banking in Singapore is unlikely to be an “aha” moment for consumer finance, but corporate banking will be different. One should expect disruption. The application period for Singapore’s first internet-only lenders ended last week with five known hopefuls, so far, for as many licenses on offer. The move mirrors the grant of eight licenses in ...

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• 7 January

  Low skilled workers are less productive

  

  Workers are delivering more, and they’re getting a lot less,” argued former Vice President Joe Biden in a speech at the Brookings Institution this summer. “There’s no correlation now between productivity and wages. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic presidential rival, agrees. Her campaign website states that “wages have largely stagnated,” even though “worker productivity has risen steadily.” The claim that ...

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• 7 January

  Vivendi shareholders finally hear a sweet tune

  

  Vivendi SA investors should be sighing with relief. The French media conglomerate announced that it plans to sell 10% of its Universal Music Group (UMG) record label to a group led by Tencent Holdings Ltd., the Chinese internet giant. The 3 billion euro purchase ($3.4 billion) implies an equity valuation of 30 billion euros for all of UMG, as the music ...

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• 7 January

  US futures steady, stocks advance despite Iran fear

  

  Bloomberg US equity futures were steady on Tuesday and stocks in Europe and Asia advanced as investors attempted to set aside their fears about escalating tensions in the Middle East. Treasuries fluctuated and the euro declined. Markets were roiled before the European open when an Iranian news agency said the country is assessing scenarios for its response to the US ...

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• 7 January

  Traders pile into Chinese markets

  

  Bloomberg Investors are snapping up Chinese financial assets, encouraged by progress on trade and signs that the world’s second-largest economy may be stabilising. Improving confidence helped stoke a 0.5% rally in the yuan on Tuesday, pushing it to its strongest level since early August. The currency punched past the key 6.95-per-dollar level, and traded on the strong side of its ...

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