December, 2019

• 4 December

  Shun Black Friday and save world

  

  On London’s Oxford Street, you could almost forget we were in the midst of a retail apocalypse. Christmas lights and a slew of special offers marking an ever earlier start to the imported bargain frenzy, Black Friday, brought out the crowds. Similar holiday cheer and promotions have spread elsewhere in Europe too. But European retailers face a new worry: shoppers ...

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• 4 December

  Media megamergers can be good for the local news

  Local news is in steep decline. A recent report from Pen America finds that the US has lost more than 1,800 newspapers since 2004. The consequences include a decline in civic engagement and an increase in corruption. The report mentions how government officials in Bell, California, a city without a newspaper, were able to get rid of caps on their ...

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• 4 December

  With bad growth, India needs more than luck

  With India’s growth tumbling to 4.5% from 8.1% in little more than a year, you’d be surprised to know that Shaktikanta Das has one of the easiest jobs in central banking. He just has to keep doing what he’s been doing since becoming governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last December: cut interest rates. Fortunately, political will is ...

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• 4 December

  Susan Rice’s memoir prompts nostalgia for the Obama years

  

  Reading Susan Rice’s new memoir, “Tough Love,” is a reminder of two things: what a remarkably gifted, subtle and perhaps tragic man President Obama was; and how people like Rice who served him endured ceaseless public attacks in a country that was already on the ragged edge, though we didn’t yet know it. Washington memoirs are most valuable for the ...

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• 4 December

  Bankers aren’t ready to start sharing yet

  

  Three years ago Tidjane Thiam stirred hopes that the banking industry was looking at new ways to tackle its bloated cost base. The chief executive officer of Credit Suisse Group AG said his company was working on a common platform with another lender to share expenses. The project has made little visible progress since then, and it’s not because the ...

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• 4 December

  Dear Alibaba, thank you for the $10 trillion gift

  

  Has the golden age of asset management finally arrived in Asia? For years, Asia’s hottest unicorns left their homelands to list in New York for one simple reason: a deep pool of US money. And they have been rewarded. From Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to JD.com Inc., more than a dozen Chinese companies listed there have a market capitalization of ...

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• 4 December

  United places $7 billion order for long-range Airbus A321s

  

  Bloomberg United Airlines Holdings Inc. ordered its first long-range Airbus SE A321neo jets, dealing a new setback to Boeing Co. as the US planemaker struggles through the grounding of its 737 Max. The carrier said it would take 50 of Airbus’s A321XLR jets, with deliveries to begin in 2024 — a year after the model’s planned debut. Valued at $7.1 ...

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• 4 December

  Lufthansa faces $6.4m fine over US violations

  

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG was hit with a proposed $6.4 million fine by US aviation authorities over accusations that the carrier operated about 600 flights into San Diego and Philadelphia without proper approval. The Federal Aviation Administration said Lufthansa knew it lacked authorisation to fly to the two cities from March 22, 2018, through May 27 of this year, the ...

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• 4 December

  Hong Kong Airlines given one week to save its license

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong Airlines Ltd., the city’s only other competitor to Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., is fighting for survival just as the busy Christmas season approaches. The Air Transport Licensing Authority told the carrier that its finances had deteriorated so much that it needs to raise more cash or risk losing its license. The regulator will make a decision by ...

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• 4 December

  Ryanair cuts summer 2020 growth outlook

  Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc cut its traffic outlook by 1 million passengers and said it will close two bases next summer as the grounding of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max jetliner further frustrates expansion plans. Europe’s biggest low-cost airline now expects to attract 156 million customers next fiscal year, based on it getting 10 Max aircraft for summer 2020, or half ...

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