December, 2019

• 23 December

  UK productivity malaise named country’s ‘statistics of the decade’

  

  Bloomberg The UK’s dismal productivity performance since the financial crisis has been named the country’s “statistics of the decade” by the Royal Statistical Society. The society chose “0.3%” — the estimated average annual increase in productivity in the past 10 years. That compares with the 2% average increase in hourly output in the years before 2008. The performance, the worst ...

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• 23 December

  Macron isn’t Gaullist. He’s just angry at Germany

  

  It’s become fashionable of late in central Europe to accuse French President Emmanuel Macron of being a “neo-Gaullist” who touts the cause of “European sovereignty” as a cover for expanding French power, cozying up to Russia and keeping the US at bay. Worse, he’s undiplomatic about it all, arrogant, “Jupiterian.” This interpretation may be understandable for the Poles and Balts. ...

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• 23 December

  Japanese tech needs a little hostility

  

  I’m not selling,” says the chairman of one of Japan’s biggest technology companies. Let me grab some popcorn and a ringside seat for what I hope will be a hotly contested bidding war. Japan’s tech sector is ripe for further mergers and acquisitions. But the rarity of hostile takeovers means most deals feel like they’ve been hammered out over a ...

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• 23 December

  Riksbank says enough is enough on negative rates

  Most economists and market participants don’t usually spend much time looking at Swedish monetary policy. Today should be different given the decision by the Riksbank — the country’s central bank and the world’s oldest — to part ways with its peers in advanced countries by raising interest rates because of worries about the collateral damage and unintended consequences of an ...

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• 23 December

  Trump’s economy had a good year, even if he didn’t

  From a political standpoint, 2019 will be remembered as the year President Donald Trump got impeached. From an economic standpoint, however, the year has turned out about as well as he could have hoped for. After being effectively flat since the middle of 2018, the stock market has risen to record highs over the last several months. That performance is ...

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• 23 December

  As India’s protests swell, what is Modi’s endgame?

  

  Protests have broken out across India, a few of them violent, against a new law that fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from three majority- Muslim countries. In the northeastern state of Assam, where migration has long been a major political issue, four protesters were killed when security forces opened fire. In both the capital of Delhi and the town of ...

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• 23 December

  Daimler and BMW can’t compete with Uber, Lyft

  

  There’s a school of thought that says the dominant business model for tech startups isn’t B2B (business-to-business) or D2C (direct-to-consumer). It’s really V2C: venture-capital-to-consumer. In other words, piles of venture capital are being directed into the pockets of consumers — often tech-savvy millennials — in the form of discounted services provided by startups prioritizing growth over profit. The fact that ...

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• 23 December

  Zuckerberg isn’t always a colourless automaton

  

  I now have low expectations when Mark Zuckerberg writes a manifesto, gives a speech, grants media interviews or fields questions from lawmakers. In these settings, and particularly on questions about how the world should or does work, Facebook Inc.’s chief executive officer can seem over-rehearsed, scarily superficial, cravenly political, evasive — or all of the above. But in less-scripted moments, ...

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• 23 December

  IndiGo woes rise as India steps up scrutiny of Airbus engines

  

  Bloomberg India has stepped up scrutiny of engines on Airbus SE’s A320neo jets, forcing the country’s biggest airline, IndiGo, to have to replace more than previously estimated, a move that could further delay the budget carrier’s expansion plans. A “more intense boroscopic examination” of engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney has identified more engines at risk of shutting down in ...

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• 23 December

  Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg resigns

  

  Bloomberg Dennis Muilenburg was ousted as chief executive officer of Boeing Co., a once-unthinkable turning point for a US industrial champion engulfed in turmoil after two deadly crashes of its top-selling 737 Max jetliner. David Calhoun, a General Electric Co. veteran who had served as chairman since October, will replace Muilenburg as CEO and president on January 13, Boeing said ...

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