February, 2019

• 27 February

  Romania’s anti-graft crusader scores win in EU-job attempt

  Bloomberg A Romanian anti-graft crusader won support from a key panel of European Union lawmakers to become the bloc’s first chief prosecutor, highlighting EU concerns about the erosion of democracy in the country. Laura Codruta Kovesi, who was fired by Romania’s ruling Socialist Democrats after she put dozens of corrupt politicians behind bars, gained the backing of the European Parliament’s ...

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• 27 February

  Time to unleash $8trn of climate defense firepower

  

  On Monday, the British Met Office recorded the UK’s warmest winter day on record. In Chile, January temperatures in the capital city of Santiago beat the previous record by a full degree Celsius. Globally, the last five years were collectively the world’s warmest ever. Ever. The world is losing the race to curb carbon dioxide emissions. In 2017, output of ...

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• 27 February

  Bad jobs data could bite China

  

  China has long been criticised both for its obsession with GDP statistics and their quality: Pressuring cadres to meet growth targets has encouraged a risky buildup of debt and, at times, the outright fabrication of numbers. If anything, though, the quality of China’s official employment data is even worse — and the inaccuracies could have equally dangerous repercussions. Until relatively ...

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• 27 February

  No, they don’t expect you to spend $2,000 on a phone

  

  When companies turn to gimmicks as the headline act in a product launch, you know there’s not much really going on. We can’t blame Samsung Electronics Co. and Huawei Technologies Co. for releasing $2,000 and $2,600 phones respectively. Foldable screens are kind of cool, I suppose. But so are those weird and wonderful concept cars the auto industry likes to ...

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• 27 February

  Amazon’s vanishing tax bill isn’t in fact a scandal

  It seems Amazon.com Inc. will be paying zero tax on its profits of roughly $10 billion in 2018. This has caused an outcry in certain quarters, but the complaints are misplaced. The corporate tax code is riddled with loopholes and has plenty of misguided preferences — some of them new, thanks to the tax-reform measure passed in 2017. But the ...

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• 27 February

  Bangladesh versus India in development race

  

  There’s an old theory that as an organism develops, it progresses through the same evolutionary stages traveled by its ancestors. Traditionally, economic development has worked in a similar way. When a country first shifts from agrarian poverty to industrialisation, it tends to start out in light manufacturing, especially textiles. Later it masters more complex manufactured products, and finally it progresses ...

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• 27 February

  Cheap as chips doesn’t cut it in Brexit Britain

  

  Just because it’s a bargain, doesn’t mean it’s worth it. Associated British Foods Plc has said its Primark discount clothing chain had performed well in the UK in the first half of its financial year, offsetting difficult conditions in Germany. This comes days after value bakery brand Greggs Plc said full-year underlying pre-tax profit was likely to be ahead of ...

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• 27 February

  A higher inflation target won’t make Fed more effective

  

  As promised by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, US central bankers have embarked on a comprehensive review aimed at making monetary policy more effective. They will draw on both internal and external inputs and, according to a report over the weekend in the Wall Street Journal, consider “whether to allow inflation to rise above their 2 percent target more often ...

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• 27 February

  Stocks drop on earnings, India; pound strengthens

  

  Bloomberg US equity futures fell alongside European stocks on fresh headwinds from disappointing corporate earnings and geopolitical tension in Asia. The dollar and Treasuries held steady as traders awaited the second half of the Federal Reserve chairman’s testimony to Congress. The Stoxx Europe 600 index declined as Air France-KLM dropped the most ever and Nivea hand-cream maker Beiersdorf cut guidance, ...

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• 27 February

  Corporate America goes on debt diet after a $3trn binge

  

  Bloomberg US companies are finally listening to stock and bond investors that have been pressing corporations to cut their debt loads. General Electric Co. is selling its biopharmaceutical business to Danaher Corp. for more than $21 billion, and using the money to pay down borrowings. Kraft Heinz is slashing its dividend and using the proceeds of asset sales to reduce ...

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