February, 2019

• 17 February

  Canada farmers swap soybeans as US-China spat drags on prices

  

  Bloomberg After becoming the hot new crop in parts of Canada’s prairies, soybeans are starting to lose their appeal as Donald Trump’s trade war with China drives down prices. Soybean acres in Canada are poised to drop for the second straight year as farmers shift acres to more profitable crops. In addition to the price concerns, some growers are also ...

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• 17 February

  Huawei fight sees EU hit by crossfire in tech war’s key battle

  

  Bloomberg The global tech war over Huawei Technologies Co. saw the European Union come under pressure from both the US and China as they fought over whether the company’s equipment should be banned from future 5G networks. “Chinese law requires them to provide Beijing’s vast security apparatus with access to any data that touches their networks or equipment,” US Vice ...

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• 17 February

  Porsche warns UK buyers of 10% hard Brexit price hike

  

  Bloomberg Porsche’s UK unit told customers they might have to pay as much as 10 percent more than expected if the country makes a hard Brexit and their imported car arrives after March 29. The information is precautionary and will allow customers to plan ahead for if the UK leaves the European Union at that date, Porsche said in an ...

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• 17 February

  Yes, reality continues to leak from American life

  

  In 1994, the Clinton administration decreed a bright shining future for education. Its Goals 2000 legislation proclaimed that by that year America’s high school graduation rate would be 90 percent and American students would lead the world in math and science achievements. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., was unimpressed: “That will not happen.” It didn’t, to the surprise of no ...

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• 17 February

  Brexit’s ‘project fear’ just got real

  

  When Britain voted to leave the EU in June 2016, most economists expected the country’s economy to decelerate sharply. The slowdown has finally arrived. The sudden drop in economic activity at the end of 2018 raises the stakes for the British political class, which has been dithering over the future relationship with the EU as the UK enjoyed a relatively ...

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• 17 February

  Has UK found a way to curb Facebook, Google?

  Slowing the inexorable rise of Facebook Inc. and Google, the gatekeepers for news consumption online, can be a fool’s errand. For all the noise of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook’s revenue still grew by 37 percent last year, while Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s sales climbed 23 percent. Meanwhile, publishers’ revenue has faced a relentless squeeze as Silicon Valley sucks up ...

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• 17 February

  China’s default wave spares the biggest fish

  Brace yourself: A growing number of hard-up Chinese borrowers aren’t making good on their debts. The pattern is all too familiar. After a record year of defaults in 2018, two big issuers failed to meet their obligations in recent weeks. Coal miner Wintime Energy Co., one of China’s biggest defaulters last year, missed interest payments again this month. Beijing Orient ...

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• 17 February

  Corbyn looks like May’s unlikely Brexit saviour

  

  Here we go again: Britain’s parliament is debating Brexit and Prime Minister Theresa May is playing for more time as various factions try to influence the endgame. Her goal is to deliver her divorce deal without dividing her party. So what’s new? For one thing, the time left on the clock. Just 45 days remain until Britain exits on March ...

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• 17 February

  Gucci can’t escape from fashion police

  

  Gucci’s gaudy creations are moving from cutting-edge to classic. But there are signs that some investors might be starting to look elsewhere for the next big thing. The fashion house’s French parent company, Kering SA, said that Gucci’s organic sales rose 28.1% year-on-year in the last three months of 2018. That’s an impressive performance given that it was being compared ...

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• 17 February

  Japan’s women need more than more office jobs

  

  Japan’s leaders seem happy to rest the country’s fate on the shoulders of its women. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to get more of them out of the home to compensate for a shrinking workforce. His deputy Taro Aso, on the other hand, had to apologize recently after blaming them for not having enough kids. I can hear women secretly ...

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