December, 2018

• 3 December

  France and Germany slash bankers some Brexit slack

  Just what does a no-deal Brexit look like? Everyone is bracing for it – some even talk of stockpiling food and medicines – but nobody quite knows what the consequences of driving off the cliff-edge would be. As UK Prime Minister Theresa May uses that fear of the unknown to prod lawmakers into approving her imperfect but take-it-or-leave-it deal, Paris ...

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• 3 December

  The right ‘and wrong’ way to deal with Nord Stream 2

  The construction of Nord Stream 2 — a pipeline for delivering natural gas from Russia to Germany — could hardly have come at a worse time. The United States and Europe are already feuding over trade, defense spending. Now, the US opposition to the pipeline sets the scene for another falling out. To be clear, the US is right to ...

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• 3 December

  Putin is throwing his weight behind the euro

  

  Russia is preparing to sell bonds denominated in euros for the first time since 2013. Despite the recent drop in oil prices, it has a budget surplus and doesn’t really need to borrow; the bond placement is a test of the ‘dedollarisarion’ program, put in place by President Vladimir Putin this year. If the test and the plan are successful, ...

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• 3 December

  Rewriting history blurs India’s future

  

  Every nation’s economic output moves up or down along a long-term trend, fluctuating in accordance with seasonal patterns, business and financial cycles and random shocks. In addition to those variables, the growth of India’s GDP now depends crucially on which party was in power when the activity occurred – and under which party it was measured. Disagreeing about the future ...

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• 3 December

  Something about Brexit everyone can agree on

  

  Who says economists can’t agree? In recent days, four reports evaluating the long-term economic impact of Brexit have been published, and they are remarkably consistent on at least two things. First, Theresa May’s deal will hurt the economy over the next decade or longer; and, second, exiting with no deal would be significantly worse. Ironically, that relative economic clarity may ...

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• 3 December

  Facebook uses ‘WhatsApp phones’ to tap next emerging market

  

  Bloomberg One recent afternoon in the Indian city of Pune, a 35-year-old mason named Om Prakash Gaekwad gets a crash course in technology. He watches a street-corner skit explaining the virtues of WhatsApp’s messaging service and Reliance Jio’s wireless network. He then climbs aboard a truck to find out how to set them up. Half an hour later, he’s made ...

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• 3 December

  Volkswagen, Tesco in pact on British e-car charging rollout

  

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG and Tesco Plc plan to build the UK’s largest vehicle-charging network spanning 2,500 bays across some 600 stores in the next three years, even as buyers have so far stayed on the fence and economic fallout from Brexit is difficult to predict. Customers will be able to charge their electric and plug-in hybrid cars using a 7-kilowatt ...

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• 3 December

  DHL’s ‘robots’ to meet e-comm demand

  

  Bloomberg Worldwide delivery service DHL is deploying artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles and product-picking robots at its warehouses in North America to help handle the surge in e-commerce demand. The US unit of Deutsche Post AG will spend $300 million on its plan to equip 350 of its 430 facilities with new technology that includes autonomous trolleys that shadow human workers ...

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• 3 December

  Amazon letting Apple Music onto Alexa home speakers

  

  Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. opened up its popular home speakers to Apple Inc.’s music service, a new step in the nascent cooperation between the two tech rivals. Beginning from December 17, Apple Music will be available on Amazon’s Echo devices, according to a statement on Amazon’s blog. Music has always been one of Alexa’s most popular features, Amazon said. And Apple’s ...

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• 3 December

  Fed jumps off a predictable path of interest-rate hikes

  

  Bloomberg Federal Reserve officials have stepped off a predictable path of interest-rate increases and are signalling to investors a hard truth about relying on increasingly contradictory economic data: There are no easy answers anymore. It’s going to be choppy. It’s going to bring more surprises. And it may get rough on those trying to track the central bank’s strategy. A ...

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