If you needed extra proof that Italy’s public debt is the main event in Europe, look no further than a document released last week by the so-called ‘New Hanseatic League’—a group of eight fiscally cautious eurozone countries named in homage to the group of northern European trading powers whose zenith was in the 14th century. The modern-day evocation of the ...
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November, 2018
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10 November
Can they overcome distrust? Doubtful
President Donald Trump and Congress face a mountain of unfinished business — and chances are that most of it will stay unfinished. Of course, no one knows what will happen, and the president and congressional leaders of both parties have made the usual noises about cooperation. “There are a lot of good things that we can do together,” the president ...
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10 November
Brexit is puting London’s free access to business in jeopardy
Paris, Frankfurt and other European cities are rolling out the red carpet to welcome financiers quitting London as Brexit puts the UK capital’s free access to business on the continent in jeopardy. Rival hubs have love-bombed firms with promises of tax breaks and sweeteners. But they need to be on guard against a regulatory race to the bottom — as ...
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10 November
China is changing, far beyond tariffs and yuan
Recognising the passing of an era is key to understanding what the world economy will look like beyond the next couple of quarters. That big picture is what is lost in the current handicapping of specific yuan levels and the next tariffs. The larger point is that China is evolving into a different animal from the one that’s buoyed world ...
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10 November
How the crypto crash could be beneficial
These days, cryptocurrencies are far from the rage. Many have lost 80 percent or more of their market value from their peak in January, and some have fallen off the map altogether. But perhaps that development is precisely what we need for crypto to take the next step forward. For context, railroad stocks collapsed after a bubble in the 19th ...
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10 November
Norway’s $1 trillion fund has a problem
It’s the very definition of a first-world problem, but Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is wrestling with whether to make its investment portfolio less diverse. It’s a subject that cuts to the heart of the “active manager versus passive index†debate. As part of a long-running review, which will lift the fund’s equity allocation to 70 percent, the ...
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10 November
There’s one way to tackle Facebook and Google
Wouldn’t it be wonderful, with the wealth of information available on the internet today, to go back to the nice village feel of the web’s earliest days, when it was free to almost everyone who had access to it, personal data weren’t bought and sold, important decisions weren’t made by algorithms and online bullying, harassment and disinformation were non-issues outside ...
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10 November
VW to roll out $21,000 e-car to challenge Tesla
Bloomberg Volkswagen AG plans to add a subcompact crossover costing about 18,000 euros ($21,000) to its all-electric I.D. range, expanding its lineup of zero-emissions vehicles that are more affordable than those of Tesla Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The entry level vehicle may be built at VW’s factory in Emden, Germany, said the people, who asked not ...
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10 November
Some iPhone X units have faulty touch screens: Apple
Bloomberg Apple Inc. disclosed a pair of issues affecting two of its more popular products: the iPhone X and the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant said the screen on some iPhone X units doesn’t respond or responds intermittently when touched. The company also said some units could have displays that react even when they aren’t touched. The ...
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10 November
Dyson to develop air purifier-headphone combo
Bloomberg Dyson is considering developing a wearable air purifier that could double as a pair of headphones, hoping to tap demand from pollution-choked cities in Asia, people with knowledge of the project said. The UK company submitted patents for a “wearable air purifier†this year, according to filings to the UK Intellectual Property Office. The gadget is primarily an air ...
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