October, 2018

• 7 October

  Pompeo says ‘progress’ made after meeting N Korea’s Kim

  

  Bloomberg US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo reported progress on Sunday after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang amid high expectations that he can resolve details over a second summit with President Donald Trump. Pompeo returned to Seoul and was meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, with a written statement possible, according to the Blue House. ...

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• 7 October

  May sells post-Brexit plan to Labour backers

  

  Bloomberg Theresa May is taking her message direct to the opposition. Days after she danced on stage and promised better times ahead for her Conservative Party members, the UK prime minister took the rare step of writing in the Observer newspaper to entice wavering Labour supporters over to her camp. John McDonnell, who would lead economic policy if Labour came ...

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• 7 October

  Nigeria’s opposition picks Abubakar to battle Buhari

  Bloomberg Nigeria’s main opposition party nominated former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as its candidate to challenge President Muhammadu Buhari in February’s elections in Africa’s biggest oil producer. Abubakar, 71, won the People’s Democratic Party’s primaries with 1,532 votes, Ifeanyi Okowa, chairman of the nomination convention committee and governor of Delta state, said on Sunday in the oil hub of Port ...

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• 7 October

  America takes a disturbing plunge into protectionism

  

  The descent of American capitalism into a racket is being greased by professed capitalists in government, in collaboration with professed capitalists in what is called, with decreasing accuracy, the private sector. This is occurring under the auspices of Republicans, and while many Democrats are arguing, with some accuracy but more incoherence, this: The government has become a servant of grasping ...

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• 7 October

  Italy is better and worse than Greece

  

  After four successive days of increasing risk spreads, and after a prominent politician, Claudio Borghi, said there was an advantage to having your “own currency,” Italy is back squarely on both public and private radar screens as a potential source of systemic economic and financial disruptions. This has led to suggestions that the country could become “a new Greece.” While ...

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• 7 October

  How to make tech firms earn the trust of people

  We all agree, they said. Please make more rules for us, they said. Give more money to our regulators, they said. When an assemblage of savvy corporate lawyers converges on such improbable sentiments, skepticism is usually in order. Last week’s privacy hearing on Capitol Hill demanded a load of it. Representatives from numerous tech and telecom luminaries — including Amazon, ...

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• 7 October

  IMF hints at downturn but not how it will respond

  Christine Lagarde and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have answered the easy question but dodged the hard ones. Yes, of course an era of tit-for-tat tariffs dims the global economic outlook. So … what can the IMF do about it? Does it need more funding to protect the international economy, given the weakening scene? Director Christine Lagarde should say so ...

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• 7 October

  Italy fiscal economic forecasts won’t fool financial markets

  

  The Italian government has finally presented its much-awaited economic and fiscal forecasts. They are an exercise in smoke and mirrors of which American-Hungarian illusionist Harry Houdini would be proud. The inflated growth figures and frankly incredible future budget adjustments are unlikely to sway investors and the European Commission. Italy is heading for a fight with the European Union (EU) and, more ...

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• 7 October

  India’s central bank delays inevitable hike

  

  When the world’s de facto central bank rustles up an interest-rate whirlwind, you don’t use a fig leaf of flexible exchange rates to stand in its path. That memo, already well-received in Indonesia, doesn’t seem to have reached India. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) chose to hold its policy interest rate at 6.5 percent last week. And by delaying ...

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• 7 October

  Amazon’s $15 minimum wage should be just the start

  

  Amazon.com Inc.’s decision to raise wages to $15 an hour for all of its US workers is good news. It will mean more money in the pockets of thousands of hard-working Americans struggling to make ends meet. Even more importantly, Amazon’s example may start a trend, encouraging other companies to raise wages as well, and prompting workers to demand more. ...

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