September, 2018

• 22 September

  Trump’s trade war enters a dangerous new phase

  

  As the US-China trade war escalates, with both parties imposing higher tariffs on the other, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross tried to defuse some of the tension. Because America’s 10 percent tariff on some $200 billion worth of Chinese imports is “spread across thousands and thousands of products,” he noted, “nobody is going to actually notice it at the end ...

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• 22 September

  Forget robots, retailers need people power

  

  The ongoing fight for talent in the retail industry appears to be kicking into higher gear. Bloomberg News’s Matthew Boyle wrote that Walmart Inc. has surveyed workers about whether perks such as child-care services or gym memberships would be “meaningful” to new hires. It’s just the latest example of a growing focus on the workforce. J.C. Penney Co. is reportedly ...

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• 22 September

  May sends Brexit message to skeptics

  

  With the European Union summit in Salzburg this week viewed in the UK as a failure for Theresa May’s Brexit plan, the UK prime minister felt the need to issue a clarifying statement. In it, May did what she always does in negotiations: She doubled down. It was a statement for two different audiences. Her message to Europe was simple: ...

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• 22 September

  Crazy rich Asians are so yesterday in China

  There’s a new breed of spender in charge of China’s wallets, and it’s not crazy rich Asians. The rise of Pinduoduo Inc. and the decline of JD.com Inc. are good proxies for this shift. Founded three years ago, the e-commerce site Pinduoduo processed 262 billion yuan of transactions in the second quarter, just 40 percent shy of JD’s gross merchandise ...

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• 22 September

  Saving the planet doesn’t mean killing growth

  

  In the 19th and 20th centuries, a few countries got fabulously rich. These included most of Europe, parts of East Asia, some small oil producing states and parts of the former British Empire. In recent decades, more of the world — large parts of China, portions of India, Southeast Asia and part of Latin America — have joined the rich ...

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• 22 September

  China goes for broke in Indonesian e-commerce

  

  China’s deep-pocketed internet giants are fighting a turf war in Indonesia, where e-commerce sales could surpass India’s as soon as 2020. The only problem is that there’s almost no path to profitability. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and JD.com Inc. already back four of the top five online-shopping startups in Southeast Asia’s most populous country. In March, Alibaba ...

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• 22 September

  Don’t blame business for slow wage growth

  

  Are wages determined by market forces, or do businesses get to decide what pay they offer to workers? This question gets at the heart of a lot of the debate about the economy. Why has wage growth been so sluggish for so many years? If you’re on the market-forces side of the wage question, you might answer that productivity growth ...

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• 22 September

  Aston Martin confirms ‘003’ supercar for 2021

  

  Bloomberg Aston Martin has confirmed plans to build a hybrid supercar code-named “003.” It’s the third high-performance, mid-engine car the private equity- and Kuwaiti-owned company will have built in recent years, following the $2.6 million Aston Martin Valkyrie and Valkyrie AMR Pro (called “001” and “002,” respectively) that debuted in 2017. The announcement comes as the brand plans to go ...

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• 22 September

  VW, Ford to get competition in autonomous push from ZF

  

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. are set for more competition in the race to roll out self-driving vehicles as parts supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG develops its own offering in the latest sign of how technology shifts are upending traditional roles in the auto industry. ZF plans to invest $14 billion over the next five years on electric and ...

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• 22 September

  Toyota agrees to add android auto in its cars

  

  Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp. agreed to add Android Auto to its vehicles, according to a person familiar with the matter, ending years of resistance to the Google infotainment software due to safety and security concerns. For the first time, Toyota will allow Android Auto devices to connect directly to its cars, after announcing compatibility with Apple Inc.’s CarPlay in January. ...

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