August, 2018

• 25 August

  Australia bans China’s Huawei, ZTE from 5G network projects

  

  Bloomberg Australia banned China’s Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. from supplying next-generation wireless equipment to the nation’s telecom operators, the latest blow in an escalating global battle over network security. The government gave carriers new security guidance for fifth-generation mobile technology and warned that using government-linked suppliers would risk breaching their obligations. The nature of 5G technology means security ...

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• 25 August

  Hurricane Lane pummels Hawaii with rain

  Bloomberg A weakening Hurricane Lane has brought record rainfall to Hawaii, where flooding threatens $8 billion worth of homes. In 12 hours, 16.48 inches of rain fell on the Big Island of Hawaii, and daily records were set at Hilo International Airport on Wednesday and on Thursday, the National Weather Service said. Roads on the Big Island have been washed ...

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• 25 August

  Walmart asks beauty suppliers to look beyond China for sourcing

  

  Bloomberg Walmart Inc. has asked its cosmetics suppliers to consider sourcing their goods in countries outside of China, one of the first signs that the world’s largest retailer hopes to dilute the impact of the Trump administration’s looming tariffs. A “large amount” of items in the cosmetics category fall under the most-recent proposed levies on Chinese goods, according to an ...

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• 25 August

  Inflation is back. Will it kill the US economy?

  

  Inflation is back. What do we do about it? For starters: Don’t ignore it. The latest consumer price index (CPI) — the government’s best-known inflation indicator — reported a 2.9 percent increase from July 2017. The last time the year-over-year gain was higher was in December 2011. Though hardly a cause for panic, it suggests intensifying price and wage pressures ...

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• 25 August

  Trade war won’t affect Chinese GDP

  

  Analysts are trying urgently to evaluate the potential impact of a full-fledged trade war on the Chinese economy. This typically involves estimating how much various tariff scenarios will reduce China’s GDP growth, with current estimates ranging from the minimal, 0.1 or 0.2 percentage points, to the substantial — 2 percentage points. This is probably the right way to evaluate the ...

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• 25 August

  This $86 billion gases deal is springing a leak

  Getting two management teams to agree on a deal to create the world’s largest industrial gases group was hard enough. Finalising the combination of Praxair Inc and Linde AG is proving harder still. The former, in particular, should be asking if the benefits really are worth it. The possibility of a transaction surfaced in August 2016. An agreement to create ...

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• 25 August

  World’s major central banks are too hawkish

  Global investors are positioned for a coordinated tightening of monetary policy by the world’s major central banks. Although the US Federal Reserve is already far down that path, the others are just getting started. The European Central Bank is set to end its bond purchase program by year-end. The Bank of England is leaning towards hiking interest rates for only ...

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• 25 August

  In Brexit’s endgame, anything’s still possible

  

  As negotiators from the UK and the European Union meet in Brussels, Brexit is said to be entering its endgame. This isn’t an ordinary endgame though: All the major pieces are still on the board and pretty much the full range of potential outcomes — from no deal to no Brexit, and everything in between — remain live possibilities. Mapping ...

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• 25 August

  Qantas cannot count on monopoly money forever

  

  Which are the most lucrative airline routes? The ones that fly tourists and executives between global capitals on sparkling new planes, accompanied by in-flight movies and lie-flat beds? Or the ones that hop around the boondocks on ancient turboprops with the seat stuffing coming out? Of course it’s the latter. Every business knows that you can charge the highest prices ...

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• 25 August

  When and why has the world gone wrong

  

  What exactly has gone wrong, and when and why? The open, democratic world order based on egalitarian rights and the rule of law — liberalism, for lack of a better term — is under increasing pressure. The signs, serious and less so, are everywhere. The trend has now hit so many nations that the explanation has to be global. Social ...

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