April, 2018

• 16 April

  Air China flight diverted after midair ruckus

  BEIJING / Reuters An Air China flight bound for Beijing made an unscheduled landing in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou on Sunday after a passenger threatened a flight attendant with a fountain pen, the country’s civil aviation authority said. In a brief statement on its website, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said a male passenger on Air China ...

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• 16 April

  Toys ‘R’ Us draws 11th-hour offer from Little Tikes’s Larian

  

  Bloomberg Billionaire Isaac Larian, the toy marketer whose lineup includes Little Tikes and Bratz dolls, offered to save part of Toys ‘R’ Us from liquidation with an almost $900 million bid for stores in the US and Canada. Larian would pay $675 million and $215 million for outlets in Canada, he said. The funds will come from Larian himself and ...

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• 16 April

  Could the Fed’s rate hikes trigger a debt bomb?

  

  The US Federal Reserve minutes show that central bank officials are increasingly committed to raising rates and shrinking the bank’s balance sheet. While economic signs remain mixed, continued growth, rising inflationary expectations, tightening labor markets and the need to temper asset prices would all seem to argue in favour of higher rates. Other central banks are likely to follow. The ...

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• 16 April

  Wells Fargo hasn’t dealt with its scandal

  

  There is a typical arc of bank scandals. Wells Fargo appears to be caught in a feedback loop, and its first-quarter earnings provided more evidence of that. Wells Fargo recently said that its quarterly earnings per share rose just 8 percent to $1.12, which was slightly more than the $1.06 analysts were expecting. The bank’s revenue of $21.9 billion was ...

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• 16 April

  Grilling Zuckerberg doesn’t solve Facebook’s problems

  

  As so often in the past, Mark Zuckerberg found himself apologizing this week. Testifying before Congress, he offered hours of penitence and self-reflection. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m committed to getting it right.” And just what would getting it right entail? In questioning Zuckerberg, the assembled members of Congress voiced a long series of abstract anxieties — about data collection ...

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• 16 April

  A ray of hope for TPP

  Nobody expects a coherent and consistent trade policy from President Donald Trump. But sometimes incoherence and inconsistency are to be welcomed. Trump has apparently directed his trade advisers to explore rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This instruction contradicts much of what has gone before — and is, in other words, a very good idea. Trump dumped this painstakingly negotiated pact ...

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• 16 April

  Actually, global warming is a central bank matter

  

  Central bankers have been dubbed ‘masters of the universe’ for the tools and powers they have acquired since the financial crisis. Some of them now want to play a more active role in the fight against climate change. Monetary authorities are right to be mindful of the way in which climate risk affects their mandate to ensure price stability and ...

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• 16 April

  The reign of our robot overlords might be delayed

  

  Are you stressed out about the singularity? Living in fear of the day when computers decide that humans are no longer necessary? Not to worry, say some leading experts in Artificial Intelligence (AI): Research in the field might have actually hit a wall. No doubt, AI is everywhere. Computers assess financial news, identify viruses and even act as physics theorists, ...

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• 16 April

  South Dakota asks SC to circumvent Congress and market

  

  South Dakota has become what South Carolina once was — stubborn, pugnacious and wrong. In 1860, South Carolina became the first state to vote to secede. In 2016, South Dakota’s legislature picked a fight in the hope that the US Supreme Court would reverse a prior decision, thereby handing the state a policy victory it failed to win in Congress. ...

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• 16 April

  US bank execs see delayed boost from tax overhaul

  

  NEW YORK / Reuters Banks have not reaped the full benefit of US tax cuts, Wall Street executives said after a string of quarterly results, with expected business growth and higher consumer spending yet to materialise. Analysts and investors are still trying to work out the longer-term effects of the tax rewrite signed into law in December, which slashed the ...

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