February, 2018

• 17 February

  Infrastructure spending won’t transform America

  

  “MASON CITY. To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.“ —Robert Penn Warren, “All the King’s Men” (1946) Appropriately, Warren began the best book about American populism, his novel based on Huey Long’s Louisiana career, with a rolling sentence about a road. Time was, infrastructure — roads, ...

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• 17 February

  Making Singapore homes great again for nation’s banks isn’t easy

  

  The best start to a year since 2014 in Singapore’s property market seems to have finally lifted the spirits of investors in its banks. A 37% jump in new home sales in January ought to be making lenders optimistic about what the Year of the Dog holds for their all-important mortgage businesses. Yet when the property data were released Wednesday, ...

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• 17 February

  US banks still need a nudge to be colorblind

  More than 40 years ago, Congress adopted the Community Reinvestment Act to ensure that banks would serve everyone in the areas where they do business, regardless of race or class. Now, the Trump administration is considering how it might reform this long-controversial law. There’s reason for concern about the administration’s intentions. Done right, though, an update could actually be a ...

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• 17 February

  Turmoil could restore more normal markets

  After enduring something of a sudden trauma last week, many market participants now wish for a rapid return to calm. That’s understandable, but it may not be in their longer-term interest to simply revert to the highly unusual market conditions that prevailed before. Instead, they should hope for a new, less abnormal market paradigm with respect to asset-price volatility, correlations ...

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• 17 February

  What eurozone can learn from America’s union

  

  European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Boris Johnson traded barbs this week over how far the EU intends to push its integration agenda. In a speech on Wednesday, the UK foreign secretary accused the EU of seeking to create an “overarching European state.” Not true, Juncker responded: “I am strictly against a European superstate. We are not the United States ...

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• 17 February

  Amazon Go is nothing to fear, American worker

  

  Amazon Go, the global retailer’s experimental cashier-free convenience store, opened last week to enormous fanfare. At its heart was a promise to eliminate everyone’s least-favourite part of the shopping experience: checking out. With ceiling-mounted sensors and cameras backed by what one presumes is impressive artificial intelligence, Amazon is able to track every interaction a customer has with a product. It ...

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• 17 February

  Bankers, not bureaucrats, should run India’s banks

  

  Indian banks are being hit with one disaster after another. They are already dealing with a bad-loan problem that’s close to a crisis—and which caused India’s largest bank to declare a quarterly loss for the first time since the beginning of the millennium. Some of the loans that have gone bad—such as those to the flamboyant liquor magnate Vijay Mallya—already ...

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• 17 February

  Smart home of the future

  

  Bloomberg Don’t worry: Technology may come and go, but some things never change. In the not-so-distant future, cars will drive themselves and men may become obsolete (sorry, guys), but home will always be home. It’ll just be a heck of a lot smarter. Granted, some tech is better than other tech. No one needs a Wi-Fi-connected juice press that doesn’t ...

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• 17 February

  Apple’s HomePod speaker has its limits

  

  Bloomberg Apple Inc.’s HomePod, the company’s first foray into speakers in a decade, costs $216 to build and generates thinner profit margins than other products like the Apple Watch and iPhone, according to analysis by TechInsights. Given the HomePod’s $349 price, that $216 cost suggests Apple is generating margins of about 38 percent, according to the product analysis firm. That ...

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• 17 February

  $2mn Cigarette Racing Boat

  

  Bloomberg Mercedes-AMG GmbH debuted its latest collaboration with Cigarette Racing, the 515 Project One. The $2 million superboat has 3,100 total horsepower and can hit a top speed of 140 miles per hour. The look and colour scheme of the boat is based on the Mercedes-AMG Project One hybrid supercar developed from Formula 1; it’s the fastest, most advanced boat ...

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