January, 2018

• 1 January

  May plans cabinet revamp this year

  Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May is planning to make major changes to her cabinet in the new year, possibly sacking as many as five ministers, according to the Sunday Times. May has decided to bring younger members of Parliament into her government as part of a series of steps aimed at convincing voters she can do more than Brexit, ...

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• 1 January

  Spain won’t yield to blackmail by Catalan separatists: Rajoy

  

  Bloomberg Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy set in motion the process for convening a new Catalan parliament and said he wouldn’t allow a new separatist administration to blackmail his government. A session to swear in lawmakers in Barcelona will take place on Jan. 17 before a vote days later to appoint a new regional president if there is a candidate, ...

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• 1 January

  Lawmakers fail to hold Zuma to account

  

  Bloomberg South Africa’s top court found that parliament failed to hold President Jacob Zuma to account for his role in a scandal involving the misuse of public funds on his private home and ordered it to draft rules governing the circumstances under which he could be removed from office. “The assembly did not hold the president to account as was ...

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• 1 January

  China bets on more state economic control for 2018

  

  As the world ushered in 2018, it’s worth reviewing what we forecast for China in the previous year, and to cast ahead for what themes might play out over the next 12 months. After meeting of Communist Party leaders at the Central Economic Work Conference, we can expect their targets and objectives for 2018. And these meetings have great import: ...

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• 1 January

  Great trade war that didn’t happen

  

  The trade war didn’t happen. Prepare for a few skirmishes. It was high on many observers’ lists of things that could go badly wrong in 2017. Buying and selling of goods and services across borders not only increased this year, but also grew more than anticipated. Next year may test whether that’s a durable trend or just an accident that ...

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• 1 January

  Machines are coming to boost your tech portfolio

  

  Chemicals, equipment, machinery parts. It’s not sexy stuff. Certainly not as cool as games consoles, image sensors and flash memory chips. But who needs sexy when you can have excellent returns on your portfolio of tech stocks. That’s what JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Japan Technology Fund did. It went for the mundane and posted a 107 percent return in the ...

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• 1 January

  The US is becoming the world’s new tax haven

  Seven years ago, the US led an effort to address a problem facing governments everywhere. Each year, people manage to avoid paying an estimated $2.5 trillion in income tax — a giant sum that could be used to combat poverty, update infrastructure or lower tax rates for law-abiding citizens. Now, however, the US is becoming one of the world’s best ...

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• 1 January

  Monopolies look worse for workers than for consumers

  

  Monopoly power is a hot topic of economic debate. Economists are starting to ask whether increasing industrial concentration is choking off productivity growth, reducing capital investment, throttling or deterring would-be entrepreneurs, raising consumer prices, and reducing the share of national income flowing to workers. This is a good and important effort. But it’s also possible that with all the attention ...

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• 1 January

  Mario Draghi’s great elastic band act is at snapping point

  

  Yields on 10-year US government bonds have risen 40 basis points since September, about as much as German 10-year Bunds yield in total. The more than 200 basis point difference between the two debt market bellwethers is increasingly difficult to justify. It’s the lack of yield in Europe that looks out of whack. Just like the US, growth is picking ...

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• 1 January

  We don’t need to be reminded that smoking kills

  

  Preaching morality while practicing cupidity can be tricky, but various American governments have done it for years regarding smoking. This mental contortion now has a new chapter. The four largest American tobacco companies (Altria, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, Philip Morris) are, under government compulsion, funding newspaper and television ads to tell — actually, to remind — people that their products are ...

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