October, 2017

• 4 October

  Puerto Rico stumps Trump

  

  Donald Trump will always tell you that he is a “great builder.” “You can go ahead and speak to the guys who have 400-pound wives at home who are jealous of me,” he told me several years ago. “But the guys who know me know I’m a great builder.” A month before he announced his presidential candidacy in 2015, Trump ...

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• 4 October

  The Kurdish people have lost a revolutionary and a statesman

  

  It’s telling that at the moment Jalal Talabani, the former Iraqi president and Kurdish revolutionary, drew his last breaths, Iranian tanks were amassing on the border of Iraqi Kurdistan. In the Kurdish civil war of the 1990s, Talabani’s faction, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, aligned with Iran. The Iranians tacitly supported Kurdish independence. After the liberation of Iraq in 2003, ...

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• 4 October

  Shinzo Abe makes life a lot tougher for Bank of Japan

  Gee, thanks, boss! Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe just made life a lot harder for Haruhiko Kuroda or whoever succeeds him as Bank of Japan governor. Whether Abe gives Kuroda a second term or not, the premier’s planned consumption tax hike fights the central bank’s efforts to rev up the economy and get inflation at least within shouting distance of ...

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• 4 October

  US top court should draw line on gerrymanders

  What former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said about pornography is also true of gerrymandering: You may not be able to define it, but you know it when you see it. This week the justices will be presented with an opportunity to define and thereby limit gerrymandering, the practice of drawing election districts for partisan advantage. They should seize ...

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• 4 October

  Google invites competitors. But they’re a no-show

  

  Last week, Google complied with the European Commission ruling that hit it with a 2.42 billion euro ($2.85 billion) fine and ordered it to share real estate on its search pages with rival comparison shopping services. From a customer’s point of view, nothing has changed. The historic EU decision punished Google for abusing its search dominance to push its own ...

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• 4 October

  The cure for healthcare law is bipartisan

  

  In grade school, a teacher made kids who got in trouble go to the blackboard and write multiple times: “I will not …. ” It was my introduction to chalk. Here’s a repeat reference to a lesson taught two decades ago by a Republican pollster, the late Bob Teeter: The party that owns health care is a loser. Today, it’s ...

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• 4 October

  What Communists need to become good capitalists

  

  As it heads into a major leadership transition, China is attempting a strange breed of corporate reform. Rather than privatizing state-owned enterprises outright, the government is testing whether selling minority stakes to private investors may improve their performance. Meanwhile, state companies are busy revising their governing laws to give the Communist Party more control over management. The goals of these ...

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• 4 October

  US stocks add to records, dollar weakens on Fed

  

  Bloomberg US stocks added to records as consumer-focussed shares led gains amid data showing a surge in the American services sector. The dollar and Treasuries edged lower amid speculation over a new Federal Reserve chair. The S&P 500 Index added to records for the seventh day. Carmakers, producers of household products and food retailers led gains after services industries rose ...

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• 4 October

  Qatar sinks to 5-year low, Egypt banks hurt by reserve ratio rise

  Reuters Qatar’s stock index sank to a five-year low on Wednesday as foreign funds continued to sell ahead of third-quarter corporate earnings, while banks in Egypt were hit by news that the central bank would raise the required reserve ratio. The Qatari index lost 1.6 percent in thin trade, bringing its losses since four other Arab states broke off ties ...

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• 4 October

  Egypt raises banks’ reserve requirement amid inflation

  

  Bloomberg Egypt’s central bank will increase the reserve requirement for lenders next week, potentially paving the way for cutting interest rates even as it battles soaring inflation triggered by a sharp currency devaluation. The reserve ratio, used to control money supply, will increase to 14 percent from 10 percent from October 10, the regulator said. It said the measure was ...

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