October, 2017

• 2 October

  Hamas deal to cede Gaza control sets up showdown over guns

  

  Bloomberg As the Palestinian Authority attempts to reassert control over the Gaza Strip this week, Hamas’s refusal to give up its guns is feeding doubts that a unity deal can take root. The authority’s prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, led a parade of senior officials from the West Bank on Monday to take over ministries that have been operated by Hamas ...

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• 2 October

  Why ‘the swamp’ survives

  

  Donald Trump isn’t draining the swamp. The president unveiled his long-awaited “tax reform” package last week, and although many crucial details were missing (for example, the income brackets), he was full of accolades. “This is a revolutionary change,” he said. Well, not yet. The federal income tax system—almost everyone seems to agree—is a mess. It features relatively high nominal rates ...

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• 2 October

  Uber can’t be all warm and cuddly and worth $70 billion

  

  The new chief executive of Uber Technologies Inc. is on a crusade to repair a corporate reputation that’s been badly damaged by scandals over its treatment of women and broader corporate culture. Dara Khosrowshahi even apologized after London’s transport regulator revoked Uber’s local license because of failures to run proper background checks on drivers and report alleged crimes. Losses last ...

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• 2 October

  Buffett has edge on wealth managers flattered by debt

  Warren Buffett may have won his decade-long bet against hedge funds, but can his advice to investors to use only low-cost index funds beat the red-hot record of wealth managers? Readers of the 2017 Capgemini World Wealth Report, released on Thursday, will be shaking their heads. High-net-worth individuals reported an average 24 percent return last year on assets managed by ...

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• 2 October

  How to get power to the people of Puerto Rico

  With Puerto Rico sweltering in the dark, restoring electricity as soon as possible is vital to averting a humanitarian disaster. The island’s long-term recovery, however, will depend not only on repairing its battered grid but on reforming its feckless power company. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the biggest public utility in the US, is notorious for its mismanagement and ...

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• 2 October

  Merkel must find a way to win the young

  

  As she builds her new coalition government, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be mindful of the need to counter nationalism at home and the imperative of finding a consensus on integration in the euro zone. But the election also exposed a demographic rift that could present an even bigger challenge to Germany’s leaders: between a graying population that backed the ...

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• 2 October

  Picking stocks is hard. Even harder with growth

  

  Picking stocks is famously difficult. But just how difficult is one of the oldest arguments in finance. New York Times columnist Jeff Sommer reopened the debate last week with a piece describing a recent study by an Arizona State University business professor, Hendrik Bessembinder. Bessembinder looked at the performance of publicly traded stocks in the US from 1926 to 2016 ...

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• 2 October

  Taking Corbyn’s government-in-waiting seriously

  

  A few months ago, no one would have noticed British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn’s address at the annual conference of his Labour Party. But that was before he engineered its biggest increase in vote share since World War II after Theresa May gambled on a snap election and lost her majority. The election, Corbyn told the Labour faithful, “has put ...

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• 2 October

  Saudi Arabia, Russia to set up $1 billion energy fund

  

  KHOBAR / Reuters Saudi Arabia and Russia plan to set up a $1 billion fund to invest in energy projects, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in a interview broadcast by Al Arabiya TV on Monday. The fund, to be finalised during this week’s visit by Saudi King Salman to Moscow, was part of efforts by two of the world’s ...

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• 2 October

  Kuwait mulls $70bn annual spending cap for three years

  

  Bloomberg Kuwaiti officials are considering an annual public spending cap of 21 billion dinars ($69.5 billion) on average over the next three fiscal years to help the government plan future debt sales, a senior official said. The cap is being included in a proposed budget for the fiscal year starting in April, the official said, asking not to be named ...

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