August, 2017

• 16 August

  Why US hasn’t brought ‘fire and fury’ to North Korea

  

  As the world ponders the meaning of President Donald Trump’s threat of “fire and fury” on North Korea, it’s worth asking why his predecessors never took those steps to stop its nuclear program. When Bill Clinton was confronted with the threat of North Korea’s exit from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he considered military force. But he ended up going for ...

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• 16 August

  There are many pitfalls to cutting low-skilled immigration

  

  President Donald Trump has thrown his support to the Cotton-Perdue bill to restrict legal immigration of low-skilled workers into the US by as much as 50 percent on the grounds it would raise the wages of American working families. That’s not what the economic evidence is showing, however. The only academically solid study of the impact of reducing legal immigration ...

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• 16 August

  Japan’s booming and now needs more immigrants

  Japan has served its time as a symbol of economic failure. Its latest growth surge puts it in a welcome new role. The country’s demographics, according to conventional wisdom, are supposed to be bad for the economy. Instead, Japan unexpectedly shot to the top of Group of Seven club, with its gross domestic product notching 4 percent annual growth last ...

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• 16 August

  What the stock market tells you about Trump

  President Donald Trump takes economic indicators seriously, except when he doesn’t. He’s boasted that recent stock market highs endorse his leadership; before the election, he said it was all a bubble. In the same way, before he took office, low unemployment was a phony number that meant nothing; now it’s a sure sign of success. In general, stock-market performance is ...

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• 16 August

  How Trump’s war with Republicans could end

  

  President Trump’s intensifying feud with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has led to speculation that this could be a prelude to a formal break with the Republican Party. I have no idea what’s going on in Trump’s mind. And it’s absolutely true that he’s constructed an inner circle in the White House that has very few connections to the Republican ...

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• 16 August

  Why some banks recover and others don’t at all

  

  Most experts debating bail-in and bail-out strategies agree that banks should build capital and shrink balance sheets as the best way to avoid a collapse and rebuild after one. But researchers are suggesting a more personalized version of that recipe that makes the difference between life and death for struggling firms. In a recent paper, Bank of Italy’s Emilia Bonaccorsi ...

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• 16 August

  We need to put the patent trolls out of business

  

  In a recent episode of HBO’s sitcom “Silicon Valley,” a lawyer tries to extort money from a struggling startup by threatening to sue it for patent infringement. The troll, who understands nothing about the underlying technology, owns a patent so broad as to be unenforceable, but knows that the victims of his perfectly legal extortion scheme lack the financial resources ...

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• 16 August

  US stocks rise, dollar steady as investors await fed minutes

  

  Bloomberg US stocks opened higher and the dollar and Treasuries were largely steady as investors held tight before the release of the latest Federal Reserve minutes. European stocks advanced amid growing optimism over the region’s economy. Oil headed for its first gain in three days and base metals railled. Markets are settling down after a tumultuous few days spurred by ...

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• 16 August

  Egypt ends losing streak, Qatar down after data

  DUBAI / Reuters Most Middle Eastern stock markets rose on Wednesday, with Egypt ending a six-day losing streak, but trading volumes were thin in the absence of major new catalysts for investors. The Dubai index rose 0.3 percent as GFH Financial , the most active stock, climbed 2.9 percent. It had plunged 12.9 percent over the previous two days as ...

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• 16 August

  Morgan Stanley’s upbeat Turkey bank view defies 10-year trend

  

  Bloomberg History suggests otherwise, but Morgan Stanley says Turkey’s peer-beating banks have room to rally further. Analysts including Samuel Goodacre increased share price targets for four of Turkey’s biggest lenders by an average 15 percent, saying a government credit guarantee facility will continue to underpin their earnings. Istanbul’s banks index is climbing even as the country’s borrowing costs rise to ...

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