July, 2017

• 8 July

  Fines for fuel economy shortfalls under review by US

  

  Bloomberg The Trump administration is considering easing steeper fines proposed by Obama-era regulators for automakers that don’t meet tougher fuel economy standards, a move that would give a break largely to luxury brands like Jaguar, BMW and Porsche that have paid the highest penalties in the past. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a regulatory filing it will ...

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• 8 July

  Manhattan home sales surge as price discounts draw in buyers

  

  Bloomberg Manhattan homebuyers found deals they couldn’t refuse in the second quarter, driving up sales of previously owned properties by the most in more than two years. Purchases of resale homes jumped 16 percent from a year earlier to 2,597, according to a report by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Buyer interest was fueled by ...

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• 8 July

  Be grateful for brave Americans in Syria

  

  For this Independence Day, at a moment when the tone of our political life would probably shame our Founders, here are snapshots of some brave American soldiers and civilians I met inside Syria last week who should make us all proud. Let’s start with a bearded sergeant major from Oklahoma. He’s driving an armored SUV down a dusty road toward ...

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• 8 July

  Don’t blame China’s politics for this Korean car crash

  

  Executives at South Korea’s carmakers recently blamed strained Chinese relations for a massive sales shortfall in the world’s largest auto market. Foreign affairs only partly explains the story. Just as Bejing’s boycott over Seoul’s plan to host a US missile defense system hurt Korean makeup and toy brands, it also hit the auto industry: in the first half of the ...

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• 8 July

  Cities need data from Uber and Lyft

  

  With the ouster of Travis Kalanick, its founder and chief executive, Uber has vowed to mend an array of broken and frayed relationships. It can start with cities. It can focus on the sharing of some basic information. Its competitors, including Lyft, can join in this project, too. App-based ride services have changed the urban world, often for the good. ...

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• 8 July

  Africa’s demography is not its destiny

  By 2050, more than one-quarter of the world’s population will live in Africa — up from about one-sixth today. Even if these projections are slightly off, that fact should serve as a call to action for a continent whose long-term promise is equaled by wide-ranging perils. The numbers come from the latest United Nations report on population trends, which projects ...

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• 8 July

  Negotiations won’t stop N Korea from getting nuke

  

  When North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile this week — what its boy tyrant called a ‘gift to the American bastards’ — the response from the Trump administration was fairly conventional. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson correctly called it an escalation. He announced America’s intention to bring the matter before the UN Security Council. And he assured, “We will ...

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• 8 July

  The new economy needs to go a bit retro

  

  A taxi company that owns no cars. A media titan that creates no content. A retailer with no stores. A couple of years ago, this was the view of Uber, Facebook and Amazon: growing powerhouses even though they consisted of little more than software engineers and data centers (and, in Amazon’s case, a back room with no storefront). Perhaps the ...

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• 8 July

  Retail apocalypse leads to suburban renaissance

  

  As technology changes, a country’s industrial mix changes. A century and a half ago, most Americans — and indeed, most human beings — worked on farms. Today almost nobody does. Nowadays, a substantial number of Americans work in retail, ringing up purchases, stocking shelves or helping customers find what they need. But in a decade or two, it’s anyone’s guess ...

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• 8 July

  Samsung heads into a new season with record earnings

  

  Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co. heads into the latter half of 2017 with record quarterly earnings under its belt, hoping to sustain that momentum as Apple Inc. prepares to debut the 10th-anniversary iPhone. Samsung intends to use its well-received Galaxy S8 to extend its lead against its American rival. But it will also lean heavily on its position as the world’s ...

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