August, 2016

• 28 August

  Saudi oil minister sees output freeze ‘positive’

  

    Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s energy minister said an oil-output freeze would be “positive” if it happens, while ruling out a cut in production. Iran’s oil minister became the latest OPEC member to say he will attend a meeting of producers in Algiers next month to discuss market conditions, including the possibility of keeping crude production at current levels. Saudi Arabia ...

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• 28 August

  Saudi Sadara starts first mixed-feed cracker

  Reuters Sadara Chemical, a $20 billion petrochemical joint venture between national oil giant Saudi Aramco and Dow Chemical, has started operating its mixed-feed cracker at the venture’s petrochemical complex in Jubail. The facility on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, the first mixed-feed cracker in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, can process both ethane and naphtha. Sadara Basic Services Co, ...

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• 28 August

  The snooze economy

  

    Call it the Snooze Economy. Roughly two months before the presidential election, the economy has turned both boring and mystifying. It hardly impresses anyone, and yet this plodding performance is probably helping Hillary Clinton by minimizing bad economic news. More important: The lackluster expansion, if continued for a few more years, would represent an enormous achievement. It would finally ...

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• 28 August

  Maybe we clamped down too hard on finance

  

    Let’s talk today about compliance in the financial industry. This topic seems to come up a lot lately. I hear complaints from brokers on the sell side, most of whom don’t have kind words to say about their main regulatory overseer, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority — even though it’s supposedly in the pocket of the financial industry. I ...

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• 28 August

  Corporate debt is China’s biggest reform challenge

    The best way to describe China’s economic quandary is also the simplest: It can strive for maximum growth now or later — but not both. China’s government is well aware that promoting the growth of the world’s largest economy in the long term involves structural changes that will slow the economy in the short term. And its success in ...

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• 28 August

  Venezuela needs economic overhaul

    Venezuela’s crushing economic and political crisis is spiralling out of control. Widespread food and medicine crunch, 700% inflation, abysmal recession, corruption and crime have put the country on the edge of a virtual collapse. The recall vote to unseat President Nicolas Maduro is also facing bureaucratic bottlenecks. The ruling party has been accused of creating a climate of intimidation ...

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• 28 August

  Did welfare reform curb poverty?

  

    When Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law, the outrage from the left was incandescent. Peter Edelman, a prominent official in Health and Human Services, resigned in protest and wrote an article for the Atlantic calling it “The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done” and declaring that “it will hurt millions of poor children by the time it is ...

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• 28 August

  America’s rocky relations with for-profit prisons

  

    The Department of Justice announced last week that it would end its reliance on for-profit prisons run by companies such as Corrections Corporation of America and Geo Group. The decision followed an internal study, which found that private prisons tended to be less safe and poorly administered, and provided limited long-term savings for the federal government. Shares of CCA ...

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• 28 August

  Saudi Arabian stocks lead Gulf gains as oil offsets Fed concern

  

    Bloomberg Saudi Arabian stocks led gains across Gulf equities as an advance in the price of oil helped offset investor caution over the timing of U.S. interest-rate increases. Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index rose 1.6 percent, its first increase in six days and biggest climb since April 25. Qatar’s QE Index added 0.6 percent. The Bloomberg GCC 200 ...

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• 28 August

  Emerging stocks post first weekly drop since July on Fed timing

    Bloomberg Caution rippled through emerging markets on Friday as traders weighed the impact on risk assets from comments by Federal Reserve policy makers about the timing of an interest-rate increase in the U.S. Assets from developing-nation currencies to global stocks gyrated after Fed Chair Janet Yellen spoke to central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. While she didn’t ...

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