Bloomberg The European Union says it will continue a tit-for-tat escalation in its trade dispute with the US while countering President Donald Trump’s assertion that the US is being treated unfairly by the 28-nation bloc. Jyrki Katainen, the EU commissioner in charge of jobs and growth, told the French newspaper Le Monde in a story posted that if Trump applies ...
Read More »Apple challenges four Qualcomm patents
Bloomberg Apple Inc. filed petitions challenging four Qualcomm Inc. patents, dragging the US Patent and Trademark Office into a long-running licensing dispute that already spans the globe. The two are locked in a bitter fight over the amount of royalties Apple’s suppliers should pay to use Qualcomm’s technology on telecommunications. Billions of dollars are at stake. A hearing in one ...
Read More »High-flying Toronto condo market may soon hit turbulence
Bloomberg The chill that has crept over some segments of the Toronto housing market may soon extend to one of its persistent hot spots: condominiums. Evidence of a slowdown is emerging as new rules make it tougher to get a mortgage and borrowing costs rise for the first time in almost a decade. That’s reducing the appeal of Toronto condos, ...
Read More »Losing the trade war
If we are to have a ‘trade war’ with China, it would be best to win it. We should be better off after the fighting. Unfortunately, the chances of this happening seem slim to none, because President Trump’s plan of attack suggests that everyone — us and them — will lose. Interestingly, there’s broad agreement over some of our war ...
Read More »A $90bn lesson for the Brexit gang
Airbus has warned it will reconsider its British presence if the country crashes out of the EU without a deal. History is in danger of repeating itself here, with the UK once again failing to recognize where its best industrial interests lie. A British company once owned part of Airbus and sold out on the cheap. London is now threatening ...
Read More »World’s online retailers shouldn’t fear a sales tax
Old-school retailers were doing the press-release version of a touchdown dance last week after the Supreme Court ruled that state governments can require internet retailers to collect sales taxes even if they don’t have a physical presence in that state. Matthew Shay, the CEO of the National Retail Federation, said in a statement that retailers “have been waiting for this ...
Read More »France’s Macron needs to dream a little harder
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have finally laid out their joint vision for the future of the European monetary union. Unfortunately, their Meseberg Declaration looks like a missed opportunity: It is ambitious where it can afford to be vague and modest where it needs to be concrete. The Franco-German plan will be the foundation for next week’s crucial European Council. ...
Read More »Central bankers shouldn’t have to rescue democracy
The history of the financial crisis tells a disturbing tale for those who hold dear prosperity and democracy. Although this should have been the moment for representative governments to rise to the occasion, too often political leaders failed to take the actions needed to preserve the welfare of those who elected them. The institutions that did the most to help ...
Read More »Goldman shouldn’t be able to jawbone the Fed
In the Trump era, bankers and regulators were supposed to get along just dandy. In the wake of this year’s stress test, there is some hope that might not be the case. Last week, after the release of the first stage of the annual bank stress test, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. put out a statement indicating that it was unhappy ...
Read More »Saving the planet? Get carbon out of the air
What is the appropriate response to the threat of climate change? To some climate activists, it means we must give up on economic growth, capitalism or even industrial society itself. This extreme viewpoint, if correct, would require modern humanity to abandon much of what makes life comfortable,secure. It also causes many on the political right to suspect climate activism of ...
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