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Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin is using the threat of additional US sanctions to encourage wealthy Russians to repatriate some of their overseas assets, which exceed $1 trillion by one estimate. Putin told lawmakers that a new capital amnesty program was needed “given the foreign restrictions, which instead of lessening are now worsening,” according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s ...

Bloomberg Syrian rebel groups rejected Russia’s planned Sochi conference on Syria, saying Moscow was seeking to bypass a UN-based Geneva peace process and blam- ing Russia for committing war crimes in the wartorn country. In a statement by around 40 rebel groups who include some of the military factions who participated in earlier rounds of Geneva peace talks, they said ...

Bloomberg China hosted top diplomats from Afghanistan and Pakistan on Tuesday in a bid to mediate a long-simmering conflict between the neighboring countries. Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani and Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif joined their Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Tuesday to discuss possible economic and security cooperation. The first trilateral minister-level dialogue in Beijing comes as China expands ...

Bloomberg Almost a year into Donald Trump’s presidency, the border wall he passionately promoted throughout his election campaign amounts to eight prototypes, no more than 30 feet long each, sitting in a desert outside San Diego. No funding has been appropriated by Congress to advance the project beyond the testing phase. There’s no final design. And despite Trump’s rallying cry ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s ruling African National Congress agreed to seek a change in the constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation, provided it doesn’t affect the economy and food production. The party agreed to the proposal in a debate that “nearly collapsed” its five yearly conference, Enoch Godongwana, the head of the ANC’s economic transformation committee, told ...

It’s hard to find controlled experiments in finance. But they exist. East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Chile and Venezuela. In crossing a border, you can immediately see the difference in economic output and financial well-being from one country to the next, based on variations in tax and regulatory policy. The same goes for within the United States ...

The stock market is at a record high. Investors are chasing a handful of hot stocks. Geopolitical tensions threaten to upend the rally. I’m referring, of course, to 1972. The S&P 500 Index closed at a record high of 119.12 on December 11. It was the height of the Nifty Fifty (not to be confused with the Nifty 50 Index ...

The real loser in Catalonia’s referendum was, of course, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. He needs to make sure that his country’s bond market doesn’t follow suit. The regional election he demanded resulted in the three separatist parties winning 70 out of the 135 seats. But the pro-independence parties did not win an overall majority of votes, and forming a ...

This year brought us no shortage of harbingers of the so-called retail apocalypse. Mega-chains such as Toys ‘R’ Us Inc., Payless ShoeSource, and Hhgregg filed for bankruptcy. The likes of Sears Holdings Corp., Gap Inc. and Gymboree announced they were shuttering hundreds of locations. And the stocks of certain mall mainstays were crushed as their futures looked increasingly dim. All ...

What is bitcoin good for? This may be a question you’ve asked yourself, looking at the recent run-up in prices. Why, exactly, would you want to pay $18,000 and change to get your hands on one? I myself have been asking that question. Is bitcoin in a bubble? Or do all those folks who are eagerly snapping it up know ...