Columns

Hadas: Hong Kong teaches lessons on taming China

19 June 2019

The Asian financial hub is a special case, but its mass protests make clear that single-minded resolve can push back against an increasingly prosperous and autocratic People’s Republic. Similar focus would help foreign businesses and governments. Donald Trump is mostly failing.

Hadas: Fresh thinking can soften next downturn

12 June 2019

As the Federal Reserve and ECB get ready to loosen policy, their armouries look depleted. Modern monetary theory suggests the cost and quantity of money matter less than putting it in productive hands. How? With targeted financial regulation and fruitful government spending.

India Insight: Not enough water for 1.3 bln people

10 June 2019

Maharashtra boasts one-tenth of the country’s population and the biggest economy of any state, but it is parched. Beyond the capital, Mumbai, a cattle camp offers a window into India’s struggle with water. Skewed incentives need to be reset, and more, to avert a stirring crisis.

Cox: Bruno Le Maire’s an awesome investment banker

6 June 2019

That’s one explanation for France’s finance minister torpedoing the $35 bln Fiat-Renault merger, if he now revives it with Paris at the wheel. More likely he’s mimicking President de Gaulle - who roughly expropriated the carmaker after the war - and doing France no favours.

Hadas: Shaky assumption underpins debt demand

5 June 2019

Investors are rushing into high-grade bonds even though long-term yields are falling. Real returns will be acceptable if disinflation persists. But that’s a big if. More active use of fiscal policy or worsening trade frictions could reverse a trend that’s lasted nearly 40 years.

Cox: Merger of equals is French expletive

30 May 2019

Fiat and Renault hope to succeed where other deals billed as partnerships failed to deliver on promises to France. From LafargeHolcim and Alcatel-Lucent to TechnipFMC and EssilorLuxottica, hopes have been dashed. Proving the exception requires an understanding of those failings.

Hadas: Facebook could fall into a new-money trap

29 May 2019

The social network could muscle into the fast-growing but competitive payments business. But founder Mark Zuckerberg appears to want to start a new currency. That’s crazy. A company with data-control issues is more likely to fall apart than break the government-bank money nexus.

Cox: “China does it” is a bad antitrust argument

23 May 2019

Sheryl Sandberg says Facebook shouldn’t break up since its Middle Kingdom rivals never will. France and Germany pushed hard for an anti-competitive train merger because of a looming Chinese monopoly. Western values should guide competition law, not Beijing’s Communist Party.

Hadas: “Zero privacy” is both blessing and curse

22 May 2019

Back in 1999 a computer executive told people worried about disclosing personal data to “get over it”. They mostly have. Shared information is now too useful for regulation to restore lost innocence. For oppressive governments, meanwhile, individualised media is also valuable.

Cox: Imagine the end of the oil supertanker era

16 May 2019

By pitching one of the 1,000-foot vessels vertically from the sea, Brooklyn artist Dustin Yellin wants to use epic sculpture to remind humanity of the urgent need to ditch hydrocarbons. As a big tourist attraction “The Bridge” would also be a metaphor for economic sustainability.