Columns

Hadas: What oil price volatility is trying to say

12 December 2018

A barrel of oil costs 31 pct less than in early October. The message is not about investment needs or a big demand shift. The tumble is big because the geopolitical racket makes lesser moves inaudible. Stock markets may also be speaking up.

Holding: Supreme Court due for a dose of activism

10 December 2018

Like a dozy board, the U.S. tribunal has left confusing financial-fraud laws largely untouched for years. Yet a case argued last week - and a new justice - offer the chance to set the rules and Wall Street watchdogs straight. Shaking up the status quo would add value in the law.

Hadas: Conglomerates will never die

5 December 2018

The break-up of GE and United Technologies marks the end of an era, but there will always be good reasons to bind together diverse businesses. Removing barriers brings synergies, spreads talent and saves on taxes. The trick is to avoid stultifying complexity and financial games.

Cox: Why I’m relocating to Paris in the year ahead

4 December 2018

Riots on the Champs-Elysées are not the best advertisement for President Emmanuel Macron’s fight against illiberalism at home and abroad. But homegrown protests like those of the “gilets jaunes” come with the territory in the global centre of the resistance – my new home.

Hadas: How to stop radical CEOs from going rogue

28 November 2018

Renault and then Nissan hired Carlos Ghosn to subvert conventions. But the will to transgress is hard to keep within boundaries. Companies have four defences against talented but errant bosses: bureaucracy, conscience, boards and punishments. All of them can be strengthened.

Holding: Big tech cruising for antitrust bruising

26 November 2018

Facebook’s Russian-meddling fumbles and Amazon’s second-headquarters hubris are Exhibits A and B for legal reform. Derided as “hipster antitrust,” the idea that bigness alone can breed evil is true to competition law’s original aim. It’s time trustbusters became disruptors, too.

Hadas: Dumb ideas undermine Brexit and Facebook

21 November 2018

Freedom is simple. History is on our side. Fantasy is safe. These simplistic quarter-truths helped pitch Britain into a political crisis, and encouraged the social network to ignore a slew of warning signs. Sadly, the damage done by weak thinking is hard to undo.

Cox: Trump is surprisingly popular – in China

21 November 2018

Figures in the PRC’s private sector are discreetly rooting for the U.S. president. Their interests are not served directly by most of his trade demands. But the absence of domestic pressure on Xi Jinping to open markets further makes Trump’s push for reform the only game in town.

Hadas: Fear of fiscal deficits is overdone

14 November 2018

Mainstream economists agree that governments can safely spend more than they take in, but worry about big funding gaps. Some dissidents make a good case for going deeper in the red. They could be bolder. Most domestic borrowing can be replaced with straight money-printing.

Hadas: Central bankers stuck between two myths

8 November 2018

Monetary authorities dream of a neutral technocracy though their jobs are inherently political. Politicians from the U.S. to India fantasise about exerting more monetary control, but wild policies quickly turn toxic. The uncomfortable status quo may be the least bad arrangement.