Can you afford to retire?

HOW much money do you need to retire? Depending on your age, it is a question you think about a lot (if retirement is imminent) or barely at all. For younger people, the subject is a combination of too far away, too complex and too boring, and too depressing. When you consider that you might live for 20, 25 or even 30 years after you stop working, it is a pretty important issue.

Say you want to retire on £20,000 a year (not a fortune) and you are 65. The best annuity rate at the moment in the UK is just under 5.2% which means you would need a pot of £385,000 to afford this. But hold on a minute. That is a flat £20,000 which does not account for inflation; if prices rise at 3% a year, the value of that pension will halve by your 90th birthday. To get an income of £20,000 that is guaranteed to rise in line with prices, you would need a pot of £619,000. (For American readers, the dollar amounts won't be exactly the same, but they will be in the ballpark). 

These are very big sums and explain why private sector...Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2geHlQ2
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Rex Tillerson’s agonies

You don’t know how it feels

IT IS not unheard of for secretaries of state to chafe over their relations with their boss. Colin Powell never had the ear of George W. Bush, and often felt bruised and frustrated as a consequence. John Kerry, to his dismay, was often left out of the loop by Barack Obama’s micromanaging White House. But there is nothing normal about the way Donald Trump has publicly scorned his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, for holding out the possibility of talks with North Korea over its missile and nuclear programmes. Writing on Twitter, Mr Trump declared that he had told Mr Tillerson that he was “wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man [North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un]…Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done.”

What prompted this outburst was a conversation between Mr Tillerson and reporters who were travelling with him to Beijing for meetings with the Chinese leadership. Mr Tillerson had said he...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2xYlDre
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Riding around Puerto Rico with a truck driver

THE day after Hurricane Maria clobbered Puerto Rico, Governor Ricardo Rosselló put out a call for truck drivers to deliver emergency supplies. Aníbal Chárriez was one of several hundred who drove through knee-high water and dodged fallen power lines only to be told he was not needed. Ten days later, after thousands of containers had accumulated in the port, he tried again. This time, he filled out a form and was told to wait for a phone call. That presented a problem. In addition to stripping the island of vegetation and flooding hundreds of thousands of homes, the hurricane wiped out Puerto Rico’s electrical grid and many of its mobile-phone towers, leaving 3.5m already isolated American citizens even more in the dark.

“The power lines fell like dominoes,” said Robert Kadlec of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Like dominoes, the lack of electricity and communication set off a chain reaction that hindered the entire disaster-response effort, complicating everything...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2xY5rq1
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Puerto Ricans on the mainland United States

Living like a refugee

MANY Americans are hazy about the legal status of the 3.5m Puerto Ricans who live on the island. A survey in late September by Morning Consult, a pollster, found that just 54% of Americans know that people born there are fellow citizens. There is greater awareness of islanders as one of America’s largest immigrant groups, above all in New York, home to a million Puerto Ricans, sometimes dubbed “Nuyoricans”. That image of migrant workers in gritty urban barrios—think “West Side Story”—is itself out of date. Since 1990 legions of Puerto Ricans living in northern states have migrated or retired to Florida, drawn by sunshine, cheap homes and jobs. In the past decade they have been joined by islanders fleeing economic stagnation and high crime, who have dispersed widely, creating communities as far afield as Texas and Ohio. There are about 5m Puerto Ricans on the mainland now, a fifth of them in Florida—more than remain on the island....Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2xWRfNL
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

The Las Vegas shooting has reinvigorated calls for gun control

IN THE parking lot below the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, a man with an American-flag baseball cap slumps on a bench next to his wife, whose dark sunglasses cover puffy eyes, as they wait for a taxi to the airport. Two cowboy hats lie between them, a reminder of what happened a few nights before. It was Sunday and the three-day Route 91 country-music festival was wrapping up. Jason Aldean, a famous crooner from Georgia, had just begun strumming the guitar chords for his number “When She Says Baby”, when bullets started to rain down from the sky. Along with about 22,000 other people, the couple looked for cover anywhere they could find it, eventually crawling under a stand. “We’re afraid to gamble; we’re the luckiest people alive,” the husband said as he reflected on what had happened.

Fifty-eight people were killed and 489 injured in the attack. Although police have yet to determine his motive, they have identified the perpetrator as Stephen Paddock, a reclusive 64-year-old...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2xWRisV
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Superstition helps explain how people think about gun laws

THE Onion put it best: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.” An accurate summary of gun-control opponents’ response to America’s periodic gun massacres, the headline was also familiar. The satirical website has run it, with few alterations to an accompanying spoof article, five times: after six people were murdered in California in 2014; after nine were murdered in South Carolina, nine in Oregon and 14 in California in 2015; and after the killing of 58 and maiming of 489 people by a lone gunman in Las Vegas on October 1st.

Satire thrives where the usual checks on human folly fail. In this case it points to the fact that America, despite having a gun-murder rate 25 times higher than that of other developed countries, has no serious debate on how to reduce the killing, because Republican lawmakers refuse to countenance the only thing that easily would. By making it even a bit harder for killers to get guns—as action...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2xY5HoZ
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

The Supreme Court ponders whether gerrymandering has gone too far

THE 2010 elections gave Republicans unified control over Wisconsin for the first time in 12 years. Voters chose them resoundingly; when they took office in early 2011, they set out to return the favour. Armed with census data, Republican lawmakers drew districts to maximise their political advantage. In the 2012 elections, Republicans won 48.6% of the vote but took 60 of the state assembly’s 99 seats. In 2014 and 2016, their 52% of the vote got them 63 and 64 seats.

Some Wisconsinites decided this crossed the line from routine partisan activity to something more sinister. They sued the state, arguing that its partisan gerrymander was so extreme that it violated their First Amendment rights to association and free speech and the “one person, one vote” principle enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection clause. A federal district court upheld their case in a divided ruling; the state appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which heard arguments on October 3rd.

Gerrymandering is hardly new: the name dates back to an unwieldy district created in 1812 by Elbridge Gerry, then governor of Massachusetts. In most states, the legislature controls redistricting. Six states use independent commissions, and limit or bar elected officials, legislative staff or lobbyists from serving on them. Unsurprisingly, these states seem to draw more...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2yr9iPt
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

A Chinese carmaker agrees to buy a Danish investment bank

A COMPANY that moves up the value chain from refrigerator parts to cars is impressive but not that surprising. A car company that buys an investment bank is audacious. But Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a conglomerate based in Hangzhou, China, did not become big by paring its ambitions. Having successfully made the fridge-parts-to-cars transition at home, it went global in 2010. It acquired Volvo, a Swedish carmaker, from Ford of America. Now Geely is back in Scandinavia for another acquisition. This time it is buying one of Denmark’s biggest banks.

Saxo Bank announced on October 2nd that Geely would acquire 51.5% of its shares. It will spend over $800m on the deal, which still requires regulatory approval. Sampo Group, a Finnish insurance company, will acquire 19.9% of Saxo shares for €265m ($311m), and Kim Fournais, Saxo’s co-founder and chief executive, will retain 25.7%. The sellers are Sinar Mas, an Indonesian conglomerate, and TPG, an American private-equity firm.

Saxo was an early adopter of online securities trading and still invests heavily in financial technology. It makes a substantial portion of its profits from selling trading platforms to other firms. Daniel Donghui Li, Geely’s chief financial officer, says Geely hopes to expand Saxo’s technologies into Asia. Besides facilitating this expansion, Geely does not intend to change how...Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2z2y5pY
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

A new study details the wealth hidden in tax havens

SWITZERLAND, which developed cross-border wealth-management in the 1920s, was once in a league of its own as a tax haven. Since the 1980s, however, tax-dodgers have been spoilt for choice: they can hide assets anywhere from the Bahamas to Hong Kong. The percentage of global wealth held offshore has increased dramatically. But it has been hard to say how much that is, and who owns it.

Few offshore centres used to disclose such data. But in 2016 many authorised the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to make banking statistics publicly available. Using these data, a new study by Annette Alstadsaeter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman, three economists, concludes that tax havens hoard wealth equivalent to about 10% of global GDP. This average masks big variations. Russian assets worth 50% of GDP are held offshore; countries such as Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates climb into the 60-70% range. Britain and continental Europe come in at 15%, but Scandinavia at only a few per cent.

One conclusion is that high tax rates, like those in Denmark or Sweden, do not drive people offshore. Rather, higher offshore wealth is correlated with factors such as political and economic instability and an abundance of natural resources.

Proximity to Switzerland also remains a good indicator. But assets held there have declined since the financial...Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2yrXE6S
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

How protectionism sank America’s entire merchant fleet

IN APRIL 1956 the world’s first container ship—the Ideal X—set sail from New Jersey. A year later in Seattle the world’s first commercially successful airliner, Boeing’s 707, made its maiden flight. Both developments slashed the cost of moving cargo and people. Boeing still makes half the world’s airliners. But America’s shipping fleet, 17% of the global total in 1960, accounts for just 0.4% today.

Blame a 1920 law known as the Jones Act, which decrees that trade between domestic ports be carried by American-flagged and -built ships, at least 75% owned and crewed by American citizens. After Hurricane Irma, a shortage of Jones-Act ships led President Donald Trump on September 28th to waive the rules for ten days to resupply Puerto Rico. This fuelled calls to repeal the law completely.

Like most forms of protectionism, the Jones Act hits consumers hard. A lack of foreign competition drives up the cost of coastal transport....Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2z11jWc
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Taxing fat and subsidising healthy eating widens inequality

IN RICH countries, people’s diets are getting worse and they are getting fatter. Hence the increasing popularity of a “fat tax”, to make unhealthy food cost more. Since Hungary led the charge in 2011 with a “chip tax” on fatty and sugary foods, other countries have followed. Britain is to join a long list next year.

Since the poor both spend a higher proportion of their income on food and tend to eat less healthily, they are the main targets of such taxes. In France, for instance, adult obesity is seen in over 20% of households with monthly incomes under €1,500 ($1,765) compared with less than 10% of those who earn over €3,000.

Punishing consumers, however, is politically painful. So “thin subsidies” have been gaining ground. But data on the impact of such policies are scarce. A recent study on the distributional impacts of fat taxes and thin subsidies from researchers at the universities of Oklahoma and Grenoble suggests policymakers should be...Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2ys9NbO
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Unequal at work, men and women are even more so in retirement

“THE retirement-savings crisis is a women’s crisis,” says Sallie Krawcheck, co-founder of Ellevest, a financial-advice firm for women in America. When it comes to retirement income, women are far worse-off than men. The gender pension-gap may be less well-known than the gender pay-gap, but it is in fact far larger.

Among those retired in the EU, women on average receive 39% less in pension income—from state and workplace pensions—than men do (see chart). This puts women at greater risk of old-age poverty. The European Institute for Gender Equality, a think-tank, warned in a study in 2015 that it also makes them more likely to stay with abusive partners. Reforms to European pensions, tying benefits even closer to individual contributions and thus income, mean the gap may widen further.

Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2z0qHLR
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

American public pensions suffer from a gaping hole

SCHOOLS in Pennsylvania ought to be celebrating. The state gave them a $125m budget increase for 2017-18—enough for plenty of extra books and equipment. But John Callahan of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association says all the increase and more will be eaten up by pension costs, which will rise by $164m this year. The same happened in each of the previous five years; cumulatively the shortfall adds up to $586m. The pupil-teacher ratio is higher than in 2010. Nearly 85% of the state’s school boards said pensions were their biggest source of budget pressure.

A similar squeeze is happening all over America. Sarah Anzia, at the University of California, Berkeley, examined 219 cities between 2005 and 2014 and found that the mean increase in their real pension costs was 69%; higher pension costs in those cities were associated with falls in public-sector employment and capital spending.

The problem is likely to get worse. Moody’s, a rating agency, puts the total shortfall...Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2yrb579
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Mergers and acquisitions often disappoint

WHEN you are the chief executive of a public company, the temptation to opt for a merger or acquisition is great indeed. Many such bosses may get a call every week or so from an investment banker eager to offer the kind of deal that is sure to boost profits.

Plenty of those calls are proving fruitful. In the first three quarters of 2017, just over $2.5trn-worth of transactions were agreed globally, according to Dealogic, a data provider. The total was virtually unchanged from the same period in 2016, but the number in Europe, the Middle East and Africa was up by 21%.

It is easy to understand why an executive opts for a deal. Buying another business looks like decisive action, and is a lot easier than coming up with a new, best-selling product. Furthermore, being the acquirer is far more appealing than being the prey; better to be the butcher than the cattle. A takeover may keep activist hedge funds off the management’s back for a while longer. And being in charge of a much bigger company is a more demanding task that will surely justify (ahem) a larger salary for the executives in charge.

But these temptations, good and bad, should generally be resisted. S&P Global Market Intelligence, a research arm of the ratings agency, has updated a study on the impact of deals on the acquiring company’s share price. The study looked at M&A deals done...Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2fUhmR4
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

The EU’s Eastern Partnership

THE question of where Europe’s eastern border lies has bedevilled statesmen for centuries. It has proved equally difficult for the European Union, which must decide how to deal with countries to its east that would like to join the club. In 2009 the EU launched the Eastern Partnership, meant to handle the European aspirations of Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The idea was to promote economic integration and European values, and to fend off Russian influence—but with no promise that the partner states could ever join. Now, with a summit between the EU and the partners coming up in November, they are growing dissatisfied with the arrangement.

“Without a light at the end of the tunnel, completing the process will be very hard,” Tamar Khulordava, who chairs the Georgian parliament’s committee on European integration, told a conference in Riga last week. The six Eastern Partnership states have promised to meet 20 new targets before 2020,...Continue reading

from Europe http://ift.tt/2y3yCKf
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Preserving Bialowieza

Where the bison still roam

DAWN in Bialowieza forest, and the bellowing of deer in rut competes with the buzz of chainsaws. The rival rackets sum up an increasingly ill-tempered argument over the Polish half of the ancient woods that straddle the frontier between Poland and Belarus. The row has reverberated beyond the forest’s borders, and indeed beyond Poland’s. It pits competing visions of environmental stewardship and economic development, and of Poland’s path under the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Last month the European Commission asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to fine Poland for ignoring an earlier order to halt logging in parts of the forest protected under EU law—in effect, nearly all of the 60,000 hectares of it that lie in Poland. In July UNESCO, the guardian of the planet’s human and natural wonders, urged the government to end logging or risk Bialowieza’s demotion from a world heritage site to one “in danger”,...Continue reading

from Europe http://ift.tt/2y3ssKb
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

An escalating row over the future of Berlin’s most iconic theatre

No crowd-pleasers here

“DOCH KUNST”, or “Art after all”, read the blue banner tagged to the façade of the Volksbühne, a theatre in central Berlin. It was put up by a group of left-wing activists who occupied the building in late September. They want the theatre to be managed by a “collective”. The stunt was part of a wider protest against cultural policies which the occupiers believe favour “mass tourism” and gentrification at the expense of local artists and poorer residents.

The occupation (or “transmedia theatre performance”, as the activists call it) was the latest act in a drama over Berlin’s cultural politics that has dragged on for over two years. At the centre of the row is Chris Dercon, a Belgian manager who ran London’s Tate Modern museum before taking over as artistic director of the Volksbühne (“people’s stage”) this season. The appointment, announced in the spring of 2015, ousted Frank Castorf, a famous East German...Continue reading

from Europe http://ift.tt/2y4Z3zj
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Why Russia wants to talk about Ukraine

THE proposal came out of nowhere. After years of swatting down Ukrainian calls for international peacekeeping forces, Vladimir Putin changed course ahead of the UN General Assembly last month, putting forward his own plan for so-called blue helmets in eastern Ukraine. Officials in Kiev and the West dismissed the Russian offer as a cynical ploy. The details, diplomats say, betray Russia’s true intent: Mr Putin foresees peacekeeping forces stationed along the front line inside Ukraine, and not along the border with Russia—essentially formalising the internal division of the country.

Yet as unpalatable as the proposal is, its mere appearance hints at important shifts in Russian thinking. “Summoning the United Nations deep into Russia’s historical space is a serious step,” says Dmitri Trenin, head of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, a think-tank.

Until recently, the status quo in Ukraine largely satisfied Moscow. Heading into 2017, the Kremlin saw a rosy geopolitical picture: Donald Trump won the White House and spoke of lifting sanctions on Russia; a victory by Marine Le Pen seemed possible in France; Angela Merkel was preoccupied with her own re-election in Germany. Ukraine, for its part, was fretting about being abandoned by the West. As recently as last spring, Russian officials maintained that the Ukrainian government would soon collapse and that the...Continue reading

from Europe http://ift.tt/2y3Uaq0
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Manias, panics and Initial Coin Offerings

EVERY market mania reaches a point when pitches to would-be investors enter the realm of the surreal. So it goes for “initial coin offerings”, or ICOs. A new one by a firm called POW invites Facebook users to claim tokens for nothing; when they later become convertible into other tokens, the first to take advantage of the offer could “become worth $124bn…making them the richest person on Earth”, the blurb says. Not a bad return for no money invested and no risk borne. However bizarre, bubbles are hard to resist: no one wants to be the only one of their friends left out. They can also be financially ruinous. But gambling on a craze, even a highly dubious one, can be about more than blind greed.

The ICO boom is an outgrowth of the emerging, occasionally inscrutable world of cryptocurrencies. These are a form of money (bitcoin and ether are examples) used in transactions which are recorded on a distributed public ledger called a blockchain. An ICO is a scheme to raise funds for an...Continue reading

from Economics http://ift.tt/2wzDgMA
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Liberia gears up for an election

AS LIBERIA prepares for a general election on October 10th, people are making their preferences known. Some wear T-shirts with the faces of candidates on them. Crowds of exuberant supporters block roads. The country was devastated by civil war for the best part of 14 years until 2003. But aside from a few scuffles, the campaign has been peaceful. People feel excited, not adversarial. Liberia is set to have its first transfer of power from one elected president to another since 1944.

It is still not clear who among the 20 candidates will succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president, who won a Nobel prize for securing Liberia’s peace. “Continuity” is the message of her Unity Party (UP). Its candidate is Joseph Boakai, Ms Sirleaf’s mild-mannered vice-president, who is seen by many as a safe (and uncorrupt) choice. But although Ms Sirleaf has said she backs Mr Boakai, she did not appear at his campaign launch. And in September she told the UN General Assembly that her stepping down...Continue reading

from Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2xWQmVr
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Trade deals between the EU and Japan only get you so far

AKIRA SHIMIZU of Keidanren, Japan’s main business lobby, has a theory about Brexit. The first one, he says, came in 1534 with Henry VIII’s decision to break from the Catholic church. This rupture sparked a period of free-thinking innovation that culminated in James Watt’s invention of the steam engine 250 years later and the advent of the Industrial Revolution. With luck, chuckles Mr Shimizu, Brexit the Sequel will spur a somewhat quicker reinvention of Britain’s economic model.

But even Mr Shimizu thinks Britain may face “five to six” years of pain after it leaves the European Union, and more if it fails properly to adapt to the change. Britain accounts for nearly half of Japanese investment in the EU, so Japanese firms have more to lose than most from a messy divorce. Japan’s car plants in Britain rely on complex supply chains that span Europe; its London-based banks use “passporting” rules to operate across the EU. If Britain leaves the single market, some of this...Continue reading

from Europe http://ift.tt/2knU0EG
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

An imminent threat to the unity of Spain

WHEN Mariano Rajoy pledged that the referendum on independence organised by the Catalan government for October 1st would not take place, it always looked like a hostage to fortune. And so it has proved. As riot police used force to evict activists from polling stations, pictures of elderly citizens bloodied by truncheon blows caused dreadful damage to the image of Spanish democracy. And the vote mostly went ahead regardless.

For Mr Rajoy, Spain’s conservative prime minister, it was the worst of both worlds. It leaves a question-mark over the future of his government, and even of his country. On the back of the vote, Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president, said the region’s parliament would issue a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) in the coming days, in accordance with a law it rushed through last month. Spanish democracy faces “very grave times”, declared King Felipe in a rare televised address on October 3rd. He was right.

The referendum took place...Continue reading

from Europe http://ift.tt/2wyU1XZ
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

A Sikh becomes leader of Canada’s left-leaning opposition party

Very visible Singh

JAGMEET SINGH could have done many things when a heckler accused him at a rally last month of plotting to subject Canada to sharia law. The turbaned politician could have pointed out that he is a Sikh, not a Muslim. He could have skewered her with lawyerly wit (he is a criminal lawyer) or asked security guards to remove her. Instead he told the heckler that everyone loved her and led a chant of “Love and courage”. She eventually walked out.

A video of the encounter went viral and helped Mr Singh, a member of the Ontario legislature, win the leadership of Canada’s left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) on October 1st. He is the first member of a “visible minority” to lead a party at federal level. Canada’s Liberal prime minister, Justin Trudeau, congratulated his new rival on his “barrier-breaking win”.

Mr Singh faces a difficult task. The NDP lost the election in 2015...Continue reading

from Americas http://ift.tt/2xUnZKa
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Fund Managers Put Their Money Where Their Mouths Are

Fidelity International, the overseas sister company of U.S.-based Fidelity Investments, said it will soon begin offering equity funds that charge a slightly higher fee when they outperform their benchmark, but less if they underperform.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2xiGTFV
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

An unconstitutional vote on independence turns nasty

THEY were scenes the Spanish government did not want to see. Across Catalonia, in north-eastern Spain, tens of thousands of people turned out to cast votes in an unconstitutional referendum on secession organised by the regional government. Spain’s conservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, had vowed that the referendum would not take place. Spanish riot police shut down over 300 polling stations, causing many injuries, though most of them minor. But several thousand others were functioning, albeit slowly, as a cyberwar unfolded in the background over internet access to the voter roll.

That was a victory for Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president, and his pro-independence government. And so, in propaganda terms, was the video footage of riot police beating protesters who were blockading schools where voting was to take place. In one case, an elderly woman was left bloodstained. “Today the Spanish state has lost a lot more than it had already lost, and Catalan...Continue reading

from Europe http://ift.tt/2g2pNGJ
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Why Google's Gadgets Are Worth the Reach

Expanding product lineup helps the web giant get services into more hands.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2z0zz42
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

The rhetorical power of “support our troops”

“AN INSULT to our troops” has long been a potent attack line in American politics. In recent days, President Donald Trump has deployed such rhetoric against National Football League (NFL) players who have knelt during the national anthem. “Courageous Patriots have fought and died for our great American Flag-we MUST honor and respect it!" he tweeted on September 24th. Responses to that from some of the country’s 21m veterans have ranged from avid support to complete disgust. But the argument over this supposed insult points to a wider problem: deserved respect for the sacrifice of soldiers can spill over in unhelpful ways. Beyond attacks on the right to protest, this includes the idea that the military as an institution is a model to be emulated and expanded—despite its chronic inefficiencies and inappropriate norms for domestic challenges.

The ultimate responsibility of an American soldier is to be willing to kill people on behalf of the United States. To carry out that function soldiers spend long tours in dangerous places...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2y1qt8Z
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Curb Your Enthusiasm About the Jobs Report

The way the stock market reacts to Friday’s jobs report may say more about the stock market than it does about jobs.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2fQzECr
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Even Tougher Choices Ahead for Teva After FDA Shocker

A surprise movefrom the Food and Drug Administration means that a recovery for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries just got much more difficult.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2yYrxsn
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Auto Stocks Are on a Wild 'Robotaxi' Ride

Car stocks have been strong not because of hopes that sales growth can be maintained, but on optimism about the capacity of manufacturers to withstand—even benefit from—the disruptive forces of technology.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2y0QmFV
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Sorry, the Hong Kong Market Isn't Really a Bargain

Testing 10-year highs, Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng looks cheap beside bubbly U.S. indexes—but it’s no bargain unless you really like Chinese banks and one particular tech company.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2fJJXEQ
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

The justices puzzle over how to rein in partisan redistricting

ON OCTOBER 3rd, the Supreme Court considered an age-old and now technologically refined scourge of electoral politics known as gerrymandering—the practice by which state legislators of one party delineate contorted district lines to entrench their power and rope out rivals. The term, coined in the early 19th century, mixes “salamander”— the shape of some districts after redrawing—and “Gerry” after the governor (Elridge Gerry) who in 1812 signed a bill redistricting Massachusetts to benefit his party.  Gill v Whitford concerns precision-engineered legislative maps in Wisconsin, districts no one stood up to defend on the merits. Even Justice Samuel Alito, a sure vote to uphold the skewed maps, said that gerrymandering is “distasteful”. The central question on the justices’ minds was whether courts are equipped to police the process by which states draw their maps, and if so, how exactly they should determine when draughtsmen cross a line.

Two worries about the state of American democracy—one...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2xeqEyz
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Microsoft's Mixed Message on Virtual Reality

Software giant Microsoft has some natural advantages in virtual reality, though marketing risks confusion.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2g90FhD
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Job listing: Foreign correspondent

THE ECONOMIST is looking for a journalist with a good knowledge of China and of standard Chinese, and who is keen to be posted in Beijing or elsewhere outside the UK, to help with our coverage of foreign affairs. Salary negotiable. Applicants should submit a test piece of no more than 600 words which they think could appear in the newspaper, two further ideas for articles and a CV. Please send them to chinajob@economist.com by October 31st.

The Economist Group values diversity. We are committed to equal opportunities and creating an inclusive environment for all our employees. We welcome applicants regardless of ethnic origin, national origin, gender, race, colour, religious beliefs, disability, sexual orientation or age.

from Asia http://ift.tt/2xVll5O
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

New Zealand’s ambiguous election makes coalition-building tricky

Peters enjoys the limelight

BILL ENGLISH, New Zealand’s prime minister, looked every inch the victor after the election on September 23rd. “We got better and better,” he crowed as the count rolled in. “No one expected that just three weeks ago.” His centre-right National party won 46% of the vote, putting it ten percentage points ahead of its main rival, Labour, with which some polls had suggested it was neck-and-neck. The result was remarkable not only because Mr English fended off Labour’s telegenic new leader, Jacinda Ardern. It is also striking because, after almost a decade in power and despite a change in leadership, the Nationals seem as strong as ever.

Celebrations, however, are premature. Any leader who can command a majority in the 120-seat parliament may form a government. The Nationals have fallen just short, with 58 seats, but could easily get over the line by allying with the populists of New Zealand First, who won nine seats and 7.5%...Continue reading

from Asia http://ift.tt/2k7mRx7
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

The Supreme Court seems to favour companies in an arbitration case

LAST April, at his inaugural oral argument as America’s 113th justice, Neil Gorsuch wasted no time: he asked 22 questions, more than any of his colleagues posed on their first outings. Over the next six weeks, Justice Gorsuch cut a rather assertive figure on the bench and with his pen, writing biting opinions in several cases and developing an early reputation as perhaps even more conservative than his predecessor, Antonin Scalia. It came as some surprise, then, that in the first hearing of the Supreme Court’s 2017-18 term, Justice Gorsuch stayed mum while his colleagues (except the characteristically tight-lipped Clarence Thomas) sparred with lawyers in Epic Systems Corp v Lewis, a major labour-law case involving the nature of employees’ right to sue their employers.

Facts on the ground are stacked against the workers, as Chief Justice John Roberts subtly pointed out in his questioning of Daniel Ortiz, a University of Virginia law professor who argued for the employees. Mr Ortiz began by noting that countless companies...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2fGC8jl
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Tesla Has a Forecasting Problem

The electric car company’s inability to predict near-term Model 3 production should give investors pause about Elon Musk’s vision.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2g7dyZB
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

How Markets Can Thrive Even as Central Banks Step Aside

Government bonds seem to offer return-free risk in today’s world. That makes other asset classes hard to resist.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2xWQ5nv
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Did Hurricanes Blow Profit Expectations Off Course?

Up until the hurricanes hit, the third-quarter was shaping up to be pretty good for U.S. companies. And now? That’s hard to know.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2yFZvkz
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Ctrip Hits Turbulence Despite China's Travel Boom

The surge in Chinese tourism ought to be good for the country’s leading travel website. But Ctrip hasn’t escaped Beijing’s gaze.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2g6Qqdp
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Hurricane Maria Packs a One-Two Punch for Insurance

The losses in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria may surpass the more than $50 billion caused by Harvey and Irma, proving very costly for insurers.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2ylxbaK
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Nordstrom's Deal Hiccup Exposes a Bargain

Reports that Nordstrom’s deal to be taken private may falter present a buying opportunity no matter what happens.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2yjP5uF
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

At least 50 people are killed and 400 injured in a shooting in Las Vegas

FOR the past four years, country-music fans have gathered on a 15-acre lot across from the Mandalay Bay Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip for the Route 91 music festival. On October 1st Jason Aldean, a honey-voiced singer from central Georgia, was closing out the festival when a shooter opened fire on the crowd from the 32nd storey of the hotel. Social-media videos showed revellers ducking, hiding and running from bursts of automatic-weapon fire.

The horrific event lasted just a couple of hours: Las Vegas police received their first report of gunfire at 10.08pm; shortly before midnight police announced that their sole suspect was dead. The suspect was Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old resident of Mesquite, Nevada, a small town about 80 miles north-east of Las Vegas, on the Nevada-Arizona border.

He reportedly had a criminal record. Joe Lombardo, sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said the shooting was the act of “a solo actor…a lone wolf”. Police appear to have found him after smoke from his weapon...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2wtH0iA
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Catalonia: A Headache for Spain, Not Europe

Spain wasn’t supposed to be on the list of political risks for investors in 2017. The violence in Catalonia is an ugly reminder of Europe’s complexities, but it is a bigger problem for Spain than for Europe.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2g3Ir0H
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

China Throws Its Sinking Private Sector a Life Vest

Private capital in China is reeling from a one-two punch of forced factory closures and higher borrowing costs. This weekend’s move by China’s central bank to boost small enterprise lending–the first real monetary easing since 2016–won’t do much to improve the dark mood among Chinese entrepreneurs.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2xJVsH7
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Why Food CEOs Are Rushing for the Exits

Packaged food companies are in trouble, squeezed by changing consumer preferences, more aggressive supermarkets and stagnant prices. More mergers may be on the way.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2fD6mUs
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Another job opening in the Trump administration

WHEN President Donald Trump gathered his cabinet secretaries around a table and invited them to sing his praises, his administration was compared to an early scene in "King Lear". Four months later, it is looking more like the last act of "Hamlet", such is the rising body count. On September 29th Tom Price was pushed out as secretary of health and human services, following a series of revelations about his penchant for taking private jets at public expense. This made him at least the ninth senior member of the administration to have been purged in the eight months of its existence.

For a president sworn to “drain the swamp”—that is, to attack the culture of insiderism, back-scratching and special favours that prevails in Washington, DC, Mr Price’s travel tastes were embarrassing. Investigations by Politico revealed that the former Republican congressman had spent over half a million dollars of public money on 27 private-jet flights since early May, including several for trips that appeared to mix business with...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2xEapKH
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

A school in Louisiana bans protests during the national anthem

ON SEPTEMBER 29th, at 7pm, when the Parkway Panthers face the Airline Vikings in a high-school football clash in Bossier City, Louisiana, the drama will begin before the first snap. The previous day, the principal of Parkway High School sent a letter to student athletes warning them not to mimic the widespread protests that took place over the weekend at National Football League (NFL) games. Parkway players attending “any sporting event in which their team is participating”, wrote Waylon Bates, the principal, must “stand in a respectful way throughout the National Anthem”. Anyone who kneels, sits or makes any sign of disrespect will risk being benched, or, with “continued failure to comply”, subjected to “removal from the team”.

With its legalistic language, this pre-emptive strike against student protestors is different in tone to President Donald Trump’s jeering call for NFL team owners on September 23rd to fire any “son of a bitch” who “disrespects our flag”. But the demand, like Mr Trump’s call, brooks...Continue reading

from United States http://ift.tt/2fwTW01
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

Outlook Is Foggy, Investors See Sunshine

The market is acting like the economy is about to take off, though hurricanes and tax cut debate make it hard to see the future.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2yyfxNj
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT

More Borrowing Is Not the Answer at Valeant

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International is considering a new round of borrowing. That is one reason investors should consider cashing in after the stock’s big recent rally.

from WSJ.com: Markets http://ift.tt/2xHaISD
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT