Why the most important hedge is against unexpected inflation
Jan 2nd 2020IT IS HARD to say precisely when a cherished theory of inflation lost its sway. But if you had to pick a moment, it might be during an exchange last July between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a first-time congresswoman who had risen quickly to prominence, and Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve.The occasion was the…
A study suggests that higher minimum wages hit poorer bosses’ pockets
Jan 2nd 2020NEW YORKA MINIMUM WAGE is supposed to redistribute money from rich to poor. But economists disagree about whether it actually does so. Some researchers, for example, have found that, in America, Canada and Europe, raising the minimum wage tends to decrease employment among the least-skilled workers, as firms downsize to trim costs. Others…
Grab and Singtel will bid for a digital-banking licence in Singapore
Jan 2nd 2020IN 2014 SINGTEL, a Singaporean telecoms group, teamed up with Standard Chartered, an Asia-focused bank, to create Dash, a mobile-money unit it claimed would “revolutionise mobile commerce and banking”. But red tape meant it went nowhere fast. It refocused on mobile payments, but still struggled. Insiders liked to quip, says one, that “the…
Why Japanese names have flipped
Jan 2nd 2020ON JANUARY 1ST a minor lexical revolution rolled through Japan. A new decree ordained that official documents should reverse the order of Japanese people’s names when they are rendered in the Latin alphabet. Hitherto in, say, English documents, Japanese names have been written with the given name first, using the Western practice. Henceforth…
Protests against India’s anti-Muslim citizenship law have turned bloody
Narendra Modi, the Hindu-nationalist prime minister, faces angry crowds and a constitutional challengeAsiaJan 2nd 2020 editionJan 2nd 2020SINCE INDIA’S enacting of new citizenship rules on December 12th, widespread protests against them have left 27 dead, scores injured and tempers high. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, says he wants to make it easier for refugees to naturalise…
The flight of a car-industry megastar shocks Japan
Jan 2nd 2020TOKYOCARLOS GHOSN, a former chairman of Nissan and Renault, would ring in the new year at his luxurious home in Tokyo. Or so Japanese prosecutors thought until two days before the start of the 2020s. News that Mr Ghosn, 65, had other plans came from an unexpected source: a report by the Associated…
Taiwan’s China-sceptic president, Tsai Ing-wen, may win again
Jan 2nd 2020KAOHSIUNG AND TAIPEIELECTION RALLIES in Taiwan often feel like festivals with a dash of politics thrown in. At a recent one in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, thousands of people watched a fireworks display, then heard a blind blues singer. Eventually the show’s political star took to the stage: Enoch Wu, a young would-be legislator…
Was America’s assassination of Qassem Suleimani justified?
A fierce debate swirls on its legality; and on whether it will be good for AmericaJan 7th 2020IT WAS, ACCORDING to David Petraeus, a former American army general and director of the CIA, “more consequential” than the killing of Osama bin Laden or of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Few bemoaned the demise of the jihadist leaders…
Iran retaliates for the killing of Qassem Suleimani
Rocket-fire will probably not slake the thirst for revenge against AmericaJan 8th 2020Editor’s note (January 8th 2020): This article has been updated since publication“WE WILL TAKE revenge.” The words were those of Major-General Hossein Salami, head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), speaking at the funeral of Qassem Suleimani, the head of the IRGC’s…
Iraq and Iran raise the stakes after the killing of Qassem Suleimani
The leaders of each country are mourning and manoeuvringJan 5th 2020FROM BAGHDAD airport, where an American air strike killed him, to his hometown of Kerman, about 1,300 kilometres away in Iran, hundreds of thousands of people filed into the streets to mourn General Qassem Suleimani on January 5th. They came out in Baghdad and Tehran,…