Society

Kremlin foe’s illness benefits Russian kleptocrats

21 Aug 2020

Allies of Alexei Navalny say the politician-investigator has been poisoned. In a country with few independent voices, his damaging exposés of leading figures’ corruption and cronyism have been popular - and embarrassing. Any would-be emulators are now likely to be more cautious.

UK exam U-turn exposes algorithms’ deep flaws

19 Aug 2020

Popular fury forced the abandonment of hypothetical calculations of likely grades for Covid-canceled national exams. From credit scoring to criminal sentencing, even well-intentioned models of this kind make many harmful mistakes. Most victims lack the clout to force a reversal.

Work-from-home shunts UK rail towards state siding

18 Aug 2020

Employers like accountants PwC think offices will be permanently slimmed down after Covid-19. Less commuting means more government help for rail, and even less room for the profit motive. Nationalisation, rather than Britain’s messy halfway house, might even improve services.

Breakdown: The scramble for a Covid-19 vaccine

11 Aug 2020

Drugmakers like AstraZeneca and Pfizer may soon get regulators’ blessing for coronavirus inoculations. Yet doubts will linger over the treatments’ efficacy and profitability, and manufacturing delays mean poor countries will have to wait. Breakingviews explains why.

Corona Capital: Junked cans

11 Aug 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: An aluminum company with a junk rating issues debt with a ridiculously low interest rate.

American college football needs to play long game

10 Aug 2020

Collegiate athletes recently penned a letter arguing for better safety, healthcare and cash compensation. Players have increasingly been using their star power to pressure coaches and administrators. But the time for tweaks is over – a total NCAA revamp is long overdue.

Lebanon’s gash cuts too deep for orthodox bandage

10 Aug 2020

France hosted an emergency conference on Sunday to arrange aid for the devastated nation - and the IMF called for reforms. But the heavily indebted country has no functioning government, banking system or economy. And the people are livid. Normal reforms look like a pipe dream.

Corona Capital: Aviva’s restructuring

6 Aug 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: New CEO Amanda Blanc is reinstating the UK insurer’s dividend and is even open to selling its Asian and European businesses. That’s music to investors’ ears.

Corona Capital: Disney movie magic, “Call of Duty”

5 Aug 2020

Concise views on the pandemic’s corporate and financial fallout: The Magic Kingdom’s decision to send “Mulan” straight to streaming impressed investors, but is bad news for cinema chains; Activision Blizzard’s shoot-‘em-up game brings a profit surge.

Lebanon blast lays bare cost of a weak state

5 Aug 2020

The devastation in Beirut adds to the political, financial and economic troubles that beset the country. Long-standing governance shortcomings make such tragedies more likely and recovery more difficult. Too many countries share Lebanon’s inability to deal with added catastrophe.

Mumbai’s slums test lockdown logic

30 Jul 2020

Nearly 60% of people in densely packed areas have had Covid-19, a study found, suggesting a low fatality rate. About 40% of the Indian financial capital's residents live in similar settings. The city’s strict shutdown may now be impoverishing more than protecting the poor.

Cox: History’s most plagued city can lead the way

28 Jul 2020

Venice has benefitted more than any other place over the centuries from global trade and the movement of people. “La Serenissima” has also withstood pandemics, devoting churches as testaments to each calamity. A plan to remake its business model has merits beyond the lagoon.

U.S. aid can give shot to women in the workforce

27 Jul 2020

Female employees have been hit hard in the pandemic, with a higher jobless rate and lower labor participation than men. Congress is mulling economic Band-Aids but the crisis is an opening for more ambitious plans like universal childcare. It’s a longer-term boost for growth.

Can the Fed help close the racial prosperity gap?

22 Jul 2020

Economists advising U.S. presidential hopeful Joe Biden have proposed making racial equity part of the Federal Reserve’s mandate. That chimes with the zeitgeist. But if it means rate-setters ignore too-high inflation for too long, it could hurt those Biden aims to help.

Equality is failing at shareholder ballot box, too

17 Jul 2020

Investors rarely push for votes advocating greater diversity and garner little support when they do, in part due to financial-industry demographics. George Floyd’s death may change that. But firms have a lot of latitude to downplay investor votes – unless they’re about pay.

Chancellor: Wall Street is firmly in Wonderland

9 Jul 2020

As society melts down, markets melt up. The constant manipulation of interest rates has turned the world of finance upside down. Serious investment has become impossible. It’s the sort of topsy-turvy state Lewis Carroll might have imagined if Alice was putting money to work.

Facebook’s new best friends are a weakening link

8 Jul 2020

Small firms account for a large chunk of the social network’s ad revenue. The pandemic has also made them more dependent on the platform just as big companies from Ford to Unilever boycott it. But a Covid-19 surge may hurt the minnows when CEO Mark Zuckerberg needs them most.

Food rations point to India’s fiscal poverty

8 Jul 2020

New Delhi is handing out free grains to 800 mln people, a frugal way to support households. Two-thirds of citizens in the world’s fifth-largest economy are vulnerable to income shocks, but the small tax base constrains redistribution options.

Review: The callous roots of caffeine capitalism

3 Jul 2020

“Coffeeland” recounts Englishman James Hill’s rise from travelling salesman to king of El Salvador’s coffee industry. Though his farms brought wealth to some, they made the country less equal and heavily reliant on one resource. Many African nations face a similar dilemma today.

China smothers Hong Kong in heavy security blanket

1 Jul 2020

A harsh new law will quash protests that have vexed the business community. The definition of subversion is ominously vague, while allowing for extradition and secret trials. It also applies to non-residents, further complicating risk management. The price of order is high.