As western automakers embrace aluminum, Asia still welded to steel

As western automakers embrace aluminum, Asia still welded to steel

Thu, Jun 19 2014

By Hyunjoo Jin and Meeyoung Cho

SEOUL (Reuters) – About four years ago, Hyundai Motor considered shifting from steel to aluminum body parts for its Genesis sedan to make it lighter, more fuel-efficient and more competitive with German luxury marques, two people familiar with the matter said.

Its affiliate Kia Motors made a similar move, building test versions of its premium K9 sedan, called K900 in the United States, using aluminum in body panels including the door, hood and trunk lid, two other people told Reuters. Read more of this post

Norway’s GPF 8 vs Singapore’s CPF 0

Norway’s GPF 8 vs Singapore’s CPF 0

June 15th, 2014 |  Author: Contributions

Norway 8 Singapore 0

No, that is not a football match score. That is how the writer grades Norway’s transparency in regards to its Sovereign Wealth Fund in comparison to Singapore. This article is about the transparency of the Norway’s Government Pension Fund, not about the link between pension pay out and the investment returns of the GPF. Norway operates a state pension system in which pension payouts are funded out of government budget. The GPF manages government reserves to smooth out the disruptive effect of oil prices and declining oil reserves on government finances and expenditures. Read more of this post

Sunni, Shiite groups in Iraq’s crisis explained

Sunni, Shiite groups in Iraq’s crisis explained

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

JUNE 15, 2014 1:42PM

A LIGHTNING offensive by the Sunni group Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, has sparked the biggest crisis Iraq has faced since it plunged into sectarian violence following the US-led invasion of the country in 2003. Here’s a look at the group at the centre of the crisis. Read more of this post

How the China bubble could puncture U.S. banks

How the China bubble could puncture U.S. banks

Stephen Gandel

JUNE 13, 2014, 4:46 PM EDT

China is doing the global carry trade, and that could pose major risks for U.S. banks.

The conventional wisdom is that China doesn’t hold much direct risk for U.S. banks. Sure, if China were to have a financial crisis, and if it were to fall into recession — a long way to go, considering its recent annual growth of 7% — that would do serious damage to the global economy. American banks and the U.S. economy would feel that. But in terms of direct exposure to China, U.S. banks don’t stand to lose a lot. Read more of this post

More Chinese firms eye potential of cold chain logistics

More Chinese firms eye potential of cold chain logistics

Staff Reporter

2014-06-15

The fresh food e-commerce sector is expected to post rapid growth over the next five years as several enterprises in China have made investments in the sector, which is expected to stimulate the development of cold chain logistics, reports Guangzhou’s 21st Century Business Herald. Read more of this post

Mountain climbing becomes commercial undertaking in China

Mountain climbing becomes commercial undertaking in China

Staff Reporter

2014-06-15

The controversy surrounding Wang Jing, co-founder of a Chinese outdoor sporting goods brand, who took a helicopter for part of her Mount Everest climb, has exposed once again the prevalence of commercial mountain climbing and other sports in China, reports Guangzhou’s Time Weekly. Read more of this post

Michael Spence: Rebooting China

MICHAEL SPENCE

Michael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and Academic Board Chairman of the Fung Global Institute in Hong Kong. He was the chairman of the independent Commission on Growth and Development, an international body that from 2006-2010 analyzed opportunities for global economic growth, and is the author of The Next Convergence – The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World.

JUN 19, 2014

Rebooting China

MILAN – Despite China’s widely discussed economic slowdown, annual GDP growth remains above 7%, implying little cause for alarm – at least for now. The question is whether the government’s efforts to implement structural reforms and transform the economy’s growth model are working – that is, whether internal imbalances continue to threaten long-term economic performance. Given that China remains the global economy’s most important growth engine, the answer matters to everyone. Read more of this post

Hedge fund chiefs and former bankers enter the shadows

June 19, 2014 5:21 pm

Hedge fund chiefs and former bankers enter the shadows

By FT reporters

In the six years since the financial crisis, the financial services world has seen all kinds of new institutions take over lending deals and clients that were once the domain of traditional banks. There has also been a parallel transformation: the mutation of bankers into shadow bankers, writes Patrick Jenkins in London. Read more of this post

Mismanagement blamed for New Delhi’s water crisis

June 19, 2014 10:18 am

Mismanagement blamed for New Delhi’s water crisis

By Victor Mallet in Dwarka, IndiaAuthor alerts

Hunting for one of the necessities of life was not how Lakhvinder Singh, a former civil servant from India’s Telecommunications Department, imagined he would spend his otherwise comfortable retirement.

But as the summer temperature tops 45 degrees, Mr Singh and many of the other 500,000 residents of Dwarka – a fast-growing, middle-class satellite city on the western fringes of New Delhi – spend their days haggling with local authorities and gangsters from the neighbouring state of Haryana to buy tanker-loads of water. Read more of this post

Japan tries a new strategy for growth

June 18, 2014 6:34 pm

Japan tries a new strategy for growth

Shinzo Abe’s fresh package is wide-ranging but still timid

When he won a second term as Japan’s prime minister 18 months ago, Shinzo Abe promised to fight the country’s economic malaise with “three arrows”.

In order to boost Japan’s growth rate and end a decade and a half of falling prices, he declared that the country needed an unprecedented monetary loosening, a hefty fiscal stimulus and a strong dose of structural economic reform. Read more of this post

Beware central banks’ share-buying sprees; Revenue raising could ‘contribute to overheated asset prices’

Last updated: June 19, 2014 5:55 pm

Beware central banks’ share-buying sprees

By Ralph AtkinsAuthor alerts

Revenue raising could ‘contribute to overheated asset prices’

Like the rest of us, the world’s central bankers have had to cope since 2008 with low interest rates wiping out returns on their investments. They may attract little sympathy – who was it who slashed rates? But the consequences matter for markets, especially if central banks follow their own injunctions and move into riskier assets, notably equities. Read more of this post

The Corporate Daddy: Walmart, Starbucks, and the Fight Against Inequality; Walmart, the world’s largest public corporation, is a big part of the income-gap problem. It could be a big part of the solution

The Corporate Daddy

Walmart, Starbucks, and the Fight Against Inequality

JUNE 19, 2014

Timothy Egan

For some time now, Republicans in Congress have given up the pretense of doing anything to improve the lot of most Americans. Raising the minimum wage? They won’t even allow a vote to happen. Cleaner air for all? They may partially shut down the government in a coming fight on behalf of major polluters. Add to that the continuing obstruction of student loan relief efforts, and numerous attempts to defund health care, and you have a party actively working to make life miserable for millions. Read more of this post

Why We’re All Crony Capitalists, Like It or Not? Big business and big government are inextricably linked in ways that fans of free markets may not like but can’t really avoid

Why We’re All Crony Capitalists, Like It or Not

JUNE 19, 2014

Neil Irwin

If there’s one thing that populists on the left and right can agree upon, it is disdain for crony capitalism. It is a distaste for the cesspool of Washington influence, in which big-business lobbyists canoodle with lawmakers to get their way. It is anger at corporate welfare enriching America’s biggest companies at the expense of the little guy. Read more of this post

Monkeys Are Better Stockpickers Than You’d Think; Why dart-throwing primates demolish S&P 500 returns and most active fund managers don’t even come close

Monkeys Are Better Stockpickers Than You’d Think

Why dart-throwing primates demolish S&P 500 returns and most active fund managers don’t even come close.

JACK HOUGH

Updated June 19, 2014 4:14 p.m. ET

“A blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts,” Burton Malkiel famously argued in his classic 1973 book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Read more of this post