Articles by Bloomberg
Bloomberg
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[Adam Minter] Killing junkies doesn’t work in Asia either
US drug dealers, beware. According to a recent report in Axios, President Donald Trump admires the freewheeling and brutal manner in which some Asian governments handle drug offenders. “You know, the Chinese and Filipinos don’t have a drug problem,” a senior administration official paraphrased Trump as saying. “They just kill them.” In one sense, Trump is right. Over the last two decades, Asia has executed a disproportionate number of drug suspects compared with the rest of the world. In the Phi
Viewpoints March 4, 2018
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[Leonid Bershidsky] Putin wants modern weapons, not a modern Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday made clear his priorities for his next six-year presidential term: He spent about as much time talking about Russia’s new strategic weaponry as about all domestic policies put together. Revanche and confrontation continue to drive Putin’s agenda. In the meantime, he appears to believe that Russia’s internal problems will largely fix themselves if he sets ambitious enough goals. Putin’s two-hour speech was designed to double as an annual state of the n
Viewpoints March 4, 2018
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[Tim Duy] Trump’s trade policies could work against fiscal stimulus
The US government has set the stage for an economic experiment with its large, late-cycle fiscal stimulus, but the Trump administration’s trade agenda threatens to undermine the process as soon as it begins. Tax cuts and spending increases are projected to fuel an ill-advised federal budget deficit for 2019 in excess of $1 trillion. With the economy operating near full employment, the extra impetus from deficit spending could cause inflation to overheat. The Federal Reserve would respond with a
Viewpoints March 4, 2018
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[Noah Smith] Maybe cities don’t need tech hubs to succeed
There’s a standard playbook for reviving cities by turning them into technology clusters. But not every town can become the next Silicon Valley, or Robot City, or biotech mecca. Minneapolis has shown that there is another way. Cities such as Raleigh, San Diego and Pittsburgh have all followed a similar model: Build around a top-ranked research university; bring together elites from government, business, and academia; facilitate the sharing of ideas among campus labs, startups, and big companies;
Viewpoints March 2, 2018
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[Andrew Polk] One-man rule isn‘t good for the economy either
China’s defenders are putting an optimistic spin on the country’s tilt toward one-man rule. Now that President Xi Jinping has set himself up to remain in power indefinitely, they suggest, he will have the runway to see through painful but necessary economic reforms that have long been resisted by various actors within China’s political system. In other words, even if last weekend’s scrapping of term limits for the presidency dooms hopes for political liberalization, it increases the prospects fo
Viewpoints March 1, 2018
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[Leonid Bershidsky] Journalist killings challenge Europe’s idea of itself
The time has come to ask whether membership in the European Union is still a quality assurance seal for democracy and the rule of law among member states. The bloc has clearly failed to enforce its stated values on its periphery. Any additional expansion can only dilute them further. On Monday, Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kusnirova were found murdered -- shot with a single bullet each -- in the town where they lived near Bratislava. Kuciak had investigated alleged tax
Viewpoints March 1, 2018
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[Adam Minter] Xi shouldn’t be the only one to keep working
Xi Jinping can hold off on retirement planning for a few more years, now that China’s Communist Party has announced a proposal to eliminate a 10-year, two-term limit for China’s presidency. That sets up the powerful 64-year-old Xi to remain in office well into his golden years. He shouldn’t be the only one. Set aside for a moment the question of whether China is wise to usher in one-man rule. The fact is that retirement age limits for other Chinese are a drag on China’s economy and the governmen
Viewpoints Feb. 28, 2018
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[Christopher Balding] At next Olympics, focus on fans
It has become a widely accepted tenet of modern economics that markets are flawed and need fixing by experts to engineer desired outcomes. At the Winter Games in PyeongChang, which just concluded, the International Olympic Committee appeared to take this conviction to extremes, trying to fill stands through highly restricted, targeted and convoluted ticket sales. The process arguably produced more empty seats than the bitter cold, lack of interest, or fear of North Korea did. Organizers of the 2
Viewpoints Feb. 27, 2018
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[Noah Feldman] China now faces the downsides of dictatorship
China’s nearly 30 year experiment with time-limited government is officially coming to an end. The Chinese Communist Party has suggested amending China’s constitution to allow President Xi Jinping to serve more than two five-year terms. Considering that the party rules the country, and Xi rules the party, that means two things: The constitution will be amended. And Xi is going to be president for life, much like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping. From the standpoint of communism, this result isn’t ter
Viewpoints Feb. 27, 2018
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[Stephen Mihm] Amazon’s labor-tracking wristband has a history
Amazon recently received patents for an “ultrasonic bracelet” that tracks workers’ movements. Pitched as a labor-saving device, they monitor how efficiently workers fill orders as well as giving them positive “haptic feedback” -- a little vibration -- as they reach for the correct bins, reducing unnecessary motion. If this sounds a bit like planning to turn humans into robots, you are not alone; the news prompted a minor hysteria. However frightening, though, it’s hardly new. In fact, several lo
Viewpoints Feb. 26, 2018
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[Hal Brands] America’s leaderless foreign policy has hit a dead end
Independent counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russians for waging information warfare against the US by tampering with the American electoral process in 2016. Sadly but predictably, America’s commander-in-chief did not respond by rallying his country to meet the threat. Rather, President Donald Trump went out of his way to dodge the question of Russian interference. This episode has a broader significance: It gives the lie to the idea that the US can have a constructive foreign policy while
Viewpoints Feb. 26, 2018
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[Noah Smith] Neighborhoods back up Americans’ diversity talk
Americans love diversity -- or so they like to claim. A 2016 Pew survey found that Americans are much more likely than Europeans to say that diversity makes their country a better place to live.Other polls say the same. But words and actions are two different things. In the mid-20th century, US cities were known for white flight -- the tendency of white people to move out of neighborhoods when black people moved in. If white Americans pay lip service to the idea of living in a multiracial societ
Viewpoints Feb. 22, 2018
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[Faye Flam] The machines are taking over space
People concerned about robots taking away jobs might want to consider where it’s already happened. Machines with varying levels of intelligence have quietly taken over the most glamorous, coveted and admirable job in the world -- space exploration. It’s not that people can’t still be astronauts -- it’s just there aren’t nearly enough jobs for all the people with the desire and ability to do it. And in terms of gathering data, we can’t catch up to the robots, which have in recent years been plun
Viewpoints Feb. 22, 2018
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[Chloe Morin] Macron’s biggest battle is with voter skepticism
When Emmanuel Macron was elected French president, the conventional wisdom was that he’d only survive if his policies brought tangible economic growth. So here’s the paradox Macron faces this year: While growth is picking up and many other economic indicators are finally turning positive, his critics have become more numerous. Indeed, his popularity fell during the past month by as much as 5 percentage points. The year could not have started better for the French government on the economic fron
Viewpoints Feb. 21, 2018
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[Hal Brands] US allies failing to fill global leadership void
If America abandons the liberal international order it created, can that order still endure? This has been the central geopolitical question posed by Donald Trump’s presidency. So far, longtime US allies have been working to fill the void created by the retreat of American leadership, and to prevent the erosion of a system that has served so many so well for so long. Yet their efforts cannot be more than a temporary solution to the crisis of global stewardship that Trump has created.From the tim
Viewpoints Feb. 21, 2018
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