The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data

The data economy demands a new approach to antitrust rules

Economist

A NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft—look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collectively racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital advertising in America last year.

Carl Bildt: In defence of globalization

World Economic Forum

I must confess that I am a firm believer in the benefits of globalization. To my mind, the gradual interlinking of regions, countries, and people is the most profoundly positive development of our time.

But a populist has now assumed the United States presidency by campaigning on a platform of stark economic nationalism and protectionism. And in many countries, public discourse is dominated by talk of globalization’s alleged “losers,” and the perceived need for new policies to stem the rise of populist discontent.

When I was born, the world’s population was 2.5 billion. I vividly recall a time in my life when many people feared that starvation would soon run rampant, gaps between the rich and poor would grow ever wider, and everything would eventually come crashing down.

Brexit Bulletin: Can Britain Split the Difference?

The U.K. may need to drive a wedge between EU states in Brexit talks. So far the Continent is singing with one voice.
by Simon Kennedy
14 February 2017, 9:30 π.μ. EET

It now looks like Theresa May was a little naive.

Back in October, the U.K. prime minister said she hoped her commitment to start the Brexit process by the end of March would prove enough for the European Union to engage in some “preparatory work” beforehand.

“This is important,” she told the BBC. “It’s not just important for the U.K.; it’s important for Europe as a whole.”

Instead, European officials held their line that there would be “no negotiation without notification” that Britain was definitely leaving.

U.K. Business Says Brexit Already Having a Negative Effect

by Tim Ross  and Lucy Meakin
6 February 2017, 10:22 π.μ. EET 6

Brexit has already damaged businesses even before Prime Minister Theresa May triggers the start of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, according to a survey of the country’s largest companies.

More than half -- 58 percent -- of top executives at Britain’s biggest firms said the vote to quit the bloc has had a negative impact on their businesses, the Ipsos MORI “Captains of Industry” poll found. Two-thirds of the chief executives, chairmen and directors interviewed for the survey said they believed the business situation would worsen in the next 12 months.

U.K.’s Brexit Plan: Prepare for Failure, Hope for Success

by Tim Ross , Robert Hutton , and Alex Morales
2 February 2017, 11:31 μ.μ. EET
Bloomberg
Prime Minister Theresa May is making plans for emergency laws to protect the U.K. economy in case Brexit negotiations break down without a free-trade deal, as concerns grow that she’ll fail to achieve the sweeping agreement she wants.

In its 75-page plan for Brexit, May’s government said on Thursday that while it was expecting to find common ground with the 27 other members of the European Union, it will prepare contingency measures to avert economic chaos if the discussions collapsed.

Oil edges up on threat of U.S. issuing new Iran sanctions

Fri Feb 3, 2017 | 2:23am EST

Reuters

By Keith Wallis and Osamu Tsukimori | SINGAPORE/TOKYO
Oil prices edged up on Friday on news that U.S. President Donald Trump could be set to impose new sanctions on multiple Iranian entities, firing geopolitical tensions between the two nations.

Comments by Russian energy minister Alexander Novak that oil producers had cut their output in accordance with a pact agreed in December also helped support prices, analysts said.

Reuters reported on Thursday that Trump's administration is prepared to roll out new measures against more than two dozen Iranian targets following Tehran's ballistic missile test, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Europe gets creative to win banks after Brexit

Wed Feb 1, 2017 | 10:56am EST

Reuters

By Anjuli Davies, Andrew MacAskill and John O'Donnell | LONDON/FRANKFURT
Regulators in European countries competing for post-Brexit banking business are offering London-based banks a range of short-term workarounds to help them relocate, bankers, regulators and lawyers say.

Global banks have warned they might have to move their European bases from Britain if its departure from the European Union means they lose "passporting" rights to operate across the bloc under the supervision of just one member state's regulator.

Brexit negotiations have yet to start and will take years but big centers like Frankfurt and Paris, as well as smaller ones like Dublin, Amsterdam and Luxembourg, are encouraging banks, insurers and fund managers to consider moving to them.

Theresa May Gets Parliament’s Backing on ‘Brexit’ Bill

By STEPHEN CASTLEFEB. 1, 2017

The New York Times

LONDON — Easily winning a crucial vote among lawmakers, Prime Minister Theresa May was well on her way Wednesday to winning the parliamentary approval that Britain’s highest court said she needed before she could begin talks on ending more than four decades of European integration.

Wednesday’s vote, in the House of Commons, will not be the final parliamentary verdict on Mrs. May’s plans, but with 498 lawmakers in favor and 114 against, it was emphatic enough to show that any subsequent efforts in Parliament to complicate, or slow, the path to withdrawal would probably be in vain.

China’s 6.7% Growth Fueled by Soaring Real Estate and Consumer Spending

By KEITH BRADSHERJAN. 19, 2017

The New York Times

BEIJING — China’s economy grew 6.7 percent last year and even accelerated slightly to 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the government announced on Friday morning, while dismissing concerns about the enormous lending that was needed to achieve that growth.

The strong results came after a weak start last year, when China’s currency and stock market were tumbling and many foreign investors fretted that the country’s three decades of robust economic expansion might be ending.

World leaders find hope for globalization in Davos amid populist revolt

By Max Ehrenfreund January 17 at 6:30 PM

The Washington Post


DAVOS, Switzerland — Amid growing doubts about the future of free trade and international economic cooperation, proponents of globalization found reasons for optimism as the World Economic Forum opened Tuesday.

The specters of President-elect Donald Trump’s protectionist rhetoric and the British exit from the European Union loomed over the annual event that attracts world leaders and dignitaries to this mountain resort town to discuss the state of the global economy.

In ‘Brexit’ Speech, Theresa May Outlines Clean Break for U.K.

By STEPHEN CASTLE and STEVEN ERLANGERJAN. 17, 2017
The New York Times

LONDON — “Get on with it.”

With those words in a major speech on Tuesday, Prime Minister Theresa May charted Britain’s course toward a clean break with the European Union and expressed her fondest hope: that the time for “division and discord” is over.

Her much-anticipated speech outlined what promised to be a hugely complex, drawn-out negotiation, and it defined the broad objectives, but not the details, of British withdrawal. “The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, and my job is to get the right deal for Britain as we do,” she said.

Mersch Says ECB Policy Shift Premature as Economy Shows Strength

by Carolynn Look  and Fabio Benedetti Valentini
January 6, 2017, 12:00 PM GMT+2

Bloomberg

Improving euro-area economic numbers and a faster-than-forecast inflation pickup aren’t enough to warrant an immediate shift in the European Central Bank’s policy, according to Executive Board member Yves Mersch.

“It is absolutely premature today to claim victory over a weak economy,” Mersch, considered one of the more hawkish members of the ECB’s Governing Council said in Paris on Friday. “We have good results but it is absolutely premature to say: drop the guard.”

How Greece’s Troubled Economy Could Turn Around in 2017

Nicholas Economides
Updated: Jan 03, 2017 8:48 PM UTC
Fortune

Violating the terms of its bailout program, the Greek government recently announced that it will distribute a sizeable “Christmas gift” to Greek pensioners even though this requires additional borrowing from the EU since the Greek budget is not balanced and Greece cannot borrow from money markets. The move has prompted the EU finance ministers to freeze implementation of debt restructuring. Greece is at the brink again.

Euro-Area Economy Ended Year With Fastest Growth Since 2011

by Carolynn Look
4 January 2017, 11:00 π.μ. EET

Bloomberg

The euro-area economy finished 2016 with the strongest momentum in more than 5 1/2 years, bolstering the region as it heads into a year of political uncertainty.

A composite Purchasing Managers’ Index climbed to 54.4 in December from 53.9 in November, IHS Markit said on Wednesday. That’s the highest in 67 months and above a Dec. 15 estimate.

Record Capital Outflows Push Euro Toward Parity With Dollar

Higher interest rates in the U.S. are drawing money out of the eurozone

The Wall Street Journal

By MIKE BIRD
Updated Dec. 20, 2016 5:32 p.m. ET

More money has left eurozone financial markets this year than at any time in the bloc’s history, helping drive the euro toward parity with the dollar for the first time in 14 years.

The eurozone had its largest-ever net outflows in the 12 months to September, data from the European Central Bank showed Tuesday.

Eurozone investors bought €497.5 billion ($516.5 billion) of financial assets, such as stocks and bonds, outside the bloc in that period. Global investors, meanwhile, sold or let mature €31.3 billion of eurozone assets during the year. Together, that adds up to a net outflow of €528.8 billion, the most since the single currency was introduced in 1999.

As Brexit approaches, signs of a gathering economic storm for Britain

The Washington Post

By Griff Witte December 13 at 5:16 PM
LONDON — From a modest office in a small town in northeastern England, Elliott Peckett’s family stocked the world with costumes.

Billowy white Marilyn Monroe dresses. Red velvet Santa caps. Rhinestone-studded Elvis jumpsuits.

They were shipped out by the millions to 42 countries across the globe, and they brought the profits of countless Halloween parties, Carnival parades and Christmas wonderlands back home to England.

But thanks to Brexit, not anymore. After 122 years, Peckett’s costume company, Smiffys, is moving its headquarters to the Netherlands.

Inside China’s Global Spending Spree

By Scott Cendrowski
Photograph by Teru Onishi for Fortune
DECEMBER 12, 2016, 6:30 AM EST

FORTUNE

“One Belt, One Road,” China’s $3 trillion infrastructure-building campaign, could be a windfall for some Western companies and investors.

The high-rise coastal city of Dubai plays host to all kinds of luxury oddities: indoor ski slopes, gold-bar vending machines, vast artificial archipelagoes shaped like palm trees. But six miles inland, something just as unusual, if far less gaudy, is taking shape—the first coal-fired power plant in the Middle East.

Give Greece Credit, Even Just for Treading Water

25DEC 6, 2016 1:23 AM EST
By
Mark Gilbert
Bloomberg

Here are two things I'll bet most people don't know about Greece. The country's just-appointed minister of economy and development, Dimitri Papadimitriou, was lured away from his position as head of the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College in America. He's not a member of the ruling Syriza party. And the man appointed secretary general for public revenue in January is Giorgos Pitsillis, a professional tax lawyer. He's not a party member, either.

Weak Tea After Brexit

The May government’s additional spending won’t spur growth.

The Wall Street Journal

Nov. 23, 2016 8:47 p.m. ET


Theresa May’s government delivered another budget statement Wednesday, and we’re pleased to report that not all of the proposals are bad. But whether not-so-bad is good enough to give the economy the boost it will need to power through Britain’s exit from the European Union is another question.

Regarding the good, the best headline to come out of Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Autumn Statement is that the government intends to stick to its schedule for corporate tax cuts, with rates falling to 17% in 2020 from 20% today. That’s down from 28% under Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and would be roughly half the rate paid by companies in France and Germany. Mrs. May has also indicated she’s prepared to come down below 15% if necessary.

A Falling Euro Is Neither A Collapse Nor A Disaster - It's The Solution

NOV 20, 2016 @ 05:35 AM
Forbes

Tim Worstall ,   CONTRIBUTOR
I have opinions about economics, finance and public policy.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The Express is getting rather overeager to tell us that a falling euro/dollar exchange rate is a collapse, an imminent disaster. When, of course, a change in exchange rates is the cure for what ails economies. That’s rather the point of having them in the first place rather than just the one world currency. So that if one economic area is doing differently than some other we can let the exchange rate take the strain of adjustment, rather than having to do that internal devaluation. You know, as the euro itself has forced Greece and Finland to do?