In South Africa, there’s political disquiet this week along with economic discontent. The South African parliament tried and failed to oust President Jacob Zuma in a secret-ballot vote of no confidence. While the failure wasn’t a shock, the final vote was closer than it’s ever been, which has made Zuma’s critics more confident. Zuma is […]

You may have heard about Disney’s announcement that it’s going to launch its own streaming service. The company is ending a deal with Netflix and says it wants more control over its destiny. And as for cable, that service that “cord cutters” and “cord nevers” spurn, is another streaming service a problem for them? Maybe […]

The headlines today have been a lot about fire and fury and escalation and threats from North Korea. One way to cut through the fear is to look at what financial markets are thinking — bond markets, in particular. They act as sort of a fact check on the news and the economy. And bond […]

The White House has until next week to finish reviewing a federal climate report, but someone leaked a draft to the New York Times, possibly out of fear the Trump administration would sit on it. The report states definitively that climate change is happening, that humans are causing it and that there will be dire […]

President Trump this afternoon acknowledged the epidemic of opioid abuse in the U.S., but took no action on a report by a commission he created to study the crisis. That report urged the president to declare a national emergency to combat the health crisis. In a briefing with his top officials, Trump said there is […]

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has a study out today highlighting problems startups have getting financing. And the reason this matters? The report says startups account for “nearly all net new job creation” in the U.S. economy. For these companies to continue growing, they need to be able to access financing — and some are […]