The Death of Corporate Reputation: How Integrity Has Been Destroyed on Wall Street by Jonathan R. Macey (FT Press, 304 pp., $39.99) AG: So what’s the basic thesis of your book, and what motivated you to write it?   Jonathan R. Macey: The basic thesis of the book is that the business model of firms […]

Amazon is expanding its home delivery grocery service to Los Angeles after six years of operation in Seattle. This expansion, the first of many expected to come, marks a significant step forward for online shopping. We’ve already discussed how the growth of home delivery services like this can save people time and money while reducing emissions and greening the […]

Brussels and Beijing are embroiled in a full-on trade war, and China is ready to hit the European Union where it hurts: its wineries. China is accusing French winemakers of dumping their wares in the Chinese market at prices below what it would take to make a profit. In reality, this move has little to […]

Thanks to a spate of reforms, Myanmar is hosting the 2013 the World Economic Forum on East Asia, which begins today. Burma’s position as host highlights how quickly it has been brought into the good graces of the international community and the West; only two years ago, it was an international pariah.Burma’s democratic revolution, however, still coexists […]

When Edward Morse talks, the energy world listens. In February, the Citigroup commodities guru made waves in the energy community when he predicted the combined  US and Canadian oil supplies would outstrip demand in five years, in large part because of the American shale revolution.He’s still bullish on shale’s transformative power; in fact, he’s taking it to […]

Today brought more discouraging news from Egypt, where a criminal court convicted 43 local and foreign NGO employees of spreading unrest in the country. The groups, which include the congressionally funded International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute, have had their assets seized by the Egyptian government. The vast majority of foreign aid workers, including […]

President Obama is shaking up his national security team: Tom Donilon is out, Susan Rice and Samantha Power are in. Mark Landler has a good story in the Times; we have four points in particular to note about this development.First, President Obama is now playing the national security game with his people. In his first term he […]

One of America’s closest allies claims to have unimpeachable evidence that President Obama’s “red line” in Syria has been crossed…several times. The FT reports that France has examined samples obtained from a Damascus suburb and from Saraqeb in the north, and concluded beyond any shred of doubt that the regime has targeted rebel forces with […]

The IMF’s growth forecast for Germany has just been cut in half due to troubles created by failing countries in the EU—not that the forecast was all that spectacular to begin with. In April, the IMF had predicted that the German economy would grow by 0.6 percent this year, but that already meager number is now down […]

On May 22, 2013,  Religion News Service reported on the morning homily delivered on that day by Pope Francis I. There has, understandably, been absorbing media interest in the new pontiff, from the fact that he continues to live in a guesthouse rather than in the splendid apartment available to him, to his having eschewed […]