How to report politics for an international audience
This is the text of a talk I gave to a seminar hosted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford on October 22nd
This is the text of a talk I gave to a seminar hosted by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford on October 22nd
NEW YORK Oct 13 (Reuters) - The chief executive of the
world’s largest money manager said Thursday he welcomed the
anti-Wall Street protests spreading around the country, saying
they would help add balance to the debate on America’s future.”I believe we should not turn our backs on these protests,”
said BlackRock Inc Chief Executive Laurence Fink at the
Financial Times’ View from the Top conference in New York.”Maybe we will get some balance,” he added, noting that it
would be helpful to have both right-leaning Tea Party members
and the more left-leaning Wall Street protesters contribute to
the national debate on economic issues.BlackRock is the world’s largest money manager with more
than $3 trillion worth of assets under management.The Occupy Wall Street movement has sparked nationwide
protests in more than 1,400 cities, according to Occupy
Together, which has become an online hub for protest activity.Protesters are upset that the billions of dollars in bank
bailouts doled out during the recession allowed banks to resume
earning huge profits while average Americans have had no relief
from high unemployment and job insecurity.The jobless rate has been at or above 9 percent since March
and roughly 45 percent of the 14 million Americans without jobs
have been unemployed for six months or more.Earlier on Thursday, Steven Rattner, a former adviser to
the U.S. treasury secretary who led efforts to overhaul the
U.S. auto industry, said healthy profits for U.S. companies
have not trickled down to workers or the broader economy.Fink said having multiple voices involved in the debate is
important, as the country faces serious challenges that will
not soon fade away.”The two real engines of the economy over the last 10 to 20
years were consumer (spending) and housing,” he said, “and I
don’t think those are going to come back any time soon.”Fink said it could take two to three years before those
sectors recover. While he said the Federal Reserve has not been
given enough credit for stepping in to stabilize the economy,
he said the country now needs clarity and leadership from
lawmakers.Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate defeated President
Barack Obama’s $447 billion job-creation package, suggesting
Washington is too paralyzed to take major steps to spur hiring
before the 2012 elections.”We need to find our footing. It’s so much about leadership
and clarity and we just haven’t found our footing as a
country,” Fink said.He said the current sense of malaise infecting the country
reminded him of the 1970s when the United States faced high
unemployment and inflation.”We were really pessimistic about who we were in the 70s,
but we showed resiliency many years ago. We should have the
same capacity,” he said.But with jobs scarce, Fink warned that overly aggressive
regulation of the financial industry could eventually drive
firms in the United States as well as Britain and Europe to
less costly bases in Singapore and Hong Kong.If firms find “that the cost of doing business in the UK,
Europe and the U.S. rises, you’re going to see movement of
people and trading activity” to other countries, Fink said.
* Life insurers rally in morning tradingOct 12 (Reuters) - Only two life insurers — MetLife Inc and Prudential Financial Inc — meet new
requirements to be considered “systemic” and regulated as such,
KBW analysts said on Wednesday.The Financial Stability Oversight Council on Tuesday
proposed a three-stage test to figure out which nonbank
financial firms should come in for tighter capital and
liquidity regulation by the Federal Reserve.The insurance industry has argued that no insurer should be
designated a “strategically important financial institution,”
or SIFI, in part on fears that any company so tagged would have
difficultly competing with peers that are free to take more
risks.KBW said only MetLife and Prudential crossed the council’s
$50 billion asset threshold and at least one of the secondary
hurdles as well. While that does not guarantee that they will
be designated systemic, it does suggest they will at least get
further scrutiny in the review process.”Presumably, companies not tripping any thresholds are
unlikely to be seriously considered for SIFI status (and) are
likely out of the woods,” analyst Jeffrey Schuman said in a
note to clients.Schuman said that was good news for the other large life
insurance companies, including Aflac , Hartford
Financial , Lincoln National and Genworth
Financial .He also said it was still “far from certain” that MetLife
or Prudential would be tagged as SIFIs.Both MetLife and Prudential have said in regulatory filings
that they may be subject to the council’s scrutiny, given their
size.MetLife shares were up 3.5 percent in Wednesday morning
trading, while Prudential rose 2.4 percent.Shares of other life insurers rallied, with Lincoln rising
5.7 percent, Aflac up 5.1 percent, AIG up 4.2 percent, Genworth
up 3.6 percent and Hartford gaining 3.1 percent.
* Life insurers rally in morning tradingOct 12 (Reuters) - Only two life insurers — MetLife Inc and Prudential Financial Inc — meet new
requirements to be considered “systemic” and regulated as such,
KBW analysts said on Wednesday.The Financial Stability Oversight Council on Tuesday
proposed a three-stage test to figure out which nonbank
financial firms should come in for tighter capital and
liquidity regulation by the Federal Reserve.The insurance industry has argued that no insurer should be
designated a “strategically important financial institution,”
or SIFI, in part on fears that any company so tagged would have
difficultly competing with peers that are free to take more
risks.KBW said only MetLife and Prudential crossed the council’s
$50 billion asset threshold and at least one of the secondary
hurdles as well. While that does not guarantee that they will
be designated systemic, it does suggest they will at least get
further scrutiny in the review process.”Presumably, companies not tripping any thresholds are
unlikely to be seriously considered for SIFI status (and) are
likely out of the woods,” analyst Jeffrey Schuman said in a
note to clients.Schuman said that was good news for the other large life
insurance companies, including Aflac , Hartford
Financial , Lincoln National and Genworth
Financial .He also said it was still “far from certain” that MetLife
or Prudential would be tagged as SIFIs.Both MetLife and Prudential have said in regulatory filings
that they may be subject to the council’s scrutiny, given their
size.MetLife shares were up 3.5 percent in Wednesday morning
trading, while Prudential rose 2.4 percent.Shares of other life insurers rallied, with Lincoln rising
5.7 percent, Aflac up 5.1 percent, AIG up 4.2 percent, Genworth
up 3.6 percent and Hartford gaining 3.1 percent.
* Life insurers rally in morning tradingOct 12 (Reuters) - Only two life insurers — MetLife Inc and Prudential Financial Inc — meet new
requirements to be considered “systemic” and regulated as such,
KBW analysts said on Wednesday.The Financial Stability Oversight Council on Tuesday
proposed a three-stage test to figure out which nonbank
financial firms should come in for tighter capital and
liquidity regulation by the Federal Reserve.The insurance industry has argued that no insurer should be
designated a “strategically important financial institution,”
or SIFI, in part on fears that any company so tagged would have
difficultly competing with peers that are free to take more
risks.KBW said only MetLife and Prudential crossed the council’s
$50 billion asset threshold and at least one of the secondary
hurdles as well. While that does not guarantee that they will
be designated systemic, it does suggest they will at least get
further scrutiny in the review process.”Presumably, companies not tripping any thresholds are
unlikely to be seriously considered for SIFI status (and) are
likely out of the woods,” analyst Jeffrey Schuman said in a
note to clients.Schuman said that was good news for the other large life
insurance companies, including Aflac , Hartford
Financial , Lincoln National and Genworth
Financial .He also said it was still “far from certain” that MetLife
or Prudential would be tagged as SIFIs.Both MetLife and Prudential have said in regulatory filings
that they may be subject to the council’s scrutiny, given their
size.MetLife shares were up 3.5 percent in Wednesday morning
trading, while Prudential rose 2.4 percent.Shares of other life insurers rallied, with Lincoln rising
5.7 percent, Aflac up 5.1 percent, AIG up 4.2 percent, Genworth
up 3.6 percent and Hartford gaining 3.1 percent.
The request comes a day after an article in The New York
Times about how Wall Street firms had established staffing
services in an effort to attract and retain brokerage and
trading business from the hedge funds.Firms might be offering the service only to select hedge
funds, which could violate Massachusetts securities laws, Galvin
was quoted by the Times as saying.Press officers for Goldman, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Bank of
America and Deutsche Bank declined to comment about the inquiry
to the New York Times.None of the parties could immediately be reached for comment
by Reuters.Hedge funds account for as much as 35 percent of all trading
revenue on Wall Street, according to the research firm Sanford
C. Bernstein & Company.
The new laws, which will force cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging from 2012, are being closely watched by New Zealand, Canada, the European Union and Britain, which are considering similar restrictions.Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the conservatives, who managed to postpone an upper house Senate vote on the bills during a rancorous day in parliament for the minority Labor government, were playing into the hands of big tobacco firms.”Given the delays in passing the bill caused by the opposition, the government now has no choice but to reconsider the impact on implementation timeframes,” Roxon said.Australia says the new laws reflect its obligations under the World Health Organization’s 2005 framework against tobacco, which urges states to consider plain packaging laws. The WHO estimates more than 1 billion around the world are regular smokers, with 80 percent in low and middle income countries.The laws have angered tobacco producers who have threatened a High Court challenge, while the governments of Nicaragua and Ukraine said the new measures breached international trade rules and would be challenged in the World Trade Organization.Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s government is hoping the laws will come into effect on January 1 next year, although the main provisions forcing all cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging only come into operation on July 1, 2012.The delay in the Senate means the laws will not be voted on before November, forcing the government to reconsider now whether it can meet its deadlines.Australia’s Cancer Council said the Senate should end the political delays and get on with passing the legislation, with authorities estimating smoking now kills 15,000 Australians each year and costs the health system $32 billion.”We know the tobacco industry is vehemently opposed to plain packaging, which is just another indication that plain packaging has great potential to reduce tobacco,” council chief executive Ian Olver said.Analysts say tobacco companies like Britain’s Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris are worried that plain packaging could spread to emerging markets like Brazil, Russia and Indonesia, and threaten growth there.Australia’s tobacco market generated total revenues of around $10 billion in 2009, up from A$8.3 billion in 2008, although smoking generally has been in decline. Around 22 billion cigarettes are sold in the country each year.British American Tobacco, whose brands include Winfield, Dunhill and Benson & Hedges, has said the government’s plans would infringe international trademark and intellectual property laws, promising a court challenge to the laws.
