Perspective

FT – Asian billionaires outnumber US ones for first time – Josef Stadler 11/1

FT – Global gender gap will take 100 years to close, says WEF study – Sarah Gordon 11/1

• “The global gender gap will take 100 years to close at the current rate of change, according to new World Economic Forum research.”
• “The WEF’s annual report into gender equality found increasing inequality at the workplace and in political representation, contributing to its calculation that it would take a century to reach overall gender parity compared with its estimate last year of 83 years.”
• “According to the WEF’s metrics — which take into account disparities between men and women in health and education, as well as politics and the workplace — the world has closed 68% of the gap between total gender inequality and total equality.”
• “This level is slightly worse than the figures for 2016 and 2015, when the gender gap was 68.3 and 68.1%, respectively, and represents the first widening of the gap since the WEF began such calculations 11 years ago.”
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• “Of the 142 countries covered in the 2017 report, the gender gap had increased in 82, with countries such as Kenya, Brazil, Japan and India regressing in terms of the number of women in ministerial roles, while countries including Mexico, South Africa and Spain made less progress towards offering women equal economic opportunities.”
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• “Iceland remains the world’s most gender-equal country, while the US dropped four places to 49 in the country rankings because, in particular, of a significant decline in the number of women holding ministerial positions. The US’s political empowerment measure is at its lowest level since 2007.”
• “The top three countries in the index are all Nordic but among the non-European countries in the top ten are Rwanda in fourth place, Nicaragua in sixth place and the Philippines in tenth place.”
• “The region of the world with the smallest gender gap is western Europe, which has closed 75% of the gap, followed by North America and eastern Europe.”
• “The Middle East and north Africa is the lowest-ranked region, having closed the gap by an average of 60%, and is home to four of the world’s five lowest-ranking countries on female political empowerment: Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar and Yemen.”

NYT – Trump’s Female Accusers Feel Forgotten. A Lawsuit May Change That. – Megan Twohey 11/1

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Economist – Donald Trump misreads Britain’s crime statistics 10/28

• “Mr Trump is right to want to ‘keep America safe’ from such influences, even if he muddled his figures. Yet his approach is hardly achieving that. ‘Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That’s because they used knives and a truck!’ he tweeted after the London Bridge attack. True enough. But whereas in the past five years 11 jihadists have launched fatal attacks in America, killing 82 of their 86 victims with bullets, during the same period nine jihadists in Britain, without access to guns, killed only 37, according to the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland. America’s overall homicide rate is five times Britain’s. British crime statistics may well contain lessons for America, but not the ones Mr Trump claims.”

Economist – Apple should shrink its finance arm before it goes bananas – Schumpeter 10/28

• “The world’s biggest firm has a financial arm half the size of Goldman Sachs.”

Markets / Economy

Economist – The future of online retailing is bright 10/26

• “E-commerce will not obliterate all retail trade. Stores that are distinctive in one way or another—because they offer excellent service, for instance, or unique products—will remain. But consider the change already wrought in America, where e-commerce accounts for about one-tenth of retail spending. If that share were to rise to one-fifth, let alone one-third, the effects would be vast. In the longer run the impact of e-commerce will not be limited to the conventional retail industry it is increasingly replacing. It will also change how consumers spend their days, transform the landscape, disrupt workers’ lives and reshape governments’ view of corporate power.”
• “For consumers, e-commerce has ushered in a golden age. They can choose from more products of better quality than ever and spend far less time and effort to get what they want. Once-complacent manufacturers must compete fiercely for their business. No wonder Amazon is the most popular company in America, according to a recent Harris poll.”
• “As demand for physical shops ebbs, that for warehouses will surge. Citi estimates that 2.3bn square feet (214m square meters) of new warehousing—equivalent to about 20,000 football pitches—will be needed worldwide over the next 20 years.”
• “The future for ailing stores is less certain. Many shops in big cities will remain, less as sales hubs than as showrooms. Rents for them will probably come down. Retail rents are already falling in America and in much of Asia, according to CBRE, a property agency.”
• “An even hotter topic is the effect of all this on employment. So far the decline in traditional retail jobs in America seems to have been offset by a rise in warehousing work. Between 2007 and 2017 the number of retail jobs shrank by 140,000 while those in e-commerce and warehousing rose by about 400,000, according to Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank. But the net gain in jobs may be temporary. Stores are only now starting to close, and those that remain are just testing automation. More robots will be used in warehouses, too, as their costs come down and their picking skills improve.”
• “Barring any dramatic intervention, however, the biggest e-commerce sites look set to get bigger. Amazon and Alibaba typify a new breed of conglomerate that benefits from network effects. The more shoppers firms can muster, the more sellers will flock to them, attracting yet more shoppers. These effects are turbocharged by the breadth of their businesses and the vast amount of data they generate. This does not mean they will dominate every sector or market, but their mere presence in an industry will reshape it. The question is not if they will keep upending retailing, manufacturing and logistics, but which industry and part of society they will change next.”

Real Estate

WSJ – World Record $5 Billion Skyscraper Sale a Tall Order – Jacky Wong 11/2

• “Hong Kong’s richest person Li Ka-shing is selling the city’s center—literally.”
• “The billionaire’s property firm CK Asset has agreed to sell its stake in The Center, a 73-storey skyscraper in Hong Kong’s central business district, for $5.15 billion, making it the world’s most expensive commercial building ever. The sale continues Mr. Li’s retreat from China and Hong Kong in recent years as he invests in sectors like utilities in developed markets such as Australia and the U.K. Last year, he sold a commercial property project in Shanghai for about $3 billion.”
• “The major shareholder entity buying The Center is an oil company in which the Communist Party of China has an effective 15% stake.”

Finance

NYT – S.E.C. Warns Celebrities Endorsing Virtual Money – Nathaniel Popper 11/1

• “The S.E.C. said in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon that celebrities who promoted coin offerings could be violating multiple laws, including antifraud regulations and rules that govern investment brokers.”