The Secret To Cultivating A Productive Team From Home a daily or weekly “PIES” check-in with your teammates. ........... During the check-in, each person rates their PIES (i.e., physical, emotional, intellectual, and sleep quality) on a scale of 1-5. Along with their number, the person provides a quick reason why their score is what it is (e.g. my child was crying all night and I didn’t get any sleep). ........ In order to instill an inclusive and empathetic culture, it’s critical that teams establish regular points of communication. With new projects or teams, there should be regular kickoff/introduction meetings. ......... Distance makes it easier to leave room for miscommunications, misalignments, and silently growing bitterness. .......... eating together virtually.
World-Class Finance Skills That Can’t Be Automated Integrity is at the core of every world-class finance organization. ......... Empathy allows us to better understand our customers, employees, partners, and the greater good.
The China-Laos railway: a way out of poverty or a white elephant in waiting? A complete default could see China taking ownership of the entire asset, as happened with Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port, also funded by the Export-Import Bank of China. ......... China’s train manufacturers and railway contractors have been exporting their expertise since completing the country’s first overseas high-speed railway, in Turkey, in 2014. Encouraged by cheap labour and the promise of speedy construction and a reliable product, countries across Africa and Asia have been rolling out rivers of China-backed rail. ......... China is now Laos’ biggest investor ......... an official from Laos’ Finance Ministry predicted the loan would land the country with a bill of US$3 billion in interest payments alone, based on rates of 2 per cent per annum over 30 years. ...... a project moulded more in China’s short-term interests than in Laos’s long-term interest ....... The ADB says Asia will require US$1.7 trillion of infrastructure investment a year until 2030. ........... For good or bad, that train has already left the station.
Why the US dollar is only going to fall faster and harder Given the unprecedented erosion of domestic savings, an explosive current account deficit, and the Fed determined to keep rates flat, expect the dollar to plunge by as much as 35 per cent next year ......... Is the world seeing the end of the aura of American exceptionalism that has given the dollar Teflon-like resilience for most of the post-World War II era? ........ The US dollar slide has entered the early stages of what looks to be a sharp descent, having already fallen by 4.3 per cent in the four months ending in August in terms of its real effective exchange rate ......... the dollar remains the most overvalued major currency in the world. ......... the end of the aura of American exceptionalism ........ The confluence of an unprecedented erosion of domestic savings and the current-account deficit is nothing short of staggering. ......... For the first time since the 2008-09 global financial crisis, the net national savings rate has entered negative territory, at minus 1 per cent in the second quarter. And it did so at speed .......... The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act featured US$1,200 relief cheques to most Americans and a sharp expansion of unemployment insurance benefits. This boosted the personal savings rate to an unheard-of 33.7 per cent in April but this quickly receded to 17.8 per cent in July ........... Like the savings collapse, the current-account dynamic is unfolding in ferocious fashion. ......... Driven by the explosive surge in the federal budget deficit this year and in the next, the collapse of domestic savings and the current-account implosion should unfold at near-lightning speed. ......... Don’t expect the Fed, focused more on supporting equity and bond markets than on leaning against inflation, to save the day. The dollar’s decline has only just begun.
Why the US dollar slide may be a sign of real danger this time The rare event of a general depreciation of the world’s leading currency suggests a fundamental lack of faith that could sink financial markets and undermine the global economy Recent events suggest the dollar could erode from within as the US retreats from international obligations and its domestic economy weakens ........... Dollar depreciation could, as some suggest, simply reflect the fact that financial managers everywhere are “rotating” out of the US currency in search of yield as real or inflation-adjusted returns on dollar securities hit zero or even negative levels. ............... confidence in currencies and faith in them as measures of value and as mediums of exchange cannot survive the idea that their supply is virtually endless. .......... Central banks have enabled governments to finance fiscal stimulus to the tune of US$11 trillion during the pandemic, pushing total government debt to US$70 trillion .......... many things could fall with the dollar, from global reserves and trade, to banking and financial transactions and commodities. ....... The US could be the biggest loser. The exorbitant privilege it enjoys because the dollar is the global currency means the US does not face balance-of-payments crises while it imports in its own currency. But the dollar world could go the same way as the sterling area, into obscurity.
