NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Are there any companies that aren’t proud to be allied with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities? Judging by the rainbow designs plastered across billboards, store fronts and email signatures as cities like New York prepare for their Pride festivities, it’s tempting to believe the answer is no. It’s easy to be cynical, but short-term profit doesn’t explain the outbreak of conspicuous support sweeping corporate America. With so much still to do, such backing matters more than its motivation.
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - The first Democrat to bid for 2020’s presidential election has a pitch rarely heard in today’s political slugfest: that Democrats and Republicans can get along. Despite being a peacemaker, the former Maryland congressman has some punchy views on China, Big Tech and drug prices.
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Dick’s Sporting Goods lost sales, customers and suppliers when it banned assault-style weapons from its stores last year. Over a year later, boss Ed Stack tells Breakingviews what he learned from taking a stand on gun violence, and addresses his newer challenge of China tariffs.
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Takeover battles are seldom messier than when companies try to pay with stock. In the case of the battle for oil driller Anadarko Petroleum, though, an unsolicited bid from Occidental Petroleum is beating the rival bid from far larger Chevron by a mile, even taking a skeptical approach to Oxy’s prospects.
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Americans are unequal, unheeded and underpaid, the former White House economist argues in his new book “People, Power, and Profits.” He stopped by Breakingviews to discuss why global trade needs a rewrite, Facebook deserves a break-up and socialism is less scary than it sounds.
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Saudi Aramco is enormous – staggeringly so. Yet by one measure that matters a lot – the $2 trillion valuation envisaged by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – it’s still not enormous enough.
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Human sexuality has no clear lines – a bit like foreign investment controls. The American authorities have classified Grindr, the dating app targeted at gay users, as a security risk because it’s owned by Chinese gaming group Beijing Kunlun Tech, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The fuzzy nature of overseas investment scrutiny means that one review doesn’t dictate the outcome of future ones – but it’s likely that Grindr’s problems will stoke more bad blood in the U.S.-China relationship.
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Apple’s new credit card is a remarkable thing. Not because of the cash back offered to users – they can get similar deals elsewhere. And not because it’s made of titanium and has no numbers printed on it. The unusual thing is that in order to muscle in on a competitive industry, issuer Goldman Sachs has tossed aside many of the features that make the card business lucrative for banks in the first place.
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Even a divided America seems to agree that the federal prohibition of cannabis deserves a rethink. Six in 10 people say the use of marijuana should be legalized, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. On Wednesday, a congressional hearing approached that question only obliquely. But its narrow focus is more likely to lead to action - and deliver what the industry really needs.
TORONTO (Reuters Breakingviews) - Bruce Linton runs the world's biggest cannabis producer, Canopy Growth. He visited Breakingviews to discuss what's coming down the pipe in 2019, why a $100 bln weed company is still some way off, and why he doesn't actually partake - yet.
The United States looks set to break a promise not to hold military exercises with South Korea, putting talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons at risk, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.