Japan’s SoftBank tech conglomerate and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund have gathered $93 billion to back new ventures, from artificial intelligence to medical devices, across the technology landscape. The fund’s goal is to top reserves of $100 billion to plunk into public and private companies that will define the tech economy’s future. Called The Vision...
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Japan’s economy is burdened by a growing legion of retirees, and Saudi Arabia’s by the long-term shrinking global demand for oil. The Vision Fund’s formation will buoy their national treasuries into the future, which, in turn, should help quell internal political unrest. Also, now that major venture capital is no longer the sole province of...
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Climate action is economic engine
Taking steps to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions could amp the world economy by as much as 5 percent by 2050, according to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, of which the US is a member. The organization is known for its support of free-market and free-trade policies. The 309-page study draws...
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The global private sector and its investors already are shifting assets away from fossil fuels and into a broader array of energy strategies, with increasing emphasis on renewable power sources. In the aggregate, investments in green energy are yielding greater returns than those in new fossil-fuel projects. The green-energy industry is creating more, and better-paying,...
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As bans rise, diesel dying in Europe
Paris has announced a ban on diesel vehicles starting in 2025; three other French cities will restrict diesel vehicles’ access to urban centers during pollution peaks. In Germany, Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich and Cologne are mulling restrictions on diesel-engine cars and trucks. Similar discussions are underway in Spain and the United Kingdom. As a result, diesel...
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Diesel engines appear be an early casualty in the European Union’s new militancy about air pollution. As sales fall, automakers will have less incentive to make diesel vehicles or to improve diesel technology. And, as diesel’s constituency shrinks, there will be less opposition to the bans. Diesel seems to be joining coal on the road...
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Pure propaganda
Russia did it! Russia invaded a US ally, Ukraine, and occupied the eastern reaches of the country. It hacked our elections. It broke into Democratic National Committee servers to steal thousands of emails detrimental to candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It has the undying support of US President Donald Trump because it has secretly brokered billion-dollar...
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Power poles to charge electric cars in need of a business model
Visitors to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo now can plug their electric cars into a charging station that’s also a streetlight post. It’s part of a test project by automaker BMW and the private firm eluminocity US to turn streetlights into at-the-ready electronic-vehicle chargers. Drivers are used to fueling up in a few minutes and getting...
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CNN’s duplicitous double standard
On Sept. 2, CNN reported: “No evidence Trump Tower was wiretapped.” The CNN on-air presstitute gleefully announced: “The Justice Department is revealing it has found no evidence, zero evidence, that Trump Tower was ever wiretapped as the president has alleged in a series of tweets.” No evidence? Zero evidence? When it’s to the mainstream media’s...
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The Trends Research Institute was correct in 2013 and 2014. We stated the West, and especially the US, had targeted Russia with propaganda campaigns long before the crisis with Ukraine. We cautioned then that the US was stoking a war that couldn’t be won. Today, we intensify and expand that caution. With media, political and...