Breakingviews

Ten ways to tell whether Abenomics is working

By Andy Mukherjee

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own)

Shinzo Abe wants to stem the rot – and quickly. Less than four months into the job, Japan’s new prime minister has launched one of the world’s most ambitious programmes of fiscal and monetary easing. His goal is to defeat the scourge of deflation that has corroded the once-dynamic economy, shrinking it by 9 percent in 15 years. But is Abenomics having its desired effect?

Deal prospects make Vodafone look cheap

By Quentin Webb and Robert Cyran
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

Deal prospects make Vodafone look cheap. An optimistic reading of the underlying valuations suggests M&A could deliver shareholders in the London-listed mobile giant perhaps 35 percent more value than they have now. That’s an extra 31.5 billion pounds ($47.6 billion). But unlocking this would entail huge deals and huge headaches to match.

Cyprus will struggle to make gas math work

By Kevin Allison
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Cyprus’ latest ideas for wiggling out of its financial fix include bundling future gas revenues into a national “solidarity fund”. But Breakingviews calculations suggest the gas discovered to date isn’t worth enough to plug the country’s 5.8 billon euro ($7.5 billion) funding gap.

Abenomics can clear Japan’s demographic hurdle

By Andy Mukherjee

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Japan has a serious demographic disadvantage: its population is both shrinking and ageing. But the situation is not so dismal – at least not yet – that it will wreck Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plans to revive the economy.

UK would gain from homeowner tax switch

By Robert Cole

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

George Osborne, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, will present his annual budget on March 20. To maintain credibility he needs to stick to his austerity agenda. To tackle debt he needs to protect tax revenue. To maximise revenue, and appease recession-restless voters, he needs to promote economic growth. He could do all three by stamping on the UK’s property transaction tax and closing a loophole: capital gains tax (CGT) is not currently levied on owner-occupied homes.

Mega-buyout in UK mobile risks skinny returns

By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

A 10-billion-pound leveraged buyout of Britain’s biggest mobile operator would be dazzling in its sheer ambition. But the payback would be more in short-term glory than long-term financial returns.

HP breakup is on tech world’s 2013 agenda

By Rob Cox and Robert Cyran

The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

David Packard and William Hewlett may be Silicon Valley’s answer to Romulus and Remus in Rome’s founding story, but the era of their brainchild, Hewlett-Packard, as an everything-to-everyone conglomerate is coming to an end. Chief Executive Meg Whitman and HP’s board, not to mention investors, won’t stick around for an arduous and risky five-year turnaround project. Breaking the company into good bits and selling bad ones must be on the agenda for 2013.

Wall Street, City pay still must fall by a third

By Antony Currie and Richard Beales
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own. This view has been updated to reflect refined inputs to the Breakingviews calculator.

James Gorman is right that investment banking is overstaffed and overpaid, as he told the Financial Times last week. But neither the Morgan Stanley boss nor his global peers have proven adept at taking action. Last year, total wages at securities firms that are members of the New York Stock Exchange and the average pay per employee in New York increased even as industry profit fell, according to a report this week from the state’s comptroller.

Bigger bucks come to Supreme Court clerks who wait

By Reynolds Holding and Richard Beales
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

Bigger bucks come to Supreme Court clerks who wait. Top U.S. law firms are offering $280,000 signing bonuses to lure the young attorneys who work with America’s nine top judges. But many do stints with the government first. A new Breakingviews calculator shows how that path can be financially smarter over the long run.

Forming ECON Team 4 is next president’s top task

By Rob Cox and Daniel Indiviglio
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

Mitt Romney says the first day of his presidency would be exceptionally busy. The former Massachusetts governor has promised to overturn two of his predecessor’s landmark legislative achievements, the Affordable Healthcare Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill; he would approve the Keystone energy pipeline from Canada, introduce sweeping tax cuts and brand China a currency manipulator.