Breakingviews

Review: Censors are still China’s newsmakers

By Katrina Hamlin

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

China’s censorship system is in good working order. Despite recent protests and the advent of new media, the country’s propaganda machine is far from broken. As a new book makes clear, the news is made by the state and for the state.

Review: Latin America needs more Uribes

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

Latin America needs more leaders like Alvaro Uribe. “No Lost Causes,” the former Colombian president’s account of his administration, may at times be self-serving. But it shows how he helped turn a war-torn Colombia from a near-failed state to a top investment destination. Uribe’s security gains remain frail, but his successes dwarf those of his leftist peers in Latin America.

Review: Haiti’s unreconstructed disaster story

It is three years since a massive earthquake devastated Haiti. A new book by Jonathan Katz suggests that the ensuing international aid effort gave the stricken the Caribbean country all possible assistance, short of actual help. He suggests, indeed, that the outsiders did more harm than good.

Haiti’s crisis plucked at the world’s heart strings. Bill Clinton, Sean Penn and Angelina Jolie were among the famous names who stepped up as advocates for the dispossessed. Katz reports that $16.3 billion, much from the United States, was donated. But the effort fell woefully short. “The world came to save Haiti and left behind a disaster”, he writes.

Review: China’s red capitalism needs retooling

By Wei Gu
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

China’s authoritarian capitalism may be a victim of its own success. It is getting harder to satisfy a population that is devoid of ideology and which demands non-stop lifestyle improvements. Powerful state-owned companies are consuming the fruits of reform. Moreover, the system’s lack of checks and balances has led to widespread corruption. For China to thrive, it needs change its one-of-a-kind development model. That is the persuasive argument made by journalist-turned businessman James McGregor in his new book, “No Ancient Wisdom, No Followers”.

Review: Every monetary system needs a Paul Volcker

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

William Silber’s biography of Paul Volcker is rightly sympathetic to the man whose determination and integrity conquered U.S. inflation. When needed, he overcame opposition from politicians and academic economists. Yet once his work was done, policy slid back and his abilities were wasted.

Review: How a maverick CEO exposed a scandal at Olympus

By Quentin Webb

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

Society and markets need whistle-blowers. But it’s hard, lonely work. Michael Woodford’s “Exposure” details first-hand how the maverick executive blew the whistle on a $1.7 billion accounting scandal at Olympus, the company he ran. His integrity makes him a welcome outlier in an age of financial scandal.

Review: Why Polaroid faded away

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

Polaroid reinvented photography, but faded away. Christopher Bonanos’s “Instant: The Story of Polaroid” is a pacey history of the Apple of the analogue age.

Review: Embracing the psychopath within

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

If you’ve ever thought your boss is a psychopath, you may be right, according to psychologist Kevin Dutton. And if you’re a top-flight markets trader, captain of industry, surgeon or soldier, you may well be one yourself. But that’s OK, says Dutton. It may even be optimal.

Review: A practical guide to writing in Chinese

By Katrina Hamlin

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

Mo Yan may have won the Nobel, but in China celebrity blogger Han Han rules online. More than half a billion readers have visited his irreverent blog. He’s also a hit on Sina Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, where his first post attracted 750,000 followers.

Review: The danger of trading machines

By Martin Hutchinson

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

It’s a quarter-century since computerized program trading led to Black Monday on the U.S. stock market. A new and more advanced generation of arcane algorithms now threatens capital markets. That is the lesson of “Dark Pools,” a new book on machine-based equity trading by the Wall Street Journal’s Scott Patterson. The book is a great read – and raises an important question: could the trading machines destroy the capital markets?