Media Navel Gaze: October 12, 2015
The Week Unpeeled
Let's just call it "Surprise Week": In what seemed to be a surprise (just like the Arab Spring, perhaps), the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, a civil rights group now known to the world as the force behind the push toward democracy following the Jasmine Revolution in 2011; Another winner (and maybe less surprising) for the prestigious award was Belarussian journalist Svetlana Alexievich (Literature) for her work on female Russian soldiers in WWII and the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown; the Economics prize will be announced Monday.
Elsewhere:
- Big Surprise: Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy way unexpectedly dropped out of race of speaker, leaving a big mess behind for the Republican party and a leadership vacuum;
- Probably not a surprise but a bigger headline than really needed: Bill Gross sued Pimco for forced exit at the tune of $300 million;
- Smaller headlines but bigger news: the OECD voted on new rules that would reform corporate taxes for global companies, meaning Starbucks, Google and others may be paying bigger taxes in lieu of their tax-haven strategies;
- The Democratic presidential debate plays Tuesday in Las Vegas, with Veep Biden still a no show and curiosity a bit high whether the event receives as many viewers with no Trump;
- Dell and Silverlake joined forces in a bid to buy EMC;
- The Dow (this is a welcome surprise) closed out the week 3.7 percent higher and ended Friday at 17,084;
- Hackers attacked Dow Jones for subscriber data (always a surprise);
- Start your engines because Ferrari (not Kristina) filed for an IPO valued at nearly $10 billion; and
- Instagram turned five last week and in celebration listed its five most popular accounts: no surprises but Taylor Swift came out on top, followed by "human brand" Kim Kardashian, then Beyonce, Selena and Ariana (Instagram needs a man plan!);
LatAm Gaze:
- Brazil's political woes continued as the country's Federal Accounts Court ("TCU") rejected her government's accounting practices, labeling them as illegal and further fueling the fire for those demanding President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment.
- In a Sunday Facebook post, Argentine Presidential candidate Mauricio Macri called for a consolidation of anti-government political parties, warning opposition voters that the current plethora of anti-government political groups could result in the absence of any one opposition party holding a strong enough majority to take down the current government regime. Argentina's presidential elections are on Sunday, October 25th.
- Perú's government pledged US$123 million in future investments by 2019 into its national police force.
- Mexico's national men's soccer team, in the debut of new manager Juan Carlos Osorio, eeked out a hard-fought overtime win versus their US counterparts, securing a berth in the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia.
