Bloomberg Opinion

There are legitimate concerns about the economics of #Hollywood, but #Trump’s idea to address them is absurd, writes Jason Bailey for Bloomberg Opinion. How would one even impose a #tariff on “movies”? This is an art form. It’s not like a car or a television, where you purchase the individual parts and assemble them into a product that comes over in a shipping container. Not to mention, a tariff would lead to a huge cultural losses. #Movies are particularly adept at exploring complex themes in a relatively tight time-frame; they are, and always have been, a universal language for the exchange of our individual stories, histories and ideas. The US has benefited greatly from this trade — so much so that Hollywood is considered one of the country’s soft powers. And it’s not a one-way street. Read more for free here: https://bit.ly/3GY3e59

The firing of Kohl’s CEO Ashley Buchanan last week for directing business to a romantic partner got me thinking about how much the board should have known about Buchanan's history. Failing to fully examine or take an executive's personal life into account increasingly looks like a mistake — especially as researchers keep building a body of work that indicates that the private lives of CEOs do impact their companies. 🔗 Read my column for Bloomberg Opinion on why it's time to reexamine just how private a “private life” can really be if you're the CEO. https://lnkd.in/eAQAp3Vn 📽 Or watch the video version:

According to Donald Trump, nothing terrible would have happened in the Middle East (or anywhere) during the past four years if only he had still been the 45th president in that time. And as the 47th president, he kept claiming for a while, he’ll bring “peace through strength” to that region and to Ukraine and other global hotspots. How’s that going? Trump seemed off to a good start. In the previous administration’s waning days, his special envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, helped to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a deal that had long eluded Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor and bugbear. That provisional truce was meant to lead to a more permanent solution. But in March Israel started bombing the Gaza Strip again. So: no ceasefire, no solution, no peace. The opposite, in fact. The Israeli cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu just mobilized tens of thousands of additional reservists and decided to expand, rather than wind down, the war in Gaza, with the objective of occupying more or less all of it indefinitely. Israel now threatens to flatten the Strip’s remaining buildings and displace the entire population of 2 million if Hamas doesn’t surrender by May 15, when Trump plans to visit the Middle East. That’s another way of saying ... (Read the whole column with this gift link) Bloomberg Opinion https://bit.ly/3Z6afqR

When's the last time you used a floppy disk? It seems crazy that anyone would be reliant on a technology that was phased out in 2010, yet Thomas Black says “air traffic controllers are working with equipment that is decades old, adding to their stress levels." Read my latest Bloomberg Opinion newsletter on why airports across the nation are at risk of flying blind. https://lnkd.in/eEk5kFKJ

Even though Warren Buffett is 94 and decades past the average retirement age, the end of his run as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway was always going to come as a shock. But it’s given investors some comfort that, while they never knew when that day would arrive, they at least knew who would replace him. In 2021, Buffett announced Greg Abel as his successor, and would go on to use the subsequent years to hype him up. Berkshire stands out for its transparency on a governance issue that makes most other companies cagey. The default for boards and CEOs is guarding their succession plans like a state secret, shrouding the whole process in mystery. Until 2021, Berkshire operated that way, too. But at the Berkshire annual meeting that year, Buffett's former longtime vice chairman and righthand man Charlie Munger, who died in 2023, accidently let it slip in an onstage exchange with Buffett. Thanks to Munger’s gaffe, the company stumbled into a succession model that more companies should consider. Buffett gave Abel four years to prepare for the handoff; for most CEOs, it’s a matter of mere months between the announcement and start date. My latest for Bloomberg Opinion. https://lnkd.in/eAqZpEfy

Even though Warren Buffett is 94 and decades past the average retirement age, the end of his run as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway was always going to come as a shock. But it’s given investors some comfort that, while they never knew when that day would arrive, they at least knew who would replace him. In 2021, Buffett announced Greg Abel as his successor, and would go on to use the subsequent years to hype him up. Berkshire stands out for its transparency on a governance issue that makes most other companies cagey. The default for boards and CEOs is guarding their succession plans like a state secret, shrouding the whole process in mystery. Until 2021, Berkshire operated that way, too. But at the Berkshire annual meeting that year, Buffett's former longtime vice chairman and righthand man Charlie Munger, who died in 2023, accidently let it slip in an onstage exchange with Buffett. Thanks to Munger’s gaffe, the company stumbled into a succession model that more companies should consider. Buffett gave Abel four years to prepare for the handoff; for most CEOs, it’s a matter of mere months between the announcement and start date. My latest for Bloomberg Opinion. https://lnkd.in/eAqZpEfy

If your insurance company ditches you in the middle of open-heart surgery, leaving you with the full tab, you’ll probably go bankrupt despite years of paying premiums to avoid just that fate. State and local governments face a similar future if and when President Donald Trump cuts off FEMA and other federal disaster relief in an era of supercharged natural disasters. If he has his way, many places risk becoming like western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene: bogged down in a slow recovery that devastates the local economy, saps municipal finances and makes it even harder to withstand the next destructive storm. And poor rural counties that often voted overwhelmingly for Trump face the biggest risks of all. Gift link to my column for Bloomberg Opinion https://lnkd.in/erQdXJcv

According to Donald Trump, nothing terrible would have happened in the Middle East (or anywhere) during the past four years if only he had still been the 45th president in that time. And as the 47th president, he kept claiming for a while, he’ll bring “peace through strength” to that region and to Ukraine and other global hotspots. How’s that going? Trump seemed off to a good start. In the previous administration’s waning days, his special envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, helped to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, a deal that had long eluded Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor and bugbear. That provisional truce was meant to lead to a more permanent solution. But in March Israel started bombing the Gaza Strip again. So: no ceasefire, no solution, no peace. The opposite, in fact. The Israeli cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu just mobilized tens of thousands of additional reservists and decided to expand, rather than wind down, the war in Gaza, with the objective of occupying more or less all of it indefinitely. Israel now threatens to flatten the Strip’s remaining buildings and displace the entire population of 2 million if Hamas doesn’t surrender by May 15, when Trump plans to visit the Middle East. That’s another way of saying ... (Read the whole column with this gift link) Bloomberg Opinion https://bit.ly/3Z6afqR

Technology projects that could have helped avoid Newark airport’s 90-second blackout have been bogged down for years and can’t be delayed any longer, says Thomas Black. Read why the floppy-disk era of air traffic control has to end urgently: https://lnkd.in/eTxfWTaP

If I were voting in the papal conclave (and I'm still waiting on my invite), I'd pick another pope like Francis: somebody who takes the climate seriously. While America retreats from climate action, the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics can keep making the moral case for pushing in the other direction. My video for Bloomberg Opinion And my column, if you'd rather read words: https://lnkd.in/e9ExFnYs #conclave #climate