Share the View: Ukraine Aid Promises

Share The View

THE LATEST OPINIONS FROM BLOOMBERG VIEW

FEBRUARY 6, 2015 bloombergview.com

HEALTH-CARE REFORM The Editors: "A viable Republican substitute for Obamacare used to be the yeti of Capitol Hill: often talked about, never seen. But it has suddenly become real. This week, three leading Republican members of Congress offered a realistic plan for reform, one that accepts the need to provide all Americans access to health insurance." Read more... IMMIGRATION Francis Wilkinson: "It was inevitable that border security would be commandeered by immigration restrictionists in Congress. But the change of direction on border security has been even more abrupt than the transition from the Senate bill providing a legal path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the last Congress to the deport-'em-all posture Republicans have embraced in the past month." Read more... UKRAINE CRISIS Josh Rogin: "There's a large gap between what the U.S. has promised in nonlethal military aid to Ukraine's armed forces and national guard and what it has actually delivered." Read more... Leonid Bershidsky: Wednesday, "the Belarusian ruble was the year's worst-performing currency in the world." Yesterday, "after Ukraine's National Bank effectively floated the hryvnia, it overtook the neighboring country's currency in a race to the bottom." Read more... TECH Katie Benner: "The Federal Communications Commission has decided to regulate broadband service like a utility. ... As we wait for the details of the FCC plan to sort themselves out -- a process that will involve a lot of lawsuits and a lot of time -- one of the first companies to feel the impact will be Comcast." Read more... ASIA The Editors: "Watching Islamic State militants behead two Japanese hostages in quick succession has reinforced Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conviction that Japan needs to revise its pacifist postwar constitution. If he wants to ensure that his country has the strength to better respond to 21st-century threats, however, Abe will first have to stop relitigating the past."Read more... WALL STREET Matt Levine: "If you violate securities laws, the Securities and Exchange Commission will (one hopes) catch you and punish you. ... But another consequence is that you might automatically be barred for five years from making use of the exemption for private placements found in Rule 506 of Regulation D." Read more... ENTERTAINMENT Zara Kessler: "It doesn't open in theaters until next week, but already the Bible Belt is snatching up tickets to see 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' according to Fandango." Read more... @staceyssamuels (Stacey Shick Samuels): Go see "Birdman" for Michael Keaton's performance. Leave with insight into luck and inequality, says Stephen L. Carter: Read more... POLITICS Jonathan Bernstein: "Is the Republican Senate finally starting to take care of business? Two cabinet nominees, Loretta Lynch for attorney general and Ashton Carter for defense secretary, have had their Senate committee hearings, and will now move to final confirmation." Read more... WORK Megan McArdle: "Millennials don't want to work in sales, reports the Wall Street Journal. They think it's exploitative. They also hate the idea of variable compensation; they want a nice, steady job where the company takes the risk, not the worker." Read more... FOOD Justin Fox: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects U.S. pork production to surpass beef in 2015 for the first time since 1952. ... The pork-beef switch has come for reasons of both demand and supply." Read more... SPORTS Kavitha A. Davidson: "The lawsuit over the estate of New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson has everything you'd want in a drama: dysfunctional family dynamics, billions of dollars at stake, the money-grubbing wife versus the money-grubbing children, reports of senile ramblings, football and ... candy." Read more...