Martin Sorrell resigned as chief executive of WPP following an internal investigation into unspecified personal misconduct（未知明员工的不当行为）. He denies the allegations. Sir Martin had led the group for 32 years, turning it into a global powerhouse in advertising and market research by acquiring agencies（收购的机构） such as Ogilvy & Mather and Kantar Media. But revenue growth stalled（停滞） in part because businesses cut advertising budgets（广告预算）; WPP has shed（丢掉） a third of its market value over the past two years. Sir Martin’s departure raises questions about whether the group will break itself up（自行拆分）.

Starbucks is to close its 8,000 cafés in America on May 29th so that employees can receive training on racial bias（种族偏见）. The coffee chain is responding to a social-media uproar sparked by the arrest at one of its stores in Philadelphia of two black men who had asked staff if they could use the lavatory reserved for customers.

Pick a number, any number

Tesla Motors wants to increase production of its mass-market（大众市场） Model 3 to 6,000 cars a week by the end of June, according to reports, in order to have some margin of error（不足） to meet the current target of 5,000. The company has struggled to reach its previous goals and is making around 2,000 Model 3s a week at present.

The Chinese government announced that it will scrap a rule（制订法规） that requires foreign carmakers to set up joint ventures with Chinese ones if they want to avoid import duties（进口关税）. This stipulation（规定） will end for electric vehicles（电动车） this year, a boon to Tesla’s hopes of opening a factory in China. It is a concession（让步） in the current dispute over trade between America and China, even though that row continues. This week China imposed a deposit of 179% on imports of sorghum（高粱） from America. The grain is used in livestock feed（喂养家禽） and in baijiu, a strong liquor.

American officials insisted that a ban on American companies from doing business with ZTE, a Chinese maker of telecoms equipment, was not linked to recent altercations on trade. Among the parts ZTE sources are superfast processors from Intel and Qualcomm. America maintains that ZTE has contravened a settlement（和解） reached last year over its sales of products to Iran and North Korea. It is the latest measure curtailing American links with Chinese telecoms suppliers, mostly on security grounds. .

Blockbuster

Netflix’s worldwide customer base grew to 125m people in the first quarter. It expects to pass 130m in the current quarter. The streaming company’s share price has risen by more than 70% so far this year.

The biggest banks in America reported a good set of earnings for the first three months of 2018. Bank of America and Morgan Stanley made quarterly net profits of $6.9bn and $2.7bn respectively, boosted by revenues from share trading（股票交易） during a comparatively turbulent period for markets. Goldman Sachs said its income from trading was up by 31% compared with the same quarter last year, helping it to a profit of $2.8bn. Profit at JPMorgan Chase came in at a record $8.7bn.

The IMF’s latest forecast for global growth painted a relatively rosy outlook for the world economy, which it said will benefit from America’s expansionary fiscal policy（扩展的财政政策）. It raised its projections（反映） for almost all the world’s advanced economies (bar Japan). But the fund also issued a stark warning about the rising level of global debt, which reached $164trn in 2016, higher than at the time of the financial crisis.  

A surprise fall in British consumer prices to 2.5%, marking a 12-month low, did not dampen economists’ expectations of an interest-rate rise by the Bank of England in May. In a double helping for household finances, average earnings grew at their fastest rate in the three months to February since the summer of 2015. But some households may still be struggling. Outstanding secured borrowing has grown by more than 3% in the past year.

China’s economy grew by 6.8% in the first quarter compared with the same three months last year.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that seeks to overturn（推翻） online retailers’ 26-year-old exemption（赦免） from collecting sales tax in states where they do not have a physical presence. Most states, and bricks-and-mortar retailers, think this gives e-commerce an unfair advantage. See article.

Some harmony at the Fed

Richard Clarida was nominated by President Donald Trump to be vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve, serving under Jerome Powell, the new chairman of the central bank. Mr Clarida is a widely respected professor of economics at Columbia University and worked on economic policy at the Treasury during the administration of George W. Bush. He is also a songwriter, releasing a CD of his own acoustics-heavy tunes in 2016.

来源：经济学人（2018.04.21）

注：昨天的“本周时政新闻综述”因故缺语音，点击“阅读原文”可获取语音版全文。