Innholdsfortegnelse for November 18, 2022 i Newsweek International

2013 “The forces driving the bidding in these salerooms right now are much bigger than either Christie’s or Sotheby’s—or even the art market,” wrote Newsweek of the competition among major auction houses. “Over the past five years, a huge wave of global wealth has been swelling, transforming markets and industries across the globe.” Since 2013, the number of the world’s billionaires almost doubled from 1,426 to 2,668. In 2021, Sotheby’s and Christie’s sales each amounted to about $7 billion. In May, Christie’s sold Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn for a record $195 million. 1983 “‘The Day After’ has already emerged as the single biggest mobilizing point for the antinuclear movement,” Newsweek said, forcing us “to graphically experience the ground-zero agonies.” Fear of nuclear war still grips the world today.…

You worked at GE Capital in the ’80s. How did a company that started out making light bulbs end up with such a high-powered financing arm? At that time, GE Capital was important, but not as important as it became during the following 15 years. It was willing to take chances on companies that few others would, but it expected to get paid for its risk-taking, something I admired. Jack [Welch] saw the arbitrage opportunity between the extremely low-cost at which GE could borrow—given its AAA-credit rating—and what it could charge borrowers. Jack just kept pushing that advantage into all sorts of interesting business lines—from financing leveraged buyouts (which I did) to financing auto inventories and manufactured-home communities—and then to opportunities around the world. Which parts of Jack Welch’s management…

AFTER MONTHS OF RECORD-BREAKING price increases on food, gas and other basics of everyday life, it’s never been more important to bank with a financial institution that helps you maximize the power of every dollar. While no bank or credit union offers payouts that come close to keeping pace with inflation, institutions have been steadily hiking rates this year in response to the Federal Reserve’s record interest-rate increases. Last October, the average savings account paid just 0.06 percent interest. Today, that’s up to 0.21 percent, and top-yielding accounts offer more than 3 percent. Payouts haven’t been that high since 2010. Still, that’s just a drop in the proverbial bucket compared with the staggering 8.2 percent annualized rise in consumer prices over the past 12 months. That makes top rates…

General Electric has a storied history and was the ultimate blue-chip stock. Electrical power pioneers Thomas Edison and Charles Coffin merged their enterprises in 1892 to become General Electric. The company grew into a household name, synonymous with everything from household appliances to jet engines to financial services, but 130 years after its rise, the huge conglomerate that was GE is being sold for parts. How and why this happened is the story bestselling author and financial journalist William D. Cohan tells in his new book, power failure: the rise and fall of an american icon (Portfolio). In this exclusive excerpt, Cohan describes his meeting with 20-year GE CEO Jack Welch—and Welch’s stinging rebuke of his successor, whom he blamed for GE’s demise. IT WAS AT THE EXCLUSIVE NANTUCKET GOLF…

SOME DRAMATIC ACTORS HAVE AN UNDERLYING ELEMENT OF HUMOR TO them. David Duchovny is one of them. “I look for the opposite and whatever it is, I’m doing.” In the new ensemble comedy The Estate (November 4), Duchovny joins Toni Collette and Anna Faris as dysfunctional family members looking to inherit money from a dying aunt (Kathleen Turner). “I feel like I’m a comedian who’s drawn not like what people think of as a comedian.” Next month, Duchovny will expand his published works (he’s written five bestselling novels) with Kepler (Dark Horse Books, December 27), his first graphic novel, co-written with Phillip Sevy. New to the genre, Duchovny says “I didn’t grow up reading comic books” but that the premise—a sci-fi allegory thriller in the style of Planet of the…