Category: Economy

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Economy Trump And The World

Trump Ethics And Conflicts Of Interest: What Happens Now?

Ivanka and Donald Trump at the inauguration last month of their new Washington D.C. hotel
Ivanka and Donald Trump at the inauguration last month of their new Washington D.C. hotel Evan Golub via ZUMA

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump will face wide-ranging questions about his ethics and integrity from the moment he enters the White House in January. The president-elect says he’ll turn over his vast financial holdings to his kids. But many doubt a blind trust will insulate him completely, potentially exposing him to conflicts of interest or the appearance of such conflicts on a range of domestic and foreign issues as no president before. During the campaign, Trump branded his opponents with nicknames such as “Lyin Ted” and “Crooked Hillary.” Yet more than Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton, he lied and shrewdly assumed […]

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Economy Geopolitics

What A Trump Or Clinton Victory Would Mean For Markets

A file photo of fluctuating currency prices in Buenos Aires
A file photo of fluctuating currency prices in Buenos Aires Martin Zabala/Xinhua/ZUMA

While markets have already expressed short-term preferences for the respective U.S. presidential candidates, the long-term impact is harder to gauge.

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Economy Geopolitics

When Brexit Hits Cyprus, Isle Of Offshore Banking And British Expats

Cyprus landscape
Cyprus landscape Steve Parker

Britain’s decision to leave the EU is having a ripple effect on the island nation of Cyprus, where ex-pats and tourism operators are already feeling the pinch. But there may be a more long-term windfall in the finance industry.

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Economy Future

In China, Local Governments Crack Down On Sharing Economy

Chinese ride-sharing app Didi Chuxing
Chinese ride-sharing app Didi Chuxing jetsettersreal via Instagram

Mirroring some of the battles Uber has faced in cities around the world, local car-hailing apps in China like Didi Chuxing are getting heat from municipal administrations trying to protect the status quo.

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Economy Ideas

Political Intrusion, The Eternal Poison For Central Banks

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi
European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi Arne Dedert/DPA via ZUMA

LONDON — In most of the developed world, central banks are free to set monetary policy without the interference of those who depend on voters for their employment. That independence, though, is “not set in stone,” as former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noted in his September 2007 memoirs. And there are worrying signs that, against the current backdrop of record-low interest rates, politicians are tempted to start meddling. The latest attack on independence comes from a very unlikely source. In an article for the Telegraph newspaper published on Tuesday, former U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague wrote that “central bankers […]

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Economy Eyes on the U.S.

The German Car, Europe’s Last Stand Against U.S. Corporate Hegemony

Apple Store, Regent Street, London
Apple Store, Regent Street, London Ian Muttoo

In 2015, Apple earned more than the five most profitable companies in Europe combined.

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Economy Geopolitics Ideas

No, The West Is Not In Decline

Holding steady
Holding steady Marcus Pink

Europe, the United States and other parts of the so-called West may not be booming, but they’re not about to be superseded either. Quite the contrary, in fact.

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Economy Geopolitics Ideas

Why Energy-Rich Bolivia Is Mired In Economic Crisis

Pipeline in Sencata central station, Bolivia
Pipeline in Sencata central station, Bolivia Antonio Suarez/DPA/ZUMA

Like other Latin American countries, Bolivia has squandered commodity revenue and failed to make the hard reforms necessary to bolster the economy for the long haul.

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Economy Future Geopolitics

“Upcycling” — Turning Trash Into Products To Create Zero Waste

Stepping into the world of upcycling
Stepping into the world of upcycling knotandgrain via Instagram

PARIS — Can we one day live in a world where there’s zero trash? A German chemist named Michael Braungart believes it is possible. He encourages companies to put a complete end to waste in The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability — Designing for Abundance, a book he co-wrote with U.S. architect and designer William McDonough. “The […]

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Economy Ideas Society

Globalization And Wealth Inequality, The German Counter-Case

A Porsche factory in Liepzig, Germany
A Porsche factory in Liepzig, Germany Jan Woitas/DPA via ZUMA

There are various reasons the wage and wealth gap is growing, but in Europe’s strongest economy it makes no sense to blame the global marketplace.

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Economy Society

In Philippines, Seeking Environmental Justice 20 Years After Mining Disaster

Elisa Hernandez used to earn a living washing her community’s laundry
Elisa Hernandez used to earn a living washing her community’s laundry Jason Strother

MARINDUQUE — Elisa Hernandez dips her yellow blouse into the Boac River’s rushing water and then slaps it up against the shoreline’s gray stones. The 73-year-old used to earn a living washing her whole community’s laundry this way. “We felt at home in this river … It was so clean, we played in it and we used to catch a lot of fish here too,” she says. But that all changed in March 1996, when a drainage pipe inside a copper mine burst about 20 kilometers upstream. Millions of tons of toxic mine waste, including lead and arsenic, flooded into […]

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Economy Geopolitics

How Agribusiness And Corruption Swallow Small Farmers In Russia

Farmers in Yerban, Russia
Farmers in Yerban, Russia Tatiana Bulyonkova

Millions of Russians were given plots of land when the former USSR collapsed. Now, as land rises in value, small farmers are the targets of intimidation of powerful forces.

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Economy Ideas

Will Algorithms Make Financial Advisers Obsolete?

WALL-E Street
WALL-E Street frankieleon

Financial advice from computers could help private investors make more rational, efficient and profitable decisions. But even if a human element is irreplaceable, the humans in the industry must adapt.

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Economy

That Billion-Dollar War Between The EU And U.S. Just Got Nastier

That Billion-Dollar War Between The EU And U.S. Just Got Nastier
Jan Scheunert/ZUMA

Brussels punishes Apple and the call from Washington follows promptly: Deutsche Bank owes them $14 billion. The race for the White House doesn’t help matters.

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Economy Ideas

Cuba Embraces Free Market, China-Style

Flag-raising ceremony at the U.S. embassy in Havana
Flag-raising ceremony at the U.S. embassy in Havana Liu Bin/Xinhua/ZUMA

Whatever the hopes for Cuba, the country’s regime seems keen to follow the profit model for the economy to shore up its political grip. Just like China and Russia.

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Economy

How Robert McNamara And The Whiz Kids Invented Big Data

Robert McNamara in 1966
Robert McNamara in 1966 Keystone Press Agency/Keystone USA via ZUMA

History mostly knows him as the disgraced architect of the Vietnam War, but McNamara first made his mark in the corporate world with his mastery of numbers before it was as fashionable as it is today.

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Economy Geopolitics

No Post-Brexit Vote Apocalypse For UK Economy — Yet?

No Post-Brexit Vote Apocalypse For UK Economy — Yet?
Lars Hagberg/ZUMA

PARIS — So far, so good. The collapse of the British economy predicted by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, in a case of a Brexit victory, has not materialized. The services sector, which represents 80% of the UK’s GDP even rebounded unexpectedly in August, and business activity recovered its level of March, […]

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Economy

Juncker’s Irony, EU Leads Fight Against Tax Evasion As Apple Gets Hit

President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker
President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker EurActiv

The EU Commission is taking a tough stance on tax evasion, as shown with the 13 billion euro bill leveled at Apple.

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Economy

Why Oil Firms Are Pumped About The Colombia Peace Deal

Worker on petroleum platform in Colombia
Worker on petroleum platform in Colombia El Tiempo/GDA/ZUMA

Decades of civil war have ravaged Colombia’s environment and undermined opportunities at oil exploration. Now with peace looming, big and small firms alike are ready to pursue the government’s “sustainable” energy plan.

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Economy Ideas

A Corporate Lesson For All From The French Submarine Leak

A Scorpene-class submarine in Malaysia
A Scorpene-class submarine in Malaysia Mak Hon Keong/GFDL

In big and small companies alike, security risks have entered a whole new era.

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Economy Society

From Fashion To Truffle Hunting, A Businessman’s Tale

Serge Desazars stops and smells the truffles
Serge Desazars stops and smells the truffles Facebook page

CHINON — Serge Desazars’ bodyguards are very hairy. Hip-Hop, a two-year-old Springer, jumps whenever a new visitor arrives. Serge lets out a smile, surreptitiously materializing on the unemotional farmer’s face. Hip-Hop is clearly too playful for this former international director for the clothing brands Petit Bateau, Céline and Holland & Holland. Desazars, who abandoned carpeted […]

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Economy Ideas

Little Talked About, This Issue Can Choke Colombia’s Peace Deal Down The Line

Colombian farmers in a field
Colombian farmers in a field John Spaull/Axiom/ZUMA

-Analysis- BOGOTÁ — Decades of civil conflict and the formation of the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) could be attributed in part to the struggle for land in this Latin American nation. That’s why land was one of the most important issues in FARC’s peace negotiations with the government. A historic deal was […]

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Economy Geopolitics

Giant Ghost Town Reflects What’s Wrong With China’s Economic Model

Giant Ghost Town Reflects What's Wrong With China's Economic Model
Massive construction in Lanzhou New Area morseanthony via Instagram

LANZHOU NEW AREA This city is supposed to be the diamond’s on China’s Silk Road Economic Belt a new metropolis carved out of the mountains in the country’s arid northwest. But it is shaping up to be fool’s gold, a ghost city in the making. Lanzhou New Area, in Gansu province, embodies China’s twin dreams of catapulting its poorer western regions into the economic mainstream through an orgy of infrastructure spending and cementing its place at the heart of Asia through a revival of the ancient Silk Road. Hundreds of hills on the dry, sandy Loess Plateau were flattened by […]

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Economy

Can Latin America’s Economy Rebound? Keep An Eye On Brazil

Posters advertising jobs in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo
Posters advertising jobs in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo Cris Faga via ZUMA

Capital flows back into Latin America suggest Brazil’s economic free fall may have stopped.

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Economy Ideas

Downsizing The Olympics: Multiple Hosts, Sharing Economy

Construction site in Rio just before the Olympics opened
Construction site in Rio just before the Olympics opened Xu Zijian/Xinhua via ZUMA

-Analysis- RIO DE JANEIRO — Andrew Zimbalist’s Circus Maximus is a book well worth a read. In it, the author — a U.S. economist specialized in the sports industry — argues that there’s a growing consensus among economists that playing host to a mega-event like the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup is a […]

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Economy

Why The Internet Giants Can’t Crack The Chinese Market

Both Didi and Uber were taking aim at traditional taxis
Both Didi and Uber were taking aim at traditional taxis Long Wei/Xinhua via ZUMA

No, it’s mostly not about censorship …

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Economy

The Apple-Samsung War Turns 10

Stop fighting already
Stop fighting already Karlis Dambrans

The two tech giants are engaged in an all-out struggle for market supremacy. Samsung may sell more smartphones, but Apple generates more profit. Where will each turn next?

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Economy Society

State Of Denial: Malawi’s Tobacco Farming Addiction

Preparing tobacco in Lilongwe, Malawi
Preparing tobacco in Lilongwe, Malawi khym54

Not many people in the southeast African nation smoke tobacco. They can’t afford it. But the country is hooked on growing it and turns a blind eye to the associated risks, especially for child laborers.

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Economy Society

China Grapples With Baby Boom In The Year Of The Monkey

Newborns at a maternity in Lanzhou, northwestern China, on Feb. 17
Newborns at a maternity in Lanzhou, northwestern China, on Feb. 17 Chen Bin/Xinhua/ZUMA

BEIJING — “Our little monkey has decided to join the fun,” said Lucy, a 33-year-old woman expecting her first child this October. She’s one of many happy Chinese women due to give birth in the year of the monkey, an animal that is associated with cleverness in the Chinese zodiac calendar. A Founder Securities report […]

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Economy Future

Is The Big Mac Index Obsolete?

Not so big anymore
Not so big anymore Emanuele

Japan’s Nomura company thinks technology prices tell us more about currency comparisons than fast food.

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Economy Geopolitics

Darknet, Inside An Illicit German Weapons Ring On The Internet

Darknet, Inside An Illicit German Weapons Ring On The Internet
Pixabay/Worldcrunch montage

Criminals of the 21st century do not have to go to clubs to sell their drugs or drive across the border to buy their weapons. They only have to smuggle malware onto someone’s computer or sell their goods at the black market of the digital underground.

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Economy Society

Good News Finally For Brazil: New Train On Time For Rio Olympics

New VLT Network
New VLT Network Graciela Gioberchio

RIO DE JANEIRO — Authorities in Rio de Janeiro have inaugurated the first part of a light city railway designed to ferry about hundreds of thousands of visitors and sports players arriving in the Brazilian city for the Olympic games due to start in August. The new VLT network, a multinational project involving firms like […]

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Economy Future Society

When Progress Kills Jobs, Facing The AI Employment Trap

The Progression Of Artificial Intelligence
The Progression Of Artificial Intelligence Jeff Rense and Roman Yampolsky

Technology is bringing us closer to Artificial Intelligence, which will undeniably wreak havoc with employment for millions worldwide. Smart solutions are needed now.

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Economy Geopolitics Ideas

How A Wider Panama Canal Can Free Panama From Its Past

A vessel passes through the Panama Canal in the city of Colon.
A vessel passes through the Panama Canal in the city of Colon. Presidency Of Panama

From a republic struggling to rid itself from overbearing U.S. influence, then its own political shenanigans, Panama has come of age as a sovereign state.

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Economy Future

Qwant It! French Search Engine Takes On Google By Protecting Your Privacy

Don't Google it
Don't Google it Helene Snyder/Worldcrunch

PARIS — For more than three years now, the French startup Qwant has been trying to prove that a search engine can be efficient and profitable while respecting the privacy and anonymity of users. After a slow and difficult start, Qwant is finally taking off. Six months ago the search engine had 8 million visitors. […]

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Economy Geopolitics

China Fights Rampant Counterfeiting Of French Wine

At the Bordeaux and Aquitaine Wine Festival in Wuhan, central China
At the Bordeaux and Aquitaine Wine Festival in Wuhan, central China Xiao Yijiu/Xinhua/ZUMA

BEIJING — Beijing recently announced that it would start to recognize a selection of French wines in China, a country where counterfeiting of prominent French wine brands is common. The announcement, made at the G20 agricultural ministers meeting in China, is a victory for France. China will now recognize 45 Bordeaux wines that have the […]

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Economy Future

Could Design Be The Next Frontier Of Innovation In China?

At the Design Intelligence Awards in Hangzhou on May 8
At the Design Intelligence Awards in Hangzhou on May 8 Xu Yu/Xinhua/ZUMA

To understand why design is important, take a look at Silicon Valley. Forty-two design firms in the U.S. technology hub have been bought up since 2004. About half these acquisitions were made this past year alone. The 25 startups that got the most venture capital financing were founded by designers. Google snapped up the two-person […]

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Economy Future Society

Digital Totalitarianism: How Big Data Is Killing Free Will

Apple's New York flagship store
Apple's New York flagship store Cathy Baird

Humans are being degraded to the status of objects of an algorithm-based evaluation to be sold on the market. This exploitative form of “hypercapitalism” must quickly be reversed.

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Economy Geopolitics

Looking Back At Brexit, A Decade From Now

Union Jack Is Back
Union Jack Is Back Wiktor Dabkowski/ZUMA

PARIS — The two French visitors just couldn’t get over it. “Why were you wrong again?” the elderly English lady asked them with a severe, inquisitive tone. The woman, Queen Elizabeth II, should have had other things on her mind. It was April 21, 2026, after all, her 100th birthday, and the whole planet seemed […]

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Economy Geopolitics

How Brexit Could Be A Boon For Switzerland

Businessmen by Lake Zurich
Businessmen by Lake Zurich Sascha Erni, .rb

In Geneva and other Swiss cities, people are cautiously optimistic that Britain’s EU-exit vote could spur investment, boost real estate and maybe even help local universities.

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