This report marks the end of a series of three big trains of thought. The first explained how we’re living through the Mother Of All Financial Bubbles. The next detailed the Great Wealth Transfer that is now underway, siphoning our wealth into the pockets of an elite few. This concluding report predicts how these deleterious and unsustainable trends will inevitably ‘resolve’ (which is a pleasant way of […]
My dad bought me a Nintendo to celebrate my first birthday in 1988, despite it being quite obvious the gift was intended for himself. Over the years though, I managed to develop some semblance of motor skills and we began taking turns playing Mario. I bonded with siblings over beating a boss in Zelda and fought with my cousins over who got to play Star Fox next. […]
SANA, Yemen — An airstrike by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia on an open market in western Yemen killed at least 16 people, United Nations and local officials said Saturday. The attack late Friday hit a market selling khat, a mild stimulant common in Yemen, setting off a fire and leaving the dead and wounded scattered in the wreckage. هذة المجزرة ارتكبها اليوم #ال_سعود في […]
A profusion of biotechnology products is expected over the next five to 10 years, and the number and diversity of new products has the potential to overwhelm the U.S. regulatory system, says a new report. (via WSJ)
By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Toby Sterling | ANKARA/AMSTERDAM ANKARA/AMSTERDAM The Netherlands on Saturday banned Turkey’s Foreign Minister from flying to Rotterdam as a highly emotional dispute over Ankara’s campaigning among emigre Turks in support of new powers for President Tayyip Erdogan spread through Europe. The announcement came hours after Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the Netherlands was treating Turkish citizens like hostages in hindering their contact […]
The world is facing its biggest humanitarian crisis since the end of the second world war, with 20m people facing starvation and famine in Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria, the UN has warned. UN’s humanitarian chief, Stephen O’Brien, told the Security Council on Friday evening that $4.4bn was needed in the next four months to address the escalating situation. “Without collective and co-ordinated global efforts, people […]
Burkhard Varnholt last week paid €14 for lunch for two people at a smart restaurant in Berlin. “The euro is so cheap,” says Credit Suisse’s deputy chief investment officer. It is cheap because of one factor: Marine Le Pen. In normal circumstances, the euro would be trading a lot higher on the back of the eurozone’s record current account surplus, an unemployment rate at its lowest in […]
In the eternal search for next generation high-efficiency solar cells and LEDs, scientists are creating innovative 2-D layered hybrid perovskites that allow greater freedom in designing and fabricating efficient optoelectronic devices. Industrial and consumer applications could include low cost solar cells, LEDs, laser diodes, detectors, and other nano-optoelectronic devices. (via WSJ)
The tier gives limited access to 15 services. (Image: Google) Stressing its fundamental commitment to openness, Google on Friday announced that it’s adding a free tier to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The tier gives limited access to 15 services, including Google Compute Engine (1 f1-micro instance per month in US regions and 30GB-months HDD), Google Cloud Storage (5GB a month), Google Pub/Sub (10GB of messages a […]
Earlier this week, the Hattiesburg American announced a big change: Starting next month, they’re cutting print from seven days a week down to three. Nathan Edwards, president of the Hattiesburg American, wrote on Wednesday about the change as a way to build on a digital-first approach to the news. Our research shows subscribers are increasingly choosing to access the American online via our website, mobile and tablet […]
Hopes for a new way to trade bitcoin were dealt a blow on Friday when US regulators rejected an application that would have let the Winklevoss twins launch an exchange traded fund tracking the digital currency. The Securities and Exchange Commission said it would not allow Bats Global Markets to list shares of the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust based on concerns that “significant markets for bitcoin are unregulated”. […]
The two most powerful men in the world oil market appeared together in Houston on Tuesday to tell the world that their strategy was on track. In December, Khalid al-Falih and Alexander Novak, the energy ministers of Saudi Arabia and Russia, orchestrated a 24-nation plan to cut oil output in the first half of 2017. This week they spoke to reporters in a hotel conference room at the […]
LOS ANGELES Starbucks Corp on Friday said its business has not been hurt by a social media boycott campaign started in response to the chain’s promise to hire 10,000 refugees globally over the next five years. Starbucks made its Jan. 29 refugee hiring announcement on the heels of President Donald Trump’s first executive order that temporarily banned travel from seven mostly Muslim nations. The move angered some […]
The Wikum interface provides readers with detailed summaries of online discussions. Credit: Jason Dorfman/MIT CSAIL From Reddit to Quora, discussion forums can be equal parts informative and daunting. We’ve all fallen down rabbit holes of lengthy threads that are impossible to sift through. Comments can be redundant, off-topic or even inaccurate, but all that content is ultimately still there for us to try and untangle. Sick of […]
Given the amount of Panameras you see on the roads here, you have to conclude that Porsche’s luxury family-moving saloon was a sizeable driver in the company’s significant rise in sales in the region last year. How heavily environmental concerns weighed on buyers’ minds while handing over their hard-earned cash – or if anybody at all decided against it in favour of holding out for an all-wheel […]
When Rex Tillerson visits Japan and South Korea next week, the new US secretary of state will not escape the whispers back home: the former ExxonMobil chief executive has been all but invisible since arriving in Washington. In his first weeks as the top US diplomat, the Texan has been conspicuously low-profile. His silence has fuelled concerns that President Donald Trump intends to downgrade diplomacy — and […]
The way that markets are reported affects the way they are perceived, and the way that investors behave. So can the way journalists report the markets be measured? Are we doing a good job? Historically, it appears that we are not. This week, Diego Garcia of the University of Colorado at Boulder presented a paper to a conference on journalism and markets at Columbia Business School. Entitled […]
Canada’s Postmedia company is laying off more than 50 employees at The Vancouver Sun and Province after a months-long buyout process aimed at cutting the company’s payroll. Fifty-four union employees are being laid off as of April 8, according to a memo from Brian Norris, the director of human resources for the The Vancouver Sun and Province. The company is asking for volunteers, who will each receive […]
By Alastair Sharp | TORONTO TORONTO Three families who helped shelter former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in Hong Kong in 2013 after his mass leak of information about surveillance programs have asked Canada for asylum, their lawyer said on Friday. The families – three Sri Lankan adults, a Filipina, and three stateless children – have had long-pending asylum claims in Hong Kong that they […]
By Caroline Valetkevitch | NEW YORK NEW YORK U.S. stocks rose on Friday after a solid jobs report pointed to strength in the domestic economy and supported expectations the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week. Indexes ended lower for the week, however, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq breaking a six-week streak of gains. Government data showed 235,000 jobs were added in the public and […]
A Chinese property developer constructing a huge housing project in southern Malaysia has become the latest corporate victim of Beijing’s crackdown on capital flight. Country Garden has closed showrooms in mainland China for its flagship $100bn Forest City development in response to measures by Chinese regulators that have made it harder for individuals to move money out of the country. A slowing Chinese economy, rising US interest rates […]
“It sucks,” says Mike Mayo. One of the more visible Wall Street analysts, Mr Mayo lost his job last week when CLSA, the Chinese-owned broker which had employed him, abruptly shuttered its US research operations. At 4.15pm last Monday, as Mr Mayo tells it, he was summoned to an all-hands meeting. At 4.20pm he and 89 others were let go. He went to FedEx to buy nine […]
WASHINGTON A series of tweets by White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Friday commenting on strong February job creation figures may have run afoul of federal guidance barring most officials from commenting on key economic data within an hour of its release. The rule, Statistical Policy Directive Number 3, is meant to “preserve the distinction between the policy-neutral release of data by statistical agencies and their interpretation […]
Materials researchers have created a nanofiber that could help enable the next generation of rechargeable batteries and increase the efficiency of hydrogen production from water electrolysis. (via WSJ)
