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“Standard & Poor’s downgraded Ireland‘s long-term sovereign credit rating to AA- from AA because of the high cost to prop up that country’s financial sector. The outlook is negative. “The downgrade reflects our opinion that the rising budgetary cost of supporting the Irish financial sector will further weaken the government’s fiscal flexibility over the medium term,” said Trevor Cullinan, an S&P credit analyst, in a statement.”
[via MarketWatch]
“This is an analysis from Denmark’s Labor Market Commission. Many people simply stay unemployd because of the benefits.”
[via Coyote Blog]
This is what The New York Times reported last week:
“For years, Denmark was held out as a model to countries with high unemployment and as a progressive touchstone to liberals in the United States. The Danes, despite their lavish social welfare state, managed to keep joblessness remarkably low.
![[Hafenstrasse, Copenhagen, Denmark] (LOC)](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3108/3174172031_08d8592362_m.jpg "[Hafenstrasse, Copenhagen, Denmark] (LOC)")
Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr
But now Denmark, which allows employers to hire and fire at will while relying on an elaborate system of training, subsidies for those between jobs and aggressive measures to press the unemployed into available openings, is facing its own strains. As a result, it is beginning to tighten up.
Struggling to keep its budget under control after the financial crisis, the government in June cut into its benefits system, the world’s most generous, by limiting unemployment payments to two years instead of four.”
Full story: Denmark Starts to Trim Its Admired Safety Net.
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“China’s no. 1 manufacturer of eReaders is writing a memorable tale of its own this year as brisk sales fuel profits and the wealth of its main owners.
Hanwang Technology, which also goes by the name Hanvon Technology, said today net profit in the first six months of the year more than quadrupled to 87 million yuan, or $12.8 million, from 21 million yuan a year earlier. Sales climbed to 674.4 million yuan from 176 million yuan.
Shares in the company, which went public in China this March at a IPO price of 41.9 yuan each, as of yesterday had climbed by more than two and a half times to 108.51 yuan per share.”
[via Russel Flannery @China Wealth]
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“Much of the decline can be explained by the expiration of the home buyer’s tax credit, which probably pulled some home purchases forward that might have otherwise occurred in July or later.
Besides the dent this is going to put in the housing component of gross domestic product, economists are probably worrying about what kind of effect the soft housing market might have on consumer behavior.Fewer housing purchases mean fewer purchases of housing-related consumer products. A weak housing market also means that consumers might feel poorer, and therefore be less likely to spend in general even if their incomes rise. This phenomenon is known as the wealth effect.
Full story on the Economix Blog here.
Image via Wikipedia
“The main sellers are white, black and the grey tones. Fourth comes yellow. But this is not, let’s say, something we planned. For example in Geneva we had the green one as the launch color for the Superleggera, so we’re trying always to have new things to show and to link to and even to try to get the customers to think about the cars in a different way.
We want to show in these cars and our customers of today with the customers of a decade ago we had a lot of cars which had after market solutions of big wings, spoilers, and this is something which has disappeared completely. Ninety-nine point nine percent of our customers are leaving the car as they come out of the factory. This is a major achievement because they recognize the look as they come out, the design is just good enough.”
Read the full interview with Lamborghini Head Stephan Winkelmann on the Forbes Blog here.
From You Tube:
“In theaters: October 8th, 2010
From Academy Award® nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson (“No End In Sight“), comes INSIDE JOB, the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, INSIDE JOB traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia. Narrated by Academy Award® winner Matt Damon, INSIDE JOB was made on location in the United States, Iceland, England, France, Singapore, and China.”
[via Paul Kedrosky @InfectiousGreed]
Barron’s: The options market is awash with acquisition talk. Be skeptical.
BBC: HP trumps Dell in $1.6bn 3PAR bid.
Bloomberg: Keep Immigrants Out Is McCain Refrain That May Mean Re-Election.
BusinessWeek: DuPont Gains on Monsanto as Farmers Switch Seeds.
Forbes: N. Korea Denies Social Media Campaign.
MarketWatch: Nikkei dips to 15-Month Low.
Reuters: Gold hits 1-week low on weak equities, awaits U.S. data.
SmartMoney: What results down under may mean for currency and commodities.
The Economist: Regulation and the Left: Can progressives afford to acknowledge that economic regulation can hurt the poor?
The Financial Times: Nigeria plans to take its bourse public.
The Guardian: America’s century is over, but it will fight on.
The New York Times: Italy: An agronomist, defying the government, has planted genetically modified corn. Environmentalists have also taken matters into their own hands, trampling his fields.
The Wall Street Journal: Giving Up Gluten to Lose Weight? Not So Fast.
“Though Japan and Australia have little in common in terms of domestic economics, the outcome of Australia’s political impasse could affect shares of Japan’s trading companies.” HT: MarketWatch.
Image via Wikipedia
“So it is understandable that once the dreaded “Carter” analogies started popping up with some consistency—and not just from Republicans but from liberal journalists and pundits as well—the White House wanted to push back. And how better to defeat Carter than with Reagan? As Dan Balz reports in yesterday’s Washington Post, the White House political team hopes to contend instead that Obama’s first term is actually analogous to President Reagan’s first term.”
Find out why – The Enterprise Blog: Is Obama’s First Term Like Reagan’s?
Image by shawnblog via Flickr
“Privatization”—selling government-owned property to private corporations and other entities—has been popular for years in Europe, Canada and Australia, where government once owned big chunks of the economy.
In many cases, the private takeover of government-controlled industry or services can result in more efficient and profitable operations. On a toll road, for example, a private operator may have more money to pump into repairs and would bear the brunt of losses if drivers used the road less.
While asset sales can create efficiencies, critics say the way these current sales are being handled could hurt communities over the long run. Some properties are being sold at fire-sale prices into a weak market. The deals mean cities are giving up long-term, recurring income streams in exchange for lump-sum payments to plug one-time budget gaps.”
More here: Facing Budget Gaps, Cities Sell Parking, Airports, Zoo.
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“Several Southeast Asian countries—including Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia—lack sufficient infrastructure to support much larger manufacturing industries, even though their wages are cheaper than China’s. Individual Southeast Asian countries also lack the scale to single-handedly absorb a massive influx of jobs from China.”
[via Wall Street Journal]
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Rafael Nadal named top seed for U.S. Open:
“Rafael Nadal of Spain was made the top men’s seed for the U.S. Open, the final Grand Slam tennis tournament of the year. Five-time U.S. Open champion Roger Federer of Switzerland is the No. 2 seed, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic is seeded third and Briton Andy Murray is fourth, the United States Tennis Association said today in a news release.”
[via Bloomberg]
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“The New York Times highlights today the increasing plight of violence that besets Venezuela. The headline couldn’t be blunter: “More Killings in Venezuela than Iraq.” It’s a gruesome reminder of what Hugo Chávez’s “Socialism of the 21st Century” has delivered to the Venezuelan people.”
[via Cato @ Liberty Blog]
[via Cheap Talk]
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