Maybe it's the Euro crisis that seems to have turned the brains of the European Union's (probably male) image-makers soft. You can hardly spend all week trying to bail out Greece, hang onto Spain and keep Germany from getting surly (never a good idea) without making a mistake or two somewhere else.
Private security guards on a cargo ship in the Indian Ocean hunts pirates.
Vincent Browne asks Klaus Masuch of the ECB why the Irish people have to foot the bill for unguaranteed bondholders.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is secretly negotiated, instead of debated by elected politicians. More people need to be informed about this process – pass it on.
«Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) has represented the Diamondback State’s sixth congressional district since 2001, cutting a pro-immigration, pro-trade, limited-government, anti-spending path that contrasts sharply with the mainstream of the Republican Party. »
Berlin and the European Central Bank (ECB) are deeply divided over the best way to handle the Greek crisis. The dispute reached a new high last week: Should they pursue a soft debt restructuring or give billions of euros in loans for years to come? Influential Germans fear the threat of austerity measures could be greater than a «haircut» of Greek debt.
Read The Rest Of The Story On Spiegel Online, And Don’t Miss John Mauldin’s Business Insider Article: Here What’s Going To Happen When Greece Defaults.
Source: Barron’s How to Fix Greece. HT: The Big Picture.
Cafe Hayek: Capitalists Tend Not To Like Capitalism. [Derived From This NY Times Article: Capitalists Who Fear Free Markets ].
Return Of The Bubble? LinkedIn Has the Highest Price-Revenue Ratio of Any Stock Anywhere – makes only $12 million/year but is valued at $9 billion.
Market Meme, Friday.
3 simple ways to protect your profits.
Independent Power! Norway, Iceland And Liechtenstein Froze Payment Of 235 Million NOK ($42 Million) In European Economic Area Grants To Greece.
Betting On Rising Demand: Manhattan Developers Are Planning The City’s Biggest Decade Of Office Construction Since The ’80s.
John Stewart On The Strauss-Kahn Matter: Being an economist is no defense (video).
Time Lapse: Heavy Air Traffic (video).
The Most Excellent MozART Group: Eine Kleine Welt Musik & Titanic (video).
Mansour Bahrami, Tennis’ Greatest Entertainer (video).
The World’s Tallest Lego Tower (video).
Champagne Cocktail: Raspberry, Pomegranate, And Champagne // Wikipedia.
Der Spiegel investigates: How Dangerous Is Finland to the Euro?
Click for a larger image
Source:
Triumph of Right-Wing Populists. Sven Böll and Maria Marquart, Der Spiegel.
HT: The Big Picture.
Earnings reports: Boeing, Conoco Phillips, United Technologies, Occidental Petroleum, United Continental, Valero Energy, U.S. Airways, General Dynamics, Rockwell Automation, Exelon, St. Jude Medical, WellPoint Health and Xerox.
Reports after the bell: Starbucks, Netflix, Symantec, Varian Medical, Logitech, Lam Research, Motorola Mobility, Citrix and ETrade.
The Newmark’s Door spotted some entertaining attempts to answer «Whys?» the past year:
«Why cold, dark, small, and depressive nations top the rankings».
Norway, one of the «cold, dark, small, and depressive nations» that usually top rankings. Image via Wikipedia
«Why Are We Beginning to Hate Congress?» [«Beginning to»?]
«Why Do Harvard Kids Head to Wall Street?».
«Why Do IQ Scores Vary By Nation?».
«Why Are Fewer and Fewer U.S. Employees Satisfied With Their Jobs?»
«Why We Dream: Real Reasons Revealed».
«Why Texas is doing so much better economically than the rest of the nation».
«Why GPS voices are so condescending».
«Why the Latest Frontier of Statistical Research in Baseball Is Defense».
Via Wikipedia
Spain and Ireland to auction off state businesses in bid to calm markets.
Coverage from the Telegraph here.
Via Wikipedia
Bloomberg reports:
“Norway may become Europe’s next investor haven as the region’s fiscal turmoil raises the appeal of debt and currency markets in an economy with the world’s smallest default-risk.”
Details are located here.
Barron’s: Bond Vigilantes Ride Again. After real interest rates rise, equities and commodities tumble. Take that, Ben.
Via Wikipedia
BBC: China to tackle food price rises. China’s premier Wen Jiabao has said the government is preparing new measures to stem double-digit food price inflation.
Bloomberg: M&A Drives Rise in London Financial Job Vacancies, Survey Says. Job vacancies at London’s financial- services firms climbed 5 percent last month, helped by a jump in mergers and acquisitions and a recovery in the British economy, according to a survey by a recruiting firm.
BusinessWeek:Morgan Stanley’s Meeker Sees Online Ad Boom. Dot-com “Queen of the Net” Mary Meeker will tell today’s Web 2.0 Summit that Internet advertising will reach $50 billion and mobile commerce will outpace traditional e-commerce.
CNBC: Fast Money Traders: Are 2010 Market Gains Done? Stocks sold off sharply Tuesday with investors punishing commodities, tech and banks, broadly.
Forbes: 2011 Predictions For Google, Microsoft, Oracle And More. Analysis of what’s ahead for tech’s heavy hitters.
MarketWatch: This year, you decide. We’re asking the readers to choose the 2010 MarketWatch CEO of the Year. Take a look at the five nominees and vote.
Reuters:Upsized GM IPO could be biggest deal ever. General Motors Co is boosting the size of its common stock offering by more than 30 percent to $15.5 billion, two people familiar with the matter said, potentially making its landmark IPO the largest U.S. offering ever.
The Business Insider: Now Everyone Is Blaming Everyone For The Spiraling Eurozone Crisis. But is Europe less divided than the US?
The Economist: Socially challenging. Psychopathy seems to be caused by specific mental deficiencies.
The Financial Times: Women at the Top: FT ranking of top 50 women in business.
The Guardian: Osborne – UK will help Ireland through debt crisis. Chancellor vows to help restore stability as European finance ministers gather for meeting.
The New York Times: Findings: When the Mind Wanders, Happiness Also Strays. Using an iPhone app calledtrackyourhappiness, psychologists at Harvard contacted people around the world at random intervals to ask how they were feeling, what they were doing and what they were thinking.
The Telegraph: The world’s best places to live.
The Wall Street Journal: Bring On the Fat—and Taste. Celebrity chefs have slaved in haute cuisine kitchens and mastered the world’s most complex dishes. Today, they’re dedicating their culinary brain power to another challenge: How to cash in on the burger craze.
Barron’s: Use Options to Sidestep the Tax Man. A simple strategy can lock in the current 15% capital-gains rate on a bid-up stock while allowing for future profits from the same stock.
By Travel Aficionado via Flickr
BBC: G20 agrees to address currencies. Leaders of the G20 group of major economies have agreed to avoid “competitive devaluation” of currencies after a second day of difficult talks in the South Korean capital, Seoul.
Bloomberg: Taxes May Solve U.S. High-Frequency Trading Mess: Peter Coy. Fixing this is not a matter of patching up the current system, as the Securities and Exchange Commission is already doing. It’s time to step back and consider the proper role of finance in the American economy.
BusinessWeek: Why Oil Could Top $100 a Barrel. The weakening dollar could trigger a steady rise in the price of crude, sending it over $100 next year
CNBC: Cramer: Why You Must Own Gold. Most retail investors can’t get their hands on Chinese yuans or Brazil reals, but they can add some of the precious metal to their portfolio.
Forbes: Three Keys To Improving Your Strategic Thinking. One of the keys to becoming a great leader is to constantly improve your strategic thinking, so you can adjust to new global realities.
MarketWatch: Gold futures slump as much as $21. Gold futures dropped as much as $21 per ounce on Friday, pulling back as the U.S. dollar regained lost ground against foreign currencies, dulling the investment allure of the precious metal, which hit a record high earlier this week.
Reuters: Airfares flying high this year. Have plans to fly home this holiday season? Join the crowd — and expect to pay a lot more than you did last year. Here’s how to beat the costs.
The Business Insider: Facebook Is Launching Email On Monday. Look out Google, Yahoo, Microsoft…
The Economist: How evil? Commodity speculators do more good than harm.
The Financial Times: History lessons - What G20 leaders can learn from the 1930s.
The Guardian: British Gas raises prices by 7%. Increase will affect around 8 million customers, adding £53 to annual gas bills and £29 to electricity bills.
The New York Times: Countries See Hazards in Free Flow of Capital. In China and Taiwan, regulators are imposing fresh restrictions on stock market investments by foreigners. In Brazil, officials have twice raised taxes on foreign investors.
The Telegraph: Questor share tips. Buy Amec, Rio Tinto.
The Wall Street Journal: Can You Get Genius Results With Just Hard Work? Is genius a simple matter of hard work? Not a chance.
Google in Silicon Valley via Wikipedia.
Google uses a smart legal structure to reduce its overseas tax bill; it has saved the company $3.1 billion since 2007 and boosted last year’s overall earnings by 26%. Since 2007 the rate has been 2.4 percent – lower than its peers in the sector:
“In Bermuda there’s no corporate income tax at all. Google’s profits travel to the island’s white sands via a convoluted route known to tax lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich.” In Google’s case, it generally works like this: When a company in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa purchases a search ad through Google, it sends the money to Google Ireland. The Irish government taxes corporate profits at 12.5 percent, but Google mostly escapes that tax because its earnings don’t stay in the Dublin office, which reported a pretax profit of less than 1 percent of revenues in 2008.
Irish law makes it difficult for Google to send the money directly to Bermuda without incurring a large tax hit, so the payment makes a brief detour through the Netherlands, since Ireland doesn’t tax certain payments to companies in other European Union states. Once the money is in the Netherlands, Google can take advantage of generous Dutch tax laws. Its subsidiary there, Google Netherlands Holdings, is just a shell (it has no employees) and passes on about 99.8 percent of what it collects to Bermuda. (The subsidiary managed in Bermuda is technically an Irish company, hence the “Double Irish” nickname.)”
A good piece on how globalized capitalism works, there. Full story from BusinessWeek here.
Financial trades via Flickr
“When tory-leaning U.K prepares to impose some of the deepest spending cuts in a generation, it is doing so with the full throated support of London’s financial elite.”
Full update from the NY Times here.
The Columbia Business School-professor, makes the arguments in an updated edition of his book on the credit crunch, Freefall. In the new material, exclusively extracted in the Sunday Telegraph, he reveals his fears.
![The powerful European Central Bank [ E C B ] i...](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4066/4416970001_ed802ee026_m.jpg "The powerful European Central Bank [ E C B ] i...")
The European Central Bank in Frankfurt - via Flickr.
“The different needs of countries with high trade surpluses, particularly Germany, and those running deficits such as Ireland, Portugal and Greece, meant that the single currency was under intense pressure and may not survive. He suggests that one way to save the euro would be for Germany to leave the eurozone, so allowing the currency to devalue and help struggling countries with exports.
“Countries that share a currency have a fixed exchange rate with each other and thereby give up an important tool of adjustment,as long as there were no shocks, the euro would do fine. The test would come when one or more of the countries faced a downturn.”
More here.
Barron’s: Locking In Gold’s Gains. Here are a few strategies to book profits on the surging price of a popular gold ETF.
NYSE - by brian glanz via Flickr
BBC: Japan readies new stimulus moves. The Japanese parliament is to debate a supplementary budget expected to contain a further 4.6tn yen ($55bn, £35bn) of stimulus measures.
Bloomberg: H&M, Zara Fast Fashion Pressures Luxury Labels to Speed Up. Fast-fashion retailers often get inspiration from the catwalks of Paris and Milan. Now, luxury companies like Cavalli Group say they must take their lead from cheaper and speedier rivals.
BusinessWeek: The World’s Leading Cities. Where to set up or expand overseas operations and where to locate key executives and ranking them on such criteria as trade, education, political influence, and cultural life.
CNBC: Markets Will Continue Rallying. The market does tend to rise before the mid-term election and that’s part of what we’re seeing here – there’s more information.
Forbes: The Three Big Dangers For China’s Real Estate Sector. Expert claim that some real estate markets in China is going to drop 90% and that overall real estate is priced at twice its actual worth.
MarketWatch: TUI cut at Morgan Stanley as freight rates peak. Morgan Stanley on Friday cut its rating on German travel group TUI AG to equal-weight from overweight.
Reuters: New financial risk council meets Friday. A new council of U.S. regulators charged with identifying risks to the financial system holds it first meeting later on Friday with an agenda that includes risky trading and how to pick which non-bank financial institutions need special scrutiny.
The Business Insider: Uh-Oh: Let’s Hope Tomorrow’s “Golden Cross” On The Dow Isn’t The Opposite Of The Death Cross. Could this be a sign of an immanent collapse?
The Financial Times: Goldman warns Europe on regulation.
The Guardian: Job market recession could trigger social unrest, UN agency warns. The International Labour Organization (ILO) sees the recovery in global employment delayed until 2015, two years later than it originally predicted.
The New York Times: EU Finance Ministers Meet to Settle Bank Taxes Row.
The Telegraph: Bank of England: tougher curbs on mortgage lending. Banks impose tougher rules because of fears that higher unemployment will result in more home owners defaulting.
The Wall Street Journal: Searching for Perfection. There are many magical names in the world of wine but few can rival that of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. A rare look inside the Burgundian estate with director and winemaker Aubert de Villaine.
Barron’s: Strong Stocks or Debilitated Dollar? Stocks are up only in terms of a declining dollar. In real terms, relative to gold, stocks have gone nowhere.
BBC: Moody’s adds to Spain downgrades. Spain has lost its last triple-A credit rating with the major rating agencies, following a downgrade from Moody’s.
Bloomberg: Nordics Seek `Polluter Pays’ Bank Tax to Fund Crises. Sweden, Finland and Denmark are promoting a European Union-wide bank levy to force lenders to help share the clean-up costs of future banking crises.
BusinessWeek: Blame Hyperactivity on Genes, Not Poor Parenting. Don’t blame attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder on poor parenting or excess candy. A new study suggests it’s all about genes.
Trading by killthebird via Flickr
CNBC: Thursday’s Senate Banking Testimony – What to Expect. Wall Street will be closely watching the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday as the nation’s top financial officials testify about the roll out of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.
Forbes: Dems Need More Than Just Votes. Democrats may be hurting with young, poor and minority voters who often need a particular motivator.
MarketWatch: Auto makers’ strong finish. Auto makers are expected to post solid gains for September, boosting hopes for upbeat end of year.
Reuters: Jobless claims to dip slightly. A Reuters poll sees a small improvement in U.S. jobless claims, but not nearly enough to rally confidence.
The Business Insider: Gold is starting to climb the list of greatest bubbles ever.
The Financial Times: Ireland unveils bank rescue package. Country’s fiscal deficit expected to rise to 32% of GDP.
The Guardian: US politics is angry, polarised, and gridlocked. Can it be reformed? Washington moves at the pace of Brezhnev’s Soviet Union. It needs to be more like Silicon Valley if it is to compete with China.
The New York Times: China May Soon Make Use of Its Solar Assets. China has established itself as a leading producer of solar energy equipment, but it has made surprisingly little use of solar energy at home.
The Telegraph: 205mph electric jet Jaguar. Jaguar’s radical electric concept supercar wows Paris.
The Wall Street Journal: Mobile-Home Industry Seeks Comeback. Builders of manufactured homes missed out on the great American housing boom. Now some of them hope their industry has finally stopped imploding.
“Industrial production in the U.S. rose modestly in August, about in line with expectations. Production is up at an annualized rate of 6% in the past six months, and has rebounded 9% from the lows of June 2009. As the top chart shows, industrial production has also rebounded all over the world since early last year, with the most notable rebound occurring in Japan.”
View more charts and thoughts on capacity utilization and monetary policy from Scott Grannis on his blog.
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