NEW YORK | You are going to hear it more than often. It is called individual mandate: citizens required to purchase health insurance, or face a penalty. It is the Gordian knot of Obamacare, the new US Health law. And it is also the essence of both the Netherlands health system (it has been since 2006) and the Swiss (since 1994). In that regard, the US is trying to imitate…
NEW YORK | It could have been Hillary Clinton, one of the most well known US political figures; it could have also been Larry Summers, one of the most respected (and yes, also hated) figures in US economy; it may have even been Jeffrey Sachs, a very prestigious economist. But Obama has chosen a low profile candidate to the lead the World Bank: Jim Yong Kim, Dartmouth College president and…
NEW YORK | Respected subscribers, my inbox is on fire. Democrat’s Campaign managers Jim Messina and Jen O’Malley, Vice President Joe Biden… even Michelle Obama wrote me in the last two days. It is clear. Unofficial, but clear: Democrats campaign is on. And everybody agrees the main theme is going to be… The Economy. But there is going to be a whole of juicy political battles surrounding another subject, one…
NEW YORK | There has been a lot of anxiety in the US with the European crisis, no doubt of that. The New York Times has published an enormous amount of editorials (not counting Krugman’s op-eds) complaining about Merkozy not increasing the firewall enough to contain contagion from Greece and saying that they were not putting any measures in place to tackle the lack of growth in the southern countries….
NEW YORK | You may have been subjected to all the hyperbolic coverage of Apple. You may already be fed up with all those free advertisement in the mass media whenever Apple puts their new gadget in the market; irritated by the lack of respect for labour rights of its providers, like the now infamous Foxconn. You might be feeling all that- although you will soon forget about it if…
NEW YORK | Why has a letter in the New York Times sparked such a PR crisis for Goldman Sachs? In his ‘Why I am leaving Goldman Sachs’ article, Greg Smith, an executive director at the American investment bank, contended that the culture inside Goldman was “toxic” and that the bank routinely took advantage of its clients. This is powerful stuff, but the impact of the letter is way beyond just…
NEW YORK | In allegedly the most expensive shopping street in the world, Zara inaugurated Wednesday its new flagship store. Fashionistas, entrepreneurs and journalists attended the Spanish clothing retailer debut, which is their US largest bet so far. The company bought the real estate property for $324 million and claims the store to be a totally new concept. Would it be worth the money? Hard to say, but the visit of…
YOUNG AND BOLD: THE NEW SPANISH ENTREPRENEURS | NEW YORK | Starting from scratch, Daniel Gutiérrez Alías one year ago created ShakingAsia, a B2B Spanish consulting company based in Tokyo. This 31-year-old savvy IT engineer from Madrid was for a long time funded by his FFF (Familiy, Friends and Fools). Now he is still relying on bootstrapping but has clients such as Red Karaoke or Minube. Hard-working and determined, he wants to shake…
NEW YORK | These are not the best days for being a banker. Banks lent irresponsibly, they were bailed out with public money, and then started a robo-signing foreclosures campaign. All while tightening the credit to small businesses. Now they are starting to pay their penance –some are taking even more of it than they were supposed to. Bank of America said that it will provide deeper than anticipated principal…
NEW YORK | It is the latest mantra on Wall Street: US companies are sitting on a lot of cash, $1,2 trillion, and that’s only counting non-financial companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500, says the Association for the Financial Professionals. This is a record: up 70% from 2007 and 200% for the past 10 years. This huge war chest makes a lot of people wonder: what are they waiting for?…