Britain and Japan: A Tale of Two Comebacks
WASHINGTON | By Dean Baker via Caixin | While Britain is lavished with dubious praise for its austerity policies, Japan has made real progress with its experiments in stimulus.
World economy
Internet for the Public Interest Needs Protection
WASHINGTON | By Areeba Kamal via The Next New Deal | Unless the [U.S.] Federal Communications Commission takes a stand, American consumers stand to lose their open access to the Internet, while providers will rake in even greater profits.
FOMC’er Richard “Inspector Clouseau” Fisher and His Excellent Rare Book Price Clue to Proper Monetary Policy
NEW YORK | By Benjamin Cole Fisher via Marcus Nunes’ Historinhas |Dallas Fed president wants the institution to stomp on the brakes and quit Quantitative Easing (QE) now, and preferably yesterday. Indeed, Fisher proudly told his audience he would have been a bulwark against QE, if he could have been.
“The main obstacle for mobile payments are the operators”- Net Element’s CEO
NEW YORK | By Ana Fuentes | Mobile payments are growing but when will we really see people switching to this way of purchasing stuff? I talk to the CEO of Net Element, a firm focusing in phone payments and value-added transactional services. Mobile operators are the main obstacle to give this technology the proper boost, he believes.
Iceland pre-and post-collapse capital controls and the on-going blame game on who is blocking their abolition
LONDON | By via Sigrún Davíðsdóttir’s Icelog | So far, there is no solution in sight in matters that need to be solved in order to abolish capital controls in Iceland. The government blames creditor of the estates of Glitnir and Kaupthing but unresolved dispute in Landsbanki matters as well though hardly ever mentioned. The government seems to play a waiting game, perhaps to make creditors more forthcoming. Ministers maintain the government cannot interfere in a process of private companies and yet they seem to be contemplating interfering via laws, which would directly expose the government to being sued by creditors. The creditors mostly remain silent but might have more cards up their sleeves than the government seems to believe.
Mexican Mogul Carlos Slim Shadow Grows Over Europe
MEXICO CITY | By David Brunat | América Móvil, owned by the wealthiest person on earth, Carlos Slim, has set its eyes on the European telecommunications market. Indeed, it has been trying to approach Central and Eastern Europe for a year now, a move not exempt of sour experiences. But it is now when Slim obtains his first relevant victory – Austrian government said on Friday it is open to let América Móvil become the largest shareholder of Telekom Austria.
‘Sanhattan’, Latin America’s new place for business
By LATAM CORRESPONDENT David Brunat | Santiago de Chile is taking off as a regional business pole, and the district of Sanhattan -a word game mixing Santiago and Manhattan- is its Mecca. More than a hundred multinational and Latin American companies are housed in this district, including HSBC, KPMG, Shell and Mexico’s Claro, making Santiago one of the best cities in the region to do business, along with Sao Paulo, which has four times its population.
France’s 19th Century Foreign Policy Fails in 2014
President Francois Hollande faces the question of whether Paris should have intervened in the CAR, where a significant percentage of the country’s citizens view France’s intervention as a form of 21st century neo-colonialism. France was clearly naïve to believe that deploying fewer than 2,000 troops to a destabilized nation bordering on anarchy and awash with arms would restore stability.
U.S.: It’s Time to Raise Wages
WASHINGTON | By Alan Smith via The Next New Deal | Anchor institutions like universities and hospitals have the power to establish a living wage and a stronger economy. President Obama plans to sign an executive order requiring workers under federal contractors to be paid at least $10.10 per hour. This move was be a key point in Tuesday’s State of the Union, and folks across the United States will benefit in very real ways. [NOTE: Temporal references have been edited since the piece was written on Monday.]
Not all emerging countries are the same
MADRID | By Francisco López | Argentina’s devaluation contagion pulled downwards such different assets as Brazil Stock Exchange, Argentinian or South African currency , or even Indonesia’s bonds. In Spain, the Ibex fell again by 1.1% losing 6.7% points in just six days, which means its hardest time in past twelve months. When panic spreads, investors do not consider each countries’ economic circumstaces individually.