via The Conversation | It is almost too easy to bash Facebook these days. Nearly a third of Americans feel the country’s most popular social media platform is bad for society. As the company approaches its 15th birthday, Americans rate its social benefit as better than Marlboro cigarettes, but worse than McDonald’s.
Last week John Bogle died, considered one of the major philanthropists in history.He did it through the Vanguard Fund, which he created in 1975, and which became the first indexed fund for retail clients. In September 2007, just a year before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, we had the opportunity to speak with him about the damage that “the capital of the managers” had caused to people’s savings. The following are some of the opinions he left us.
Telefonica reached a non-binding agreement with Vodafone, which expands the current deal on sharing networks in the UK. The objective is to extend the duration and to include 5G. Both operators also want to modernize their fibre optic networks. The agreement depends on concluding the legally binding terms and securing the necessary regulatory approvals, which is expected to happen during 2019.
The Economist Intelligence Unit has published the 11th edition of its ranking on the global state of democracy. Of 165 countries in the world, Spain is ranked 19th for the quality of its democracy. It is not bad given the political instability Spain is experiencing. Nor the open breach in confidence following the crisis between citizens and politicians and citizens and economic powers. Nor taking into account Spaniard’ s tendency to self-flagellation.
Julia Pastor | From an English father and a Ghanaian mother, Afua Hirsch is a journalist, writer, lawyer and activist for human rights. Her first book, “Brit (ish): On race, identity and belonging”, published current year, has stirred UK historic consciousness by exploring the origin of the identity crisis that the country is suffering, and which, no doubt, has its reflection on the winding road of Brexit.
Bankinter | We are revising our recommendation for BBVA to Neutral from Buy because of the deterioration of the situation in Turkey.
Lu Ming via Caixin | Amid the recent fierce trade disputes between China and the U.S., many analysts have failed to appreciate China’s own problems. In fact, there are two interrelated problems: one is the trade imbalance between China and the U.S.; the other is the domestic imbalance of China’s economy.
Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is ready for its initial public offering in the second half of 2018. Bloomberg published on Friday selected data from what it reported to be the company’s 1H17 IFRS financial statement. However, Saudi Aramco said in a statement these were “inaccurate”. If the reported data is accurate, BoAML’s experts make the following observations based on already published fiscal data.
After several sluggish years by their own standards, the emerging economies’ growth rates have once again started to speed up. As seen by Caixabank’s strategists, “the first hesitant signs of this turnaround could be seen in 2016, becoming much more evident in 2017. Emerging growth rates are now expected to consolidate at around 5% over the next few years.”
From 15:25 last Friday afternoon, when the Catalan Parliament made its unilateral declaration of independence, events have speeded up. Three hours after the solemn, but sad proclamation, the Republic of Catalonia disappeared into thin air. Mariano Rajoy dissolved the regional parliament and fired Carles Puigdemont’s government by implementing Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution in the Senate. And the biggest surprise: a call for elections on December 21.