NEW YORK | By Ana Fuentes | Look at her dancing, spinning around and quitting. Her name is Marina Shifrin and she used to work for Taiwanese animation firm Next Media (yes, the one famous for its disruptive videos about Internet censorship in China). She says her company is great but basically has sucked her life, and journalism is dead for her. May be online marketing isn’t: her clip has gone viral with more than 1 million viewers so far.
THE CORNER OP-ED | By Ana Fuentes | A parliamentary commission in Spain has recommended that the country puts its clocks back an hour to rationalize working days, starting at 9am and ending at 5pm. And, against what many foreigners think, the aim is not to have more time for naps nor nightlife: most Spaniards still work during their lunch break but don’t get home until 8 or 9. (For the record, they don’t all dance flamenco either.)
THE CORNER’S FRIDAY WRAP-UP | Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer Cicero, who vainly tried to uphold principles in the final civil wars that destroyed the Republic once told his traitor, Catilina: “Quosque tandem abutere Catilina patientia nostra” (How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?). This week that very same Senate in Italy is preparing to expel Berlusconi, who is threatening to topple Prime Minister Letta.
THE CORNER TEAM | Because an image is worth more than 1,000 words, we are reposting here a fantastic idea by Quartz: they’ve put together 19 graphs of the global economic recovery, from the adjustments that the most crippled euro zone countries are making to Japan leaving deflation behind. Chill out, things are getting better… and it’s Friday.
Chemical weapons or not, the forecast remains: Partition in Syria; Syria, in the main, as Sunni; Hezbollah diminished; Lebanon disturbed further by Christian and Shi’a refugees; Saudi and Turkish influence enhanced; the substitution of America’s hard power with soft power as a changing paradigm for its foreign relations unless, of course, Israel and the Strait of Hormuz are threatened and then its terrible swift sword gets unsheathed.
NEW YORK | By Ana Fuentes | The Spanish Government has launched a charming offensive in the U.S. The United Nations General Assembly was the perfect excuse. PM Mariano Rajoy came to the Big Apple on a 36-hour-trip in order to push for a seat at the Security Council. Indeed. But the most important thing for him was to seduce American business media and send them a clear message: Spain’s economy is far better than it was one year ago.
NEW YORK | By Daniel Altman | In economics there are few axioms and fewer laws. The science, if it can be called that, lacks the certainty of mathematics and the elegance of physics, which may be why quite a few run-of-the-mill mathematicians and physicists turn out to be excellent economists.
BEIJING | Via Caixin Magazine | Chinese SOEs, the state behemoths, use systems that make dictators of top managers, a situation that must be addressed for corruption to be rooted out. Appointed outside directors, and learning from advanced economies such as Britain, can be a solution, he magazine believes.
SAO PAULO | By Marcus Nunes | The ‘peddlers’ of fiscal stimulus who say monetary policy (the Fed) is powerless at the ZLB-LT, and the inflation “nutters” have both done a grave disservice.
NEW YORK | By Ana Fuentes | For the IMF, it’s time for Europe’s fiscal union. Unless the 17 members of the euro zone are willing to lose some control over their budgets in favor of an insurance program and do common borrowing, bailout crisis like Cyprus’ are likely to cripple them, the Washington-based fund’s said in a report.