MADRID | The Corner | Head of Economics at the International Energy Agency remarked that “the investment in renewables in Europe has tripled the US’ investment in the entire shale gas production.” Prices are 20% below the right level to recover the cost of new investments due to the existence of overcapacity and subsidised prices in renewables.
Brazilians are unified in their frustration with the government before the World Cup.
What does Apple’s acquisition of Beats Electronics mean for the music streaming market? Apple’s $3 billion purchase of Beats Electronics was an uncharacteristic move for a company that has typically limited its acquisitions to small start-ups.
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo | It has been one year since, out of the blue, Edward Snowden came out to tell everybody that the Internet is ‘supervised’ by the NSA. And it has been only four days since British giant Vodafone announced that at least six different governments tap its calls. We have lost our online virginity, in case there were still some who had it (apparently, there were). Now we know that the wandering around Internet is almost as private as yelling in the middle of the street.
BEIJING | By Andy Xie via Caixin | Stimulus proposals won’t transform the economy in China, but spending on industrial research, building megacities and globalizing the white collar labor force will.
SAO PAULO | By Benjamin Cole via Historinhas | Sadly for Americans, the Fed of 2008 would pull out the 50-year-old playbook and repeat the mistakes of the Fed of the 1950s. Rattled by minor increases in prices, the 2008 Fed stomped on the brakes, bringing on the Great Recession from which the nation has yet to fully recover.
BEIJING | By Yang Kaisheng via Caixin | A monopoly on either the buyer’s or seller’s side often means one or several enterprises relying on their strengths keep squeezing out or forcing the merger of small and medium-sized enterprises to gain unfair pricing power. It is often caused by a monopoly over resources or entry barriers that result from government intervention. In light of this, is it reasonable to say that China’s banking industry is monopolized?
LONDON | By Barclays analysts | Q1 data suggest that the refocusing of the FLS scheme toward SMEs’ funding has yet to deliver. Credit remains subdued for SMEs, despite an improvement in overall availability of and demand for credit for private non-financial corporations. Higher consumer confidence, coupled with improvements in the economic outlook, bodes well for household consumption in Q2.
SAO PAULO | By Benjamin Cole via Marcus Nunes’ Historinhas | One of the bromides of modern macroeconomics is that “long-term, money is neutral.” The above maxim makes sense on some levels. A nation is made rich or poor by its investment in infrastructure, education, farmland, factories, work ethics and the like. Running printing presses, per se, is meaningless.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | What can small countries’ firms do in the world biggest democracy, built on 28 nations more than regions? Some Spanish companies in India have been able to manage big four toll roads (Isolux), control 80% of its airspace safety (Indra), excel in the olive oil market (Borges), or even list in the Bombay’s stock exchange (CIE Automotive). After the historical victory of Narendra Modi their prospects are even better, considering that India’s middle-upper class ranges between 50 and 300 million people.