A curated selection of links we hope can enlighten us all; some come from our corner, some do from other corners of the net. And as always, our comment widgets are anxious to get your suggestions. Facebook? That was something for my father Will we miss Sarko? Neither religion, nor philosophy: physics, I tell you Germany doesn’t show any respect The euro, that sentiment Hollande is a menace for you, too…
NEW YORK | For each dollar a man earns in the U.S., the average female professional gets only 80 cents, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only twelve out of 500 companies in the Fortune index are run by women. Apparently it will take them 40 years to match their peers in the corporate world, non-profit organization Catalyst points out. The truth is that women who have reached the…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Here’s one more example of how politics constantly enters the economics arena with the firm intention of interfering in some way or another. That was the time in which the US Republican conservatives tried to grill the then Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker when he wanted to cool the high inflation of those days down. Let me quote these few lines: “Secretary Regan mustered…
NEW YORK | Microsoft entered the battle for the e-readers this week thanks to a strategic partnership with Barnes & Noble. Their alliance, dubbed as NewCo, gives Windows creator a 17.6 percent equity stake for a $300 million investment and values B&N’s remaining 82.4% stake at $1.4 billion. According to Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Fassler, the deal is a “game-changer.” “The shift to digital is putting the world’s libraries and…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Please, bear with me. First, I took a graph from the Noah Smith’s blog, in which everyone can see that venture capital has almost passed away since the 2000 crisis. The chart shows the value of equity shares, and each line is a selection made under a different approach. The 1990’s were the golden age of risk, people loved risk and the VC funding…
NEW YORK | The debate between austerity or growth to cure Europes illness is in full swing. Austerians are, though, losing support. A consensus is growing that current cuts alone aren’t likely to tackle the euro zone crisis. For US celebrity economist and director of the Earth Institute Jeffrey Sachs, “Fiscal policy alone won’t save Europe,” he said in the launch of the Center on Global Economic Governance at Columbia…
MADRID | The German Treasury placed Wednesday €2.4 billion in 30-year bunds with an average return of 2.41%, down from 2.62% in the previous auction. The bid to cover dropped to 1.1 times from 2.1 times. Berlin admitted that demand had been lower than expected, and the total sale volume planned had been left uncovered. In a note to investors, Citigroup in Spain commented on the German explanations and made an interested, interesting comparison: “This reflects a context of volatility and uncertainty, but more importantly, the…
NEW YORK | Last November, the U.S. dealt with their biggest municipal bankruptcy in their history: Alabama’s Jefferson County, on the south of the Appalachians, filed for the so-called Chapter 9 after government officials and creditors (among them are JPMorgan and Bank of America) failed to set an agreement on the more than $3 billion in sewer debt. Jefferson county is not alone. More municipalities have been suffocated by debt since…
LONDON | The US 2012 election result can do little to change the fate of Wall Street under the extreme pressures of a global credit crunch and a relentless economic crisis. In a paper issued Monday by JP Morgan Asset Management, the investing company said that the financial sector will likely shrink after having become quite large a share of the country’s economy. “One side effect of that process, lower secondary…
LONDON | In its global macro outlook report, investment company Schroders said on Friday that its eyes were on France amidst ongoing euro zone concerns and despite the uncertainty surrounding Spain. The upcoming elections could thwart France’s plans to implement State budget cuts, the Schroders paper highlighted, while the European Central Bank refinancing lines would have ring-fenced the Spanish banking sector from liquidity scarcity, unlike Italy’s. “France is the euro zone member currently…