BBC News – ECB cuts interest rates to 1.25%.
This is to be welcomed but is too little too late!
Category Archives: Business
Austerity measures risk irreversible impact on children, warns Unicef
UN children’s fund challenges pledges by IMF and World Bank to safeguard poor people from the worst of the global downturn
Pledges by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to safeguard poor people from the worst of the global downturn are being challenged by the United Nations, which is warning of the “extraordinary price” being paid by children and other vulnerable groups as mass austerity programmes sweep across the developing world.
A study by the UN children’s fund, Unicef, said there would be “irreversible impacts” of wage cuts, tax increases, benefit reductions and reductions in subsidies that bore most heavily on the most vulnerable in low-income nations.
It found that between 2010 and 2012 a quarter of developing nations were engaged in what it called excessive belt-tightening, reducing spending to below the levels before the financial crisis began in 2007.
Both Christine Lagarde, the IMF managing director, and Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said at the weekend that their organisations were seeking to build social safety nets to protect the weakest.
But Unicef said: “In the wake of the food, fuel and financial shocks, a fourth wave of the global economic crisis began to sweep across developing countries in 2010: fiscal austerity.”
The report (pdf) looked at IMF spending projections for 128 countries. “While most governments introduced fiscal stimuli to buffer their populations from the impacts of the crisis during 2008-09, premature expenditure contraction became widespread beginning in 2010 despite vulnerable populations’ urgent and significant need of public assistance,” it said.
The analysis showed that the scope of austerity was severe and widening quickly. Of the 128 countries, 70 reduced spending by nearly three percentage points of GDP during 2010 and 91 planned cuts in 2012.
A comparison of the 2010-12 period with the three years before the financial crisis began showed that nearly a quarter of developing countries were undergoing “excessive contraction”, defined as slashing spending to below pre-crisis levels.
The study found that governments had relied on five main ways of saving money: cutting or capping wages (56 countries); phasing out or removing subsidies, primarily fuel but also on electricity and food (56 countries); rationalising or means-testing social programmes (34 countries); reforming pensions (28 countries) and increasing consumption taxes on basic goods (53 countries).
Although the IMF has put a greater emphasis in recent years on ringfencing pro-poor spending, Unicef said there was a heightened risk of social spending falling below levels needed to protect vulnerable populations.
“Current austerity policies may have major impacts on social spending and other expenditures that foster aggregate demand, and therefore recovery. It is therefore imperative that decision-makers carefully review the distributional impacts, as well as possible alternative policy options, for economic and social recovery.”
The report noted that children and poor households were likely to be most affected by budget cuts. “The limited window of intervention for foetal development and for growth among infants and young children means that deprivation today, if not addressed properly, can have irreversible impacts on their physical and intellectual capacities, which will, in turn, lower their productivity in adulthood; this is a an extraordinary price for a country to pay.”
Unicef said providing immediate and adequate support for children and their families was an urgent imperative. “The current wave of fiscal consolidation that is taking hold of developing countries has severe consequences for vulnerable populations.”
Zoellick said the risk of a fresh downturn added urgency to the World Bank’s work on building safety nets, adding that it was already helping in 80 countries.
An IMF spokesman said: “The IMF continues to be supportive of the efforts of low-income countries to sustain growth and to continue strengthening spending on health and education. Recent Fund research shows that social spending has increased at a faster pace in countries with IMF-supported programmes compared to those without a programme, particularly in low-income countries. This is true for social spending in relation to GDP and as a share of total government spending, as well as increases in per capita social spending after adjusting for inflation.”
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Kraft Investing in the UK
Before Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury the company made allsorts of promises about jobs and investment in the UK and once shareholders approved the takeover.
Cadbury’s new owner, Kraft, says it plans to close the company’s Somerdale factory in Keynsham, near Bristol.
Just last week it said it would keep it open. The shutdown would mean the loss of 400 jobs.
Cadbury had earmarked the plant for closure but Kraft’s takeover had raised hopes of a reprieve. Source: The BBC.
Is anyone surprised? Kraft is here to make money for their shareholder so of course they’re going to move production to Poland it’s cheaper – for now – that’s investment Kraft style.
Shell Take Money and Run
Shell has sold hundreds of faulty solar panel systems to low-wage earners in Sri Lanka costing around 30% of their salaries which are financed by loans. Shell is refusing to honour the Warranties because it sold its solar energy business for the most part to Solar World and the rest to Environ Energy Global PTE Ltd. In the Sri Lanka case Shell claims
In October 2007, Shell sold Shell Solar Lanka Ltd to Environ Energy Global PTE Ltd. Specifically in order to protect customer interests; the terms of the transaction explicitly covered the management of all past, present and future liabilities, including warranty issues. Source: Terry Macalister, The Guardian.
Which is the sound of Shell washing its hands – if I brought a system from Shell and it broke I’d expect Shell to fix it not some other company. Environ claims
Solar World will not replace any modules unless it has the appropriate warranty documents. Environ claims those papers were destroyed by Shell prior to the handover to Solar World. Source:
Terry Macalister, The Guardian.
Definitely a case of Shell taking the money and running.
In the Name of Profit I’ll leave You Naked on the Street to Face the Bombs
BAGHDAD — Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.
The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.
Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.
…
Last year, the James Randi Educational Foundation, an organization seeking to debunk claims of the paranormal, publicly offered ATSC $1 million if it could pass a scientific test proving that the device could detect explosives. Mr. Randi said no one from the company had taken up the offer.
ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometre, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says.
To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated cardboard cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a cable. “It would be laughable,” Colonel Bidlack said, “except someone down the street from you is counting on this to keep bombs off the streets.” Rod Nordland, New York Times.
This would be laughable if it wasn’t so sickening vulnerable desperate people are being taken for a ride to the tune of millions for a device that is little more than a flashing light connected to some electric circuitry that’s hardly worth two cent – anything for a profit.
The whole despicable trade is covered in detail at the Ministry of Truth.
The Penurious Four
The Phoenix four - John Towers, Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Tower
A report into the collapse of carmaker MG Rover will say that five executives took £42m in pay and pensions from the troubled firm.
Independent inspectors said the men behind the takeover and the executive they appointed enriched themselves as Rover headed for insolvency. BBC.
So the scum that ran the company burnt through a £427 million loan from BMW and over 6,500 jobs meanwhile they paid themselves an immoderate £42 million. Still it’s nice to know they haven’t broken any laws
The four executives in control of MG Rover, the so-called Phoenix Four, have always denied any wrongdoing.
According to the report by Gervase MacGregor of accountants BDO Stoy Hayward and Guy Newey QC, MG Rover chairman John Towers, ex-vice chairman Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Edwards received around £9m.
Their chief executive, Kevin Howe, is said to have taken £5.7m. BBC.
The workers shafted yet again by shameless bosses – nothing has changed.
iAWFUL
I’m no fan of business – mainly because they’re too often about profit at any cost. Netchoice a USA coalition of trade associations, eCommerce businesses, and misguided online consumers has set up iAWFUL (Internet Advocates’ Watchlist For Ugly Laws).
iAWFUL compiles a top ten list of the worst internet laws in America – and a law that restricts the ability of companies to sell to minors tops the list – which really just confirms my opinion that business will do anything to turn a profit – out of all the laws listed this is the worst?
You know not being able to sell to minors on the internet is a good thing and anyway if the USA is anything like the UK it’s pretty much impossible to sell to minors over the internet as you’ll need a debit or credit card which minors can’t obtain.
Hat Tip: The Register.
HBOS Profits Fall 72%
So screams the headlines on the BBC website and elsewhere. What actually happened is HBOS made an obscene profit of £848 million as opposed to the fucking obscene amount last time of £2.96 billion. So whilst the rest of us are struggling to pay our mortgages and bills, HBOS which help create the “credit squeeze” is still raking it in – at our expense of course.
Bully
Nobody likes a bully, but US is bullying UK banks by threatening to prosecute UK banks with branches in the US that have any dealings with Cuba. Lloyds TSB has taken head of these threats and decided to write to customers who trade with Cuba telling them to stop or move accounts. Since when does the US have the right to decide who UK citizens can and cannot trade with – surely, that is the responsibility of our government – the US is just a bully. Source: The Guardian.
British Gas Profits Surge
The BBC reports the profits at British Gas’ residential arm have leapt from £95m in 2006 to £571m for last year. How have they managed such a dramatic increase? Well, the rising price of wholesale gas linked in the publics price increases seen at the petrol pumps. This has led consumers to expect price rises allowing British Gas to increase significantly its margins and obviously profits. For householders there is no way out, British Gas’ competitors seem to be operating a cartel; they are all increasing prices above what the wholesale market justifies. Expect announcement of more hefty profit increases in the sector.