Money Articles
for the luxe minded
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Economist
Money Economist: Business News |
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From Economist
AMAZON, which became America?s biggest internet retailer by selling things more cheaply than anyone else, used to go to great lengths to avoid collecting sales tax from its customers. It issued a map showing employees which states to avoid lest they give the authorities a target for enforcement (some of the biggest states were coded red). In 2011 it shut down a warehouse in Texas after the state?s government demanded $270m in back taxes.The taxmen are now catching up. On May 6th the Senate is ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
THE fire that swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York in 1911, killing 146 people, was the catalyst for big improvements in industrial working conditions in America. The collapse on April 24th of Rana Plaza?an eight-storey complex of clothing factories, near Dhaka, Bangladesh?was far deadlier, killing at least 400. Although the tragedy has led to calls for safer factories in Bangladesh and other developing countries, it is far from certain that this will happen.After the ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
TWO years of political upheaval have battered tourism, a motor of Egypt?s economy. Much of the Nile cruise fleet lies idle. Trinket-sellers and would-be guides at the Giza pyramids are so hungry for custom that they often mob or simply jump aboard approaching taxis. And though the damage has been patchy, with beach resorts still thriving even as visitors shun the ancient monuments, lingering uncertainty over the future means it may be years before Egypt regains its place in the sun.
In 2010, ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
You want me to leave it down here?
MARKETS can misprice risk, as investors in subprime mortgages discovered in 2008. Several recent reports suggest that markets are now overlooking the risk of ?unburnable carbon?. The share prices of oil, gas and coal companies depend in part on their reserves. The more fossil fuels a firm has underground, the more valuable its shares. But what if some of those reserves can never be dug up and burned?If governments were determined to implement their climate ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
A seat for sore thighs
A CHAIR, one would assume, requires a seat. Not the LimbIC chair, which holds your thighs in two custom-made carbon fibre ?seating shells?. The shells may resemble the footrests in an obstetrics office, but this is a chair in which ?you can dance, move, stretch, relax and stay in tune with your thoughts,? according to Inno-Motion, its Swiss manufacturer. What you cannot do is sit still. And it costs $8,500.The LimbIC is an extreme example of a growing trend: healthy ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
SHAYAN ZADEH, the co-founder of Zoosk, a popular online-dating service based in San Francisco, is worried. In the current debate on immigration, few realise that foreign-born entrepreneurs create jobs for locals. ?It?s a real public-relations problem,? bemoans Mr Zadeh, who came to the country as a student from Iran and worked at Microsoft before establishing his own firm, which now employs almost 150 people.On May 2nd Innovate for America, the new brainchild of Scott Sandell, a venture ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE?S arrival at the Elysée Palace half an hour ahead of schedule on the evening of April 29th took the 300 entrepreneurs assembled there by surprise. What he said must have surprised them even more. After a year of bashing businesspeople, the French president clasped them to his bosom.As wealth- and job-creators, successful businessmen should be prized by society, he told the closing session of a three-month consultation on fostering enterprise. Sticking to his friendly theme, ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
Design your own walkabout
ABOUT four years ago Michael Fox and two former law-school friends sniffed around for an unfilled market niche. Shoes of Prey was the result. Old-fashioned shoemakers in shops are disappearing in Australia. Internet shoesellers are replacing them. Mr Fox?s firm goes one step further: it allows customers to design and order their own bespoke shoes online.It wastes no time wooing men. ?We figured women are more passionate about shoes,? says Mr Fox. Investors from ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
Last week ("DISHing out the dosh", April 20th) we said that in 2011 regulators blocked AT&T?s bid for Sprint. The bid was in fact for T-Mobile USA. Apologies for the crossed wires. ... Quick Read |
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From Economist
THERE was no timetable for an iWatch or for an iTV. There was, however, the promise of perhaps the biggest share buyback in American corporate history. Announcing Apple?s results for the first three months of 2013 on April 23rd, Tim Cook, its boss, stayed mum about its product pipeline, saying only that the firm was working on some ?amazing new hardware, software and services? to be rolled out later this year and in 2014. But he was clear about the cash Apple will return to shareholders in the ... Quick Read |
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