Over quarter of a million low-paid workers will be sure to benefit from the introduction in Hong Kong of a minimum wage. This is approximately 10 percent of the working population who will have to earn at least HK$28 ($US3.60) an hour and is an attempt to “narrow the territory’s wealth gap.” Of course however,… Continue Reading
According to today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK economy only grew by 0.5 percent between January and March 2011. But apparently this wasn’t too much of a surprise and is pretty similar to what happened during 2010’s last quarter, which was blamed on poor weather conditions. But in terms of… Continue Reading
More bad news about the dollar. Just today it has depreciated further to “three-year lows.” This has resulted in US crude oil jumping to a 2 ½ year high and rising Asian stocks “as investors bet that the easy U.S. monetary policy will continue to drive money to riskier assets.” It is anticipated that the… Continue Reading
Surprising Maltese Status It might be somewhat of a shock to those not-in-the-know that Malta – a tiny portion of land found in the Mediterranean Sea measuring approximately 300 sq km – is pretty big when it comes to economic and welfare aspirations and successes. Yet apart from its somewhat modest… Continue Reading
Republicans United on Budget Plan The House of Representatives agreed on a budget plan last week (at a vote of 235-193) for 2012 which will involve “slashing trillions of dollars in government spending while cutting taxes.” This looks like it’s fantastic news, but since there is no such thing as a free lunch, who is… Continue Reading
Things aren’t looking good again. We keep hearing about the global economic crisis but were hoping that the recovery from it was well underway. Unfortunately, when looking at the stats, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Oil prices are increasing, sovereign debt burdens are becoming unsustainable and along with lack of certainty vis-à-vis the… Continue Reading
Preventive Global Economic Crisis Measures It was bad enough that we had to endure the worst global economic crisis since the Second World War, but what would be even worse would be not learning from it. So what can be done today? Measures need to be taken now to ensure a continual “tracking of economic… Continue Reading
Alcoa Inc. Up and Down US Stock traders might want to think twice before acting following the International Monetary Fund’s estimate slash for US economic growth. This led to a general plummet in stocks – such as Alcoa Inc. – yesterday at closing. However, the company did have some good news having a first quarter… Continue Reading
For best results, merge. It seems that the chair of South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (Kim Seok-dong) is considering the merger of two securities companies, Daewoo Securities and Woori Investment & Securities (no. 2 and 3 investment banks by market capitalization). Hopefully this would lead to the creation of a “giant with global potential.” This… Continue Reading
Banking Rules Insufficient Financial leaders who have recently signed on new banking rules may be counting their chickens before they’ve hatched. According to the IMF, such rules are not going to be able to help vis-à-vis the global financial crisis. So what is the solution? The IMF is setting out “new tools” through which to… Continue Reading