Tag: Business and finance

AMERICAN workers without college degrees have suffered financially for decades—as has been known for decades. More recent is the discovery that their woes might be deadly. In 2015 Anne Case and Angus Deaton, two (married) scholars, reported that in the 20 years to 1998, the mortality rate of middle-aged white Americans fell by about 2% a year. But between 1999 and 2013, deaths rose. The reversal was all the more striking because, in Europe, overall middle-age mortality continued to fall at the same 2% pace. By 2013 middle-aged white Americans were dying at twice the rate of similarly aged Swedes of all races (see chart). Suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol abuse were to blame.

Ms Case and Mr Deaton have now updated their work on these so-called “deaths of despair”. The results, presented this week at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, are no happier. White middle-age mortality continued to rise in 2014 and 2015, contributing to a fall in life expectancy…Continue reading

THE GUARDIAN today is running a big story on the woes airlines will face after Brexit. According to the paper, European carriers have been told in private meetings with European Union officials not to expect the aviation industry to be given special treatment in negotiations over Britain leaving the union. That would mean that Britain will probably fall out of the European single aviation market, the agreement that allows any airline in the region to fly whatever route it pleases. That deregulation has brought about nothing less than a revolution for European travellers, who can now fly to hundreds of destinations across the continent, often for peanuts.

Unless Britain can negotiate a comprehensive new air agreement, leaving the market will mean that airlines headquartered in Britain, such as easyJet, will have to set up a separate European arm if they want to continue to operate routes within the remaining 27 EU countries. Rules on foreign ownership, which state that to fly within the union airlines must be majority EU owned, will also affect firms that are not based…Continue reading

The steaks are high

EVEN amid Brazil’s pungent stew of recent big corporate scandals, the latest is particularly stomach-turning. On Friday March 17th, in time for a traditional weekend churrasco, or barbecue, the federal police accused some of the country’s biggest meat producers of bribing health inspectors to turn a blind eye to grubby practices. These include repackaging beef past its sell-by date, making turkey ham out of soyabeans rather than actual birds and overuse of potentially harmful additives. The police operation, dubbed Weak Flesh, could reduce Brazil’s meat exports, worth $13bn a year, and damage its two big global meat producers, JBS and BRF.  

Two days later the president, Michel Temer, treated 27 diplomats from the country’s main export markets to prime Brazilian cuts at a steakhouse (pictured) in the capital, Brasília. Nevertheless, straight after that China, the European Union (EU), Chile and South Korea, which together consume a third of Brazilian meat sold abroad, said they would ban some or all imports from Brazil until it can allay misgivings about its inspection regime. The…Continue reading

TWO months into the Trump administration and we have had more sound and fury than concrete proposals about its economic agenda. The most alarming sign so far is that America forced the G20 to drop a pledge about resisting “all forms of protectionism” from a joint statement but this may be purely symbolic.

Nevertheless, Mr Trump’s determination to shake up the status quo may yet have global consequences. In a research note, Chris Watling of Longview Economics suggests that

Trump’s policies might inadvertently bring about a new international monetary order as the administration struggles to fulfil campaign promises in the light of the original misdiagnosis of the ‘trade deficit’ problem.

The current monetary system emerged from the downfall of Bretton Woods in the 1970s. Under the Bretton Woods system, devised in part by John Maynard Keynes (pictured, left), currencies were fixed to the dollar (with scope for occasional devaluations or revaluations) and the dollar was fixed against gold. But this required America to act as the anchor of the system; other…Continue reading

The one-time bookseller Amazon accounts for more than half of every new dollar spent online in the US. But how did it get to be the fifth most valuable company in the world? Also: why it costs the American government more to borrow money on the bonds market than European ones. And the big brands used to account for two-thirds of the tyre market. Now China has massively deflated their share. Simon Long hosts.