Tag: Business and finance
Podcast: Goodbye, Benito
Brazil’s rigid labour market regulations were transplanted wholesale from Benito Mussolini’s Italy back in 1943. Now President Michel Temer has approved an overhaul. Will it encourage job creation? Also, an exorcist in Paris fighting “bad spirits”. And why President Trump is playing hardball in renegotiating NAFTA. Hosted by Andrew Palmer.
Britain: back to being the sick man of Europe?
IN THE 1970s, Britain was dubbed «the sick man of Europe», a role previously played by the Ottoman empire in the late 19th century. A poor growth record since the Second World War was combined with terrible industrial relations (29m days lost to strikes in 1979) to make many ask the question «Is Britain governable?».
The reason Britain joined what was then the EEC in 1973 (at the third attempt) was, in large part, a desperate attempt to find a way of forcing the country to become more competitive. Whether Europe was the key factor, or whether it was Margaret Thatcher’s reforms, by the mid-1990s, the trick seemed to have worked. In particular, London, which lost a quarter of its population between 1939 and the early 1990s, became a global, self-confident city, attracting expats from all…Continue reading
Restrictions are lifted on the last airline affected by America's laptop ban
JUST like that, America’s laptop ban is all but over. Four months ago the Trump administration announced that travellers from ten Middle Eastern countries would be barred from taking electronics larger than a mobile phone into plane cabins, citing security concerns. In the past few weeks, the government has been gradually freeing carriers, including Emirates, Etihad and Turkish Airlines, from the restrictions. On July 17th, it lifted the ban on the last remaining airline covered, Saudi Arabian Airlines.
That represents a shift by the Department of Homeland Security. John Kelly, the department’s chief, had at one stage suggested that the laptop would be extended across the world. But at the end of last month it was instead decided that America would demand a slate of tighter security measures at all airports with flights into the country. Mr Kelly said at the time that around 325,000 flyers each day, on 2,000 flights from 280 airports in 105 countries, would be subject to a more “extensive screening process”. That would include…Continue reading
United Airlines is testing a novel way of bumping passengers
IT IS a classic traveller’s dilemma: you are waiting in the boarding area for your flight, and an airline employee asks over the loudspeaker if anyone is willing to be bumped in exchange for a voucher. You like the idea of sacrificing the unimportant meeting you were scheduled to attend in return for a few hundred dollars of travel credit. Then again you do not fancy explaining this to your colleagues, or sitting about in an airport for three hours waiting for the next flight.
Now imagine that instead of having to make this decision just before you board, you could do it do it several days in advance, in the comfort of your home. Changes the equation a bit, does it not?
United Airlines is contemplating a new scheme along these lines, called the Flex-Schedule Program. If a flight is overbooked, or looking like it might be, United will contact passengers who have signed up to the scheme up to five days ahead of departure. They will be given the option of switching to a less popular flight on the same day between the same…Continue reading
United Airlines is testing a novel way to bump passengers
IT IS a classic traveller’s dilemma: you are waiting in the boarding area for your flight, and an airline employee asks over the loudspeaker if anyone is willing to be bumped in exchange for a voucher. You like the idea of sacrificing the unimportant meeting you were scheduled to attend in return for a few hundred dollars of travel credit. Then again you do not fancy explaining this to your colleagues, or sitting about in an airport for three hours waiting for the next flight.
Now imagine that instead of having to make this decision just before you board, you could do it do it several days in advance, in the comfort of your home. Changes the equation a bit, does it not?
United Airlines is contemplating a new scheme along these lines, called the Flex-Schedule Program. If a flight is overbooked, or looking like it might be, United will contact passengers who have signed up to the scheme up to five days ahead of departure. They will be given the option of switching to a less popular flight on the same day between the same…Continue reading
Why the spectre of a hard Brexit has European airlines so worried
PILOTS are taught that a too-hard landing is better than a too-soft one. A plane can absorb more shocks than one might think, but a runway is only so long. But when it comes to Brexit Britain’s government seems to differ. And as the deadline for Britain’s secession from the European Union approaches, the spectre of a hard Brexit has some airlines scrambling. For carriers with big operations in Britain, the terms of Brexit cannot be cushioned enough.
Of most concern is that a hard Brexit will involve Britain leaving the European Common Aviation Area. Europe’s open skies fall under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, whose yoke the country must be free from, insists Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister. That in turn would bring into question the right of British carriers to fly routes within the EU. The most pessimistic within the industry, including Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, say that unless a new bilateral agreement is agreed, there is a real prospect that flights between Britain and the continent…Continue reading
Why the spectre of a hard Brexit has European airlines worried
PILOTS are taught that a too-hard landing is better than a too-soft one. A plane can absorb more shocks than one might think, but a runway is only so long. But when it comes to Brexit Britain’s government seems to differ. And as the deadline for Britain’s secession from the European Union approaches, the spectre of a hard Brexit has some airlines scrambling. For carriers with big operations in Britain, the terms of Brexit cannot be cushioned enough.
Of most concern is that a hard Brexit will involve Britain leaving the European Common Aviation Area. Europe’s open skies fall under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, whose yoke the country must be free from, insists Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister. That in turn would bring into question the right of British carriers to fly routes within the EU. The most pessimistic within the industry, including Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, say that unless a new bilateral agreement is agreed, there is a real prospect that flights between Britain and the continent…Continue reading
An illustrious Hong Kong container firm sells to China
STONECUTTERS ISLAND in Hong Kong used to be a favoured habitat for poisonous snakes and eye-catching birds such as the white-bellied sea eagle. Thanks to Hong Kong’s rapid development, it is no longer so hospitable. Its sky is full of gantry cranes, stacking 20-foot-long shipping containers in multicoloured tessellations, like giant Lego bricks. A cluster of decorative containers, daubed in graffiti, line the perimeter of container terminal eight, which is partly operated by COSCO, a state-owned Chinese shipping giant. In bright yellow lettering, one slogan instructs passers-by to “Respect Past, Embrace Future”.
Few Hong Kong companies have as much to tell about the past as Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), the world’s seventh-biggest container shipping line. Its founder, Tung Chao-yung, owned the first Chinese-crewed steamship to travel from Shanghai to France in 1947, and went on to build a shipping empire of over 150 vessels. His…Continue reading
Africa is Islamic banking’s new frontier
IN 2008 Ethiopia’s conservative central bank experimented: it authorised interest-free banking. Interest is prohibited under sharia law, so the move was lauded as a step towards expanding financial services for the country’s large and often poor Muslim minority. But momentum soon stalled. An attempt to launch a fully-fledged Islamic bank foundered. Today most of Ethiopia’s big commercial banks offer a narrow range of Islamic financial products, but to few customers. Islamic finance in Ethiopia was stillborn.
Outside Africa, Islamic finance is in much healthier condition. Between 2007 and 2014, the sector tripled in size (although growth has slowed lately). Total assets are around $1.9trn. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for less than 2% of this, yet it should be especially fertile territory. The continent’s Muslim population is 250m and growing. And according to the World Bank, as many as 350m Africans do not have a bank account.
Several countries are vying to become…Continue reading
The Big Mac index
THIRTY-ONE years ago, The Economist created the Big Mac index as a way of gauging how different currencies stacked up against the dollar. The index is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity, the idea that in the long run, exchange rates should adjust so that the price of an identical basket of tradable goods is the same. Our basket contains one item, a Big Mac.
The latest version of the index shows, for example, that a Big Mac costs $5.30 in America, but just ¥380 ($3.36) in Japan. The Japanese yen is thus, by our meaty logic, 37% undervalued against the dollar.
