How shareholders shaped the Xstrata Glencore merger November 19, 2012 SHAREHOLDERS in Xstrata, the mining company, vote today on whether to approve its mega-merger with Glencore, the commodities group. If passed, the deal will create a £50bn mining and global commodities marketing giant. But reaching this point hasn’t been easy. At nearly every step of over ten months of negotiations, shareholders have successfully made their [...]
As the conflict in Israel and Gaza continues, can the situation be effectively contained? November 19, 2012 YES Adam Hug This crisis can be contained but it will take more than pressuring Hamas to come to ceasefire, or pressing Israel for restraint and an end to its current rules of engagement. The international community must set out a plan to securely relieve the blockade of Gaza, allowing consistent movement across the Rafah [...]
Rapid responses November 19, 2012 Easing the burden [Re: We must ditch unfair loopholes – and then cut tax overall, yesterday] You have to ask what purpose corporation tax serves. Companies are mere constructs for the purposes of providing services to the market. By taxing them, the government is penalising a justifiable and desirable activity. In the end, the consumer [...]
China’s new leaders may struggle to fulfill their immense ambitions November 18, 2012 CHINA has announced its new leadership line-up. It’s a hugely significant event for the world’s second largest economy – indeed. for the world more generally. The new (and old) faces revealed last week will run the country for the next ten years. And their programme is certainly ambitious. On his first day in office, China’s [...]
The City is successfully adapting to a new role among its global competitors November 18, 2012 IN the past month, post-Olympics euphoria has been replaced by a more sober atmosphere. Downgraded growth forecasts and increased inflation expectations paint a decidedly mixed picture of the state of the economy. And to add to the woes, last week the Centre for Economics and Business Research claimed that the number of financial services jobs [...]
A radical proposal to rid Britain of its painful tax on jobs November 18, 2012 AS GEORGE Osborne approaches his Autumn Statement, there’s reason to hope he may finally do something about a tax albatross that hangs around the necks of employers and workers alike: national insurance. A consultation on integrating national insurance with income tax was first announced in the 2012 Budget, scheduled for this summer and then postponed [...]
Syria, the Gaza conflict and the rest: Is the Middle East crisis spiralling out of control? November 18, 2012 YES Allan Hogarth The situation in the Middle East is spinning dangerously out of control. The government ought to be playing a key diplomatic role in protecting human rights. We’d like to see them stressing the human cost of further escalation in the Middle East, and warning all combatants in Syria that there will be [...]
Rapid responses November 18, 2012 Reform agendas [Re: Will the new Chinese leadership implement necessary economic and political reforms? Friday] Maintaining the status quo isn’t an option. It would jeopardise the future of the Communist party. But the party has a habit of reinventing itself and I am cautiously optimistic that it will again. Success will depend on two things. [...]
Forget Grexit and Spexit: Brixit is looming over the European Union November 15, 2012 FORGET Grexit, Spexit or any other possible departures from the euro. Despite yesterday’s news that the Eurozone is now back in recession, the markets should focus on another potential exit. The Brixit – a British departure from the European Union. For the first time in a generation it’s realistic. But would it hurt the UK [...]
Michael Gove is courageously recovering our ancient tradition of learning November 15, 2012 IN 75 BC, when the great Roman politician and champion of liberal learning Cicero was quaestor in Sicily, he led an expedition to a neglected, overgrown jumble of funerary monuments just outside the city of Syracuse. Directing men with scythes to cut away the briars, he uncovered the tomb of Archimedes, lost for more than [...]