How simple rules can help avoid Piketty-style spreadsheet mistakes May 23, 2014 Economist Thomas Piketty has come under attack today. And this time it's not for his ideas, but the quality of his spreadsheets. The Financial Times' Chris Giles has gone through the data published by the French economist, and found a range of errors. When corrected for, the picture of wealth inequality painted by Piketty changes, [...]
Boris Johnson makes his final case for a new Estuary airport May 22, 2014 MAYOR of London Boris Johnson has made his final case for a new four-runway airport in the Thames Estuary, arguing that such a scheme could be built by 2029 and support 400,000 jobs across the country. In his latest submission to the government’s airports commission, Johnson insisted the airport “faces no insuperable obstacles to its [...]
China is the real victor as Putin looks East May 22, 2014 WHEN President Vladimir Putin voyaged to Beijing this week, it was with one thing in mind: strengthening Sino-Russian relations. The signing of a $400bn (£237bn) gas pipeline deal with Beijing formed the centrepiece of this effort. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is pushing the US and Europe away, and Putin is looking to reorient towards an [...]
Janet Yellen won’t be pleased with this month’s US home sales May 22, 2014 Data from the National Association of Realtors shows existing home sales up from 4.59m to 4.65m in April, with the change in existing home sales up by 1.3 per cent. Analysts at Investec said in a preview that these figures "are likely to take on additional significance this week following Janet Yellen’s comments regarding housing [...]
Nigel Farage looks forward to a European holiday in new spoof video May 21, 2014 Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, is the subject of a new controversial ad campaign from the travel web-site Lastminute.com, in which he appears to be espousing the virtues of going on holiday to countries like Romania and Bulgaria. The advertisement, which involves selected editing of various pronouncements from Farage, shows [...]
Bottom Line: Bolland has until the autumn to do better May 20, 2014 RELAUNCHING a retail website is not easy. Behind the flashy new design and faux editorial content that draws shoppers towards key products is layer upon layer of complex infrastructure – payment systems and forms and code and algorithms. Somewhere in that complex maze of programming, Marks & Spencer tripped up. Before its new site went live [...]
Thomas Piketty and the great inequality debate: The Ayn Rand response May 20, 2014 After weeks of debates and reviews Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty First Century is still a subject of fierce controversy and currently ranks 17 on the Amazon bestseller list. Piketty's argument that the rate of return on capital in capitalist economies tends to be higher than the growth rate, leading to a concentration of [...]
M&S profit falls less than expected as Bolland stresses step by step approach May 20, 2014 Marks and Spencer has reported a fall in profits for the third year in a row: in the year ended in March, the store saw a 3.9 per cent decrease in underlying pre-tax profit, to £623m. That is, however, considerably better than the 7.5 per cent drop analysts have been predicting. Pressured chief executive Marc [...]
Bill Gates’ firm Corbis buys UK sports marketer May 19, 2014 CORBIS Entertainment, owned by billionaire Bill Gates, today announced it has bought City-based sports marketing firm WSM Communications, in a deal set to create a sports and entertainment marketing group spread across both sides of the Atlantic. Corbis Entertainment is a division of Corbis, a digital content and entertainment rights company founded by Gates in [...]
City A.M. joins Chuka Umunna: a Brexit would be catastrophic for London firms May 19, 2014 WALKING around Labour-stronghold Burnt Oak with shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna feels a bit like knowing a minor celebrity. Some people clasp his hand and snap selfies, others brush past uninterested. “I don’t want to be the shadow secretary, I want to be the real thing!” Umunna tells one couple who run a curtain shop [...]