 |  | | Economics & Politics | | ON March 24 the Portuguese
prime minister, Jose Socrates,
resigned after all the opposition
parties rejected his austerity
plan, which included slashing
pensions by more than €1,500 a
month and more cuts in tax benefits.
His government´s collapse triggered an
election, which could not take place for
another two months. During the interim
Socrates stayed on as acting prime
minister and reached an agreement
with the European Union and the
International Monetary Fund for a
€78bn bailout. The terms? Almost
exactly the same as those proposed by
him and rejected by the Portuguese
parliament six weeks earlier.
When the elections finally took place
the political class could sense a certain
degree of cynicism. The Portuguese
president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, warned
voters they could not complain about
what... |
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| |  | | CASH CON BY
CORPORATES |
| WATCHING the evolution
of economic discussion
in
Washington over the
past couple of years
has been a disheartening experience.
Month by month, the discourse
has gotten more primitive;
with stunning speed, the lessons
of the 2008 financial crisis have
been forgotten, and the very ideas
that got us into the crisis - regulation
is always bad, what´s good
for the bankers is good for
America, tax cuts are the universal
elixir - have regained their
hold.
And now trickle-down economics
- specifically, the idea that
anything that increases corporate
profits is good for the economy -
is making a comeback.
On the face of it, this seems
bizarre. Over the past two years
profits have soared while employment
has remained disastrously
high. Why should anyone believe
that handing even more money to
corporations, no strings... |
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 | Second quarter earnings
focus on banking sector
IT is time for companies to
report their earnings for
the second quarter of 2011
and investors are anxiously
waiting news of how the
firms they bet on are doing.
This time the spotlight is
on banks in view of the Qatar
Central Bank (QCB) communiqué.
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| | Bombardier loses UK contract,
lays off 1,400 factory workers |
 CANADIAN manufacturer
Bombardier axed over 1,400
jobs at Britain´s only train factory
on Tuesday, blaming the
move on the British government´s
decision to award a contract
to German rival Siemens.
Bombardier said it would cut
446 permanent staff and 983
temporary workers at the plant
in Derby, central England,
sparking calls from unions and
the main opposition Labour
party for the coalition government
to reverse the decision.
Bombardier´s move comes
after it failed to win a £1.4-
billion ($2.2-billion, 1.5-billion-
euro) contract for 1,200
carriages on the Thameslink
railway route which cuts
across London.
"The loss of the Thameslink... |
| | Japan finds huge rare earth deposits |  VAST deposits of rare earth
minerals, crucial in making
high-tech electronics products,
have been found on the floor of
the Pacific Ocean and can be
readily extracted, Japanese scientists
said on Monday.
"The deposits have a heavy
concentration of rare earths.
Just one square kilometre
(0.4 square mile) of deposits
will be able to provide onefifth
of the current global
annual consumption," said
Yasuhiro Kato, an associate
professor of earth science at
the University of Tokyo.
The discovery was made by a
team led by Kato and including
researchers from the Japan
Agency for Marine-Earth
Science and Technology.
They found the minerals in
sea mud extracted... |
| | World markets stall after
Greece gets debt warning |
 WORLD stocks stalled on
Tuesday after comments on
Greece by Standard & Poor´s
underlined that the debt
laden country may be unable
to avoid defaulting.
Oil prices hovered below
$95 a barrel while the dollar
rose against the yen and the
euro.
In early European trading,
Britain´s FTSE 100 rose 0.1
percent to 6,023.49 and
Germany´s DAX was 0.2 percent
higher at 7,455.62.
France´s CAC-40 dropped 0.3
percent to 3,991.81.
Wall Street appeared
poised for a mixed opening
after a three-day holiday
weekend. Dow Jones industrial
futures rose 0.1 percent
to 12,531 and S&P 500 futures
slipped less than 0.1 percent
to 1,334.10.
Earlier in Asia, Japan´s
Nikkei 225 index... |
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