| Determined to sell
As minister of investment, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party's Policies Committee and chairman of the party's Economy Committee, Mahmoud Mohieddin is in a unique position to articulate and draft Egypt's future economic and political agendas. In a roundtable discussion with Al-Ahram Weekly , Mohieddin showed enthusiasm about the outcome of economic reform and the long- term effects of the constitutional amendments. He noted that for 30 years the state failed to run public sector companies efficiently, and that keeping a loss-making company under the state umbrella is considered a crime. Bombarded by criticism over the past three years for selling what people view as the country's crown jewels does not seem to impede Mohieddin's determination to stay on the privatisation track.
FXCM: Currencies Quiet Awaiting NFP Data
Majors hugged very tight ranges in Asian and European sessions as trading was particularly quiet ahead of the US Non-Farm payroll numbers. In addition, capital markets in Europe and US are closed today for the Good Friday holiday. Therefore, given the lack of liquidity, currency trading may be even more volatile than the typical NFP Friday. In Japan today, the Leading Indicator index slipped further down to 30 from 40.9 the month prior. The index has spend the last eight months below the 50 boom/bust level but during that time has been woefully inaccurate in predicting an actual economic slowdown as Japan’s GDP expanded at a healthy 3.8% - far stronger than most analysts predicted. Nevertheless, the LEI news should not be dismissed out of hand, especially if consumer sentiment begins to waver once again.
AirAsia's New Worlds
Buried deep within the filing cabinets in some airline analyst and CEO offices around Asia are reports that confidently predicted low-cost carriers never would succeed in the region. The rationale was simple and, to most, convincing: Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines had similar unit costs to Ryanair and easyJet so how could a budget airline work in Asia? Fortunately for 30 million passengers (through February 2007) who enjoy the world's lowest airfares every day, AirAsia founder and CEO Tony Fernandes never saw those reports. Even if he had, he would have laughed them off, for it has been his single-minded focus on welding the Ryanair business model to Asian labor costs and work ethics that has given AirAsia extraordinary ASK costs of just 2.2 cents for its Malaysian operations.
Alleges malfeasance by political, judicial, economic leaders
The population of illegal aliens already in the United States has been estimated at 12-20 million, with a crowd of another two million arriving each year, including thousands through the lengthy and largely remote border Pima County, Ariz., shares with Mexico. One activist says the reason is the power structure in the county actually endorses such immigration because the workers provide a source of low-cost labor for the region's booming construction industry, and what's good for business is what's good for everyone. But Roy Warden objects to the premise, believing the illegals are exploited in Mexico before they leave, they are blackmailed on their way into the U.S., and they are exploited after they arrive. (Story continues below) The solution, he said, is for Mexicans to remain in Mexico and stage their own revolution, to improve conditions there, and he's going to federal court to be allowed to continue to raise his strident voice in condemnation of those he believes facilitate the immigration.
Russia: Would-Be Great Power?
MOSCOW. (Ian Pryde for RIA Novosti) - Anyone strolling around a half-decent bookshop these days will find that most of the books on current affairs seem to deal with Islam and the war in Iraq - and China. The storyline is, of course, that China is changing the world as the rising giant and superpower of the twenty-first century. India also warrants the odd volume, but more by virtue of its size and software industry rather than its overall economy, even though it averaged GDP growth of 5.7% per annum between 1979 and 2006 and since implementing liberal reforms in the early 1990s has achieved an average of 6.8% since 1994 - a solid performance, of course, but way below that of China's. But go back to the early 1990s and the time after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the bookshelves were full of books on Russia, on its politics and its opportunities for western business.
The retirement party's in full swing - enjoy it while it lasts
What a fantastic yarn this Saga saga has been. While the advertising trendies have made a fetish of youth, the shrewder marketing game has been to follow their grandparents' money. Funnily enough people tend to have more of that at the end of their working life than when they're just starting out. We know that youth is wasted on the young; now we're learning that it doesn't do much for your business plan either. .
FXCM: Dollar Averts Doomsday
Listening to dollar bears last week one would have thought that the collapse of the greenback was inevitable with the fears over the sub-prime blowup rising to a fever pitch. Dollar bearishness reached its apex right after the FOMC meeting. The Fed acknowledged the problems in the housing sector in its communiqué, leading many market players to assume that US monetary officials changed their bias to a neutral stance. However, the Fed did nothing of the sort. In fact, if anything FOMC members stressed the upside risks of inflation and after a second look the market reconsidered its opinion capping the EURUSD pair at 1.3400. As the week progressed US data turned much more dollar friendly, first with smaller than expected jobless claims on Thursday and then with a much stronger Existing Home Sales results on Friday.
A Dog-Eat-Dog System
There are winners and losers, an old, bearded, 19th Century economist told us once. That's the way the system works. Capitalists have been chewing each other up since the Industrial Revolution, said Karl Marx, world famous analyst of "the system", and the battle of mergers and acquisitions still goes on. Dog eat dog. There are always a few good men left at the table; but winners grow increasingly fewer and richer. There are now 946 billionaires in the world, according to Forbes, and 371 of them are in the United States with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett topping the list with $56 billion and $52 billion respectively. So, we wind up with a few winners, a lot of losers, and a plethora of monopolies and oligopolies. You can see it everywhere in our economy, today. In the main stream media, five or six oligopolies control just about everything we read, see, hear and think.
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