Business-political connections can backfire

Business-political connections can backfire

Business Desk
The Nation December 23, 2013 1:00 am

Since all Thais were given the vote 81 years ago, few business clans have established a direct involvement in politics. Khunying Kalaya Sophonpanich is one exception to this rule. From the Tejapaibul family, there is Pornthep. Nuanphan Lamsam also briefly got into politics. Their surnames speak volumes about what they represent. Wherever they go and whatever they do, they remind the public of their families.

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Singapore government decides not to interfere with Bitcoin

Singapore government decides not to interfere with Bitcoin

December 23, 2013

by Terence Lee

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank, has decided not to intervene on whether businesses can accept Bitcoin as a means of transacting goods and services. Read more of this post

Hotels in Myanmar: From generals to general managers

Hotels in Myanmar: From generals to general managers

Dec 21st 2013 | YANGON | From the print edition

TO APPRECIATE the impact of the industrial hotel, fly an hour north-west of Bangkok to the industry’s new frontier—Myanmar. On the roof of the Asia Plaza, a decrepit Soviet-style hotel, a modern day plongeur in a singlet bemoans his fate. His wage of $50 a month “is not enough to feed my family”, he laments. A pal says the only worse job he has had was in a karaoke-and-sex club run for the pleasure of army officers during the years of brutal military dictatorship. Read more of this post

CIMB chief warns of commercial property bubble in KL

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 24, 2013

CIMB chief warns of commercial property bubble in KL

He calls on govt not to embark simultaneously on its massive projects

PAULINE NG

IN KUALA LUMPUR

CIMB group chief executive Nazir Razak suggested that the government reconsider the mammoth supply of commercial space in Kuala Lumpur to prevent an oversupply – PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

AS government strategic development agency 1MDB stepped up its investment pitch for the new Tun Razak Exchange (TRX) financial district to investors last week, CIMB group chief executive Nazir Razak suggested that the government reconsider the mammoth supply of commercial space in Kuala Lumpur to prevent an oversupply. Read more of this post

Will 2013 Go Down as the Year The United States Lost China?

Will 2013 Go Down as the Year The United States Lost China?

By Noah Feldman on 10:59 am December 24, 2013.

Having spent two days getting to know each other in Sunnylands, California, in June, Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Barack Obama of the United States sent each other Christmas gifts this year. Obama sent a B-52 bomber through airspace that China claims as its own; Xi then sent a ship from his new carrier group to cut a dangerous 180 meters in front of an American cruiser. Cool war heating up much? Read more of this post

Utilities Mimic Cable With Monthly Fee to Preserve Grid

Utilities Mimic Cable With Monthly Fee to Preserve Grid

U.S. utilities are starting to charge customers just for hooking up to power lines as they seek to collect $2 trillion over the next two decades to maintain their electricity grids in a shrinking market. Read more of this post

Supersize My Wage

December 17, 2013

Supersize My Wage

By ANNIE LOWREY

About 20 years ago, in the midst of a recession, New Jersey decided to boost its minimum wage to $5.05 an hour from $4.25. Its neighbor to the west, Pennsylvania, chose not to tinker with its wage floor. Two bright young economists at Princeton, David Card and Alan B. Krueger, recognized in that dull occurrence a promising natural experiment. Read more of this post

Solo French Startups Face Curbs as Hollande Heeds Lobbies

Solo French Startups Face Curbs as Hollande Heeds Lobbies

Helga Lemierre’s work as an independent translator provides enough money to cover the mortgage on her home in Grenoble, near the French Alps, while letting her be available for her two daughters. She’s concerned those days may be over. Read more of this post

Investors push companies to flex M&A muscle … carefully

Investors push companies to flex M&A muscle … carefully
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
By Simon Jessop and Anjuli Davies, Reuters

LONDON–Investors have received billions of euros from European companies so cautious about the economic outlook they could find nothing better to do with spare cash, but many now want boards to snap up rivals instead — and are rewarding them when they do. Read more of this post

If Germany Doesn’t Bend, Europe May Break

If Germany Doesn’t Bend, Europe May Break

Angela Merkel, speaking to the German parliament at the start of her third term as chancellor, said last week that “Germany will only be strong in the long term if Europe is strong.” If only she were prepared to act on that insight. Read more of this post

How To Steal Bitcoins In Three Easy Steps

How To Steal Bitcoins In Three Easy Steps

Tyler Durden on 12/21/2013 18:58 -0500

Over the past several months, Bitcoins have soared in popularity, acceptance and price. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before Bitcoin crime followed. As reported here previously, earlier this month, the largest heist in the history of Bitcoin was pulled off when the illegal drug bazaar Sheep Marketplace was plundered, either by hackers or insiders, and about $100 million worth of the currency was stolen from customers. Read more of this post

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Fannie? With $3.3 trillion in assets, the mortgage giant ought to be a ‘systemically important financial institution.’

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Fannie?

With $3.3 trillion in assets, the mortgage giant ought to be a ‘systemically important financial institution.’

ALEX J. POLLOCK

Dec. 23, 2013 7:17 p.m. ET

While Congress has reached an agreement on the federal budget, consensus on housing policy continues to elude lawmakers. Despite lengthy and extensive efforts, there’s no agreement on how to reform the failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae FNMA +1.29% andFreddie Mac. FMCC +1.34% Read more of this post

High Cost of Low Prices for the Fed

High Cost of Low Prices for the Fed

JUSTIN LAHART

Dec. 23, 2013 12:51 p.m. ET

The Federal Reserve has two things on its wish list for 2014: A better job market and more inflation. It looks likely that it will get the first. The second is less certain. Read more of this post

Fund Of Funds Implosion Forces Conversion Of Ever More Hedge Funds Into “Long-Onlies”

Fund Of Funds Implosion Forces Conversion Of Ever More Hedge Funds Into “Long-Onlies”

Tyler Durden on 12/23/2013 13:40 -0500

In a world in which the Chief Risk Officer of the formerly free capital markets, Ben Bernanke, has made any downside hedges obsolete (and as a result hedge funds have posted 5 years of returns without outperforming the S&P500), the first casualty has emerged: fund of funds. These parasitic, fee-soaking institutions, which merely collect a fee on top of the fees already charged by hedge funds, are rapidly on their way to extinction as the following charts from Eurekahedge prove conclusively. Read more of this post

Europe banks overexposed to domestic debt

December 23, 2013 10:20 am

Europe banks overexposed to domestic debt

By Christopher Thompson

The economic fates of European governments and financial institutions are set to become ever more intertwined next year despite concerns about the rise of a potentially destabilising “sovereign-bank” nexus. Read more of this post

Contrarian investors hope for better times in 2014

December 23, 2013 3:41 pm

Contrarian investors hope for better times in 2014

By Christopher Thompson

In the topsy-turvy world of contrarian investing, market rallies are generally a bad thing and volatility is good. Betting against the conventional wisdom yielded big gains for contrarians during the dotcom crash of 2000 and financial crisis in 2009. Not so the past 12 months. Read more of this post

Companies Binge on Share Buybacks; Share buybacks and dividends are reaching levels unseen since before the financial crisis, as persistent economic uncertainty prompts cash-rich companies to reward shareholders rather than invest in other activities

Companies Binge on Share Buybacks

STEVEN RUSSOLILLO

Dec. 23, 2013 7:13 p.m. ET

U.S. companies are showering cash on shareholders, powering the stock market’s record-breaking rally. Share buybacks and dividends are reaching levels unseen since before the financial crisis, as persistent economic uncertainty prompts cash-rich companies to reward shareholders rather than invest in other activities. Read more of this post

Dubai Offices Vacant With Multiple Owners Structure

Dubai Offices Vacant With Multiple Owners Structure

The Index tower on Dubai’s answer to Wall Street has 23 floors of empty offices out of the 25 it opened in 2011. A few hundred feet away, buildings controlled by the Dubai International Financial Centre are almost full. Read more of this post