Chinese Rage at the Pension System

Chinese Rage at the Pension System

By Dexter Roberts October 31, 2013

When a Beijing professor recently suggested pushing back the age at which retirees get their pensions, China’s bloggers let loose. “You’re indeed completely without conscience, a mouth filled with poison and cruelty, your heart that of a beast,” wrote one blogger from Shenyang, in Liaoning province, on the online portal Sohu.com, according to ChinaSMACK, a website that translates Chinese Internet content. “The clamor to postpone the retirement age is getting louder, a raging fire burns in my heart,” wrote another from Jiangxi province. “Tsinghua University truly has raised a bunch of garbage professors,” wrote a blogger from Guangdong, referring to Yang Yansui, director of Tsinghua’s employment and social security institute, who raised the idea. Read more of this post

Chinese land reform: A world to turn upside down

Chinese land reform: A world to turn upside down

Of the economic issues facing November’s plenum of the Chinese Communist Party, none looms larger than land reform in the countryside

Nov 2nd 2013 | BEIJING AND GUMIAN VILLAGE, GUANGDONG PROVINCE |From the print edition

MORTGAGING a village home is a sensitive issue in China. A nervous local official has warned residents of Gumian, a small farming community set amid hills and paddies in Guangdong province, that they risk leaking state secrets if they talk to a foreign reporter about the new borrowing scheme that lets them make use of the value of their houses. They talk anyway; they are excited by what is going on. Read more of this post

China Brands Follow Dior to Paris Seeking European Glitz: Retail

China Brands Follow Dior to Paris Seeking European Glitz: Retail

By Bloomberg News – Nov 1, 2013

Chinese globetrotters seeking some Western pizazz for their wardrobes in the chic boutiques of Place Vendome in Paris or London’s Mayfair are increasingly likely to end up pondering altogether more familiar garb. Shanghai Woo, a homespun Chinese maker of scarves, plans outlets in Paris, London, Milan and New York over the next three years.Bosideng International Holdings Ltd., seller of 500 yuan ($82) down jackets in China, is counting on a new store in London’s South Molton Street to lend it some allure. Hong Kong-listed Trinity Ltd. this year started selling its Kent & Curwen menswear line at New York’s Bloomingdale’s. Read more of this post

A three-way bidding war for Australian cheese that is already leading to one of Asia’s most expensive food deals is poised to become even pricier

Bid War for Cheese Heralds 13% Warrnambool Bump: Real M&A

By Angus Whitley and David Stringer – Nov 1, 2013

A three-way bidding war for Australian cheese that is already leading to one of Asia’s most expensive food deals is poised to become even pricier. Saputo Inc. (SAP) of Montreal offered $425 million for Warrnambool Cheese & Butter Factory Co. (WCB) last month, beating two bidders with a record premium for a peer in Asia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. After Japan’s Kirin Holdings Co. (2503) this week bought about 10 percent of Warrnambool for more than Saputo’s proposed takeover price, bids may rise even higher, said RBS Morgans Ltd. Read more of this post

Taiwan food company indicted for fraud

Taiwan food company indicted for fraud

Friday, November 1, 2013 – 09:37

Lauly Li

The China Post/Asia News Network

TAIPEI – The Changhua District Prosecutors’ Office on Thursday indicted Flavor Full Foods (富味鄉食品) Chairman Chen Wen-nan (陳文南) and five other company employees on charges of fraud and violations of the Act Governing Food Sanitation. Prosecutor said that Chen, who doubles as the firm’s manager, and technical director Chen Rui-li (陳瑞禮), research & development centre manager Lin Rui-tsung (林瑞聰), and supplies section chief Liu Chi-wei (劉騏瑋) had allegedly added low-cost sesame oil into the firm’s three so-called 100-per cent pure sesame oil products since December 2009. Read more of this post

Japan Stocks Sink to Monthly Worst in Developed Markets

Japan Stocks Sink to Monthly Worst in Developed Markets

By Yoshiaki Nohara and Toshiro Hasegawa – Nov 1, 2013

Japan’s stocks trailed every other developed market last month, with the steepest rally in 40 years petering out on concern a higher sales tax will curb growth while U.S. stimulus bolsters the yen. The Topix index rose less than 0.1 percent in October, the smallest gain among 24 developed markets tracked by Bloomberg. The gauge, which remains the best performer this year with a 39 percent surge, has fallen for four of the past six months. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Oct. 1 he will proceed with a plan to raise the sales levy in April to 8 percent from 5 percent. Strategists pared forecasts for yen declines as a weaker economic outlook spurred speculation that the Federal Reserve will delay reducing its monthly bond purchases. Read more of this post

The Bank of Korea has warned that the middle class, which constitutes the economic backbone of our society, could possibly collapse due to debt burden

2013-11-01 16:51

Middle class on brink

The Bank of Korea has warned that the middle class, which constitutes the economic backbone of our society, could possibly collapse. According to a report on financial stability released by the central bank on Thursday, people in the middle-income pool with medium credit ratings are increasingly feeling the weight of their debt burden. This is because the financial authorities, concerned over the increasing growth of household debt in 2011 and 2012, encouraged banks and other financial institutions to tighten their lending, which resulted in those with lower credit ratings seeking out loans with higher interest from non-banking private lenders. Aside from the prolonged business slump, a sharp rise in “jeonse’’ ― which requires renters to make a lump-sum deposit for a rental space ― has also amplified the burden on middle-income debtors. Read more of this post

Google to showcase Korean civilisation, culture

Google to showcase Korean civilisation, culture

Thursday, October 31, 2013 – 12:17

Bae Ji-sook

The Korea Herald/Asia News Network

SEOUL – Google, the world’s most-visited website, will dedicate a section to Korean culture including traditional dress, architecture, film and Hangeul. The Internet giant will also support the development of a special programme and space where children of multicultural families and foreigners can learn and understand the unique Korean writing system at the Hangeul Museum, which is slated to open in Seoul in 2014, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Google announced Wednesday at a joint press briefing. Read more of this post

Japan electronics firms struggle; Sony suffers TV relapse as peers change channel

Updated: Friday November 1, 2013 MYT 8:25:17 AM

Japan electronics firms struggle

TOKYO: Japan’s top electronics firms have reported mixed earnings, with Sony slashing its full-year profit outlook while hard-hit Panasonic turned in strong earnings and boosted its annual forecast. The firms have undergone painful restructuring to stem years of losses as they struggle to keep up in the low-margin television business, while rivals including Apple and South Korea’s Samsung surge ahead in the lucrative smartphone sector. Read more of this post

Abe Aide Honda Advocates 29% Japan Corporate Tax to Stoke Growth

Abe Aide Honda Advocates 29% Japan Corporate Tax to Stoke Growth

Japan should lower its effective corporate tax rate to Germany’s level, around 29 percent, to help bolster growth, according to one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s top economic aides. “The effective rate should be lowered to the global standard of advanced economies,” Etsuro Honda, 58, said in an interview at the Prime Minister’s office in Tokyo yesterday. A reduction in the rate, estimated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at 37 percent, should be included in the reforms Abe plans to help revive the nation’s economy after two decades of stagnation, according to Honda. Read more of this post

Jakarta monorail builder sees on-time completion

Jakarta monorail builder sees on-time completion

Friday, Nov 01, 2013

Jeffery Hutton

The Business Times

JAKARTA – The chief executive officer of Jakarta’s recently revived US$1.6 billion (S$2 billion) monorail transit system says that strong political backing from the central government as well as the municipal government of Governor Joko Widodo will help ensure that the project is completed, as it is now hoped, in 2016, more than a decade after plans for the service were first unveiled. Read more of this post

Multi Commodity Exchange Vice Chairman Jignesh Shah Resigns

Multi Commodity Exchange Vice Chairman Jignesh Shah Resigns

DEBIPRASAD NAYAK and BIMAN MUKHERJI

Oct. 31, 2013 11:18 a.m. ET

MUMBAI—Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. 500790.BY +0.39% ‘s executive vice chairman, Jignesh Shah, Thursday resigned from the bourse that he founded, in the wake of a snowballing payment crisis at another commodity exchange he helped build. Mr. Shah has steered the Multi Commodity Exchange from scratch to one of the world’s largest commodity futures exchange in about a decade. His company, Financial Technologies (India) Ltd. 526881.BY +0.76% , also co-founded the National Spot Exchange and the MCX Stock Exchange. Read more of this post

Jobs on the line as India’s gold sector suffers under government curbs

Jobs on the line as India’s gold sector suffers under government curbs

5:04pm EDT

By Siddesh Mayenkar and A. Ananthalakshmi

MUMBAI/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Squeezed by government rules meant to curb a surge in gold imports, India’s bullion industry is shrinking, with banks and others opting to redeploy personnel for now but possibly facing big job cuts in coming months. Refiners, jewelry manufacturers and retailers say they could start cutting jobs after Diwali, one of India’s biggest festivals, in the first week of November as festive demand will have sucked supply dry. Some have already begun to do so. Read more of this post

Construction of world’s tallest statue begins in India

Construction of world’s tallest statue begins in India

Thursday, October 31, 2013 – 17:41

Rajesh Joshi AFP

AHMEDABAD – Indian farmers were urged Thursday to hand over scraps of metal and tools for the world’s tallest statue, as construction began on what promoters hope will be a wonder of the world. The tribute to Sardar Patel, the first home minister of independent India, is set to be twice the size of the Statue of Liberty and four times higher than Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.  Read more of this post

Shell – when size becomes a problem

Shell – when size becomes a problem

October 31, 2013 7:03 pmby Nick Butler

It seems bizarre to say that a company which will generate cash this year of between $40bn and $45bn has a fundamental structural problem. But the latest results from Royal Dutch Shell show just how weak the correlation between size and performance has proved to be. Capital expenditure is so high that even cash at that level may be insufficient to cover spending and dividends. The company looks lost – a lumbering dinosaur in a world where the prizes go to the quick and nimble. I know that is unfair to Shell’s excellent people and world-class technical skills. But to release the potential the Anglo-Dutch company needs to be broken up, allowing entrepreneurial talent to operate free from the cloying bureaucracy created decades ago to save the energy group from dangerously over powerful chief executives. Shell is a commercial enterprise not a nation state. The sooner it is run as such the better for all concerned, including the staff and the long suffering shareholders. Read more of this post

Refining overcapacity hits oil majors

Last updated: October 31, 2013 7:57 pm

Refining overcapacity hits oil majors

By Guy Chazan in London and Ed Crooks in New York

Squeezed margins in the global refining industry are hurting the world’s largest oil companies, as Royal Dutch Shell, Total andExxonMobil all blamed poor quarterly earnings on a decline in their downstream businesses. Results from Shell were the most disappointing Thursday, as its profit dropped almost a third to $4.5bn. ExxonMobil’sprofit fell 18 per cent to $7.87bn, while Total’s declined almost a fifth to €2.72bn.

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Oil Sands Prevail Even if Most Carbon Becomes ‘Unburnable’: Suncor

Oil Sands Prevail Even if Most Carbon Becomes ‘Unburnable’: Suncor

The phrase “unburnable carbon” has gained currency among climate-minded investors, popularized by a U.K.-based nonprofit called the Carbon Tracker Initiative. It refers to the vast fossil-fuel reserves that, if burned, would probably push the global climate into the danger zone. Some investors are concerned that stock-market valuations would plummet if oil companies continue to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on exploration while the world lunges away from oil. Last week, a coalition of 70 large investors representing more than $3 trillion in assets said they had dispatched letters to 45 of the largest fossil-fuel companies and utilities, asking them to explain how they plan to deal with the risk. This morning, Al Gore and Generation Investment Management co-founder David Blood published a paper on the topic. Read more of this post

Tyson Foods Looks to Convenience Stores to Sell More Chicken

Tyson Foods Looks to Convenience Stores to Sell More Chicken

By Shruti Date Singh October 31, 2013

Tyson Foods (TSN) is the largest U.S. commodity beef and chicken supplier, with slaughterhouses that process an average of 132,000 head of cattle and 41.4 million chickens weekly. But the company is seeking fortune beyond the supermarket meat department. That’s why it’s rushing to sell piping-hot Buffalo chicken bites near the cash register at many of the gas stations and 149,000 convenience stores across the U.S. Such locales may not be sexy or even particularly appetizing, but their sales are growing while revenue at traditional food stores is falling. The profit margins of prepared foods—even those sold alongside cigarettes and condoms—can be bigger and more stable than those for raw meat. Read more of this post

Starbucks’s Teahouse Ambitions for Its Teavana Chain

Starbucks’s Teahouse Ambitions for Its Teavana Chain

By Venessa Wong and Susan Berfield October 31, 2013

Starbucks (SBUX), the company that reinvented the modern coffee shop, is turning its attention to another venue: the teahouse. Last year the 19,000-cafe giant acquired Teavana, a chain of mall stores that sell tea and teaware. On Oct. 24, Starbucks opened the first Teavana tea bar on New York’s Upper East Side. It plans to open 1,000 stores in North America within 10 years. “We have confidence and excitement and optimism about … the tea bar concept, not only in the U.S. and North America, but opportunities in other places around the globe,” says Cliff Burrows, Starbucks’s president for the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and Teavana. Read more of this post

McDonald’s is taking its coffee war with Starbucks straight to your kitchen

McDonald’s is taking its coffee war with Starbucks straight to your kitchen

By Roberto A. Ferdman @robferdman 11 hours ago

McDonald’s has high hopes that the coffee it farms out at drive-thru windows can thrive in your home. McDonald’s and Kraft Foods are planning to test McCafe-branded coffee at grocery and retail stores across the US starting in 2014, Reuters reports. The companies intend to sell three coffee products in stores next year: packages of whole coffee beans, packages of ground coffee beans, and McCafe “single-cups,” much like the K-cups made popular by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Kraft will be in charge of marketing and distributing McDonald’s new coffee offerings. Read more of this post

Electrolux’s Holy Trinity for Hit Products

Electrolux’s Holy Trinity for Hit Products

By Carol Matlack October 31, 2013

What is the most unpleasant thing about vacuuming? Swedish appliance maker Electrolux (ELUXA:SS) has a lot riding on the answer. So two years ago the company’s market researchers spent hours in homes in Australia, France, and Russia, watching and asking questions as people vacuumed, then cataloging the “pain points.” Their findings led Electrolux to develop a bagless vacuum cleaner, the UltraCaptic, that compresses dust into a spongy pellet, eliminating flyaway particles when the machine is emptied. Read more of this post

Avon’s shares plunged more than 20% after the cosmetics company said federal regulators are seeking much larger-than-expected penalties to resolve a long-running bribery probe

Avon Warns of Possibly Onerous SEC Penalty

Makeup Seller Says Government’s Offer in Bribe Probe ‘Not Warranted’

SERENA NG and ANNA PRIOR

Updated Oct. 31, 2013 9:09 p.m. ET

Avon Products Inc. AVP -21.88% ‘s shares plunged more than 20% after the cosmetics company said federal regulators are seeking much larger-than-expected penalties to resolve a long-running bribery probe. The government’s position, disclosed by Avon in a regulatory filing, adds another big weight on a company already struggling to turn around a string of poor results. On Thursday, the door-to-door seller of makeup and consumer products reported a third-quarter loss following a steep drop in sales in the U.S. and China.

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Disney’s Mouse Has Room to Roar; Shares of big media companies have been on a tear the past year as the market power of content owners seems increasingly difficult to dispute

Disney’s Mouse Has Room to Roar

Investment in Its Business Should Start to Pay Off

MIRIAM GOTTFRIED

Oct. 31, 2013 4:02 p.m. ET

Walt Disney‘s DIS +0.18% kingdom has seemed less than magical in recent months. Shares of big media companies have been on a tear the past year as the market power of content owners seems increasingly difficult to dispute. All trade at, or near, 52-week highs. In that, Disney is no exception. But its shares have underperformed peers, rising 40% over the past year, compared with 62% for 21st Century Fox, FOXA +0.43% 63% for ViacomVIAB -0.24% and 83% for CBS. CBS +0.89% Read more of this post

Yalies Yellen-Hamada Putting Tobin’s Twist Theory to Work in QE

Yalies Yellen-Hamada Putting Tobin’s Twist Theory to Work in QE

When James Tobin joined President John F. Kennedy’s administration in 1961, the U.S. economy was struggling to recover from its third recession in seven years. As a member of Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisers, the Yale University professor put his theoretical research on asset markets to work in fashioning a novel strategy — nicknamed Operation Twist — to reduce long-term interest rates. Read more of this post

Wal-Mart to Widows Will Feel U.S. Food Stamp Cuts

Wal-Mart to Widows Will Feel U.S. Food Stamp Cuts

By Derek Wallbank and Alan Bjerga – Nov 1, 2013

Annie Crist says she dreads telling her two daughters that cuts in food-stamp benefits taking effect today means less chicken and fewer hamburgers for dinner. And with deeper cuts looming as part of a possible U.S. budget deal, Crist and other recipients may feel an even greater pinch — along with retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and Kroger Co. Read more of this post

Trusts and financial transparency: Trusts, foundations and other “legal arrangements” are a vulnerable flank in the fight against dirty money

Trusts and financial transparency

The weak link

Oct 31st 2013, 16:50 by M.V. | NEW YORK

A FEW years ago Mark Morris, a Zurich-based tax consultant with a conscience, requested a meeting with the European Commission to explain the many devious ways in which tax evaders were using shell companies and other vehicles to conceal their interest in offshore bank accounts. The official he met “seemed uninterested and offered me 20 minutes,” Mr Morris recalls, “but once I started describing all the loopholes his eyes lit up. Two hours later he was still listening, scribbling furiously.” Read more of this post

Public Pension Funds Need to Show the Money

Public Pension Funds Need to Show the Money

By David Crane – Oct 31, 2013

Syndicated columnist David Sirota is on a mission to prevent public pension funds from investing in “alternative assets” such as private-equity and hedge funds. In Salon this month, Sirota criticized these investments as “a transfer of retirement income to Wall Street.” In another column responding to a piece I wrote defending pension-fund investment in such alternatives, he characterized the practice as “con artistry.” Read more of this post

Property hot spots renew easy-money bubble fears

Property hot spots renew easy-money bubble fears

2:36am EDT

By Alan Wheatley and Tim Reid

LONDON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – From China to Canada and London, fast-rising property markets are haunting the global economy again, five years after the U.S. subprime mortgage bubble burst and triggered the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. For now, house price inflation is neither as high nor as widespread as it was in the middle of last decade. Except in a few cases, the warning signals are flashing amber, not red, and several countries have acted to cool overheating markets. Read more of this post

Perhaps half a million people live illegally in Britain. The government’s draconian new immigration bill will not change that much

Perhaps half a million people live illegally in Britain. The government’s draconian new immigration bill will not change that much

Oct 26th 2013 |From the print edition

MARY, a Zimbabwean woman, first came to Britain in 2003. She flew in on a South African passport and immediately claimed asylum. Her claim was rejected, as the Home Office believed she really was South African. But, like many asylum seekers, she did not leave. Several years—and appeals—later, she was almost deported, but avoided it by cutting herself with a blade she found in her cell. She has no right to be in Britain, let alone to work or claim benefits. But nor is she likely to be deported. “I don’t really know what happens now,” she says. Read more of this post

Pay and economic growth: A shrinking slice; Labour’s share of national income has fallen. The right remedy is to help workers, not punish firms

Pay and economic growth: A shrinking slice; Labour’s share of national income has fallen. The right remedy is to help workers, not punish firms

Nov 2nd 2013 |From the print edition

IMAGINE the proceeds of economic output as a pie, crudely divided between the wages earned by workers and the returns accrued to the owners of capital, whether as profits, rents or interest income. Until the early 1980s the relative sizes of those slices were so stable that their constancy became an economic rule of thumb. Much of modern macroeconomics simply assumes the shares remain the same. That stability provides the link between productivity and prosperity. If workers always get the same slice of the economic pie, then an improvement in their average productivity—which boosts growth—should translate into higher average earnings. Read more of this post