Would you risk riding your bicycle every day through the rush-hour traffic in a UK city in order to avoid being victim to a 7/7-style terrorist attack on the bus or Tube? In the immediate aftermath of the 2005 tragedy, many people would probably have answered in the affirmative; six years on, perhaps less so. Yet, although the death toll of the terrorist attack was 52 dead and approximately 700 injured, more than twice as many cyclists are killed on British roads every year, and another 2,600 are seriously injured.
Tag Archiv: China
Friendly Takeover
20. January 2011
Eurozone finance ministers are again wriggling in their seats over what to do about the debt crisis in the EU peripheral states. Germans are reluctant to spend more money or issue more guarantees to the countries it blames for having caused the crisis. In the over-indebted states, the citizens are fed-up of ceaseless waves of austerity measures. However, there is another source of help on the eastern horizon that could solve the problems of both camps.
China: The Warren Buffett of the EU Sovereign Debt Crisis?
11. January 2011
At the height of the subprime crisis in 2008, billionaire Warren Buffett’s company accepted an invitation from US bank Goldman Sachs Inc. to buy its stock. The purchase was sizeable, $5bn, and well-publicised. The bank wanted fresh capital and also knew that the ‘endorsement’ of a celebrity investor like Buffett would help to buoy the tumbling stock price
Just What the (Chinese) Economy Needed
17. November 2010
British hoteliers and retailers are already rubbing their hands together at the prospect of a royal wedding in 2011. This is just what the moribund economy needs, claim tourism officials. Such claims were made when London won its bid to host the Olympic Games in 2012.
The Apple Stereotype
30. June 2010
A few weeks ago, Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer of Apple products, announced that it would be increasing salaries at its factory in Shenzhen, China, by 30 percent in response to a spate of workers’ suicides. Yesterday, the FT reported that Foxconn proposes moving some Apple production from southern China to factories in the north of the country, where wages are lower. One might imagine that they are having trouble passing the new costs on to Apple, Foxconn’s biggest customer. On the same page, we learned that Apple sold 1.7m iPhones in the first three days on the market. But the only complaints Apple seems to have received from customers is that the phone sometimes drops calls if held in the left hand; nobody raised concerns about the conditions in factories where it is produced.