An experiment on discrimination among children

One day in 1968, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups and gave them a daring lesson in discrimination. This is the story of that lesson, its lasting impact on the children, and its enduring power thirty years later.

Finfacts: Famous speeches and their impact from Pericles to Hillary Clinton - - including the 'I have a Dream' speech that was made in 1963 by Martin Luther King, the black civil rights leader.

He was assassinated in 1968.

Germany's Mittelstand: Hidden champions of the economy

The Harvard Business Review says that the amazing resilience of the German economy is often attributed to its reliance on Mittelstand companies, small to medium sized enterprises. These typically family-run businesses employ more than 70% of all German employees in the private sector, and are export-oriented, making Germany the second-largest exporter in the world. There is a wonderful account of these companies in the book 'Hidden Champions' by Hermann Simon, former INSEAD professor and now Chairman of Simon, Kucher & Partners.

Germany's more than 1,300 'Hidden Champions'

The Washington Post said in 2010:

"Buy a bottle of champagne and it puts money in the pocket of Schneider and Co., a family-owned manufacturer that from a remote perch in the German countryside has created a global monopoly on the wire cages that secure the corks on sparkling wine. Obscure in a country of marquee exporters such as Mercedes-Benz and Siemens, the company's international focus is common among small and often family-owned firms in Germany.

Schneider's highly automated plants (in Germany) and in Italy, Spain and Brazil churn out 2bn of the devices a year. Its dominant market share -- amassed over 30 years -- helps explain Germany's complex and controversial role in the European economy."

2008 presentation: How Germany's mid-size companies get ahead and stay ahead in the global economy [pdf]

Rain forest peat lands burn on the Indonesian island of Sumatra

Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Twin Towers this week Photo: Chatime

The annual illegal burning of the rain forest peat lands on the Indonesian island of Sumatra to make way for the planting oil palm trees, has long been an irritant for neighbouring countries, Malaysia and Singapore.

In recent days, in particular Sunday and Monday, Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital where Finfacts is based, was blanketed in a smoky haze and the air smelt of soot.     

Angry reactions from Singapore and Malaysia have elicited an apology from Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, but the FT's Ben Bland says that corruption and poor data make it very difficult to find the culprits. Meanwhile the real victims are Indonesians who have to live with this kind of haze every year.

Dodgy data got Italy into the euro in 1999

News of a possible €8bn loss on pre-euro swaps is embarrassing for Italy and won't help if Rome has to go to the ECB, says Reuters' Breakingviews:

Finfacts report: Italy's losses at $31bn; Derivatives massaged 1999 euro entry data

Irish economy, political control of civil service and cowardice

It's striking that given two Irish economic disasters in the space of a generation, that followed appalling periods of misgovernance, senior civil servants have been profiles in cowardice and have docilely accepted increasing political control, in a system that has become addicted to spin.

If the public enterprise agency heads are as sycophantic in private as they are in public, then why should there be surprise that despite long-term unemployment (1 year or more) at almost 200,000 people and more than 500,000 Irish people on the Live Register and in publicly-funded activation programs, Ireland lacks a credible jobs strategy for the long-term. 

I cannot recall anything of consequence publicly uttered by Barry O’Leary, current IDA Ireland chief or Frank Ryan, Enterprise Ireland chief.

Frank Barry, a professor of International Business and Economic Development at the School of Business, Trinity College Dublin, has written [pdf] that many of the institutional innovations that would give birth to the modern Irish economy emerged over the course of the 1950s.

The Industrial Development Authority and Córas Tráchtála - - a forerunner of today’s Enterprise Ireland -- took shape at the beginning of the decade. The origins of our low corporation tax regime lie in the export profits tax relief introduced in 1956. Discussions on trade liberalisation reached fever pitch in the late 1950s, triggered by the imminent establishment of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Economic policymakers of the time faced a diversity of viewpoints from within the bureaucracy.

Prof Barry says:

"The Departments of Finance and Industry & Commerce offered distinct sets of policy choices, and politicians rarely adopted policies that had not been advocated by – or garnered the support of – one or other of these camps. The bureaucracy of the time, furthermore, guarded its independence jealously. This is in sharp contrast to the situation that prevailed in the build-up to the present crisis, as revealed by recent reports into the performance of the Central Bank, the Financial Regulator and the Department of Finance.

These reports document the deference and diffidence of the modern bureaucracy and its vulnerability to ‘groupthink.’'

TK Whitaker (b.1916), who was appointed head of the Department of Finance in 1955 at the age of 39, was given permission in 1958 to have ‘Economic Development’, the seminal blueprint for a modern Irish economy, published under his own name.

He became publicly associated with the new economic departure and what is striking is how craven senior public staff have been in the past half-century despite his precedent.

In the period 1977-1981 the national debt trebled and in 1978 a budget deficit of almost 18% of GDP (gross domestic product) was recorded - - the largest for a developed country in the period 1970-2008, according to the IMF.

It took a decade to climb out of the hole and a decade later, delusionists who believed they had invented the free lunch, held sway.

No senior civil servant or central banker dared shout stop in public.

It’s a shameful record of cowardice.

It would make a difference if individuals who may be much more versed than ministers on particular policies felt able to go beyond official talking points.

Ministers have been twittering about income tax this week, motivated by party concerns.

A cross could be put on the mantelpiece, if there was for example a spin-free debate on long-term jobs strategy.

Irish Economy Blog: Lessons from the 1950s

Fight the flight: 60 countries unite to end tax secrecy

May 30 - The public backlash on corporate tax avoidance is growing -- and politicians are listening. At this week's OECD meeting another 12 countries pledged to fight tax secrecy, bringing the total to 60.

Irish Government's foolish tax letter to US senators

OECD to deliver action plan on corporate tax avoidance in July

Irish claims on French corporate tax are false

Nicolas Sarkozy, when French president, wanted the Irish corporate tax rate raised from 12.5%. The Irish government insisted that effective tax rates (actual tax paid after various allowances, as a ratio of earnings) applied in France were lower than those levied in Ireland - - but this claim is misleading at best and if believed by people who should know better, reveals them to be of out of their depth.

Sarkozy had picked the wrong target given the stories of massive tax avoidance where the effective rate or the actual level of tax is often none.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny, on a panel with other European prime ministers, at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said last January, that Ireland is not a tax haven for unorthodox practices and Ireland's tax regime is "very clear, very transparent." He also said the effective corporate tax rate was 11.9% compared with the headline rate of 12.5%. One claim was false and the other was very misleading.

Richard Bruton, jobs minister, in early January had also used the 11.9% rate -  - so it was the agreed government number.

This rate has no relevance to big foreign multinationals in Ireland: there is a 25% R&D tax credit, investment allowances and zero tax on patent income.

Do either Kenny or Bruton, or Michael Noonan, finance minister, know that Microsoft disclosed last year that its fiscal year 2011 effective tax rate in Ireland was 5.69%?

The Irish Examiner reported last month: 'France has lower effective tax rate than Ireland: study':

In France the statutory corporate tax rate is 33.3% while the actual effective tax rate is lower than Ireland’s 12.5% at 8.2%.

Feargal O’Rourke, head of tax at PwC Ireland, said the transparency between Ireland’s statutory and effective tax rates were part of why it was attractive to multinational companies.

“Ireland’s transparent tax regime and low corporate tax rate, together with the relative ease to pay tax, is vital in continuing to underpin the positioning of Ireland as a location of choice for foreign direct investment. This transparency and relative ease to pay taxes is an even more important element in providing us with an opportunity to help multinational corporations establish operations in Ireland,” he said.

The claims are based on a global survey by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) and Feargal O'Rourke knows that his multinational clients do not generally have an effective rate close to 12%.

KPMG, another Big 4 accounting firm says that France's standard corporate tax rate in 2013 is 33.33%.

A 3.3% social contribution is levied on the part of the corporate income tax that exceeds €763,000, resulting in an overall maximum tax rate of 34.43%.

In addition, a temporary 5% surtax is levied on the (full) corporate income tax for entities with a sales turnover over € 250 million. This temporary surtax, which brings the overall maximum tax rate to 36.10%, is expected to apply to financial years (closed) from 31 December 2011 until financial years (closed) on 30 December 2015.

Specific categories of income can benefit from a reduced corporate tax rate under conditions. In particular, licensing fees relating to certain IP rights can benefit from a 15% corporate tax rate (respectively 15.5% or 16.245% taking into account the above two surtaxes). Small and medium size companies with a turnover of €7.63 million or less owned at least 75% by individuals (or owned by companies meeting the same conditions) are subject to a corporate income tax rate of 15%. This reduced rate applies to taxable profits up to € 38,120. These small and medium size companies are not subject to the above-mentioned social contribution and temporary surtax.

The 11.9% rate comes from a report, 'Paying Taxes 2013,' that was produced by PwC.

The case study company is a non-exporting SME:

• A limited liability company;
• Produces ceramic flower pots and sells them as a retailer;
• Operates in the country’s largest business city;
• Is 100% domestically-owned and has five individual owners;
• Has purchased capital equipment for use in the business;
• Has 60 employees;
• Sells a property and realises a capital gain during the year;
• Pays a dividend at the end of the year;
• Is in its second year of operation;
• Has a trading loss brought forward from previous year.

These are a number of other report links that seek to present a Reality Check:

Apple, taxes, Irish economy and creating 200,000 net jobs

EU to force country-by-country tax transparency on big companies

Noonan not transparent on Apple taxes and US Senate report

Apple shifted "golden goose" and 64% of 2011 income to Irish "shell corporation"

Apple has special Irish tax rates; 'Stateless' companies based in Ireland

Irish Economy: No growth in 2012; 6,500 direct jobs account for 52% of services exports

Irish Economy: Sustainable growth dependent on foreign firms since 1990; Now FDI has peaked

Irish Economy: Actual Individual Consumption per capita in Ireland is at EU average along with Italy; Germany at 20% above and UK at 18% - - Irish GDP per capita is 29 % higher than the EU average but that statistic is misleading.

Irish Economy: Pharmaceutical patent cliff no growth threat; High exports have low impact

Irish Economy: Export growth insufficient to pull domestic economy out of recession

Irish Economy 2012: At least a third of value of Irish services exports is overstated

Dell remains Ireland's biggest manufacturing exporter despite closing Limerick plant

Irish Economy 2012: Only 50,000 Irish direct workers responsible for 69% of annual Irish exports

Irish Economy: Innovation, a failed enterprise policy and inconvenient facts for 2013

Noonan not transparent on Apple taxes and US Senate report

Michael Noonan, Irish finance minister, appears to be taking a leaf from the playbook of Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, who on Tuesday at a US Senate panel hearing took the tack that the best form of defence is attack -- there are no tax gimmicks in a company with an overseas effective corporate tax rate of 2% in 2012 with more than 60% of sales coming from outside the United States; no shifting of intellectual capital to Ireland and so on.

Noonan on Wednesday is reported to have told an Oireachtas finance committee meeting that Ireland was a “transparent, tax compliant country” - - the word transparent is from 'taking points' drawn up for ministers but like Tim Cook's understanding of what a 'gimmick' means, what the minister really thinks it means is unknown.

Noonan needs to be more transparent himself as revenues received by an Irish company, Apple Sales International, which is neither tax resident in Ireland or the US,were the subject of taxes in Ireland and these billions in invoicing are likely booked as Irish services exports by the Central Statistics Office.

Apple, taxes, Irish economy and creating 200,000 net jobs- -  Finfacts report on implications for Irish economy

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has a definition of transparent that is appropriate in this context: "characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices."

The biggest companies operating in the country can keep all their financial information inaccessible to public view and this is part of a transparent system!!

Apple's accounts have been shielded from public view since 2006. Intel and Pfizer do not publish accounts in Ireland as they are branch operations of Cayman Islands and Dutch firms.

Noonan said Apple paid 12.5% on all the profits the company made in Ireland, “and that’s the only liability they have in Ireland.”

Who can check that this is correct?

Here he is suggesting that on local Apple sales in Ireland, it paid the full 12.5% rate on its profits - -  no capital allowances at all? Looks dodgy Mr Minister -- because these are utilised by other units in Cork? How could that be?

It's Apple that made the statement about the low tax deal to the US Senate panel; so let them clarify their statement.

Noonan said the stateless/ ghost Apple companies that were registered in Cork were neither tax resident in the US nor tax resident in Ireland, and “because they are not tax resident in Ireland they’re not liable to Irish tax”.

However, one of the ghost companies, Apple Sales International, receives billions in income from overseas and pays tax, even though low, in Ireland? 

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations says in its report [pdf]::

"In 2012, as a result of Apple’s restructuring of its Irish subsidiaries, ASI was assigned 250 employees who used to work for its parent, AOE (Apple Operations Europe).Despite acquiring those new employees, ASI maintains that its management and control is located outside of Ireland and continues to claim it has no tax residency in either Ireland or the United States.

Despite its position that it is not a tax resident of Ireland, ASI has filed a corporate tax return related to its operating presence in that country. As shown in an earlier chart, ASI has paid minimal taxes on its income. In 2011, for example, ASI paid $10 million in global taxes on $22 billion in income; in 2010, ASI paid $7 million in taxes on $12 billion in income. Those Irish tax payments are so low relative to ASI’s income, they raise questions about whether ASI is declaring on its Irish tax returns the full amount of income it has received from other Apple affiliates or whether, due to its non-tax resident status in Ireland, ASI has declared only the income related to its sales to Irish customers. Over the four year period, 2009 to 2012, ASI’s income, as explained below, totaled about $74 billion, a portion of which ASI transferred via dividends to its parent, Apple Operations Europe. ASI, which claims to have no tax residence anywhere, has paid little or no taxes to any national government on that income of $74 billion.

According to Apple, for the last ten years, this special corporate income tax rate has been 2 percent or less: 'Since the early 1990’s, the Government of Ireland has calculated Apple’s taxable income in such a way as to produce an effective rate in the low single digits …. The rate has varied from year to year, but since 2003 has been 2% or less.'”

So which Apple company employs the staff that provide services across the globe?

The issue of global services which then become services exports is also relevant here - -  see Finfacts report above on how revenues diverted from other countries become Irish services exports. We estimate that over €40bn of Irish services exports may be fake.

Michael Noonan has claimed that the surge in services exports is not tax related but the result of improved competitiveness, when the facts suggest it's a result of tax-related diversions of revenues.

Since March, I have been seeking a response via Brian Meenan, a press officer in the Department of Finance on the following. However, Meenan does not even acknowledge e-mails -- the worst performance of any press office I had to deal with in the public sector.

Transparency Minister?

-------------------------

[Minister Noonan said at a Bloomberg event in London last month (February):

"The services sector is playing an increasingly significant role in export growth, having grown by 9.4% over the first three quarters in 2012, and now exceed the level of goods exports by just over a billion euro. This owes much to the significant price and cost adjustments that have taken place in recent years."

http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=7567

The Medium-Term Fiscal Statement Nov 2012, Page 6 said:

"Support for overall activity is coming from the exporting sectors, with services exports becoming an increasingly important engine of growth in recent quarters. This, in no small part, reflects the improvements in price and cost competitiveness that have been evident since the onset of the crisis."

http://budget.gov.ie/budgets/2013/Documents/Medium%20Term%20Fiscal%20Statement%20November%202012.pdf

As the CSO confirmed last week that 'computer services' grew by 15% in 2012, can the Department confirm that this development is mainly due to cost competitiveness issues?

I raise this issue because it appears that these claims are false and in the aftermath of the economic crash, it's important that departmental positions are credible. Simply, our research shows that price and cost competitiveness are not crucial issues.

Has the policy of some foreign-owned services multinationals in centralising end-user revenue bookings from other jurisdictions in Ireland any impact on the services export performance?

I do not seek any comment on individual companies.

In the past year:

• The House of Commons has published a report including testimony on Google's policy on booking revenues in Ireland;
• Microsoft submitted information on its tax strategy to the US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations;
• Facebook in a pre-IPO SEC filing said its principal global tax jurisdictions are the US and Ireland.

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1025752.shtml]

Irish establishment elite wins again: NAMA Wine Lake to close

NAMA Wine Lake, the blog that has tracked NAMA – National Asset Management Agency - since Ireland's bad bank was created in 2009, has closed . It is another win for the establishment elite including the mainstream media.

Citizen activism is very important when the people running the show are generally older men who just some years ago thought that the free lunch had been invented. Today with the support of generous safety nets and the security of the euro, they are making crucial decisions or not, that largely do not impact them.

So best wishes to Jagdip Singh.

That is easy to say even though well meant. However, warm words do not butter parsnips in the modern money economy.

Jagdip Singh provided an important service but no number of consequence would pay for it, no matter how low.. Meanwhile, Tumblr, the blogging platform like WordPress, the host of this site, has been acquired by Yahoo for $1.1bn.

These blogging platforms depend on free content and this model has been compared with the California Gold Rush where most of the money was made by the suppliers of shovels and pickaxes.

Not all citizen activism is good - just think of Nimbies who want to have their cake and eat it.

A stunning example of the success of positive citizen activism was provided at the weekend when Eric Schmidt, Google chairman, conceded that international corporate tax loopholes should be closed. He didn't say what role his paid lobbyists in Washington would have.

Just over two years ago, protesters against tax avoidance, mainly women, from a group called UK Uncut began occupying the high profile retail stores of the Arcadia group such as Topshop, BHS, Burton, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins, controlled by Sir Philip Green, one of Britain's richest men.

I say controlled because over £1bn in dividends had been extracted from the privately held Arcadia without paying any tax, as the owner of Arcadia was Green's wife - a tax resident of the casino statelet of Monaco.

http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/

Dr. Constantin Gurdgiev puts the struggle of outsiders against the Irish establishment elite well:

"I can attest from my own & others' experiences that those of us who run anything independent of the officialdom mouthpieces (regardless of political / ideological orientation or even the lack of one) have near-zero support (moral or citations- and links-wise) from our internal (not to be confused with international) media and all businesses.

Those in our society, including the traditional media, who only benefit from the free analysis and the climate of openness and debate the independent analysts help to create prefer to endlessly endorse and support, including via advertising revenues, cross-links, citations and readership, those who offer no alternative but consensus."

The Irish Times: Timidity in turbulent economic times

Google's Larry Page: I can run company on phone

In his full remarks at the Google I/O conference Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer Larry Page outlined the company's strategy, addressed his health, and answered audience questions:

Google co-founder Larry Page confirms vocal cord paralysis

Larry Page, Google Inc. chief executive, says he has been diagnosed with vocal cord paralysis, which has left his voice softer than before and affected his breathing - -  Wall Street Journal

Page made his disclosure on Google+ on Tuesday.

"About 14 years ago, I got a bad cold, and my voice became hoarse.  At the time I didn’t think much about it.  But my voice never fully recovered.  So I went to a doctor and was diagnosed with left vocal cord paralysis.  This is a nerve problem that causes your left vocal cord to not move properly.  Despite extensive examination, the doctors never identified a cause — though there was speculation of virus-based damage from my cold.  It is quite common in cases like these that a definitive cause is not found.

While this condition never really affected me — other than having a slightly weaker voice than normal which some people think sounded a little funny — it naturally raised questions in my mind about my second vocal cord.  But I was told that sequential paralysis of one vocal cord following another is extremely rare.  

Fast forward to last summer, when the same pattern repeated itself — a cold followed by a hoarse voice. Once again things didn’t fully improve, so I went in for a check-up and was told that my second vocal cord now had limited movement as well. Again, after a thorough examination, the doctors weren’t able to identify a cause.  

Thankfully, after some initial recovery I’m fully able to do all I need to at home and at work, though my voice is softer than before. And giving long monologues is more tedious for me and probably the audience.  But overall over the last year there has been some improvement with people telling me they think I sound better.  Vocal cord nerve issues can also affect your breathing, so my ability to exercise at peak aerobic capacity is somewhat reduced.  That said, my friends still think I have way more stamina than them when we go kitesurfing!  And Sergey says I’m probably a better CEO because I choose my words more carefully.  So surprisingly, overall I am feeling very lucky.

Interestingly, while the nerves for your vocal cords take quite different routes through your body, they both pass your thyroid.  So in searching for a cause for both nerves that was an obvious place to look. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis in 2003.  This is a fairly common benign inflammatory condition of the thyroid which causes me no problems.  It is unclear if this is a factor in the vocal cord condition, or whether both conditions were triggered by a virus.

In this journey I have learned a lot more about voice issues.  Though my condition seems to be very rare, there are a significant number of people who develop issues with one vocal nerve.  In seeing different specialists, I met one doctor — Dr. Steven Zeitels from the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital Voice Center — who is really excited about the potential to improve vocal cord nerve function.  So I’ve arranged to fund a significant research program through the Voice Health Institute, which he will lead.  Thanks a bunch to my amazing wife Lucy, for her companionship through this journey and for helping oversee this project and get it off the ground.  Also, thanks to the many people who have helped with advice and information many of whom I have not had a chance to thank yet."

Apple's top 25 paid apps and the app economy

How big of a money maker are apps? What country's GDP is the size of the global app economy? How does app use compare to TV in terms of time spent per day? Wall Street Journal's Jason Bellini has answers:

New York Times: As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living

Apple's ranking of the top 25 most-downloaded paid apps (see below), games dominate the list, led by ”Angry Birds.” Three other versions of the popular game from Rovio of Finland are in the top 25. In fact, the first five in the ranking are all games, including “Fruit Ninja,” “Doodle Jump,” and “Cut the Rope.”

That changes at No. 6 with WhatsApp, one of the most popular messaging apps in the world at 99 cents.

Canalys, a US research firm said in April that research covering the leading app stores in more than 50 countries, shows healthy growth in the download and purchase of apps on mobile devices in what is now a maturing market. App downloads across the four stores – Apple’s App Store, Google Play, the Windows Phone Store and BlackBerry World – climbed 11% in Q1 2013 worldwide over the Q4 2012 total, while direct revenue from paid-for apps, in-app purchases and subscriptions combined grew by a slightly more modest 9%. Combined, downloads from the stores totaled more than 13.4 billion, and revenue reached $2.2 billion (before revenue sharing is taken into account).

Canalys said last December that a small number of developers, almost entirely game companies, continue to generate the majority of revenue at the leading app stores - Apple’s App Store (iPhone only) and Google Play. Based on daily App Interrogator surveys, Canalys estimated that just 25 developers accounted for 50% of app revenue in the US in these stores during the first 20 days of November 2012. Between them, they made $60 million from paid-for downloads and in-app purchases over this period.

Of the top 25 earning apps' developers, all but for one exception (popular music service Pandora with its Pandora Radio app) are game developers. They include cross-platform game developers as well as mobile game specialists, and include Zynga, Electronic Arts, Disney, Kabam, Rovio, Glu, Gameloft and Storm8’s TeamLava. ‘Part of the story here is that successful game developers almost invariably have multiple titles generating revenue,’ said Canalys VP and Principal Analyst Chris Jones. ‘Zynga, for example, had 15 titles in the list of top 300 grossing iPhone apps on average in Apple’s App Store every day, and nine titles in the equivalent list in the Google Play store.

Here’s the list of the most-downloaded paid iPhone apps:

1. Angry Birds
2. Fruit Ninja
3. Doodle Jump
4. Cut the Rope
5. Angry Birds Seasons
6. WhatsApp
7. Camera+
8. Words With Friends
9. Tiny Wings
10. Angry Birds Space
11. Pocket God
12. Plants vs. Zombies
13. The Game of Life
14. The Omoron Test
15. Where’s My Water?
16. Draw Something (Premium)
17. Monopoly
18. Angry Birds Star Wars
19. MotionX GPS Drive
20. Skee-Ball
21. Scrabble
22. Uno
23. Minecraft – Pocket Edition
24. Color Splash
25. The Sims 3

The Milliken Institute held a panel discussion on teh app economy in April 2013 - - scroll through to about 6:40 minutes to get to the start of the video.

Though the most popular smart phone activity may be flinging kamikaze birds across a small screen, mobile apps mean big business -- even for small businesses. Navigation has become social, with programs showing up-to-the-second data about your drive from Tucson to Toledo. We can now exchange business cards with a quick phone bump. We can board jets and enter theaters ticketlessly - and manage our health through monitoring devices that connect to electronic medical records. Demand seems insatiable, and many developers, designers, and marketers are well-rewarded. Apple has reported more than 40 billion app downloads, covering 775,000 programs on the App Store alone, and those developers have been paid, in aggregate, more than $7 billion. About 500,000 jobs have been created in a field that didn't exist five years ago. This is the new apps economy. It's global, it's social, it's empowering a new generation of entrepreneurs and it's changing the way we do business.

Ireland and Big Pharma's patent cliff

The Irish manufacturing sector moved further into contractionary territory during April, with output and new orders each declining for the second month running amid signs of deteriorating economic conditions. 

The mainly US-owned pharmaceutical and medical devices sector accounts for about 60% of merchandise exports and drug patent expirations are clearly having an impact.

On the patent cliff, a problem for Big Pharma is that high spending on R&D has been producing low returns over the past decade. The majority of sales for the world's leading pharmaceutical companies are derived from the most mature drugs, with the top three drugs for a company on average contributing 44% of total sales. The testing thresholds have increased overtime with new knowledge and litigation fears.

The patent period of 20 years for non-biotech drugs after testing etc can be about 10 years.

Pfizer's Lipitor had peak annual sales of $13bn -- a world record - - and it's hard to replace that level of revenue. Alzheimer's is a huge opportunity and the monetary cost of dementia in the United States ranges from $157bn to $215bn annually, making the disease more costly to the nation than either heart disease or cancer. In coming years, it will 'swamp' the US healthcare system according to one expert.

While approvals increased in 2011, in 2010, the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) drugs division approved just 21 novel medicines -- less than half the level seen in 1996 and 1997.

Roughly the same number of drugs was approved by the FDA in 2008 as were approved in 1950. 

Between 2010 and 2015 products with sales of more than $142bn will face copycat competition -- from total sales in excess of $800bn.

Deutsche Bank has said that the top seven European firms spent $161bn in R&D during 2007-11 to produce drugs with a net present value of just $86bn.

About 7,000 diseases affect the human family, but only 600 have treatments. Fewer than 3% of rare diseases have an FDA approved treatment, yet one in ten Americans is affected by a rare disease.

Irish Economy: Pharmaceutical patent cliff no growth threat; High exports have low impact

German reunification and the birth of the euro

Otmar Issing, former ECB and Bundesbank chief economist recalls how he warned against the creation of a  currency union between Eastern and Western Germany at the time of unification. “I must confess that we were totally wrong on the political fundament. We could not imagine early February 1990 that in October, we would have a united country,” he told CNBC in Oct 2010 on the 20th anniversary of reunification:

Simon Kuper, The Financial Times columnist, recently speculated that Margaret Thatcher’s early opposition to German reunification, gave President François Mitterrand an opening to demand Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s agreement to the launch the euro. A year before in 1988, Jacques Delors of France, the European Commission president, had set up a committee of central bankers plus himself as chairman, to explore the issue of a common currency.

In an interview conducted for a journalist's PhD thesis, Germany's longest-serving postwar chancellor said that he would have lost any popular vote on the euro by an overwhelming majority.

"I knew that I could never win a referendum in Germany," he said. "We would have lost a referendum on the introduction of the euro. That's quite clear. I would have lost and by seven to three."

The Daily Telegraph said this month that the interview was conducted by Jens Peter Paul, a German journalist in 2002, the year when the Deutsche Mark was replaced by euro notes and coins, but has only been published now.

In it, Kohl describes adopting the euro as an emblem of the European project, which he said had prevented war on the continent. Born in 1930, Kohl's politics were shaped by his country's history in the 1930s and 1940s; his final years in power were focused on promoting European unity.

In the interview, he said: "If a chancellor is trying to push something through, he must be a man of power. And if he's smart, he knows when the time is ripe. In one case - - the euro - - I was like a dictator ... The euro is a synonym for Europe. Europe, for the first time, has no more war."

As for Mitterrand using the euro as a bargaining chip, a man who could be in both the Résistance and Marshall Pétain’s Vichy government at different times, knew how to play his cards.

However, Kohl, Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union and President George H. Bush, were the main players.

Kohl could have delayed the euro project but just 14 months after the rebirth of a united Germany in October 1990, the Maastricht Treaty was signed to give effect to a common currency.

Later, at a summit In Dublin in 1996, President Jacques Chirac wanted the new currency called the écu (not to be confused with ECU — the European currency unit) named after a gold coin minted in 1266 during the reign of Louis IX. However, to the Germans, it sounded like the word cow.

This paper details fraught Franco-German relations prior to the euro’s launch.

So, the French saw the euro containing German economic power but didn’t bargain that both consecutive annual budget deficits since 1974 and annual trade deficits since 2002 would weaken itself.

There was no alternative to reunification but the politics got much more attention than the economic impact. However, taking on this project and the euro was quite a lot. Again, the politics were more important than the economics when it came to the euro.

Kohl was thinking of the political benefit for his CDU party by allowing East Germans to exchange their currency for Deutsche Marks at parity but even firms in the East that could have survived during a period of adjustment, didn’t have a chance.

It’s not uncommon for contemporary politicians to be seen as dwarves compared with perceived giants of the past.

The styles of Angela Merkel, current German chancellor, and Helmut Kohl (1982-1998) are polar opposites. Even so, Kohl did not level with the German people when he was embarking on momentous journeys.

I think it is a bit facile to believe that it would have hugely mattered if Merkel was more candid with the German people  about seeking support for huge transfers to struggling economies.

In Wolfgang Schäuble, she has a powerful finance minster who has no reason to have personal loyalty (even after seizing the party leadership, she refused to nominate him for the German presidency in 2004). They appear to agree on the major issues.

The Eurozone could do with strong leadership in its four biggest members.

But for Dominique Strauss Kahn’s sexual escapades, François Hollande’s political career would have continued to have been a litany of disappointment. He did not get a ministerial job under François Mitterrand, in 1981-95 (there were 2 two-year periods where the right had the majority), nor when the Socialists ran the legislature in 1997-2002. As for Spain, an FT article said last January: “Spaniards often describe their prime minister as a typical Galician – reserved, reluctant to give a clear answer, ever keen to keep his options open. Popular lore has it that when you meet a Galician on a staircase, you never know whether he is going up or down.” Italy’s political crisis continues.

Otmar Issing, the first ECB chief economist, said in 2010 (video above) that in early 1990, he was a member of the council of economic advisers (the so-called ‘wise men’) and the group issued an open letter opposing a West-East German currency union (with parity between both currencies). Issing said all the economic risks they warned about came to pass.

Chancellor Kohl was furious and cut ties between the chancellery and the group.

Merkel is indecisive while Kohl acknowledged acting like a ‘dictator’ in pushing forward the euro project. He certainly seems to be a stubborn person and while it’s not unusual for family to be sacrificed for political ambition, it seems strange to me that a father would maintain an estrangement with his two sons for decades. In 2001, they lost their mother to suicide (she had a rare allergy to sunlight).

In the sweep of history, German reunification will be inextricably linked with the genesis of the euro.

“Reunification is not only one of the underlying causes of the euro crisis, it is also one of the reasons behind our inability to solve it,” Wolfgang Münchau, the FT columnist and a native of Germany, wrote last year. “This is exactly the tragedy of Helmut Kohl: with his great political coup of German unity, he sowed the seeds for the destruction of his greatest political dream of European unity.”

"The hasty reunification cost almost two trillion euros in transfer payments, and it was the greatest example of economic mismanagement in the history of the world. It was a record, which is only now about to be smashed by the euro-disaster. One can hardly be surprised that the (formerly West) Germans, who had to put up with the transfer payments to East Germany (and must still put up with them) want no further transfer union in Europe…Due to the costs of reunification, Germany entered the euro at an inflated exchange rate. The result was that for a whole decade German economic policies concentrated on boosting Germany’s own competitiveness against third parties instead of strengthening the economic performance of the Eurozone as a whole. And that was one of the major causes of the crisis that would come later. 

German and European unification can therefore largely not be reconciled, because they have both turned out badly economically. I believe that future historians will take a critical view of German unification and Kohl’s merits, which is the view today."

Probability of Euro breakup in medium term is very low

I think the probability of a Euro breakup in the medium term is very low. What happens in the longer term after a decade or more, of low growth as Europe adjusts to a lower standard of living than experienced in recent decades, who knows, if we're not dead.

In the medium term, the system would likely be able to handle the departure of a small member, in particular after the July 2012 commitment by Mario Draghi, ECB president, to do "whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough," through unlimited purchases of bonds in the secondary markets; the euro accounts for about 25% of global currency reserves and crucially, the peoples of struggling economies will not rush to re-embrace currencies that were synonymous with gouging by elites, high inflation and poverty.   

Developing economies have cut the share of euros in foreign currency reserves in 2012, reflecting a reaction to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

The International Monetary Fund's report on currency reserves held by countries around the world, show that developing economies offloaded some $45bn worth of euros in 2012 and have sold almost $90bn worth of euros since the second quarter of 2011.

The IMF report indicates that the recent downturn in euro holdings marks a break following more than a decade of growth among developing nations. They now hold just a quarter of their foreign currency reserves in euros, a drop from 31% in 2009 and the lowest level in a decade, according to the Financial Times. The dollar has held steady at about 60%.

China would be very reluctant to abandon the euro.

The support of almost three-quarters of Italians for retaining the euro in a post general election poll as reported by Corriere della Sera, at least shows that there is little faith in returning to the lira. Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Greece’s SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) and maybe the next Greek PM, is not advocating quitting the euro.

Italy is the big risk with gross debt of 127% of GDP (gross domestic product) -- the highest since Mussolini came to power in 1924.

Italy does have a growth crisis having grown an annual average 0.3% of GDP in 2001-2010. However, it has run primary surplus (before debt servicing costs) for many years and its budget deficit is quite small.

Crucially, household debt is under control and while interest on the debt takes 5.5% of GDP, that is half the 1990s ratio.

Italy’s GDP growth of less than 3% in 2011-2010 compares with that of France, with about the same population, by 12%. The gap perfectly reflects the difference in hourly productivity - - stationary in Italy, up by 9% in France. Italy’s disappointing performance was seen in the country as a whole, North and South alike.

In the course of a decade, Italy received foreign direct investment inflows equal to 11% of GDP, compared with 27% in France.

Italy could leave the Euro and have an exports bonanza just like the UK got from the collapse in sterling with its rounding error exports value to China?

Italy's unemployment level is as bad as it was in the mid 1990s and the youth unemployment crisis has been unchanged for 40 years.

So austerity could be ended but what happens then?

While Italy has several global brands and 70% of the workforce are in the service sector, The Economist said in 2011 that unlike Germany, it has run a current-account deficit every year since 1999 and a trade deficit since 2005. Italy may still have the world’s sixth-largest industrial base, but Britain, often portrayed as an industrial weakling, makes and exports more cars than Italy does.

So to the inconvenient truth, Italy’s destiny is mainly in its own hands. Outsiders can only have a limited impact on a dysfunctional system and the resultant stunted economy.

The rulers tend to be old and nepotism is rife in a system where family-owned businesses are significant.

The average age on taking office of Italy’s 12 prime ministers since 1990 was over 62. 

Italy has been electing clowns for decades and at last month it elected a professional clown.

“The big problem of the economy is a society that combines elements of the Indian caste system with that of the medieval guilds,” Enrico Letta, the PD’s (the centre-left Democratic Party) deputy leader told the Guardian in 2011. “Our watchword is social mobility, particularly for the young, who suffer most if people are co-opted into jobs instead of gaining them by fair competition.”

Absent the euro, at least the clowns would have only themselves to blame.

So many problems to handle: The secondary school dropout rates are about 20% in Italy, and 25% in Portugal and Spain. Spain and Portugal have cut the rates from over 30% by reducing education expenses.

Whether it is fast, slow or no adjustment in the face of challenges ahead, there are no guarantees that current European standards of living can be maintained. There are over 7m with mini-jobs in Germany that enable people to earn €400 monthly without any tax deduction. There are 120,000 Germans over 75 years of age, with mini-jobs because of inadequate pensions.

Don’t criticise the Germans because that is what is also ahead for the outsiders in Ireland.

Irish Fever: Myths, Riverdance & Plastic Paddys

The Wall Street Journal on the Irish: Was St. Patrick even Irish? Will drinking green Guinness make you a Plastic Paddy? And can you learn to Riverdance in Converse sneakers?

New York Times -- Irish Soda Buns: Melissa Clark shows how to make an American version of a St. Patrick's Day classic:

Music sales rose in 2012 for the first time in years

Industry report 2013

Apple's Steve Jobs: The Crazy Ones

Steve Jobs narrates the first Think different commercial "Here's to the Crazy Ones". It never aired. Richard Dreyfuss did the voiceover for the original spot that aired. However Steve's is much better 1997.

Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon (with Yoko Ono), Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha Graham, Jim Henson (with Kermit the Frog), Frank Lloyd Wright and Pablo Picasso.

The young girl at the end is Shaan Sahota

Apple's iPhone 5 v Samsung's Galaxy S3

A Samsung US commercial poking fun at Apple, that would have driven Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder, nuts if he was alive:

It has been a bad few weeks for Apple which reported flat holiday quarter earnings last month even though it sold 28% more iPhones and 48% more iPads, its two biggest products, than the year ago final quarter of 2011 - -  the firm sold a record 47.8m iPhones in the quarter.

Samsung Electronics of South Korea reported that its quarterly profit  jumped 76%, as its Galaxy smartphones beat Apple's iPhone in each quarter of 2012. Apple's shares are off 33% since hitting an all-time high of $705.07 on September 21 last, just as the iPhone 5 launched in stores and in January, ExxonMobil, the oil giant, reclaimed its crown as the world's most valuable public company. Apple's market value is however back on top and at close of business last Friday, Apple was worth $446bn compared with Exxon's $399bn. Samsung Electronics' market cap on Friday was $196.5bn.

Samsung is estimated to have held 28% of the global smartphone market last year - -  the key growth sector that is also the most profitable -- up from 20% a year earlier, according to IHS iSuppli. Apple's share, meanwhile, just moved up from 20.5% in 2012 from 19% a year earlier.

Bloomberg reports that Apple said last week that the board and management are discussing the return of more money to shareholders, after a proposal by hedge fund manager's Greenlight Capital Inc.’s David Einhorn to pay out more of its $137.1bn in cash and securities, possibly with higher-yielding preferred stock.

Gross margin fell to 39% last year from 45% a year earlier and was caused by the introduction of the iPad mini, other products with higher costs and price cuts for existing products but as competition intensifies. Apple's world premium price will be under relentless pressure.

Almost 20% of China's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012 was spent on transporting goods. In recent years, high fuel prices, labour costs and road tolls have boosted logistics' costs. This compares with an estimated 13 to 14% in India in 2011; 8.5% in the US; 12.5% in South Korea [pdf]; about 10% in France and 18% in Ireland [pdf].

China's labour costs surged 15 to 20% on average. Fuel prices tripled from that in 2000, while road charges made up one third of the total logistics costs, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP).

The New York Times reports today that Samsung has emerged as a potent challenger to Apple, the top consumer electronics maker. The two companies are the only ones turning profits in the highly competitive mobile phone industry, with Apple taking 72% of the earnings and Samsung the rest.

Yet these two rivals, who have battled in the marketplace and in the courts worldwide, could not be more different. Samsung Electronics, a major part of South Korea’s expansive Samsung Group, makes computer chips and flat-panel displays as well as a wide range of consumer products including refrigerators, washers and dryers, cameras, vacuum cleaners, PCs, printers and TVs.

Where Apple stakes its success on creating new markets and dominating them, as it did with the iPhone and iPad, Samsung invests heavily in studying existing markets and innovating inside them.

The once mighty Sony of Japan, inventor of mobile music and modern television technology, is struggling badly in Samsung's wake.

With Samsung showing success in offering a range of phones at varying prices, Apple is reported to be planning to launch a cheaper iPhone. In the meantime, the main battle is between the iPhone 5 and the Galaxy S3.

The Apple has the same impressive design that it introduced in the Apple 4. Some reviewers have judged the S3 to be more plasticy. However, it is argued that the S3 using Google's Android operating system does a lot more for less money. Apple even changed the power adapter in the iPhone 5 to raise more revenue.

However with its world price, it appears to have made a big miscalculation in particular in Asia.

50 Reasons Why Galaxy S3 Is Better Than iPhone 5

In this video, 50 reasons are detailed as to why the Samsung Galaxy S3 is better than the iPhone 5. The reasons include both hardware and software features that the Galaxy S3 that the iPhone 5 does not (or if it does, it doesn't work as well).

Keep in mind that not everything in high tech works as well in reality compared with the marketing claims.

Samsung Galaxy S3 vs. iPhone 4S Drop Test

Can the Samsung Galaxy S3 pass the drop test against the iPhone 4s?

Global mobile phone sales fell in 2012

William Dalrymple on Afghanistan's first quagmire for the West: 1839-1842

The historian and author of "Return of a King" describes the hasty British takeover of Afghanistan in the 19th century, and the bloody defeat that soon followed

A review in The Daily Telegraph says: "In April 1839 Britain invaded Afghanistan for the first time. When the British Army left in 1842, after first suffering and then avenging its worst military disaster of the 19th century, a contemporary wrote that it was 'a war begun for no wise purpose… Not one benefit, political or military, has been acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.'”

China's rise and the fall of capitalism?

Will China's rise lead to the end of capitalism? Will armies of robots replace the world's workforce? And will China be able to block Facebook and Google forever? Risk expert Ian Bremmer and Dr. Doom, Nouriel Roubini give their 2013 predictions for politics and the economy to Reuters digital editor Chrystia Freeland

Finfacts: Jan 15, 2013: China's remarkable rise and challenges -- Part 1

I was in Guangzhou last week-end. It is the capital of Guangdong province, in the Pearl River delta, north of Hong Kong, which is China's industrial heartland. The province is responsible for about 30% of China's exports.

Irish finance chief says: Tell Germany we will quit euro if no bank debt deal

Conor Killeen, the chief executive and founder of Key Capital, says Ireland's real leverage with the Germans is the currency exit option and default. "And I know that everyone will say 'But we can’t leave. We would be rudderless and a cork on a stormy ocean' etc. But, excuse me, we can most certainly leave. And we should not be afraid or embarrassed to say this. After all, we are the guys who have done everything asked of us. We are the country being reneged on."

This doesn't seem very clever unless we are prepared to actually quit  - - wonder would Key Capital advice its clients to keep its euros in Ireland for conversion to punts.

Colm McCarthy, the economist, opened a thread on the Irish Economy site on the issue:

These are 2 of my contributions:

Post 1:

There was a guy on Thursday called John Boehner who got his old job back and broke down in tears.

He had reason to as he and his fellow gang members haven’t been very good at hostage taking. They have had a record since 1995 but have usually caved-in, ending up shooting themselves in the feet.

John Boehner was re-elected as Speaker of the US Congress Thursday. His friends in The Wall Street Journal said:

“We’ll support efforts to cut spending and reform entitlements, but the political result will be far worse if Republicans start this fight only to cave in the end. You can’t take a hostage you aren’t prepared to shoot. Do the two GOP leaders have a better strategy today than they did in 2011, and do they have the backbench support to execute it?”

So the key missing ingredient in Conor Killeen’s argument is that it’s obvious that Ireland is not prepared for an exit from the euro. Would the threat to leave the euro have credibility and what would be the consequences of the threat even if wasn’t serious? After all, in terms of project management and decisions made in haste (Sept 2008?), the record isn’t good. It took 49 years to build a motorway from Dublin to Cork!

Wonder how the exit or threat of it, could be managed in a panic situation!

Like so many proposals made in recent years, there is the luxury of not having to consider the downsides.

We cannot generate sustainable jobs ourselves to maintain an advanced country standard of living.

Newt Gingrich, the architect of Grand Old Duke of York US fiascos in 1995 and 1996 cautioned this week:

“They’ve got to find, in the House, a totally new strategy. Everybody’s now talking about, ‘Oh, here comes the debt ceiling.’ I think that’s, frankly, a dead loser. Because in the end, you know it’s gonna happen. The whole national financial system is going to come in to Washington and on television, and say: ‘Oh my God, this will be a gigantic heart attack, the entire economy of the world will collapse. You guys will be held responsible.’ And they’ll cave.”

Killeen says:

"Regaining our national self-esteem or reaffirming our sovereignty is not optional. It is necessary.

The point is, all things being equal, we will have to default without a deal on our bank recap debt. Therefore, best accept this and accelerate the discussion to generate the best outcome for Ireland.

As soon as we get serious about planning an exit, chaos will break out in many markets."  

Self-esteem and sovereignty are relative terms when most of the new FDI jobs in the past decade have been in the foreign-controlled financial services sector.

Even if 40% is chopped off the value of exports to discount for MNC tax strategies, indigenous exports would still only account for 20% of the total!

Post 2:

Let's not forget that the State bank guarantee was issued on the day of Anglo's financial year end to effectively save it. Just over 4 months later in Jan 2009, when it was decided to nationalise the bank, Ireland had ZERO leverage with Europe, having unilaterally disarmed on Sept 30, 2008.

It is of course more than a trivial issue that during the bubble, none among the local denizens of finance had the cojones to publicly address the sartorial shortcomings of the little emperors and NCB Stockbrokers, Conor Killeen's old firm, housed some of the most ardent devotees of demographic fetishism, who provided the theological underpinning to the then famed Maestros of Merrion Street. 

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832), a businessman who was the first professor of political economy in France, and who is said to have coined the word entrepreneur ('l'entrepreneur d'industrie'), is identified with the claim that supply creates its own demand. However the short-run and the long-run should of course be distinguished and Colm McCarthy pointed out in 2008 that: "If rapid population growth were the key to economic prosperity, sub-Saharan Africa rather than East Asia would be the current Wirtschaftswunder."

What is extraordinary is the enduring surrealism in the debate on the national economy.

We have ministers being deluded by spin: last year the minister for finance opined that growth would take off 'like a rocket' when an international recovery takes hold (are there fools forecasting rocket growth in Europe and the US?) and this week, the deputy prime minister dabbled in  astrology  predicting "enormous potential for growth to our economy" in 2014 when "the political and economic landscape will alter radically."

Then its easy to be fooled by those huge 'exports' that Google and others magic up for us.

Here are headlines from Friday: Surging exports spur Irish services on in December - PMI (Reuters); Services buoyed by surging exports (Irish Times); Surging exports spur Irish services on in December - NCB (RTÉ); Services activity remained strong in December -- with some help from tax strategies (Finfacts)

Colm McCarthy made some other perceptive comments in 2008 which should be used to counter the growth fantasies of Noonan, Gilmore and their echoes in the media, universities and so on:

"Some well-heeled friends of mine held a pre-Christmas bash to mark the passing of the Tiger, which had been kind to them, but I think they were about six years late. Between 1994 and 2000, Ireland's real GNP rose by more than six per cent every single year. But since then, the rate of GNP growth has exceeded six per cent only once, in 2006. That was the year we (unfortunately) built 88,000 houses, an unsustainable figure which artificially boosted the growth rate.

On this reading, the true Celtic-Tiger period ended about 2001, since which time the economy has been operating around a more modest growth rate of four to five per cent, with excessive reliance on a credit-fuelled housing sector. The growth rate will be nowhere near this figure in 2008, and the return of the eight and even 10 per cent GNP growth rates of the mid- to late 1990s is a pipe dream."

Adam Davidson in the NYT today concludes a story on the prospects for the US economy:

"The story of this recovery may be unusually opaque, but the brightest forecasts are built less on a return to old consumption levels than on, for example, fracking. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There was so much bubbly growth in houses, cars and appliances during the mid-2000s, that it’s hard to see how any kind of return to those levels would lead to a healthy economy. The best thing we could hope for, paradoxically, is a return to 1999."

http://nyti.ms/W1E2qK

Worst tech ideas, flops in 2012 - - Video

In an exceptional year for tech innovation, not every idea had the brightest bulb. Find out which ones were the absolute worst, with Reuters tech correspondent Jon Gordon. (December 28, 2012)

Best Rough Cuts of the Year 2012 - - Video

From amateur and security camera footage to images shot by professional journalists, here is a look at some of the most incredible video of 2012 from around the world - - Reuters.

2013: The global economy may surprise on the upside or may not! - - Video

Advanced economies could wing it through 2013, according to George Magnus, senior economic adviser to UBS, but there are some questions marks about the economic models of some of the world's fastest growing countries. He discusses the global prospects - and risks - for the year ahead with Ralph Atkins, the FT's capital markets editor.