British Airways contro Alitalia-Poste «Aiuti di Stato illegali, intervenga l’Ue»

«Ci aspettiamo che la Commissione europea intervenga per sospendere questo aiuto manifestamente illegale». Così Iag, la holding che controlla British Airways, Iberia e Vueling, ha commentato gli ultimi sviluppi su Alitalia e in particolare l’intervento di Poste italiane, per “salvare” la compagnia aerea di bandiera. «Siamo sempre stati contrari a ogni forma di aiuto statale. È protezionismo, mina la competizione e favorisce quelle compagnie aeree in fallimento che non sono al passo con la realtà economica»
«In questo momento Lufthansa è fortemente impegnata in sfide interne, soprattutto con il nostro programma che mira a garantire una maggiore efficienza. Pertanto non abbiamo alcun interesse a guardare ad altre compagnie aeree, inclusa Alitalia».
 Gli analisti di Credit Suisse sostengono invece che gli investitori «non si sorprenderanno di fronte alla volontà di Air France di investire ancora in Alitalia».E sottolineano però che «è necessario che un aumento di capitale porti ad una ristrutturazione di successo». Dopo aver indicato che la ristrutturazione del 2009 era dettata più da problemi di generazione di fatturato piuttosto che di efficienza dei costi, gli analisti della banca svizzera affermano che «il semplice taglio delle rotte in perdita non è una via certa per raggiungere la profittabilità, visti gli indici di riempimento di Easyjet e Ryanair». 

La vicenda Alitalia sta creando interesse in tutto il mondo. Essa «incarna il fallimento della politica industriale» dell’Italia, scrive il Wall Street Journalin un articolo dedicato alla compagnia di bandiera. Il giornale economico Usa spiega che la prolungata recessione economica che sta attraversando il Paese «ha esacerbato la mancanza di competitività» delle aziende italiane, «già svantaggiate da un enorme peso fiscale, complicatissime leggi sul lavoro, alti costi energetici e ingerenze politiche». E così la base industriale del Paese «si sta erodendo>.

Il protezionismo industriale è tornato di moda a Roma» sostiene invece un editoriale delFinancial Times dedicato alla compagnia aerea italiana. L’Italia, scrive il quotidiano finanziario britannico, ha bisogno di investimenti esteri per uscire dalla sua profonda crisi economica ma i politici sono troppo presi dall’ammantarsi nella bandiera per rendersene conto.

Corriere della Sera

Rick Rule*: Buy stocks when they are cheap, sell in bull markets when things are expensive Sprott Asset management

The Gold Report: Why is the theory of tapering or turning quantitative easing (QE) off a myth, and who really benefits from QE?

Rick Rule: My view—as an investor, not an economist—is that QE is misnamed. I think it's another way of saying counterfeiting. It exists in large measure because we're running a trillion-dollar deficit and, while we can hoodwink investors into funding two-thirds of it, we need to print away the last third.

TGR: What are the consequences of turning off QE?

Louis James: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said himself that he had certain criteria he wanted to see before tapering—employment in particular. Those have not been met. Employment figures have improved, but only in—I guess the technical term would be "crappy" jobs. Long-term employment, the middle class' bread and butter, is not better.

TGR: Rick, you defy common sense and argue that bull markets are bad and bear markets are good, but it doesn't feel that way.

RR: JT, at the risk of being sexist, women are normally more rational shoppers than men. Think about the stock market as a mall.

In the mall, the store on the left-hand of the entrance has a big flashing sign that says, "Bear Market Merchants All Goods 70% Off, No Reasonable Offer Refused, Come Back Tomorrow—Prices May Be Lower." The store on the right-hand side has a tiny sign that says, "Bespoke Bear Market Merchants, No Deals Ever, High Margin for Merchants, Don't Even Think About Asking for a Deal, Prices May Be Higher Next Week."

If you're going to buy a pair of shoes, which store would you go to? This is a no-brainer. When people buy physical goods, they act rationally. When they buy financial goods, they want to overpay. It's totally irrational, and it's extraordinarily common. If you want to become wealthier, why wouldn't you buy financial assets when they're on sale?

TGR: Staying with the mall analogy, does that suggest that people are afraid stocks will be on even deeper sale tomorrow?

Marin Katusa: You have to look at the timeframe. This is a great market if you're an accredited investor and have an account with someone like Rick Rule or you subscribe to the International Speculator and follow the right management teams. Today, you can invest in deals with five-year full warrants that would not have been available three years ago. Rick and I have been in meetings where the venture teams laughed at me when I requested full warrants. Rick just said, "Bite your lip, smile, and wait." And he was right.

If you're buying stock today in hopes that the market will go up the next day, you'll be in a lot of pain. But if you have a two- to five-year timeframe, you can get guys like Bob Quartermain and Lukas Lundin on sale.

LJ: What would you give to go back in time and buy Apple just after the Apple II came out? Or to buy Microsoft when DOS was new?

Over the course of the last decade—what I think of as the first half of this great bull cycle—billions of dollars have gone into the ground and done good work.

Companies with 10 million ounces of high-grade gold in a safe mining jurisdiction are on sale below IPO prices. Some companies with excellent management and assets in hand are selling for less than cash value. You can buy these companies now, instead of looking for the next Apple or Microsoft.

RR: Words like "want" and "hope" in speculation are truly four-letter words, profanities. Having a stock in your portfolio that cost $200,000 and has a current market valuation of $40,000 is unfortunate, but irrelevant. Investors need to take advantage of their education and do their best with the situation at hand. Right now, things are cheap. When things are cheap you're supposed to buy. In bull markets, when things are expensive, you're supposed to sell.

Is Japan starting a sovereign wealth fund?

Years of currency manipulation by Japan's Ministry of Finance has left it with $1.27 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, most of which are invested in low-yielding U.S. Treasury bonds.

Following an account in Japan's Nikkei newspaper, Bloomberg News reported that the ministry is planning to outsource management of some of this money. Details about the plan are thin. Still, it could mark the first step toward the creation of a Japanese sovereign wealth fund that invests for profit.Countries that buy dollars and euros to suppress the value of their own currencies aren't trying to make money from their asset portfolios. Rather, they think that their purchases of foreign exchange are worthwhile because they increase the competitiveness of their export industries. (Some governments also hoard foreign currency as a hedge against the foreign borrowings of their local businesses, although this doesn't apply to Japan.) This can create opportunities for savvy currency traders to make money off the "uneconomic" decisions of certain central banks.

Source: NewsOnJapan

Japan OKs export of warship engine parts to Britain

Japan has allowed the export of Japanese-made parts for Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers to Britain for use in warships, it was learned Monday.

Because the parts made by Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. <7012> are widely used in civilian equipment, the government has found that their export does not run counter to Japan's arms export ban, a government source said.

Kawasaki Heavy manufactures gas turbine engines for MSDF destroyers in a technological partnership with Britain's Rolls-Royce PLC.

Asian shares hit near five-month high on U.S. deal hopes

Asian shares rose to their highest in nearly five months on expectations of an imminent deal to reopen the U.S. government and avert a possible debt default, though the squabbling in Washington kept markets on edge ahead of Thursday's deadline.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advanced 0.6 percent on Tuesday morning to its highest level since May 23. Tokyo's Nikkei share average also gained 0.6 percent, hitting a two-week peak.

A number of markets in the region, including Singapore, Indonesia and India, were closed for holidays.

On Wall Street, signals that politicians were heading towards a deal that would avert a possible U.S. default pushed the S&P 500 index up 0.4 percent to its highest close in nearly one month.

U.S. S&P 500 E-mini futures added 0.2 percent early on Tuesday, indicating a firmer open if the gains were to be maintained. U.S. Treasury futures slipped 5 ticks.

Source: Reuters

U.S. senators hint at possible fiscal deal on Tuesday

A month of combat in the U.S. Congress over government spending showed signs on Monday of giving way to a Senate deal to reopen shuttered federal agencies and prevent an economically damaging default on federal debt.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, ended a day of constant talks with optimistic proclamations, as details leaked out of the pact they were negotiating.

"We've made tremendous progress," Reid said at the end of a Senate session during a federal holiday, underscoring the urgency of settling a fiscal crisis that was nearing a Thursday deadline. The U.S. Treasury Department estimates it will reach a $16.7 trillion borrowing limit on October 17.

The plan under discussion would promptly end a partial government shutdown about to enter its third week. It also would raise the debt ceiling by enough to cover the nation's borrowing needs at least through mid-February 2014, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

Government operations would be funded through the middle of January, keeping in place the across-the-board "sequester" spending cuts that took effect in March, though government agencies would have more latitude to ease their impact. It would also set up a new round of budget talks that would try to strike a bargain by year's end.

Source: Reuters

Le piteux spectacle de Washington

Depuis deux semaines, la plus puissante démocratie du monde tient la planète en haleine, parce qu'un groupe d'élus ultraconservateurs a décidé de barrer la route à une loi instituant une assurance-santé universelle. Cette loi, qui a été adoptée par les deux Chambres du Congrès, est le grand oeuvre du président démocrate Barack Obama. Mais les républicains bloquent le vote du budget 2014.

Si, le 17 octobre, un compromis n'est pas trouvé entre la Maison Blanche et la Chambre des représentants sur le budget fédéral, les Etats-Unis entreront dans une période à hauts risques, et l'économie mondiale avec eux. A cette date, le Congrès doit autoriser l'administration à relever le plafond de la dette, afin qu'elle puisse continuer à emprunter pour fonctionner. Faute de quoi Washington se trouvera en défaut de paiement.

Ce n'est pas la première fois, tant s'en faut, que ce chantage est utilisé, mais, aujourd'hui, le contexte est différent. L'économie américaine est convalescente, la zone euro peine à sortir de la crise, la croissance des pays émergents marque le pas. Etroitement liés par la mondialisation, les gouvernements, les marchés et les institutions financières internationales ont les yeux rivés sur Washington.

Le spectacle qui s'étale sous leurs yeux n'est pas seulement affligeant : il est de mauvais augure. Même si une solution de dernière heure intervient jeudi, cette crise a révélé de manière criante les dysfonctionnements du système démocratique américain, fruits d'une évolution inexorable de la culture politiqueoutre-Atlantique depuis les années 1980, mais qui atteignent à présent leur paroxysme.

Outre le problème bien connu de l'emprise de l'argent et des lobbies sur la politique, les zones de consensus qui permettaient aux deux grands partis delégiférer par compromis sont de plus en plus restreintes. Plus pernicieux, le redécoupage à grande échelle des circonscriptions à l'avantage des républicains a réduit le jeu démocratique : une grande partie des sièges conservateurs de la Chambre des représentants sont assurés, le Parti démocrate n'ayant aucune chance de l'emporter auprès d'un électorat savamment délimité.

Le Monde

The Federal Reserve and Janet Yellen face a tough task with insufficient tools Mohammed El-Erian

"Five main arguments for the Fed's decision to postpone the taper have frequently been proposed. One view is that the Fed recognised that its specification of policy thresholds (based on the unemployment rate) understated the vulnerability of the US labour market. Another is that officials worried about excessive financial tightening after Bernanke's mention in May of a possible taper, jeopardising the economy's gradual recovery.

Moreover, some believe that the Fed considered the possibility of adverse feedback loops associated with the financial dislocations in emerging economies. Others see in the decision to postpone the taper an effort to pre-empt the negative effects on the economy of a possible congressional debacle over government funding and the debt limit. Indeed, the final argument – in a sense underpinning the others – is that the Fed became less worried about the potential for collateral economic damage from prolonged reliance on unconventional monetary policy".

"With Yellen's nomination to succeed Bernanke, one Fed guessing game has ended. But, as speculation over the direction of monetary policy continues – indeed, intensifies ahead of the Fed's next policy meetings – we should not lose sight of an uncomfortable reality: No matter how hard it tries – and it is trying very hard – the Fed is still stuck with tools that are too blunt, and whose effects are too indirect, for the challenging tasks at hand".

Mohammed El-Erian

theguardian

Project-Syndicate

Eurozone industrial output strengthens in August

Factories in the 17-country bloc saw output rise by 1% in the month, which was better than analysts' forecasts.

The figures showed that the highest increase was registered in Portugal, where output grew by 8.2%.

Europe's economic powerhouse, Germany, saw output rise 1.8%, while French output increased by 0.2% following three consecutive months of decline.

However, output in Italy fell by 0.3%. This was the second decline in a row, as Italy's economy continued to falter.

Germany, France and Italy make up two-thirds of the overall production figure for the eurozone.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at the researchers Markit, said that while the figures were encouraging there was still cause for concern over the strength of the bloc's recovery.

While production had rebounded in August, he noted that this "merely brings output back to June's level, which was still some 12.5% below its pre-crisis peak".

However, he added that the upturn is "an encouraging sign that the sector is slowly recovering".

Source: BBC

Brasil: Mesmo sem Eike, Bolsa ainda dá prejuízo

O declínio do império de Eike Batista é frequentemente apontado como o motivo das perdas da Bolsa brasileira, mas, mesmo sem as empresas X, o ano não tem sido fácil para o mercado de ações.

O Ibovespa (principal índice da Bolsa) se desvalorizou neste ano em 12,8%, o pior resultado entre os grandes mercados globais.

No mês passado, o ministro da Fazenda, Guido Mantega, afirmou que a crise das empresas de Eike arranhou a "reputação" brasileira. "A situação da OGX já causou um problema para a imagem do país e para a Bolsa", disse.

Mesmo no cálculo em dólar (ideal para comparação com outras Bolsas globais), o Ibovespa (contando as empresas X) amarga baixa de 17,8%, enquanto nos EUA há índice com alta de 26% e na Europa, em crise, há Bolsas com valorização de 15%.

A perda da Bolsa brasileira também é maior que a de outros mercados emergentes, como China (-0,04%), Rússia (-2,8%) e África do Sul (-5%).

"O que influencia esse descolamento da Bolsa brasileira em relação aos demais mercados são os nossos problemas internos", diz Rodolfo Amstalden, analista da Empiricus Research.

Para ele, a inflação ganhou o jogo neste ano e deve terminar 2013 em um patamar "agressivo", mesmo com as elevações recentes do juro básico, a Selic, que passou de 7,25% para 9,5% de janeiro a outubro. Além disso, afirma, a relação entre o setor privado e o governo não está boa.

Os elevados gastos publicos e as intervenções do governo em diversos setores da economia, evitando o reajuste no preço dos combustíveis e forçando um corte nas tarifas do setor elétrico, por exemplo, também desagradam os estrangeiros.

No início do mês, a agência Moody's reduziu de positiva para estável a perspectiva da nota da dívida do país.

A desaceleração chinesa também é pressão adicional para o Brasil.

Fonte: Fohla de São Paulo

Brasil: Concessões ferroviárias serão licitadas pela menor tarifa

"As empresas que apresentarem os menores valores de tarifas levarão as concessões ferroviárias de dois trechos com mais de 1.000 km localizados entre os Estados de Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, São Paulo, Goiás e Tocantins.

Para agilizar a licitação de um percurso somado de 3.260 km, o governo inverteu o processo de análise de documentos: a verificação só será feita após a definição dos vencedores.

Os dois trechos que serão colocados fazem parte dos traçados das ferrovias Norte-Sul, do Pantanal e Transcontinental. Elas ligam Ouro Verde (GO), Estrela D'Oeste (SP) e Dourados (MT), além de Lucas do Rio Verde (MT), Campinanorte (GO), Palmas (TO) e Anápolis (GO).

As concessões são para um período de 35 anos, renováveis para mais 35. As regras, publicadas nesta segunda-feira (14) no "Diário Oficial da União", autorizam a participação de empresas nacionais e estrangeiras, além de fundos de previdência e investimento"

Fonte:  Fohla de São Paulo

Obama hopeful as fiscal meeting nears with top lawmakers

"President Barack Obama said lawmakers appear to have made progress on a deal to reopen the government and avert a looming default on Monday as he prepared to meet congressional leaders with a Thursday deadline drawing near.

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were due to meet at 3 p.m. with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, the White House said.

Talks have been largely fruitless since what appeared to be a breakthrough on Thursday, but senators and aides from both parties said they still thought they could reach agreement in the coming hours.

With the most unrealistic demands taken away, the two sides were trying to craft a temporary measure that would allow Washington to step back from the ledge.

A major sticking point appears to be the level of government spending, which has been reduced by the deep, across-the-board "sequester" spending cuts that took effect in March. Another round of cuts are scheduled to kick in early next year. McConnell wants to protect them even though most Democrats and some Republicans want them eased.

Senate Republicans were pushing a plan that would keep the sequester cuts in place for up to six months. Democrats want to extend them for a much shorter period - initially proposing until November 15 - and then have spending rise to a slightly higher level.

The approximately $72 billion difference between the two positions is not insurmountable, but it could draw objections from conservatives in the House".

Source: Reuters

Jon Cunliffe*: Britain's is not entering a new price Bubble. *BOE next deputy Governor

"Britain's housing market is not entering a new price bubble but bank lending must be watched closely after the launch of a new state mortgage guarantee programme, the Bank of England's next deputy governor said on Monday".

"It doesn't look that we are in a bubble," Jon Cunliffe, who starts at the central bank next month, told members of parliament's Treasury Committee.

He said the British government's "Help to Buy" mortgage programme did not pose a risk to the country's banking system, but could be a danger to individual households.

"In terms of whether it leads to households becoming over-exposed because they can now borrow higher amounts, there is a possibility it could do that and that would create more of a risk."

"That, I think, is one of the reasons it's necessary to keep a very firm eye on the lending standards that lenders use, the underwriting standards," he added.

He also said he assumed the United States would resolve the shutdown of the federal government, but added that the impact of any U.S. debt default would be very large and that banks in Britain, including the Bank of England, should be making contingency plans.

In the slightly longer term, one of the main risks faced by Britain's financial system was the danger of a rapid rise in global short-term interest rates.

"An abrupt normalisation of interest rates could threaten financial stability if UK borrowers struggled to service their debts and if intermediaries with leverage were shown to be vulnerable to a fall in asset prices," he said.

Source: Reuters

Japan is looking to allow private funds to manage a part of its US$1.27 trillion of Foreign Exchange Reserves

Japan is looking to allow private sector funds and trust banks to manage a part of its US$1.27 trillion (RM4.04 trillion) pool of foreign exchange reserves in a drive to manage them better, a government source said yesterday.

Until now, the government has managed the foreign exchange reserves itself, but its ability to do so has been stretched as the reserve roughly doubled over the past decade, thanks to massive yen-selling interventions to weaken Japan's currency.

The government needs to clear legal hurdles on its use of foreign exchange assets if it wants to draft in the services of private financial institutions and will propose amending the law during a parliamentary session that begins tomorrow.

The government is now restricted to lending its foreign securities only to banks, but the new law will also permit brokerages to borrow securities, the source said, with the fees borrowers pay going to replenish government coffers.

"Although we do not think the Japanese government will outsource all of the foreign exchange reserves to the private sector, even just a 10 per cent outsourcing will become a US$120 billion business," said Tohru Sasaki, head of Japan rates and FX research at JPMorgan Tokyo.

The government will not alter its stance of investing the bulk of its foreign exchange reserves in US Treasuries and other high-grade investment bonds, and it will allow private sector institutions to manage only a few per cent of the reserves, the Nikkei business daily reported

China Press: US Pax-Americana vs a De-Americanized World

"As U.S. politicians of both political parties are still shuffling back and forth between the White House and the Capitol Hill without striking a viable deal to bring normality to the body politic they brag about, it is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world.
With its seemingly unrivaled economic and military might, the United States has declared that it has vital national interests to protect in nearly every corner of the globe, and been habituated to meddling in the business of other countries and regions far away from its shores.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has gone to all lengths to appear before the world as the one that claims the moral high ground, yet covertly doing things that are as audacious as torturing prisoners of war, slaying civilians in drone attacks, and spying on world leaders.

Under what is known as the Pax-Americana, we fail to see a world where the United States is helping to defuse violence and conflicts, reduce poor and displaced population, and bring about real, lasting peace.

Moreover, instead of honoring its duties as a responsible leading power, a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas, instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes, and fighting unwarranted wars under the cover of outright lies.

As a result, the world is still crawling its way out of an economic disaster thanks to the voracious Wall Street elites, while bombings and killings have become virtually daily routines in Iraq years after Washington claimed it has liberated its people from tyrannical rule.

Most recently, the cyclical stagnation in Washington for a viable bipartisan solution over a federal budget and an approval for raising debt ceiling has again left many nations' tremendous dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community highly agonized.

Such alarming days when the destinies of others are in the hands of a hypocritical nation have to be terminated, and a new world order should be put in place, according to which all nations, big or small, poor or rich, can have their key interests respected and protected on an equal footing.

To that end, several corner stones should be laid to underpin a de-Americanized world.

For starters, all nations need to hew to the basic principles of the international law, including respect for sovereignty, and keeping hands off domestic affairs of others.

Furthermore, the authority of the United Nations in handling global hotspot issues has to be recognized. That means no one has the right to wage any form of military action against others without a UN mandate.

Apart from that, the world's financial system also has to embrace some substantial reforms.

The developing and emerging market economies need to have more say in major international financial institutions including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, so that they could better reflect the transformations of the global economic and political landscape.

What may also be included as a key part of an effective reform is the introduction of a new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant U.S. dollar, so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the United States.

Of course, the purpose of promoting these changes is not to completely toss the United States aside, which is also impossible. Rather, it is to encourage Washington to play a much more constructive role in addressing global affairs.

And among all options, it is suggested that the beltway politicians first begin with ending the pernicious impasse".

Source: Xinhua

UK Chancellor visit to China two targets Business Deals and Improve Relations with Beijing

British chancellor moves to improve relations with Beijing after rift over David Cameron's meeting with Dalai Lama.

Osborne, who began a five-day trade mission to China at the weekend, told students at Beijing University: "I don't want us to try to resist your economic progress, I want Britain to share in it.

"And I want, this week, us all to take the next big step in the relationship between Britain and China. Because more jobs and investment in China mean more jobs and investment in Britain. And that equals better lives for all."

"Many people think of China as a sweat shop on the Pearl River. Yet it is at the forefront of medicine, computing and technology. It's a very rapidly changing country."

Earlier, Mr Osborne told an audience of students that his visit was about "much more than a collection of business deals".

"What I really want it to be about is strengthening the understanding between our two nations, deepening our friendship, working out where by working together we can improve the lives of all our citizens," he said in a speech to university students in Beijing.

Facebook,to buy Israeli´s start-up app-maker Onavo

Facebook has agreed to buy start-up app-maker Onavo, the Israeli company said on its website on Monday, without giving any details of the deal.

Facebook is paying between $150 million and $200 million, the Calcalist financial news website said, making it the social media company's biggest acquisition in Israel.

The company, founded three years ago, said that once the transaction closes, Onavo's mobile utility application - which helps people cut mobile phone costs through more efficient use of data - will run as a standalone brand.

Onavo has raised $13 million in venture capital, according to Calcalist. Its investors are Sequoia Capital, Magma Venture Partners, Horizons Ventures and Motorola Mobility Ventures.

Onavo will keep its Israeli offices, making this the first time Facebook will run a research and development centre in Isarael, according to the Haaretz news website.

Source: Reuters

Two Southeast Asian IPO's Push Ahead

A Philippine retail-chain operator and a Singaporean property trust are pushing ahead with initial public offerings amid tentative signs of recovery in Southeast Asian markets after a recent selloff that hit many emerging-market economies.

Robinsons Retail Group, an operator of retail chains including Toys "R" Us and Topshop in the Philippines, will start taking orders from investors on Tuesday for its more than US$700 million IPO in Manila, people with direct knowledge of the deal said Monday, paving the way for what would the nation's largest flotation this year.

  According to the Wall Street Journal:

"Separately Monday, Viva Industrial Trust—an investment vehicle focused on industrial property—priced its planned flotation in Singapore to raise about 365 million Singapore dollars (US$293 million), after securing the backing of Chinese real-estate tycoon Tong Jinquan , who is putting S$200 million into the offering as a cornerstone investor.

In Malaysia, state-backed conglomerateUMW Holdings Bhd. is looking to raise as much as $850 million by listing its oil-and-gas unit on the domestic bourse. Indonesia's Salim family is looking to raise as much as $500 million by selling shares in their retailing business and in an initial public offering of their vehicle-financing arm this year''.

Les Français et les impôts : le grand désarroi

Sonder le sentiment des Français vis-à-vis de l'impôt est un exercice risqué. Le sondage, en effet, reflète un état d'esprit à un moment donné et, après deux mois d'intense battage sur le "ras-le-bol" fiscal et d'informations mêlant le vrai et le faux, il est permis de se demander jusqu'à quel point les réponses ne sont pas altérées.

Le point central qu'il convient d'explorer, en définitive, est de savoir si, conjugué à d'autres facteurs, un climat de "poujadisme fiscal" ne serait pas en train de faire vaciller des valeurs républicaines dont l'impôt est une des composantes.

Le résultat est moyennement rassurant. Seule une grosse moitié (57 %) des personnes interrogées considère l'acquittement de l'impôt comme un acte citoyen participant de l'effort collectif au service de l'intérêt général. Une notion citoyenne qui est en train de se diluer avec l'âge, puisque la proportion de "oui" à cette question chute de 61 % chez les plus de 35 ans à 46 % chez les moins de 35 ans. Politiquement, si le consentement à l'impôt est de 82 % chez les sympathisants du PS, il n'est plus que de 53 % chez ceux de l'UMP et de 39 % chez les proches 

du FN. 

Parmi les différentes sources d'imposition, certaines font l'objet d'un fort degré d'acceptation, d'autres sont moins tolérées. L'impôt de solidarité sur la fortune (ISF) demeure un fort symbole de justice : il est considéré comme justifié par 83 % des personnes interrogées. L'impôt sur les sociétés (77 %), l'impôt sur le revenu (76 %) et les taxes sur l'alcool et le tabac (74 %) sont eux aussi considérés comme justifiés. 

Impôt sur le revenu

 C'est probablement le résultat le moins surprenant compte tenu du contexte : 72 % des personnes interrogées jugent le montant de l'impôt excessif. Là aussi, les sympathies partisanes font la différence, alors que la proportion de sondés jugeant qu'ils payent trop d'impôt est rigoureusement égale (73 %) entre les revenus supérieurs et les revenus inférieurs. Le taux de rejet du niveau d'impôt va donc de 48 % chez les sympathisants PS à 79 % chez ceux de l'UMP et 84 % chez ceux du FN.  

Le Monde

Asian countries will face big challenges in securing enough oil over the next two decades. Asian Development Bank

"Cross-border power exchanges can play a central role in helping Asia and the Pacific meet its booming demand for power, which is set to sharply outpace the rest of the world's over the next two decades, a comprehensive new study from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), prepared by a team from the Asia Pacific Energy Research Center of the Institute of Energy Economics under an ADB regional technical assistance project, reads.

Special Senior Advisor S. Chander believes that the ADB projects show the region will consume more than half the world's energy supply by 2035, with electricity consumption more than doubling as economic growth and rising affluence drive demand.

"Countries cannot meet these huge power requirements all on their own, so the region must accelerate cross-border interconnection of electricity and gas grids to improve efficiencies, cut costs, and take advantage of surplus energy," he said.

The Energy Outlook for Asia and the Pacific report provides in-depth data and projections on energy use at the sub-region, country, and sector levels until 2035, along with an analysis of the impacts of a "business as usual" approach to power, and an alternative approach in which countries scale up efficiencies and low carbon technologies.

According to the report, fossil fuels will continue to dominate the energy mix in the coming decades, with the demand for coal set to rise by more than 50 percent over the outlook period, or nearly 2 percent a year, led by consumption in China and a pickup in use in Southeast Asia as countries look for low cost options to diversify existing supply sources.

"Oil demand will also grow by 2 percent a year, led by the transport sector, with newly affluent South Asians buying an increasing number of motor vehicles. Natural gas demand will expand at the fastest annual pace of 4 percent because of the lower environmental burden and ease of use," the report reads.

"The reliance on fossil fuels presents major pricing, energy security, and environmental challenges, with Asia and the Pacific's carbon dioxide emissions set to double by 2035, making up more than half the world's total output," the report said. "Without reducing its heavy reliance on oil imports, using power more efficiently, and adopting more green energy options, the region will see a growing energy divide between the rich and poor and increasing threats from climate change."

According to the report, using a mix of efficiency measures, advanced generation technologies, and greater use of renewable power could almost halve the projected annual rise in energy demand through to 2035".

Source: Azernews

Alibaba to transform China's 'e-conomy' with $500 billion marketplace

Alibaba Group's plans to revolutionize China's retail, investing $16 billion in logistics and support by 2020, will open up China's vast interior and bring access to hundreds of millions of potential new customers.

With an extra $15 billion or so in its pocket from a likely IPO, Alibaba and partners such as delivery service firms and life insurers will pump cash into revamping China's fragile supply chains and big new data centers to process reams of consumer information.

While Alibaba sees itself as a catalyst for change, its plans also lay the groundwork for retail rivals to chip away at its  businessfurther down the line. By encouraging retailers to be more Internet-savvy, and by building the networks to distribute goods nationwide, Alibaba is showing bricks and mortar rivals how to grow online without depending on its sites.

Companies such as GOME Electrical Applaincess, Haier Electronics Group Co and Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group have branched into e-commerce, riding Alibaba's coattails and reaping the rewards with their own online stalls on Alibaba's websites.

CEO Jonathan Lu says Alibaba expects to nearly triple the volume of transactions on its marketplaces to about 3 trillion yuan ($490 billion) by 2016, overtaking Wal-Mart Stores Inc as the world's biggest retail network.

And the message to retailers from the group's sprawling campus headquarters in Hangzhou, less than an hour's train ride southwest of Shanghai, is simple: adapt or die.

"The old companies that aren't willing to transform will be wiped out by competition," said Zeng Ming, Alibaba's chief strategy officer. "Most traditional retailers now understand if they don't move online, their time is limited."

Analysts predict e-commerce will account for a fifth of total retail sales in China within 5 years, up from just 6 percent last year.

Source": Reuters

How Credit Suisse underwent painful bond surgery and survived

1. "In spring 2009, senior Credit Suisse executive Gaël de Boissard told colleagues at a strategy meeting that as the bank reshaped its bond trading  business, they needed to remember the five stages of grief outlined decades ago by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.

Denial would come first, followed by anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance, he said.

"It is hard to be present in every businee line in a world where capital is expensive. You have to make some choices," de Boissard, now co-head of the Credit Suisse investment bank, said in an interview.

Credit Suisse has been among the most aggressive banks in paring back its fixed income, currency and commodities trading business after the financial crisis. The Swiss bank winnowed down the 120 product areas it traded in to around 80, through consolidating some businesses and exiting others altogether.

With Credit Suisse's strategy now well set, it could be a template for other European and U.S banks that are under increasing pressure from regulators to cut risk-taking, bank executives said.

Banks are being squeezed on at least two fronts. Revenues are down by a third since 2009, but funding costs are higher because regulators are forcing banks to rely less on cheap debt to finance themselves, said Philippe Morel, a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group.

The big banks cannot respond by buying one another - the way companies in the steel, auto and pharmaceutical industries have done to reduce excess capacity - because regulators do not want banks to get any bigger, Morel said. 

LONDON MIDDAY: MARKETS PAUSE ON US STALEMATE, MIXED CHINESE DATA

''Markets paused at a two-week high on Monday as investors refrained from building as concerns over the US debt ceiling and mixed data from China weighed on risk appetite.

London's benchmark FTSE 100 was trading with small gains by midday after finishing Friday's session at 6,483.79, its highest close since September 27th.

US lawmakers held talks over the weekend but failed to agree over an increase in the debt ceiling ahead of the October 17th deadline as Republicans and Democrats remain divided over a number of issues. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that he had a "productive conversation" with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell but they did not agree on a proposal to send to the chamber for a vote. "I'm optimistic about the prospects for a positive conclusion," Reid said following the debate. More discussions are scheduled for later this evening.

Without a deal by Thursday, the world's largest economy will exhaust its borrowing limit and could default on its debt obligations.

"Clearly most investors believed that a deal would be agreed by now given the fact that the deadline is only a few days away," said Shavaz Dhalla, Financial Trader at Spreadex. "Thus, it seems analysts are now drawing up plans for what would happen to the world economy if the US was to default, instead of assuming the delay is a result of political point scoring."

Nobel Prize Of Economics Awards Announced

"The Royal Swedish Academy of Science has decided to award the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences jointly to Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert J. Shiller "for their empirical analysis of asset prices."

The winners were selected for finding and analysing that it is quite possible to foresee the broad course of asset prices over longer periods, such as the next three to five years, while extremely difficult to predict in the short run and that new information is very quickly incorporated into prices.

In a separate note, the academy explained that the field of empirical asset pricing is one of the largest and most active subfields in economics.

"While asset prices often seem to reflect fundamental values quite well, history provides striking examples to the contrary, in events commonly labeled as bubbles and crashes. Mispricing of assets may contribute to financial
crises and, as the recent global recession illustrates, such crises can damage the overall economy," it said.

LiveCharts

Key Week for German Coalition Talks

"After a historical victory on September 22nd for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party and sister party CSU, talks have moved slowly on a deal to create a coalition government with either the socialists SDP or the Greens. 

The September elections left Merkel without a majority after winning only 311 of the 631 seats in the Bundestag (Germany's lower house) meaning that a coalition should be agreed with either the SDP (193 seats) or the Greens (63 seats). 

Preliminary talks held last week with both opposition parties did not lead to any conclusive agreements.

Merkel is supposed to meet with SPD on Monday at 15:00, but the socialists have insisted on implementing a minimum wage, which CDU has repeatedly rejected. 

Some experts think Merkel may be maintaining contact with the Greens simply to put pressure on talks with SPD''.

Source: LiveCharts
Neither of the two opposition parties are keen on forming a coalition with Merkel after SPD's popularity was damaged by a prior 2005-2009 coalition and the Chancellor's prior allies Free Democrats lost so many votes that they are no longer represented in Parliament".

Senate Democrats Press New Front in Shutdown Budget Battle

   According to a report from the Wall Street Journal:

"Senate leaders attempting to avoid a U.S. debt default remained at loggerheads Sunday and escalated the standoff by reopening the contentious issue of automatic spending cuts, damping hopes that some of Congress's most canny negotiators would break the impasse.

As the search for a way to end the partial federal shutdown and avoid a debt crisis shifted to the Senate, Democrats made plain that one of their top priorities was to diminish the next round of across-the-board spending cuts, known as the sequester, due to take effect early next year".

Many Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), oppose retreating from those cuts. That set up a clash that seemed almost as intense as the one that caused budget talks between House Republicans and President Barack Obama to collapse Friday.

"Total federal spending has now gone down for two years in a row—the first time that's happened since the Korean War,'' Mr. McConnell said Sunday. With the additional sequestration cuts on tap for 2014, the budget limits have produced "the most significant spending reduction in modern history and Senate Republicans will not accept anything that undoes these cuts."

Eurogroup to assess bailed Out Countries and Banking Union

"The Eurogroup meets up on Monday in Brussels (14:00 London time) with Eurozone finance ministers expected to review individual bailout programmes along with discussing further details on the move towards a banking union.

Bailouts

Ireland is currently making progress with the aim to exit its bailout programme by the end of the year. Despite positive comments by the European Commission, the Irish government has shown interest in establishing an emergency credit-line in order to reassure investors that its sovereign debt has the support to face any unexpected shocks.

Eurozone finance ministers are also expected to discuss the bailout provided for Spain's financial sector. After an initial injection of €40bn, Spain has found it unnecessary to access the remaining €60bn that was originally approved and expires in December.

Greece will also be discussed even as its government is reportedly considering a proposal for a debt turnover. Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported that about €4.4bn in bonds issued to Hellenic banks in 2009 which should come due in May of next year could be paid with new bonds to help cover the bailed-out country's expected financing gap.

Banking union

The Eurogroup will also discuss further moves towards the banking union in preparation for the European Council meetings, known as the European Summit, scheduled for October 24-25th.

On the table are discussions regarding where funding will come from to repair any banks' balance sheets after next year's stress tests. The European Central Bank (ECB) is scheduled to become the area's single bank supervisor next year.

However, agreement is still needed on which institution will become the so-called "singe resolution mechanism" responsible for the actual winding-down of banks. The European Union (EU) Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier has suggested that the permanent bailout fund, known as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), could take over as the resolution agency.

However, ESM chief Klaus Regling expressed skepticism in an interview with Der Spiegel, noting that the task has nothing to do with the rescue fund's current responsibilities.

A Eurogroup press briefing is scheduled for approximately 18:00 on Monday.

The Eurozone finance ministers will be joined on Tuesday by the rest of their EU colleagues for the Ecofin meeting with a press conference currently scheduled for around 13:00."

Source: LiveCharts

IMF Christine Lagarde, A US Default could tip the World into Recession.

"The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, has warned that a US default could tip the world into recession.

In a US TV interview she said a default would result in "massive disruption the world over".

The US Treasury will start to run short of funds on Thursday if no agreement is reached for it to raise its debt limit.

Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate held direct talks for the first time in weeks on Saturday.

But there is little sign of any breakthrough, correspondents say.

In an interview with ABC's Meet the Press Christine Lagarde said America must now raise the debt ceiling before Thursday's deadline".

Source: Reuters