March, 2017

• 18 March

  Indiana factories face layoffs despite Trump pressure

    Bloomberg About 1,500 workers at three Indiana factories are facing layoffs despite hopes that President Donald Trump would convince the companies to reverse plans for moving production to Mexico. United Technologies confirmed that the first wave of about 50 layoffs happened last week at its electronics plant that had about 700 workers in Huntington. The plant in the northeastern ...

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• 18 March

  How to restore faith in economics!

  

    Should you trust economists? For many people nowadays, the answer is “no.” Economists failed to predict the Great Recession. Their prescriptions — quantitative easing, for example — didn’t seem to help speed the recovery much. During the past three decades, a lot of their big policy ideas — financial deregulation, tax cuts, privatization and the free movement of capital ...

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• 18 March

  Someone wants to stick a fork in Bitcoin

  

    Even Inditex SA can’t defy gravity forever. The Spanish owner of the Zara fashion chain is still delivering the sort of sales growth rivals can only dream about. Same-store sales rose 10 percent in the year through January, the fastest rate in 14 years. By contrast, many competitors are struggling to generate growth on the same basis. But the ...

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• 18 March

  China’s worst trade abuses are hidden

  

    China is nothing if not creative in protecting its local industries. Although it has liberalized its economy in recent years, it has also erected a sophisticated set of barriers to safeguard companies it views as national champions. Increasingly, this is a counterproductive approach. The usual method of assessing protectionism is to look at metrics such as tariff rates. And ...

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• 18 March

  Cathay plans 30% cost cuts amid ‘reform’

  

    Bloomberg Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. set a target to save 30 percent in employee costs at its Hong Kong head office as part of the biggest revamp in two decades, amid mounting competition that caused the carrier to post its first annual loss in eight years. The savings will come from changes to middle to senior management that will ...

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• 18 March

  BA’s owner to launch cut-price airline

  

    Bloomberg British Airways owner IAG SA will begin offering cut-price inter-continental flights from June using a new airline to be branded ‘Level’ that could operate more than 30 aircraft. The startup will initially connect Barcelona with Los Angeles and Oakland in California, the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires, and Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, with tickets priced from 99 ...

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• 18 March

  M&S drops WPP’s Finsbury PR in cost-cutting push

    Bloomberg Marks & Spencer Group Plc (M&S) is severing ties to financial public-relations adviser Finsbury at the end of March as the London-based retailer seeks to cut costs. M&S’s internal press-relations team will take over responsibility for the work Finsbury has been carrying out since the WPP Plc-owned agency was hired by former Chief Executive Officer Marc Bolland in ...

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• 18 March

  JC Penney plans to shutter 138 stores

    NEW YORK / AP JC Penney listed for the first time the 138 locations it will shutter in the coming months as the retailer seeks to cut costs and improve its profitability. Like other department stores, JC Penney Co. is hurting as more people shop online instead of heading to the mall. The closures are part of the company’s ...

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• 18 March

  China’s homemade jet poised for first flight by April end

  

    Bloomberg A single-aisle passenger jet that is being built by the Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China is set for its first test flight by the end of next month, according to Philippe Petitcolin, chief executive officer of Safran SA, an aircraft engine maker. Any problems with taxi trials may alter the schedule, Petitcolin said in an interview in Paris. ...

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• 18 March

  Russian bank raised millions in Irish shadow banking

  

    Bloomberg With the management and shareholders of one of Russia’s biggest regional lenders deep in unsuccessful talks with the central bank about how to save it from collapse last November, an obscure company in Dublin sold $60 million of bonds on its behalf. The amount wasn’t nearly enough to cover the estimated 97 billion ruble ($1.6 billion) hole in ...

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