Uber to stay on London streets until April 2018

Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc.’s London fate won’t be decided until mid-way through 2018 after a judge said that she will schedule an appeal hearing in either April or June, meaning the company can operate in its busiest European market until then. Judge Emma Arbuthnot proposed two starting dates, April 30 or June 25, for the five-day trial at a short ...

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Britain Serious Fraud Office gets reprieve

Bloomberg The UK government u-turned on campaign promises to disband the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), with the white-collar prosecutor remaining independent under the Conservative Party’s newest plans for tackling economic crime. The decision was expected to be announced on Monday by Home Secretary Amber Rudd, according to a statement from the Home Office. The National Crime Agency, which the government ...

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Maersk sees falling freight rates in bearish sign for trade

Bloomberg The world’s largest container shipping line says international freight rates are reversing after climbing for most of this year, raising questions about the sustainability of the global trade recovery. Decade-old oversupply issues swamped demand for containerised sea trade in the third quarter, a senior official at Maersk Line Ltd. said. Over 90 percent of trade is routed through ships, ...

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The aging monster

No one can say we weren’t warned. For years, scholars of all shapes and sizes — demographers, economists, political scientists — have cautioned that the populations of most advanced countries are gradually getting older, with dramatic consequences for economics and politics. But we haven’t taken heed by preparing for an unavoidable future. The ‘we’ refers not just to the United ...

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Valuing bitcoin means revisiting internet startups globally

Bitcoin’s meteoric rise is forcing analysts to look for a method to estimate a fundamental value for cryptocurrencies. So far, there is no agreement on a global standard, but bitcoins are unlikely to lose their leading role anytime soon. However there is plenty of room for downside if crypto-technologies do not deliver anticipated economic value, or if that value is ...

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Retail sector’s job apocalypse

You may remember, early this year, a spate of gloomy reportage about the coming collapse of retail jobs due to automation and online shopping. This wasn’t just a dystopian forecast: Employment in the retail sector fell for seven straight months starting in January. A streak like that hadn’t happened outside of a recession since the early days of World War ...

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Europe’s yield curve may hold key to markets in 2018

There’s a lot of discussion these days about the US bond market’s yield curve, or more specifically how it has shrunk to the narrowest levels since 2007 — a movement that has historically presaged an economic slowdown. What hasn’t been talked about as much is how Europe’s yield curve has failed to follow the same path. And while there are ...

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America is getting the make-work jobs it needs

A year ago, I argued that lots of people don’t just want material goods — they crave the dignity that comes from working for a living. Even jobs that economists might deride as make-work can yield meaning, self-respect and social status. For this reason, I suggested that the government should establish a program to give work to everyone who wants ...

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China’s transit revolution

In 2009, the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen rolled out its first electric city bus. As of May of this year, it had 14,500 of them on the road — and by the end of this month, the city plans to have an all-electric fleet. Shenzhen’s efforts are another example of how China is leading the way in transforming urban ...

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Only one side compromised on this Brexit deal

After UK and EU negotiators reached a deal opening a path for trade negotiations, arch-Brexiter Michael Gove declared British Prime Minister Theresa May had ‘won.’ That is a statement worthy of all the now-debunked Brexit slogans. The parties’ agreement shows the EU has given up virtually no ground, and that’s what’s likely to happen in the trade talks, too. In ...

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