Nigeria's President Jonathan 'must act over fuel scam'
Son of Senegal's ex-president accused of amassing $1.3 billion fortune - The Washington... - 0 views
Sasol Betting Big on Gas-to-Liquid Plant in U.S. - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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The process is challenging and complex. First a synthetic gas is made from pure oxygen and methane, the main component of natural gas, which is cleansed of sulfur, metals and other impurities, under intense pressure and heat. Then the synthetic gas is put in giant reactors that make a synthetic crude through the Fischer-Tropsch process. The process essentially forces heated synthetic gas to react with a catalyst, typically cobalt, to convert into a liquid hydrocarbon. Finally that liquid is refined into one fuel or another. The process is far more complex than that at a typical refinery, so the plant is much more expensive to build and operate. Alfred Luaces, a refining specialist at the consultancy IHS, said a conventional oil refinery could be built for $50,000 per barrel of capacity, less than half of what Sasol says it is willing to spend on the proposed Louisiana plant.
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Sasol is building a gas-to-liquids plant in Uzbekistan with the Malaysian oil company Petronas. It is working with Chevron to build another plant in Nigeria.
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Read, I, Pencil | Library of Economics and Liberty - 0 views
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Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me.
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Not much meets the eye—there's some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.
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a cedar of straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon
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" Articles EconLog EconTalk Books Encyclopedia Guides Search "I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read" A selected essay reprint Home | Books | Read | Selected essay reprint Read, Leonard E. (1898-1983) BIO Display paragraphs in this essay containing: Search essay Editor/Trans. First Pub. Date Dec. 1958 Publisher/Edition Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Pub. Date 1999 Comments Pamphlet PRINT EMAIL CITE COPYRIGHT Start PREVIOUS 4 of 5 NEXT End "
Bureaucracy's Salaries Defended in Europe - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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the monthly base salary of the most senior bloc officials is 18,370 euros, or $24,830.
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the highest-paid European Union officials paid taxes equivalent to about 25 percent of their gross salary.
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European Union officials generally pay low taxes,
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'Run For Your Lives': Printing Money with the IMF - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views
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Most European leaders have nothing against using the central bank's reserves as a source of financing, as became evident at the Cannes summit. Important politicians like European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and French President Sarkozy proposed making IMF "special drawing rights" available
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It appears that the euro crisis is approaching its endgame. Many promises made when the common currency was introduced have already been broken. The initial stipulation that only stable countries be allowed in, for example, quickly proved illusory once Italy and Greece were accepted.
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German taxpayers were also promised that they would never be held liable for the debts of other countries in the euro zone. But then came the first and second bailout packages for Greece and the European bailout fund.
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The tragedy of Argentina: A century of decline | The Economist - 0 views
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The tragedy of Argentina A century of decline
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In the 43 years leading up to 1914, GDP had grown at an annual rate of 6%, the fastest recorded in the world.
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The country ranked among the ten richest in the world, after the likes of Australia, Britain and the United States, but ahead of France, Germany and Italy.
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Ukraine crisis: Russian retaliation could hit Western mulitinationals - 0 views
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"There no doubt would be Russian retaliation," said Justin Logan, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. "Companies with money tied up in Russia would have a tough time getting it back out."
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The White House said Friday that President Barack Obama and the leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy agreed after a conference call that they're ready to inflict targeted sanctions against Russia if Moscow es
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The lion's share of foreign money in Russia is from major energy sector players like Shell, Exxon, and BP, said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst at Oppenheimer
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Ceiling Collapse at Shoe Factory in Cambodia Kills 2 - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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“We visually always inspected them, but you need true engineers,” he said.
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After Bangladesh, Seeking New Sources - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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Bennett Model helped pioneer the exporting of garments from China in 1975, the year before Mao Zedong died,
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Buying from Bangladesh, said Mr. Model, “has been politically incorrect ever since problems started there, so a lot of major players had already been looking for alternatives.”
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Western executives are checking on potential new suppliers in southern Vietnam, central Cambodia and the hinterlands of Java in Indonesia.
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How Apple and Other Corporations Move Profit to Avoid Taxes - NYTimes.com - 1 views
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There is something ridiculous about a tax system that encourages an American company to invest abroad rather than in the United States. But that is what we have.
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“The fundamental problem we have in trying to tax corporations is that corporations are global,” says Eric Toder, co-director of the Tax Policy Center in Washington. “It is very, very hard for national entities to tax entities that are global, particularly when it is hard to know where their income originates.”
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Some international companies hate that idea, of course. They warn that we would risk making American multinational corporations uncompetitive with other multinationals, and perhaps encourage some of them to change nationality.
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Euro Zone Interest Rate Remains Unchanged - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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But some analysts warn that the calm could prove temporary because the underlying causes of the crisis remain: too much debt and poorly performing national economies. “The E.C.B. has been very active since Mr. Draghi has been president, and this has been a major factor contributing to stabilize financial markets and thereby avoid much worse outcomes for the euro zone,” Marie Diron, an economist who advises the consulting firm Ernst & Young, said in a note.
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“But the E.C.B. is not the sole actor and cannot save the euro on its own,” Ms. Diron said. “Ultimately the sustainability of the euro zone is down to structural changes at the country and European levels that are beyond the E.C.B.’s remit.”
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Banks in the euro zone can borrow unlimited funds from the E.C.B. at the benchmark rate, provided they post collateral. But banks are not obligated to pass that rate on to their customers and might not do so in countries like Spain where banks are already struggling with large numbers of bad loans.
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PrudentBear - 0 views
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German exporters were major beneficiaries of this growth. German banks and financial institutions helped finance the growth.
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Exports have provided the majority of Germany’s growth in recent years. Germany is heavily reliant on a narrowly based industrial sector, focused on investment goods—automobiles, industrial machinery, chemicals, electronics and medical devices. These sectors make up a quarter of its GDP and the bulk of exports.
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Germany’s service sector is weak with lower productivity than comparable countries. While it argues that Greece should deregulate professions, many professions in Germany remain highly regulated. Trades and professions are regulated by complex technical rules and standards rooted in the medieval guild systems. Foreign entrants frequently find these rules difficult and expensive to navigate.
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German and French banks call the shots - European, Business - Independent.ie - 0 views
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German and French banks call the shots Print Email NormalLargeExtra Large ShareNew 0 0 Also in European Debt crisis: European shares edge lower and growth worries persist Bank of England's Tucker 'wasn't encouraged to lean on Barclays' Draghi keeps door open to further interest rate cuts Marks and Spencers sales hit by summer deluge Spain's debt tops 7pc danger level as Madrid gets more time European Home "Shocking" 2012 HoroscopeWhat Does 2012 Have In Store For You? Shockingly Accurate. See Free!www.PremiumAstrology.comExpat Health InsuranceQuick, Compare, Trusted Website Expatriate Health Insurance Quoteswww.ExpatFinder.com/Instant-Quoteshttp://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=BMEejVeb8T8fDKoSG_QaAhrTCB-q_1OYBmoqphxvAjbcB0NkREAMYAyDgw6kIKAU4AFD4gumFAmCpsL6AzAGgAairsfEDsgESd3d3LmluZGVwZW5kZW50LmllyAEB2gFfaHR0cDovL3d3dy5pbmRlcGVuZGVudC5pZS9idXNpbmVzcy9ldXJvcGVhbi9nZX
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d, for reasons best
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known to itself, the ECB -- in clear contravention of both previous market precedent and financial logic -- has insisted that the senior bondholders be repaid in full and has lent the Irish banks, institutions which it must have known were hopelessly insolvent, €70bn to do so.
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Analysis: Euro zone fragmenting faster than EU can act - 0 views
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Deposit flight from Spanish banks has been gaining pace and it is not clear a euro zone agreement to lend Madrid up to 100 billion euros in rescue funds will reverse the flows if investors fear Spain may face a full sovereign bailout.
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Many banks are reorganising, or being forced to reorganise, along national lines, accentuating a deepening north-south divide within the currency bloc.
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Since government credit ratings and bond yields effectively set a floor for the borrowing costs of banks and businesses in their jurisdiction, the best-managed Spanish or Italian banks or companies have to pay far more for loans, if they can get them, than their worst-managed German or Dutch peers.
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Merkel's good politics and bad economics - FT.com - 0 views
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the ECB gears up to go full throttle into a business that, according to its statutes, is verboten: buying the debt of member states.
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Of course, Mr Draghi mumbles about conditionality: cheap cash only in exchange for deficit-slashing and market reforms. Sure. And when Mr Monti and Mariano Rajoy, Spanish prime minister, instead bend to the wishes of their electorates, what then? Will Mr Draghi stop buying and let their bonds go through the floor? Of course not. You do not have to be a central banker to predict the obvious: no market pressure, no reform.
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The ECB is about to turn into a money machine, into a lender of last resort, and damn the treaties that mandate an inflation-fighting commitment to “price stability”. The magic phrase now is “capping bond yields”, meaning the ECB buys up the debt of Italy and others in order to depress their borrowing costs.
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Central banks prepare for turmoil after Greek vote | Reuters - 0 views
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ECB President Mario Draghi, one of many policymakers gearing up for trouble after Sunday's vote in Greece, said his bank was ready to step in and fund any viable euro zone bank that gets in trouble.
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At best, we are going to have a situation that is extremely serious on Monday," Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg told journalists. "In all likelihood, whatever the outcome, we are going to have a government which is going to find it hard to live up to the agreements they (the Greeks) have signed up to."
Where Factory Apprenticeship Is Latest Model From Germany - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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European companies are major employers in the state, with more than 28,000 workers for German companies alone.
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School officials were wary of allowing a private company to dictate the curriculum.
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Richard Morris, vice president for assembly and logistics, identifies one of the company’s biggest problems: a serious shortage of medium-skilled workers who specialize in mechatronics, or repairing robots and metal presses when they break down and operating the computers that dot the paint shop, body shop and assembly shop. Not only do these jobs pay better than typical assembly-line positions, they also open up avenues for advancement.
Why Is Zambia So Poor? And Will Things Ever Get Better? - 0 views
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Sixty-four percent of the population lives on less than $1 per day, 14 percent have HIV, 40 percent don’t have access to clean drinking water. Almost 90 percent of women in rural areas cannot read or write. Name a category—schools, health care, environment—and I’ll give you statistics that will depress the shit out of you.
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For more than 150 years, the only reason to come to Kitwe—to Zambia, really—was the copper.
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Most of the buildings in Kitwe, the roads, the health clinics, the schools, were built by the national mining company
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