You don’t think there is a movie that made $15 trillion? Hm, think twice. Because there might be one movie that indirectly added that much to America’s gross domestic product in the 1980s. At least that is the theory of Nobel laureate economist Robert Mundell: Continue reading ‘The $15 Trillion Movie’
Archive for the 'Business & Finance' Category
It’s not been easy for the United States this year, but at least there is one positive aspect of the country’s weak currency: Because the US Dollar is at a low, exporters find themselves in a better situation than before. This includes major film studios from the US as well as movie production companies and independent producers. All of them see their sales soaring in Europe due to the favorable USD/EUR exchange rate. Additionally, these companies usually fund their movie projects in USD but then sell them overseas for EUR, GBP and other currently strong currencies, which means they might even be able to rake in a premium. However, higher profits due to currency exchange rates are everything but sustainable, so demand must always be driven by quality of the movies being thrown onto the market rather than their price. Quality of content will always remain king.
Large swathes of Asia, the Middle East and north Africa had their high-technology services crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.
HEMA is a Dutch department store that opened its first store in Amsterdam in November 1926. Today they have more than 150 stores in several countries. The company was sold to the British investment company Lion Capital in June last year.
Visit HEMA’s product page. You cannot order anything, you can’t even click on anything. But wait a few seconds to see what happens.
Not sure what to think of this one… Is it a joke? Hmm, no. Pure stupidity?
Angry Employee Deletes All of Company’s Data:
When Marie Lupe Cooley, 41, of Jacksonville, Fla., saw a help-wanted ad in the newspaper for a position that looked suspiciously like her current job — and with her boss’s phone number listed — she assumed she was about to be fired.
So, police say, she went to the architectural office where she works late Sunday night and erased 7 years’ worth of drawings and blueprints, estimated to be worth $2.5 million.
As it turned out, the company wasn’t even looking to replace her. Well, now she does not have that job anymore. So, technically speaking, now she is really to be replaced. Maybe Mrs. Cooley had a vision of the future happenings, couldn’t tell them apart from reality and therefore went into action, laying the foundations for her own fate’s dispiteous fulfillment.
(via FOX News)
Microsoft’s net jumped 79% since last year because of the release of Windows Vista and Office 2007. Demand has been high for both software products, hence boosting Microsoft’s quarterly revenue to more than $16 billion.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz speaks about his book “Making Globalization Work”. This is a very good book I’ve read lately, and it is an important book. Many people might doom globalization for making the poor countries worse off, only making the rich countries richer. But that is not true. Unlike almost anything else that has happened in the past 50 years, globalization has provided great means for people to communicate, colaborate and help each other. If the fruits of globalization haven’t arrived in many poor countries yet, that’s not the fault of globalization itself. It is due to poor political systems and poor leadership in those respective countries. It is because of corrupt politicians in Africa, for example, who do their best to close the rich countries out, so that they can continue to make money off the poor and become more powerful themselves. Globalization is a powerful tool that can make everyone better off. The only question is, how long will it take for every human being to realize the great opportunity we’re presented, and: What is necessary to do to make globalization work?
How can this happen? The Paris-based bank Societe Generale SA said unauthorized bets on stock index futures by one of their traders caused a $7.2 billion trading loss, the largest in banking history. The trader responsible for this unfortunate loss was 31-year old Jerome Kerviel. The multi-billion dollar loss amounts to about two years of pretax profit at the bank’s investment banking unit. Societe Generale now wants to sue the trader, although I highly doubt he will be able to come up with so much money. He had earned less than $100,000 a year and had been with the bank since 2000. In addition, the bank wants to fire five other of its employees. More at Bloomberg…
I can’t stop thinking about OIL! Oil, oil… Oil whereever you look, but nowhere in sight. Demand up, prices up, consumer budgets down. Supply remains the same. Economy? Down! Road to hell? On a not-so-related note, Daniel Day-Lewis won the Golden Globe for best actor in a dramatic movie for his role in the oil picture “There Will Be Blood”.
As it turned out, China’s economy is no less than 40% smaller than initially calculated! That’s the outcome of the World Bank’s new calculation, which is finally based on up-to-date currency rates. This is pretty bad news for the global economy, because many believe the USA are heading for a recession. Therefore, some economists hoped that China would somehow balance the bigger deficit caused by the USA. This assumption, which had already been quite adventurous before, has been totally messed up now. Bad, bad setback for the world economy, to say the least. Well, at least we now know what the current situation really is.
