China’s Economic Growth Slowest in 25 Years - TIME

China’s Economic Growth Slowest in 25 Years

Posted: 18 Jan 2016 09:25 PM PST

(BEIJING) — China’s economic growth edged down to 6.8% in the final quarter of 2015 as trade and consumer spending weakened, dragging full-year growth to its lowest in 25 years.
Growth has fallen steadily over the past five years as the ruling Communist Party tries to steer away from a worn-out model based on investment and trade toward self-sustaining growth driven by domestic consumption and services. But the unexpectedly sharp decline over the past two years prompted fears of a politically dangerous spike in job losses.
Full-year growth declined to 6.9%, government data showed Tuesday. That was the lowest since sanctions imposed on Beijing following its crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement caused growth to plummet to 3.8% in 1990.
The October-December growth figure was the lowest quarterly expansion since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, when growth slumped to 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Growth in the July-September quarter of 2009 was 6.9 percent.
Growth in investment in factories, housing and other fixed assets, a key economic driver, weakened to 12% in 2015, down 2.9 percentage points from the previous year. Retail sales growth cooled to 10.6 percent from 2014’s 12 percent.
“The international situation remains complex,” said Wang Bao’an, commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, as a news conference. “Restructuring and upgrading is in an uphill stage. Comprehensively deepening reform is a daunting task.”
Growth was in line with private sector forecasts and the ruling Communist Party’s official target of about 7% for the year.
Beijing responded to ebbing growth by cutting interest rates six times since November, 2014, and launched measures to help exporters and other industries. But economists note China still relies on state-led construction spending and other investment.
December exports shrank 1.4% from a year earlier, well below the ruling party’s target of 6% growth in total trade. For the full year, exports were down 7.6%, a blow to industries that employ millions of Chinese workers.
Forecasters see indications retail sales and other activity accelerated toward the end of 2015, suggesting Beijing’s efforts to put a floor under the downturn are gaining traction.

“The growth picture remains two-sided. The real estate construction slump and weak exports continued to weigh on activity,” said Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics in a report.
“Meanwhile, though, consumption continued to expand robustly, supported by solid wage growth,” said Kuijs. “The robust growth in the consumption and services nexus is key for policymakers. They need it to avoid labor market stress.”
Spending on online commerce grew by 33.3% over 2014. Wang said the share of total economic activity accounted for by consumption rose to 56.4%, up 15 percentage points from 2014.
Forecasters expect economic growth to decline further this year, with the International Monetary Fund targeting a 6.3 percent expansion.

Google’s Self-Driving Cars Still Need Human Help - TIME

Google’s Self-Driving Cars Still Need Human Help

Posted: 13 Jan 2016 09:07 AM PST

Google’s fleet of self-driving cars have now traveled millions of miles, while some version of autonomous vehicles are expected to go on sale in the next few years. Before that happens, though, they’ll have to get better at navigating traffic without the need for human intervention.
The search giant has issued a report to California regulators showing how often its autonomous driving software malfunctioned while on the state’s public roads between September 2014 and November 2015. During that period, Google’s self-driving cars reported 341 safety-related “disengagements,” or instances when a human driver sitting in the vehicle needed to take control.
The vast majority of these disengagements had to do with technical glitches. Google reported that hardware issues like a broken wire, or software problems like an inaccurate GPS, led the self-driving car to disengage 272 times during the period. The test drivers who sit in the cars were alerted to these disengagements by audio and visual signals and claimed control of the vehicle in 0.84 seconds on average.

There were also 69 instances when a human driver preemptively took control of a self-driving car in order to ensure the vehicle’s safety. Thirteen of those incidents would have resulted in collisions if the self-driving software was left to act by itself, according to Google. In the other cases, the car performed an incorrect action, like running a traffic light, but wasn’t in danger of a crash.
Google uses a simulator to recreate the driving conditions after the fact to determine whether its cars would have crashed without driver intervention.
While the new data illustrate that Google’s cars aren’t perfect, the number of disengagements has been steadily decreasing over time. Disengagements caused by technical glitches or failures fell from one per 785 miles in the fourth quarter of 2014 to one per 5,318 miles a year later.
Overall, Google has clocked more than 420,000 miles on California public roads. The vast majority of Google’s incidents occurred on city streets in the Mountain View area, near the company’s headquarters. The company is focusing on learning to navigate city streets because the number of obstacles in an urban environment (traffic lights, pedestrians, cyclists) is significantly higher than the number encountered on a freeway.
Other automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Nissan also reported disengagements on their self-driving vehicles, but they’ve driven significantly fewer miles than Google’s cars.

Prominent Bitcoin Developer Declares the Digital Currency a Failure - Fortune

Prominent Bitcoin Developer Declares the Digital Currency a Failure

Posted: 15 Jan 2016 12:14 AM PST

One of digital currency Bitcoin’s long-time supporters and developers has decided to walk away from it. His reason: Bitcoin has failed.
Mike Hearn, devoted long-time Bitcoin enthusiast who eventually quit a job at Google to work on Bitcoin’s technology full-time, wrote a long blog post on Medium on Wednesday outline why he’s lost faith in it. “The fundamentals are broken and whatever happens to the price in the short term, the long term trend should probably be downwards. I will no longer be taking part in Bitcoin development and have sold all my coins,” he said.
Hearn offers a detailed and lengthy explanation of his gripes with Bitcoin and its community, but they really boil down to internal politics. Sure, the technology has some shortcomings that have in turn caused problems for users, but infighting and politics have also prevented these issues from being resolved.
Most of the disagreements are around whether a key piece of Bitcoin’s technology should be adjusted so that it can support more transactions (remember, Bitcoin is a network that processes transactions between computers, which is how Bitcoin is made and traded). The Bitcoin community has essentially been split between those in favor of increasing this limit and those opposed to it.

Hearn is part of the camp in favor. He even helped build an alternate but compatible version of Bitcoin’s software called Bitcoin XT that lets developers “cast a vote” in favor of raising the limit by using Bitcoin XT instead of the original. Unfortunately, Bitcoin XT has faced a lot of critics and opposition from the get-go, which has further alienated Hearn. He says he has now sold all his Bitcoin and is walking away from it all.
This article originally appeared on Fortune.com

3 Reasons Wall Street Is Panicking, and 3 Reasons You Shouldn’t - TIME

3 Reasons Wall Street Is Panicking, and 3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Posted: 15 Jan 2016 08:56 AM PST The Dow Jones industrial average was down nearly 500 points in early afternoon trading Friday, pushing the Dow below 16,000 for the first time since last summer. This marks the 7th time in the fledgling year that the benchmark index has sunk by triple digits in a day, raising fears that the near-7-year-old bull market may be nearing an end. Why the panic? Wall Street seems to be focusing on the following three numbers this morning: $30 Crude oil prices fell below $30 a barrel, hitting levels not seen since 2004. Falling energy prices are usually viewed as a bullish trend, as it lowers the cost of doing business for a wide assortment of industries, ranging from manufacturing to transportation. But oil prices can also be a foreshadowing signal—and in this case investors are worried that historically cheap crude is an ominous sign that global demand is far weaker than economists think. Indeed, the last two times that crude oil prices even came close to piercing $30 a barrel was in 2008, amid the global financial crisis and Great Recession; and in 2000, when the bursting of the tech bubble pushed the U.S. economy into a recession. -0.2% The Producer Price Index, a key gauge of inflation at the wholesale level, fell 0.2% in December and sank 0.1% over the 12 months ended Dec. 31. No one wants rampant inflation. But the whole point of the Federal Reserve’s multi-year effort to stimulate the economy through near-zero interest rates and bond purchases was to create enough inflation in the economy to ensure that the economy doesn’t slip into a deflationary spiral. This morning’s Labor Department report confirms that the Fed may not have been fully successful at achieving its goal. And that, plus other disappointing economic data — including a report that showed industrial production fell by 0.4% in December — raises fears that the U.S. might well slip into another recession if the global economy continues to deteriorate. 12% With this morning’s 400-point plunge, the Dow is now down about 12% from its 2015 highs, meaning the U.S. stock market is in an official “correction,” which is defined as a drop of 10% to 19.9%. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is also off by about the same amount. This has triggered a new set of worries that the bull market that began in March 2009 could be on its way out. And that fear has led to even more selling. But while Wall Street fixates on those bad numbers, investors should be focusing on this set of figures to put things in context: 5  Since 2009, this bull market has withstood five market pullbacks of near-equal or greater levels — and lived to tell the tale. Most recently, the bull lost 12.4% during the late August market slide which took place for the exact same reasons the market is jittery today — a combination of global slowdown fears and cheap oil. From those lows, though, the Dow climbed more than 11% through the end of last year, rewarding investors who hung in there. 7.7% The sell-off in the market that accelerated on Jan. 4 has led to a new wave of bearishness on Wall Street. Why might some see that as good news? Wall Street is a counter-intuitive place, and peak market pessimism often coincides with the market hitting bottom—from whence there’s nowhere to go but up. Have we reached that inflection point? Jack Ablin, chief investment officer for BMO Private Bank, studied the ratio of self-identified “bulls” and “bears” in surveys by the American Association of Individual Investors. The current ratio of bulls to bears is flirting with its lowest reading in the survey’s history, Ablin says, “which from a contrarian perspective is positive for stocks looking forward.” Historically, he notes, the S&P 500 has advanced 7.7% in the six months after reaching this level of bearishness. By contrast, stocks have historically gained only 2.7% in the six months following the most bullish readings among individual investors. The odds of a rebound would certainly improve if the Fed leaves interest rates alone for the rest of the year rather than raising them four times in 2016, as some have predicted. And Ed Yardeni, president and chief investment strategist at Yardeni Research, says the market swoon makes it much less likely that all those rate hikes will happen. “Another year of one-and-done seems much more likely to us,” he says. 40 When the market is in full-blown panic mode, the CBOE Volatility Index—a.k.a. the “fear index”—approaches or climbs above a reading of 40. That’s roughly double the historic level. This happened in 2008, during the global financial crisis, and in the late 1990s, leading up to the 2000 tech wreck that triggered a global bear market. So far this year, the VIX has been on the rise. But at a reading of nearly 28, it’s nowhere near panic levels.

Dollar in Best Run Since July on Haven Bid Even as Fed Odds Fall - Bloomberg

January 15, 2016 — 11:11 AM AEDTUpdated on January 15, 2016 — 10:58 PM AEDT

Turmoil in global markets is boosting the dollar, even as it pushes back market expectations for when the Federal Reserve will next increase interest rates.

An index of the U.S. currency against 10 of its peers rose for a third week, the longest stretch since July, amid demand for haven assets as oil dropped below $30 for the first time in more than a decade and Chinese stocks led a global rout. Futures show 26 percent odds the Fed will tighten policy by its March meeting, down from 41 percent as of the end of last week.

“Trading has switched from monetary policy divergence to growth and commodity concerns with a sprinkling of geopolitical risk,” said Peter Rosenstreich, head of market strategy at Swissquote Bank SA in Gland, Switzerland. “We are increasingly seeing rotation from nations which will be stressed by this backdrop into dollar and yen -- safe havens.”

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1 percent to 1,247.54 at 6:55 a.m. New York time, headed for a 0.6 percent gain this week. The three-week run of gains is the longest since the period ended July 24.

The dollar strengthened 1.5 percent to 68.84 cents per Aussie and gained 1.2 percent to 63.99 cents versus its New Zealand peer as Chinese stocks resumed declines Friday. The Shanghai Composite Index slid 3.6 percent, taking this year’s drop to 18 percent and making it the worst performer among major global benchmark measures tracked by Bloomberg.

Bad Neighborhood

“The U.S. will remain the ‘best house in a bad neighborhood’ and will attract capital flows from abroad,” Morgan Stanley analysts led by London-based Hans Redeker wrote in a research note dated Jan. 14. “We remain convinced U.S. dollar bulls. The secular U.S. dollar bull market has more legs.”

The U.S. economy expanded across most of the country in the past six weeks as the job market showed strength that’s failing to stoke broad wage pressures, a Federal Reserve survey released Wednesday showed. It underscored the challenge facing Fed policy makers heading into a meeting later this month: The strong labor market has as yet failed to trigger signs of broader inflation, while sliding commodities put downward pressure on price expectations.

Bullard Cautious

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, one of the most vocal policy makers in recent months arguing to raise rates, sounded a more cautious note on Thursday by saying the latest tumble in oil prices may delay inflation from returning to the central bank’s 2 percent target.

“The associated decline in market-based inflation expectations measures is becoming worrisome,” Bullard, who votes on policy this year, said in a speech in Memphis, Tennessee.

Two-year Treasury note yields have dropped to as low as 0.86 percent, a level last seen before the U.S. central bank raised rates in December. Even so, investors are still finding the greenback attractive.

“The U.S. dollar still got a bid even though short-term interest rates are falling, simply because of the safe-haven flows,” said Imre Speizer, a markets strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in Auckland. “We all know China has issues, and those issues have been a partial cause of the risk aversion -- and you suspect that there may be more of these to come throughout the year.”

Tesla’s Elon Musk Says Apple Car Rumors Are True - Fortune

Tesla’s Elon Musk Says Apple Car Rumors Are True

Posted: 12 Jan 2016 06:49 AM PST

According to Elon Musk, CEO of carmaker Tesla, the rumors are true: Apple plans to enter the automobile business.
The CEO described Apple’s rumored foray into designing an electric car as “obvious” in a recent interview with the BBC. “It’s pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it,” he said.
Apple has not officially announced any intention to build such a vehicle, though reports began surfacing about the prospect last February. The company’s supposedly code-named project “Titan” has poached talent from a number of automakers, including Tesla.
Tellingly, Apple recently registered a trio of car-related Internet domain names, including Apple.car, Apple.cars, and Apple.auto, according to records published online and discovered by Apple-tracking site MacRumors.
When asked by Charlie Rose on CBS’s 60 minutes last month whether Apple has designs on the car business, Apple CEO Tim Cook merely shrugged and laughed.
In the BBC interview, Musk welcomed Apple to the field. “It will expand the industry,” he said, echoing comments he has previously made. “Tesla will still aspire to make the most compelling electric vehicles, and that would be our goal, while at the same time helping other companies to make electric cars as well.”
Previously, Musk has called Apple a “Tesla graveyard.”

“They have hired people we’ve fired,” he told the German newspaper Handlesblatt in Oct. “If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding”
Apple did not immediately reply to Fortune’s request for comment about whether it is designing an electric car.
This article originally appeared on Fortune.com

Blame Politics for China’s Market Meltdown - TIME

http://time.com/4170984/china-stock-market-drop-fall-economy-politics/

Investors aren't sure what Beijing will do next

China’s second trading halt in days, coming on the heels of a 7%-plus market plunge and followed by five-year currency lows, is being covered largely as an economic story. In some ways, that’s right. After all, China is in the middle of a debt crisis of epic proportions. The situation dwarfs even the U.S. subprime crisis if you think of it in terms of the pace of debt run up, the surest predictor of financial crises. Chinese debt has increased nearly three times faster over the last few years than U.S. debt did in the period between 2003 and 2007, leading up to the Great Recession.

But in an even more important way, China’s debt crisis and the global market crash that has followed is a political story. Investors are worried about debt, sure. But China has the financial resources to cover its debt, at least in the short term. What investors are really worried about is: What the heck is going on in Beijing? And, more particularly, is Xi Jinping, the power-consolidating Chinese president, a reformer who is helping China transition to a richer and more prosperous future, or a new emperor who will turn back the progress his country has made towards openness and market capitalism?

It’s the question that every investor is worried about right now. China, which has long past the days of double digit GDP growth, is now facing the most difficult economic transition that a country can make. It’s trying to go from being a poor nation to a middle income one. That’s a shift only three countries in Asia have made: Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. All three have much smaller and more manageable populations and political systems. The question is whether China, where unemployment is actually higher for college graduates than for factory workers, can create the sort of upmarket service economy needed to employ more skilled workers — and raise incomes to global middle class levels.

The jury is still very much out on whether this can happen. That’s in part because most every country in the world that has attempted this transition has had to open up its political system. That shift tends to go along with the type of economy that can produce the high-level intellectual property, legal stability, and personal and business security associated with middle income levels.

Xi and the Party claim that the recent consolidation of power is all about trying to make those changes. But the reality is their moves have also come with a rollback of press freedom, the jailing of business leaders and a pushback against those in the Party who disagree with the President’s decisions. Meanwhile, the stop-and-start government support for markets lends a haphazard quality to economic policy management. All of it has raised a big question about Chinese leadership. Is Xi Jinping the new Deng, a reformer who will help China make a true great leap forward? Or is he the new Mao, an autocrat who is undermining economic and political stability

The truth is, nobody yet knows. Beijing, along with the Party itself, is a notorious black box. Official economic figures can’t be trusted. Most outside economists say Chinese growth may be as low as 2-4%, as opposed to the official figure of 7%. What is known is that debt run-ups of the kind that China has undergone rarely end well.

Ruchir Sharma, the head of macroeconomics and emerging markets for Morgan Stanley Investment Management, has run the numbers since 1960 for 150 countries. He isolated the 30 most severe credit binges, defined as a rapid growth in the private debt of a country over a five-year period

In every case, he found that countries with major debt run-ups experienced a significant slowdown over the next five years, with GDP growth more than halving on average. Meanwhile, 18 out of these 30 countries also suffered a financial crisis in the next five years.

The U.S. did not even make Sharma’s list for its 2003-07 period debt binge,when its debt increased around 25%. That’s compared to the 40% or higher increases for the 30 most extreme cases. The increase in China’s debt to GDP between 2008 and 2013 was around 70% — the largest for any developing country in history. That alone is reason for the Chinese markets to be dropping.

Investors aren't sure what Beijing will do next -TIME

• Rana Foroohar @RanaForoohar
 

Jan. 7, 2016

Investors aren't sure what Beijing will do next

China’s second trading halt in days, coming on the heels of a 7%-plus market plunge and followed by five-year currency lows, is being covered largely as an economic story. In some ways, that’s right. After all, China is in the middle of a debt crisis of epic proportions. The situation dwarfs even the U.S. subprime crisis if you think of it in terms of the pace of debt run up, the surest predictor of financial crises. Chinese debt has increased nearly three times faster over the last few years than U.S. debt did in the period between 2003 and 2007, leading up to the Great Recession.

But in an even more important way, China’s debt crisis and the global market crash that has followed is a political story. Investors are worried about debt, sure. But China has the financial resources to cover its debt, at least in the short term. What investors are really worried about is: What the heck is going on in Beijing? And, more particularly, is Xi Jinping, the power-consolidating Chinese president, a reformer who is helping China transition to a richer and more prosperous future, or a new emperor who will turn back the progress his country has made towards openness and market capitalism?

It’s the question that every investor is worried about right now. China, which has long past the days of double digit GDP growth, is now facing the most difficult economic transition that a country can make. It’s trying to go from being a poor nation to a middle income one. That’s a shift only three countries in Asia have made: Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. All three have much smaller and more manageable populations and political systems. The question is whether China, where unemployment is actually higher for college graduates than for factory workers, can create the sort of upmarket service economy needed to employ more skilled workers — and raise incomes to global middle class levels.

The jury is still very much out on whether this can happen. That’s in part because most every country in the world that has attempted this transition has had to open up its political system. That shift tends to go along with the type of economy that can produce the high-level intellectual property, legal stability, and personal and business security associated with middle income levels.

Read more: Will China’s slowdown derail your investments?

Xi and the Party claim that the recent consolidation of power is all about trying to make those changes. But the reality is their moves have also come with a rollback of press freedom, the jailing of business leaders and a pushback against those in the Party who disagree with the President’s decisions. Meanwhile, the stop-and-start government support for markets lends a haphazard quality to economic policy management. All of it has raised a big question about Chinese leadership. Is Xi Jinping the new Deng, a reformer who will help China make a true great leap forward? Or is he the new Mao, an autocrat who is undermining economic and political stability?

The truth is, nobody yet knows. Beijing, along with the Party itself, is a notorious black box. Official economic figures can’t be trusted. Most outside economists say Chinese growth may be as low as 2-4%, as opposed to the official figure of 7%. What is known is that debt run-ups of the kind that China has undergone rarely end well.

Ruchir Sharma, the head of macroeconomics and emerging markets for Morgan Stanley Investment Management, has run the numbers since 1960 for 150 countries. He isolated the 30 most severe credit binges, defined as a rapid growth in the private debt of a country over a five-year period. In every case, he found that countries with major debt run-ups experienced a significant slowdown over the next five years, with GDP growth more than halving on average. Meanwhile, 18 out of these 30 countries also suffered a financial crisis in the next five years.

The U.S. did not even make Sharma’s list for its 2003-07 period debt binge, when its debt increased around 25%. That’s compared to the 40% or higher increases for the 30 most extreme cases. The increase in China’s debt to GDP between 2008 and 2013 was around 70% — the largest for any developing country in history. That alone is reason for the Chinese markets to be dropping.

This Is What Happened When I Pocketed My Phone for a Week - The Muse

This Is What Happened When I Pocketed My Phone for a Week Posted: 08 Jan 2016 12:45 PM PST I’ve never seen my co-worker Allen use a phone. I know he has one; I’ve called and texted him, and he asked my opinion on the iPhone 6 versus the Plus. But those are my only clues to its existence, because Allen has a strict no-phones-around-others policy. That means he will not touch his phone, under any conditions, unless he’s alone. When Allen first revealed his boycott, I thought he was crazy. I check my phone all the time, whether I’m with other people or not—out of necessity. How else am I supposed to stay on top of a constant flood of emails, social media updates, texts, and calls? However, when I started watching Allen interact with the other people in our office, I thought maybe he was onto something. No matter who Allen was talking to—a client, our boss, another professional—that person seemed really engaged in the conversation. So I decided to (literally) pocket my phone for a week. Here’s what happened. 1. People Copied Me I spent four hours straight with one of my colleagues finishing an extremely important project. It was incredibly difficult, but I kept my phone in my pocket the whole time. And for the most part, so did she. This particular co-worker is a pretty active social media user, so I was really surprised to see her be so hands-off. However, over the course of the week, I saw this effect again and again—when people pull out their devices and you don’t, not only do they feel pressured to put them away again more quickly, but they’re also far less likely to re-check them. We ended up finishing our project sooner than anticipated, in part because without the interruptions of our screens, we were able to find a flow and maintain it. The productivity boost was totally worth responding to emails a few hours later than I would have normally. The take-away: Putting away your phone makes everyone more efficient. The Muse: 6 Life Skills You Better Pick Up if You Want to Succeed at Work 2. People Liked Talking to Me More I didn’t tell anyone about my phone ban, and no one said anything. Whether or not they consciously noticed, however, people really seemed to respond. They could tell they had my undivided attention—not only was I not doing that half-nod, half-scroll thing, but I wasn’t even thinking about checking my phone. My listening skills went through the roof. As a result, people were much more engaged. When we were discussing something light-hearted, they smiled and laughed more. When we were talking about something serious, they were more honest and thoughtful. I even noticed people initiating conversations with me more. Instead of just saying, “How’s it going?” as they passed by me in the hall, they’d stop and ask what project I was working on or what my plans were the weekend were. The take-away: Putting away your phone makes people feel appreciated and respected. The Muse: 4 Basic Questions Likable People Always Ask at Work 3. People Trusted Me More Well, according to the research. Studies show using your phone around someone else makes you seem less trustworthy and less empathetic. In addition, even having a phone in view hurts our relationships—whether you check it or not. According to the scientists who conducted the study, “Cell phones may serve as a reminder of the wider network to which we could connect,” which leads to “lower relationship quality and less closeness.” The take-away: Putting away your phone will help deepen your relationships. Since discovering these benefits, I’ve decided to follow Allen’s lead all the time. I’m not going to lie, it’s challenging! These strategies make it a little easier: I turn my phone off if I know I’m about to be with other people.  I stow my phone in my bag, rather than my pocket, so it’s harder to access.  I pretend I’m playing a game in which I get money for every phone-free interaction.  I remind myself of the long-term gratification of building better relationships.  If I know someone is waiting to hear back from me (or vice versa), while I’m still alone, I’ll send a quick email explaining how long I’ll be unavailable. If something is really urgent, I’ll keep my phone in my pocket, excuse myself to the restroom, and check it in there. It’s not ideal, but at least the people I’m with don’t see me using it. Occasionally, I’ll miss an important email or return a call a little late. However, nothing has happened that’s made me regret not checking my phone. I may be a little harder to reach virtually, but in-person? I’m all yours—and my personal and professional relationships have never been better.

The world's most 'liveable' cities - Economist

Aug 18th 2015, 13:17 BY THE DATA TEAM

WHILE residents of Melbourne enjoy another year in the world’s most liveable city, according to the 2015 Global Liveability Ranking from our corporate cousin the Economist Intelligence Unit, spare a thought for those who live in the 57 cities that have steadily deteriorated over the last five years.

The ranking, which considers 30 factors related to things like safety, healthcare, educational resources, infrastructure and environment in 140 cities, shows that since 2010 average liveability across the world has fallen by 1%, led by a 2.2% fall in the score for stability and safety. Ongoing conflicts in Syria, Ukraine and Libya have been compounded by terrorist shootings in France and Tunisia as well as civil unrest in America. In Athens, austerity rather than unrest has weighed on the provision of public services, while Kiev saw the sharpest fall over the last 12 months and is now among the ten least liveable cities ranked. 

The most liveable places, notes the EIU, tend to be “mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with a relatively low population density”, which explains the low ranking of near-megacities like London and New York and goes some way to explaining Melbourne’s continued place in the sun.

A New Economic Era for China Goes Off the Rails - New York Times

By KEITH BRADSHERJAN. 7, 2016

HONG KONG — When President Xi Jinping of China convened a group of 
top officials to discuss the economy last month, the highly publicised 
meeting was seen as a moment of triumph.

A stock market plunge last summer, and a messy currency devaluation that 
followed, had faded from global view. In the relative calm, he seemed to 
usher in a new era of economic management, promising policy 
coordination at the highest levels to prevent another bout of turmoil.

Less than three weeks later, his plans have been derailed as China’s stock 
market and currency once again rattle investors around the world. The 
latest rout sets up a challenge for Mr. Xi, who has positioned himself as the 
master of the country’s economy.

At every turn, the president’s efforts to manage the economy, market and 
currency have been undercut by global headwinds and haphazard policy 
making. Three initiatives this week, involving currency depreciation and 
two sets of stock market rules, have been particularly discordant. All three 
were hastily suspended after China’s stock market plunged on Thursday 
morning.

He also cannot move forward on the bolder actions needed to head off a 
more serious economic slump, such as forcing hopelessly indebted state-
owned enterprises to stop borrowing money and shut down. Otherwise, he 
risks further eroding short-term confidence and growth, which have 
depended heavily on this borrow-and-spend mentality, and mass layoffs 
could follow.

Mr. Xi’s options are also more limited than in the past. He and his aides 
engineered the elevation of the renminbi to the ranks of the world’s leading 
currencies, a status bestowed by the International Monetary Fund in 
November. But in doing so, he gave up some control, allowing market 
forces to play a bigger role.

In the last couple of years, China had begun allowing, even encouraging, 
companies and people to invest more of their wealth overseas. Doing so 
helped reduce deflationary pressures at home from chronic over investment 
and overcapacity, and increased China’s influence around the world.

Circuit Breakers Cut, Yuan Fix Steady - bloomberg

Updated on January 8, 2016 — 12:35 PM AEDT   Bloomberg

Chinese stocks gained after the government abandoned new circuit breakers blamed for exacerbating the worst-ever start to the nation’s equities.

The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 2 percent at 9:33 a.m. local time. Regulators announced the mechanism would be suspended late on Thursday night after plunges this week repeatedly triggered the circuit breakers, which were implemented on Monday. A falling yuan has also raised concern the economic slowdown is deepening. The central bank set the currency’s reference rate little changed Friday.

"The scrapping of the circuit breaker system will help to stabilize the market, but a sense of panic will remain, particularly among retail investors," said Li Jingyuan, general manager at Shanghai Bingsheng Asset Management. "The ‘national team’ will probably continue to buy stocks significantly to stabilize the market."

While China’s high concentration of individual investors makes its stock-market notoriously volatile, the extreme swings this year have revived concerns over the ruling Communist Party’s ability to manage an economy set to grow at the weakest pace since 1990. The selloff has spread around the world this week, sending U.S. equities to their worst-ever start to a year and pushing copper to the lowest levels since 2009.

Curbs Remain

Investors still face plenty of restrictions in how they trade. Rules limit daily moves by individual stocks to 10 percent, while investors aren’t allowed to buy and sell the same shares in a day. Curbs on trading in what was the world’s most active index futures market have cut volumes by 99 percent from the peak, making it harder to implement hedging strategies. Daily and aggregate quotas limit trading by foreign investors.

“Although there’s more ability now for offshore participation, it’s largely a market that’s restricted the domestic users,” said Ric Spooner, Sydney-based chief market analyst at CMC Markets Asia Pacific Ltd. “That means it doesn’t get the arbitrage benefits that international investors bring. It’s a work in progress.”

The flip-flop in the circuit breaker rule adds to the sentiment among global investors that authorities are improvising -- and improvising poorly -- as they try to stabilize markets and shore up the economy.

“They are changing the rules all the time now,” Maarten-Jan Bakkum, a senior emerging-markets strategist at NN Investment Partners in The Hague with about $206 billion under management. “The risks seem to have increased.”

GM Just Invested Big Money in Uber’s Biggest Enemy - Fortune

GM Just Invested Big Money in Uber’s Biggest Enemy Posted: 04 Jan 2016 06:30 AM PST Correction appended, Jan. 4 As the ride-hailing war continues, Lyft has found a new investor and business partner in one of America’s largest car makers: General Motors. On Monday, Lyft confirmed it had closed a $1 billion funding round at a $5.5 billion valuation, more than double its last valuation of $2.5 billion in March 2015. Half of the investment comes from GM, the company said. Rumors of Lyft’s latest fundraising activities surfaced in the last few months, with its valuation growing from$500 million to $1 billion. Along with the investment, GM is also joining Lyft as a business partner. The long-term vision is to eventually deploy GM self-driving cars within Lyft’s service. “We, at GM, have had the view for a little while that the world of mobility is going change in the next few years more than it has changed in the last 50 years,” GM president Dan Ammann told Fortune. The company has pegged ride-hailing as the fastest growing new transportation model, which is why it decided to invest in and partner with Lyft, he added. As the car industry continues to adopt new technology, including driverless cars, GM has been working to keep up. In October, the company revealed plans to deploy a fleet of autonomous 2017 Chevrolet Volts at its Warren Technical Center campus in Michigan, from which GM employees will be able to reserve a car and input a destination using a mobile app. The company’s autonomous technology will drive passengers to their desired destination and park nearby for future use. GM also confirmed that its Super Cruise technology, which it has been developing since 2012, will be available in the 2017 Cadillac CT6. At the time, GM also announced plans for two car-sharing and ride-hailing pilot programs to help test its hardware and software products, and gain a better understanding of the user experience. In 2014, GM teamed up with Google to run a car-sharing pilot program on its campus in Mountain View, Calif. that let employees book and drive Chevrolet Spark EV cars. However, Ammann toldFortune that the company doesn’t plan to team up with other ride-hailing companies when it comes to its driverless car ambitions. “The nature of what we’re taking on here with Lyft is something that requires a deep level of integration and not something we can replicate” with others, he adds. Uber has long made its interest in driverless cars public, and has invested heavily in developing such technology through a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University. Since GM’s driverless cars are years away from hitting the road as part of Lyft’s service, the automaker plans to provide short-term car rentals (for a day, week or month) to Lyft drivers in the immediate future, as well as lease financing through its GM Financial arm, said Ammann. Meanwhile, Lyft rival Uber started to offer car leasing in November 2013, and revamped the program last July with more flexibility for drivers and fewer penalties if they decide to end their lease. GM is one of the few industry leaders that lets Uber drivers lease its vehicles through the program. A Lyft spokeswoman later told Fortune that the car rentals will become available in Lyft’s major markets starting in mid-January. This won’t be the only car rental option available to Lyft drivers. In October, the company announced a partnership with Hertz that will provide very short-term car rentals to Lyft drivers at rates it claims are low enough that they can still make money after they pay the fees. Chinese automaker GAC recently said it has made an undisclosed investment in Uber’s Chinese arm, which will promote the automaker’s selling and leasing services, and energy efficient cars. Along with GM, Lyft, raised the rest of its new funding from Kingdom Holding Company, Janus Capital Management, Rakuten, Didi Kuaidi, and Alibaba, among others. Didi Kuaidi is also a strategic partner—the two companies teamed up with India’s Ola and Southeast Asia’s GrabTaxi to let their respective customers book and pay for rides through each other’s services when traveling abroad without having to download separate apps. As Lyft continues to face stiff competition from Uber, which is reportedly in the midst of raising a $2.1 billion mega-round, it plans to use new funding to add more drivers and passengers in the U.S., as well as hopefully increasing existing passengers’ usage of the service, said Lyft co-founder an president John Zimmer. In October, Lyft said it hit $1 billion in gross revenue run rate based on its gross bookings of $83 million, though the company’s actual revenue is much smaller since it shares that money with drivers. Zimmer declined to comment on whether Lyft is profitable yet, though a recent report from Bloomberg suggests that it’s far from it. This article originally appeared on Fortune.com Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated General Motors’ plans. GM is offering short-term rentals to Lyft drivers.

Why World Stock Exchanges Are Falling in 2016 - Fortune

Why World Stock Exchanges Are Falling in 2016 Posted: 04 Jan 2016 03:27 AM PST Global stock markets have opened 2016 with a bang–just not the kind most were hoping for. The only color on the screens (unless you’re an oil or gold trader) is red, as markets tumble from Shanghai to London on a cocktail of conflict in the Middle East and fresh evidence of a slowdown in China. The only difference is in how much each market has fallen. With tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran driving oil prices temporarily above $38 a barrel for the first time in 10 days, the worst performing markets were those which depend both on a strong Chinese economy and on imported oil: Japan and Germany both lost over 3%, while India and South Korea lost 2.2%. In Shanghai, trading was halted with the main index down 6.9%, bringing back memories of the panic selling last summer as a government-sponsored bubble exploded. The selling came as a closely-watched survey of business confidence showed further job-shedding by Chinese manufacturers against a background of falling export demand and, more worryingly, weak demand at home: the Caixin/Markit purchasing managers’ index fell to 48.2 from 48.6 in December, well short of expectations of a modest rise. An index level of 50 generally reflects constant levels of output. Slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy plagued stock markets all through last year, and international fears were made worse by the extreme volatility in China’s stock market, and by suspicions that Beijing may be hiding the true extent of its slowdown. Doubts over the reliability of official data make private surveys such as the Caixin/Markit one a particularly important gauge of what’s going on. A fresh disappointment was the last thing stocks needed after a weekend full of alarming news from the Middle East. But there was at least some sign that the drop was driven by factors less related to the news than to technical, one-off factors. A ban on share sales by major shareholders, introduced to stop the collapse of a market bubble last summer, expires on Friday. Traders were said to be anticipating the end of that ban. On the other hand, there was also evidence of a resumption of one of last year’s key market trends–the flight of capital from China. The yuan fell to 6.356 against the dollar–its lowest level since March 2011–as the People’s Bank of China made good on its intention to allow more flexibility in the exchange rate. In Europe, the monthly PMIs from Markit had been around or even a little above expectations, but that didn’t stop a rout that already appeared likely over the weekend against a backdrop of rising tensions in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran, the region’s other big power, on Sunday after its embassy in Teheran was firebombed in protests against a mass execution of political dissidents in Saudi Arabia, including a prominent Shia cleric.

Sweden tightens border controls with Denmark - Financial Times

January 4, 2016 11:15 am

Sweden tightens border controls with Denmark

Richard Milne, Nordic Correspondent

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The 8km crossing linking Malmo and Copenhagen is one of the most visible symbols of European integration

Sweden has started checking the identity of travellers from Denmark in an effort to stem the flows of immigrants that has raised concerns of increased border controls across Europe.

The checks on train, bus and ferry passengers crossing the Oresund strait between Copenhagen, the Danish capital, and Malmo, the southern Swedish city, began on Monday and were denounced by politicians and commuters in both countries.

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Sweden was long regarded as Europe’s most generous country to asylum seekers, offering permanent residence in recent years to Iraqis and then Syrians. But after a surge in the number of asylum seekers last year, Sweden’s centre-left government buckled under pressure from local authorities and the public to crackdown on immigration.

The ID checks do not apply to cars on the Oresund crossing that features in the TV series The Bridge. Travel documents have seldom been needed between the two Nordic countries since passport union was introduced in 1958.

Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, called it “a dark day for our Nordic region”. Michael Randropp, chairman of the Commuters Association representing the more than 10,000 daily bridge users, likened the controls to a new Berlin Wall or Iron Curtain.

The controls have stoked tensions between Sweden and Denmark, where the centre-right government and its centre-left predecessor had been critical of Stockholm’s generous immigration policies.

Hans Christian Schmidt, Denmark’s transport minister, said: “It is sad that Swedes have run a failed immigration policy which now means that they are forced to do this. It is sad and annoying for the whole region.”

Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s prime minister, was also critical, saying large sums of money have been spent marketing the Oresund area on both sides of the border as one region.

The anti-immigration Danish People’s party that acts as the main support for Mr Rasmussen’s government in parliament, has called for border controls and several immigration experts believe Sweden’s action will set a precedent for other countries.

Sweden received 163,000 applications for asylum last year, double the number from 2014. Local authorities across the country but particularly in the south, close to the Danish border, have complained that public services are under strain due to the arrival of so many asylum seekers.

Stefan Lofven, Sweden’s prime minister, admitted the country had been “naive” about immigration when he announced curbs in November that restrict the right to family reunification and offer temporary rather than permanent residence.