Montreal's fashion sector is trying to regain some of its lost glory as designers, manufacturers and other players in the apparel industry unite in a bid to expand the city's sartorial footprint.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1JbNA0n
dimanche 31 mai 2015
Mmode industrial cluster aims to reboot Montreal fashion biz
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1JbNA0n
Mental illness in the workplace: Ask for help early, lawyers say
Employers are required to help workers who are dealing with a mental illness or disability. But legal experts say it's important to disclose an illness early — and sometimes to even tell an employer a little more than they strictly need to know.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1LUJreT
samedi 30 mai 2015
Oil-price drop impact on Canada lessened thanks to foreign ownership
An internal memo at Finance Canada says foreigners own between 40 and 50 per cent of the energy sector, a level higher than reported by StatsCan. And that means Canada's economy was partially shielded from the impact of dropping oil prices because foreign investors had to eat some of the losses.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1BxC5sl
Canada 5 years behind Europe when it comes to banning neonic insecticides
A French scientist and pesticide expert says there is a a "clear connection" between what happened decades ago with DDT and what is happening now with neonics, referring to the controversial pesticide that many scientists blame for the widespread death of bees.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1SIdqMq
Alberta oil industry wary of NDP government
Alberta's oil industry has been mostly diplomatic with the NDP government in charge. But this week, one company decided to dial up the pressure on the new premier.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1FfVWwT
vendredi 29 mai 2015
House poor, fixing CPP & gaming Aeroplan: BUSINESS WEEK WRAP
From one entrepreneurial Canadian who'll help you rack up millions of reward points for next to nothing, to long overdue law that brings an end to three-year cellphone contracts, it was an eventful week in business news. The CBC's Jacqueline Hansen gets you caught up in her weekly video recap.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1eElgan
Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht gets life in prison on drugs offences
A San Francisco man who created the online drug-selling site Silk Road has been sentenced to life in prison.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1KtPSoW
Wearable technology: Canada emerging as a global leader
Canada's wearable technology companies are fashioning themselves a new niche as global leaders, with Montreal considered the mecca for smart clothes, while Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo are the places to go for gadgets.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1ED5hhu
Real estate woes: The secret lives of house-poor Canadians
With rising housing prices and the lure of low interest rates, more Canadians are living house poor. We profile one family willing to talk about living "hand to mouth" as they struggle to keep their home and pay the bills.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1SzNZN0
What are the most distinctive jobs in your province?
From petroleum engineers in Alberta, to visiting homemakers and housekeepers in Manitoba, the CBC's interactive map points out the most distinctive jobs in every province.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1JcTD3m
Entrepreneurship in Canada ranks 2nd in world, report says
Canada is second only to the U.S. in levels of entrepreneurial activity, beating most G7 countries and much of the developed world.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1KD2cGq
Google, GoPro collaborate on Jump virtual reality system
GoPro Inc and Google Inc introduced a virtual reality system using 16 cameras and Google software.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1co2lPg
Angry at missing part of Letterman finale? CRTC says it's looking into it
Canada's broadcast regulator is making good on a promise to crack down on Canadian cable companies improperly cutting into U.S. based programs after hearing from Canadians upset about missing parts of the finale of David Letterman's show.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1dBYaAO
Will we ever again see $100 oil again?
It was nearly a year ago when oil prices crashed. While prices have slowly rebounded, experts weigh in on whether crude will ever return to past levels.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1d3U0Rv
Amazon.com may soon start delivering its own line of groceries
You may soon be able to buy an Amazon.com private-label brand of soup, cereal and baby products as the e-commerce giant moves into the grocery sector.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1ACIzLj
Flavoured tobacco lawsuit slammed, cancer society celebrates N.S. ban
The chief executive of Nova Scotia’s Canadian Cancer Society division says the lawsuit a tobacco giant has launched against the provincial government is “outrageous” and amounts to a “corporate bullying tactic."
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1HRMarx
Canadians with CMHC mortgages spend 26% of income on housing
Even as housing prices rise, Canadians are showing strong ability to manage their debts with arrears on CMHC mortgages at a low 0.34 per cent for the first quarter of this year, according to new figures from the federal housing agency.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1dBPScd
Google Photos offers free, unlimited photo and video storage
Google is willing to store and organize all of the world's digital photos and videos for free.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1G6Z8l4
Canadians Michael Taxon & Itamar Cohen admit to $17M stock fraud
Two Toronto-area men have admitted to fraudulently manipulating the prices of two U.S. penny stocks in order to unlawfully make $17 million in trading profits for themselves and others.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1HAwOlX
U.S. economy goes into reverse in Q1, shrinks at 0.7% pace
The U.S. economy went into reverse in the first three months of this year as a severe winter and a widening trade deficit took a harsher toll than initially estimated.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1KCuD7s
Canada's GDP shrank 0.1% in 1st quarter, Statistics Canada says
Canada's economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in the first three months of 2015, as the economic impact of oil's gloom spread to other sectors.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1EDPsaf
Scotiabank profit up 2% prompts share buyback of 24 million stock
Scotiabank says profits rose nearly two per cent in the second quarter it benefited from growth in consumer and business loans and results from its wealth management division.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1AycXa1
Adesina gets it
AKINWUMI ADESINA (pictured) has been elected the new president of the African Development Bank (ADB). For our story on the ADB and the election in last week's print edition, click here.
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1FHBlVz
Britain's productivity puzzle, New Jersey's tourism boom and China's stockmarket bubble
THIS week's print edition has an array of economics articles that may be of interest. The following have particularly caught our eye:
A new look at Britain's productivity puzzle (Britain)
A wave of people and spending is about to hit New Jersey (United States)
Why China's manic bull market is so dangerous (Finance)
Also, don't forget to take a glance at this week's Free Exchange column, which explains why pacific trade talks have exposed the limits of economic modelling.
And if you fancy writing for The Economist, Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1Jbg5d4
Why Europe can't let Greek economy crumble: Don Pittis
As one of the world's richest and most powerful economies, the European Union cannot let a member state drown in debt or crumble under austerity. Quite fairly, the EU is wary of setting a precedent. But its credibility is at stake with Greece, Don Pittis writes.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1BttTta
Hot dogs ditch bad rap and go gourmet
Foodies have discovered another make-over project and this time it’s the humble and sometimes even reviled hot dog, which has found a new look and new home at quick service restaurants popping up across Canada.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1BttQxq
Toronto-based mining firm paid bribes in Congo, whistleblower tells RCMP
The Mounties are investigating allegations from a whistleblowing accountant at TSX-listed mining company MagIndustries that his bosses paid bribes to officials in the Republic of Congo to win approvals for development of a potash mine there.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1BttQxt
jeudi 28 mai 2015
Oilsands industry needs to speed up environmental fixes, panel says
Oilsands producers should speed up development of new technologies to temper the environmental effects of the industry, a new study commissioned by the Harper government suggests.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1FG5sg0
Greeks promise bailout deal by Sunday, EU not so sure
Greece says it aims to clinch a deal with its creditors by Sunday, a development that would allow it to receive the desperately needed final instalment of its international bailout plan and avoid a default.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1J9xR0h
Apple overtakes Google as world's most valuable brand
Apple, buoyed by iPhone 6 sales and buzz over its latest Watch offerings, topped both Forbes' and the BrandZ 100 most valuable companies lists for 2015, bumping former top-earner Google as the world's most valuable company.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1Hyv2By
Lego is going to make Canadian's wildly viral labyrinth game
A Lego master builder from Ottawa will see soon his tilting table-top maze game in stores around the world, the makers of the familiar interlocking bricks announced Thursday.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1AwjwK1
Dog-eared pages of history
THERE is a window of time between shoehorning oneself into seat 237C and the precise moment the wheels leave the ground. The first minutes of climbing, with seat angle just so and general quietude prevailing, are peak sleep-time for Gulliver. But one must stay awake until then, and for that, on American carriers anyway, there was always the SkyMall catalogue.
For the uninitiated, SkyMall was the airborne version of the direct mail-order catalogues that once blighted mailboxes but were a godsend for shut-ins and the lazy. For the posh and those who liked superlatives, there was Sharper Image. For the rugged or those who wanted to be seen as such, there was Sierra Trading Post. And for a reported 88% of people who take American domestic flights—650m a year—there was SkyMall.
It carved out an odd niche, selling a staggering range of banal, clever and patently ridiculous things. In the pre-internet era, the promise of goods waiting for the purchaser upon landing seemed like black magic (Larger items, like Boris the Brontosaurus, $1,950, pictured...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1JXkDVe
Takata airbags: 1.95 million vehicles recalled in Canada so far
A total of 1.95 million vehicles have been recalled in Canada so far in connection with Takata airbags that can explode and send metal fragments into the passenger compartment.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1J9d3Gm
Google I/O conference keynote, Sundar Pichai, expected to reveal latest Android version
Watch Google's senior vice-president of products, Sundar Pichai, kick off this year's I/O conference in San Francisco with a keynote address that is expected to reveal the latest Android version.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1JXcO1z
Fixing FIFA not an easy goal
Analysts who have followed the legal scandals surrounding FIFA say that the very nature of the organization has allowed it to operate with impunity for so long.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1d1DSQv
Recession unfolds in Alberta, N.L., while B.C. powers ahead, economist predicts
Expect a recession this year in Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador, while British Columbia will have the highest growth, according to a new outlook from the Conference Board of Canada.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1SEjkOs
A weighting game
THE Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a putative trade agreement, would ease commerce between America, Japan and ten other countries that between them account for two-fifths of global GDP. But how beneficial would it be to these economies? Advocates claim it would boost their output by nearly $300 billion in a decade. Critics say it would make little or no difference.
The disagreement reflects the difficulty of gauging the impact of free-trade agreements. Almost all economists accept the benefits of free trade as laid out in the early 1800s by David Ricardo. Countries do well when they focus on what they are relatively good at producing. But Ricardo looked at only two countries making two products, at a time when few non-tariff barriers such as safety standards existed. This renders his elegant model about as useful for analysing contemporary free-trade deals as a horse and carriage are for predicting the trajectory of an aircraft.
Instead, most economists use what is known as computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis. CGE models are built on top of a database that seeks to describe economies in full, factoring in incomes, profits and more....Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1FiKlOp
When the talking has to stop
THE latest episode in Greece’s long-running economic drama is coming to a head. Since the victory of the radical-left Syriza party in the election of late January, Greece’s creditors and the new government headed by Alexis Tsipras have been exchanging threats. A resolution of some kind must occur in June, and sooner rather than later in the month.
It could still be a disastrous falling-out that leads to Greece defaulting on official loans, imposing capital controls, freezing deposits and tumbling out of the euro. But as time and money run out, the concentrating of minds on both sides seems likely to bring a deal.
Mr Tsipras is the one under most pressure. A recent payment to the IMF of €750m ($825m) was made only by drawing down a special account Greece held at the fund. Next month the government is due to pay the IMF double that amount, starting with €300m on June 5th. It may not be able to: a government minister said on May 24th that the money wasn’t there. Even if the first instalment can be rustled together, the government will be hard-pressed to find the €300m due on June 12th and the €600m due on the 16th;...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1Aw1UOD
Undue credit
DAVID EINHORN, a hedge-fund manager, saw the financial crisis coming and made a fortune from it. But not all his predictions have been as prescient. Asked in 2012 about rating agencies, which, unlike him, had failed to discern the impending disaster, Mr Einhorn said, “It’s a matter of time before they all disappear.”
After all, the three big rating agencies, Fitch, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s (S&P), had all judged Lehman Brothers a safe bet until the morning of the day it defaulted; they also gave high ratings to securities based on subprime mortgages that turned out to be toxic. “Deeply disappointing,” was how Ray McDaniel, the boss of Moody’s, described its performance.
In response, politicians vowed to change the industry beyond recognition. They handed the job of regulating them to new outfits: a special unit of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in America and the European Securities and Markets Authority in the European Union. A provision of America’s Dodd-Frank financial-reform law, enacted in 2010, states that any requirements in regulation for a security to be rated should be...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1KsbS3m
Compacts of god
Let’s hope they issued cat bondsINSURANCE only works if reinsurance works, those in the business say. An insurer that would face crippling losses if, say, a hurricane struck an island where it had covered lots of property against extreme weather, would typically insure itself against such an event with a reinsurer. But the $425 billion industry is under threat as insurers increasingly offload risk directly to capital markets instead. This month Warren Buffett, who has investments in reinsurance, dismissed it as a “fashionable asset class” whose prospects have “turned for the worse”.
Two things have made life more difficult for reinsurers. First, as insurance companies merge into fewer, global players, the share of policies they seek to reinsure has declined rapidly over the past decade, says James McPherson of PwC, a consultancy. A Slovenian insurer that used to take out reinsurance against a big snowstorm, for example, no longer needs to do so if it is part of a global insurance firm that can offset the risk with unrelated policies in other parts of its portfolio. Technological advances and regulatory pressures...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1Aw1WWy
The economics of bluffing
WILL Greece default on its debts and leave the euro? Will Britain decide to leave the European Union? Politicians in the two countries have threatened, implicitly or explicitly, to take these drastic steps if their European colleagues do not offer them inducements to stay.
Many people regard these threats as a bluff. They think that Greece does not really want to leave the euro, and that David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister, does not want his country to exit the EU. When push comes to shove, Greece will do a deal (see article) and Mr Cameron will persuade British voters to stay in the EU in his planned referendum. But there are risks that neither outcome will turn out as planned. In both cases, political leaders are making a risky bet.
The financial analogy is with writing (selling) an option. In the markets, an option is the right to buy (a call) or sell (a put) an asset at a given price; say shares of Apple at $130. In return for granting the buyer of the option this right, the writer...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1KsbS3y
Bedside manners
No need to callIN 2008 Jordan Shlain treated an elderly patient with pneumonia. He was worried about her, so he gave her his mobile number—but she didn’t use it, and ended up in intensive care. This set Dr Shlain thinking about how to follow up with patients; his simple solution was a daily phone call and a spreadsheet to record the data. One day another patient in his San Francisco surgery remarked, “Dude, you need to turn this into software.” He did, and earlier this year Cedars-Sinai Health System, a hospital operator in Los Angeles, adopted a patient-feedback system developed by the firm he set up, Healthloop.
Doctors can use Healthloop to send their patients questions about their condition, by e-mail, text or smartphone app. Its software then works out when intervention by a doctor or nurse is needed. It is efficient and patients like it. These days the idea of finding value in health data is very much in vogue but most attention is being showered on the promise of “big data”, in which giant databases on genomics, population health and treatment are crunched in the hope of discovering medical insights. But...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1KshL0G
Marjorie Deane internships
Applications are invited for The Economist’s 2015 Marjorie Deane internships. Financed by the Marjorie Deane Financial Journalism Foundation, the awards are designed to provide work experience for a promising journalist or would-be journalist, who will spend three months at The Economist writing about economics and finance. Applicants are asked to write a covering letter and an article of no more than 500 words that they think would be suitable for publication in the Finance and economics section. Applications should be sent to deaneintern@economist.com by July 3rd. For more information, please visit http://ift.tt/1gKuRFS.
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1FiKlOl
Homeowning Hamlets
The market is distortedIN A world of fully rational human beings, people would all be constantly checking the financial markets for profitable opportunities. But often they ignore a chance to save money even when it is right under their noses.
That conclusion is clear from a new study of the Danish mortgage market.* Danish homeowners tend to use fixed-rate mortgages, which they can refinance at any time without penalty. This refinancing can occur even when borrowers are in negative equity (meaning that they owe more than their house is worth) or when their creditworthiness has deteriorated; restrictions only apply when the homeowner tries to increase the size of the loan.
As rates on long-term mortgages fell from more than 7% to around 4% in the aftermath of the financial crisis, some Danes were quick to refinance loans taken out at higher interest rates. The academics dub these people “levelheads”—the kind of rational agents beloved by economic models. But a second group, nicknamed “woodheads”, were slow to refinance, either because they were not paying attention or because of inertia (they could not...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1clep3A
Feeling valued
THERE was a time when virtually all the ills of the world economy were blamed on the yuan. Critics charged that China’s intervention to suppress its currency had led to anaemic imports from Europe and America, to a savings glut that flooded America with cheap credit and even to the global financial crisis, since the cheap credit enabled irresponsible lending. The allegations were exaggerations. But it was evident that China had held its exchange rate down, boosting its companies at the expense of others. So it was a notable shift when the International Monetary Fund declared this week that the yuan was “no longer undervalued”.
Not everyone agrees. Jack Lew, America’s treasury secretary, was quick to say that he still sees the yuan as undervalued. With China in their sights, American senators passed a bill earlier in May that could lead to sanctions against foreign countries deemed to manipulate their currencies. The IMF’s previous assessment that the yuan was too cheap had lent a veneer of intellectual credibility to such drives. Its new language strips that away.
The change was a long time in coming. The IMF had...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1JX6jfh
Exploring the Amazon
NOT long after Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, said he would pay $250m of his own money for the chronically loss-making Washington Post, in August 2013, he sat next to the newspaper’s editorial-page editor, Fred Hiatt, at a dinner. It was a perfect opportunity to influence the Post’s line, but Mr Bezos reportedly preferred to talk about other things on his mind, such as exploring the dark side of the moon.
Technology, not journalism, is Mr Bezos’s passion. So far he has been the sort of proprietor newshounds dream of, with a light touch on editorial matters and a willingness to finance experimentation and bear losses. After years of shrinking ambitions and cost-cutting under its old owners, the Graham family, Posties are experiencing a period of expansion and excitement under Mr Bezos. As other American papers have continued to cut staff, the Post has hired more than 100 newsroom employees since the takeover was announced.
In its revamp, the Post is following some of Amazon’s tactics. Much as Mr Bezos has made his e-commerce firm...Continue reading
Source :Business and finance http://ift.tt/1AAgDb3
Apple CarPlay or Google Android Auto will be in nearly all cars by end of 2015
By the end of the year, nearly every major automaker will begin offering Apple's CarPlay or Google's Android Auto, two systems that effectively turn a car's dashboard screen into a smartphone.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1FFdntY
Day 2 of mailbox case: City grilled on Canada Post bylaw
A judge grilled the attorney representing the city of Hamilton in court Wednesday, asking why, if it wanted some input on the placement of mailboxes, it didn't just give that input to Canada Post when the postal service asked for it last fall.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1LMxSX7
Corporate profits down 6% to start 2015, Statistics Canada says
Profits at Canadian companies fell six per cent in the first three months of 2015 to $75.4 billion, Statistics Canada said Thursday.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1JX1bYC
Norway parliament says sovereign wealth fund will exit coal investments
Norway's parliamentary parties have agreed that the country's $900 billion sovereign wealth fund should stop investing in coal companies because of their impact on climate change.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1PPXrNu
CIBC hikes dividend as profits almost triple to $911M
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce says profits nearly tripled in the second quarter as its wholesale banking and wealth management divisions led growth.
Source :CBC | Business News http://ift.tt/1AA38rD
Inscription à :
Articles (Atom)
