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After Copenhagen, China Steps Back Into The Climate Change Spotlight

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

The problem is the same, but getting the world to agree on a solution is proving to be a challenge.

  • China and the United States emit more greenhouse gases than any other nations in the world, but during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last December, the two nations argued over who should carry more responsibility for tackling the problem.
  • After a week of similar rich-country/poor-country conflicts, Copenhagen ended without any agreement on how to address the global greenhouse gas problem. This time, China is hosting the conference and the goals are a little different: Instead of a global agreement, participants may seek smaller, more manageable deals such as corporate carbon-cutting programs.
  • The Copenhagen conference made it clear that China, though still a developing nation, is going to be front and center in the climate change debate. In addition to being the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases, China is also the world’s biggest investor in renewable energy sources.

Facts & Figures

  • China’s per-capita GDP is $3,700 per year; the per capita GDP in the U.S. is $46,000.
  • Coal accounts for 80% of China’s energy production.
  • Developed nations pledged $30 billion in Copenhagen to help developing countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions, nearly all of which has been fulfilled.

Best Quote

“China came to understand that given the scale of the country, there’s simply no way it can hide – you’re either the leader or you will be blamed. By hosting this meeting, it sends a strong signal that China is thinking about how to play a more proactive role on the international stage.” – Yang Ailun, Greenpeace China’s Head of Climate and Energy

Verizon Refunding Up To $90 Million to Cellular Customers

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

Getting ripped off? It may pay to speak up – the squeaky wheel gets the $90 million dollar refund.

  • The F.C.C. (Federal Communications Commission) has been receiving consumer complaints about bogus data charges assessed by Verizon Wireless on customers without active data plans.
  • In response, Verizon announced it will voluntarily refund affected customers. The company will likely still face a fee from the FCC.
  • Many customers were charged $1.99 every time they accidentally hit a key that opened their phone’s browser. Verizon has been accused of  refusing to reverse these charges when individual customers called customer service to complain.

Facts & Figures

  • According to a Verizon executive, about 15 million customers without data plans were billed for unintentional data usage in the past few years.
  • Beginning in October, current and former customers will receive credits to their account ranging from $2-$6.
  • In the end, the refunds are estimated to total $50 million.

Best Quote

The agency is “gratified to see the repayment, but for millions of Americans it’s a day late and a $1.99 short.” – Michele Ellison, Chief of the F.C.C. Enforcement Bureau

Loan-Linked Debit Cards Sidestep College Credit Card Law

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

The CARD Act of 2009 has barely been in place for a month, but companies are already turning a profit with a variation on the theme…

  • A company called Higher One has figured out how to make money on college students using plastic, despite recent regulations designed to keep credit card companies from preying on the under-21 population. And they’re not the only ones finding loopholes in the new regulations: PNC Bank has been encouraging schools to market PNC’s products to students on campus, since PNC is now barred from doing so itself.
  • With the cooperation of school administrators, Higher One links student loan accounts to debit cards, allowing students to spend their financial aid funds anywhere with a single swipe. The cards are accepted anywhere MasterCard is, and they’re often branded with the school’s emblem.
  • Though participating colleges say the card program makes accessing financial aid easier for students, many students are not convinced. The cards come with all sorts of fees, and the way the program is pushed by schools makes it look suspicious. Some schools use the cards as substitutes for student IDs, requiring everyone on campus to have one even if they don’t have a HigherOne account.

Facts & Figures

  • The penalty for not using your Higher One debit card for 9 months is $19 per month.
  • Other fees include $2.50 for ATM transactions with other banks and $0.50 per transaction made as “debit” (entering a PIN) rather than “credit” (signing a receipt).
  • 675 colleges in the U.S. participate in Higher One’s debit card program.
  • Higher One’s sales in the 3rd quarter of 2010 were $27 million.

“The [Higher One] Refund Card mailing may look like an unwanted credit card offer. PLEASE DO NOT DISCARD IT.” – From the website of the University of Maryland at Baltimore

Culprit In ‘Flash Crash’ Identified

Monday, October 4th, 2010

How one company broke the Internet stock market.

  • The SEC and FTC just completed their report on the May 6th “flash crash” that resulted in a sudden loss of more than 600 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The market rebounded, but not before a few trader meltdowns.
  • The report says that the crash resulted from a single big trade, which happened to be executed on a day when the market was already unstable due (in part) to fears about European debt.
  • Apparently a large trading company (which the WSJ identifies as Waddell & Reed Financial, a mutual fund company in Kansas) sold tens of thousands of futures contracts using a computer trading program. The sudden sale scared day traders into dumping their futures contracts and further destabilizing the market.

Facts & Figures

  • The DJIA’s 600-point crash was its fastest decline ever.
  • The trade in question involved selling over $4 billion in futures contracts at one time.
  • A total of 75,000 futures contracts were sold.

Report On Congo Conflict Identifies Neighbors As Villians

Friday, October 1st, 2010

In one of the world’s most violent and tragic conflicts, it appears that no one’s hands are clean.

  • The UN just released a controversial report about the conflict in Congo from 1993 – 2003, and the picture it paints of certain foreign governments is causing political conflict.
  • The report accuses several African nations of committing serious crimes during the conflict. Rwanda in particular has expressed outrage that its military forces were accused of committing genocide.
  • In response, Rwanda and Uganda have both threatened to remove their peacekeeping forces from neighboring countries like Darfur and Somalia, where they are helping to maintain order.

Facts & Figures

The report accuses several nations of committing war crimes with their military forces:

  • Uganda – torturing civilians
  • Rwanda – hunting down refugees
  • Angola – raping women, looting hospitals
  • Zimbabwe – conducting deadly air raids
  • Chad – setting fire to homes

Best Quote

“The systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of damning elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide.” – Excerpt from the 566-page report issued by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Your Friend Can Now Lend You $20 Using A Credit Card

Friday, October 1st, 2010

Is this the end of the entire credit card business model as we know it??

  • A new company called Square is blowing the minds of credit card company executives everywhere. Square produces a little gadget that plugs into the headphone jacks of a variety of iThings and the Android phone. That’s where things get crazy.
  • The free device allows anybody with a bank account to accept credit card payments in person or over the phone.
  • Usually, only businesses accept credit cards. They have to purchase expensive equipment and then pay fee after fee just for the ability to process credit payments. Square Up changes that, eliminating equipment, setup, and maintenance fees.

Facts & Figures

  • Square’s chief executive is the co-founder of Twitter.
  • Each time you process a payment using Square Up, the company keeps 2.75% of the transaction amount, plus $0.15.
  • At first, transactions are capped at $1,000, but that cap can be raised over time or for established businesses.

Kids Get A Say In Where They Hang Their Hats

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

They have to live there, too.

  • Real estate brokers are seeing an increase in clients under the age of 18, as more parents try to involve their kids in the decision of where to live.
  • Sometimes the goal is to teach the kids how real estate works, sometimes it’s a way to make them feel more involved in a big family change, and sometimes it’s just practical to have another person helping to make the final decision.
  • The 9- and 14-year-old daughters of a Manhattan apartment hunter were instrumental in pointing out flaws: the dining room wouldn’t fit a table for homework, the oven wouldn’t fit a Thanksgiving turkey, the layout wouldn’t allow for enough privacy.

Facts & Figures

  • Frances Katzen, a broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman, recently showed a $3.1 million dollar apartment to two children, aged 11 and 12, who came without their parents.
  • Another agent working for CORE showed an apartment to a client and his 15- and 18-year-old children, who seemed to be along for a lesson in finance.

Best Quote

“At first I thought it was going to be boring. Then I thought it was fun to fit everything in.” – Julia Paris, 14-year-old house hunter

High-Speed Market Crash Blamed On Impatient Investors

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

On May 6, 2010, the stock market crashed. For about 20 minutes.

  • No one is exactly sure how it happened, but it had a lot to do with the way electronic trading works (or doesn’t work). After the crash, people began to look carefully at the intended and unintended consequences of digitizing the trading process.
  • High-speed trading systems have made investing cheaper and faster. Wall Street traders demanded greater speed, and SEC and FTC regulators allowed technology upgrades to continue unchecked for a long time.
  • The SEC has been investigating the crash for months and is about to release its official report. As part of that process, the SEC is acknowledging its own role and failings in the regulations leading up to the brief financial meltdown.

Facts & Figures

  • During the crash, the DJIA dropped almost 700 points before rebounding.
  • In January, the SEC showed signs of questioning the new structure of the stock market.

Best Quote

“Who could argue that competition was a bad thing … and that faster trades would be a bad thing?” – Joseph Saluzzi, Co-Head of Trading at Themis Trading

Development Goals In Africa May Not Be Met By Deadline

Monday, September 20th, 2010

The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals were created to fight poverty and stimulate economies in Africa between 2000-2015, but whether the project will be a success remains to be seen.

  • Several new reports are suggesting that U.N. Millennium Development Goals will not be met by their deadline unless leaders of both developing and developed nations step up their involvement and investment.
  • The goals for Sub-Saharan Africa, which were agreed upon by 190 countries in the U.N. in 2000, include reducing poverty, hunger, disease, and early deaths by a certain percentage by 2015.
  • There are many reasons why the initiative is in danger of failing: Donors have failed to fulfill their pledges, some African leaders have been uncooperative, and many African governments have failed to increase health spending to the mandated 15% of their gross domestic product.

Facts & Figures

  • The death rate for mothers has barely shifted since 2000.
  • The total number of people living in poverty has grown to more than 400 million.
  • The U.S. has pledged an additional $63 billion to improve healthcare in target countries, $3.5 billion for agricultural initiatives, and $30 billion to help countries prepare for global warming.

Best Quote

“Unless an urgent rescue package is developed to accelerate fulfillment of all the MDGs, we are likely to witness the greatest collective failure in history.” – Oxfam

The Recession’s Been Over For More Than A Year Now

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Are we late in reporting this, or what?

  • After almost a year of analysis and debate, the National Bureau of Economic Research has announced that the recent recession officially began in December of 2007 and ended in June of 2009.
  • The good news in the report ends there. The NBER doesn’t rule out the possibility of another recession, just indicates that any subsequent recession would be a new one.
  • The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also released a report emphasizing that the recovery, especially in the labor market, will take at least three more years. It praised and encouraged the Obama administration’s handling of the economic crisis, and suggested that taxes and interest rates will probably have to be raised to make up for some of the damage done.

Facts & Figures

  • Unemployment probably won’t return to pre-recession levels for another 3 years.
  • Unlike past recessions, this one could result in permanently increased unemployment numbers.
  • Though tax increases are unpopular, the United States has a lower tax rate than many other countries.

Best Quote

“The committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity.” – from the National Bureau of Economic Research’s report

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