The iconic American conglomerate has a new boss and a new strategy General Electric (GE), an industrial conglomerate founded by Thomas Edison 125 years ago, is in trouble. Its market valuation, once over $400bn, is now closer to $150bn. Its share price has fallen by about two-fifths this year alone. The firm recently replaced Jeffrey Immelt, its long-serving chairman and CEO, with John Flannery,..
The case for taxing inherited assets is strong No tax is popular. But one attracts particular venom. Inheritance tax is routinely seen as the least fair by Britons and Americans. This hostility spans income brackets. Indeed, surveys suggest that opposition to inheritance and estate taxes (one levied on heirs and the other on legacies) is even stronger among the poor than the rich. Politicians kn..
A new accounting rule for credit losses is about to kick in In the first quarter of 2018 thousands of banks will look a little less profitable. A new international accounting standard, IFRS 9, will oblige lenders in more than 120 countries, including the European Union's members, to increase provisions for credit losses. In America, which has its own standard-setter, IFRS 9 will not be applied -..
The "tumoroids" mimic real cancers much more closely than traditional cell cultures Almost half a century after Richard Nixon declared war on cancer, there has been plenty of progress. But there is still no cure. One reason is that "cancer" is an umbrella term that covers many different diseases. Although the fundamental mechanism is always the same - the uncontrolled proliferation of cells - th..
The investment firm’s main props—cheap debt and stable demand for Big Food’s products—are wearing out Occasionally a business idea emerges that is so simple you cannot believe it works. Consider the five founders of 3G Capital, an investment firm. Warren Buffett co-invests with them and calls them “among the best businessmen in the world”. They use debt to buy consumer-product firms, then they r..
Emmanuel Macron is helping revive the grandest idea in European business When Emmanuel Macron first started work as a mergers-and-acquisitions banker at Rothschild in Paris in 2008, technicians of the trade were not impressed. “He did not know what EBITDA was,” sniffed a former colleague, according to the Financial Times (it is a measure of company profits). Yet Mr Macron had ideas and made thin..
Once considered a boon to democracy, social media have started to look like its nemesis An economy based on attention is easily gamed "Come on guys, let's be serious. If you really want to do something, don't just 'like' this post. Write that you are ready, and we can try to start something." Mustafa Nayem, a Ukrainian journalist, typed those words into his Facebook account on the morning of Nov..
Captured soldiers cast light on the work of a shadowy group "I am Roamn Sergeyevich Zabolotny, born in 1979, and I have been taken prisoner," says a Russian-speaking man in a video released last month by the jihadists of Islamic State (IS). A second soldier, his right eye swollen shut, sits silently in grey robes. Both were reportedly captured during a battle near Deir ez-Zor, a city in Syria's ..
Neither bird, nor plane, this is A/2017 U1 On October 19th Rob Weryk of the University of Hawaii saw something rather strange. In pictures produced by Pan-STRRS 1, a telescope on Haleakala, he identified an unusually fast-moving, faint object that he concluded could not have originated in Earth's solar system. It was travelling at more than 25km per second. That is too fast for it to have a clos..
It hasn't stopped the discount grocers from thriving The aisles are wide, the lights bright and shelves low. Most obviously, however, the apples shine and the broccoli beckons. For those used to the cramped, dimly lit Aldi stores of yore, all expense spared, the new supermarket in Herten, Germany, is almost shocking. Opened in April this is the prototype for a vast new renovation and expansion p..
An Uzbekistani immigrant carries out a lethal attack against pedestrians and cyclists It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, the perfect day to cycle or walk along the Hudson river on Manhattan's west side. Parents were beginning to gather at schools to pick up their excited children, many wearing Halloween costumes. But the idyllic autumn day came to an abrupt end at 3.05pm when a man in a hired ..
Making pay more transparent Swedes discuss their incomes with a frankness that would horrify Britons or Americans. They have little reason to be coy; in Sweden you can learn a stranger's salary simply by ringing the tax authorities and asking. Pay transparency can be a potent weapon against persistent inequities. When hackers published e-mails from executives at Sony Pictures, a file studio, the..
Mutual mistrust between the two administrations scuppered a deal to avoid a head-on clash It was political theater - epic for some, farce for others and tragic for many more. By 70 votes out of 135, and with the opposition having walked out, the Catalan parliament in Barcelona voted today, October 27th, to declare independence and constitute Catalonia as a republic. Minutes later in Madrid, the ..
As the world marks the centenary of the October Revolution, Russia is once again under the rule of the tsar Seventeen years after Vladimir Putin first became president, his grip on Russia is stronger than ever. The West, which still sees Russia in post-Soviet terms, sometimes ranks him as his country's most powerful leader since Stalin. Russians are increasingly looking to an earlier period of h..
Yet again, reality turns out to be complicated Britain is running out of time to finish negotiations before it is due to leave the European Union on March 29th 2019. Theresa May insisted in Parliament this week that the recent EU summit had made important progress. Yet the start of talks on a framework for future trade may not happen until after December. Hence a favorite idea for averting a "cl..