UBS shake-up may cost 10,000 jobs; Apple's $120bn cash pile problem; Spain's jobless cross 25%; India's activist politician; Impressive US recovery

1 UBS shake-up may cost 10,000 jobs (The Guardian) Thousands of City jobs could be on the line as Swiss bank UBS prepares to announce a restructuring of its investment bank. The bank will publish third-quarter figures on Tuesday and could concede that as many as 10,000 of its 60,000 staff will be shed in the coming years. UBS announced plans to cut 3,500 jobs to save £1.5bn just over a year ago. The changes are part of a strategy devised by the new management team in the wake of the Kweku Adoboli allegations.

Banks are under pressure to hold more capital at a time when revenues are falling – putting pressure on profitability. As a result many banks are cutting staff to maintain profits. Sergio Ermotti, the new chief executive, is also said to have been under pressure form Swiss regulators to reduce the risks being taken by the bank. He is reported to be planning on splitting the investment bank into a non-core division and a continuing investment bank comprised of equities and corporate finance among other activities.

2 Apple’s $120bn cash pile problem (Juliette Garside in The Guardian) It is one of the world's largest hedge funds, with $121bn under management, but its name is virtually unknown in financial circles. Braeburn Capital is not operated from the top floor of a Manhattan skyscraper or a plush Mayfair townhouse. It is located in a quiet suburb of Nevada's capital, Reno, and it belongs to Apple.

In a nondescript building opposite an abandoned restaurant, a small number of advisers have been charged with investing the cash pile Apple has amassed. That pile has grown from $9bn when Braeburn was established in 2006 to more than $120bn. That is a shade less than the $130bn Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in America and probably the world, has under management.

Much of Apple's money is trapped overseas, sheltered from the US taxman, who would demand a 35% cut were the money to be repatriated. But it can be invested at home. Apple's financial reports show it holds $21bn of US government debt – a vast sum for a single private investor. Foreign governments like investing in US securities, but Apple owns more than the $19bn held by Malaysia, and just $4bn less than Spain. Braeburn's team may be modest, but its scope is galactic.

3 Spain’s jobless cross 25% (Raphael Minder in The New York Times) Friday’s report that Spain’s unemployment rate had surpassed 25%t was bad news for a government that recently trumpeted a streamlining of its labor market rules. The ranks of the unemployed swelled to 5.78 million people at the end of the third quarter, compared with 5.69 million a quarter earlier and 2.6 million four years ago, when Spain’s property bubble burst, the report said.The jobs data signaled a deepening recession and raised the likelihood that Spain would again miss budget targets agreed to with other euro zone countries.

There was, however, one perversely positive element to the report: the labor picture is so bleak that it could help Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy make the case that Germany and other lenders cannot risk imposing further austerity measures on Spain’s economy in return for providing more European rescue funding.

4 India’s activist politician (Neeta Lal in Khaleej Times) In a development that was symbolically significant, on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, social activist Arvind Kejriwal, 44, who has been spearheading a high-profile anti-corruption crusade, launched a new political party. The yet-to-be-christened political institution received a hearty response from a corruption-fatigued India and sent political temperature soaring. 

Kejriwal, who was a former associate of Anna Hazare before their group ‘India Against Corruption’ splintered due to ideological differences, says his driving force is the overriding graft in the system. His political agenda is centered on transforming politics, moving from popular protest to people’s power, changing governance methods, ending the VIP culture and empowering local communities.

It is propitious at this juncture for Kejriwal, a mechanical engineer from the blue chip IIT and a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, to foray into politics. Thanks to him, probity and accountability in public life are now the new buzzwords. Kejriwal’s rise also accentuates a glaring Opposition deficit. With the Opposition parties failing in their duty to act as watchdogs of democracy due to their ideological bankruptcy and inner fractiousness, it is now left to revolutionaries to expose systemic rot.

But any enduring crusade needs a wider cachet; a multifaceted program and a vision of the world which Kejriwal’s singular agenda — i.e corruption — lacks. But despite these handicaps, the activist may well be on his way to reshaping the contours of the Indian polity.

5 Impressive US recovery (Fareed Zakaria in Khaleej Times) The International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook makes for gloomy reading. Growth projections have been revised downward almost everywhere, especially in Europe and the big emerging markets such as China.

And yet, when looking out over the next four years — the next presidential term — the IMF projects that the US will be the strongest of the world’s rich economies. US growth is forecast to average three per cent, much stronger than that of Germany or France (1.2%) or even Canada (2.3%). Increasingly, the evidence suggests that the US has come out of the financial crisis of 2008 in better shape than its peers — because of the actions of its government.

The good signs come with caveats. Europe continues to weaken. The fiscal cliff looms ominously. But the fact remains, compared with the rest of the industrialised world and the arc of previous post-bubble recoveries, the US is ready for a robust revival. This is partly because of the dynamism of the US economy but also because of the timely and intelligent actions of the Fed and the Obama administration.