1 Lack of investment stifling global economy (Mohamed El-Erian in The Guardian) Some economists call it "secular stagnation". Others refer to it as "Japanisation". But all agree that after too many years of inadequate growth in advanced economies, substantial longer-term risks have emerged, not only for the wellbeing of these countries' citizens but also for the health and stability of the global economy.
The corporate sector in advanced economies in general, and in the US in particular, is as strong as it has been in many years. Non-financial firms have achieved a mix of resilience and agility that contrasts sharply with prevailing conditions for some households and governments around the world that have yet to confront adequately a legacy of over-leverage. But, rather than deploy their abundant cash in new investments to expand capacity and tap new markets many companies have so far preferred to give it back to shareholders.
While shareholders have clearly benefited from companies' unwillingness to invest their ample cash, the bulk of the injected money has been circulating only in the financial sector. Little of it has directly benefited economies that are struggling to boost their growth rates, expand employment, avoid creating a lost generation of workers, and address excessive income inequality. If advanced economies are to prosper, it is necessary that the corporate sector's willingness to invest match its considerable wallet.
Six factors appear to pose particularly important constraints. First, companies are concerned about future demand for their products. Second, with China such an influential driver of global demand, the outlook for the world's second-largest economy has a disproportionate impact on projections of global corporate revenues. Third, while companies recognise that innovation is a key comparative advantage in today's global economy, they are also humbled by its increasingly winner-take-all nature.
Fourth, the longer-term cost-benefit analysis for would-be investors is clouded by legitimate questions about certain operating environments. Fifth, the scope for risk mitigation is not as large as financial advances would initially suggest. Finally, most corporate leaders recognise that they owe a large debt of gratitude to central bankers for the relative tranquillity of recent years. Through bold policy experiments, central bankers succeeded in avoiding a global multi-year depression and buying time for companies to heal.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/04/lack-of-investment-stifling-global-economy
2 Eurozone interest rate stays at 0.25% (BBC) The
European Central Bank has kept its benchmark interest rate at its record low of
0.25%. The bank slightly raised its forecast for growth to 1.2% in 2014, but
dropped its inflation estimate. Eurozone interest rates have remained unchanged
since November 2013, when the bank said it expected "a prolonged period of
low inflation".
In
February, eurozone inflation was at 0.8%, well below the ECB's 2% target, which
has prompted deflation worries. However, the ECB has been confident that
eurozone economies are recovering from recession. The bank decided to leave the
rate unchanged as there were continued signs of recovery, ECB president Mario
Draghi said in Frankfurt.
3 India's Narendra Modi a saviour or nightmare? (Jason Burke in The Guardian) "As I flew over in the helicopter, it was as if a sea of saffron was beneath me," Narendra Damodar Das Modi tells the crowd. Saffron is the colour of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), of which he is the candidate in India's national polls next month, and is powerfully symbolic in Hinduism.
The Indian election commission announced the dates of the coming polls, effectively starting the real campaign for power. The 800 million eligible voters will take six weeks to cast their votes, starting on 7 April. Modi, 63, is currrently the frontrunner, with surveys repeatedly placing him ahead of 43-year-old Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India's first political family and candidate for the incumbents, the venerable Congress party.
By the time he was 10, Modi was attending the early-morning outdoor drill meetings held by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Organisation), the highly disciplined rightwing organisation dedicated to realising a nationalist, traditionalist and religious vision of India's future.
The RSS, which has around 40 million members, was, and still is, controversial. The organisation was banned in the aftermath of Mohandas Gandhi's killing by a Hindu fanatic in 1948, and again during the Emergency, a two-year suspension of democracy by Indira Gandhi, Rahul's grandmother, in the 1970s. During this time, Modi worked underground. A third ban came after the destruction of a mosque on a contested site in Ayodhya, a northern city, by Hindu extremists in 1992. By then Modi had transferred to the BJP, which is ideologically close but organisationally distinct from the RSS.
Modi faces many criticisms too. In Gujarat, journalists in Ahmedabad say, simple intimidation has reduced the press corps to cowed servility. It is not economics, nor even his alleged dictatorial tendencies, that makes Modi such a polarising figure. It is violence, and specifically an outbreak of rioting in Gujarat in 2002 triggered by the deaths of 59 Hindu pilgrims after their train was torched in a largely Muslim town. Of the thousand or more killed and hundreds of thousands forced out of their homes in the chaos that followed, most were Muslims. There are also many ordinary Indians, and not just India's Muslim minority, who are deeply committed to a tolerant, pluralist, progressive vision of India and who believe Modi would divide and damage their country.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/narendra-modi-india-bjp-leader-elections
4 Internet as the people's new doctor (Khaleej Times) More and more people today are using internet to learn and share health problems - a remarkable shift that has gained momentum in the last decade, a new research finds. "By 2013, the web has become an almost routine part of many people’s experience of health and illness. The internet has transformed how people make sense of and respond to symptoms, decide whether to consult, make treatment choice, cope with their illness and connect to others,” said professor Sue Ziebland from the University of Oxford.
Doctors
are aware of this and recommend useful websites to their patients now. Yet,
patients were reluctant to talk to their doctors about what they find online,
fearing that such revelations might damage their relationship with their
doctor, the study noted. "Physicians and nurses who recognise that people
are using the Internet when they are ill can support and discuss the
information with their patients,” Ziebland said.
http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?section=editorschoice&xfile=/data/editorschoice/2014/March/editorschoice_March6.xml
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