Many analysts had
expected the economy to bounce back after the government's crackdown on black
market cash last year. However, confusion among some firms over a new tax on
goods and services was blamed for holding back growth. Some retailers said
ambiguous rules over the new sales tax, which began on 1 July, left them unsure
over how to price their products.
But manufacturing saw
the sharpest slowdown in growth, expanding at just 1.2% compared to 10.7% a
year earlier. Growth in the financial, insurance, real estate and professional
services sectors also slowed from 9.4% to 6.4%.
2 New Uber CEO suggests IPO (Straits Times) Uber Technologies' new chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
told employees the ride-services company would change its culture and may go
public in 18 to 36 months.
Mr Khosrowshahi, who led travel-booking site
Expedia for 12 years prior to joining Uber, made the remarks as he introduced
himself to Uber's workforce during an all-staff meeting at its San Francisco
headquarters. His plans include rebuilding Uber's culture and growing market
share as well as possibly conducting an initial public offering in 18 to 36
months, according to people who attended the meeting.
It is common for
venture capital-backed companies to signal an initial public offering at a
vague time in the future. "This
company has to change," Mr Khosrowshahi told employees, according to the
Twitter feed of Uber's communications team. "What got us here is not
what's going to get us to the next level."
The appointment of Mr
Khosrowshahi, who described himself as "a fighter", comes as Uber is
trying to recover from a series of crises that culminated in the ouster of
former CEO Travis Kalanick in June. It is also a key step towards filling a
gaping hole in its top management that at the moment has no chief financial
officer, head of engineering or general counsel.
3 Millennials and the midlife
crisis (Claire Suddath in Johannesburg Times) This
month, two UK economists presented statistical proof for the existence of the
midlife crisis. In a survey of 1.3 million people across 51 countries, they
found that people report a measurable decline in happiness, starting in their
30s and continuing until around age 50, when they started to feel satisfied
with their lives again.
"We're
seeing this U-shape, this psychological dip, over and over again. There is
definitely a midlife low," said Andrew Oswald, co-author of the study.
Oswald's co-author, David Blanchflower, adds: "I don't know why some
psychologists say it doesn't exist. It's blindingly obvious. All we did was
plot the data points."
The
very idea of a midlife crisis originated in the early 1960s with a Canadian
psychologist named Elliott Jaques. He was studying the creative habits of 310
famous artists such as Mozart, Raphael and Gaugin when he noticed a common
trait: When the artists entered their mid-30s, their creative output waned.
Some became depressed. A few committed suicide.
If
anything, the dip recorded by Oswald and Blanchflower may simply be the
statistical proof of what millennials are only starting to learn:
"adulting" is hard.
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