Seventy years since Hiroshima; Samsung's glamour days are over; Grappling with the 'How do I quit my job?' question

1 Seventy years since Hiroshima (BBC) Residents in the Japanese city of Hiroshima are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the first atomic bomb being dropped by a US aircraft. The bombing - and a second one on Nagasaki three days later - is credited with bringing to an end World War Two. But it also claimed the lives of at least 140,000 people in the city.

A US B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay dropped the uranium bomb, exploding some 600m above the city, at around 08:10 on 6 August 1945. On that day alone, at least 70,000 people are believed to have been killed. Many more died of horrific injuries caused by radiation poisoning in the days, weeks and months that followed.

Addressing those who attended a commemoration ceremony at Hiroshima's peace park near the epicentre of the 1945 attack, Japanese prime minister Shinto Abe called for worldwide nuclear disarmament. "Seventy years on I want to re-emphasise the necessity of world peace."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33792789

2 Samsung’s glamour days are over (Khaleej Times) For four years Samsung Electronics has basked in the success of its Galaxy smartphones, making billions of dollars competing with Apple in the premium mobile  market. The coming years are set to be more sombre for the South Korean tech giant, as it is forced to slash prices and accept lower margins at its mobile division in order to see off competition from rivals including China's Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi in the mid-to-low end of the market.

Behind Samsung's reality-check is the fact it is stuck with the same Android operating system used by its low-cost competitors, who are producing increasingly-capable phones of their own. "The writing has long been on the wall for any premium Android maker: as soon as low end hardware became 'good enough', there would be no reason to buy a premium brand," said Ben Thompson, an analyst.

Samsung remains the world's biggest smartphone maker but it is Apple that is reaping most of the rewards. While the US giant's smartphone sales in its last financial quarter fell short of market expectations, it is still estimated by some analysts to earn 90 per cent or more of the industry's profits.

Investors and analysts say Samsung will not be able to compete with Apple in the premium market based on hardware and will continue to trail the US firm in the absence of a major technological breakthrough. Nomura analyst C.W. Chung says Samsung still has the economies of scale to outlast rivals, adding the smartphone industry will face a consolidation similar to the one in the memory chip industry that the South Korean firm now dominates.

"The ones that ultimately survive will then have plenty to be happy about," said Chung. "When everybody comes out to dig for gold, jeans and pickaxes are what make MONEY; that's what Samsung's semiconductor business is doing through the smartphone market," said Chung.

http://khaleejtimes.com/business/technology/samsungs-glamour-days-are-over

3 Grappling with the ‘How do I quit my job?’ question (Peter Fleming in The Guardian) It turns out that things are not so simple. When you enter “how to quit …?” into the Google search engine, the number of results on how to quit your job are exceeded only by “how to quit smoking” and “how to quit smoking weed”.

Entire websites are dedicated to helping us send that special email to the boss. Philip Larkin nicely captured the futility that often accompanies exit fantasies like these in his ode to the despondent office worker, Toads: Ah, were I courageous enough, To shout Stuff your pension! But I know, all too well, that’s the stuff, That dreams are made on.

The “how” part of the question is easy to answer. Just resign. So that’s not the real issue. The real question being asked is how we can quit an intolerable job or workplace without incurring all the risks that this implies. According to a 2013 Gallup survey, around 63% of the global workforce is disengaged (compared to 13% who are engaged). These people definitely hate their jobs, and for whatever reason cannot leave.

To keep a society fixated and obsessed with work, especially when the problem of collective material wellbeing has long been solved, it is redelivered to the public in strict, black-and-white terms. The rationale goes like this: if you are not willing to put up with your job the alternative is complete penury.

This forces us into a false double-bind. You either do the “right thing” and put up with your own private nightmare or, by default, consider yourself a privileged whining snob who is just one step away from social oblivion. The choice is yours.

In the end no one can tell you “how” to quit your job. It might seem like a mere technical problem but it is really an ethical one. However, it is worthwhile being aware of the ideological traps that lie in wait, carefully designed to preserve a world of work that is slowly spinning out of control.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/05/how-do-i-quit-my-job-google-answers

Greek shares nosedive; Obama unveils 'biggest' clean energy plan; Five things to know about pitch meeetings

1 Greek shares nosedive (Larry Elliott in The Guardian) The full extent of the damage caused by the Greek crisis was laid bare when the first day of stock market trading after five weeks of economic paralysis saw shares lose a sixth of their value.

Bank stocks bore the brunt of a wave of pent-up selling that eclipsed anything seen in the past three decades on the Athens stock market, with three of the leading Greek financial institutions losing the maximum 30% permitted in a single day’s trading.

The plunge in the stock market came as the first snapshot of the economy during the period when Greece teetered on the brink of leaving the single currency showed the manufacturing sector coming to a virtual halt last month. With the banks shut, confidence shattered and firms unable to secure supplies from abroad, Greek industry endured tougher conditions than during the worst of the global financial crisis in 2008-09.

The Markit purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell from 46.9 in June to 30.2 in July, the weakest since data for Greece was first collected in 1999 and well below its previous low of 37.2 points reached in early 2012. Any reading below 50 indicates that activity is contracting rather than expanding.

Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at consultancy Capital Economics, said the scale of the damage to the economy caused by the crisis and the imposition of capital controls “looks set to be worse than most forecasters, including ourselves, had envisaged”.

Greece’s problems failed to prevent most other eurozone countries from enjoying a continued pick up in manufacturing activity last month. Every other country apart from France experienced industrial expansion, although the final eurozone PMI of 52.4 was down slightly on June’s 52.5

.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/03/greek-shares-nosedive-as-manufacturing-data-reveals-economic-crisis

2 Obama unveils ‘biggest’ clean energy plan (BBC) US President Barack Obama has unveiled what he called "the biggest, most important step we have ever taken" in tackling climate change. The aim of the revised Clean Power Plan is to cut greenhouse gas emissions from US power stations by nearly a third within 15 years.

The measures will place significant emphasis on wind and solar power and other renewable energy sources. However, opponents in the energy industry have vowed to fight the plan. Those opponents say Mr Obama has declared "a war on coal". Power plants fired by coal provide more than a third of the US electricity supply.

The revised plan will aim to cut carbon emissions from the power sector by 32% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. "We are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change, and the last generation to be able to do something about it," Mr Obama said. He likened the plan to taking 166 million cars off the road in terms of environmental impact. He called taking a stand against climate change a "moral obligation".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33753067

3 Five things to know about pitch meetings (William Hsu in San Francisco Chronicle) I’ve had a number of crazy investor meetings over the course of my career, and each of these extreme cases has yielded some valuable insights of what to do, and more importantly, what not to do, when raising venture capital.

A. Dancing seals: Perhaps the most memorable investor meeting I ever had was when the founders showed up wearing dancing seal suits. They thought that this tactic would be the best way to attract attention and be memorable. They certainly achieved their goal on that front, and I have to give them credit for creative marketing but creativity points only get you so far. I did not invest.

B. Burn baby, burn:  We have had multiple entrepreneurs ask if we will burn pitch materials or sign confidentiality agreements, even before meetings start. While I understand the fear that someone will “steal” a precious idea, these requests speak to one of the biggest problems I see over and over again in pitch meetings: Entrepreneurs often think that the idea they have is everything. The idea is about 1 percent of the project. The other 99 percent is having the knowledge to run and follow through with a business.

C. Stalkers: There is a fine line between persistence and stalking. Being persistent about a pitch is often necessary, and even admirable. Stalking is neither, and entrepreneurs who hope to get anywhere with investors need to navigate that line carefully. When founders have crossed this line in the past, we are polite and tell them to be patient.

D. Time and place: If you do happen to encounter an investor you would like to meet with in an unconventional setting (vacation, bathroom or restaurant, to name a few), then at the very most, ask for a more formal meeting where a pitch is more appropriate and welcome.

E. 'Moral' support: About one out of every 50 meetings, a founder brings his or her significant other in with them. This person often has no ties to the business. Despite this, they will still answer questions and speak for the entrepreneur. From my side of the table, this gives the impression that the entrepreneur can’t even handle a pitch meeting. If they can’t handle a pitch meeting, how will they handle running a business? Bringing a significant other shows unpreparedness and a lack of confidence. 

At the end of the day, the most important factor in a VC meeting is to be well-prepared, with a strong idea, pitch and case for how your team can execute on your vision. When it comes down to it, what we are looking for is rather simple and does not require panda suits or stalking. Entrepreneurs’ goal should be to convince investors of your competence (and sanity), and these crazy tactics often have the opposite effect.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/What-Entrepreneurs-Can-Learn-From-the-5-Craziest-6383487.php

Fearing a 'Made in China global recession'; Greece worries of stock plunge; Big tech's big problem -- its role in rising inequality

1 Fearing a ‘Made in China global recession’ (Matein Khalid in Khaleej Times) Every global recession since the Opec oil shocks of 1973-74 was triggered by a contraction in the $17 trillion US economic colossus. Yet as I scan the world of late-summer 2015, I am convinced the next global recession will originate from the $10.4 trillion Chinese economy, whose growth rate has slumped to its slowest pace since 1990.

China's trillion-dollar shadow banking system, Marxist-Leninist wealth management Ponzi schemes and Beijing/local government borrowing have built up the biggest debt load in the history of humankind, now a staggering 250 per cent of GDP. The $4 trillion bloodbath in the Chinese stock market this summer has not been amplified by draconian state intervention. Unfortunately, this "Beijing put" will not prevent a Chinese economic bust and history's first "Made in China" global recession.

President Xi Jinping has consolidated more political power than any Chinese leader since the death of Deng Xiao Ping. Yet his frequent purges, economic restructuring and anti-corruption campaign has had a chilling impact on consumer spending/capex. Think October 1929 in New York, December 1989 in Tokyo. Not even monetary largesse from the People's Bank of China will prevent a growth decline in China and a "Chinese lost decade" that will transform the global economy, asset prices, power politics and financial markets.

China had periodic boom bust cycles/cash crunches in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet China's domestic economic convulsions had minimal global impact since China's economy had not yet joined the World Trade Organisation, or become the $10 trillion monster that is the largest export destination for 40 countries worldwide, the world's largest importer of copper, coal and steel.

In 2014, China contributed 38 per cent to global growth. As the vicious bear market in crude oil, Dr Copper and iron ore ($190 a metric tonne two years ago, $48 now), the Middle Kingdom is going bust. History will rank the Chinese stock market bubble in 2014-15 in the same league as Kuwait's Souk Al Manakh crash, Dutch tulip mania, the Nikkei Dow bubble, dot-com craze in late-1990s Silicon Valley or the Jazz Age financial madness on Wall Street. Only the Chinese bust will trigger a global recession.

http://khaleejtimes.com/business/economy/a-made-in-china-global-recession

2 Greece worries of stock plunge (BBC) The Athens Stock Exchange is set to plunge by as much as 20% on Monday when trading finally resumes after a five-week closure, traders have predicted. The bourse was shut just before the Greek government imposed capital controls at the height of the debt crisis.

Takis Zamanis, chief trader at Beta Securities, is among the pessimists. "The possibility of seeing even a single share rise in tomorrow's session is almost zero," he said. Shares in banks are likely to be particularly hard-hit because Greece's financial sector needs to be recapitalised.

A report in Avgi newspaper, which is close to the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, suggested Athens was asking for about 10 billion euros this month for bank recapitalisation. Banks account for about a fifth of the main Athens index.

Although Greece struck a bailout deal with its creditors last month, political in-fighting in Athens over the conditions could still result in Mr Tsipras calling an early election. The Greek economy has begun to reverse the gains it was making before Mr Tsipras's Syriza-led coalition took power in January on an anti-austerity platform.

The European Commission expects Greece to go back into recession this year, with the economy contracting by between 2% and 4%. The Greek economy was in recession for six years until 2014.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33754005

3 Big tech’s big problem – it’s role in rising inequality (Katie Allen in The Guardian) Look around and it seems pretty obvious that technology has made daily life easier. But, for all the convenience that new innovations afford us, what if this rise of technology is actually exacerbating inequality? There are certainly some red flags right now.

The first warning signs come from financial markets where technology stocks have soared this year. Search engine Google’s shares recently hit a record high of over $700, making it one of the most valuable companies in the world, second only to that other tech giant Apple. The moves have fired up the tech-heavy Nasdaq index and taken it back to the giddy heights of the dotcom bubble 15 years ago.

The problem is not rising share prices per se, but rather what they are telling us about the power of shareholders and the consequences in terms of what is left over to be invested in wages and innovation. This question of how the profits of technology trickle down is explored in the recent book iDisrupted by economist Michael Baxter and entrepreneur John Straw.

Analysing the economic impact of emerging technologies, they highlight two potential agents for rising inequality. Firstly, patents, and the way they ensure that profits from innovation accrue to larger companies and their owners. Secondly, the fact more goods are being offered for free online. The problem with this is that just about the only means left to fund digital products is advertising, a sector where revenues are increasingly dominated by a handful of companies such as Google and Facebook.

The authors of iDisrupted also look to Ford in their argument on the importance of profits trickling down. They cite the carmaker’s doubling of wages at his factory to $5 a day and the oft-disputed claim that his motivation was the hope other manufacturers would follow suit and so the potential number of car buyers would rise.

It may be the stuff of myths, but a century later the story provides a neat way of explaining how a rising gap between the few haves and the many have-nots could stop technological advances in their tracks. Baxter and Straw sum this up: “Those who suggest that technology may create a world of extreme inequality may be right, but equally it may be that unless the profits from technology trickle down, pushing up wages and creating demand, then further technological evolution may be impossible.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2015/aug/02/big-techs-big-problem-rising-inequality

Microsoft's $7.5bn Nokia lesson; Why Twitter isn't flying high; Canada rally for topless rights

1 Microsoft’s $7.5bn Nokia lesson (James B Stewart in Sydney Morning Herald/NYT) Let's call it the $7.5 billion lesson. That's the amount Microsoft wrote off on Nokia's phone unit, which it bought a little over a year ago for what it said was $9.5 billion. Considering that the deal included $1.5 billion in cash, the write-off means Microsoft now values a business that once controlled 41 per cent of the global handset market at just a small fraction of the purchase price.

Thanks in large part to the huge accounting charge, Microsoft reported its largest quarterly loss ever last week ($3.2 billion). It was only the third loss in its history as a public company. This being the technology business, Microsoft's still relatively new chief executive, Satya Nadella, gets credit for swiftly confronting reality and taking the hit to earnings.

Nadella opposed the proposed deal in an initial poll of top Microsoft officials. But his predecessor, Steve Ballmer was determined to push the deal through as a capstone to his long tenure as chief executive. Microsoft is also in good company. Google abandoned its foray into smartphones when it sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo last year. But it has written off just $378 million related to the $12.5 billion Motorola acquisition. Amazon wrote off an even more modest $170 million, acknowledging that its Fire phone was a flop.

But far more was at stake for Microsoft than for Google or Amazon, since the main point of the Nokia deal was to support Microsoft's Windows operating system, which, in turn, was a crucial element in Microsoft's "mobile first" strategy. Now both handset operating systems and hardware are pretty much global duopolies, with Google and Apple dominating software and Samsung and Apple dominating hardware. Microsoft has jettisoned the strategy.

Microsoft has now embarked on what Nadella said is no less than a "reinvention" of the company. In an email to employees this month explaining the shift, Nadella said, "We are moving from a strategy to grow a stand-alone phone business to a strategy to grow and create a vibrant Windows ecosystem."

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/microsofts-75-billion-nokia-lesson-20150801-gipgcd.html

2 Why Twitter isn’t shining (Charles Arthur in The Guardian) How many tech companies are saddled with the problem of enjoying global fame but struggling with lacklustre performance? Not Facebook, which revealed in its results that it has nearly 1.5 billion users logging in each month around the world. Twitter, however, is an example where participation is lagging behind reputation.

So why is Twitter struggling financially? Last week the two companies’ results showed their widely divergent fortunes. Facebook’s second-quarter revenue hit $4bn, up 39% year-on-year, with operating income of $1.3bn, down 8%. Twitter, by contrast, had revenues of $502m – up 61% from last year – but an operating loss of $131m. Facebook is gigantic, growing fast and profitable. Twitter is smaller, growing faster, but loss-making.

Meanwhile, in the past year around 450 people have left the company. That constitutes about 12% of the firm, and includes senior figures. Jack Dorsey, a Twitter co-founder, took over as “interim CEO”, a job that resonates in Silicon Valley because it is the title that Steve Jobs held for a while after he returned to a wounded Apple in 1996. There he ejected the incumbent, shook the company back into shape and eventually took on the title of full CEO.

Investors, and 38-year-old Dorsey, would like a repeat. Like Jobs, Dorsey was Twitter’s founding chief executive, but was forced out by Williams in 2008. He returned as executive chairman in 2011, appointed by Costolo, and then took back the reins, so he is not taking over from a standing start. But the board has yet to give him the full-time role.

According to Dorsey, using Twitter should be “as easy as looking out of your window”. He added: “You should expect Twitter to show you what’s most meaningful in the world, to live it first, before anyone else and straight from the source. And you should expect Twitter to keep you informed and updated throughout your day.”

But as Anthony Noto, the chief financial officer, admitted on the earnings call: “The number one reason users don’t use Twitter is because they don’t understand why to use Twitter. They don’t understand the value.” if only resolving that problem was as straightforward as a 140-character tweet.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/01/twitter-isnt-flying-fast-global-engaged-influential

3 Canada rally for topless rights (BBC) Hundreds of Canadian woman joined a topless protest march after three sisters were allegedly stopped by police for cycling without shirts. Saturday's "Bare with us" march took place in Waterloo, Ontario. The women say that police told them to cover up whilst cycling in the neighbouring town of Kitchener last month. They have filed a formal complaint with the police.

It is legal for women to be topless in Ontario after a court ruling in 1996. Protestors held signs that included the slogans "They are boobs not bombs, chill out" and "Nudity isn't sexual." The three sisters, Tameera, Nadia and Alysha Mohamed, say that they took their shirts off because it was a hot summer day. However, they allege that a police officer approached them and told them to cover up. 

But when they challenged this, the officer said he was stopping them for bike safety reasons.

One of the sisters is an award nominated Canadian singer under her stage name Alysha Brilla. 

Ontario passed legislation confirming the right of women to go topless in 1996, after the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned a woman's conviction for removing her shirt. Gwen Jacobs had been fined in 1991, but on appeal the court found that there was "nothing degrading or dehumanising" about her going topless in public.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33750417

Weak oil hits Exxon Mobil, Chevron; Emergency measures fail to halt China stock slide; Volkswagen beats Toyota in top automaker race

1 Weak oil hits Exxon Mobil and Chevron (BBC) Plunging crude oil prices weighed on quarterly earnings at the world's biggest oil company. Exxon Mobil reported it earned $4.2bn in the second quarter, which marked a drop of more than 50% from last year. Since last year, Brent crude oil prices have fallen more than 40%.

"Our quarterly results reflect the disparate impacts of the current commodity price environment, but also demonstrate the strength of our sound operations, superior project execution capabilities, as well as continued discipline in capital and expense management," said Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil's chairman and CEO.

The massive drop in crude oil prices also weighed on results at oil producer, Chevron. Second quarter profit fell 90% from last year, to $571m. "Second quarter financial results were weak, reflecting a crude price decline of nearly 50% from a year ago," Chevron chief executive officer, John Watson, said.

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell announced this week it has shed 6,500 jobs as part of cost-cutting plans as it seeks to counter falling oil prices.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33734134

2 Emergency measures fail to halt China stock slide (Katie Allen in The Guardian) On the Chinese stock market, on one side there are the individual investors, who are in the midst of what may be the greatest wave of panic-driven selling we’ve witnessed since Black Tuesday, when billions of dollars were lost in a single day of trading on the New York stock exchange. On the other side: the Chinese government. Worryingly, there’s some evidence that the rest of us are stuck in the middle.

The average Chinese investor had been all too eager to participate in the speculative frenzy that sent the Shanghai Composite Index from only 2,000 points in July 2014 to a peak of 5,200 a little more than a month ago. Nearly 6% of new investors’ households weren’t literate by any measure, according to one survey.

As happens with all bubbles – something happened to make someone pause and say “Wait a second, this is absurd” and start to sell, the fallout was equally violent: a decline of 8%, of 14%; a string of losses that so far has caused some $4tn in market value to simply evaporate in less than a month.

Now that an estimated 90 million Chinese citizens probably are sitting on outsize portfolio losses, the selloff presents a direct challenge to the leadership of China, President Xi Jinping and his colleagues. Unsurprisingly, they have combatted the selloff ferociously. Short selling? Limited, as the state press hints that it’s unpatriotic. The government has launched a $120bn market stabilization fund, suspended IPOs, and has banned insiders like CEOs and board members from selling stock in their companies for at least the next six months.

There are many ways in which what’s happening in China today could affect our financial futures for years to come, given the importance of the country in the global economy. Consider, for a moment, that events in China have already sent investors fleeing to bonds as a safe haven once more. Then there is the commodities market, where China has long reigned supreme. It is already weighing on the economic outlook for resource-rich nations like Australia.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/31/emergency-measures-fail-to-halt-chinas-stock-market-nosedive

3 Volkswagen beats Toyota in top automaker race (Johannesburg Times) Toyota has fallen behind Volkswagen in the race for the world's biggest automaker title, as the German giant outsold its Japanese rival in the first half of the year. Toyota said it sold 5.02 million vehicles worldwide between January and June, falling below earlier figures from Volkswagen of 5.04 million units shifted in the same period.

US-based General Motors was sitting in third spot with 4.86 million in sales. Camry and Prius maker Toyota broke GM's decades-long reign as the world's top automaker in 2008 but lost the crown three years later as Japan's 2011 earthquake-tsunami disaster hammered production and disrupted the supply chains of the country's automakers.

In 2012, Toyota again overtook its Detroit rival, which sells the Chevrolet and luxury Cadillac brands, to grab the top spot globally. But the Japanese automaker is expecting sales this year to slip to 10.15 million from a record 10.23 million vehicles in 2014, owing to a shaky outlook for Japan and as it beefs up its focus on quality after a string of safety scandals.

Volkswagen is now in pole position as the German automaker rides momentum in emerging economies that will likely see it take the top spot in annual global auto sales for the first time in 2015. Toyota, among other major automakers, has also been struggling to recover a reputation for safety after the recall of millions of cars around the world for various problems.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/motoring/2015/07/30/Toyota-falls-behind-VW-in-worlds-biggest-automaker-race

US growth picks up to 2.3%; Shell and Centrica cut 12,000 jobs; How not to be too busy for one's own good

1 US growth picks up to 2.3% (BBC) The US economy grew at an annualised pace of 2.3% in the three months to June. The figure - the first estimate of growth in the second quarter - followed an upwardly revised growth rate of 0.6% in the first three months of the year.

The Commerce Department said growth was boosted by increased consumer spending and cheaper fuel prices. Analysts said the figure could make the US Federal Reserve more likely to raise interest rates in September.

The 2.3% annualised growth rate is equivalent to 0.6% growth quarter-on-quarter, as measured in most other countries. For example, on Tuesday, official figures showed that the UK economy grew by an estimated 0.7% in the April-to-June period from the previous quarter.

Recent figures have shown the US economy creating more than 200,000 jobs a month, and the unemployment rate has now dropped to 5.3%. The latest figures fit with the pattern seen since the recession ended six years ago: weak growth at the start of the year, followed by a rebound in spring and summer.

The Commerce Department also downgraded its estimates for US growth between 2011 and 2014, saying the economy expanded at an average annual rate of 2% rather than the 2.3% previously forecast, underlining the tepid expansion.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33721838

2 Shell and Centrica cut 12,000 jobs (Terry Macalister in The Guardian) More than 12,000 jobs are being axed by two of Britain’s leading energy companies on the back of lower oil prices and major internal restructuring.

Shell is to cut 6,500 staff and contractors worldwide while Centrica, the owner of British Gas, wants 6,000 jobs to go, mainly in the UK. The cutbacks at Centrica – one of the big six domestic gas and electricity suppliers – is likely to cause a political storm as the British Gas arm doubled its profits to £528m.

The price of oil has halved over the past 12 months, forcing oil and gas companies to go on the defensive and spending to be slashed. But Centrica has come under new management, which promised radical change. Shell saw its second-quarter profits slump by 35% to £3.36bn, while Centrica’s first-half adjusted operating profits were down by only 3% to £1bn.

Centrica, under its new boss, Iain Conn, says it wants to save £750m of annual cost savings by 2020 and plans to dispose of up to £1bn of oil and wind assets. Conn, who was brought in from BP at the start of the year, said he was cutting back on North Sea exploration and production, as well as power generation but promised to keep investors happy.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/30/shell-and-centrica-cut-12000-jobs

3 How not to be too busy for one’s own good (Jesse Sostrin in San Francisco Chronicle) You have likely heard some version of this conventional wisdom about business success: If you work longer, push harder and give more, then you might break through. But you've also likely pondered the problem: How can you break through when you’ve pushed yourself to the breaking point?

I believe it is time for busy entrepreneurs, managers and leaders to take off their superhero capes once and for all; the superhuman notion of getting more and better work done with fewer resources is a profoundly damaging myth whose time has passed.

The reason is the destructive pattern that stems directly from the myth and affects the vast majority of entrepreneurs, managers and leaders. The problem with this inverse equation is that when demands outpace the resources you have available, you end up negotiating with yourself about which fire of the day you will put out while painfully neglecting the others. I call this set of imperfect choices the manager’s dilemma because it is truly a no-win situation without an obvious solution.

To assess your own risk level for the dilemma, answer these three questions: Have the demands on you increased over the past several months? Are they likely to stay elevated and/or continue rising? If your demands have increased, have you gained enough additional time, energy, resources and focus to adequately address them?

You’re tilting toward the danger zone if you answered “yes,” “yes” and “no” to these questions -- describing a sequence that reflects the underlying dynamic of the inverse equation. If you can’t afford to relax and recharge because things are too busy, then you know you must make the time.

And if some priorities have to be sacrificed because you are overwhelmed by too many deadlines and demands, then you know you have to redefine what truly matters and commit to that. If you cannot make these changes, you just might be too busy for your own good.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/How-Not-to-Be-Too-Busy-for-Your-Own-Good-6402407.php

Half of online world use Facebook; England bankruptcies lowest in 15 years; Whitney Houston and virtual heir apparents

1 Half of online world use Facebook (Katie Hope on BBC) Half the world's estimated online population now check into social networking giant Facebook at least once a month. Facebook said the number of people who check into the social network at least monthly grew 13% to 1.49 billion in the three months to the end of June.

The number is equal to half of the estimated three billion people who use the internet worldwide. Of those users, it said well over half, 65%, were now accessing Facebook daily. The rise in monthly active users helped drive second quarter revenue up 39% year-on-year to $4.04bn. Mobile advertising revenue was the biggest factor, accounting for more than three quarters of the total.

In the US, the company said people were now spending more than one out of every five minutes on their smartphones on Facebook. "But as well as keeping an eye on the short term gains they're also keeping an eye on the long term so they're future proofing themselves - it's clear this is an organisational imperative," Forrester analyst Erna Alfred Liousas said.

Facebook said that costs and expenditures for the quarter had surged by 82% to a hefty $2.8bn. As a result, net income fell 9.1% to $719m - equal to 25 cents a share - but the firm said if various expenses were excluded earnings would have been 50 cents a share.

Facebook also highlighted the increasing importance of video, saying that usage continued to grow. And it said it would start selling its Oculus Rift 3D headset in the first three months of next year. "3D content is the obvious next thing after video. Video will be huge, gaming will be huge. Once you start to get a critical mass we can get a social app which we are more specialised in," said Mr Zuckerberg.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-33712729

2 England bankruptcies lowest in 15 years (Patrick Collinson in The Guardian) Just one person was made bankrupt in the City of London in 2014, compared to 101 in Blackpool, according to figures from the Insolvency Service which reveal a deep north-south divide in debt problems.

The total number of personal bankruptcies in England and Wales peaked during the financial crisis in 2009, but has fallen dramatically and now stands at the lowest level for 15 years. Part of the reason is that individuals are opting for other forms of insolvency – such as individual voluntary arrangements [IVAs] and debt relief orders [DROs]. These have fallen from the peak seen in 2009, but are still nearly three times the rate in 2000.

Blackpool council said 2014 was a good year for the town’s tourist trade, but acknowledged the deep financial problems faced by many residents. “We are one of the most economically deprived areas in the UK so perhaps it’s not that suprising we have a high level of personal insolvencies. Studies have also shown that Blackpool has been among the towns hardest hit by government cuts.”

Nationally, debt advisers are warning that interest rate rises and the loss of tax credits is likely to see the downward trend in insolvencies since 2009 go into reverse. Jane Tully of the Money Advice Trust, said: “This steady downward trend in insolvencies is welcome news. We must be mindful, however, of what lies ahead. Household debt is forecast to pass its pre-recession peak of 169% of household incomes in 2020. We are concerned that many will turn to credit to plug gaps in their budgets.”

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/29/bankruptcy-rates-at-lowest-level-for-15-years

3 Whitney Houston and virtual heir apparents (Khaleej Times) With the untimely and unfortunate death of Bobbi Kristina Brown - the late Whitney Houston's daughter - there is widespread speculation on what will happen to Houston's financial 'legacy': her life's earnings, her properties - that would have normally been passed on to her daughter. With Bobbi Kristina dead at 22, the field has been left wide open.

Who will inherit Whitney Houston's vast fortune? It's turned out to be a million-dollar question. It is ironical that on the same day Facebook introduced its legacy feature in the UK; it's now gone live, and millions of Facebook users can now nominate an 'inheritor'.

We've all heard of apps that continue to tweet your train of thoughts after you're dead and gone - and it sounded somewhat odd, even morbid, that you could pretend to live on virtually. But what Facebook is doing is creating a property out of its page (the legacy feature will soon be a worldwide phenomenon); it's almost like having a piece of real estate with your personal touches (and possessions) in place, and you are, in turn, "willing" it to who you consider your most worthy inheritor: the one who will take forward your vision.

Although it may seem like overarching ambition on Zuckerberg's part to assume his brand can be this valuable, Netizens are excited at the prospect. Some are being made to feel important that this is yet another feather in their caps, one that can be "passed on"; and some are made to feel equally important that they stand to inherit something so virtually valuable.

And there is bound to be a smaller percentage of Facebook users who will perhaps get creeped out at the prospect of their social media page being used as a goldmine. Here too, the field is wide open, and as Facebook would say, more comments are awaited.

http://khaleejtimes.com/editorials-columns/virtual-heir-apparents