Gulf markets hit as US crude drops to $38; Japan avoids technical recession; When to turn off the taps is Saudi Arabia's $640bn question

1 Gulf markets hit as US crude drops to $38 (Siddesh Suresh Mayenkar in Gulf News) Post the Opec indecision on output ceiling, oil prices continued its southward journey with WTI falling below the keenly-watched $40 per barrel mark, and the sell-off spread to equity markets in the Gulf, with Dubai leading the losses.

The Dow Jones industrial average gave up 154 points, or 0.9 percent, to 17,694 on Monday. The S&P 500 index slipped 19 points, or 0.9 percent, to 2,072 while the Nasdaq composite fell 38 points, or 0.7 percent, to 5,105.

Oil dropped 5 percent to $38 a barrel, near its low for the year. Brent crude prices, the globally traded benchmark, traded down $1 to below $42 a barrel, the lowest since March 12, 2009.

“It is the aftermath of Opec’s decision, the fear is that we will have a lot more supply in the market and there is no one on the other side to pick this one up and hence the price will continue its downward path,” said Naeem Aslam, Chief Market Analyst, Global Head of Analysis at Ava Trade.

Equity markets in the Gulf, which is considered as a proxy for oil, came under intense selling pressure with the exception of the Abu Dhabi index. Dubai index led the losses. The Dubai Financial Market General Index closed 2.21 per cent lower at 3,104.17, after hitting a low of 3,102.25, the lowest level in 2015.

http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/markets/gulf-stocks-battered-as-us-crude-price-plunges-to-38-1.1633304

2 Japan avoids technical recession (BBC) Japan's economy avoided a technical recession in the three months to September, according to revised official numbers released on Tuesday. Preliminary numbers released last month showed the economy had contracted an annualised 0.8% during the period.

The preliminary figures meant it was Japan's second consecutive quarterly contraction, which constitutes a technical recession. However, the revised figures show the economy expanded at an annualised 1%. Japan, which is the world's third-biggest economy, has been in recession four times since the global financial crisis.

On a quarterly basis, the latest economic numbers show gross domestic product (GDP) for the three months to September grew 0.3% - instead of initial report which showed a contraction of 0.2%.

Economist Marcel Thieliant of Capital Economics said one reason for the revision was stronger business investment, which edged up by 0.6% instead of the preliminary reported 1.3% quarter on quarter fall.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35035824

3 When to turn off the taps is Saudia Arabia’s $640bn question (Nils Pratley in The Guardian) So much for the idea that the US shale industry would be killed by Saudi Arabia’s high-risk strategy, adopted a year ago, of keeping Opec’s taps open and flooding the market with supplies. After 12 months of this experiment, it is Opec that is in chaos.

Meanwhile, US oil production has barely been dented. Volumes have fallen 5% in the past six months, but the backdrop was a shale-driven 50% increase in production between mid-2012 and mid-2015. In short, the Saudis have gained next to nothing.

No wonder the price of Brent crude now stands at a near seven-year low of $41 a barrel. And no wonder last week’s meeting of the Opec cartel ended in chaos. The Saudis don’t trust the Iranians to cut production, and thus the outcome was stalemate.

The Saudis seem to have made the oldest mistake in the book. The theory that an intense period of low oil prices, say $50, would drive US shale and some conventional oil producers out of business was plausible on paper. But it overlooked the practical evidence of many decades that, in oversupplied commodity markets, producers try to stay in business to the bitter end.

The low oil price is great news (at least for the time being) for oil-consuming countries. But when, like the Saudis, you require $100-a-barrel oil to balance your budget, you have a serious problem. Even foreign-exchange reserves of $640bn don’t last forever.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2015/dec/07/saudi-arabias-640bn-dollar-question-oil-price                                                                                                                            

Obama resists ground war plan against Isis; UK manufacturing faces demand slump; More pain in sight for crude market

1 Obama resists ground war plan against Isis (Dan Roberts in The Guardian) Barack Obama resisted pressure for a more aggressive military response to the threat of Islamic State-inspired terrorism in a rare address to the nation that sought to reassure Americans following the deadly shooting in San Bernardino.

Acknowledging the attack was an “act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people” the president largely reiterated his existing strategy to counter Isis in Iraq and Syria through a mix of air attacks, assistance to local forces and special forces. “We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria; that’s what groups like Isil want,” he said, using an alternative term for Isis.

“They know that if we occupy foreign lands they can maintain an insurgency for years, killing thousands of our troops and using our presence to draw new recruits,” he said. Obama also reiterated his call for Congress to take steps to curb access to assault weapons in the US, saying gun control had become a “national security issue”.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/07/barack-obama-speech-president-resists-pressure-for-ground-war-in-response-to-isis-threat

2 UK manufacturing faces demand slump (BBC) UK manufacturing is encountering a poor end to the year amid "gathering gloom" from the global economy, according to industry body the EEF. It has cut its manufacturing forecasts, expecting a 0.1% fall in 2015, with 0.8% growth next year.

Its survey also points to serious concerns about the future outlooks for the global and UK economy. It says weakening demand from developed and emerging markets have become more prominent, leading to falling exports.

As well as exports, the EEF says job prospects have also been hit, particularly with more spare capacity in the oil industry, which has been hit by falling prices. Meanwhile, recent job losses in steel companies have also hit the sector. Manufacturing accounts for about 10% of the output of the UK economy.

The production industries: mining, quarrying, gas, electricity, water and sewage account for another 5%, and construction makes up 6%. In the last decade, manufacturing grew gradually from 2005 to 2008, at which point it took a dive in the financial crisis in common with the rest of the economy.

It recovered from 2010 until the start of 2012 and its growth has been volatile since then. The sector is still below its pre-crisis peaks, unlike the service sector, which is well above its pre-crisis level.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35019719

3 More pain in sight for crude market (Siddesh Suresh Mayenkar in Gulf News) Oil prices are pretty much taking the path that Opec had wished for. Brent crude fell 1.9 per cent to $43 a barrel Friday, nearing its lowest level in six years amid a supply glut, and analysts feel that these cuts may get deeper. Analysts are predicting brent will fall to $38 per barrel next week.

On Friday, Opec decided to keep pumping about 31.5 million barrels a day (mbpd), setting aside their previous daily output target of 30mbpd. Opec will wait until June to decide on a new limit, its secretary-general Abdullah Al Badri said.

Oil has slumped 40 per cent since the Saudi-led Opec decision in November last year to maintain production and defend market share against higher-cost shale companies. In June last year, crude had traded above $100 a barrel.

However, over the longer term, Saleem Khokhar, head of equities at National Bank of Abu Dhabi’s asset management group, sees a limited downside. “The supply-demand equation would balance out next year and we do see [the] supply side adjusting accordingly,” Khokhar said.

http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/markets/little-hope-for-oil-revival-as-opec-removes-output-target-1.1632686

Limitless pumping shatters Opec unity; China strengthens Africa ties with $60bn pledge; Isis is expanding international reach, not weakening

1 Limitless pumping shatters Opec unity (Gulf News) Opec abandoned all pretence this week of acting as a group. It’s now every member for itself. At a chaotic meeting Friday in Vienna, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries tossed aside the idea of limiting production to control prices. Instead, it went all in for the one-year-old Saudi Arabia-led policy of pumping, pumping, pumping until rivals — external, such as Russia and US shale drillers, as well as internal — are squeezed out of market share.

“Lots of people said that Opec was dead; Opec itself just confirmed it,” Jamie Webster, a Washington-based oil analyst for IHS Inc, said. Opec has set a production target almost without interruption since 1982, though member countries often ignored it and pumped well above it. The ceiling of 30 million barrels a day, in place since 2011 and now abandoned as too rigid, is no exception.

Opec output has outstripped it for 18 consecutive months. Now the organisation says it will keep pumping as much as it does now — about 31.5 million barrels a day — effectively endorsing limitless output. The oversupply has sent the price of Brent, a global oil benchmark, to a six-year low, triggering the worst slump in the energy sector since the 2008 world financial crisis.

It’s cut the profits of major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc in half while crude-rich countries such as Mexico and Russia have watched their currencies plunge and their coffers shrink.

“Effectively, it’s ceilingless,” said Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh. “Everyone does whatever they want.” “We aren’t going to go back to a cartel and work against the customers — that time has passed,” said UAE Minister Suhail Al Mazroui.

The prospect of Opec, which accounts for roughly 40 per cent of the world’s oil production, taking US TV personality Sarah Palin’s advice to “drill, baby, drill” sent crude prices further downward. The oversupply is likely to continue in the new year. Iran, for years under sanctions related to its nuclear programme, has promised to lift its production to as much as 4 million barrels a day by the end of 2016, up from about 3.3 million barrels a day currently.

http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/energy/opec-unity-shattered-as-saudi-led-policy-leads-to-no-limits-1.1631749

2 China strengthens Africa ties with $60bn pledge (San Francisco Chronicle) China's president has pledged $60 billion to development in Africa, as part of what Chinese and African leaders have called "win-win cooperation."

President Xi Jinping outlined 10 areas that will receive funding including infrastructure projects, aid for drought-stricken countries and thousands of scholarships for African students. The Chinese government will also cancel outstanding debts for Africa's least developed countries in the form of zero interest loans that mature at the end of 2015, he said.

Xi also promised to provide assistance to help upgrade African health care facilities, train hundreds of journalists and provide satellite reception in 10,000 African villages. China has the world's largest foreign currency reserves at $3.514 trillion. State owned banks have often looked to developing countries for investment opportunities.

The $60 billion pledge is three times as much as the package promised at the last China Africa cooperation summit in 2012. As with pledges from previous summits, the funding will be distributed over the next three years. At the last summit in Beijing, China pledged to provide a $20 billion credit line to African countries for development projects and boosted the China Africa development fund by $5 billion, as it has this year.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/China-pledges-60-billion-to-African-development-6675245.php

3 ISIS is expanding its international reach, not weakening (Hassan Hassan in The Guardian) The United Nations’ sanctions monitoring team has warned that Libya was emerging as a key stronghold for Islamic State close to the shorelines of Europe. The warning aligns with assessments by US intelligence officials that the organisation’s franchise is entrenching itself in the midst of chaos in the north African country.

Isis’s expansion outside its heartlands in Iraq and Syria has raised questions about how more than a year of a relentless air campaign has affected it. The group has faced military defeats in north-eastern Iraq and Syria in recent months, but it also carried out large-scale international terror attacks.

More perplexing is that, as Isis faces increased pressure at home, many fighters are reportedly returning to Libya to shore up its franchise there. This has led some western officials to say the group might be preparing to use the Libyan front as a fallback base in case of a defeat in Iraq and Syria.

Isis seems to be taking steps that indicate it is stable, rather than being under pressure and looking for alternative bases. Despite the air campaign and ground offensives in some areas, the group is in fact facing less pressure than before. Clashes between Iraqi forces and Isis have been relatively rare in recent months, as a result of a political crisis in Baghdad over the reforms promised by the prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, and a dwindling appetite to fight Isis outside Shia areas.

Isis appears to be focused on expanding its presence outside Syria and Iraq and on developing its international network. The bombing of a Russian airliner, the Paris attacks and the Libyan expansion are signs that the group wants to capitalise on its success on the ground in Syria and Iraq by expanding its international reach. That is hardly a sign of weakness.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/06/isis-expansion-libya-not-sign-of-weakness

US adds 211,000 jobs in Nov; Poor urban planning feeds South India misery; 'Dumb people' post inspirational quotes, finds study

1 US adds 211,000 jobs in Nov (Jana Kasperkevic in The Guardian) The US economy added 211,000 jobs in November, slightly better than expectations, with the unemployment rate remaining steady at 5%, the US Department of Labor has announced.

The report is the last before the Federal Reserve meets on 15-16 December to determine whether it should raise interest rates. The last time the Fed raised interest rates was June 2006. Friday’s job report would have had to have been a “disaster” for the Fed to delay raising interest rates, said economists. The addition of 211,000 jobs likely paves the way for a rate hike later this month.

Economists expected the US economy to add 200,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 5%, a seven-and-a-half-year low. “This is exactly what the Fed is looking for: solid job growth – better than 200,000 – plus an upward revision to both September and October numbers; decent gain in average hourly gain; unemployment rate still at 5%,” said Gus Faucher, senior macroeconomist at PNC Financial Services Group.

In October, US employers smashed expectations and added 271,000 jobs, the largest number of any month so far this year. Friday’s report included upward revisions to that number: according to the Department of Labor, an additional 27,000 jobs were created in October and about 8,000 more jobs were created in September than originally believed.

As the unemployment rate has gone down, employers have had to offer better pay to attract better job applicants. According to Jim O’Sullivan, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, recent jobless claims data shows no signs of labor market weakening. Last week’s claims came in at 269,000 – 9,000 more than the week before – but still near levels last seen in 1973.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/04/us-economy-december-jobs-report-unemployment-rate

2 Poor urban planning feeds South India misery (San Francisco Chronicle) The relentless rains that lashed southern India's Tamil Nadu state for three days eased Friday, but the misery of tens of thousands of people was far from over, with large parts of the main city still underwater along with the region's biggest airport.

As Chennai, the state capital, reeled from the heaviest rains in over a century, experts said the devastation was in large part due to the same breakneck and haphazard urban planning that has marked many of India's major cities.

It's a pattern that's been repeated for at least a decade. In 2005, India's commercial capital Mumbai came to a standstill after several days of monsoon rains. Last year, Srinagar in Indian Kashmir, saw massive devastation as flood waters swallowed a city where unchecked construction had blocked rainwater channels and eaten into wetlands.

India's main monsoon season runs from June through September, but for Chennai and the rest of India's southeastern coast, the heaviest rainfall is from October to December — also called the retreating monsoon.

This year's deluge — which experts linked to the El Nino weather pattern, when the waters of the Pacific Ocean get warmer than usual — caught Chennai, with a population of 9.6 million, completely unprepared. Chennai's airport was closed for a third day.

"We have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that our urban sprawls such as Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Srinagar etc have not paid adequate attention to the natural water bodies that exist in them," said Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment, an advocacy and research organization.

"In Chennai, each of its lakes has a natural flood discharge channel which drains the spillover. But we have built over many of these water bodies, blocking the smooth flow of water," she said. "A lot of people built their houses on lake beds. The government should not have approved those projects. Now they are all submerged," he said.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Flood-waters-swirl-in-south-India-even-as-rain-6674814.php

3 ‘Dumb people’ post inspirational quotes, shows study (Khaleej Times) Are you a Deepak Chopra fan and love to bombard your friends' Facebook wall with inspirational quotes? This may sweep the floor off your feet but according to interesting research, people who post motivational quotes on Facebook and Twitter are actually dumb and "have lower levels of intelligence".

In a study titled "On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bulls***t", psychologists from University of Waterloo in Canada examined whether some people are more receptive to some silly inspirational statements than others. The findings show that there is a definite link between low intelligence and being impressed by what looks like "profound statements".

During four experiments involving 845 volunteers, the team asked the participants to evaluate a series of statements to indicate how profound they thought they were or if they agreed with them. They used phrases such as "attention and intention are the mechanics of Manifestation" and "imagination is inside exponential space time events". Most of the quotes were posted on Twitter by New Age guru Deepak Chopra.

To reach the conclusion, lead researcher Gordon Pennycook and his colleagues utilised a website called Sebpearce.com to generate random insightful statements. Some examples were: "This life is nothing short of an ennobling oasis of self-aware faith" and "Today, science tells us that the essence of nature is guidance", including others. The team found that certain people are more receptive to these nonsensical statements.

The researchers found that individuals who were unable to discern a "bullshit" statement and rated them as profound were less intelligent and unlikely to engage in reflective thinking. They were also more vulnerable to ontological confusions and conspiracy theories and more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs.

"One benefit of gaining a better understanding of how we reject other's b******t is that it may teach us to be more cognizant of our own b******t," the authors concluded. The results appeared in the journal Judgment and Decision Making.

http://khaleejtimes.com/business/technology/dumb-people-post-inspirational-quotes-on-facebook-study

Saudi lowers oil price, may not cut output; UK foreign investment at 10-year low; World needs jobs not giveaways, says Carlos Slim

1 Saudi lowers oil price, may not cut output (Khaleej Times) Saudi Arabia cut pricing for January oil sales to the US before the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meets to decide on production targets.

Saudi Arabian Oil Co lowered its official selling price for all crude grades to the US. In Asia, the discount for its Arab Light against a regional benchmark will be $1.40 a barrel, compared with $1.30 in December. It was expected to be widened by 25 cents, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

"They are offering their crude oil at a lower price to the two most important markets, the US and Asia, two days before the Opec meeting," a clear sign the Saudis aren't going to pull back output, said Bob Yawger, director of the futures division at Mizuho Securities USA Inc in New York.

Brent crude, a global benchmark, has slumped about 40 per cent in the past year as Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US boosted output. Opec decided in November last year and again in June to keep its production target unchanged, after exceeding its target of 30 million barrels a day in each month since June 2014.

Saudi Arabia boosted output to a record 10.48 million barrels a day in June, according to the International Energy Agency, and pumped 10.33 million barrels daily last month. Middle Eastern producers are competing increasingly with cargoes from Latin America, North Africa and Russia for buyers in Asia.

http://khaleejtimes.com/business/markets/saudi-arabia-lowers-oil-pricing-to-us-before-opec-meeting

2 UK foreign investment at 10-year low (BBC) UK firms cut their foreign investment by the largest amount in a decade last year, official figures have shown. British firms clawed back a net £79.9bn worth of overseas investments in 2014. That compared with a £28.4bn increase in overseas investments by UK firms a year earlier. Foreign firms also scaled back their investments in the UK.

It is the first time UK companies have reduced net foreign direct investment in more than a decade, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. Overall, the amount of money invested overseas by UK companies fell to £1.15trn in 2014 from £1.25trn in 2013. Foreign companies cut their direct investment into the UK to £27.8bn in 2014 from £33bn in 2013.

The figures come after state visits to the UK by the leaders of two of the fastest-growing economies in the world - Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi - during which a number of trade deals were announced.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) warned that the figures showed the UK could no longer rely on its investments abroad to compensate for "weak export performance", given the falling global demand.

Commodity prices have fallen sharply in the last year amid fears that the Chinese economy, the world's second-largest, is slowing down too rapidly. This slowdown has reduced demand for metals and oil and contributed to deflation in the UK and the eurozone. Allie Renison, head of trade policy at the IoD, said some UK manufacturing firms were already selling off assets and facilities abroad and bringing production back to the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34996207

3 World needs jobs not giveaways, says Carlos Slim (The Guardian) The Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has said he will not give away his family’s shares to charity like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has announced he will donate 99% of his Facebook shares, currently worth about $45bn, to a new philanthropic project he will run with his wife.

When asked if he planned to give away his family’s shares in his companies to his foundations, Slim said no, while adding that his charitable projects did not have budget limits. Slim, whose companies include the telco America Movil, has given his foundations multi-billion dollar endowments but he did not name a figure for how much money he has donated.

“We see projects and results, we are not counting chillies,” he said. “Foundations do not solve poverty,” he said, saying that employment was the key to eradicating poverty. “Employment requires that companies invest, so we don’t need to give away companies, we need to create companies.”

Slim, speaking at an event in Mexico City, said Zuckerberg’s plan was “very good” but governments already had the resources to address poverty and education issues. “It’s a problem of management and efficiency,” he said.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/04/carlos-slim-on-zuckerberg-plan-world-needs-jobs-not-giveaways

US Fed chief says economy ready for rate rise; Another stimulus looms for Eurozone; Zuckerberg's billions and the world's problems

1 US Fed chief says economy ready for rate rise (NYT/San Francisco Chronicle) Janet Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, has said that economic conditions are ripe for the Fed to start raising its benchmark interest rate this month, a move that appears all but inevitable. “The economy has come a long way toward the ... objectives of maximum employment and price stability,” she said.

Yellen said that when the Fed decides to raise rates, the decision would be “a testament, also, to how far our economy has come in recovering from the effects of the financial crisis and the Great Recession.”

“It is a day that I expect we all are looking forward to,” she said. Yellen underscored that the Fed expects to raise rates slowly, because the economy remains weak. And she said the Fed’s policymaking committee will not make a final decision until its meeting Dec. 15 and 16.

It appears that Yellen and her colleagues, who have held the Fed’s benchmark rate near zero for almost seven years, have finally concluded that the domestic economy is strong enough to keep growing with less support from the central bank.

Investors and analysts have generally concluded that the Fed is likely to raise its benchmark rate to a range of 0.25 to 0.5 percent. By keeping rates low, the Fed has sought to stimulate economic growth by encouraging risk-taking by investors, and borrowing by businesses and consumers. As it raises rates, the Fed will reduce those incentives.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Janet-Yellen-says-economy-ready-for-increase-in-6671258.php

2 Another stimulus looms for Eurozone (BBC) The European Central Bank is expected to announce further stimulus measures to boost growth in the eurozone's economy later on Thursday. At its policy meeting, the ECB has the option of stepping up "quantitative easing", buying financial assets with newly created money.

It could also cut the interest rate on overnight bank deposits at the ECB. This is to encourage lending, as with a rate of -0.2%, the banks in effect pay the ECB for holding their reserves. The policy is designed to make it more profitable for banks to offer loans to consumers and businesses, ensuring a free flow of money.

The immediate problem driving this expected action is inflation. It is too low. The most recent figure for the eurozone is 0.1%. The ECB's target is below, but close to, 2%. The figure has been below zero - that is, prices were falling - as recently as September. This has been because of falls in international energy prices, particularly crude oil.

But "core inflation", which strips out volatile food and energy prices, is also low, hovering persistently around 1%. The latest figure, for November, was down on the previous month.

So why would low inflation be seen as a problem? ECB President Mario Draghi spelt out a number of reasons. Low or even below-zero inflation - otherwise known as deflation - can aggravate debt problems. It can lead to households and firms delaying spending.

There are several ways the ECB could achieve its QE. It could increase its monthly spending from the current level of €60bn or it could commit to continuing beyond the tentative date it has set for ending the programme, which is September 2016.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34977987

3 Zuckerberg’s billions and the world’s problems (William MacAskill & Deborah Orr in The Guardian) Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have announced that they will donate 99% of their Facebook shares, currently valued at $45bn, to a new charitable foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Zuckerberg and Chan deserve enormous respect for this decision. The next big question is: where should this money go? A large proportion of social programmes have no impact at all, whereas the best are incredibly effective – hundreds of times better than the merely good ones.

The overarching aims they list are broad: “advance human potential” and “promote equality”. Listed underneath each aim is a dizzying array of possibilities, from “eliminating poverty and hunger” to “curing disease so you live much longer and healthier lives”.

That’s a good sign. There are a lot of important problems in the world. It would be worrying if their foundation had already narrowed its focus at such an early stage, before they had collected any evidence about where their donation could have the greatest social impact.

What I’d really hope is that they follow the lead of Zuckerberg’s cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and his partner Cari Tuna, a former Wall Street Journal reporter. Together, they founded Good Ventures, which might be the best model for how to run a charitable foundation.Good Ventures is extremely transparent, publishing the evidence and analysis behind its grants, so that others can scrutinise their choices and learn from their experience.

It’s a rookie error. You have your first baby and it’s very exciting. So, instead of quietly getting on with working out what life with a baby is going to be like, you noisily tell everyone you can think of that you’ve had a baby and this is going to be the best baby ever.

Having spent several centuries struggling to formulate some kind of democratic system in which everyone has the right to participate, I think humans have every right to find it quite amusing that some guy with a lot of money thinks he can do better, literally on his own initiative.

Anyway, since Zuckerberg is personally going to administer the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, what he’s actually done is give himself a really interesting new job for which he’s eminently unqualified. His new job will be very much unlike other people’s jobs, because it will be all about giving money away, rather than getting hold of it, to put bread on the table.

At the same time, he’s lectured parents around the world about how important it is to set their own work aside to spend time with their children. Hilariously, the new job will largely consist of striving to promote equality. No prizes for guessing who is first among equals. And second. And third.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/02/mark-zuckerberg-chan-45bn-facebook-baby-world-problems

Canada emerges from slump with 2.3% growth; Zuckerberg to give away 99% of shares; Apple and people-to-people payments

1 Canada emerges from slump with 2.3% growth (Gulf News) Canada’s economy grew for the first time in three quarters with gains in automotive exports and consumer spending overtaking the damage from lower oil prices. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.3 per cent annualised pace from July to September, Statistics Canada said, matching the median of a Bloomberg economist survey with 26 responses.

Canada’s “two-speed” economy — defined by low oil prices and momentum outside of the energy sector — needs until the middle of 2017 to get back to full capacity, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz predicts.

Poloz cut interest rates in January and July to counteract the oil price shock, which led to a depreciation of the country’s currency and is providing a boon to automakers and other goods makers. The pace of growth was slowed by a 3 per cent decline in business investment, the third drop in a row. Government expenditures also declined by 1.6 per cent.

Third-quarter growth almost matches the Bank of Canada’s most recent forecast for a 2.5 per cent increase. The central bank also said output growth would slow to a 1.5 per cent pace between October and December before picking up to a rate of 2.7 per cent in the second half of next year.

The drop in Canada’s prices for exported crude oil and other commodities shrank the economy in the first half of the year, with most economists saying the declines of less than 1 per cent were too small to be considered a true recession.

http://gulfnews.com/business/economy/canada-emerges-from-oil-slump-with-2-3-q3-gdp-growth-1.1630135

2 Zuckerberg to give away 99% of shares (BBC) Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan say they will give away 99% of their shares in the company to good causes as they announce the birth of their daughter Max. Mr Zuckerberg made the announcement in a letter to Max on his Facebook page.

He said they are donating their fortune to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative because they want to make the world a better place for Max to grow up in. Mr Zuckerberg said the donation currently amounts to $45bn (£30bn).

Max was born last week, but the couple only made the news of her birth public on Tuesday. In his letter Mr Zuckerberg said the aim of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is "to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation".

Its initial areas of focus will be personalised learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities. "Your mother and I don't yet have the words to describe the hope you give us for the future," Mr Zuckerberg said at the start of his letter to Max. "You've already given us a reason to reflect on the world we hope you live in," it added.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34978249

3 Apple and people-to-people payments (Olga Kharif in Sydney Morning Herald) Silicon Valley is obsessed with a particular part of the finance business that involves sending cash to friends using an app. That's led to a flurry of options that often aren't profitable because they charge little to no transaction fees. PayPal and its subsidiary, Venmo, are among the most popular, though they face a growing list of competitors, including Google, Facebook, and Square.

Now Apple plans to get in on the action, too. If Apple hopes to compete, it will also need to make its service free to use with debit cards, according to analysts. Person-to-person payment services aren't cheap to operate, and Apple may lose money on many transactions, said research firm Crone Consulting. Companies don't generate much revenue from payments users make to friends, said Will Stofega, an analyst at researcher IDC.

Apple isn't likely to find a way to profit directly from the feature. Instead, the company will probably use it to increase adoption of Apple Pay in stores. The mobile tap-to-pay option hasn't taken off as quickly as expected since it debuted about a year ago.

Meanwhile, PayPal said Venmo processed $2.1 billion in transactions last quarter as people used the app to split the bill at restaurants, pay roommates for rent, or reimburse friends for movie tickets. "We think of it as an engagement play; there's a monetisation aspect that comes second," said Jo Lambert, a vice president at PayPal.

While there's no shortage of apps in the $7.5 billion US market for sending money to friends using a phone, analysts are bullish on Apple's prospects - so much so that some anticipate fallout for credit card providers and ATM makers. Money-transfer apps could reduce the need to hit the cash machine.

If iPhone users start connecting Apple Pay to their bank accounts, they could bypass credit cards entirely when sending money to friends and potentially for in-store payments, cutting out middlemen. 

It's almost impossible to predict how long such a shift would take. But Talie Baker, an analyst at researcher Aite Group who relies on Chase QuickPay to exchange money with friends at least once a week, sees a cashless future as inevitable: "I can't wait for the day when it's just a lipstick and a phone in your pocket, and that's all you need."

http://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/why-apple-wants-to-get-into-unprofitable-world-of-payments-between-friends-20151201-gld0vr.html