His life reads like any great Hollywood script. No surprise then that director Ron Howard has flirted with the concept of adapting Swiss Journalist Daniel Ammann’s book The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich for the silver screen. And what an amazing motion picture it would make: a tale of money, power, politics and presidential pardons. I am a modest, quiet person who has never done anything illegal He was born Marcell David Reich to a working-class family on December 18, 1934 in Antwerp, Belgium. His time in Europe would be short-lived. He and his family – who were Jewish – escaped the Nazis, fleeing to the US in 1941, where t...
On July 1, the people of Croatia took to the streets in celebration of their country’s official admittance into the European Union. In Istanbul, officials looked on in repugnance. After all, no one has been on the EU’s waiting list longer than Turkey. The government filed its application in April 1987, but has since managed to meet only one of the 35 acquis chapters required for full membership. The current administration has shown little interest in meeting the EU’s requirements, and talks have been stalled for the better part of three years because lawmakers in the capital of Ankara refuse to sit at the negotiating table with Cypriots...
Your IT survival guide for the new business normal: Four steps for mastering the world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Every time Stuart Kippelman’s 10-year-old daughter gets into the car with her father, she insists the Bluetooth isn’t working. It takes about 10 seconds to sync and power up the music, and to a preteen, 10 seconds equals broken. Today’s youth are, of course, tomorrow’s customers. “They demand immediacy, which is driving what IT has to deal with,” says Kippelman, who is CIO at Covanta Energy and a Computerworld blogger. But the need for speed is just the tip of the ic...
Getting a loan, especially a business loan, can be intensive. If you already have a loan and you have a high interest rate, it is very possible to refinance that loan and help your company to cut down on loan expenses and start turning a bigger profit as a result of this. Refinancing your loan can save you thousands of dollars, especially if it is something long term like a car loan or a mortgage. But business loans too can be refinanced. If you own a small business, you probably already know that a good loan can be a valuable jumpstart to your money making ability, but if you are trapped in a high interest loan, you don’t have to waste all...
When it comes to fighting obesity, some people will turn to appetite control pills. In some people, if used right, these can be very helpful and safe, but this certainly isn’t the case for everyone. Make sure that the negative effects of these are not outweighing the good that they can do by helping you lose weight and keep it off. There is a major obesity problem currently ongoing in the United States. Being obese or overweight causes many health problems, such as hypertension, cardiovascular illnesses, diabetes, strokes, and depression. And in our commercial lives, it only makes sense that companies are going to take advantage of this fac...
Following the central bank’s monthly report, the Bundesbank has downgraded growth forecasts in Germany for both this and next year. However, the institution suggests a recovery for the euro area may well be on the horizon, having recorded a rise in business confidence in May. Bundesbank cut its December projections for 2013 from 0.4 to 0.3, and stated that growth would amount to 1.5 percent in 2014, a 0.4 percent drop on the previous estimation. The revised figures were “due mainly to downward revisions with regard to the external environment,” said the bank. The downgrade follows the IMF’s decision to cut it’s 2013 growth forecast ...
Welcome! Welcome to our guest blogging page! Please read our blogging guidelines before getting started. If you have any questions, shoot us an email and we will get back to you with an answer. We are excited to have you post on our site. Guest blogging is a great way to share valuable information and generate some traffic to your business or personal website. What should your blog consist of? Writing Guidelines: Your post must consist of original work and may not be taken from any other sources. If you decide to use quotations for other peoples work, please cite your source Posts should be well-written and valuable to our readers The topic a...
An ongoing patent war between technologies conglomerates Apple and Samsung ordinarily ends with Apple being the victor. The tables have turned recently when a trade agency ruled that several of Apple’s older products violate a Samsung patent and as a result a ban was ordered on these products in the United States. According to the International Trading Commission the iPhone 4, 3GS and 3 models that are adaptable to AT&T as well as the AT&T 3G-connected version of the iPad and iPad 2 are prohibited from being imported or sold in the US. The specific patent that is infringed upon is a Samsung patent for encoding mobile communications....
At the recent IMF Spring Meetings, experts highlighted the discrepancies in the growth rates of countries around the world. PwC, who six months ago coined the term “two-speed economy”, has revised its analysis to include a third speed lane. “Whilst the eurozone continues to focus on crisis management and Japan puts the finishing touches to its reforms, the US appears to be breaking away from the pack and gradually returning to trend growth,” PwC says in its monthly Global Economy Watch. According to PwC “emerging and developing economies continue to be in the ‘fast lane’”. According to their internal analysis BRIC countries wi...
Emerging market currency exposure is becoming more important to investors and corporations alike. In the post-crisis world, emerging market regions have been seen as an investment alternative to the troubled G10. An environment of extremely low yields in developed markets has made the higher yields available in emerging markets more attractive – particularly as the fiscal and national debt positions of many emerging sovereigns now compare favourably to those of developed economies. With a large proportion of global economic growth contributed by emerging nations, the case for investment in emerging markets appears even more convincing. Corp...