Owen Bennett comments on the controversy surrounding the proposed US anti-piracy law which has online websites reeling and has reignited the debate regarding online sharing.
The G20 had a two-day meeting in Seoul on Thursday 11 November, and released the next day what is said to be the longest communiqué produced by a G20 meeting. The G20 is a group of international finance ministers and central bank governors whose goal since its creation in 1997 has been to promote global financial stability.
Over the past year, Dan O’Brien has provided a pragmatic and rational analysis of the plight facing the Irish economy. With cutbacks and tax hikes being the flavour of the month, I questioned O’Brien on whether he believes that the budget strategy adopted by the Government is feasible. As expected, his response was far from optimistic.
Fine Gael has been unequivocal in its opposition to NAMA. As an alternative, the party advocates the establishment of a National Recovery Bank (NRB) which would focus on providing credit to households and small-to-medium enterprises. The NRB would be a wholesale bank, capitalised initially by withdrawing €2 billion from the National Pension Reserve Fund. Customers would still apply to their local bank for loans, but the NRB would provide most of the capital.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is bidding for outright ownership of British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), of which it already owns a 39% stake. The move has been met with opposition from British media rivals, including the BBC and The Daily Telegraph, who are appealing to the British government and the media regulator, Ofcom. Sky has dominated pay television in Britain and Ireland over the last decade, and continued to grow throughout the recession. So, just how good is Sky, and what will happen if News Corp. gains ownership of it?
Credit rating agencies are key players in the financial market. They assess the ability of corporate and governmental borrowers to incur and service debt, and the interest rate cost that they face. These agencies have teams of analysts who grill executives about operations, finances and management plans. They then use these data to assess the company’s rating.
There are two vastly diverse predictions about the future of the Irish economy. Some optimistic commentators hold that Ireland is in a secure funding position, given that there is still high demand for Irish government bonds. Moreover, in the unlikely event that the state is unable to secure funding on the international market, the National Pension Reserve Fund, as well as the European Financial Stability Facility, remain available to fill the gap.
Since surpassing General Motors to become the world’s largest car manufacturer in 2007, Toyota has suffered a rather ill fate. In the last year Toyota has recalled over ten million cars. The company’s largest recall ever, 3.8 million cars, occurred in September 2009. Where did it all go wrong for the company who could once credibly claim to produce “The best built cars in the world”?
Owing to the phenomenal increase in online downloading in recent years, the music industry has undergone a dramatic shift in the way it does business. In most cases it is no longer profitable to produce CDs, and they are now viewed chiefly as promotional items for the industry’s new cash cow, tours. In a bid to avoid financial ruin, every cog in the music industry’s machinery has had to significantly change its operations.
