investment

French workers hold company heads captive after they’re fired without pay

"Workers at a French greetings card firm on Friday sequestered the head of their company and the chief of the Dutch firm which owns it after sacked employees were told they would not get their dues. The protest at the office of French firm Edit66 and the Dutch owner Mercurius, targeted their two chiefs Paul Denis and Merthus Bezemer. The town’s socialist mayor Jean Vila said he backed the action. France’s economy, the second biggest in the eurozone, has been stagnating in recent months. Unemployment is just shy of the record level of 3.195 million last reached in 1997 and the spending power of French households fell in late 2012 for the first time since 1984." Continue reading →

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France’s President Hollande finds loophole to impose 75% tax on the rich

"The 75% super-tax on the mega-rich, which was rejected by France's constitutional court might be imposed anyway. French President Francois Hollande suggests laying the burden on businesses rather than on individuals. In the interview with France 2 television President Hollande said he has revised his original plan to lay the massive tax on individuals earning above €1 million, which has been ruled 'unfair' and rejected by the Constitutional Court and later the State Councils, leaving the President embarrassed. Hollande will now propose to tax employers paying their workers more than €1 million. The measure, if approved, will last for two years." Continue reading →

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The Management-free Organization

"Recently I heard that Valve, a highly successful video game company, has four hundred employees and no management structure. According to all reports, they make that model work. I spent a lot of time trying to imagine working for a company with no management. How do they resolve conflicts, set priorities, measure performance, fire laggards, and all the rest? I couldn't picture it working. Keep in mind that I earn my living by shouting that management is mostly worthless, yet even I couldn't accept the idea that management is 100% unnecessary. I was skeptical." Continue reading →

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What does crowdfunding replace or displace?

"Look at the sum of these trends. If a startup has a successful crowdfunder, its bargaining power with the VCs increases in two ways. First, it’s going to be less desperate for capital than a company that can’t run out and do another crowdfunder for the next product. Second, the VC’s uncertainty about its ability to build and sell will be reduced. These changes will both increase the startup’s ability to bargain for doing things its way and reduce the VC’s pressure for an early IPO. At the extreme, we might end up with a new normal in which VCs compete with each other to court startups that have done successful crowdfunders, neatly inverting the present situation." Continue reading →

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Europe’s new financial transaction tax missing projected revenues

"Tough taxes on financial transactions across Europe have devastated market activity and failed to raise as much as politicians hoped, according to new figures out yesterday. Hungary implemented a 0.1 per cent tax at the start of the year. But it raised less than half the revenue the state had hoped for, bringing in 13bn Hungarian Forints (£36m) in January. France forged ahead on its own, introducing a 0.2 per cent tax on sales of shares of major firms. But that only raised €200m (£169.4m) from August to November, well below to €530m expected. And Italy launched its FTT this month. Figures from TMF Group suggest it has cut trading volumes by 38 per cent already." Continue reading →

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You’re Crazy Not to Have Some Cash

"Banks have been closed for over a week. Do you have enough cash on hand to buy gas, food, and other essentials for a week? Two weeks? Most of the preppers reading this are smiling, since they have these commodities and cash on hand already. Even in a major 'End of the World' style collapse, cash will be accepted by many people for a few days until the new reality sets in. In a minor disaster, such as Cyprus, having cash on hand will help you sleep better at night knowing you can feed yourself and your family, gas up the car, and potentially get out of Dodge if need be." Continue reading →

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Could the Government confiscate your gold?

"Roosevelt's 1933 gold raid is well documented but it's often forgotten that in 1966 Britons were banned from holding more than four gold coins or from buying any new ones, unless they held a licence. It's not just gold that governments can confiscate – pension assets can be in the firing line, although usually only in emerging markets and in extreme circumstances. In recent years, private pension schemes have been nationalised in Argentina and Hungary. Could such a scenario happen today? And if they did confiscate all private holdings of gold, would it be enough?" Continue reading →

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Marc Faber: Not Even Gold Will Save You From What Is Coming

"When you print money, the money does not flow evenly into the economic system. It stays essentially in the financial service industry and among people that have access to these funds, mostly well-to-do people. It does not go to the worker. I just mentioned that it doesn't flow evenly into the system. So we are creating bubbles and bubbles and bubbles. This bubble will come to an end. My concern is that we are going to have a systemic crisis where it is going to be very difficult to hide. Even in gold, it will be difficult to hide." Continue reading →

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CNBC: Bitcoin Bonanza

"They won't make a sound no matter how many of them you try to toss in a bucket, and you can't pitch them in a fountain and wish for good luck. But make no mistake, bitcoins are getting big. The online alternative currency, previously little more than a curiosity in financial markets since its 2009 inception, has zoomed in trading value since the Cyprus banking crisis erupted two weeks ago. With fears spreading that even insured deposits might not be safe in similar nations hit by banking crises, those looking for a haven to store their wealth have fled to the complicated world of digital cash." Continue reading →

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Bloomberg: Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy’s Last Safe Haven

"One of the oddest bits of news to emerge from the economic collapse of Cyprus is a corresponding rise in the value of Bitcoin, the Internet’s favorite, media-friendly, anarchist crypto-currency. Bitcoin thrives where people would prefer to throw in their lot with anonymous strangers instead of the world economy. It’s gold-bug thinking reinvented for an age of fluid transparency and instantaneous transactions. And as such it’s an excellent indicator of anxiety. Where you see Bitcoins in action you find a weird and heady mix of speculative angst, a fear of being left behind, and people who appear to have lost faith in institutions, who feel most left behind." Continue reading →

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