http://hypoventurecapital-financialideas.com/?p=54
The cumulative wealth of the world’s richest households will more than double, to $202 trillion over the next ten years, according to a study conducted by the Deloitte Center for Financial Services and Oxford Economics.
Based on data from 25 developed and developing economies, the number of households in those countries with more than $1 million in wealth will increase from 37,978 at the end of last year to 65,521 by 2020. Their wealth holdings, which include financial assets (stocks, bonds and other investments,), as well as non-financial assets (primary residences, durables, business equity and other assets), will more than double from $92 trillion to $202 trillion.
The projections are based on a breakdown of current wealth holdings, projected global growth rates, interest rates, asset prices, and investing patterns of the countries in question. The estimates are based on data from the Oxford Economics Global Model.
Not surprisingly, fast-growing emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India will experience the fastest growth in millionaires’ wealth. For example, the number of millionaire households in China is projected to grow from 1.312 million to 2.5 million by 2020 — and the total wealth they hold will rise from $1.67 trillion to $8.24 trillion. (See: The five countries with the most ultrahigh-net-worth investors in 2020)
The total wealth in emerging markets households will rise by 260% in the next ten years, versus a projected growth rate of 107% in the developed countries, the study predicts.
Nevertheless, the vast amount of wealth currently in the developed countries will assure that those countries continue to amass more wealth, albeit at a slower rate than in developing countries.
“Financial advisory firms in the U.S. and Europe who overlook their home bases will do so at their own peril,” said Andrew Freeman, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Financial Services. “It’s the law of large numbers. With the big base of wealth in the U.S. and Europe, the effect of 4% to 5% compounding over ten years generates huge numbers.”
The United States is expected to have 20.6 million households with more than $1 million dollars in wealth by 2020 — compared to 10.5 million today.
The total wealth of these households will rise from $38.6 trillion to $87.1 trillion.
The U.S. currently has 496,000 households with more than $30 million in wealth, more than ten times the next closest country—China, which has 46,000.
This number of ultrahigh-net-worth in the U.S. is forecast to climb to 620,000 in ten years, versus 327,000 in China.
While U.S. millionaires’ wealth as a percentage of global millionaires’ wealth dropped from 55% in 2000 to 42% in 2011, it is projected to increase to 43% in 2020.
It is not simply the large base of wealth in the U.S. that assures its continued growth but also the range of choices that Americans have in terms of where to invest. “Where the wealth is generated is different from where it’s invested,” said Mr. Freeman. “Investors in developed countries have access to a much wider range of asset classes than households in developing countries.
Within the United States, Connecticut currently has the highest density of millionaire households (14.2%) in the country, but New Jersey is projected to have the highest (24.6%) in 2020. California, Texas, New York and Florida (in that order), are projected to have the greatest number of millionaire households in 2020.
Arizona and Nevada will likely experience the greatest growth in the number of millionaire households between 2009 and 2015.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Hypo Venture Capital Zurich Headlines: Poll: Economy fears temper Obama’s bin Laden bump
http://hypoventurecapital-financialideas.com/?p=56
What has changed for the president since the raid at bin Laden’s compound: The number of respondents seeing Obama as a strong leader and a good commander in chief has spiked, and public opion for his handling of the war in Afghanistan jumped to an all-time high.
But here’s what hasn’t changed: Just a third of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction; less than four in 10 approve of Obama’s handling of the U.S. economy; and nearly 70 percent think the economy will get worse or stay the same in the next year.
“This is a poll that should both fortify the president and frighten the president as he looks ahead to re-election,” said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.
Obama’s overall job-approval rating stands at 52 percent, a three-point increase from an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released a month ago. Forty-one percent say they disapprove of the president’s job, representing a drop of four points.
Looking ahead to next year’s presidential election, 45 percent said they would probably vote for Obama (a two-point rise from April), versus 30 percent who would probably vote for the eventual Republican nominee (an eight-point decrease).
Obama’s anchor: the economy
Why the modest increase for the president after the momentous — and historic — event of bin Laden’s death?
It’s the economy.
Only 37 percent approve of the president’s handling of the economy, while 58 percent disapprove.
Also, just 31 percent believe the economy will improve in the next 12 months, compared with 43 percent who think it will stay the same and another 25 percent who say it will get worse.
These economic numbers, GOP pollster McInturff says, underscore the “tremendous anchor the economy is to the president’s job standing.”
The survey — which was conducted May 5-7 among 800 adults (100 reached by cell phone), and which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.5 percentage points — comes amid good and bad economic news.
The good: The U.S. economy added 268,000 private-sector jobs in April, the most since 2006. The bad: Average gasoline prices have reached nearly $4 per gallon, and the unemployment rate increased from 8.8 percent to 9.0 percent.
The president’s national-security bump
Where Obama did see a significant jump in his poll numbers were on questions about leadership, national security and foreign affairs.
According to the survey, 53 percent give the president high marks for his ability to handle a crisis (versus 44 percent last December), an equal 53 percent give him high marks for being firm and decisive (versus 41 percent last December), and 51 percent give him high marks for being a good commander in chief (versus 41 percent).
Hart, the Democratic pollster, explains that these stronger leadership numbers for Obama could become “a possible defining and tipping point” for an administration that wasn’t previously viewed this way.
What’s more, 57 percent approve of Obama’s foreign-policy handling, which is tied with his all-time high on this question.
And 56 percent approve of his handling of the Afghanistan war — his highest score since becoming president.
It isn’t time to withdraw from Afghanistan
Yet the American public sends this overwhelming message when it comes to Afghanistan: Now is not the time to withdraw U.S. troops after bin Laden’s death in nearby Pakistan.
A whopping 72 percent agree with the statement that the United States should keep troops in Afghanistan because bin Laden’s death doesn’t change the overall mission, and because the Taliban and al-Qaida still remain threats.
By comparison, just 20 percent agree with the statement that the United States should remove troops from Afghanistan because bin Laden’s death suggests that the Taliban and al-Qaida are now less of a danger to American interests and U.S. military presence is no longer necessary in that country.
Asked another way, 52 percent approve of President Obama’s call for U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan until 2014 — though he has said they’ll begin coming home this summer — while 46 percent disapprove.
Respondents to the poll also appeared to have a slight uptick in their level of confidence that the war in Afghanistan will come to a successful conclusion. About 38 percent say they are more confident about the outcome of the conflict (up seven percent from April), while 50 percent still say they are less confident (down 10 points from April.)
Expecting future terrorist attacks
While the public may be more optimistic about the president’s leadership on foreign policy and the war, they are still bracing for potential terrorist attacks on American soil.
A combined 52 percent say they are “very worried” or “fairly worried” about another major terrorist attack in the United States. Also, a combined 78 percent say the country is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to be a target of a major terrorist attack at home or overseas.
And 39 percent believe bin Laden’s death will make it easier to win the global war on terrorism, compared with 38 percent who say it won’t affect it and another 15 percent who think it will make it harder.
WASHINGTON — In the days after Barack Obama ordered the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden, the president’s approval rating on foreign policy issues reached an all-time high, even as public opinion regarding his handling of the economy sunk to the lowest point of his administration, according to a new NBC News poll.
The survey shows a mixed picture for Obama, whose overall job-approval rating was bumped higher by a modest three points after the al-Qaida leader’s death was announced late Sunday.What has changed for the president since the raid at bin Laden’s compound: The number of respondents seeing Obama as a strong leader and a good commander in chief has spiked, and public opion for his handling of the war in Afghanistan jumped to an all-time high.
But here’s what hasn’t changed: Just a third of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction; less than four in 10 approve of Obama’s handling of the U.S. economy; and nearly 70 percent think the economy will get worse or stay the same in the next year.
“This is a poll that should both fortify the president and frighten the president as he looks ahead to re-election,” said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.
Obama’s overall job-approval rating stands at 52 percent, a three-point increase from an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released a month ago. Forty-one percent say they disapprove of the president’s job, representing a drop of four points.
Looking ahead to next year’s presidential election, 45 percent said they would probably vote for Obama (a two-point rise from April), versus 30 percent who would probably vote for the eventual Republican nominee (an eight-point decrease).
Obama’s anchor: the economy
Why the modest increase for the president after the momentous — and historic — event of bin Laden’s death?
It’s the economy.
Only 37 percent approve of the president’s handling of the economy, while 58 percent disapprove.
Also, just 31 percent believe the economy will improve in the next 12 months, compared with 43 percent who think it will stay the same and another 25 percent who say it will get worse.
These economic numbers, GOP pollster McInturff says, underscore the “tremendous anchor the economy is to the president’s job standing.”
The survey — which was conducted May 5-7 among 800 adults (100 reached by cell phone), and which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.5 percentage points — comes amid good and bad economic news.
The good: The U.S. economy added 268,000 private-sector jobs in April, the most since 2006. The bad: Average gasoline prices have reached nearly $4 per gallon, and the unemployment rate increased from 8.8 percent to 9.0 percent.
The president’s national-security bump
Where Obama did see a significant jump in his poll numbers were on questions about leadership, national security and foreign affairs.
According to the survey, 53 percent give the president high marks for his ability to handle a crisis (versus 44 percent last December), an equal 53 percent give him high marks for being firm and decisive (versus 41 percent last December), and 51 percent give him high marks for being a good commander in chief (versus 41 percent).
Hart, the Democratic pollster, explains that these stronger leadership numbers for Obama could become “a possible defining and tipping point” for an administration that wasn’t previously viewed this way.
What’s more, 57 percent approve of Obama’s foreign-policy handling, which is tied with his all-time high on this question.
And 56 percent approve of his handling of the Afghanistan war — his highest score since becoming president.
It isn’t time to withdraw from Afghanistan
Yet the American public sends this overwhelming message when it comes to Afghanistan: Now is not the time to withdraw U.S. troops after bin Laden’s death in nearby Pakistan.
A whopping 72 percent agree with the statement that the United States should keep troops in Afghanistan because bin Laden’s death doesn’t change the overall mission, and because the Taliban and al-Qaida still remain threats.
By comparison, just 20 percent agree with the statement that the United States should remove troops from Afghanistan because bin Laden’s death suggests that the Taliban and al-Qaida are now less of a danger to American interests and U.S. military presence is no longer necessary in that country.
Asked another way, 52 percent approve of President Obama’s call for U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan until 2014 — though he has said they’ll begin coming home this summer — while 46 percent disapprove.
Respondents to the poll also appeared to have a slight uptick in their level of confidence that the war in Afghanistan will come to a successful conclusion. About 38 percent say they are more confident about the outcome of the conflict (up seven percent from April), while 50 percent still say they are less confident (down 10 points from April.)
Expecting future terrorist attacks
While the public may be more optimistic about the president’s leadership on foreign policy and the war, they are still bracing for potential terrorist attacks on American soil.
A combined 52 percent say they are “very worried” or “fairly worried” about another major terrorist attack in the United States. Also, a combined 78 percent say the country is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to be a target of a major terrorist attack at home or overseas.
And 39 percent believe bin Laden’s death will make it easier to win the global war on terrorism, compared with 38 percent who say it won’t affect it and another 15 percent who think it will make it harder.
Hypo Venture Capital Zurich Headlines: Retiring the National Debt by Not Destroying the Economy
http://hypoventurecapital-financialideas.com/?p=59
The GOP proposes social spending cuts in order to fund tax cuts as a solution for our national debt. They, and the Beltway press, are undeterred by the OMB finding that their Paul Ryan-authored plan will do nothing of the sort. They are also undeterred by economists’ warnings that social spending cuts are the worst possible cuts in terms of economic impact, that they will shrink the economy and thus actually shrink revenues and make the deficit worse rather than better.
Retiring the national debt shouldn’t even be an issue. The national debt as a percent of GDP has been higher in the the past and we survived. The key to that survival was to grow the economy. What we should be talking about instead of debt is how to grow the economy and create jobs. In a growing economy, the extraordinary debt of two wars and corporate banking disasters will essentially take care of itself over time. As Simon Johnson ably points out in his recent New York Times article, the U.S. has always been in debt and the only real issue, now or ever, is which political perspective on debt works, conservative or progressive.
For the last thirty years, U.S. levels of spending, taxation and borrowing have been unusual, but a consistent theme has emerged. The Republicans run up the debt while they are in charge and blame the Democrats for it when the Democrats are in charge. Reagan exploded the debt with tax cuts and doubling of defense spending. Then, when Clinton took office, the GOP howled about the debt being too high. Bush took the Clinton surplus and blew it on more tax cuts and another doubling of defense spending. Now Obama is getting the same treatment that Clinton got from the GOP, being blamed for GOP’s own fiscal and regulatory irresponsibility.
The pattern is obvious and obviously political. There is no analytical basis for the debt hysteria that has infected both Capitol Hill and the press reporting on it. We have had huge amounts of debt before.
By the end of WWII the national debt was 120% of GDP compared to an estimated 90% now, and if intergovernmental debt, the money owed to the Social Security Trust fund, is discounted, the current debt to GDP ratio is about 60%. In the fifteen years following WWII, the debt was reduced back to 40% of GDP, where it had been before the war. Some of the debt was paid down, but mostly the ratio of debt to GDP was reduced by economic growth. GDP grew so the debt became smaller as a percent of GDP. While the dollar amount of it didn’t change a great deal, the scariness of it was reduced dramatically.
This may seem like accounting gimmickry, but in practical terms it’s equivalent to going from owing more than you make to owing less than half of what you make. You are much more comfortable with carrying the debt.
WWII was, by anyone’s criterion, a national emergency. Few argued that indebtedness should not be undertaken to win the war. So, too, an emergency is the Great Recession. In recession, the enemy is economic stagnation and unemployment. If government spending is effective to improve economic conditions, then spend we should. We put an additional $750 billion on the credit card and pulled out of the economic crash landing.
We spent, but the spending we did was not enough to grow the economy, just to stop the tailspin. Achieving real economic growth will change the ratio of debt to GDP and effectively retire the debt both in perception and in dollars as economy sourced tax revenues grow.
Now it’s possible that we need not borrow and spend more in order to grow the economy and retire the debt. We just need to be smarter about eliminating some of the things that are dragging the economy down and spending that is not doing the economy any good.
The Wealth Gap is an issue of more than just seeming fairness. The richest 5% of Americans hold 65% of the nation’s wealth. In old school economic theory, that just means that there is more capital available to invest than ever before.
In practical terms though, it’s not being invested. Bureau of Economic Analysis data shows that Gross Private Domestic Investment, money that is actually invested in the real economy, dropped 32% between 2006-09. With a significant reversal in 2010, it is still down 22% from 2006 while the amount of capital available for investment is up 30%. We do not need tax cuts to build more capital. We need taxes to force that accumulated capital back into the economy through either tax collections or direct business investments structured to defer taxes. Inducing just the historic level of real Gross Private Domestic Investment ratio to GDP into the real economy will grow the economy by 15%.
Trade imbalance is wiping out American jobs and lowering the wages paid for jobs that we still have. With a huge consumer product trade imbalance, stimulus money finds its way into offshore profits and not our own economy. These factors make the economy smaller and so tax revenues smaller. Wage differentials are the driver of our trade imbalance. When we don’t protect American-based industry, we lose American jobs and tax revenue. Education and training are only a temporary answer. What ever an American can be trained or become educated enough to do, so can a foreign worker who will work for less. Cutting business incentives to outsource through taxation and tariffs could grow the economy by 5%.
Health care cost increases are distorting the economy. 17% of GDP is now dedicated to health care whereas the amount could reasonably be 9%, more comparable to every other industrialized nation. Showing where that extra 8% of GDP we spend on health care ends up in the economy is an enormously complex undertaking. Profits after taxes and expenses of for-profit insurers and hospitals, and even non-profits, are meaningless statistics. Excessive margins, markup for health care services and equipment, outright fraud, monopolistic practices and profiteering business models likely account for the 8% of GDP seemingly wasted on health care. Those excess costs are single-handedly driving the argument that government spending is out of control, when it’s actually health care product profit margins that are out of control. Diverting the excess profit of the health care industry into lower profit margin industries could boost the economy by as much as 5% given distributed income multipliers of lower margin industries.
Defense industry profit margins, like those of health care, are largely undocumented. The Middle East wars, excessive margins, fraud, unnecessary procurements and duplicate programs could account for half of the $685 billion defense budget. Defense is 5% of GDP. Cutting it to 2.5% of GDP and diverting those funds to lower margin industries could boost the economy by 1.5%, again considering economic multipliers.
Taken together, correcting these fiscal and economic ills could put the debt on a path to resolution by boosting the economy as much as 26%. We would have an $18 trillion economy instead of $14 trillion economy. That would make the debt-to-GDP ratio 70% instead of 90% and grow tax revenues to $2.5 trillion (with repeal of Bush tax cuts) instead $1.4 trillion (without repeal of tax cuts). The budget would be balanced.
These are, admittedly, highly rose-colored numbers for a short term solution. Growth compounds though, and in the longer term it could do to our current debt what growth did for the WWII war debt: make it go away. A solid economic shot in the arm would speed up the process. Speeding up real economic growth would create jobs.
The business community, the “job creators,” are uncertain. They are not hiring. They are not hiring because taxes are too low and profits can be taken with historically low tax rates, the lowest rates on the highest incomes since the Gilded Age. Removing that uncertainty is important, but in the opposite sense of what Republicans imply. Business is not hiring because they think taxes will remain the same, rather than going up. Raise taxes and business will hire in order to defer realized profits.
The political will to clean the fiscal house with anything like stringency doesn’t exist on Capitol Hill, even though all the measures mentioned above get resounding support in public polling. This while the Republican austerity proposals go down in public opinion flames. Seems like the public intuitively knows what needs doing and the GOP and Blue Dogs are just hell bent to ignore them. It also seems that the administration and Democrats are just going along playing at compromise, but why compromise with the GOP when it accomplishes less than nothing?
The GOP proposes social spending cuts in order to fund tax cuts as a solution for our national debt. They, and the Beltway press, are undeterred by the OMB finding that their Paul Ryan-authored plan will do nothing of the sort. They are also undeterred by economists’ warnings that social spending cuts are the worst possible cuts in terms of economic impact, that they will shrink the economy and thus actually shrink revenues and make the deficit worse rather than better.
Retiring the national debt shouldn’t even be an issue. The national debt as a percent of GDP has been higher in the the past and we survived. The key to that survival was to grow the economy. What we should be talking about instead of debt is how to grow the economy and create jobs. In a growing economy, the extraordinary debt of two wars and corporate banking disasters will essentially take care of itself over time. As Simon Johnson ably points out in his recent New York Times article, the U.S. has always been in debt and the only real issue, now or ever, is which political perspective on debt works, conservative or progressive.
For the last thirty years, U.S. levels of spending, taxation and borrowing have been unusual, but a consistent theme has emerged. The Republicans run up the debt while they are in charge and blame the Democrats for it when the Democrats are in charge. Reagan exploded the debt with tax cuts and doubling of defense spending. Then, when Clinton took office, the GOP howled about the debt being too high. Bush took the Clinton surplus and blew it on more tax cuts and another doubling of defense spending. Now Obama is getting the same treatment that Clinton got from the GOP, being blamed for GOP’s own fiscal and regulatory irresponsibility.
The pattern is obvious and obviously political. There is no analytical basis for the debt hysteria that has infected both Capitol Hill and the press reporting on it. We have had huge amounts of debt before.
By the end of WWII the national debt was 120% of GDP compared to an estimated 90% now, and if intergovernmental debt, the money owed to the Social Security Trust fund, is discounted, the current debt to GDP ratio is about 60%. In the fifteen years following WWII, the debt was reduced back to 40% of GDP, where it had been before the war. Some of the debt was paid down, but mostly the ratio of debt to GDP was reduced by economic growth. GDP grew so the debt became smaller as a percent of GDP. While the dollar amount of it didn’t change a great deal, the scariness of it was reduced dramatically.
This may seem like accounting gimmickry, but in practical terms it’s equivalent to going from owing more than you make to owing less than half of what you make. You are much more comfortable with carrying the debt.
WWII was, by anyone’s criterion, a national emergency. Few argued that indebtedness should not be undertaken to win the war. So, too, an emergency is the Great Recession. In recession, the enemy is economic stagnation and unemployment. If government spending is effective to improve economic conditions, then spend we should. We put an additional $750 billion on the credit card and pulled out of the economic crash landing.
We spent, but the spending we did was not enough to grow the economy, just to stop the tailspin. Achieving real economic growth will change the ratio of debt to GDP and effectively retire the debt both in perception and in dollars as economy sourced tax revenues grow.
Now it’s possible that we need not borrow and spend more in order to grow the economy and retire the debt. We just need to be smarter about eliminating some of the things that are dragging the economy down and spending that is not doing the economy any good.
The Wealth Gap is an issue of more than just seeming fairness. The richest 5% of Americans hold 65% of the nation’s wealth. In old school economic theory, that just means that there is more capital available to invest than ever before.
In practical terms though, it’s not being invested. Bureau of Economic Analysis data shows that Gross Private Domestic Investment, money that is actually invested in the real economy, dropped 32% between 2006-09. With a significant reversal in 2010, it is still down 22% from 2006 while the amount of capital available for investment is up 30%. We do not need tax cuts to build more capital. We need taxes to force that accumulated capital back into the economy through either tax collections or direct business investments structured to defer taxes. Inducing just the historic level of real Gross Private Domestic Investment ratio to GDP into the real economy will grow the economy by 15%.
Trade imbalance is wiping out American jobs and lowering the wages paid for jobs that we still have. With a huge consumer product trade imbalance, stimulus money finds its way into offshore profits and not our own economy. These factors make the economy smaller and so tax revenues smaller. Wage differentials are the driver of our trade imbalance. When we don’t protect American-based industry, we lose American jobs and tax revenue. Education and training are only a temporary answer. What ever an American can be trained or become educated enough to do, so can a foreign worker who will work for less. Cutting business incentives to outsource through taxation and tariffs could grow the economy by 5%.
Health care cost increases are distorting the economy. 17% of GDP is now dedicated to health care whereas the amount could reasonably be 9%, more comparable to every other industrialized nation. Showing where that extra 8% of GDP we spend on health care ends up in the economy is an enormously complex undertaking. Profits after taxes and expenses of for-profit insurers and hospitals, and even non-profits, are meaningless statistics. Excessive margins, markup for health care services and equipment, outright fraud, monopolistic practices and profiteering business models likely account for the 8% of GDP seemingly wasted on health care. Those excess costs are single-handedly driving the argument that government spending is out of control, when it’s actually health care product profit margins that are out of control. Diverting the excess profit of the health care industry into lower profit margin industries could boost the economy by as much as 5% given distributed income multipliers of lower margin industries.
Defense industry profit margins, like those of health care, are largely undocumented. The Middle East wars, excessive margins, fraud, unnecessary procurements and duplicate programs could account for half of the $685 billion defense budget. Defense is 5% of GDP. Cutting it to 2.5% of GDP and diverting those funds to lower margin industries could boost the economy by 1.5%, again considering economic multipliers.
Taken together, correcting these fiscal and economic ills could put the debt on a path to resolution by boosting the economy as much as 26%. We would have an $18 trillion economy instead of $14 trillion economy. That would make the debt-to-GDP ratio 70% instead of 90% and grow tax revenues to $2.5 trillion (with repeal of Bush tax cuts) instead $1.4 trillion (without repeal of tax cuts). The budget would be balanced.
These are, admittedly, highly rose-colored numbers for a short term solution. Growth compounds though, and in the longer term it could do to our current debt what growth did for the WWII war debt: make it go away. A solid economic shot in the arm would speed up the process. Speeding up real economic growth would create jobs.
The business community, the “job creators,” are uncertain. They are not hiring. They are not hiring because taxes are too low and profits can be taken with historically low tax rates, the lowest rates on the highest incomes since the Gilded Age. Removing that uncertainty is important, but in the opposite sense of what Republicans imply. Business is not hiring because they think taxes will remain the same, rather than going up. Raise taxes and business will hire in order to defer realized profits.
The political will to clean the fiscal house with anything like stringency doesn’t exist on Capitol Hill, even though all the measures mentioned above get resounding support in public polling. This while the Republican austerity proposals go down in public opinion flames. Seems like the public intuitively knows what needs doing and the GOP and Blue Dogs are just hell bent to ignore them. It also seems that the administration and Democrats are just going along playing at compromise, but why compromise with the GOP when it accomplishes less than nothing?
Hypo Venture Capital Zurich Headlines:Falling slowly
http://hypoventurecapital-financialideas.com/?p=66What we see here are successive Bank of England forecasts for British output. From 2005 to 2007, the lines are tightly bunched and follow the longer trend. Beginning in late 2007, this pattern changes and output forecasts fall. And what’s interesting is that after the big decline that occurs between August of 2008 and May of 2009, expectations continue to deteriorate. It isn’t just the level that changes, either, but the slope. The last line, for the forecast released this week, seems not only to be well below the pre-recession trend, but to point away from it, suggesting that Britain won’t be recovering its lost economic ground, and may well continue to fall farther behind the circa 2006 trend.
Inflation forecasts continue to rise, by contrast, though Mervyn King argues that energy prices, and therefore inflation, would ultimately fall back. The swoon in commodity prices of late supports this view. Looking at the above image, however, and at inflation forecasts, one is tempted to conclude that the fall in output represents a real loss in productive capacity. And I wonder if at least some of the members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee don’t see things that way, as well.
Inflation forecasts continue to rise, by contrast, though Mervyn King argues that energy prices, and therefore inflation, would ultimately fall back. The swoon in commodity prices of late supports this view. Looking at the above image, however, and at inflation forecasts, one is tempted to conclude that the fall in output represents a real loss in productive capacity. And I wonder if at least some of the members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee don’t see things that way, as well.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Hypo Venture Capital Headlines: The Geography of Superstar Sports Millionaires
Live | Social-Bookmarking.Net
The world’s elite athletes earn hundreds and sometimes thousands of times more than what an average citizen in their native countries brings home
Boxer Manny Pacquiao and baseball star Alex Rodriguez top the list of the world’s highest paid athletes, according to new data compiled by ESPN.
ESPN tracked annual salaries–the base pay the players received for their most recent season or calendar year (endorsements and other sources of income were excluded) across 182 nations and 17 sports, from baseball and basketball to badminton and cricket. Salary data was collected from “multiple sources, including leagues, agents, consulates, embassies, sports federations, cultural centers, and the U.N.”
According to the data, it’s not football, baseball, basketball, or even NASCAR that accounts for the lion’s share of sports superstars. Wake up, America: 114 of the 184 best-paid athletes in the world play soccer–almost seven times more than the next runner up (basketball, with 18 uber-rich players). For the rest, there are 12 baseball players, six auto-racers, five golfers, five football players, four cricketeers, three boxers, and three track and field contestants. Rugby and tennis each contribute two competitors, and there is one representative each from badminton, cycling, motorcycle racing, sumo wrestling, and yachting.
The 25 athletes with the highest ratio of salary to GDP are overwhelmingly soccer players from African and Latin American countries. But the $17.5 million salary that China’s Yao Ming earns is 4,600 times more than the per capita GDP of his home country; Peja Stojakovic, who plays for the Dallas Mavericks, earns 2,700 times what the average Serbian does. On the low end of the scale, there’s the track star Michael Junior Jackson, whose $5,000 per season is enough to make him his country’s highest-paid athlete, but is still $800 less than an average worker from the Pacific island nation of Niue makes.
Hypo Venture Capital Headlines: The Geography of Superstar Sports Hypo Venture Capital Headlines: The Geography of Superstar Sports Millionaires
http://hypoventure-capital.com/?p=30
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/04/the-geography-of-superstar-sports-millionaires/237741/
The world’s elite athletes earn hundreds and sometimes thousands of times more than what an average citizen in their native countries brings home
Boxer Manny Pacquiao and baseball star Alex Rodriguez top the list of the world’s highest paid athletes, according to new data compiled by ESPN.
ESPN tracked annual salaries–the base pay the players received for their most recent season or calendar year (endorsements and other sources of income were excluded) across 182 nations and 17 sports, from baseball and basketball to badminton and cricket. Salary data was collected from “multiple sources, including leagues, agents, consulates, embassies, sports federations, cultural centers, and the U.N.”
According to the data, it’s not football, baseball, basketball, or even NASCAR that accounts for the lion’s share of sports superstars. Wake up, America: 114 of the 184 best-paid athletes in the world play soccer–almost seven times more than the next runner up (basketball, with 18 uber-rich players). For the rest, there are 12 baseball players, six auto-racers, five golfers, five football players, four cricketeers, three boxers, and three track and field contestants. Rugby and tennis each contribute two competitors, and there is one representative each from badminton, cycling, motorcycle racing, sumo wrestling, and yachting.
The first map, above, by Zara Matheson of the Martin Prosperity Institute shows which countries these athletes live in. The richest two players, Pacman the Destroyer and A-Rod (both earned $32,000,000), live in the Philippines and the U.S. respectively (A-Rod spent much of his childhood in the Dominican Republic, but was born in New York City). Finland’s Kimi Raikonnen ($26.3 million) and Spain’s Fernando Alonso ($22.7 million), both auto racers, are the third and fourth highest paid. Venezuela’s Johan Santana clocks in at $21 million and some change; Italy’s Valentino Rossi, a motorcycle racer, earns $20,800,000.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/04/the-geography-of-superstar-sports-millionaires/237741/
The world’s elite athletes earn hundreds and sometimes thousands of times more than what an average citizen in their native countries brings home
ESPN tracked annual salaries–the base pay the players received for their most recent season or calendar year (endorsements and other sources of income were excluded) across 182 nations and 17 sports, from baseball and basketball to badminton and cricket. Salary data was collected from “multiple sources, including leagues, agents, consulates, embassies, sports federations, cultural centers, and the U.N.”
According to the data, it’s not football, baseball, basketball, or even NASCAR that accounts for the lion’s share of sports superstars. Wake up, America: 114 of the 184 best-paid athletes in the world play soccer–almost seven times more than the next runner up (basketball, with 18 uber-rich players). For the rest, there are 12 baseball players, six auto-racers, five golfers, five football players, four cricketeers, three boxers, and three track and field contestants. Rugby and tennis each contribute two competitors, and there is one representative each from badminton, cycling, motorcycle racing, sumo wrestling, and yachting.
The first map, above, by Zara Matheson of the Martin Prosperity Institute shows which countries these athletes live in. The richest two players, Pacman the Destroyer and A-Rod (both earned $32,000,000), live in the Philippines and the U.S. respectively (A-Rod spent much of his childhood in the Dominican Republic, but was born in New York City). Finland’s Kimi Raikonnen ($26.3 million) and Spain’s Fernando Alonso ($22.7 million), both auto racers, are the third and fourth highest paid. Venezuela’s Johan Santana clocks in at $21 million and some change; Italy’s Valentino Rossi, a motorcycle racer, earns $20,800,000.
Hypo Venture Capital Zurich Headlines: UPDATE 2-Investment banking drags down Stifel Financial Q1
http://hypoventure-capital.com/?p=43
* Q1 adj EPS $0.52 vs est. $0.61
* Institutional group rev falls 23.5 pct sequentially
* Investment banking rev fall 57 pct sequentially (Adds details, CEO quote from conference call, share history)
May 9 (Reuters) – Stifel Financial Corp posted a disappointing first-quarter profit as lower advisory fees hurt its investment banking revenue.
Stifel, which bought struggling Thomas Weisel Partners Group for about $318.2 million in stock last year, said revenue from its institutional group, including its investment banking business, fell 23.5 percent sequentially.
Pre-tax profit for the division fell 51 percent from the fourth quarter.
“Consistent with industry trends, our investment banking results in the quarter were separately lower, primarily impacted by a decline in advisory and municipal underwriting activity,” Chief Executive Ronald Kruszewski said on a conference call.
Investment banking revenues fell 57 percent from the fourth quarter to $35.1 million.
The St Louis-based regional brokerage firm reported a net income of $31.4 million, or 50 cents a share, compared with a net income of $23.7 million, or 45 cents a share, a year ago.
The company, which bought 56 Midwestern retail branches with more than 300 advisers from UBS Financial Services in 2009 , earned 52 cents a share, excluding items, on revenue of $366.6 million.
Analysts on average expected Stifel to earn 61 cents a share, excluding items, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Total assets increased 41 percent to $4.5 billion as of March 31.
Stifel reported quarterly merger-related expenses of $1.5 million related to the Weisel acquisition.
Shares of Stifel closed at $43.01 on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. They have shed 10 percent since the company posted better-than-expected quarterly results in February.
* Q1 adj EPS $0.52 vs est. $0.61
* Institutional group rev falls 23.5 pct sequentially
* Investment banking rev fall 57 pct sequentially (Adds details, CEO quote from conference call, share history)
May 9 (Reuters) – Stifel Financial Corp posted a disappointing first-quarter profit as lower advisory fees hurt its investment banking revenue.
Stifel, which bought struggling Thomas Weisel Partners Group for about $318.2 million in stock last year, said revenue from its institutional group, including its investment banking business, fell 23.5 percent sequentially.
Pre-tax profit for the division fell 51 percent from the fourth quarter.
“Consistent with industry trends, our investment banking results in the quarter were separately lower, primarily impacted by a decline in advisory and municipal underwriting activity,” Chief Executive Ronald Kruszewski said on a conference call.
Investment banking revenues fell 57 percent from the fourth quarter to $35.1 million.
The St Louis-based regional brokerage firm reported a net income of $31.4 million, or 50 cents a share, compared with a net income of $23.7 million, or 45 cents a share, a year ago.
The company, which bought 56 Midwestern retail branches with more than 300 advisers from UBS Financial Services in 2009 , earned 52 cents a share, excluding items, on revenue of $366.6 million.
Analysts on average expected Stifel to earn 61 cents a share, excluding items, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Total assets increased 41 percent to $4.5 billion as of March 31.
Stifel reported quarterly merger-related expenses of $1.5 million related to the Weisel acquisition.
Shares of Stifel closed at $43.01 on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. They have shed 10 percent since the company posted better-than-expected quarterly results in February.
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