Poetin blackmails Renault

Renault has to invest in the Russian government enterprise Avtovaz, or they will lose a big part of their share in the company. 2 years ago, Renault bought a quarter of Avtovaz, known for its cars Lada. Unfortunately, the latter made a huge plunge in these times of economical recession, and they have to pay off 27.600 jobs. With this political pressure, Poetin wants Renault to invest in better and more efficient infrastructure for the future.

De Standaard

Philippe Lingier

Female leadership survives the crisis

Highly influential women are less affected by the financial crisis in contrast to their male colleagues according to the Financial News 100 list of most influential people. Whereas the female list is similar to last year, the male one is completely mixed together as some of the top men have disappeared (just think of Jeremy Isaacs, chief executive at Lehman Brothers). Women are said to be more worried about the consequences of their actions and to take less risks, two important values which made these women survive the credit crunch. For many years men were considered the leaders of financial institutions, but in these turbulent times women get the chance to prosper, maybe even above their male equals.


Sien Eylenbosch

Financial News Online

'Blame men for credit crunch'

Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman turned Britain upside down by claiming that men were to blame for the banking crisis. Ms. Harman is known for her obsession with "the sisterhood" and she is convinced that women would do a far better job than men on the boards of banks and companies. She pointed out that the global industry collapse began with the collapse of US banking giant Lehman Brothers and even added that someone else said that if it had been Lehman Sisters, the financial world might not have been facing so many difficulties. Harriet Harman also has the position of women in the world of politics on her mind and that is why she insists that the Labour Party should never again be led by an all male team.

Sanne Diependaele

the Sun

TARP Money Won't Be Fully Recovered

The U.S. Government won't be able to recover all the money they spent on their Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a program to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector. In an Interview with Neil Barofsky, the Treasury's Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief program, Barofsky said that it is unknown at this very moment how much money the U.S. Government will get back. Barofsky also said that the TARP Program wasn't designed to recover each dollar, and that the program helped stop the economic crisis by restoring public confidence. The Program did lose credibility though, because particular banks needed further life support, and also because the capital infusions failed to help the banks to start lending again.



Bernard Matthys

http://www.cnbc.com/id/33175804

China takes it all!

The government of China has ordered, since the enormous setback of the oil price, all his state-owned companies to purchase as much of the remaining world’s oil as possible.

The Chinese need for oil is not so surprising due to the booming Chinese economy but if China keeps consuming oil like this, they will soon have no more resources of their own so they will need to buy it elsewhere and the Chinese companies don’t buy the oilfields but they take over the companies that do own those fields. The Chinese companies already purchased for over 17 billion US dollars on overseas acquisitions and around 50 billion US dollars on debt-for-oil loans. On the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China offered Sinochem, a Chinese oil group controlled by the government, 532 million pound sterling for Emerald Energy, a group who owns oilfields in Syria and Colombia.

Simon Gosseye

The Sunday Times

Winning system for stocking markets?

John Joseph thinks he has developed an automatic computer program for buying and selling financial products with a maximum profit. There are two main reasons for his success: He is a mathematical genius so he can turn theories into algorithms and he disposes of super-fast computers which makes his program is able to conclude about thousand transactions each second. He realises that trusting all your money to a computer program contains a great risk. That is why he told his wife “every dollar I earn might be my last.”

Forbes

Jasper Lievens

premium for students

French students who don't skip classes will be rewarded with a premium which can run up to 10.000 euro for one class.

This one-year experiment is part of a big program and takes place in 3 high schools in the suburbs of Paris, but can be extended to other schools. The meaning of the project is to stimulate teenagers to go to school and to reduce the degree of absence in classes (which is now 10.9%). The premium that they can get will not be given in cash, the intention is to finance projects like school trips or material.

Het nieuwsblad

Valérie Huyghe