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HR policies in India are created on the basis of key human resource management functions and are defined as the set of guidelines utilized by the company or organization in order to make an efficient use of their staff. HR policies are mainly based on the key guidelines such as promotion, training, compensation, recruitment, and selections etc. HR policies serve as a point of reference while taking decisions regarding the workplace of an organization, and in the development of HR management practices. HR policy provides guidance on various methods of approaches used by an organization regarding many aspects of employment and employees.
List of HR policies varies from organization to organization based on their sources and descriptions and also varies according to their location. On the basis of sources in an organization, HR policies are classified into different sets.
1.Implicit policies – policies that are not expressed formally but are concluded on the basis of managers behaviors.
2.Originated policies – senior managers established these policies as a set of guidelines for their subordinates.
3.Appealed polices – used only when other earlier policies are unable to solve or cover a particular case. Situation handling is the main objective of the appealed policies.
4.Imposed policies – that are imposed on the organization by many external associations such as trade unions, government.
1.General policies – normally used as a set of guidelines but does not refer to any particular issue. These are generated by the leadership team of an organization.
2.Specific policies – related to particular issues like collective bargaining, compensation, and staffing etc.
Above the stated list of HR policies in India are advantageous in many ways to an organization such as decision making by the managers without the consultation of their superiors and also ensures a long-term relationship between employees – employer by treating the employees on an organization in a uniform way.
HR policies in Indian companies serve as the standards for employers while taking decisions for the welfare of their employees. HR policies are designed on the basis of various factors such as the Laws of the country, management philosophy, social values, and financial impact.
All rights reserved © 2020 Wisdom IT Services India Pvt. Ltd
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Expanding Economic Opportunity for Young Men and Boys of Color through Employment and Training2 weeks ago 2 weeks ago
This report was published by Urban Institute.
HERE’S HOW THE AUTHORS DESCRIBE THIS REPORT:
Young men of color have long experienced lower earnings and higher unemployment compared to young white men. Many factors have contributed to these negative outcomes: persistent discrimination, hiring practices of employers, geographic and social isolation, substandard secondary education, lack of career and postsecondary educational guidance, inadequate career and technical education, and higher incarceration rates. This paper focuses on promising strategies for improving the labor market outcomes of low-income young men of color. It outlines an employment-focused approach to improving economic opportunities and outcomes for these young men, highlighting potential policy, system, and institutional reforms as well as program investments.
Spaulding, S., Lerman, R. I., Holzer, H. J., & Eyster, L. (2015). Expanding Economic Opportunity for Young Men and Boys of Color through Employment and Training. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/expanding-economic-opportunity-young-men-and-boys-color-through-employment-and-training
Categorised in: Report
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Life is simply just easier if you’re financially literate. I mean, sure, you’ll still have problems, but at least money won’t be one of them.
The problem is that financial literacy isn’t taught in most schools, so you probably have no idea where to even start. Crazy right? How can something so important also be neglected by basic education?
No worries though, as YOU can learn financial literacy on your own! And the best part? Starting out is very easy!
What Does It Mean To Be "Financially Literate"?
Financial literacy is simply having the skills and understanding of most of the ideas regarding your money, and the related topics of debt, investing, insurance and a few others.
There are a ton of advantages to being financially literate:
- Immediately recognize and avoid scams
- Survive financially challenging times
- Be able to do so much more stuff in the future
- Fully provide for any dependents you may have
Of course, you don’t have to learn every single idea regarding money. However, you will definitely need to learn the basics and apply them in your financial life. If you are able to do that, then you are “financially literate”.
To help you start, below are the topics you need to understand, and also a quick introduction on those ideas.
1. How To Budget
While there are more and more people budgeting (especially the younger generations), there are still those that groan by the very mention of this word.
If you picture budgets to be a time-consuming process, a pain and a nuisance, then we have good news for you: IT ISN’T!
Budgets are actually:
- Easy to make (takes a few minutes!)
- Still let you spend on fun and entertaining stuff
- Most financially successful people attribute success partly to budgets
- Enables you to take control and feel in control of your finances
Hopefully, you are now interested in making a budget. And lucky for you, we have an article that can help you with that.
2. Being debt-free
Debts are sometimes unavoidable, but truly financial independent and financially literate people have no debt. So, if you have debt now, do your best to eliminate it.
There are a LOT of benefits to being debt-free, such as:
- Stress-free feeling of relief of not having to worry about debt payments
- Being able to increase the amount you can spend, and also more importantly, save!
- Having more freedom on where to spend your head-earned cash
- Reduce your risk when it comes to personal finance
Essentially, avoid taking on debt if it is not needed. Don’t get into debt to buy gadgets, expensive accessories, and other non-essential items.
The only acceptable debt is probably a house mortgage, but only if it’s within the limits of your income. And even then, you should definitely still be doing your best to pay them early.
We actually have an article on the fastest way you can pay your debt, just in case you need it.
3. Understanding What Investments Are (And What Aren’t)
Investing is the fastest way to make even more money once you’re able to save more from your monthly income.
If you invest correctly, you might even be able to do an early or partial retirement. With more money, you’ll be able to travel to more places, buy more of the things you like and generally just enjoy life the way you want to.
Or at the very least, you’ll be able to retire comfortably if you’re short on time for investing.
If you don’t invest, however, then you’re essentially giving up on potentially more money, which doesn’t make any sense.
It would definitely be wasted potential, especially since learning how to invest properly and succeeding on it can be very easy.
The other part of learning about investing is knowing what aren’t actually investments.
Stocks, real estate, REITS, a farm and starting your own business are examples of investments.
However, items that don’t produce anything like bitcoin, antiques, paintings and currencies in general are NOT proper investments.
Investing is a large topic but we do have some of the basics covered here on our site.
4. Emergency Funds
An emergency fund is money you can immediately access when you are in trouble and need money. The usual amount to keep is about 3 – 6 months of your salary.
Did your refrigerator break and your bank account is empty? Or maybe your car needs some repair and maintenance? Or there is a health emergency not covered by your insurance?
All of the money you need for the above will come from your emergency fund.
Without emergency funds, you’ll be forced to take money from your investments. Or worse, you might even be forced into debt, which we’ve already established is not good.
So, make sure to have those emergency funds!
5. The Right Insurance
Insurance essentially protects you from financial risk and loss. With an insurance, you will be reimbursed from losses that are covered by your insurer company.
There are a few different kinds that protect you from different kinds of risk and loss. There is life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance and auto insurance as the most common types to get.
Part of financial literacy is getting insurance, but only if that type is right for you. Like, buying an auto/car insurance would NOT make any sense if you don’t have a car, for example.
The most basic mistake here involves life insurance, which should be taken by people with actual dependents that rely on them. However, a lot of people take them even when they have no dependents!
Insurance is amazing, but only if you understand how to actually use it.
6. Living Below Your Means
“Living below your means” is spending only less than the amount you make. If you practice this, that means you adjust your lifestyle to only buy the things you can afford, and never go into debt or spend too much.
You should definitely still buy the things you want, just make sure you’re still able to save money (and preferably invest those savings as well.)
If you think about it, when you practice “living below your means” you get to save more and invest more. The more you invest, the more you earn from those investments. Before you know it, you’re investment earnings have already reached so high that now you can spend things you never could have afforded before.
Essentially, this principle enables you to spend less now, so you can spend so much more in the future for the big and expensive luxury items that you want.
7. Having Huge And Clear Financial Goals
Some people don’t save or invest because they just aren’t dreaming big enough.
Being content with what you have is great, but when emergencies and financial crises happen, having more is definitely better!
Besides, I’m sure you have dreams you want to fulfill that cost money. I, for example, want to travel to a lot of different countries, experiencing their food and whatever luxuries I can afford. You probably have something like that, right? That’ll definitely cost a decent chunk of cash.
Think big, and do your best to reach those big goals.
Where To Start Learning
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that you probably enjoy YouTube videos, and fortunately enough, there are YouTube channels out there that are dedicated to financial literacy and investing.
One that we like a lot is Two Cents, a very well-made financial education channel.
Our blog is also a good source of lessons about proper personal finance and investing, so make sure to check back every so often!
Just be careful that not all videos and blogs are correct. We’ve read a lot of money losing bad advice and lessons out there, so keep your eyes open!
The basic ideas you need to know about financial literacy are introduced in this article. Although you don’t need to take a four-year college course to master these concepts, it will still take some time.
Learning about being free from debt and about how to easily make budgets will only take a few minutes. However, learning about proper investing will definitely take at least a few days.
Don’t rush though, and enjoy the learning process.
Good luck and we hope you learned something!
Do you want more finance and investing guides? Follow us on Facebook. We try our best to upload a blog every week, mostly about making a good chunk of money with proper investing, and with some blogs being about responsible personal finance.
Want us to cover a specific investing or personal finance topic? Reach out to us through Facebook or comment below!
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Economists around the world are searching for the right terminology to describe the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
- The IMF calls it the Great Lockdown. At its spring meetings in April -- held virtually this year -- the International Monetary Fund used that phrase to summarize how the world economy had been upended.
- Morgan Stanley says it’s the Great Covid-19 Recession, or GCR for short to reflects its expectations for the deepest peacetime contraction in global growth since the Great Depression.
- Ed Yardeni, who coined the term “bond vigilantes" back in the 1980s, has named this the Great Virus Crisis.
- There’s even a suggestion to call it a Pandession, as suggested by economist David McWilliams, who previously worked for the Central Bank of Ireland and lenders including BNP Paribas. A Pandession is a new word because it is a new thing.
Economists with Bloomberg Economics have used phrases such as the Global Hard Stop or the Virus Recession.
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In a new study titled “The Carbon Footprint of Bitcoin” published in Joule today (June 12, 2019) Christian Stoll, Lena Klaassen and Ulrich Gallersdörfer find that: “the level of emissions produced by Bitcoin sits between the levels produced by the nations of Jordan and Sri Lanka, which is comparable to the level of Kansas City”. This result is based on an identified emission factor of 480-500 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour (gCO2/kWh) used to power the Bitcoin mining network, which is in line with the emission factor applied to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index over the past few years (currently 475 gCO2/kWh).
To obtain the former number, Stoll et al. first try to localize the Bitcoin mining devices in the network. Knowing where mining takes place is the key to knowing how dirty, or how clean, the energy used by mining devices really is. In their study Stoll et al. “develop three scenarios examining the regional footprint of Bitcoin, which are based on the localization of pool server IP, device IP, and node IP-addresses”. These are subsequently aggregated to a network-wide average. The resulting carbon intensity is comparable to the greenhouse gas emissions of electricity generated by natural gas (469 gCO2/kWh), and therefore confirms that the electricity used for Bitcoin mining is far from “green”.
Interestingly, just a week before, crypto company Coinshares had argued the opposite in a report that was released on June 6. In their report Coinshares stated that mining was primarily taking place in Sichuan (China), where miners can take advantage of cheap hydropower. Specifically, half of the global network would be situated in Sichuan, while also representing 83% of all Chinese mining activity. But crucially, the Coinshares report did not once mention the word “carbon”. The new study does not only show that a smaller part of mining in China is taking place in Sichuan (only 58% of all Chinese mining activity is in hydro-rich regions), but also that the emission factor of hydro-rich regions in China is worse than one might expect. Stoll et al. therefore end up concluding that the “approximation of Bitcoin’s carbon footprint underlines the need to tackle the environmental externalities that result from cryptocurrencies”.
For a live (daily) estimate of Bitcoin’s Carbon Footprint check out the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index.
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By Tom Elias
Back in 2002, when California set its first statewide renewable energy goals, the petroleum industry and others said it would be impossible for 20 percent of all electricity to come from solar, wind, hydro power and other forms of green energy by 2017 – now. But that goal was achieved long ago, with the state now getting well over 25 percent of its energy from renewables, and far more on many days.
Then the goal was upped under former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to 33 percent by 2020, a mark that will easily be surpassed well in advance of the deadline. Again, that’s after industry said it would be impossible.
Now those same natural gas and oil interests claim a legislative bill setting a goal of 100 percent renewables by 2045 is unattainable. The bill was held up in committee last summer, but seems certain to be back in January’s new session.
This whole scenario is reminiscent of resistance steadily provided by carmakers as California gradually cut its automotive emission standards over the decades starting in the 1970s. Each time a new standard was proposed, General Motors, Ford, Toyota and others resisted, claiming they just couldn’t do it.
But they did it somehow, and in the process California and the world acquired a huge fleet of hybrid, electric and plug-in hybrid cars, cutting gasoline consumption and cleaning many thousands of tons of smog from the air.
There’s absolutely no reason to believe things will be any different in electricity generating than they have been with cars. Rather, there’s room for a lot of optimism.
For example, long before the deadline for 50 percent of power to come from green sources, California in May experienced several days when more than 60 percent of its electricity came from such places. This figure did not even include energy from hydroelectric dams, one of the greenest of power sources.
That period of sunny days enabling full use of both solar thermal arrays and photovoltaic panels demonstrated that the 2020 goal is well within reach and will be achieved despite all the industry whining when the goal was set.
Another milestone came on March 11, when for a span of three hours, solar power alone met about half of all electricity demand across the state.
All this makes it wholly sensible for the Legislature to adopt the 100 percent-renewables-by-2045 standard. The bill, sponsored by Democratic state Senate President Pro-Tem Kevin de Leon passed the Senate before getting delayed in the Assembly, where industry pressure can be stronger and more effective.
One objection is that green energy often costs more than conventional power produced in California mainly from gas-fired generating plants. This is correct, but costs figure to drop as the scale of renewable energy production increases. The state will also need to develop better battery technology to store power produced by solar and wind facilities and not let it dissipate before it can be added to the overall power grid.
And when the clean-power goals become reality, excess solar capacity could be re-purposed and used the way “peaker” power plants are now – fired up during times of the heaviest electricity use on the hottest summer days when the grid is taxed nearly to its capacity.
The benefits, besides fighting climate change at a time when President Trump’s administration seems to want to encourage it, include things like tens of thousands of new jobs, less smog, less carbon pollution and more diversity in overall energy supplies, making California less and less dependent on foreign sources.
This will come about through massive building projects, a process now well under way as the state has more than doubled renewable energy installations over the last four years, according to the California Energy Commission.
Like zero emission electric and hydrogen cars, 100 percent renewable energy is an idea whose time has plainly come, no matter what the owners and fuelers of increasingly outmoded traditional energy sources may claim.
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The preliminary findings of a University of Queensland study into the effect of taxing electric vehicles (EVs), without introducing incentives to buy them, finds that EV sales will be hit hard, resulting in a 25 per cent fall in new EVs and much higher emissions.
The UQ study says that sales of EVs out to 2050 could be 25 per cent below the federal government’s “business as usual” scenarios, resulting in up to 10 million fewer EVs on the road.
The news that three Australian states – Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales – would consider an “EV tax” has stirred up huge controversy across relevant sectors, and it has been slammed variously as “backwards“, a “culture war” and “shameful“.
The EV tax in Victoria would mean electric vehicles drivers pay 2.5 cents for every kilometre driven, while plug-in hybrids would pay 2 cents per kilometre, regardless of how many kilometres were driven on electric only power.
“Unfortunately, neither of these State Governments seem to have recognised that higher taxes will lead to lower EV sales,” writes Jake Whitehead, an electric vehicle research at the University of Queensland who also works on the global stage with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Electric Vehicle Policy Council.
“The reality is that the introduction of these EV taxes risks pushing Australia even further into the wilderness in terms of EV uptake, and is completely incongruent with mid-century Net Zero Emission targets, which appear to easily roll off the tongues of politicians, but are not backed up by concrete actions to bring them to fruition.”
He says that in a recent study of Australian drivers, introducing 2.5 cents per kilometre road tax on electric vehicles would be perceived by drivers as a $4,000 disincentive to buy and electric vehicle, which is already typically $20,000-40,000 more than its petrol or diesel counterparts.
It would mean that, for example in the case of the petrol Hyundai Kona which costs $24,300 before on-road costs, the all-electric version would in effect cost $63,990 instead of its manufacturer recommended $59,990 price.
The new report – which is yet to be peer-reviewed but has been released early in order to highlight the failure introducing such policies without incentives could result in – finds that other measures, such as giving EV buyers a $1,000 credit towards electricity bills or exempting them from all road taxes including registration, stamp duty, GST and road tolls, could encourage uptake.
The first of these would result in a $6,000 perceived reduction in cost bringing the cost of the Kona Electric down to $54,990. Removing road taxes would result in more than $11,000 being slashed from the price, meaning an effective sticker price of $48,990.
In the case of cheaper electric vehicles such as the Hyundai Ioniq, Nissan Leaf and MG ZS EV, all would have a “perceived” sticker price of less than $40,000.
What is the impact of this for states and the climate?
Introducing a 2.5 cents per kilometre tax would result in 5-10 million less electric vehicles driven on Australia roads over the next 30 years, says Whitehead.
Car makers would be less willing to bring in new models, without the certainty that they would be sold. Australia would become the Cuba of the western world.
“EV market supply to Australia is already being limited by a lack of supportive policies, and EV road taxes, without incentives, is likely to further exacerbate this major barrier to uptake,” Whitehead writes.
Horrifyingly, the result for net zero targets could actually be a 40% increase in light vehicle emissions in Australia by 2050.
As he points out, the adoption of electric vehicles contributes on health costs, emissions costs, fuel costs, tax revenue due to current higher purchase costs, and also by creating jobs and other energy system benefits.
He points out that contrary to state motives for a short-sighted tax grab, introducing an EV tax could have a detrimental cost to states and the wider national economy to the tune of up to $70 billion.
Uptake of electric vehicles would be the reverse, adding up to $200 billion to the economy.
“Rather ironically, our results also suggest that the proposed EV taxes are likely to raise far less road pricing revenue over the next 30 years (~$30B-$70B), as a result of lower EV uptake, compared to the scenarios that include significant EV incentives to drive EV uptake ($170B-$200B),” writes Whiteead.
Instead, he says that reformation of the road tax model is needed.
“The current approach is complicated, inefficient and plainly unfair,” he says.
“It does not support desired policy outcomes in terms of lower emissions, higher efficiency, and lower congestion, and if we do not start planning for a transition today, the economic costs will only continue to get greater – not as a result of EV uptake, but due to low efficiency, high pollution, high costs, and high congestion.
“EV owners already pay a significant amount in road taxes under the current model, and despite some trying to perpetuate a class warfare argument, most EV owners are just average Australians who are trying their best to make a choice that supports better health and environmental outcomes for the community.
“Not everyone can afford an EV today, but the best way to address this is through further incentivising uptake now to ensure Australia is not left behind, and can secure access to affordable, attractive EV models being sold in other parts of the world, that are currently not being brought to Australia due to our lack of EV support.
“A road pricing scheme could be introduced, but it must be in replacement of existing road taxes, and/or paired with other significant incentives that have an equivalent impact (i.e. ~$11,000 reduction in purchase price), in order to achieve the level of EV uptake required in order to meet net zero emission targets by 2050.
“Anything short of this is not a credible solution. Anything short of this will lead to more Australians dying from motor vehicle pollution than necessary; Australian households spending hundreds of billions more on fuel than they should; and Australia being left further behind on the transition to clean transport future,” says Whitehead.
Bridie Schmidt is lead reporter for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She specialises in writing about new technology and has been writing about electric vehicles for two years. She has a keen interest in the role that zero emissions transport has to play in sustainability and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum.
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Rwanda is a small country with one of the highest population densities in Africa (USAID, 2013). It is also one of the poorest countries, but it has made significant progress since the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi that killed nearly 800,000 people (USAID, 2013). Poverty has dropped from 56.7 percent in 2006 to 44.9 percent in 2011, a developmental trend worth celebrating (USAID, 2013). Still, Rwanda’s poorest are often excluded from formal financial institutions and basic financial services because of fees and geographic barriers. Less than half of the population is formally banked. Lack of access to savings makes these people more vulnerable to economic shocks and it prevents personal investment for future development.
Local churches in Rwanda are well-positioned to address poverty in their communities. They typically respond by providing food and money to the poor, a well-meaning effort that fails to address root causes of poverty. Often, these churches lack the skills and tools to be agents of transformational development, a holistic approach to poverty that involves
sustainable changes in attitudes and behaviors. World Relief is responding by empowering the local church to deliver basic financial services and education to Rwanda’s poorest through the Savings for Life™ program, which makes access to savings and loans possible for the most poor and vulnerable. World Relief trains church volunteers who, in turn, train savings and credit groups in the communities. Special emphasis is placed on savings mobilization methods, Biblical stewardship, financial integrity, overcoming poverty, effective asset use and group government and management.
The impact of Savings for Life™ extends beyond economic empowerment as Savings Group members discover that they already have the resources necessary to advance their lives and those of their children. The community becomes more resilient as members help each other set aside money for emergencies. When World Relief concludes its work, these self-sustaining groups continue to meet and holistically transform the lives of members. Groups provide an opportunity for people to work together for a common financial goal and serve as a safe place of social support. World Relief has been implementing Savings for Life in Rwanda since 2010. There are currently 682 groups and 14,535 members across four districts.
Courtney O’Connell is World Relief’s Senior Technical Advisor for the Savings for Life program. She will be speaking at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute of Sustainable Microenterprise Development Program in a class titled “Savings Groups Post-Project: Evolution, Sustainability, Enrichment” Nov. 18-22, 2013 in Arusha, Tanzania. The following interview was conducted on Oct. 28, 2013.
Courtney, what is your history with transformational development,
World Relief, and as Senior Technical Advisor for the Savings for Life program?
C: I joined World Relief in 2011 after having already lived in Africa for three years. My earliest work in Africa heightened my understanding of the need for transformational development to be truly holistic. I believe that just focusing on one area of life, physical, for example, ignores so many other areas of a person that need to be addressed: spiritual, social, emotional, financial. Joining World Relief’s Savings for Life team, then was a perfect fit for me as we try to address communities in a holistic way,
In which countries is this program currently being implemented?
C: We started our Savings for Life (SFL) program in Burundi in 2008, then expanded to Kenya and Rwanda in 2008 then to Malawi (2011), Congo (2012) and South Sudan (2013).
To date, do you know the total amount of Savings Groups and
C: Currently we have 104,857 members across all 6 countries.
Why does Savings for Life and the Savings Group model work so
well? In other words, what about this model is different from other existing
financial services and institutions offered either by countries or other NGOs?
C: The essence of the SFL program is this: groups of 10-25 community members come together and save their own money, use that common pool to make loans to each other charging an agreed upon interest rate. Then, after about 9 months, the members get back all the money they saved plus their share of the interest, or profit, the group made. This money that they’ve accumulated, generally $75-140, is usually the most amount of money these community members have ever had in their hands. And, it’s all theirs! The empowerment they take from this method is remarkable. Members are able to put children in school, buy health insurance for the very first time, invest in a business, or make tangible improvements on their homes. It’s such a huge change in a relatively short time.
Our approach is different from most other NGOs who do savings programs. First, we strive to deliver a high quality, technically sound savings program. It improves upon the indigenous forms of savings that have been present in rural communities for generations and generations. Most importantly, however, World Relief is working in and through the local church. Our desire is to see the church own this program and, towards that end, have volunteers from the church that help to form and train new savings groups. Groups pray with each other and support each other in times of need. We also have a Bible Study the groups can do to supplement their savings activities. In all these ways we’re trying to address the spiritual and the financial lives of the members.
Can you share a recent story from the Savings for Life program in Rwanda?
C: In the Nayamasheke district, Savings for Life empowered the Tuzamurane Savings Group (below) with the ability to address other areas of need in their lives. The members identified that each one needed a mattress at their house, as some were still sleeping on dirt floors. So they took turns buying mattresses from their collective savings until everyone had one. They were so proud of what they did, they bought matching ‘uniforms’ so that the entire community would know that they were empowered and could do fantastic things!
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What’s your worth? It’s a relative concept.
After all, there’s your self-worth — you can’t put a price on that. And there’s your market worth in places like the job market, where you might command a higher salary if your skills are in high demand. But there’s one type of worth that everyone has. A clearly defined objective, number.
You probably don’t know it off the top of your head, simply because you’ve probably never done the math. It’s your net worth.
Your net worth is what you own minus what you owe.
Everyone has one. It might be massive like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, or more likely it’s a more modest figure. In fact, your net worth might seem pretty worthless at a glance. Especially if you’re on the younger side, it could even be negative.
But don’t worry, your net worth doesn’t mean you’ve failed to define your financial future. Sometimes you’ve got to invest in yourself before you see the returns.
Let’s break down exactly what your net worth means, how it impacts your financial outlook today, and what you can expect as you age.
How is net worth calculated?
When it comes to your personal finances, your net worth is the value you get when you subtract your liabilities from your assets. It may fluctuate day to day or even moment to moment, depending on your financial situation.
Your liabilities are the things you owe money on. If you’re still paying off your car, your home, or your student loans, these would fall on the liabilities side of the balance sheet. Any type of debt is a liability in terms of your net worth, even your credit card.
Future recurring payments like your Netflix subscription don’t count as liabilities. In fact, if you’re a renter, most common net worth calculations don’t include your rent payments either. But if you’re responsible for court-mandated payments like tax liabilities or alimony payments, those will count against your total.
On the other hand, your assets are what’s legally yours. This can be the cash in your bank accounts or cash you have stashed, any stocks and bonds in your investment portfolio, your retirement accounts, your car, your furniture, artwork, jewelry — from material possessions to intellectual property of value. Anything that you could sell for monetary value (even if those funds wouldn’t be immediately liquid) is an asset.
Just like future rent payments are part of your liabilities, your future salary isn’t part of your net worth. Only money you’ve actually earned, not expected income.
Add it all up, then subtract your liabilities. That’s your net worth.
Keep in mind, some items may fall on both sides. For example, if you’re a homeowner, your outstanding mortgage debt would be a liability, but the amount you’ve already paid down (also known as the equity you’ve built in your home) would be considered an asset.
The exact calculations can be complex when you’re trying to list your entire life on a balance sheet. But for the purpose of illustration, here’s a simplified hypothetical.
Sample net worth calculation: It takes three basic steps.
How is net worth calculated? Just follow these simple instructions.
List out all your assets.
List out all your liabilities.
Subtract to find the difference.
Let’s say our mutual friend, Annette Worthington, has $10,000 in a savings account. Her 401(k) retirement account is up to $20,000. She also keeps $5,000 in her checking and another $3,000 cash in an emergency fund. She owns her car, which has a current blue book value of $7,000. She also finally paid off her student loans (way to go, Annette), but she got a mortgage loan to purchase her $200,000 home — with $150,000 still remaining on her mortgage. Plus, she’s got $2,000 in credit card debt she hasn’t paid off yet from last month.
Here’s how our (again, overly simplified) net worth calculation would go.
$50,000 home equity
= $95,000 in total assets
$2,000 credit card
= $152,000 in total liabilities
Annette’s net worth:
$95,000 in assets
$152,000 in liabilities
= negative $57,000
This is why you shouldn’t stress if you have a negative net worth. Look at Annette’s life. She’s doing pretty good. She’s a homeowner. She doesn’t carry any other major outstanding debt, and she’s already starting to save for retirement, with money put aside now for a rainy day, too.
Sure, at this moment in time, her net worth may be negative. But her future is bright, and yours can be too.
Why is net worth important?
If you can have a negative net worth and still be on the right track, then what’s all the fuss about? Your net worth is important because it gives you a more holistic look at your financial health. The simple exercise of adding up everything you own and everything you owe (in far more painstaking detail than we did for Ms. Annette Worthington above) can help you get a detailed picture of where your finances stand. And, quite frankly, how well you’re positioned to reach your financial goals.
You might think a high income is what matters most when it comes to someone’s personal finances. However, a salary only tells part of the story. Just like you don’t evaluate a business’ health based on their revenue alone. Having a high income may not mean you’re financially healthy. If this business requires higher-than-normal expenses to bring in high revenues, it may not be a profitable venture. For all you know, the entire business model could be broken.
In your personal finances, too, your net worth is a reflection of your financial sustainability. It’s your bottom line. Your income plays a role, but your habits and lifestyle do too. If you’re an avid gambler, a stress shopper, or you wish your local divorce lawyer had a punch card loyalty program, your high income may not accurately reflect your financial picture going forward. Debts can take many forms and add up quickly — more so when you owe interest on unpaid debts.
That’s why the number that matters for your net worth isn’t where it stands at any given point in time. It’s how your net worth is trending over time. Tracking your net worth in the form of a regular net worth statement over time can help you make smarter, more informed financial decisions and keep a pulse on the money coming in and out of your life. So you can set realistic goals and reachable targets for your future.
When you take this big picture net worth approach — understanding and sizing up both your assets and liabilities — you can figure out ways to make your money work harder. For example, if you have savings sitting an account on the assets side of your balance sheet that isn’t growing at a high rate, but you also have a loan with a really high interest rate on the liabilities side of your balance sheet, it would make sense to use the money in your savings to pay off the loan now vs. losing money in interest payments over time. Liquidating your laziest assets to pay off your most urgent debts is the net worth approach to building wealth in the future.
NOTE: Your net worth is mostly a metric for you to track for your own benefit. Lenders, renters, and other people who make financial decisions in your life may sometimes ask you about your assets, but no formal net worth calculation goes into your credit score. In fact, your credit score is completely independent of your income, account balances, investments, and other wealth indicators. Rather, it’s a metric of your reliability to repay debts based on information gathered from your history — including repayment history, collection accounts, bankruptcies, tax liens, and other public records.
How to increase your net worth.
Since your net worth is somewhat of a moving target, changing as fast as your Bitcoin wallet fluctuates, you want to see your net worth and overall wealth trending in the right direction.
Based on the simple “Assets – Liabilities = Net Worth” formula, there are only two ways to increase your net worth. You can either increase your assets or decrease your liabilities.
Easier said than done, right? Here are few practical tips for how to increase your net worth on both sides of your balance sheet.
Tips to increase your assets at any age.
Cut back on expenses and automate your savings.
The money you spend may actually contribute to your net worth — if you’re buying something of long-term value. Though the majority of day-to-day spending goes towards purchases that won’t become an asset. While groceries and nights out at restaurants may be vital to survival, the money you spend on food doesn’t have the staying power to fatten up the asset side of your balance sheet.
A PFM (personal finance management) tool like Mint can help you track your expenses and see where the majority of your money goes — including the things you can categorize into non-net-worth building activities like dining, entertainment, and transportation (your car itself, included). If you realize you can cut back in your budget, you can have a portion of your income automatically deposited into a savings account. If the money never hits your checking account, you’ll miss it less. And it can help to take the sting out of saving money and building your net worth when you’re just getting started.
Max out your retirement savings.
Saving for retirement is a great way to boost your net worth because the money you save gets to grow with tax advantages — either tax-deferred (which means your money is taxed later so there’s a larger amount to earn interest upfront) or tax-free (because you pay income tax upfront but get to avoid capital gains taxes on your earnings), depending on the account type you choose.
Like automating your savings, your retirement contributions can be directly deducted from your paycheck, especially if you have a 401(k) retirement account through your employer. Plus, if your employer offers a percentage match for your 401(k) contributions, that’s money outside your salary that you can vest as retirement savings. You can also open up an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) on your own that’s not tied to an employer in any way. Traditional IRAs enjoy tax deferred earnings, while Roth IRAs are tax-free.
There are limits to how much the government lets you contribute to both 401(k) and IRA accounts because of the special tax advantages each account gives you. Maxing out your contribution limits lets you build the most possible net worth (with huge boosts thanks to compound interest as the decades past). Not to mention, a 401(k) also offers some protection against creditors in case your finances take a turn for the worse later — safeguarding your overall net worth and letting you hold onto some assets.
Start investing and earning interest.
Cash is king. But not when it comes to net worth calculations. Yes, it makes sense to have some cash on hand in case of emergency. But your cash can contribute more to your net worth when your money is earning more money. If you’re keeping too much cash in your emergency fund, consider re-allocating some of that money to a high-yield savings or investment account.
Unlike a retirement savings account, you’ll be on the hook for more taxes in a regular investment account, but those taxes come out of money you earn — putting you ahead in the aggregate. You should expect close to a 6% return each year if you invest wisely in the stock market (with some ups and downs from year to year). A high-yield savings account is a lower risk alternative, but you can only expect a return closer to 2%.
Talk to a financial advisor to see what kind of investment strategy makes sense for you. And you can even get set up with robo-accounts that handle the actual investing for you. All you have to do is fill out your appropriate risk profile.
Renting is great for the convenience. It makes less sense for your net worth. That’s because while buying a home for most people will require a mortgage (a huge liability!), as you pay off that mortgage you build equity in your home. Unlike rent money, which for net worth calculation purposes you might as well be lighting on fire each month, that equity grows over time and shows up on the asset side of your balance sheet.
Once you’ve paid off your home in full, as one of your largest purchases it will become one of your most valuable assets. So while mortgage debt will hurt your net worth in the short term, it drives you towards positive net worth in the long term. If you’re paying a $1,000 per month in rent, after 30 years you would have paid $360,000. If you’d put that money towards a 30-year mortgage, you’d have paid off the full value of your home and have that money in equity to show for it (minus interest).
Add passive income streams and purchases that appreciate.
Passive income is a revenue stream that you don’t have to actively work for — it’s not part of your salary, rather from a rental property, royalty checks, or other sources. Like your home, real estate investments can help you grow your net worth in the long term. However, unlike your home, you can lease the space and charge rent for a short-term income supplement. If you can charge more in rent than you’d be paying per month, you’re already cash flow positive.
Like real estate, art is another popular purchase to grow your long-term net worth. Paintings, sculptures, and other collectibles appreciate in value over time.
Just make sure you’ve done your due diligence before you get into real estate or art investments as these are illiquid assets — investments that are tougher to sell and get out of. And appreciation for both property and art can often be a slower, gradual build.
Protect the valuables you already have.
Asset protection is a type of insurance coverage to look out for the valuables you own. This is less about increasing your net worth. It’s how to avoid a sudden, unexpected decrease.
Your antique furniture may be worth $10,000. Your broken antique furniture? Far less than that. Asset protection covers the cost it takes to repair or replace, lost, stolen, and broken items. But don’t just think antiques. In the short term, your net worth also includes your phone, computer, and electronics — all of which you can cover with an asset protection plan.
Tips to decrease your liabilities at any age.
Pay ahead on your debt whenever possible.
If you have extra money now, use it to get out of debt as soon as possible. Getting out of debt is the fastest way to increase your net worth. You also save on interest you would’ve owed on your loan over the life of your terms.
High-interest loans can have a negative effect on your net worth for years, and it can be really tough to get out from under payments. It also makes it tough to save for your future and build assets when so much of your income is going toward paying off debts. Also, make sure you’re paying off your credit card debt within your grace period whenever possible and not paying interest on your credit card purchases. Credit card debt can spiral fast. Stay on top of it.
Consider consolidating your debts.
If you have multiple loans and it’s tough to navigate your payments, consider a debt consolidation loan to give you a more manageable monthly payment. You may also be able to lower your rate, so you’re on the hook for less interest.
At the very least, consolidating your debt makes it easier to track so no payments slip through the cracks. If you do decide to consolidate your debt, just make sure you’re not going to end up paying more interest overall on longer terms. Remember, the goal of taking on debt is to be able to get out of debt as soon as possible. A lower rate is great, but not if costs you more in the long run.
Refinance your home mortgage.
Because your home is such a major purchase, it can have a massive impact on your net worth. As a result, refinancing your home can also cause your net worth to go up or down quickly. If mortgage rates go down and you’re able to refinance to a lower interest rate on the same term length, or if you’re able to shorten the terms on your loan, you can build equity (and your net worth) faster.
However, if you tap into your home equity to get funds for other purchases (borrowing more money against the equity you’ve built in your home), you’ll have the opposite effect on your net worth.
How do you compare? The average net worth by age.
Again, net worth is a sliding scale that will fluctuate over the course of your lifetime. There is no right or wrong net worth. The average net worth by age varies. It’s simply a figure that helps you quantify and make sense of your personal wealth. More is obviously better, but at times, you’ll have to take a step back in the short term to move forward.
Still, in general, you can expect your net worth to grow over time as your income increases, some of your debts fall by the wayside, and your financial needs change. Here’s a look at the average net worth by age group, as measured by the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances — as well as a few financial considerations at each age.
Average net worth in your 20s.
If you’re in the negatives, you’re normal. What’d you expect? In fact, the Federal Reserve Board Survey of Consumer Finances doesn’t even release specific data for this age bracket. In our 20s, most of us simply aren’t going to have much net worth to measure. Once you factor in the massive amounts of student loan debt and relatively low earnings fresh out of school, breaking even would be way ahead of schedule to reach your ultimate financial goals.
According to the The College Investor, at age 22 (for the Class of 2019), the average net worth was -$38,915. By age 30 (for the Class of 2011), that number drops down to -$1,989. With the Class of 2010 finally reporting a positive net worth age 31.2
Financial considerations in your 20s:
Open a retirement savings account. Like right now, ASAP, today. Time is the one asset you can’t replenish when it comes to retirement savings. And compound interest is your best friend. A decade makes literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in difference by the time you reach retirement age. You may be negative now, but your future net worth will thank you.
Start a savings account and start putting money away for the unexpected. Your 20s can be unpredictable — but it’s time you at least start putting money away even if you’re not saving for anything specific yet.
Do more than just save. Start investing. Again, compound interest. It works for investment accounts as well. The sooner you start, the more time you have to reinvest your earnings and let compound interest work in your favor.
Don’t forget about your credit score. It’s not tied to your net worth directly, but it’s important for your major life purchases, like when you want to get approved for a mortgage or a loan and get a better rate.
Pay down your student debt as soon as you can (well, again, pay down ALL your debt as soon as you can), but if you’re in your 20s, student debt is probably the most pressing.
Average net worth under age 35.
The first half of your 30s is where your net worth finally starts to shift positively. The Federal Reserve Board measures net worth two ways: the mean net worth (the mathematical average as you most likely think of it and the median net worth (the mid-point of all net worths for the age group, which is less affected by outliers who bring up or down the average score). As the midpoint, the median is the more accurate representation of a typical American’s net worth at each age group.
The data also applies specifically to families, not individuals, as grouped by the age of the “head of family.”
For families with a head of family less than 35 years old:
Mean net worth — $76,300.
Median net worth — $13,900.
Financial considerations from 31 to 35:
If you built good credit in your 20s, this is when it should be paying off — most noticeably in your home mortgage. Be sure to shop around for a mortgage that fits you and your family. It’s a huge life decision and will be have a major impact on both sides of your net worth balance sheet over the coming decades.
Getting out of debt should still be priority no. 1. If you haven’t finished paying off your student loans, it’s time to put that chapter of your life in the rear view. And don’t forget to pay down any other loans like your auto loan, too.
Average net worth age 35 to 44.
Here comes your first big jump in net worth. As you get more established in your career, you’re starting to reach new levels of earning potential. You very likely have a mortgage payment at this point, but your family is also building equity after making mortgage payments over a few years now. You’re balancing higher income and more assets with more liabilities as new responsibilities of mid-life adulthood take shape.
For families with a head of family between 35 and 44 years old:
Mean net worth — $436,200
Median net worth — $91,300
Financial considerations from 35 to 44:
Keep paying ahead on your mortgage and building equity faster; it’s also saving you a lot of money interest.
As real-life responsibilities mount, so can convenient but expensive credit card debt. Be sure to stay on top of it and pay this off as soon as you can (within whatever interest-free grace period your credit card company gives you).
Your expenses may be adding up fast, especially if you have kids, but don’t forget about your retirement savings — you’ll only be shortchanging yourself if this is where you decide to cut back
Speaking of kids, remember that student debt you paid off? Yeah, education is expensive. It might be time to start thinking about your children’s education (so they can get a head start on a positive net worth sooner than later)
More responsibilities in life means more people to look out for — you may be at an age where you should look into life insurance. It won’t do much for your net worth, but it can look out for the long-term security of your family and keep their assets afloat in the event you’re no longer around to provide for your family.
Average net worth age 45 to 54.
Another major step up in net worth as you enter the back half of your highest earning years. Your career is most likely in full swing at this point — hopefully with a few key promotions along the way — and you should be building serious home equity and lowering your mortgage principal.
For families with a head of family between 45 and 54 years old:
Mean net worth — $833,200
Median net worth — $168,600
Financial considerations from 45 to 54:
If you’re near the top of your earning potential in your career, you should definitely be maxing out your 401(k) and IRA contribution limits too. Contribute as much as you can, and remember, if you hit your 401(k) limits, you can still open a separate IRA or Roth IRA.
You might have kids in high school by now and about to go to college. Even if you saved enough to cover the whole ride, don’t forget to look into financial aid options. If you end up paying less in college tuition, that’s money you can put towards getting ahead on debt or investments.
One more quick callout for life insurance — rates start to rise more as you enter your 50s. Getting a fixed, lower rate may make more for a better price on your peace of mind.
Average net worth age 55 to 64.
This is where median net worth starts to level a bit. You can still expect significant growth, but it’s a bit more gradual from here on out. Mean net worth takes another big jump, likely boosted by families that planned ahead for retirement savings as compound interest starts to play a major factor in the final years of eligibility for 401(k) accounts.
For families with a head of family between 55 and 64 years old:
Mean net worth — $1,175,900
Median net worth — $212,500
Financial considerations from 55 to 64:
Get rid of all your debt the best you can. You’re rapidly approaching retirement age — that means no more income, you’ll soon need to live off your existing assets and earnings.
Getting rid of all debt includes paying down as much of your mortgage as possible. Not only does that make for one less major expense on a limited-income retirement budget, if your family decides you no longer need the space or retire elsewhere, you can cash in on more home equity when you sell.
Contribute the max to your retirement savings. Once you hit age 50, federal law increases how much you’re allowed to contribute to both to 401(k)s and IRAs in the form of “catch-up” contributions.
Average net worth age 65 to 74.
You’ve finally reached your peak net worth in this age bracket, with your final years of compound interest kicking in before the typical retirement age of 67 (though you aren’t required to start making distributions from your 401(k) until 72). Soon you’ll stop saving for retirement and start living off your retirement savings. Even if you don’t increase your liabilities, you’ll slowly start decreasing a major contributor to your total assets. But by this point, you should have enough put away for a comfortable retirement.
For families with a head of family between 65 and 74 years old:
Mean net worth — $1,217,700
Median net worth — $266,400
Financial considerations from 65 to 74:
If you’ve planned well for retirement and can afford to wait, put off collecting your social security benefits until age 70 to ensure you get the maximum benefit. Like salary, this doesn’t factor into your net worth, but it can serve as a supplement to your income during retirement.
Medicare benefits start at age 65 and you won’t have employer-sponsored insurance when you’re older. Your healthcare needs and expenses are only going to increase as you age. Explore your full range of Medicare options to make sure you have the coverage you need — from Original Medicare (basic minimum coverage), to Medicare Supplement, to Medicare Advantage, which can bundle your services for out-of-pocket costs and additional coverage.
Average net worth age 75+.
Your net worth will likely start to decline after age 75. But don’t be alarmed, this was the point of all that saving. You can’t take your assets with you, and you shouldn’t have many (if any) liabilities left on the books. Enjoy your golden years.
For families with a head of family over age 75:
Mean net worth — $977,600
Median net worth — $254,800
Financial considerations age 75+:
Protect your legacy and make sure you leave your assets to the beneficiaries of your choosing. An estate planner can help you make sure everything is taken care of.
Continue to map out your budget to make sure it’s consistent with your remaining retirement savings. Your nest egg needs to last, and for a lot of people, that means lifestyle changes later in life.
It never hurts to know your net worth, no matter your age. Taking the net worth approach to evaluate your finances lets you use the right assets you address the right liabilities, and create more opportunities like passive income. It’s more thorough, thoughtful way to evaluate your finances that can help you make the most of your money — not to mention, all the other things of value throughout your life — going forward.
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According to the analysis, the wealthiest fifth of Britons have a net household income averaging £48,700 and they use public services with an estimated value of £5,400 each year. The poorest fifth have an average income of £13,800 but use public services totalling £11,500.
See? I think I\’m right in saying that median household in come is around mid to high 20ks?
So if the bottom quintile have an average household consumption of mid 20 ks, then is it really true to say that there are any poor people at all?
It is, after all, consumption, not income, which is the important determinant of poverty or not, isn\’t it?
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BOX 1.4. Economic capabilities and innovation potential
Most innovation occurs within firms and industries through improvements to existing products. However, countries also develop new industries on the basis of skills and other inputs used by existing industries. This enables countries to diversify and alter the range of products that they export. A new index characterising a country’s export mix – Whiteshield Partners’ capability and innovation potential index (CIPI) – is designed to capture potential in both of these areas.33
The starting point for the index is the economic complexity of a country’s exports. A country is considered to have a complex economy if it enjoys a revealed comparative advantage in many products that can only be produced and exported by a small number of other countries. A revealed comparative advantage means that the share of a particular good in a country’s total exports is larger than the share of that good in total world exports (implying that a country specialises in producing that good in the global market).34 In contrast, if a country enjoys a comparative advantage in few goods and many other countries have a comparative advantage in those goods, the economic complexity index will be relatively low.35 Countries with a more complex economic structure tend to innovate more, as more complex industries help to develop the skills, technologies and management expertise that support innovation.
The potential to achieve innovations that help countries to develop comparative advantages in new industries is captured by a related concept – the opportunity value of a country’s export structure.
This measure looks at the complexity of goods in which a country does not currently have a comparative advantage and sees how far removed they are from the goods in which it does, thereby seeing how difficult it would be to cover the distance between those exported goods and potential products.
The complexity of products is measured on the basis of the economic complexity of the countries that have a comparative advantage in those products. The “distance” between two products is calculated as the probability of a country exporting both products (in other words, the lower of (i) the probability of it exporting good A, if it exports good B, and (ii) the probability of it exporting good B, if it exports good A).36
If a country’s export structure has many complex industries in close proximity to its existing export industries, it will be easier to innovate and expand into new products, as those products will require similar skills and technologies and will themselves be conducive to innovation.
In contrast, if a country’s export structure has few nearby industries and these are less complex, innovation across industries will tend to be more challenging. For example, developing a comparative advantage in the production of buses will be easier for a country with a comparative advantage in the production of trucks than for a country that specialises in oil refining.
The CIPI (see Chart 1.4.1) takes the average of a country’s economic complexity and the opportunity value of its exports. On the basis of this index, countries in the transition region can be divided into four tiers, from those with the greatest potential to innovate across sectors to those with the lowest potential:
• Tier 1 comprises countries that are already members of the European Union.
• Tier 2 is made up of countries that are in the process of developing strong capabilities and have considerable potential for development. This group includes Russia, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine.
• Tier 3 includes other countries in the southern and eastern Mediterranean, as well as Albania, Cyprus and FYR Macedonia.
• Tier 4 mainly comprises countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus, which would seem to have limited potential to increase the complexity of their output in the short term.
Whiteshield Partners’ capability and innovation potential index
Source: UN Comtrade and Whiteshield Partners.
Note: Darker colours correspond to higher values for the index. Based on 2013 data, with the exception of Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, FYR Macedonia, Kyrgyz Republic, Morocco, Russia, Slovak Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (for which 2011 data are used).
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- What paper is money made out of?
- Is there a $500 bill?
- Is gold rarer than diamond?
- Who first found gold?
- What was the first paper money?
- When did money start being used?
- Where does money get its value?
- What was the first ever currency?
- What was before money?
- What is the rarest metal on earth?
- Why is gold so valuable to humans?
- Which country first used paper money?
- Who made money?
- Is money made from trees?
What paper is money made out of?
The ordinary paper that consumers use throughout their everyday life such as newspapers, books, cereal boxes, etc., is primarily made of wood pulp; however, United States currency paper is composed of 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen.
This is what gives United States currency its distinct look and feel..
Is there a $500 bill?
$500 Bill. Like all the bills featured here, the $500 bill remains legal tender. Most $500 notes in circulation today are in the hands of dealers and collectors. … Although no longer in circulation, the $500 bill remains legal tender.
Is gold rarer than diamond?
But, in its elemental form, gold is significantly rarer than diamonds, Faul told Live Science. … Gold is more abundant than large diamonds, but diamonds as a class of material are not particularly rare.
Who first found gold?
Many people in California figured gold was there, but it was James W. Marshall on January 24, 1848, who saw something shiny in Sutter Creek near Coloma, California. He had discovered gold unexpectedly while overseeing construction of a sawmill on the American River.
What was the first paper money?
The first known examples of paper currency as we would understand it today were created in China during the Song Dynasty (AD 960–1279). Promissory notes known as “Jiaozi” were printed by a group of merchants in Sichuan during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong (AD 997–1022).
When did money start being used?
Paper money in the United States dates back to 1690 and represented bills of credit or IOUs. New currencies were introduced in the U.S. in 1861 to help finance the Civil War. In 1996, a series of bills were introduced that used new methods to prevent counterfeiting.
Where does money get its value?
Currency makes up just a small amount of the overall money supply, much of which exists as credit money or electronic entries in financial ledgers. While early currency derived its value from the content of precious metal inside of it, today’s fiat money is backed entirely by social agreement and faith in the issuer.
What was the first ever currency?
Cattle, which throughout history and across the globe have included not only cows but also sheep, camels, and other livestock, are the first and oldest form of money. With the advent of agriculture also came the use of grain and other vegetable or plant products as a standard form of barter in many cultures.
What was before money?
A barter system is an old method of exchange. Th is system has been used for centuries and long before money was invented. People exchanged services and goods for other services and goods in return. … In ancient times, this system involved people in the same area, however today bartering is global.
What is the rarest metal on earth?
franciumThe rarest stable metal is tantalum. The rarest metal on earth is actually francium, but because this unstable element has a half life of a mere 22 minutes, it has no practical use.
Why is gold so valuable to humans?
The metal is abundant enough to create coins but rare enough so that not everyone can produce them. Gold doesn’t corrode, providing a sustainable store of value, and humans are physically and emotionally drawn to it. Societies and economies have placed value on gold, thus perpetuating its worth.
Which country first used paper money?
ChineseThe Chinese were the first to devise a system of paper money, in approximately 770 B.C.
Who made money?
No one knows for sure who first invented such money, but historians believe metal objects were first used as money as early as 5,000 B.C. Around 700 B.C., the Lydians became the first Western culture to make coins.
Is money made from trees?
US Currency is made out of cotton fiber paper which does not contain wood. Cotton does not comes from trees but shrubs. Some currencies are currently moving to polymer banknotes which would be made of entirely synthetic compounds as well. But to answer your question not a single tree is cut down to make US currency.
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Electricity As A Subject After The 18th Amendment
Electricity as a subject falls within Part II of the Federal Legislative list. An important body which comes into play when the matters pertain to Part II of the Federal Legislative list is the Council of Common Interests (CCI). The CCI is a constitutional body which underwent a wide increase in powers after the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan in 2010.
Since the creation of Pakistan, electricity has been a central/federal subject but through the 18th amendment, electricity has been added as entry no. 4 to Part II of Federal Legislative list. Consequently, the provinces were also given powers over the subject of electricity. It was via the 18th Amendment that the power to levy taxes on the consumption of electricity and the power to determine the tariff for its distribution within the province was given to provinces as well.
The subject of electricity was added to Part II of the Fourth Schedule after 18th Amendment. Apart from this, it is dealt with separately in Article 157 of the Constitution which reads as follows:
“ 157. Electricity.—(1) The Federal Government may in any Province construct or cause to be constructed hydro-electric or thermal power installations or grid stations for the generation of electricity and lay or cause to be laid inter-Provincial transmission lines.
[Provided that the Federal Government shall, prior to taking a decision to construct or cause to be constructed, hydro-electric power stations in any Province, shall consult the Provincial Government concerned.]
(2) The Government of a Province may—
(a) to the extent electricity is supplied to that Province from the national grid, require supply to be made in bulk for transmission and distribution within the Province:
(b) levy tax on consumption of electricity within the Province:
(c) Construct power houses and grid stations and lay transmission lines for use within the Province; and
(d) determine the tariff for distribution of electricity within the Province.
(3) In case of any dispute between the Federal Government and a Provincial Government in respect of any matter under this Article, any of the said Governments may move the Council of Common Interests for resolution of the dispute.”
A plain reading of this Article suggests that as far as the construction of power installations, grid stations and inter-provincial transmission lines is concerned, the Federal government may make laws.
The word ‘may’ indicates that this is a directing provision and not a mandatory provision which in turn means that this subject is not under exclusive federal power, rather the concerned provincial governments are also to be taken into confidence.
Consultation with the respective provincial government, however, is mandatory as the provisionary clause (1) of Art. 157 says:
“The Federal Government shall, prior to taking a decision… shall consult the Provincial Government concerned.”
Another noteworthy point is that this provisionary clause which makes consultation with the provincial government mandatory was added by the 18th Amendment Act of 2010. So, in the pre 18th amendment scenario, provinces had little or no say. But in post 18th amendment scenario, certain amendments have also placed provinces at a pivotal point.
Mr. Shahid Hamid, a senior advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, while presenting his paper titled “Constitutional Developments in Pakistan” at the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency (PILDAT) Conference in Islamabad on May 05, 2016 said:
“Federation shall not build new hydroelectric stations in any Province except after consultation with that Province.”
In 1997 AC (NLR) 217, the following principle was held:
“Provincial Government can determine tariff for distribution of electricity within province under sub-clause (d) of Art. 157 only when it purchases electricity in bulk from national grid station for distribution within province or when it constructs power houses and grid stations and lays transmission lines for use within province.”
Moreover, in Flying Cement Co. Ltd and others vs. Government of Pakistan through secretary Ministry of Water and Powers and others [PLD 2015 Lahore 146] the honourable Lahore High Court held that:
“….provincial Government had been empowered to levy tax on distribution of Electricity in the province but the said fact did not take away the powers of the Federal Government to do the same mainly because exercise of such powers by the provincial Government was not mandatory rather optional—When both Federal and provincial Governments had simultaneous jurisdiction to legislate qua a particular subject , preference should be given to the Federal Government—subject of Electricity was simultaneously on the Federal as well as provincial Legislative List, hence the Federal Government as well as the provincial Government could legislate qua the subject without entering into arena of each other.”
And the ‘arena’ of the provincial government has been limited (not in stricto senso, but to an extent) to levying taxes and duties within the bounds of provinces.
In JDW Sugar Mills Limited through GM Finance vs Province of Punjab through secretary Department of irrigation and Power, Lahore and another [PLD 2005 Lahore 596] the Punjab Government issued a notification (under S.13 of the Punjab Finance Act, 1964) dated 25-8-2001, whereby it was provided that any person generating electric power from a generator having the capacity of more than 500 KW shall pay the electricity duty with effect from 1-7-2001. This notification was assailed in the constitutional petition with a further contention that the notification in question was not retrospective in effect.
The Court held that, “issuance of notification in question was consistent with the legislative field of power of provincial Government and its will. Notification in question which was issued in supersession of all previous notifications on the subject thus had the backing of the statutory provisions, validity whereof was beyond any doubt. Levy of duty, therefore, could not be disputed or assailed on any sustainable ground.”
Therefore, it can concisely be said that on a subject of electricity which is not constitutionally bifurcated between the federation and provinces, the federal Legislature has the power to legislate to the maximum extent of its powers. To the extent of provinces, however, the federal legislature can legislate but with the “consultation” of the respective provincial governments. It is also to be noted that this consultation must be substantial and not be done merely as a procedural formality. However, relying on the principle in PLD 2015 Lahore 146, when both the federation and provincial legislature have simultaneous jurisdiction to legislate, the legislation done by the federation shall have a superior status.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of CourtingTheLaw.com or any other organization with which she might be associated.
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- What would be considered a capital expenditure?
- What is CapEx formula?
- How is capital expenditure depreciation calculated?
- Is branding a capital expenditure?
- What type of expenditure is depreciation?
- What are examples of capital expenditures?
- Is inventory a capital expenditure?
- What are the 4 major categories of expenditure?
- Is software a capital or expense?
- How is capital expenditure treated in accounting?
- Does CapEx include depreciation?
- Is insurance a capital expenditure?
- Is repair a capital expenditure?
- How do you record capital expenditure?
- What is an example of expenditure?
- What is capital expenditure control?
- Is Depreciation a capital expenditure or revenue expenditure?
- Is maintenance a capital expenditure?
- Why is depreciation added to CapEx?
- What are the 4 types of expenses?
What would be considered a capital expenditure?
Capital expenditures are a long-term investment, meaning the assets purchased have a useful life of one year or more.
Types of capital expenditures can include purchases of property, equipment, land, computers, furniture, and software..
What is CapEx formula?
The CapEx formula from the income statement and balance sheet is: CapEx = PP&E (current period) – PP&E (prior period) + Depreciation (current period) This formula is derived from the logic that the current period PP&E on the balance sheet is equal to prior period PP&E plus capital expenditures less depreciation.
How is capital expenditure depreciation calculated?
Subtract the original value of the capital expenditure from the salvage value of the asset to determine the depreciation total. The salvage value is the estimated market value of the asset or the amount the asset can sell for at the end of it’s useful life.
Is branding a capital expenditure?
The logo or “brand” is a capital asset. It does not matter the size of the business. Creating the design is a capital expense. Once the design is created, it can be used on headed paper and marketing materials.
What type of expenditure is depreciation?
The periodic, schedule conversion of a fixed asset into expense as an asset is called depreciation and is used during normal business operations. Since the asset is part of normal business operations, depreciation is considered an operating expense.
What are examples of capital expenditures?
Examples of Capital Expenditures (CAPEX)Manufacturing plants, equipment, and machinery.Building improvements.Computers.Vehicles and trucks.
Is inventory a capital expenditure?
A capital expenditure is incurred when a business spends money either to buy fixed assets or to add to the value of an existing asset with a useful life that extends beyond the tax year. … Money spent on inventory falls under capex. The money spent turning inventory into throughput is opex.
What are the 4 major categories of expenditure?
Consumption, investment, government, and net exports make up the four types of expenditures.
Is software a capital or expense?
While software is not physical or tangible in the traditional sense, accounting rules allow businesses to capitalize software as if it were a tangible asset. Software that is purchased by a firm that meets certain criteria can be treated as if it were property, plant, & equipment (PP&E).
How is capital expenditure treated in accounting?
A capital expenditure is recorded as an asset, rather than charging it immediately to expense. It is classified as a fixed asset, which is then charged to expense over the useful life of the asset, using depreciation. … Since they are charged to expense in the period incurred, they are also known as period costs.
Does CapEx include depreciation?
What Is a Capital Expenditure (CAPEX)? … Rather, it is treated as an asset on the balance sheet, that is deducted over the course of several years as a depreciation expense, beginning the year following the date on which the item is purchased.
Is insurance a capital expenditure?
Capital expenses are not used for ordinary day-to-day operating expenses of a business, like rent, utilities, and insurance. Another way to consider capital expenses is that they are used to buy and improve assets that have a useful life of more than one year.
Is repair a capital expenditure?
A ‘Capital Expenditure’ is an acquisition or upgrade that permanently increases the value of an asset. … In contrast, any expenditure that serves to restore or maintain, rather than increase, the value of an asset cannot be CapEx — it’s simply repair or maintenance.
How do you record capital expenditure?
Definition of Capital Expenditure Usually the cost is recorded in a balance sheet account that is reported under the heading of Property, Plant and Equipment. The asset’s cost (except for the cost of land) will then be allocated to depreciation expense over the useful life of the asset.
What is an example of expenditure?
The definition of an expenditure is the act of spending money or time and it is something on which you spend money. An example of an expenditure is the money spent on office equipment that you have purchased. An amount expended.
What is capital expenditure control?
Capital expenditure controlling refers to the actions, processes and tools used to identify, forecast, assess, decide and manage capital expenditure. … Scarce financial resources and increasing environmental uncertainty require efficient and holistic capital expenditure controlling.
Is Depreciation a capital expenditure or revenue expenditure?
Capital expenses are capitalised. Revenue expenses are not capitalised. Depreciation of assets is charged on capital expenses. Depreciation of assets is not levied on revenue expenditure.
Is maintenance a capital expenditure?
Maintenance costs are expenses for routine actions that keep your building’s assets in their original condition; these typically fall under Repairs and Maintenance (“R&M”) in your operating budget. On the other hand, capital expenditures/improvements are investments you make to increase the value of your asset.
Why is depreciation added to CapEx?
CapEx flows from the cash flow statement to the balance sheet. Once capitalized, the value of the asset is slowly reduced over time (i.e., expensed) via depreciation expense. Depreciation expense is used to better reflect the expense and value of a long-term asset as it relates to the revenue it generates..
What are the 4 types of expenses?
You might think expenses are expenses. If the money’s going out, it’s an expense. But here at Fiscal Fitness, we like to think of your expenses in four distinct ways: fixed, recurring, non-recurring, and whammies (the worst kind of expense, by far).
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The proportion of the world’s population that is 65 years of age or greater has grown over the last decades, and this trend will continue. Advancing age is the greatest known risk factor for dementia1, 2. If there is no change in age-standardized prevalence, societal aging is predicted to nearly triple the number of individuals living with dementia worldwide by 20503, 4. It is estimated that, by 2050, the number of individuals with dementia will rise from 47.5 million people to an estimated 135.5 million with most of this increase occurring among people living in low- and middle-income countries2. Aside from the personal cost of dementia, these rising numbers will be associated with an economic burden. The 2015 global estimated cost of dementia was US$ 818 billion and is expected to be a trillion dollars by 20185. The World Health Organization (WHO) now recognizes dementia as a public health priority6, 7. To respond to this challenge, a global series of actions initiated during the UK G8-Presidency in 2013 were undertaken by bodies such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)8, Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) and by the World Dementia Council9.
Read full article HERE.
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Understanding financial aid
Whether you’re planning for a child’s education or pursuing higher education yourself, understanding the financial aid process and types of aid available will help you make the most of what’s available.
If you’re wondering how paying for college fits into your bigger financial picture, an Ameriprise advisor will help assess your financial situation and plan accordingly.
Financial aid can come from many sources, such as federal, state, or private institutions. Applying for federal student aid through the FAFSA® is generally a good place to start.
Federal financial aid through the FAFSA
Each year, the federal government provides financial aid to millions of students across the country. To be awarded money, students must first meet certain eligibility criteria. For example, they must:
- Be either a U.S. citizen or a qualified non-citizen
- Be registered with the Selective Service (if required to do so by law)
- Be enrolled in (or accepted to) an eligible degree program
If the student meets the eligibility criteria, the first step in the process is to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, more commonly known as the FAFSA. When filling out the FAFSA, students should be prepared to provide details on their family’s financial situation, including income and assets.
The US Department of Education will use this information to determine the Expected Family Contribution (EFC). The EFC refers to how much money the student and/or their family will be expected to contribute towards educational expenses. The EFC score can be 0 or higher, with 0 indicating the greatest financial need. The following formula helps determine overall financial need by taking into account both the EFC and the cost of the college:
Financial need = Cost of college attendance – Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
The government will send the FAFSA results, including EFC, to the schools listed on the FAFSA application. Each school is then responsible for coming up with a financial aid offer.
- Turn in the FAFSA early. Schools only have so much grant money to give out, and once it’s gone, they may award loans instead.
- Renew the FAFSA every year. If a student’s financial circumstances change, then eligibility and awards may increase.
- Fill out the application online. Applying online will reduce processing time so results can be sent out faster.
FAFSA vs CSS Profile
To receive federal student aid, students must fill out the FAFSA. However, certain colleges will require an additional application: the College Scholarship Service (CSS) Profile. This application is used by about 300 schools, the majority of which are private.
The CSS Profile is similar to the FAFSA, but its purpose is to qualify students for non-federal aid. Compared to the FAFSA, it collects more in-depth financial details, such as information about house equity and medical expenses.
It’s important to note that while the FAFSA is free, the CSS Profile is not. Students must pay a fee for each school that receives the results of the CSS Profile.
The three main types of financial aid included in a financial aid package are:
- Student loans
- Grants and scholarships
- Work-study benefits
Student loans are loans that are offered exclusively to students with the goal of helping cover expenses while in school. Both the federal government and private entities, such as banks, offer student loans.
Federal student loans
The U.S. government offers student loans to undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, as well as special loans for parents of students. There are three main types of federal loans: direct subsidized, direct unsubsidized, and PLUS loans.
Direct Subsidized Loan
Direct Unsubsidized Loan
PLUS Loan (Parent PLUS Loan/Grad PLUS Loan)
Who is eligible to receive the loan?
|Undergrad students||Undergrad, grad, and professional students||Parents of undergrad students OR graduate and professional students|
Is the loan subsidized?
Does the student have to prove financial need?
Most students who receive a federal student loan will likely receive a Stafford loan, which may be subsidized or unsubsidized depending on the determined financial need of the student.
- Subsidized loans: The government will pay the loan interest on the student’s behalf while they are in school.
- Unsubsidized loans: The interest burden will fall entirely on the student.
Whether subsidized or unsubsidized, undergraduates generally receive a lower interest rate on their federal student loan than do graduate students.
Private student loans
Occasionally, federal loans may not be enough to cover a student’s expenses. In this case, it may make sense to explore private student loans to make up the difference.
Private loans often have less favorable interest rates and terms than federal loans. For example, private loans sometimes require students to start repayments while still in school, whereas federal loans generally allow deferment until a period after graduation. Private loan interest rates can vary from lender to lender, so be sure to shop around for the best terms before committing to a loan.
Grants and Scholarships
Grants and scholarships don’t require repayment. For this reason, grants and scholarships are considered a desirable part of any financial aid package.
Grants are primarily offered to students by the federal government based on financial need or other special circumstances. Students apply by submitting the FAFSA to be eligible for one of four federal grants:
- Federal Pell Grant: The Pell Grant is the primary grant awarded to students by the federal government based on a student’s financial need. Students can use this grant money to pay for tuition, books, housing, and other expenses related to education. The maximum amount of money a student may receive from a Pell Grant has fluctuated over the past few decades, but currently stands at $6,345 per year (source: studentaid.gov).
- Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG): Awarded to students with exceptional financial need
- Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant: Reserved for children of U.S. Armed Forces members who died as a result of serving in Afghanistan or Iraq after 9/11
- Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH): Reserved for students who are pursuing a career in teaching
The federal government is not the only source of grant funding. Colleges and universities, private foundations and institutions, and state governments may also offer grants.
Scholarships are similar to grants in that they don’t need to be repaid. Scholarships, however, are generally merit-based, while grants are more often based on need. If a student doesn’t demonstrate sufficient financial need to be awarded federal grant money, they can still qualify for scholarships, which are usually based on academic performance or other kinds of merit.
The application process for scholarships differs from school to school, but students may be required to fill out the FAFSA as part of the scholarship application process. Colleges generally want students to take advantage of need-based aid before they offer money based on performance or merit.
The federal government’s work-study program allows students to earn money through specific part-time jobs offered at certain colleges and universities. Work-study hours are awarded as part of the student’s overall financial aid package and are based on financial need. Not every school participates in the federal work-study program, so students should be sure to check with the colleges on their list to see if work-study jobs are available.
Need help planning for college expenses?
Every day, our financial advisors help people save for college so they can pursue their dreams. We will help you plan for college expenses, whether you’re the one going back to school or you’re planning for your child’s future. Find a financial advisor now.
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Against the backdrop of the worst financial crisis in a generation, the U.S. microenterprise industry has shown its ability to persevere and continue to serve hundreds of thousands of small businesses owners. However, this crisis has underscored the ever greater challenge of sustainability in the field. With grant and donor dollars curtailed in this environment, the search for innovative business models that lower the cost of service delivery and require lower levels of donor financing, is more imperative than ever before.
The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation asked FIELD to evaluate one of those inventive business models—microenterprise programming embedded within a university setting—which uses all volunteer student resources to significantly bring down the cost of service. The idea for this research was born the day the Associated Press released an article declaring that the Elmseed Enterprise Fund, a long-running Yale student program, was the first self-sufficient program in the United States. This was a bold claim. But what if it were true? Or nearly true? Could university programs offer quality services to low-income entrepreneurs and do it at a very low cost?
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Although not a mining town per se, everyone knows mining plays a significant role in the Smithers economy.
Now, the Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC) has put a number on that economic activity, and it is a big one.
According to a comprehensive report on the benefits of B.C.’s mining supply chain entitled One Province, One Economy, mining contributed nearly $36 million to the Smithers economy in 2018. There were 95 businesses in the town that directly supplied materials, goods and services to B.C. mines and smelters.
“Just about every community, every city or town in B.C. is, in some important way, a mining community,” said Michael Goehring, MABC president.
Goehring noted the data came directly from the procurement records of the province’s 17 working mines and two smelters and characterized it as “very tight and accurate.”
The Interior News was unable to find statistics on the overall size of the Smithers economy, but Mayor Taylor Bachrach said there is no question mining makes a huge contribution that affects the entire community.
And the $36 million does not represent the full economic impact of mining. It does not include the wages of residents who work directly for mining companies and their suppliers, for example.
It also does not include money spent on mineral exploration. Following the Association of Mineral Exploration (AME) Annual Roundup in January, Christine Ogryzlo, president of the Smithers Exploration Group (SEG) and a director with AME, said exploration companies spent $164 million in the Northwest in 2018. Although she could not quantify how much of that was spent in Smithers, she believed it would have been a significant percentage given the town’s position as a regional hub for the industry.
Overall, the MABC report indicated the province’s mines and smelters purchased $2.9 billion worth of materials, goods and services from 3,700 businesses in 215 urban, rural and Indigenous communities.
“Mining this year turned a corner coming out of what was a challenging time prior to 2017, the more recent years, in terms of commodity pricing,” Goehring said.
He said going forward the issue at the forefront for his organization is sustainability.
“We’re keeping an eye on copper, the price of copper is getting low,” he explained. “I think a concern would be the global economy, the demand for commodities and how that will impact pricing.
“What’s really important in British Columbia is that we need to keep our focus on ensuring that our industry remains competitive, that’s critical. If we’re competitive, if our cost structure is competitive, we can weather commodity cycles in a greater way.”
Ensuring competitiveness and sustainability was the focus of the B.C. government’s Mining Jobs Task Force, which brought together government, industry, Indigenous communities and labour organizations. The task force generated 25 recommendations some of which the government has already implemented.
At AME roundup, for example, Premier John Horgan announced his government was making the Mining Flow-Through Share (MFTS) tax credit, and the B.C. Mining Exploration Tax Credit (METC) permanent.
He also announced $1 million each to develop a mining innovation roadmap expand the Regional Mining Alliance, which promotes mineral exploration, Indigenous partnerships and mining in B.C.
“Mining is a foundational industry and provides family-supporting jobs for communities in every corner of our province,” said Michelle Mungall, B.C.’s minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. “Following on the recommendations of our Mining Jobs Task Force, we will continue to work with industry, Indigenous communities and labour organizations to build a strong, sustainable economy that works for everyone.”
Another element of competitiveness, said Goehring, is streamlining the environmental assessment and permitting processes, which, he added, currently take too long. “
“We’re working closely with government to ensure those new regulations, while they achieve their desired results in terms of environmental assessment process, that they don’t unduly hamper new projects or extension of existing mines,” he said.
“The Province is aware that competitiveness is and issue and is working with us to try and ensure we remain a world-class mining jurisdiction.”
Goehring also highlighted the financial impact on Indigenous communities contained in MABC report, noting the mines and smelters purchased $265 million worth of materials goods and services from 120 Indigenous-affiliated suppliers in 2018.
“The report also found that mining is a major partner with Indigenous businesses in our province and is helping to further advance economic reconciliation,” he said.
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Composite panels are widely used in food and drink manufacturing to ensure ambient temperatures are maintained.
The Grenfell Tower tragedy has made insurers wary of insuring anything vaguely similar to the combustible cladding used on the tower. This has led to insurers asking further questions when risks include composite panels.
Such panels are composed of two metal or plastic facings, sandwiching an insulated core. Depending on which materials are used for the core, the panels can be either combustible or non-combustible. Sometimes this is down to age, with older premises having risky combustible cores within their panels, but it is hard to generalise. Newer buildings can also have a fire risk, in the form of polyurethane and expanded polystyrene cores within composite panels.
This should ring some alarm bells for types of business within which such panels are typically found. These include warehouses, cold storage facilities, food preparation and manufacturing plants and even hotels. Panels of this nature gained popularity, not just because they control temperatures, but because they are also easy to wash down, can muffle sound and also help lower energy consumption.
If panels like these catch fire, flames quickly spread and create dangerous liquid fires. Fires like these, based on melting cores, generate dense black smoke that is both corrosive and toxic. They also make life difficult for fire crews with fires that are hard to extinguish.
Insurers prefer to offer policies to food businesses using panels containing glass fibre or mineral wool cores, which are non-combustible in nature.
Although this issue has long-existed – for more than 10 years in fact – Grenfell brought combustible materials into the limelight and insurers are having to react, being under pressure from reinsurers, who want the A-Z low-down on materials used within structures.
In 2018 natural disasters cost the world $225 billion and more losses cannot be contemplated by some insurers, hence the hardening attitude towards some risks.
Some who use composite panels in their food and drink business, have already found insurance is not available from their previous insurers. Other insurers are restricting the scope of the policies offered and introducing both higher policy excesses and higher premiums, to protect themselves from financial losses. Many businesses in the sector already have slight margins and cannot absorb the insurance premium hikes.
Useful advice is for businesses in this situation to work with an insurance broker, well ahead of their renewal date (by some 3-4 months, if possible), so that a risk-containing strategy can be put into place. Panel replacement may need to occur and fire suppression devices, like sprinklers, may need to be fitted. Other requirements may be intelligent heat and smoke detectors. Health and safety policies need to record strong fire risk containment actions, and also regular panel inspections, to check for damage that could result in a fire.
A local insurance brokerage, with a dedicated health and safety adviser, should be able to contribute to strategies and pitch your business to an insurer, in the best possible light. If you need help finding such a brokerage, please get in touch.
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To be green or not to be green – that is the question being pondered by householders after a government re-think on solar panels. Last week the coalition government proposed halving the rate at which householders can sell their home-generated power to the national grid.
And, as such, it could be more of a gamble as to whether it’s affordable to install solar panels and produce our own electricity.
The Feed-In Tariff (FIT) was introduced by the previous Labour government to encourage more consumers to produce their own ‘green’ energy in a bid to cut down on the use of fossil fuels. An added incentive for signing up to the scheme was that it gave home-owners the opportunity to make money by selling any power they didn’t use back to the National Grid.
Currently residents of new-build houses with solar panels can sell their surplus power to the national grid at 37.8p per kilowatt, and those with older houses 43p. As of December 12 this is set to be slashed to 21p – although those who already have the panels installed will be guaranteed the current rate for the next 25 years – linked to inflation.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, an average household with solar panels is saving £800 a year, while for those taking up the scheme after December 12, that will be around £430 a year. Critics say the FIT scheme is only benefiting the better off, who can afford a lot of solar panels.
But climate change and energy minister Greg Barker said as installation costs have fallen by 30 per cent there has been a surge of subscribers, meaning the surplus selling rates are no longer sustainable. The big energy companies such as Npower and EDF have to pay around six times the amount for renewable energy than for fossil and nuclear fuels and the more they have to pay, the more the general public pays.
For those who do want to change to solar power, an average household would need a 1kw system (around six solar panels) costing around £6k, plus £1k for an ‘inverter’ (the machine that converts the solar energy to electricity).
The savings on bills along with any money made from selling surplus energy yields roughly a 10 per cent return on that investment, which is tax-free. So it seems, then, that it would take around 10 years to claw back the initial outlay.
But if the surplus selling rate is cut by half, surely that means that it’s going to take twice as long – 20 years – to pay off the investment. Wayne Morris, of the Big Green Company, thinks not. His Macclesfield-based firm installs solar panels all round the UK.
“As more and more manufacturers are entering the market it means that production costs for solar panels are likely to come down further and rival firms will have to price themselves more competitively. From our point of view, it means we can pass that cost saving on so our installation costs will come down.
“We think new customers will make around a seven per cent return on their investment.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that every installation company will reduce their costs if they can leverage more profit.
“I don’t think the last government realised how popular the Feed-In Tariff would become,” says Wayne. “The number of home-owners getting panels fitted over the past 18 months has been phenomenal.”
Wayne has reaped the rewards of government legislation after spotting an opportunity to set up his business a little over two years ago. A former pharmaceuticals company director who travelled a lot for work, he wanted a change when he became a dad and researched business ideas.
The Big Green Company’s turnover was £5m last year and Wayne predicts that to rise. Obviously, he has a vested interest in more consumers installing solar panels.
“Part of it is that I’ve been in the right place at the right time in terms of what’s gone on with the government and suppliers, but also there are more and more people that want green energy.”
But it’s not just residential consumers who have taken up the green mantle in the past couple of years. Businesses and schools have also been getting on board.
Rolls Crescent Primary School in Hulme spent £30,000 installing an 8kw system of 42 panels in May this year. For a 300-strong school, they previously spent up to £3,000 a year on electricity and heating. They are supplying power back to the national grid at 37.8p per kilowatt.
Josh Steiner, a governor at the school, says: “We think that we’ll save about £600 on bills this year.
“But for us, it’s not just about the money, but also that we’re investing in our children’s future and the future of planetary resources.”
Conservation organisation, Friends of the Earth, has said it will pursue legal action against the government if it pushes ahead with slashing the Feed-In Tariff payments. It has given the coalition government until 4pm tomorrow to amend its proposals or face court action.
Socially and politically, the issue is a complex one. There obviously needs to be a balance between getting more of us to use green energy and not deplete the earth’s natural resources, with making it cost-effective for all.
For individuals, it seems that whether or not the surplus selling rate is slashed, householders would need to be in their home for at least ten years to recoup the money
they shell out on installing a solar powered system.
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The first six stages of the Dogger Bank Zone comprises of up to six 1.2GW offshore wind plants – Dogger Bank Creyke Beck A and B, Dogger Bank Teeside A and B and C and D, off England’s Yorkshire coast.
Lying 125-290 kilometres offshore, the Dogger Bank zone is 8,660 square kilometres.
Brown & May Marine, Jubilee Fishing Company and Precision Marine Survey has carried out the work on the £60m four-year survey.
This has comprised ornithological, marine mammal, geotechnical, geophysical, benthic (flora and fauna on the sea bottom) and fish ecology surveys.
The ornithology and marine mammal surveys consisted of almost four years of boat-based surveys by Gardline Environmental.
Aerial bird surveys were carried out by HiDef Aerial Surveying using a bank of four digital video cameras attached to the aircraft.
The geophysical surveys covered more 4,700 square kilometres and geotechnical work included 84 boreholes and 174 cone penetration tests.
Fish ecology surveys acquired more than 850 samples and nearly 300 samples from the project cable corridors from the Dogger Bank Zone to the UK shore.
Benthic surveys carried out by contractors, including Fugro EMU and Titan Environmental Surveys, comprised 373 fauna sampling sites and 72 chemical sampling sites.
Lee Clarke Forewind general manager said this is largest body of work of its kind undertaken for an offshore wind energy development.
The data gathered will inform the environmental impact assessments for the three stages of the zone's development.
Dogger Bank Creyke Beck is now in the pre-examination phase with the Planning Inspectorate.
The final consultation phase for its second stage of development – Dogger Bank Teesside A & B – is due to start on 4 November 2013.
Forewind consortium's partners are German electric company RWE, Scottish utility SSE, and Norwegian companies Statoil and Statkraft.
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The trade balance as a share of GDP reflects decisions regarding consumption, and therefore saving, and investment. Over the past 40 years, its dynamics in France have been dominated by the cycle of construction: the balance deteriorates in boom phases. The rise in household saving, which contributed to the surplus of the 1990s, was offset after the crisis by a higher share of government consumption in GDP.
Key: the contributions correspond to the variation in the share of each GDP component with an opposite sign. For example, the trade balance improved by 4.5% of GDP between 1981 and 1997; the decline in the share of construction investment in GDP over this period contributed 4.5 percentage points to this increase.
Comments on the evolution of French foreign trade often refer to the competitiveness of the economy, its specialisation and its positioning in international markets. While these factors are key to understanding the evolution and composition of trade flows and the trade balance in level, the trade balance as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) follows a different logic: it reflects economic agents’ decisions regarding consumption – therefore saving – and investment.
Indeed, GDP is the sum of consumption, investment and the trade balance. The variation in the trade deficit as a share of GDP is therefore the sum of the change in the investment rate and the change in the consumption rate, also as a share of GDP. Thus, an increase in the investment rate, if it is not offset by a fall in the consumption rate, i.e. if domestic saving do not finance it, must be financed by saving from the rest of the world. This takes the form of a deterioration in the trade balance (leaving aside current account income).
In this post, we use this equality to highlight the drivers of the French trade balance over the past forty years. The results are presented in Chart 1. The blue line shows the change in the trade balance in % of GDP from its 1981 level. The bars show how the different components of consumption and investment contributed to this change. The chart highlights two stylised facts:
(i) Medium-term fluctuations in the trade balance mainly correspond to the investment cycle, which is largely driven by construction investment, both by households and firms.
(ii) The fall in the share of household consumption in GDP since the turn of the 1990s has contributed to raising the trade balance, but has been offset by an increase in the share of government consumption since the 2008 crisis.
It may seem surprising that price competitiveness does not play a direct role in this decomposition. The reason is that, for a given rate of investment and consumption, a rise in competitiveness certainly increases exports and the level of the trade balance, but leaves the trade balance as a share of GDP unchanged because it also raises GDP. Conversely, a decline in the rate of investment and consumption raises the trade balance as a share of GDP, but lowers imports and the level of GDP, unless competitiveness increases simultaneously.
Competitiveness gains can therefore make it possible to adjust the trade balance without weighing on growth. In addition, they can also have an indirect effect on saving and investment decisions. For example, a depreciation in the real exchange rate may lead to a temporary increase in the saving rate, and thus in the trade balance, if the additional income generated by exports is not immediately consumed.
The remainder of the post addresses in more detail the periods of increase, decrease and stabilisation of the trade balance.
Between 1987 and 1997, the trade balance improved by 4% of GDP, climbing from -1 to 3% of GDP. Two dynamics were at work behind this improvement.
First, the rate of household consumption declined lastingly from the end of the 1980s (Chart 1, red bars). This rate depends in turn on the share of household income in GDP and on the household saving rate (Chart 2). The improvement in the trade balance was mainly driven by the rise in the saving rate at the turn of the 1990s, even if the smaller share of household income in GDP also played a role.
Second, the share of construction investment in GDP declined significantly from 1990 (Chart 1, dark gray bars). Over this period, construction investment evolved in line with the commercial real estate market at the turn of the 1990s. It increased between 1987 and 1990 during the boom. It then fell sharply in the wake of the real estate crisis, thereby contributing significantly to improving the trade balance until 1997. Non-construction investment, in particular in machinery and equipment, also peaked at the turn of the 1990s but hardly contributed to the evolution of the trade balance over the entire period.
With a lower investment rate, households’ increased saving were thus invested in the rest of the world, leading to a higher trade balance.
In 1997, the trade balance experienced a reversal followed by a long decline until the 2008 crisis, slipping from 3 to around -1% of GDP. This deterioration resulted from a construction investment boom not financed by increased saving from households or government.
The share of construction investment increased by more than 3% of GDP over this period. This is by far the largest contribution to the evolution of the trade balance (Chart 1, dark gray bars). Indeed, the shares of government consumption (blue bars) and private consumption (red bars) remained relatively stable over the period. Without a rise in domestic saving, this additional investment must therefore be financed by the rest of the world, leading to an increased trade deficit. The rise in the investment rate concerns almost exclusively construction investment (Chart 3) and is due to both households and firms (Chart 4).
Construction investment has fallen sharply since the 2008 crisis, which should have led to an improvement in the trade balance (Chart 1, dark gray bars). This decline was, however, largely offset by an increase in the share of government consumption in GDP (blue bars). The strong growth of non-construction investment, after the shock of 2008−2009, also contributed to the deterioration in the trade balance (light gray bars). As shown in Chart 3, this is notably the case for investment in intangible assets, which has risen sharply over the past ten years. This enabled the corporate investment rate to rebound after the crisis, exceeding its 2008 peak in 2017. However, the investment rate in machinery and equipment remained constant over the period.
These results show the important role played by the construction investment cycle in trade balance dynamics. More recently, the sharp rise in investment in intangible assets has also weighed on the trade balance. This development is not necessarily a negative one. The question is whether this type of investment will improve the competitiveness of French firms, eventually resulting in rebalancing of the French trade balance without weighing on growth.
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OTTAWA, March 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The global vertical farming market size was valued US$ 3.3 billion in 2020. The application of vertical farming to cities has recently increased. Vertical farming is a vertical cultivation of vegetables by means of modern agricultural technologies, which incorporates building and farming architecture in a high-rise building within the towns. This technology needs to be jointly embodied in both agricultural technology and architectural technology, but little has been reported on vertical farming technology. The explanation is that plant growth is directly influenced by the control of the climate and water.
There is a need to maintain farming tasks in order to pave the way for adding to food needs because of the restricted access to land for agriculture. Several aspects affect the food industry and processing, such as: population growth and correspondingly increasing needs, reduction of natural supplies due to growing cities, earth erosion, various types of pollution, the emergence of biofuels, restrictions imposed by growing cities on food production techniques affected by customers and rule providers which requires better quality, less use of chemicals and many useful environmental attempts ‘from farm to fork’. Where architectural design is concerned, environmental obsessions have recently been combined with a growing fascination with wellbeing. It has also contributed to greater interest in the provision of nutritious food and its inclusion in the project for sustainable growth.
In the vertical farming industry, the implementation of harvesting robots, greenhouse roof washers and automated seed planters has been instrumental in reducing operational costs and increasing revenue. The automated movement of plants is becoming increasingly common. It includes the seeding, transplanting, harvesting, packaging, and cleaning unit tasks which, in turn, boost the demand for vertical farming. The primary factor that will have a positive effect on the vertical farming market in the coming years is the rapidly increasing global population and the demand for higher agricultural yields on limited arable land. For example, according to the Food & Agricultural Organization (FAO), by 2050, urban regions worldwide are expected to hold about 70 percent of the global population, which will place pressure on agricultural productivity to increase in the coming years. This method has numerous advantages over traditional farming, such as less reliance on soil fertility, low water usage, and regulated weather conditions through agrochemicals, which during the forecast spell will turn the entire agro-business. In addition, its capacity to produce fruits, vegetables and herbs of high quality throughout the year would further increase product development in the near term.
- The level of competition is high because of the involvement of a limited number of players in the vertical farming industry. The market is also rising at a remarkable rate, which intensifies the rivalry among the players in the market.
- Asia-Pacific, North America and Europe are highly inclined to implement urban farming strategies, with main competitors concentrating primarily on expanding their product offerings in the vertical farming industry in these areas.
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With the progressive solutions and implementation, the vertical farming industry in Europe has the highest demand, accounting for over one-third of the world’s total share. This is due to the presence in the area of vast R&D centers and venture capitalists. For aeroponics, hydroponics and aquaponics, Asia Pacific posted the highest Y-o-Y growth in recent years and could surpass other continents in the near future. Due to the increasing land scarcity in the region, Singapore, South Korea and Japan are constantly investing in these technologies. In the coming years, Australia, ASEAN countries, India and China will see a major upheaval in vertical farming. Further the North American countries are focusing on the conservation of the natural resources specially United States and Canada which has become the fuelling factor for the growth of the vertical farming industry in North America.
Key Players & Strategies
Commercial growers are investing heavily in LEDs and other creative lighting items to reduce their risk exposure by carefully tracking and investing in new technologies. Companies in the sector are now partnering with other companies to extend their global reach. For example, in Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, and Chengdu in China, Green Sense Farms, an American-based agri-business, partnered with ‘Star Global Agriculture’ to create a network of about 20 farms. Many businesses sell their goods, primarily by partnership with food businesses or direct sales to restaurants, grocery stores and supermarkets. Some of the major players operating in global vertical farming market are Urban Crop Solutions, Agrilution, Green Sense Farms Holdings, Illumitex Inc., AeroFarms, HELIOSPECTRA AB, EVERLIGHT ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., MOFLO aeroponics, Sky Greens, Gills N Claws Pte Ltd, Signify Holding, Bowery Farming, Inc., Triton Foodworks, Infarm, SPREAD Co., Ltd., AmHydro, CubicFarm Systems Inc., Inc., ZipGrow Inc., Altius Farms, among others.
Major Market Segments Covered:
- Hydroponic Components
- Climate Control
By Fruits, Vegetables & Herbs
- Bell & Chili peppers
- Leafy Greens (excluding lettuce)
- Shipping Container
- North America
- Asia Pacific
- Latin America
- Middle East & Africa (MEA)
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How to read financial statement
What are the most important financial ratios used in the capital markets?
A- Price-Earnings Ratio (P/E): the most commonly used in the assessment of company's value is Price-Earnings Ratio (P/E), which always appears in the financial daily bulletins, this percentage is calculated by dividing the stock's current pricing by the company's earnings .
Financial analysts classify shares with high P/E ratio as Growth Stock, generally, companies that are expected to have higher growth in the future profit will have higher P/E, and this explains why shares with a high proportion of P/E called Growth Stock.
While the low P/E ratio stock called Value Stocks, the reason is that the price of those stocks is "Cheap" in comparing to their current profit, which means that these shares could be a good investment opportunity as it is inexpensive.
B- Price-To-Cash-Flow Ratio (P/CF): many financial analysts consider the ratio of price to cash flows rather than a price to the profit ratio, where (P/CF) measured by dividing the price of a company's stock by the company's cash flow Financial analysts usually use the share price to its profit ratio and Price-To-Cash-Flow Ratio (P/CF) together, if earnings per share do not differ significantly to its portion from the cash flows, this would consider as an indicator to the good quality for company's profits.
C- Price-To-Book Ratio: This proportion is called in some cases the market to Book Ratio that is calculated by dividing the market value of the company's shares by its book value, the underlined importance of this percentage is because of the book value that set out on the basis of the historical cost and price which is an indicator for the current value, hence, P/B ratio measure the current property value to costs, if the P/B value is more than one as Integer Number it's an indicator that the company succeeded in generating a value for its respective owners. But if the value is less than one as integer number, it's an indicator that the company failed as its value is less than its costs.
- Earnings per share EPS (JD) = Net Income/ Shares Outstanding
- Return on Paid-in Capital (%) = Net Income / Paid-in Capital
- Return on Equity ROE (%) = Net Income / Shareholders’ Equity
- Return on Assets ROA (%)= Net Income / Total Assets
- Dividend Yield (%) = Cash Dividends / Market value
- Share price multiplier (Time) = Market value per share / Earning per share
- Market value to book value (Time) = Market value / Total Shareholders’ Equity
- Dividend Per Share (JD) = Cash Dividends / Shares Outstanding
- Share turnover ratio (%) = Number of shares traded during the period / Number of listed shares
- Book Value Per Share (JD) = Total Shareholders’ Equity / Shares Outstanding
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The daily commutes of city dwellers may take a drastic evolution with the development of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft or, more simply put, “flying taxis”. A multitude of startups are investing heavily in zero-emission flight, using electric power, as conventional air travel methods struggle to operate on a more eco-friendly level.
Similar to helicopters, eVTOLs are intended for short distance travel and also don’t require runaways or swaths of space to takeoff and land. Most of these electric aircraft have batteries that can allow them to fly for about a half an hour. However, eVTOLs differ notably with their lower costs, increased safety, and quietness. These advantages can explain why dozens of firms are throwing their hats in the “flying taxi” ring. According to The Guardian, analysts at UBS predict the eVTOL industry will be worth almost 200 billion dollars by 2040.
Two firms in particular, the England-based, Vertical Aerospace, and Germany-based, Lilium, have revealed significant breakthroughs recently. According to The Guardian, Vertical Aerospace flew its Seraph prototype around an airfield in Wales, which carried a 250kg load. And, its German counterpart released footage of its electric jet taking forward flight, a major milestone for eVTOL technology.
Lilium and Vertical Aerospace expect their aircraft to have a flying range of 185 miles and 100 miles, respectively. Further advancements in battery technology would see these numbers grow, making eVTOLs much more dependable. Nonetheless, seeing greater investment and expansion, both companies claim the introduction of this new form of domestic transport could be only three to five years away.
This estimate, however, is massively dependent on the presence of adequate physical infrastructure for eVTOLs, aviation regulations, proper monitoring systems, and affordability. The industry’s first answer to these requirements comes in the form of vertiports, which is where the aircraft would take off, land, and charge or swap batteries. The biggest challenge in implementing this is the lack of space in already densely packed cities. And, according to the BBC, if sites are identified, they would need to comply with planning regulations, which don’t exist yet.
Currently, aviation regulators in the US and Europe are crafting the standards for eVTOLs to meet. Once agreed, though, the aircraft will need to go through years of testing before it meets these standards, which could cost millions. When it comes to monitoring these aircraft, new airspace management systems will need to be put in place in order to cope with potentially thousands of flying vehicles.
Finally, according to the BBC, the business model of a flying taxi service is yet to be formulated, but they will likely serve short, well-defined routes in and out of cities. The possibility of eVTOLs becoming a form of mass transit is dependent on fares being comparable to trains or regular taxi rides. This is a major source of skepticism, as the use of eVTOLs may only be fashioned towards wealthy customers, prepared to pay a premium for its services.
The prospect of being flown across the city in the matter of minutes in a miniature, electric aircraft is fascinating. Whether eVTOLs simply become a luxury “toy”, enjoyed only by thrill seeking, wealthy individuals or a new form of mass transportation is yet to be seen. The investment, however, is present and work is being done to make these a reality. So, who knows, you might look up sometime soon and see a flying taxi zoom above your head.
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The transition to renewable energies and the bioeconomy are two concepts that have become a constant amongst politicians, the scientific community and the public. But what do they mean, and what do they have to do with materials? In this article Dr Catalina Rodriguez Correa, writing on behalf of materials search engine Matmatch, uncovers potential solutions to the impact that growing consumer economies have on raw material supply lines.
It turns out that with population growth and the sinking prices of different commodities, the use of raw materials has increased, many of which have entered the critical raw materials list of the European Union.
Furthermore, due to their scarcity, the extraction of these materials is becoming more energy-intensive, leading to an increase in their CO2 footprint. Therefore, it is necessary to find renewable and sustainable alternatives not only for energy sources but also for raw materials. This is the core objective of the energy transition and the bioeconomy.
Bioeconomy is a new model that proposes to use renewable instead of fossil resources to produce energy and industrial commodities whilst ensuring a sustainable agricultural production, securing global nutrition and avoiding the food-vs.-fuel dilemma, i.e. the problematic of prioritising energy crops over food.
Bioeconomy proposes biomass in the form of agricultural residues and other biological wastes as its main feedstock basis to shift towards a system independent from fossil sources. This model is supported by the European Union and Germany, for example strives towards understanding the feasibility and implications of the bioeconomy by 2030 to start structural changes on an industrial scale.
Bio-based carbon materials
Graphite is one example of a critical material with high commercial or strategic importance. It can be found in its natural state or it can be produced artificially. Both, however, involve the use of fossil-sources either as feedstock, to power the mining extraction process, or because naturally occurring graphite is itself a fossil resource.
Graphite plays a major role in energy applications such as batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells or as an anode in metallurgical applications. Additionally, it is used as a lubricant and in seals for high-temperature applications. The graphite demand is expected to increase in the following years due to the production increase of lithium-ion batteries and other energy storage systems involved in the electrification process.
Companies like Syrah Resources expect an increase of 400 metric tonnes in the graphite demand by 2021 driven solely by the battery sector. Luckily, bio-based carbon materials could replace graphite in most applications.
Carbon is one of Earth’s most abundant and versatile elements. Depending on how it is bonded, it is present in various structural configurations, which results in materials with completely different properties. Graphite is a form of crystalline carbon in which the atoms are organised in honeycomb-like stacked layers. Diamond is also a carbon crystal, however, the atoms are more closely packed together. Graphite is a soft and electrically conductive material whereas diamond is extremely hard and insulating.
Hydrothermal carbonisation and hydrochar
When a carbon-rich precursor (e.g., biomass) is exposed to high temperatures in the absence of oxygen, the carbon atoms begin to rearrange and build graphite-like structures. This process is called carbonisation. The two most widespread carbonisation processes are pyrolysis and hydrothermal carbonisation (HTC). During both processes, the main biomass components, such as cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, are decomposed to different degrees depending on the process temperature, residence time and reaction medium.
HTC is a thermochemical conversion process that mimics the natural coalification process of biomass; however, it occurs in a matter of hours instead of centuries. During this process, a mixture of water and biomass is brought up to relatively mild temperatures (150 – 250 °C) in a closed reactor, known as an autoclave, that can tolerate pressures of up to 100 atmospheres. As a result, a solid product known as hydrochar with similar properties to those of lignite is obtained.
Since the carbonisation process takes place in water, the energy-intensive process of drying is avoided, making HTC an appealing process to carbonise wet biomass. Thus, it has been gaining importance in the waste management industry to process waste streams like sewage sludge or biogas digestate since after HTC, the product is more easily dewaterable and free of pathogens.
Companies like HTCycle are making proper use of this technology not only to provide a solution to the waste management problem but also by increasing the added value of the hydrochar. The hydrochar can be used to produce activated carbon, which in turn can be used in water treatment plants to remove micropollutants, heavy metals and other contaminants, in gas separation processes and in energy storage systems.
If HTC is conducted in the low-temperature range and for short reaction times, not only is hydrochar obtained but also hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). HMF is an extremely valuable platform chemical for the production of bioplastics like polyethylene furanoate (PEF), the bio-based alternative to PET.
Pyrolysis and pyrochars
Pyrolysis is a dry thermochemical process that occurs at temperatures higher than 500 °C and in the absence of oxygen. This way, biomass decomposition is favoured over combustion. During pyrolysis, the main biomass components are thermally cleaved and as a result, a gaseous, a liquid tar-like phase and a solid product are obtained. This process is similar to the one used for charcoal production.
The solid product, also known as biochar or pyrochar, has an extremely high carbon content and with higher pyrolysis temperatures, its microstructural properties resemble more those of graphite. Yet, biomass is a not-graphitisable material, i.e., independently of the carbonisation temperature, it will never become graphite.
Pyrochars belong to a category of carbon materials known as amorphous or hard carbons, which enjoy many of the properties of graphite and can even perform better than graphite in many applications. During HTC, biomass is not as thoroughly decomposed as during pyrolysis.
Therefore, hydrochars have a rich superficial chemistry that can be advantageous in energy storage or adsorption applications. Furthermore, coupling HTC and pyrolysis opens a whole new area to modify and tailor the properties of bio-based carbon materials based on the intended application.
Is the future of carbon bio?
For bio-based carbon materials to be economically feasible and to overcome the possible hurdles related to the intrinsic heterogeneity of biomass, it makes sense to make a paradigm shift and start rethinking the concept of economy of scale. For the bioeconomy to work, it will be better to move from large centralised plants towards smaller decentralised reactors close to the biomass source.
One example of this is the proposal from the company carbonauten. With decentralised technologies, they produce bio-based carbon materials from wood as well as agricultural and forest residues via pyrolysis. These products can be used as additives in plastics, to produce activated carbon and in metallurgical applications.
Bio-based carbon materials can be possible replacements for graphite and other carbon materials. By using renewable resources such as biomass as feedstock, these materials have a (theoretically) neutral or even negative CO2 footprint. The reason being that the carbon fixed by biomass during photosynthesis is coming from CO2 from the atmosphere.
As a result of their physicochemical and structural properties, bio-based carbon materials can perform similarly or even better than graphite in various applications. Furthermore, it is not only technically and economically feasible to achieve this, but also this will contribute to the development of a well-rounded and robust bioeconomy. This leads to the conclusion that the future can indeed be bio!
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The most recent Bitcoin halving took place on 11th May 2020. But, for readers to understand what “Bitcoin halving” means, they need to first understand how the Bitcoin network usually operates.
Bitcoin and the blockchain technology associated with it are a system of nodes or computers used globally that have the entire Bitcoin code built-in to them. Each of the nodes has the Bitcoin protocol installed and stored in them. This means that every computer has a set of Bitcoin transactions in them, making sure that the network isn’t exploited by any developer. The system would deny any transaction that is not verified and stored in the network. This makes the entire Bitcoin network transparent and visible as no one can initiate any transaction without escaping the scrutiny of the system.
As more computers and nodes are added to the Bitcoin system, the security of the network increases even more. Currently, as per various sources, more than 10,000 computers are running the protocol. Any developer can join the Bitcoin network if their computer allows them to download the entire system of transactions, but not all can be miners.
It must be known that Bitcoin miners receive a reward for every block that they mine by solving the mathematical problem provided. This reward is halved every four years or after 210,000 blocks are mined. As a result, the rate at which new Bitcoins are circulated in the network is cut by half. This synthetic method applied by the Bitcoin network ensures that every Bitcoin mined is in circulation. It keeps a check on inflation in the system.
The protocol is developed in a way that it will continue till 2140. At that stage, Bitcoin miners will be able to earn fees for initiating transactions, and the protocol users will pay for it. The fees awarded to miners act as an incentive for miners to continue to mine Bitcoin and keep the protocol running. Once halvings are done, the sheer competition amongst miners will keep the fees low.
The halving procedure is important as it leads to another drop in the already finite supply of Bitcoin. Readers should know that Bitcoin is in limited supply (21 million). Already over 18 million Bitcoins are in circulation, and only over 2 million are left to be mined.
When Bitcoin was initially launched, in 2009, the reward for processing each block was 50 Bitcoins. It was reduced to 25 Bitcoins after the first halving, 12.5 after the second halving, and 6.25 after 11th May 2020.
The halving process diminishes the rate at which new tokens are released in the network and hence reduces the overall supply. This can lead to several implications on investors as it’s with assets like gold, which is limited in supply.
Previously, the process of halving was correlated with a huge rise in the prices of Bitcoin. The first halving led to an increase in the price of Bitcoin from a mere $12 to $1,150 in only a year. After the second halving in July 2016, the price soared from $650 to $20,000 by the end of 2017. The value reduced to just $3,200 in over a year from its peak, which was still 4 times its pre-halving price.
If the process of halving doesn’t increase demand and price of Bitcoin, then Bitcoin miners will have zero incentive as the reward for processing transactions would be low, and the value wouldn’t be high enough for them to profit. Bitcoin has a process to change the difficulty of mining a transaction to prevent a situation like this. If such an event occurs that the reward is halved but the value of Bitcoin hasn’t increased as substantially as it should, the difficulty of processing a transaction is reduced. It gives incentive to miners as the difficulty is reduced even though the reward is smaller.
This procedure is a proven and tested technique. It has been successful twice. The result of every halving process done until now has resulted in the surging of Bitcoin price followed by a drop. But even the crashes in the price of Bitcoin have maintained a value more than the pre-halving value of Bitcoin. Even though the process has worked so far, it’s surrounded by huge hype, speculation, and fluctuations. It’s almost impossible to know how it will react in the future.
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In Europe the healthcare system is different in each country which is run nationally. Many of the countries in Europe have universal health coverage and are publicly funded through taxation. On an average, the public expenditure on healthcare in this region will increase from 8% of GDP in 2000 to 14% in 2030.
Already we can see the increase in the funding with France spending 16% of their expenditure on healthcare as a percentage of total government expenditure and Germany spending close to 18% in 2012.
With this enormous increase in the healthcare spending, the demand for optical imaging which help the healthcare staff to monitor critical information about the patient will also grow. Optical Imaging market has a huge potential in this region with the ageing of the population increasing. The proportion of Europeans aged 65 years and older will grow from 16% in 2000 to 24% by 2030.
Healthcare sector is witnessing huge investments in technology. Demand for effective solutions and more focus on early diagnosis of diseases has contributed to it. One of the fields where such investments has risen is fibre-optics and photonics which is a driving factor for the growth of optical imaging technology.
Optical Imaging is an imaging technique used to assess optical properties of tissues. It is an emerging technology and is being used for wide range of healthcare applications such as clinical research, population health management, medical diagnosis and treatment. The first such systems was developed by Schott in 1996, since then the technology has seen multiple advancements and several companies have already improved upon existing one to launch more technologically superior products. There are basically four types of optical imaging solutions: Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI), Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), Photo-acoustic Tomography (PAT) and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) with applications varying across neurology, ophthalmology, dentistry, dermatology and several others.
Some of the major vendors of Optical Imaging solutions are Bruker Corporation, Carl Zeiss, Heidelberg Engineering, Bioptigen, ASE Optics, CytoViva and Volcano Corporation
What the Report Offers
1) Market Definition for the Optical Imaging Market along with identification of key drivers and restraints for the market.
2) Market analysis for the Optical Imaging Market, with region specific assessments and competition analysis on a global and regional scale.
3) Identification of factors instrumental in changing the market scenarios, rising prospective opportunities and identification of key companies which can influence the market on a global and regional scale.
4) Extensively researched competitive landscape section with profiles of major companies along with their share of markets.
5) Identification and analysis of the Macro and Micro factors that affect the Optical Imaging Market on both global and regional scale.
6) A comprehensive list of key market players along with the analysis of their current strategic interests and key financial information.
1) Vendors who are into manufacturing of these products as they can get an overview of what competitors are doing and also which markets they can look forward to expand their operations
2) Investors who are willing to invest in this market
3) Consultants who can have readymade analysis to guide their clients
4) Anyone who wants to know about this industry
1.1 Study Deliverables
1.2 Study Assumptions
1.3 Research Methodology
1.4 Key Findings in the Study
1.5 Market Definition
2. Executive Summary
3. Market Dynamics
3.1 Market Overview
3.2 Market Drivers
3.3 Market Restraints
3.4 Industry Value Chain Analysis
3.5 Industry Attractiveness – Porter’s Five Force Analysis
3.5.1 Bargaining Power of Suppliers
3.5.2 Bargaining Power of Buyers
3.5.3 Threat of New Entrants
3.5.4 Threat of Substitutes
3.5.5 Intensity of Competitive Rivalry
3.6 Industry Policies
4. Technology Overview
5. Europe Optical Imaging Market Segmentation and Forecast
5.1 By Technology
5.1.1 Photoacoustic Tomography
5.1.2 Optical Coherence Tomography
5.1.3 Hyperspectral Imaging
5.1.4 Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
5.2 By Product
5.2.1 Imaging Systems
5.2.2 Illumination Systems
5.2.3 Optical Imaging Software
5.3 By Application Areas
5.4 By Application
5.4.1 Pathological Imaging
5.4.2 Intraoperative Imaging
5.5 By End-User Industry
5.5.1 Hospitals & Clinics
5.5.2 Research & Diagnostic Laboratories
5.5.3 Pharmaceutical Industry
5.5.4 Biotechnology Companies
5.6 By Country
5.6.1 United Kingdom
6. Competitive Intelligence – Company Profiles (List Populated Globally)
6.1 ASE Optics, Inc.
6.2 Bioptigen Inc.
6.3 Carl Zeiss Meditec AG
6.4 ChemImage Corporation
6.5 Headwall Photonics Inc.
6.6 Cytoviva Inc.
6.7 Topcon Corporation
6.8 Heidelberg Engineering Inc.
6.9 Canon Inc.
6.10 Agfa-Gevaert NV
6.11 Optovue Inc.
6.12 Perkinelmer, Inc.
7. Investment Analysis
7.1 Recent Mergers & Acquisitions
7.2 Investment Outlook
8. Future of Europe Optical Imaging Market
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Measuring the new prosperity, Jack Layton, prosperity, cost, economic, environment, people, social
Prosperity always comes with a cost. If prosperity is to be questioned due to the existence of costs, there is no real prosperity. According to Jack Layton's essay, "Measuring the New Prosperity" (hereinafter referred to as "the Essay"), prosperity must consider the social costs that were incurred. Although profit cannot be calculated without deducting costs, profits cannot exist without costs. In addition to the inaccurate focus on the economy, the Essay fails to persuade the readers due to the inadequate comparison between the two economic measures; the incomplete illustrations against the current system; and the extreme reasoning for justifying change. For these reasons, the Essay is unable to assure the readers of a definitive proposal for the measuring of prosperity.
[...] It attempts to change the criteria for prosperity in order to promote equity, but it deviates from this as it progresses. Aside from the bias toward the current system, the comparison does not assist in convincing its readers; the illustrations does not demonstrate the arguments; and the causation of the GDP's inaccuracy does not logically reinforce itself. In effect, the Essay is suggesting unnecessary changes. Although the Essay might act as a framework for development, its ideas are not matured enough to be a direct course-of- action. [...]
[...] If the Essay's thesis is on equity, it would have focused on the education and social awareness of it. Since the economy is the outcome of the accumulated effect of every individuals' actions, Layton cannot use the economy to change individuals. However, actions can be molded through knowledge and morals. By neglecting the morals that drive society, prosperity has no meaning. Regardless of the “income distribution unemployment rates, and net capital investment,” society cannot prosper without peace and unity (165). [...]
[...] the group that sets the values for each factor). Thus, the Essay does not create persuasion; instead, it creates uncertainty. Not only is it an overhaul of the current economic system, it is too dependent on individualistic values. Although the illustrations about “family breakdown unpaid housework and child care” are relevant to families, it is not applicable to everyone (165). If the GPI succeeds the GDP and these values manifest itself into the new system, there is still no equity, because the calculations are not inclusive of the entire population. [...]
[...] More importantly, the Essay is distorted by narrow-thinking. That is, Layton forces the relationship between the economic measure and social costs. The “horrible events” that he mentions is not the only logical causation of economic growth (164). This shocking introduction may attract readers, but it also misleads them. While “creating direct jobs” may be good for the economy, the write-off of property and the casualties of human life would exceed the alleged profits (164). Despite Layton's attempt, a reasonable person would have acknowledged the obvious losses from these illustrations. [...]
using our reader.
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While consumption is growing "attending" the interests of a privileged few, the environment degrades greatly as more economic growth accounts for exhaustion (the origin of the term "fatigue") of natural and energy resources and the complete depletion of ecosystem services.
Marcus Eduardo de Oliveira (*)
Against facts, there are no arguments: the ability of the terrestrial ecosystem is limited to withstand the pressures from economic growth.
Data on the consumption of goods and services worldwide reaffirm the unacceptable differences between the richest and the poorest. 80% of global private consumption is snapped up by 20% of the world population living in the richest countries, what is "left over" has to serve the 80% of the population (5.6 billion people), resident in the poorest countries and developing countries, accounting for only 20% of world production.
Only the US, with 4.5% of the world population (315 million people) consumes 40% of available resources, leading to the conclusion that if the other people of the world wish to consume the same level as the Americans, they will need four more planets Earth, which is just insane.
Large-scale consumption is clear and crystalline synonymous with degradation of natural ecosystems; more economic production is the evident result of more pollution, more waste (disposal), and a less protected environment, which compromises greatly in the quality of life.
Not coincidentally, etymologically the word "use" means "exhaust". While the richest exaggerate consumption, the poorest suffer the consequences of environmental imbalance.
Over the past 30 years, global consumption of goods grew at an annual average of 2.3%; in some East Asian countries this rate exceeds the level of 6%. Stephen Pacala, an ecologist at Princeton University, points out that the 500 million richest people in the world (approximately 7% of the world population) currently account for 50% of global carbon dioxide emissions, while the poorest 3 billion are responsible for only 6%.
According to the Worldwatch Institute (Report "The State of the World") in 2008 68 million vehicles, 85 million refrigerators, 297 million computers and 1.2 billion mobile phones were sold worldwide. The consumption of humankind in goods and services in 1960 reached the equivalent of US $ 4.9 trillion (2008 dollars); in 1996, the figure reached US $ 23.9 trillion and, ten years later, it reached over $ 30 trillion.
In France, the mean protein intake is 115 g / day, while in Mozambique it is only 32 grams. Every citizen of the United States, on average, consumes 120 pounds of meat per year (10 pounds per month), while an Angolan consumes 24 pounds / year (2 pounds / month). The 350 million Americans eat 9 billion birds each year.
In the whole of Asia, with 3.5 billion people, the consumption is 16 billion / year. There are 150 cars for every thousand inhabitants in China, while in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) this ratio is 750, and in India, only 35.
On the one hand, there is an exaggerated consumption and waste of all natural heritage (forest loss and all biodiversity, the availability of drinking water that was 17,000 cubic meters per capita in 1950 and is now 7,000 cubic meters), while the indices of social inequality shoot up, making even more chronic the way of living of the poor and needy.
According to studies published by the United Nations Development Programme on the five richest countries (USA, China, Japan, Germany and France), the traditional GDP indicator indicates they consume 45% of the protein available, 58% of energy, 84% of paper, 14 % of telephone lines, while the five poorest countries (Zimbabwe, Chad, Burundi, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau) consume 5% of protein, 4% energy, 1.1% of paper and 1.5% of telephone lines.
Spending on cosmetics per year in the US alone reaches the amount of US $ 8 billion. Europe spends on cigarettes, also per year, more than $ 50 billion and $ 105 billion are spent on alcoholic beverages. Spending on armaments and equipment in the world is per year close to $ 780 billion while only $ 9 billion would be enough to bring water and sanitation for the entire world population.
The question then is very simplistic: no economic system can base its continued growth based on (support for) a biosphere that does not grow - and will never grow in size; a biosphere is not renewed.
This is precisely what cannot be sustained; so the scope of sustainability is increasingly distant, after all, only what is renewed is sustainable. What is not renewed is not sustained.
Therefore, it is a mistake to use excessive consumption rates to establish patterns of economic performance.
(*) Economist, professor and specialist in International Politics (HSPA).
Translated by Ekaterina Santos
Washington will not defend Ukraine from Russia. Rising tensions in the Donbass help the Americans strive for their own far-reaching goals in the international arena
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Twitter went mad last week because somebody had transferred almost $150m in a single Bitcoin transaction. This tweet was typical:
There was much comment about how expensive or difficult this would have been in the regular banking system – and this could well be true. But it also highlighted another point: in my expecience, almost nobody actually understands how payment systems work. That is: if you “wire” funds to a supplier or “make a payment” to a friend, how does the money get from your account to theirs?
In this article, I hope to change this situation by giving a very simple, but hopefully not oversimplified, survey of the landscape.
First, let’s establish some common ground
Perhaps the most important thing we need to realise about bank deposits is that they are liabilities. When you pay money into a bank, you don’t really have a deposit. There isn’t a pot of money sitting somewhere with your name on it. Instead, you have lent that money to the bank. They owe it to you. It becomes one of their liabilities. That’s why we say our accounts are in credit: we have extended credit to the bank. Similarly, if you are overdrawn and owe money to the bank, that becomes your liability and their asset. To understand what is going on when money moves around, it’s important to realise that every account balance can be seen in these two ways.
Paying somebody with an account at the same bank
Let’s start with the easy example. Imagine you’re Alice and you bank with, say, Barclays. You owe £10 to a friend, Bob, who also uses Barclays. Paying Bob is easy: you tell the bank what you want to do, they debit the funds from your account and credit £10 to your friend’s account. It’s all done electronically on Barclays’ core banking system and it’s all rather simple: no money enters or leaves the bank; it’s just an update to their accounting system. They owe you £10 less and owe Bob £10 more. It all balances out and it’s all done inside the bank: we can say that the transaction is “settled” on the books of your bank. We can represent this graphically below: the only parties involved are you, Bob and Barclays. (The same analysis, of course, works if you’re a Euro customer of Deutsche Bank or a Dollar customer of Citi, etc)
But what happens if you need to pay somebody at a different bank?
This is where it get more interesting. Imagine you need to pay Charlie, who banks with HSBC. Now we have a problem: it’s easy for Barclays to reduce your balance by £10 but how do they persuade HSBC to increase Charlie’s balance by £10? Why would HSBC be interested in agreeing to owe Charlie more money than they did before? They’re not a charity! The answer, of course, is that if we want HSBC to owe Charlie a little more, they need to owe somebody else a little less.
Who should this “somebody else” be? It can’t be Alice: Alice doesn’t have a relationship with HSBC, remember. By a process of elimination, the only other party around is Barclays. And here is the first “a ha” moment… what if HSBC held a bank account with Barclays and Barclays held a bank account with HSBC? They could hold balances with each other and adjust them to make everything work out…
Here’s what you could do:
- Barclays could reduce Alice’s balance by £10
- Barclays could then add £10 to the account HSBC holds with Barclays
- Barclays could then send a message to HSBC telling them that they had increased their balance by £10 and would like them, in turn, to increase Charlie’s balance by £10
- HSBC would receive the message and, safe in the knowledge they had an extra £10 on deposit with Barclays, could increase Charlie’s balance.
It all balances out for Alice and Charlie… Alice has £10 less and Charlie has £10 more.
And it all balances out for Barclays and HSBC. Previously, Barclays owed £10 to Alice, now it owes £10 to HSBC. Previously, HSBC was flat, now it owes £10 to Charlie and is owed £10 by Barclays.
This model of payment processing (and its more complicated forms) is known as correspondent banking. Graphically, it might look like the diagram below. This builds on the previous diagram and adds the second commercial bank and highlights that the existence of a correspondent banking arrangement allows them to facilitate payments between their respective customers.
This works pretty well, but it has some problems:
- Most obviously, it only works if the two banks have a direct relationship with each other. If they don’t, you either can’t make the payment or need to route it through a third (or fourth!) bank until you can complete a path from A to B. This clearly drives up cost and complexity. (Some commentators restrict the use of the term “correspondent banking” to this scenario or scenarios that involve difference currencies but I think it helpful to use the term even for the simpler case)
- More worryingly, it is also risky. Look at the situation from HSBC’s perspective. As a result of this payment, their exposure to Barclays has just increased. In our example, it is only by £10. But imagine it was £150m and the correspondent wasn’t Barclays but was a smaller, perhaps riskier outfit: HSBC would have a big problem on its hands if that bank went bust. One way round this is to alter the model slightly: rather than Barclays crediting HSBC’s account, Barclays could ask HSBC to debit the account it maintains for Barclays. That way, large inter-bank balances might not build up. However, there are other issues with that approach and, either way, the interconnectedness inherent in this model is a very real problem.
We’ll work through some of these issues in the following sections.
[Note: this isn’t *actually* what happens today because the systems below are used instead but I think it’s helpful to set up the story this way so we can build up an intuition for what’s going on]
Hang on… why are you making this so complicated? Can’t you just say “SWIFT” and be done with it?
It is common when discussing payment systems to have somebody wave their hands, shout “SWIFT” and believe they’ve settled the debate. To me, this just highlights that they probably don’t know what they’re talking about 🙂
The SWIFT network exists to allow banks securely to exchange electronic messages with each other. One of the message types supported by the SWIFT network is MT103. The MT103 message enables one bank to instruct another bank to credit the account of one of their customers, debiting the account held by the sending institution with the receiving bank to balance everything out. You could imagine an MT103 being used to implement the scenario I discussed in the previous section.
So, the effect of a SWIFT MT103 is to “send” money between the two banks but it’s critically important to realise what is going on under the covers: the SWIFT message is merely the instruction: the movement of funds is done by debiting and crediting several accounts at each institution and relies on banks maintaining accounts with each other (either directly or through intermediary banks). Simply waving one’s hands and shouting “SWIFT” serves to mask this complexity and so impedes understanding.
OK… I get it. But what about ACH and EURO1 and Faster Payments and BACS and CHAPS and FedWire and Target2 and and and????
Slow down….. Let’s recap first.
We’ve shown that transferring money between two account holders at the same bank is trivial.
We’ve also shown how you can send money between account holders of different banks through a really clever trick: arrange for the banks to hold accounts with each other.
We’ve also discussed how electronic messaging networks like SWIFT can be used to manage the flow of information between banks to make sure these transfers occur quickly, reliably and at modest cost.
But we still have further to go… because there are some big problems: counterparty risk, liquidity and cost.
The two we’ll tackle first are liquidity and cost
We need to address the liquidity and cost problem
First, we need to acknowledge that SWIFT is not cheap. If Barclays had to send a SWIFT message to HSBC every time you wanted to pay £10 to Charlie, you would soon notice some hefty charges on your statement. But, worse, there’s a much bigger problem: liquidity.
Think about how much money Barclays would need to have tied up at all its correspondent banks every day if the system I outlined above were used in practice. They would need to maintain sizeable balances at all the other banks just in case one of their customers wanted to send money to a recipient at HSBC or Lloyds or Co-op or wherever. This is cash that could be invested or lent or otherwise put to work.
But there’s a really nice insight we can make: on balance, it’s probably just as likely that a Barclays customer will be sending money to an HSBC customer as it is that an HSBC customer will be sending money to a Barclays customer on any given day.
So what if we kept track of all the various payments during the day and only settled the balance?
If you adopted this approach, each bank could get away with holding a whole lot less cash on deposit at all its correspondents and they could put their money to work more effectively, driving down their costs and (hopefully) passing on some of it to you. This thought process motivated the creation of deferred net settlement systems. In the UK, BACS is such a system and equivalents exist all over the world. In these systems, messages are not exchanged over SWIFT. Instead, messages (or files) are sent to a central “clearing” system (such as BACS), which keeps track of all the payments, and then, on some schedule, calculates the net amount owed by each bank to each other. They then settle amongst themselves (perhaps by transferring money to/from the accounts they hold with each other) or by using the RTGS system described below.
This dramatically cuts down on cost and liquidity demands and adds an extra box to our picture:
It’s worth noting that we can also describe the credit card schemes and even PayPal as Deferred Net Settlement systems: they are all characterised by a process of internal aggregation of transactions, with only the net amounts being settled between the major banks.
But this approach also introduces a potentially worse problem: you have lost settlement finality. You might issue your payment instruction in the morning but the receiving bank doesn’t receive the (net) funds until later. The receiving bank therefore has to wait until they receive the (net) settlement, just in case the sending bank goes bust in the interim: it would be imprudent to release funds to the receiving customer before then. This introduces a delay.
The alternative would be to take the risk but reverse the transaction in the event of a problem – but then the settlement couldn’t in any way be considered “final” and so the recipient couldn’t rely on the funds until later in any case.
Can we achieve both Settlement Finality and Zero Counterparty Risk?
This is where the final piece of the jigsaw fits in. None of the approaches we’ve outlined so far are really acceptable for situations when you need to be absolutely sure the payment will be made quickly and can’t be reversed, even if the sending bank subsequently goes bust. You really, really need this assurance, for example, if you’re going to build a securities settlement system: nobody is going to release $150m of bonds or shares if there’s a chance the $150m won’t settle or could be reversed!
What is needed is a system like the first one we outlined (Alice pays Bob at the same bank) – because it’s really quick – but which works when more than one bank is involved. The multilateral bank-bank system outlined above sort-of works but gets really tricky when the amounts involved get big and when there’s the possibility that one or other of them could go bust.
If only the banks could all hold accounts with a bank that cannot itself go bust… some sort of bank that sat in the middle of the system. We could give it a name. We could call it a central bank!
And this thought process motivates the idea of a Real-Time Gross Settlement system.
If the major banks in a country all hold accounts with the central bank then they can move money between themselves simply by instructing the central bank to debit one account and credit the other. And that’s what CHAPS, FedWire and Target 2 exist to do, for the Pound, Dollar and Euro, respectively. They are systems that allow real-time movements of funds between accounts held by banks at their respective central bank.
- Real Time – happens instantly.
- Gross – no netting (otherwise it couldn’t be instant)
- Settlement – with finality; no reversals
This completes our picture:
I thought this article had something to do with Bitcoin?
Well done for getting this far. Now we have a question: can we place Bitcoin on this model?
My take is that the Bitcoin network most closely resembles a Real-Time Gross Settlement system. There is no netting, there are (clearly) no correspondent banking relationships and we have settlement, gross, with finality.
But the interesting thing about today’s “traditional” financial landscape is that most retail transactions are not performed over the RTGS. For example, person-to-person electronic payments in the UK go over the Faster Payments system, which settles net several times per day, not instantly. Why is this? I would argue it is primarily because FPS is (almost) free, whereas CHAPS payments cost about £25. Most consumers probably would use an RTGS if it were just as convenient and just as cheap.
So the unanswered question in my mind is: will the Bitcoin payment network end up resembling a traditional RTGS, only handling high-value transfers? Or will advances in the core network (block size limits, micropayment channels, etc) occur quickly enough to keep up with increasing transaction volumes in order to allow it to remain an affordable system both for large- and low-value payments?
My take is that the jury is still out: I am convinced that Bitcoin will change the world but I’m altogether less convinced that we’ll end up in a world where every Bitcoin transaction is “cleared” over the Blockchain.
[Updated several times on 25 November 2013 to correct minor errors and to add the link to my Finextra video at the end]
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Why is there a 10-year difference in life expectancy between the rich and the poor? Is it time to prioritise equity over equality?
Author: Amalia Choupi
Editor: Maria Stoica
Artist: Lydia Popplewell
People of lower socioeconomic status may live up to 10 years less compared with their more affluent counterparts, in the same country. Surprisingly, this pattern is observed in countries where the health system is tax-funded and healthcare is provided free of charge to everyone without discrimination. Recognising this paradoxical situation is of utmost importance if we want to reduce worldwide discrepancies in life expectancy within and between countries.
A positive correlation between socioeconomic status and health outcomes is well-established, since socioeconomic status is determined by factors like income, education, housing conditions and occupation. Poor housing and working conditions expose individuals to unhygienic conditions and physical risks. Moreover, an inability to buy food can lead to undernutrition and weaken the immune system. Diet quality is also linked to socioeconomic status, as people of lower socioeconomic status often choose energy-dense foods high in refined sugars, salts and fats to maximise their caloric intake and minimise cost.
Education is also a determinant of socioeconomic status, that is critical for explaining the persistence of health inequalities in the developed world. Education is powerful in shaping attitudes and lifestyles choices. For example, learning the adverse effects of smoking on health can significantly impact one’s stance towards it. In countries with a free meritocratic education system, individuals’ progression will depend on themselves and not on their wealth. However, since we are all different, we cannot all thrive in the same system. For example, if grades only depended on group work, those who work better on their own would not produce the same results with people who perform better in groups. The ones who advance academically are more likely to end up in a high socioeconomic class, resulting in a lower socioeconomic class composed of people with behaviours that promote ill-health. Maybe it is high time we focus on equity instead of equality, achieved in this case by a free education system. Designing an education system that accommodates and cultivates personal differences could allow more individuals to progress academically and adopt healthy behaviours and lifestyles.
Maybe the rigidity of the system and not differences in wealth that are causing differences in health outcomes. Therefore, those in power may need to shift their attention away from wealth as money per se, which is one of the reasons that developed countries have failed to reduce health inequalities, and focus on the impact of wealth on behaviours, if they do not want the poor to suffer from diseases the wealthier are not.
Darmon, N. and Drewnowski, A. (2008). Does social class predict diet quality?. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 87(5), pp.1107-1117.
Mackenbach, J. (2012). The persistence of health inequalities in modern welfare states: The explanation of a paradox. Social Science & Medicine, 75(4), pp.761-769.
Øversveen, E. and Eikemo, T. (2018). Reducing social inequalities in health: Moving from the ‘causes of the causes’ to the ‘causes of the structures’. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 46(1), pp.1-5.
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U.S. federal agencies exist to accomplish specific missions; for example, the Department of Defense (DoD) ensures national security, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) explores space. To execute these missions, agencies may develop large, costly systems like aircraft, satellites, or tanks.
To reduce the amount of money spent on these systems, government leaders sometimes establish joint programs so that agencies can collaboratively develop single, shared systems. In theory, joint programs should save the government money because buying one shared system should cost less than buying multiple systems for separate agencies. In practice though, researchers found that joint programs experience larger cost growth than non-joint programs and cautioned government leaders against establishing joint programs in the future. In response, our research explored why joint programs experience cost growth and proposed strategies to prevent those costs.
Many government agencies have used joint programs to produce a diverse set of systems. A famous current joint program is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: a Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps collaboration that could have saved over $50B compared to the acquisition of three separate aircraft, but experienced over $150Bin cost growth instead. Although our research focused on a different type of joint program—weather prediction satellites—our results are agnostic to agency and system type and can therefore be used to understand and prevent cost growth on any joint program. To generate these results, we studied the acquisition history—from program inception to hardware delivery—of several joint programs and integrated political, organizational, and technical perspectives into our analysis.
This analysis generated our proposed Agency Action Model, a framework grounded in theories of bureaucratic politics, organizations, and systems engineering that explains how costs grow on joint programs. In the model, each collaborating agency is a discrete actor motivated by specific institutional interests. Unlike the private sector, profit does not motivate government agencies; instead, agencies are incentivized to maintain autonomy from other government organizations. This means that agencies value their ability to make decisions independently: a capability that is enabled by large budgets, in-house technical expertise, and unique missions that do not overlap with other agencies.
Joint programs — which attempt to shrink agency budgets by integrating agencies’ expertise, missions, and decisions — are therefore contrary to agencies’ institutional interests. If directed to form joint programs, agencies will impede collaboration by taking actions to maintain autonomy. Over the lifecycle of a joint program, agency actions form a zero-sum game: as one agency gains autonomy, another loses autonomy and reacts accordingly. If left unchecked, agency actions and reactions will continue indefinitely and turn a joint program into a bureaucratic battlefield.
Agency actions increase cost by affecting joint organizations and systems. Anytime agencies act or react, the organization’s structure shifts. Our research illustrated how these structural changes propagate throughout a joint organization — from engineers up through agency administrators — and reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of their decisions. Inefficient decisions increase cost by delaying progress. Ineffective decisions increase cost by sub-optimally trading between cost, schedule, performance, and risk. Ineffective decisions also affect the requirements for and the design of technical systems; for example, cost increases when a joint system is designed to meet the super-set of collaborating agencies’ requirements.
As summarized above, by linking agency actions to changes in a joint program’s organization and system, we were able to explain how collaboration induces cost on joint programs. Armed with this understanding, we suggested that cost growth may be prevented by structuring joint organizations and systems to disincentivize agencies from taking cost-inducing actions.
We proposed that the alignment of agency authority, mission, budget, and expertise—again, from engineers up through agency administrators—provides checks and balances that counter agency incentives and actions. Using these basic principles, we then provided specific guidance for government leaders that wish to establish joint programs in the future. More importantly perhaps, our work also illustrated the value of understanding the relationship between technology, organizations, and bureaucratic politics and how the interactions and relationships between those domains can significantly impact program outcomes.
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With the coronavirus in rapid retreat across Europe and Asia and in parts of the U.S., there is a sense that the worst of the pandemic might finally be over. But two words hover over any prospects for a global recovery: second wave.
The possibility that COVID-19 might come roaring back, either because lockdown measures are ending or because colder weather will return in the fall, is scrambling predictions about how and when the world might emerge from its sharpest economic downturn since the Great Depression nearly a century ago.
The pandemic’s trajectory, say economists, is simply too uncertain—a fact that, of itself, could hobble the willingness of companies and governments to invest and grow.
On Wednesday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, said with a second wave of COVID-19, global GDP would drop by more than 7.5%, and about 40 million more people would lose their jobs.
Even without a second wave, the OECD predicted a dire 6% decline in global GDP this year, “larger by far than any we have projected in the 60 years since the OECD was created,” the organization’s Secretary-General Angel Gurría said, launching the organization’s yearly World Economic Outlook; the Paris-based organization collects data on the world’s richest economies, with 37 member countries. The OECD’s chief economist Laurence Boone said a second wave of COVID-19 would “markedly affect” the world economy in 2021, and that “massive uncertainty regarding the virus” suggested long-lasting economic damage, worsened by consumer behavior and trade tensions. “All that will hold back investment,” she said.
The OECD prediction was grim indeed—but it is not the only one to emerge this week.
“The greatest downside risk”
On Monday, a panel of 48 U.S. economists from the National Association of Business Economists predicted a 5.8% GDP drop in the U.S. this year—the steepest decline since the 1940s, and a one-third drop in the second quarter of 2020 over the same quarter last year.
They forecast some economic recovery later this year, but only on one condition: That COVID-19 does not surge back. If it does, it would torpedo all predictions of a recovery. “Eighty-seven percent of panelists view a second wave of COVID-19 as the greatest downside risk through 2020,” said Eugenio Alemán, a Wells Fargo economist who chaired the study.
In fact, the damage could extend far beyond this year or next, according to many economists.
Marc Touati, an economist in Paris, estimates that it could take until 2026 for France to return to pre-pandemic economic levels. The French government predicts that GDP in the world’s sixth-biggest economy will contract about 11% this year. Given that, even if GDP steadily increases by about 2% a year, “it will take about five and a half years to get back to 2019 levels,” Touati, who heads ACDEFI, a Paris economic consultancy, told Fortune on Wednesday. “If we have a second wave, we have no means to make a new recovery,” he said.
The economic disaster comes as no surprise to economists like Touati.
Indeed, Touati said he warned France’s Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire of calamitous consequences from sweeping lockdown measures, and still believes that the decision by dozens of governments around the world to impose broad lockdowns has been a severe error.
He shared his concerns in a crisis meeting with Le Maire and about 10 other economists on March 4—10 days before President Emmanuel Macron announced a nationwide lockdown. “I told him, ‘If you impose a lockdown we will have a big depression,’” Touati said. “Others said ‘No, no, we have to impose a lockdown.’ It was fear. It was panic. We reacted too late.”
How a second lockdown would look
Touati hopes governments will be defter at handling the next outbreak, including a second wave of COVID-19.
That would include imposing limited lockdowns of people regarded as most vulnerable to the coronavirus, rather than broad nationwide restrictions, he said. He also believes governments should prepare extensive contact-tracing systems, ramp up ICU beds, and lay in stocks of protective equipment.
To the dismay of the French, who boast of having first-class public health, the country had no stock of facial masks when the pandemic hit Europe. Compare that to Germany, which had plenty. Three months on, more than 29,000 people in France have died of the virus, compared with 8,000 in Germany, whose population is far bigger. “We were not prepared,” Touati said.
For now, at least in Europe and much of the U.S., the idea that COVID-19 will come surging back feels increasingly remote, as people resume more and more of their pre-pandemic lives.
In Paris, for example, people have poured into the parks since they reopened earlier this month, soaking up the long summery days, and the sidewalk tables are jammed each evening after the cafés reopened for outdoor dining after a 10-week shutdown. In the U.S. and across Europe, thousands have joined street protests against racism since George Floyd’s death on May 25, seemingly brushing off social distancing instructions, as though the pandemic is as good as gone.
Sadly, that might not be the case.
The World Health Organization’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told CNBC on Tuesday that a second wave was “a very real risk,” as countries reopen public spaces and end lockdown measures. “We don’t know if it will be a second wave, a second peak, or a continuing first wave in some countries,” she said. “It really hasn’t come down that much at the time of reopening, and so all of these possibilities are very real.”
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The Colombian Government – alongside Colombia’s leading cocoa company, Casa Luker, and the National Cocoa Federation – pledge to produce deforestation-free and ‘peace-friendly’ cocoa
BOGOTÁ (July 17, 2018) — The Government of Colombia – along with its largest cocoa company, Casa Luker, and the National Cocoa Federation – has committed to eliminate deforestation from the country’s cocoa supply chain by 2020. The commitment will be supported by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH).
Colombia joined the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, a global effort to ensure deforestation-free cocoa. The Governments of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, responsible for 60 percent of the world’s cocoa, were the first two governments to sign and implement the agreement in 2017. Today, Colombia becomes the first country from Latin America to sign up to the principles of the Initiative, which will be called the ‘Cocoa, Forests and Peace Initiative’, in honour of cocoa’s role in advancing the historic peace process by providing rural employment to farmers and communities previously involved in the conflict.
The Colombian cocoa sector is growing rapidly. The crop has been identified as a priority for Colombian agricultural growth, both for domestic consumption and international export. The bulk of Colombia’s cocoa production has the characteristics of ‘Fino de Aroma’ cocoa, a classification much-prized in the international market.
“Colombia is proud of the quality of the cocoa it produces, as well as its contribution to economic growth, rural employment, avoided deforestation and restoration of degraded land,” said Juan Guillermo Zuluaga, Colombia’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. “In a market characterized by a growing interest in zero-deforestation cocoa, with a positive story to tell about forests and peace, we hope Colombia’s signing up to the Cocoa and Forests Initiative will encourage greater interest and investment in the Colombian cocoa supply chain.”
Colombia’s rates of deforestation have increased rapidly since the conclusion of the peace process, as remote areas of the countryside – once off-limits – have seen rapid agricultural and livestock expansion, land speculation and infrastructure development. Recent data from Global Forest Watch and the National Meteorological Institute (IDEAM) show Colombia saw a 46 percent increase in tree cover loss in 2017, which was double the average loss from 2001-’15, but the country is taking significant steps to stop this trend. The government cancelled a major highway project connecting Venezuela and Ecuador, destroyed several illegal roads, and launched the “Green Belt” initiative to protect and restore a 9.2-million-hectare forest corridor. To date, cocoa has not been a significant driver of deforestation in Colombia, and the Initiative is intended to ensure that this continues.
Colombia views cocoa as a strategic crop with which to close the forest frontier and restore degraded agricultural lands through agroforestry and silvopastoral systems comprising cocoa, livestock and trees. Colombia has pledged to restore 1 million hectares of degraded land in its National Development Plan and under Initiative 20×20, a regional effort to change the dynamics of land degradation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Restoration not only contributes to climate change mitigation, but also brings a wide range of benefits including rural welfare and employment, enhanced food security, soil and water conservation, biodiversity protection and climate change resilience.
“The Government of Colombia is doing its utmost to reduce the high rates of deforestation which have ensued since the peace process. With the support of the international community, and responsible businesses, my country is making strong progress towards delivering on its commitments to put an end to deforestation. Cocoa is a critical part of this effort”, said Luis Gilberto Murillo, the Colombian Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development. “Across the country, I have seen wonderful examples of cocoa taking pressure off natural forests, and instead making a real contribution to the restoration of ecological health and vitality to degraded landscapes. It is therefore with great pleasure that I sign this Agreement.”
The Cocoa and Forests Initiative was launched in 2017, in an effort led by the World Cocoa Foundation, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, and The Prince’s International Sustainability Unit. The initiative has coordinated closely with several organizations, including the World Resources Institute, which has provided support on deforestation monitoring in West Africa through its Global Forest Watch Pro platform and Forest Atlas technology. Colombia’s joining came about as a result of the country’s engagement in the Food and Land Use Coalition, a public-private collaborative effort to develop strategies for sustainable rural economic development.
Richard Scobey, President of the World Cocoa Foundation, said: “WCF congratulates the Colombian government and other stakeholders on their commitment to end cocoa-related deforestation in Colombia. We are delighted to support this initiative and, along with our members in the global chocolate and cocoa industry, will remain a trusted partner to ensure the sustainability of cocoa, the health of the planet, and the prosperity of cocoa farmers around the world.”
Colombia has strong ambitions to grow its cocoa export market, with cocoa identified as one of the country’s priority crops in its ‘Colombia Siembra’ agricultural growth strategy, as well as its engagement in the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Agriculture (whose secretariat is hosted by The Sustainable Trade Initiative – IDH – in Colombia). The lead signing company, Casa Luker, is responsible for purchasing the majority of Colombia’s national cocoa production.
Camilo Romero, CEO, Casa Luker Cacao, and Member of the World Cocoa Foundation, said: “Casa Luker has a proud 100-year history of cocoa production in Colombia, with a long-standing commitment to strong environmental management and social inclusion in its cocoa supply chain. We wholeheartedly endorse the principles of the Cocoa and Forests Initiative, and look forward to contributing fully to its successful implementation in the years ahead.”
Eduard Baquero López, President of the National Cocoa Federation, also welcomed the news: ‘The National Cocoa Federation represents the interests of the tens of thousands of smallholder cocoa farmers from across our country. There are many inspiring examples of cocoa production leading to forest protection and restoration; we wish to gain greater global market access for Colombia’s cocoa, which has such a distinctive quality and which is rare in contributing both to forest protection and to the peace. We hope the global consumer will come to enjoy their chocolate even more when they learn it protects the forests and delivers the peace!”
Wendy Arenas, Special Advisor to the Presidential Agency for the Post-Conflict, Government of Colombia, said: “Cocoa is a crop with exceptional qualities for the post-conflict. Agroforestry with cocoa helps the process of restoration and recuperation of degraded areas in critical zones for the ecological well-being of the country. Its potential for growth in the national and international market means this supply chain faces a golden opportunity. This is what we have seen in regions of the country such as Arauca, Guaviare, Putumayo, Nariño and others. It is for this reason that we have promoted this agreement as a commitment from the country which we hope will be recognized by international markets”.
Etelle Higonnet, Campaigner for the NGO Mighty Earth, said: “Colombia has just cemented its leadership in the fight across Latin America to end deforestation for cocoa. Now, we’re eager to see other countries like Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil – which have had well-documented problems of deforestation in their cocoa industries – join the Cocoa & Forests Initiative. We hope the Mercosur market will not lag behind West Africa much longer, and we look to Colombia in the months to come to promote truly forest-friendly all-agroforestry cocoa throughout the nation.”
Joost Oorthuizen, Executive Director, Sustainable Trade Initiative, said: “We are pleased that the Colombian cocoa sector is proactively working to ensure cocoa does not become a leading driver of deforestation. These signatories’ commitments set an example for other sectors to follow. As can be seen in the Cocoa and Forests Initiative in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, fully engaged public and private stakeholders can take great strides to reach their commitments together.”
Andrew Steer, CEO, World Resources Institute, said: “We are delighted that Colombia has joined the Cocoa and Forests Initiative. This is precisely the kind of public-private partnership that will help deliver on Colombia’s peace process and the sustainable development goals. We stand ready to accompany the Government to deliver on this vision”.
For more information visit https://www.idhsustainabletrade.com/initiative/cocoa-and-forests/
About World Resources Institute
WRI is a global research organization that spans more than 50 countries, with offices in the Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Mexico, the United States and more. Our more than 700 experts and staff work closely with leaders to turn big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity and human well-being. More information at www.wri.org.
Lauren Cole Zelin, World Resources Institute, +1 202-729-7736, [email protected]
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A mass transit system of any scale is a capital-intensive project and requires heavy financial resources. The economic benefits of the system, however, are much higher than the financial costs, due to which it is in the favour of governments to provide a transit system. Public transport forms a lifeline of cities as it allows people to access economic opportunities and earn a living. Apart from this direct economic benefit, there are more indirect benefits such as reduced air pollution, congestion, travel times, road accidents and such, that make transit systems more economical for all. In many developing countries, a large part of the society depends on transit as they do not have a choice of owning a personal vehicle due to lower affordability. For these reasons, many governments around the world subsidize the use of public transport so as to make it affordable for the public, without whom, there will be no public transport. In countries such as India, Germany, France, Nordic countries and others, which are ‘welfare states’ committed to protecting and promoting social and economic well-being of its citizens, public transport is counted as a ‘social good’. Social goods are never provided with the intention of making monetary profits. That is also the reason why most public transport systems around the world are not able to make profits, although some have been able to make operating profits. It is not common for transit systems to make profits after accounting for subsidies doled out by the governments.
There are however, other ways of making the service profitable, so that those profits can be used to improve the quality of the system, upgrading its infrastructure or its services for the benefit of the public. Most commonly, the land around transit nodes is used a resource to develop and earn revenues, provided that land is owned by them. Some examples are those of Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. What is important is, that cost of using the public transport must remain affordable for it to act like a public transport. However, different countries have their own reasons behind putting a particular price tag on use of transit service. For example, Delhi Metro and Amsterdam Metro have comparable facilities. In Delhi, a one-way journey on Delhi Metro to the farthest destination cost 60 INR in 2018, while a one-way journey on a Amsterdam Metro cost € 3.5 (and if discounted during off-peak hours, it cost € 2.4). Using the Big Mac Index for 2018 (The Economist, 2018), clearly the fares of Amsterdam are much more than that of Delhi. However, there are many local factors that may be responsible for this difference.
In another example, during my lectures to international students in the Netherlands, some students pointed to the prohibitively high costs of using bus and train systems in the Netherlands comparing them to public transport systems in their own country. We all agreed that it is not the most prudent thing to compare systems of different countries because surely, there are differences between the level of service, cost of system, and many other factors. However, it became a rather interesting to me when they also confessed that they use it only because they have no choice. Now there are two things to understand from this example. Firstly – is Dutch public transport expensive in ‘absolute’ sense, or secondly, is it expensive ‘relative’ to other locally available modes of transport or is it both? All these factors affect the use of transit. Let us first discuss the first part. A recent study in European Union, Newmark (2019) reported that the Dutch transit system is most expensive, being about 35% more expensive than the average costs of transit systems in the Union. But, is expensive necessarily unaffordable? May be, may be not. To understand if a transit system, or any other commodity is expensive in absolute terms, it needs to be studied in context of the average affordability of the peopleLet us now discuss the second part. For any successful modal shift from polluting private modes of transport to public transport, it is important for the transit system to be attractive, user-friendly and it must be able to compete with private transport in terms of speed, comfort and cost. If the public transport system is not as cost-effective when compared to private transport, it is unlikely that people will shift from cars to public transport..
It is a common belief among people that fare revenues are critical for provision of a transit service. However, some recent developments in Europe will make you wonder if that is really true. Recently, there have been some interesting and encouraging examples from European countries who are have already or are planning to make their public transport free for their residents. Germany is planning to make public transport free is some of its cities like Essen, Bonn, Mannheim and others. Luxembourg plans to make it free all over the country from beginning of 2019 (Radu, 2018b). Estonia is also planning the same for 11 out of its 15 counties from summer of 2019 following the success of its capital city Tallinn that is already doing it since 2013 (Radu, 2018a). Almost 20 French cities like Dunkirk, have made their public transport completely or partially free. All these examples have become an inspiration for other cities, while also being criticized by other experts (King, 2017) (Newmark, 2019). Some experts believe that instead of completely free transit rides, that will lead to huge losses, fares should be means-tested or income-based. Interestingly, however, the Mayor of Dunkirk city explains that the fare revenue of public transport covered only about 10% of the entire cost of operations (although for bigger cities like Paris, the fare revenues make up for about 50% of the operational costs) (Willsher, 2018). This loss of financial revenue was compensated in Dunkirk by other sources of income while the social advantages have been huge. There has been increase in ridership to the tune of even 50% on some routes. He also explained how making the transit free, has changed the way people treat public transport now. Earlier, the people paid a small fee but felt to have bought the right to abuse it or mistreat it. Now, however, they feel more responsible towards it. Earlier, the system was considered to be useful only for elderly, students, or those who couldn’t drive. Now, the system is for everyone and people are experimenting by changing their travel choices and using buses instead of cars. Some researcher have, however, found that most of the ridership gains in such examples are because people who used to walk or cycle have shifted to public transport and not because people have made a shift from their cars.
Although the step to make public transport free remains debated, it has two very important features that must be remembered. Firstly, once implemented, it is impossible to go back and revert to the usual fare system. Public will not accept the change. Secondly, free transit service will increase ridership that will put pressure on the system’s capacity. If the transit capacity is not increased, comfort levels will reduce which will eventually push away the choice-riders. Hence, it becomes imperative to keep investing in transit services to keep them attractive to riders.
Cities in developing countries have to be aware
of this possibility of sudden and extreme pressure on transit capacity and be
prepared for it. If the existing system has no extra capacity and city
authorities are not in a position to invest in the augmentation of transit
service immediately or in near future, it is best not to experiment with this
step. However, making transit free or discounted during off-peak hours should
improve ridership during that time, leading to more efficient use of transit
throughout the day. Public reaction to such a step is quite unpredictable but a
major factor in success or failure of such a step. While the cities in Europe
have experienced a very positive reaction, it would not be surprising if people
in other countries tend to devalue or abuse the facility that is given to them
for free. Many psychological, social and cultural factors are at play here. To
conclude, affordability of public transport remains a key factor is inducing
and encouraging transit use and there are many ways to achieve that, ranging
from subsidizing to making it partially or completely free.
The Big Mac Index is published every year by The Economist magazine and gives a measure of the purchasing power parity (PPP) between nations. It is based on the theory that changes in exchange rates between currencies should affect the price that consumers pay for a Big Mac in a particular nation. Why the Big Mac? Because it is a top-selling McDonald’s burger and it is available in almost every country and manufactured in a standardized size, composition and quality. The Index is based on a survey done by The Economist every year all over the world. To clarify further, purchasing power parity (PPP) states that the price of a good in one country should be equal to its price in another country, after adjusting for the exchange rate between the two countries. Segal T. (2018) What is the Big Mac Index? Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/big-mac-index.asp.
TheEconomist. (2018) Big Mac Index – global prices for a Big Mac in July 2018, by country (in U.S. Dollars). Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac/.
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The enhanced circulation of goods and services has now made it increasingly necessary to use a distinctive mark or brand name to identify a product, service or enterprise. This serves the interest of the producers of such products, the traders, as well as of the consumers. A trademark serves as a guarantee of the quality of products and services to the consumers.
Once a trademark has acquired a reputation, it makes it easier for the producer to get into new markets, which could also stimulate exports. Trademarks are distinctive signs capable of distinguishing and identifying goods or services produced or provided by one enterprise from those of others producing similar goods or services. A trademark is protected on the basis of its usage in the marketplace in some countries, or on the basis of registration in others.
Registration of a trademark provides the owner of the trademark a prima facie proof of its validity, ownership and reputation for the quality of goods or services to which the particular trademark relates. It also gives the owner the exclusive right to prevent third parties not having the owner’s consent, from using identical or similar signs for goods and services which either identical or similar to those in respect of which a trademark is registered. According to the TRIPS Agreement (Article 15.4), the nature of the goods or services to which a trademark is to be applied shall in no case form an obstacle to registration of the trademark.
As per the TRIPS Agreement (Article 16.2), in determining whether a trademark is well known, account shall be taken of the knowledge of the trademark in the relevant sector by the public. Factors for consideration in the determination of well-known marks also include the value associated with the mark concerned. In India Trademark law was enacted in 1958 and it has been amended in 1999 to conform to the provisions of the TRIPS agreement.
The cost of filing an application for registration of a trademark is currently Rs. 9000/- for efiling and 10,000/- for physical filing per class. Once you have got a registered trademark; it is much easier to take legal action against those who violate your trademark.
Process of Registration:
- SEARCH: Conduct a trademark availability search (for depiction screen shot of Indian trademark search engine)
- FILING: Trademark application to be filed with Trademark office (efiling –tmr and Trademark Application form both to be depicted)
- EXAMINATION: Trademark Office examines the registrability of the application.
- PUBLICATION: Acceptance of application by the Registrar are published in Trademark Journal (Provided by CDAC)
- OPPOSITION: After publishing of applications in the Trademark Journal, third party (ies) can oppose the registration within 4 months in a prescribed format; applicant has the option to provide justification to the Trademark Office for such opposition.
- NO OPPOSITION: Trademark is entitled for registration
- Describe your mark
- Name of the applicant along with address
- Describe the product and services on which the mark will be used
- Suggest the classification under which the mark will be used
Advantages of Trademark Registration
- Protects your hard earned goodwill
- Protects your name from being used by others
- Creates a favorable impression in the mind of your consumers
- Helps in obtaining relief in case of infringement
- Gives you right to license /assign trademarks
Under the Trade Marks Act for infringements:
- An infringement suit must be filed immediately in the nearest District Court.
- Both civil and criminal remedies are simultaneously available.
Relief and remedies include:
- Injunction restraining the future use of the counterfeit marks
- Order for delivery of the infringing labels and marks for destruction
- Seizure and confiscation of the infringing goods by Police
- Imposition of fines and penalties
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People talk a lot* about marginal tax rates**. You often hear that the income tax rate is going down from 16% to 15.5%, or that the highest marginal tax rate is now 29%. What we don’t talk about is the full structure of the tax system, and what the marginal tax rate is overall as you go up (or down) in income***.
Looking at the above graph, you may notice a few things. One is that the highest tax rates are paid by those with the least income (this is largely due to the 50% clawback of all income for those on welfare). The marginal tax rates for those earning less than $15k are never reached by anyone earning more than $15k. Many consider this a very strong disincentive to work (or at least a strong disincentive to report income).
There are a few oddities in the graph:
Around $15k, the spike is caused by the loss of the welfare prescription drug benefit
Between $43k and $49k, the tax rate decreases by about 7%, because Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan contributions max out
The spikes at $20-25k, $36-38k, $48k, $72k, $201k are caused by the strange way that the Ontario Government implemented the Ontario Health Premium
It might be interesting to overlay this graph with a graph of what percentage of the population is in each category, and what percentage of each of those groups vote.
Welfare: $224 basic needs, $368 shelter allowance
Welfare: $592/month = 7104 + 848/yr = 7952/yr
(includes ** Includes 2010 Ontario Energy and Property Tax Credit and 2010-11OntarioSales Tax Credit.)
*Well, probably not that much.
**Marginal tax rates in this instance are defined as the amount of tax paid per thousand dollars of income (marginal tax rate at $10k income would be: (Tax paid @$10k-Tax paid @ $9k)/$1000 )
***This post assumes Toronto, Ontario residents, 2011 tax rates, single adult
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Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty Images
Academics and business owners periodically come up with theories for increasing worker output while keeping the same number of workers through modern management theories. According to political science professor Dr. Yasin Olum, modern management is the era of management that began in the 1880s and 1890s with Frederick Taylor, who argued for the abandonment of old management practices for empirically backed best practices. To maximize productivity, managers must understand the latest best practices.
Maximize Employee Productivity
Modern management theories help businesses maximize production by using human resources to their maximum potential. Businesses do whatever possible to develop workers towards their maximum efficiency and potential.
Fredrick Taylor's theory of scientific management held that businesses could maximize the productivity of unskilled workers by first observing work processes and then developing best practices. Taylor's theory builds on Adam Smith's theory of the division of labor, which ensures that each worker becomes increasingly more skilled at a particular task, allowing each worker to become as productive as possible.
Simplify Decision Making
Max Weber theorized that hierarchical systems encourage informed decision making. In the 1990s, the theory of hierarchy delayering emerged. A report for the Institute for Employment Studies argues that flattening the hierarchy would shorten communication paths, stimulate local innovation, speed up decision making and create an environment where managers were more closely involved in production. Flattening out hierarchy means removing overhead and reducing bureaucracy.
Increase Staff Participation
Management theories of the 1930s focused on interpersonal relationships in the workplace, called the human relations approach. Businesses gave the staff more influence over decisions within the workplace. The human relations theory focused more on the psychological and sociological aspects of management, using Abraham Maslow's theories of motivation and Chris Argyris' ideas on how organizational structure interferes with satisfaction.
Think Objectively and Use Scientific Processes
Taylor's scientific management theories leave executives accountable to scientific processes, instead of simply relying on their judgment. When management strategies are implemented, others in the company can test the effectiveness of these strategies and determine if they are truly effective. This discourages management from making decisions purely on whim and instead encourages management to make scientifically proven changes that increase worker productivity.
Adapt to Global Changes
Globalization theories take into account changes occurring throughout the world and how these changes influence business. The globalization theories hold that the business world is becoming increasingly more interconnected and many enterprises are engaging in business with other international companies, investing, hiring overseas workers and handling overseas distribution chains. Globalization is partially driven by the development of informational technologies such as the Internet.
Chuck Robert specializes in nutrition, marketing, nonprofit organizations and travel. He has been writing since 2007, serving as a ghostwriter and contributing to online publications. Robert holds a Master of Arts with a dual specialization in literature and composition from Purdue University.
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Your personal net worth is a number that represents the total of your assets minus your liabilities at one moment in time. It’s useful to measure your financial progress, especially if you calculate it annually, as it will allow you to see whether the decisions you’re making are improving or decreasing your net worth. It is possible to have a negative net worth, if you owe more than you own. If you discover your net worth is negative, you’ll need to take steps to pay off debts as soon as possible.
How to Calculate Your Net Worth
Assets: On a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet, list your largest assets. For the majority of people, your largest assets would consist of your home if you’re a homeowner, and your cars. It may include boats, vacation homes, campers, etc. Use accurate estimations for what each is worth in current dollars.
Next, list your liquid assets from checking accounts, cash on hand, savings accounts, certificate of deposits, and retirement accounts. Get your most recent statements for all accounts to have the most accurate representation of value.
Next, list personal items that may be valuable. Jewelry, antiques, collections, musical instruments, electronics, etc. You shouldn’t make a list of everything you own, but try to include anything that has a value of $500 or more.
Get the total value of all of the assets you’ve listed. This is your “total assets”.
Liabilities: On the other side of your paper or spreadsheet, begin listing your largest liabilities – money owed on a mortgage, car loan, boat loan, etc.
Follow by listing money owed on personal loans, student loans, credit cards and any other debts that need to be repaid.
Add everything on your liabilities list to come up with your “total liabilities”.
Calculate: Once you have your two totals, subtract your total liabilities from your total assets. This is your net worth. If it’s positive, you’ve been moving in the right direction! If it’s a negative number, you need to cut down on debts.
If you calculate your net worth annually, you’ll be able to compare it from one year to the next and determine if you’re moving in the right direction financially – or if you are getting more and more behind by adding more debts.
How Do You Measure Up?
It’s not necessary to measure your net worth against other people, but if you’re wondering whether you have an average net worth you can visit https://www.networthiq.com/. Not only can you use this site to calculate your net worth, but you can look at other people who post theirs publicly, as well, and see how other people are managing their money. Just because someone has a bigger house than you doesn’t necessarily mean they are better at managing their money or have a greater net worth.
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Working capital management
Working capital is also called revolving, circulating or short term capital. Every business require the funds for its establishment which is called fixed capital and require funds to carry out its day to day operations like purchase of raw material, payment of wages etc. which is called working capital. Thus, working capital is the capital required to finance the short term or current assets such as cash, securities, debtors, stock.
2 Concepts of working capital
Generally there are two concepts of working capital. They are gross working capital and net working capital. But they are defined by different names. They are explained below:
1) In broad sense: working capital refers to gross working capital. It is also defined as financial concept or going concern concept. It means the capital invested in the current assets of the firm. Current assets mean the assets which can be converted into cash easily or within one accounting period. It helps in determining the return on investment in working capital and providing correct amount of working capital at right time.
2) In narrow sense: working capital refers to net working capital. It is also defined as accounting concept. It means excess of current assets over current liabilities. It helps in finding out firm’s capability to meet short term liabilities as well as indicates the financial soundness of the enterprise.
Net working capital = current assets – current liabilities
Net working capital can be +ve or –ve. When current assets are more than the current liabilities than working capital is +ve and when current assets are less than the current liabilities than working capital is –ve.
At the end we can say, that both the working capital are important but according to the suitability gross working capital is suitable for companies having separate ownership or management while net working capital is suitable for sole trader companies or partnership firms.
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Canada's oil and natural gas industry works with Indigenous groups to seek ways to mitigate impacts and to share the benefits of resource development.
The oil and natural gas industry acknowledges the importance of Indigenous reconciliation in Canada, and considers natural resource development to be linked to the broader Canadian reconciliation process. Strong and responsible development contributes to overall reconciliation and Indigenous self-determination by supporting the growth of sustainable Indigenous communities. Industry believes this is the strongest contribution and best path forward, and will ultimately help build a better Canada.
Friendship and Trust: Canada's Energy Industry and Indigenous People
The industry has a role in building respectful and mutually beneficial relationships with Indigenous peoples. Opportunities for learning and improvement continue to arise. The oil and natural gas industry is open to meaningful dialogue, and developing respectful relationships and partnerships that lead to mutual benefits and a strong shared future. Companies are working to find their own path forward with the communities in whose traditional territory they operate.
PODCAST: Economic reconciliation in a post-COVID world
Karen Ogen Toews of the First Nations LNG Alliance and Wet'suwet'en First Nation discusses COVID and economic reconciliation through energy projects that create jobs, investment and partnerships.
Mutually Beneficial Energy Development
Successful engagement at any scale stems from clear expectations on the part of companies and communities, including an understanding of needs, scope, risks, schedule and goals. In short, there is a need for balance when it comes to engagement between the industry and Indigenous peoples.
The energy sector, governments and Indigenous peoples are finding new ways to work together, to grow energy development in a sustainable and mutually beneficial manner. Actions include consultation, procurement, equity partnerships, consultation capacity funding, agreements; community investment, and training, skills development and employment. Other elements involve environmental stewardship and social responsibility.
Indigenous Communities and Canada's Oil Sands
The oil sands industry also benefits from its relationship with Indigenous communities and sees value in continuing to build strong relationships. In 2019, about $2.4 billion was spent on procurement from Indigenous businesses, which is 16 per cent higher than in 2018 (about $2 billion) and 53 per cent higher than in 2017 (about $1.5 billion) (Source: CAPP, Indigenous Supply Chain, 2020).
The number of Indigenous suppliers has also grown, from 263 in 2017 to 275 in 2019, with cumulative procurement spending in the three-year period 2017 through 2019 totalling about $5.9 billion.
As Indigenous businesses grow their participation in resource development, Indigenous people are a growing proportion of oil and natural gas employment, making up 7.4 per cent of the industry’s workforce in 2019 (up from 4.8 per cent in 2018). For comparison, Indigenous people make up 3.3 per cent of total employment in Canada.
United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People
In 2007 the United Nations adopted the United Nations Declaration on The Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The governments of B.C., Alberta and Canada have committed to implement UNDRIP. These commitments present an opportunity to transform the relationship between Indigenous peoples and all Canadians. CAPP endorses UNDRIP as a framework for reconciliation in Canada and we support the implementation of UNDRIP’s principles in a manner consistent with the Canadian Constitution and law.
The upstream oil and natural gas sector has worked for decades to improve relations with Indigenous peoples and communities, recognizing that Canada’s natural resources belong to all Canadians, and all Canadians deserve to benefit from resource development. The industry has decades of work and leadership in this regard, with demonstrable, positive, mutually beneficial results.
Benefits of Working with Indigenous Communities
The growing trend toward deeper engagement, and the experience of individual Indigenous communities that have engaged in economic partnerships and other programs in collaboration with industry, prove that the economic participation of Indigenous peoples in resource development is desirable. The oil and natural gas industry benefits from working with Indigenous businesses that are located close to operations, offer competitive prices and understand industry’s challenges. This is a growing source of mutual benefit for companies and Indigenous communities. These opportunities help Indigenous communities to build pathways into prosperity, and are tangible, positive steps toward overall reconciliation.
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Report: Governments collectively failing to deliver net-zero-aligned coal phase-out
Coal accounted for 40% of carbon emissions from energy use last year and this trend is unlikely to be stopped by existing commitments from national governments - including so-called 'green' Covid-19 recovery strategies.
That is the stark warning from a new research paper published in the journal ‘Nature’ this week, co-authored by 13 academics specialising in climate change, public policy, international relations and energy.
The research paper explains how, in spite of the fact that coal plants without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are incompatible with net-zero – a milestone the IPCC has proven must be reached by 2050 if the world is to cap warming at 1.5C – many nations are planning to dramatically increase their coal generation capacity in the next three decades.
Bangladesh has more than doubled its coal generation capacity since 2015, for example, with generation capacity also having boomed in the Philippines (77% increase), South Korea (22% increase) and Indonesia (21%).
This trend is set to continue over the coming decades, particularly in populous Asian countries such as China, Japan and India, as governments are broadly failing to deliver ambitious coal phase-out plans as part of their climate commitments, the report concludes. These failures will result in emissions larger than those set to be prevented by coal phase-out strategies in nations like Spain and the UK.
The report goes on to recommend a string of policy instruments which governments can deploy to ensure that their coal phase-out strategies are aligned with climate science and are socially just, ensuring that workers and communities currently dependent on coal are reskilled and that developing nations are supported to industrialise in low-carbon ways.
Ministers should remove coal subsidies as soon as possible, as they are hampering the creation of a level playing field for renewable and low-carbon energy generation, the report argues. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), governments provided $5.2trn in fossil fuel subsidies in 2017 – equivalent to 6.5% of global GDP. Many nations with net-zero targets have not yet developed subsidy phase-out plans.
Caps on new coal facilities should then be implemented, to slow the future pipeline, alongside higher carbon pricing.
Governments should also prepare to pay off coal-fired power plant operators for agreements which will see their facilities closed before the end of their working lifespan and their employees reskilled for work in other, lower-carbon sectors, the research paper argues. Such agreements are likely to cost millions of dollars per power plant but will create economic benefits in the form of stronger clean energy sectors, reduced healthcare costs and natural capital.
While reskilling is a crucial part of any ‘just’ transition, the report argues that it is not a silver bullet and that a more holistic approach is needed. Should electricity prices increase as a result of investment in new clean energy generation, governments should shield the poorest by adjusting tariffs, investing in community benefit funds or subsidising energy efficiency. The UK Government notably sees energy efficiency subsidies as a key mechanism for reaching key social, economic and climate milestones post-Covid-19, and has earmarked £3bn for loans and grants over the next year.
The report additionally recommends extensive compensation for regional economies hit the hardest by coal plant closures, to be paid for by central government and through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement. Funding should be used to expand lower-carbon industries like communication technology, finance, higher education and low-emission transport.
“Efforts to phase out coal will only succeed if stakeholders are involved early on in the decision process to ensure democratic legitimacy,” the report warns.
“This is particularly important during times in which populist parties increasingly depict climate change mitigation as a project undertaken by the political elite against the interests of the broader population, and where well-founded concerns about economic prosperity dominate public discourse.”
What next for coal?
With energy demand having fallen across the world as a result of Covid-19 lockdowns, many governments have ordered coal plants to come offline for longer than usual. The US Energy Information Administration expects 20% less coal generation in 2020 than last year. On a global scale, the IEA is forecasting an 8% year-on-year decline.
This decrease in coal consumption, compounded by the development of “green” recovery packages, worsened the coal sector’s financial outlook – already dampened by stronger climate policies. S&P Global Market Intelligence claims that coal companies were at more than three times the risk of defaulting on payments in March 2020 than in March 2019.
The UN is urging national governments not to bail out coal companies at this moment in time, as it does not believe that the sector can credibly transition in line with the Paris Agreement. Addressing world leaders representing more than 80% of the world’s annual energy use at a recent virtual conference, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said: “Coal has no place in COVID-19 recovery plans.”
Nations including the UK, Canada, South Korea and Nigeria have committed to excluding coal generators from their recovery packages, providing them with no bail-outs or other supports. But hefty bailout packages have already been awarded in the US.
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Decarbonising the final 20%
At least 20 countries, collectively representing around 70% of global GDP, are proposing hydrogen strategies or roadmaps as key elements of their decarbonisation plans. This report identifies the sectors where we see the biggest opportunities for hydrogen: industrial processes, heating, fuel cell buses and trucks (not passenger cars), grid and back-up power generation in areas with strict restrictions on emissions and materials-handling equipment. It also identifies the listed companies that are likely to benefit.
Hydrogen essential to achieving ‘net zero’ targets.
‘Net zero’ targets cannot be achieved, in our view, without green hydrogen. While ever cheaper electricity from renewables combined with battery storage looks set to address large swathes of the transport and power sectors, important gaps remain. Hydrogen’s high energy to mass ratio and low losses during storage and transportation makes it suitable for addressing these gaps. Recently published forecasts from the EU, the Hydrogen Council and Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) suggest hydrogen could grow from 2% of the global energy mix in 2018 to 13–24% by 2050, a c 8% CAGR at the mid-point.
Decarbonising the hard-to-reach sectors
Hydrogen is critical for replacing coal and gas in fossil-fuel intensive industrial processes such as steelmaking. By storing the excess energy generated by renewables until it is needed, hydrogen can help address intermittency in the power sector and provides a potential path for decarbonising heating. Hydrogen’s high energy to mass ratio makes it particularly suitable for heavy-duty, long-distance road freight, maritime and aviation applications.
Adoption still dependent on government initiatives
Investment in hydrogen technology and capacity has accelerated in the last year, analysts have lifted long-term forecasts and share prices have soared. Yet hydrogen has a long history of not delivering on its potential. Historically its role has been limited by high production costs and the need for new and adapted infrastructure to support distribution and storage. Falling renewable costs are addressing the price premium for green hydrogen, but governments will also need to provide investment and implement policies that explicitly encourage hydrogen adoption and deliver the scale required to drive down costs.
Investing in the hydrogen transition
This report profiles 17 companies that look set to gain from growth in hydrogen demand. Suppliers of electrolysers and fuel cells such as Ballard Power Systems, Ceres Power, ITM Power and Plug Power appear particularly well positioned but other parts of the hydrogen supply chain will also benefit. While most companies profiled do not depend on an acceleration in market growth to be viable, most of these are at an early stage of revenue development and few are consistently profitable. Therefore significant, potentially highly dilutive, additional funding may be required. Equally, those that establish a technology leadership could prove highly attractive acquisition targets for more established industry players.
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Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC 1602-1799), silver rupee, minted for usage in Java Island.
Also spelled as RUPIJ.
However, it must be noted that on the actual coin, no reference to RUPEE but DIRHAM as currency name.
Rupiah is much better than the origin suggests with many zeros printed and tacky graphic design paper. The word comes from the Sanskrit Rupiah rupiyah that silver or silver coin means. There circulated ever silver rupees from India in Indonesia when the country was still called the Dutch East Indies and the VOC assume their Asian headquarters, located in "The Castle" in Batavia, ruled the roost. The VOC did business with many parts of Asia, including in the Coromandel and Malabar on the east coast to the west coast of India where they had several factories. In these regions used the VOC local silver coins of good content and attractive design: the Rupees.Other coins were in these areas are not accepted. This rupees were also found attractive in Java, where they could be done with profits of hand by the VOC. The rupee was called by the Dutch ropij and they used Java rupees from various regions of India. The most famous were the Soeratse rupees, beaten to Surat, at that time the most important trading center located in North-West India. The VOC used rupees from further include Sicca, Arcot and Palikate and were knocked these coins even for their own account at various local mints in India. The silver content of the right was claimed for this little bar in 1 kilo from the Netherlands.
Scholten 458a / 457b
Krause has this coin grouped under Netherlands East Indies > United East India Company 1602-1799 (Java) > Milled Coinage
JAVA MONETARY SYSTEM
4 Duit = 1 Stiver
30 Stivers = 1 Rupee (Silver)
66 Stivers = 1 Dollar
1 DIRHAM | DERHAM 1766 175 , Scholten 458 , SSc17 BERNAMA "1 RUPIAH" , TULISAN JAWI / HURUF JAWI: "الي جزيرة جاو الكبير" / "درهم من كمڤني ولندوي" TWISTED / DISTORTED LEGEND: "ILI JAZIRAT JAWA ALKABIR" / "DIRHAM MIN KUMPANI WALANDAWI" , KATA "RUPIAH" TIDAK DITULIS ATAS MATA UANG INI , TAPI UANG LOGAM INI BERNAMA "DIRHAM"
1 DIRHAM | DERHAM 1803 BERNAMA "1 RUPIAH" , TULISAN JAWI / HURUF JAWI: الي جزيرة جاو الكبير" / "درهم من كمڤني ولندوي" TWISTED / DISTORTED LEGEND: "ILI JAZIRAT JAWA ALKABIR" / "DIRHAM MIN KUMPANI WALANDAWI" , KATA "RUPIAH" TIDAK DITULIS ATAS MATA UANG INI , TAPI UANG LOGAM INI BERNAMA "DIRHAM" : "WALANDA" IS "HOLLAND" IN JAVANESE , BUT THE SCRIPT IS JAWI LETTERS , WITHIN A MIXED SENTENCE , INCLUDING "ALWALANDI", MEANING "THE DUTCH" WITH ARABIC "AL" AND "ALKUMPANI" , NOT AND ARAB WORD WITH ARABIC "AL" , "KOMPENI" IN MALAY / INDONESIAN REFFERS TO "VOC".
Pelleted-cross also known as Mintmark '9'.
|Arabic||الي جزيرة جاو الكبير|
|Pronunciation||ili jazirat jawa al-kabir|
|Transliteration||For the island of Java the Great|
This is a particular variety with different spelling which yield different meaning and of course pronunciation, the الى has been spelt as الي
Spelling for Jawa could not be confirmed, either with ا as in جاوا or not جاو.
Arabic legend with roman numeral: 1766.
|Arabic||درهم من كمڤني ولندوي|
|Pronunciation||darham min Kampeni Walandawi|
|Transliteration||Dirham of the Dutch Company|
On the reverse, a character derived from Arabic to complement South-East Asia pronunciation was used, ڤ
Weight: 12.8 - 13.15 g
Diameter: 24 - 26.5 mm
Silver 0.832 (1764-1788) -> Saran Singh 0.8330 - Krause
Known Year Date
First Series : 1764 1765 1766 1767
Second Series" 1783 1784 1785 1786
Third Series: 1788 1795 1796 1798
a. There are three major variations in the Arabic inscriptions on the Rupees issued between 1764 - 1799. The first series was issued between 1764 - 1767. The second series with a slight variation in legend was issued between 1783 - 1799 had a new arrangement of the Arabic inscription.
b. The above One Rupee with the year date 1782, 1787 and 1789 have been recorded. However, no known specimens exist.
MALAY ARCHIPELIGO, Colonial. Java. Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company). 1602-1800. AR Rupee (27mm, 12.28 g, 12h). Mint unnamed, but struck at Batavia (Jakarta). Dated 1766. ila djazirat/Djawa al-kabir (For the island/of Java the Great) in Malay-Arabic in two lines; above, cross composed of four wedges(mintmark); 1766 below / dirham min/Kompani/Welandawi (Dirham of/the Holland/Company) in Malay-Arabic in three lines. Edge: /////. Scholten 458e; cf. N&C 20b (for type)
The following text must accompany any text or photo taken from this page and limited use for non-commercial purposes only.
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Financial markets have had two main characteristics since the start of the coronavirus crisis: they have dropped sharply and they have been very volatile.
Given a context characterised by a high level of uncertainty and inability to make economic forecasts with a reasonable degree of assurance, this is not a surprise: the purpose of financial markets is to convert economic information and expectations into asset prices and, when information is blurred and expectations difficult – if not impossible – to make, financial markets become disoriented.
Two arguments come out strongly for closing financial markets. The first one is linked to the point mentioned above: if financiers are unable to make reasonable economic expectations because of a health crisis that has brought the economy to a standstill, and if they are therefore unable to estimate the value of assets with a reasonable level of confidence, what is the point of keeping markets open? The second one is to prevent speculative behaviours that are perceived as detrimental to those most affected by the crisis.
The answer to this question must, in our view, proceed from a compared analysis of the cost of closing financial markets with the cost of not closing them.
- First, there should be no illusion that there can be such a thing as an actual closing of financial markets: if organised (and supervised) markets are closed, the trading of financial instruments will continue unabated either over-the-counter, on unregulated trading venues, or on regulated markets of jurisdictions that have not taken similar measures. This could therefore lead to a deteriorated situation where markets have less transparency and are less supervised than in the present situation.
- Second, shutting financial markets would be a very delicate exercise from a communications standpoint: it could be either done without prior warning, but this would create a high number of extremely delicate situations to manage, and if it were announced ahead of implementation it could trigger a wave of panic selling from markets participants wanting to get out before markets are closed.
- Third, shutting financial markets would imply to stop the possibility for investors to redeem funds and therefore get their money back, which would create many very difficult, and possibly unmanageable, situations for investors, whether retail or professional, particularly in a time where access to cash is vital for many.
- Fourth, the valuation of listed financial assets would become impossible in the absence of market prices. This, in turn, would create an extremely difficult situation for supervisors, auditors, institutional investors, pension funds, central banks, etc. Like it or not, the entire financial system is built around the notion of market price and the system is not ready to move overnight – i.e. in the middle of a crisis – away from this way of functioning.
- Fifth, the vast majority of financial markets participants, and by definition investors, are losing money in the current situation, not benefiting from it. Only speculative net short sellers can benefit from such market falls and this phenomenon can be addressed by the prohibition of short selling, something that a number of European financial supervisors, but unfortunately not all, have decided to do.
- Lastly, it has to be noted that if raising capital on equity markets is presently impossible, bond markets have enabled in March investment grade corporates to raise $244 bn. globally, out of which $28 bn. in Europe, and over $400 bn. globally if banks’ issuance of bonds is included. At a time when access to liquidity is essential for the very survival of many economic actors, this ability of bond markets to fund issuers is not to be neglected and pleads against a closure of financial markets.
All in all, assessing the situation must start with the recognition that the entire financial system is currently organised around financial markets and that closing them would have endless repercussions on the entire system. Overall, and despite all the imperfections of financial markets and their currently chaotic behaviour, the costs of closing financial markets in the middle of a crisis would, in our view, be higher than the cost of leaving them open. This does not preclude the fact that we should think harder about reforming markets more in depth once the current crisis is over in order to make them serve better the economy and society.
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Grad Student Tackles Solar PV Financing in Higher Ed
Like the rest of Los Angeles, UCLA has plenty of buildings and gets plenty of sun. Given the University’s interest in sustainability and innovation, you’d think all those buildings would be covered with high-tech solar panels sucking up all that sun. However, UCLA has only one installation, on one rooftop, which generates only two percent of the building’s power supply. The reason behind the dim figures? Price.
The government incentives—rebates, tax credits, bonds, and loans— that make solar photovoltaic systems affordable to businesses and homeowners are for the most part unavailable to institutions of higher education like UCLA. The majority of financial incentives are available in the form of tax credits. Most institutions of higher education, including UCLA, are tax exempt, which makes tax rebates meaningless for them. Without incentives, UCLA and other institutions are often forced to pay upfront installation costs, about 30 percent more per unit than the current price to private consumers.
The sticker shock is understandable, but it’s not all bad news. There are several potential opportunities to help institutions including UCLA drive down the cost of solar PV and expand solar power on campus.
Alternative financing: Colleges and universities across the country are creating new ways to fill the gap left by unavailable government incentives. So far, green revolving funds and student “green fees” appear to be two of the most effective ways universities are closing the price gap.
Purchasing power: Large institutions such as colleges and universities are powerful customers. If these competitive organizations can set aside their differences to invest in solar collaboratively, they could use their massive purchasing power to drive down cost through economies of scale and increased negotiating power with solar PV manufacturers. Working together also allows schools to spread the risk, as well as share in the savings.
Rethink how solar fits into university plans: Even though most institutions of higher education exist in perpetuity, they tend to plan for the short-term. Most schools’ master plans only account for four years. In any four-year window an investment in solar is a huge expenditure, and this short-term view does not take into account the benefit of reduced energy bills over the longer term. Even if spending $10,000 on a system now could save $50,000 dollars over the next 10 years, the net gain is invisible to school budget officers.
I am working in partnership with Focus the Nation and the UCLA Department of Urban Planning, to better understand the barriers that put solar PV out of reach at UCLA and to explore ways to change that through better financing, cooperation and planning. Whether or not UCLA ultimately decides to go with increased solar power, this research will make it easier for all colleges and universities to access solar PV. You can find out more about the research at Focus the Nation’s project page.
This month, challenge a neighbor to GOOD's energy smackdown. Find a neighbor with a household of roughly the same square footage and see who can trim their power bill the most. Throughout February, we'll share ideas and resources for shrinking your household carbon footprint, so join the conversation at good.is/energy.
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When critics want to show that carbon offset programs don’t work, they’ll often point at Coldplay’s first carbon offset investment. In 2002, the British rock band announced that to offset the environmental impact of their second successful album, a Rush of Blood to the Head, they planned to plant several thousand mango trees in southern India. The announcement was well received: Not only did Coldplay contribute, but fans logged in online to support to the investment. The planting of 10,000 trees was viewed as a worthy investment to balance the many units of carbon produced by the band’s increasingly successful, and carbon-dependant lifestyle.
Four years later, it was revealed that forty percent of the trees had died, allegedly from lack of water. The trees that were to provide carbon sequestration for all those hours of electricity usage, plane rides, performances and retakes were billed as a failed investment.
What critics often don’t relate is the second part to the story: Some years later, Coldplay returned to that initial vision and invested in a forest on the outskirts of an abandoned mine with other investors to transform a World War II armament site into an ecological preserve.
Both Coldplay and Carbon Neutral Company, the carbon offset provider they had contracted through, went on to invest in and manage numerous other offset programs. But, both learned a critical lesson from that initial, embarrassing failure: the necessity of due diligence and the value of adhering to every one of the principles of carbon offsetting.
What makes carbon offsetting work?
It’s easy to get caught up in the nanospeak of carbon offsetting. But the principles are fairly straightforward. Carbon reduction occurs when two parties enter into an exchange that allows the greenhouse gas production of one to be offset or counterbalanced by the environmental benefits of another.
So for example, United Airlines says that it invests in wetland habitat in California, renewable energy programs in Texas and forest conservations in Peru. Those monetary investments into “green” long-lasting infrastructure help counteract CO2 emissions that are produced by United’s global fleet.
But it isn’t enough for United to invest in forests, wetlands and community programs. What makes United’s investments work are what could be called the five pillars of carbon offsetting:
1. The exchange must be quantifiable
A business owner who is considering investing in a GHG reduction program will calculate his business’ carbon emissions first. United Airlines states that it based its calculations on the fuel consumption of its entire fleet and factored in elements that were specific to its business: routes, plane cargo, passenger weight, etc. These specific calculations gave them their carbon footprint, an essential factor in determining their carbon offset goal.
And don’t forget: the certifying agency you contract with (see below for more information) will probably review these numbers with you to ensure your calculations meet the needs of the program.
2. Additionality holds the whole program together
The concept that often seems most nebulous is actually the glue to the entire program: A carbon offset program only has value if you can prove that it wouldn’t have happened without the investment. That wetland preserve for example, wouldn’t have been built without that willing partnership. And that wind farm in Texas wouldn’t have been developed if it hadn’t been for the investment from the power company that wanted to offset its huge greenhouse gas bill.
To determine whether the project will pass the additionality test, you must first know its baseline, which as the Nature Conservancy describes it, is “the carbon emissions or carbon storage that would have occurred without the project.” You can then subtract that information from the carbon emissions of the anticipated project to determine the actual carbon emission savings.
Michael Gillenwater of Greenhouse Gas Institute points out that one of the benefits of a carbon offset program is it “incentivizes private actors to search for and locate low cost opportunities that policy makers either cannot access or lack information on.” It provides an essential link between two entities that leads to further GHG reduction through voluntary, mutual concessions.
3. There must be no carbon leakage
Say you own a manufacturing business in New York and you decide you want to invest in an ecological preserve in Guatemala that is going to help save a valuable tropical ecosystem. But the establishment of that eco park results in the displacement of a local lumber business that later clears a large swath of jungle in another part of the country for its logging business, instead. The carbon reduction is then nullified by the migration, or “leakage” of carbon emissions.
Investors need to ensure the due diligence to make sure that the partnership isn’t going to (inadvertently or otherwise) lead to displacement or other problems that create more GHG emissions.
4. The offsets must be permanent
Permanence is particularly important when it comes to forestry projects. Will the forest remain standing in perpetuity? Or is the grove at risk of being harvested later? Are there safeguards in place to ensure that wetland preserve will remain as a home for native species, or is it in commercial zoning that will later put it at risk?
GHG emission offset programs rely on the understanding that those investments will lead to the permanence and perpetuity of the project.
There must be third-party oversight and certification
These days there are a variety of independent third-party verification programs. Some consider the Gold Standard to be the ultimate example of third-party verification program. It is used by nongovernmental organizations throughout the world, including World Wildlife Federation International, Canada-based David Suzuki Foundation and Greenpeace International, and is endorsed by the Forest Stewardship Council. It sets a high bar when it comes to additionality, which helps to protect your investments as well as the success of the project.
Carbon offset organizations like Terrapass and UK-based Carbon Neutral Company serve as vendors to help facilitate carbon offset partnerships. Both represent project that have either Gold Standard or Voluntary Carbon Standard rating, ensuring that the programs have passed rigorous scrutiny. Keep in mind as you search explore carbon offset programs and vendors that each vendor is different, and some offer specialized projects that may or may not fit your business’ individual needs.
Image: Yahoo/Vestas Flickr, cc
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Since the Euro currency came into being in 2002, more than 21 billion banknotes have gone into circulation. It is the second most traded forex currency in the world and officially used in 19 Eurozone countries as well as several other non-EU countries, some with, some without official agreements. But have you ever taken a real close look at the notes themselves? I know the number is all that matters, but if you dive a little deeper, you will see that the five to the five hundred euro note represents a different architectural period. So what period is on each banknote, and what is the story being told?
The bills have a common theme; they all showcase windows or gateways in the front with bridges in the back. This symbolizes the EU countries’ cohesion and building bridges for our common future. What is different is that depending on the note itself, or rather the note’s value according to the artistic period of architecture, the windows and gateways differentiate depending on the characteristics of the ages. Contrary to certain beliefs, these images do not represent any monuments in particular; they were made to be basic and to unify the countries. So you can find a similar bridge in France, Estonia or Croatia; this adds to the feeling that everybody is accepted in the EU.
If you need a quick currency conversion, use our handy convertor tool below
Five Euro – Classical
Usually, we use the term classical to refer to ancient Greek and Roman art. This art style was mimicked through the years in the form of renaissance, baroque and neoclassicism style. The artists focus on the idealization of the portrayed, the proportions and the harmony of it all. Originating in ancient Greece, some of the most famous monuments are the Parthenon, the Colosseum, and the magical sculptures of Discobulus, Venus de Milo, made by Alexandros of Antioch and Laokoon and His Sons.
Ten Euro – Romanesque
The romanesque age began in the 6th century and lasted until the 11th. It’s famous for the architecture marked by the semi-circular arch, thick walls, barrel vaults and sturdy pillars. Some of the most popular monuments are the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Palatine Chapel in Aachen and the Abbey of Saint Foy in Conques, France.
Twenty Euro – Gothic
The gothic style started in the late 12th century and lasted through the 16th century. It originated in France and is known for its flying buttresses, monumental heights, rib vaults and stained glass windows. Some of the most famous monuments are the basilica of Saint-Denis, the Amiens cathedral, Saint Chapelle and Notre Dame in Paris.
Fifty Euro – Renaissance
The Renaissance age began in the early 14th century with the goal to revive classical art and its way of thinking. Originating in Florence, it’s quickly spread around Europe. It focuses on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the accurate portrayal of 3D spaces on flat surfaces. The most important, architecturally speaking, is the Florence baptistery and cathedral, made by Brunelleschi and the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo.
One Hundred Euro – Baroque & Rococo
The term baroque signifies a style of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and other arts. It started in the early 17th century and preceded the rococo. The baroque style is extravagant, and they used contrast, movement and deep colours to achieve the wow effect. They also introduced the cartouche, baskets of fruit and flowers, etc. The most important artists include Peter Paul Rubens, Bernini and Giovanni Battista. Rococo, often called the late baroque, began in France and is marked by ornamental and theatrical architecture with curves, gilding, stucco and pastel colours.
Two Hundred Euro – Art Nouveau/Iron & Glass
Art nouveau is a very decorative style that appeared in 1890 in Europe and the US. Most often it is found in architecture, interior design, jewellery, posters and illustrations. The most popular materials, where you guessed it cast iron and steel ceramic and glass. It is characterized by its use of long organic lines. The most famous artists of this time include Antonio Gaudi, Henry van de Velde, Victor Horta and Alphonse Mucha.
Five Hundred Euro – Modern
Modern architecture emerged in the early stages of the 20th century it rejects ornaments and embraces functionalism and minimalism using glass, steel and reinforced concrete. Some of the most famous global monuments are the Sydney Opera House, the Empire State Building and Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Which country has euro currency?
In total, 19 EU member states use the Euro as their official currency, these include in alphabetical order: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.
So what is the story? This is, in chronological order, all the major Architectural periods of Europe, from the Classical to the Modern. Something that all countries have a shared heritage in. In a nutshell, this is the History of Europe!
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Financial risk is a scenario where the return on a particular investment decision is very less. It could happen that one might partially or absolutely lose the financial benefit of an investment. Some risks could be conveniently faced and fended off but some are absolutely inevitable and head in the direction of a certain loss.
By using financial risk management, financial managers try to improve the economic value and collateral management of a company by reducing the vulnerability of external risks just like credit and market challenges. There are actually different financial options which are employed in this method.
The phrase “risk” identifies the possibility of an undesired event occurring because of a present choice or of a few future occurrences. In life, we deal with countless of these risks. Sometimes there are risks we could readily take although there are those that we’d attempt to avoid and occasionally there are risks we think of worth taking and the ones that we don’t want to consider due to the reason that they are surely advancing for a loss.
World of finance and business aren’t much more advanced than our lives with regards to risk-taking. During a business project, managers or shareholders are required to face challenges. Like the ones we have to deal in everyday life, a few of these risks can easily be taken care of and some can’t, and the approach to deciding banking solutions belongs to the process of risk management.
The process of Risk management identifies the process of determining, inspecting, studying, and treating business risks. But since firms are faced with different kinds of business risks, there are a number of risk management specializations created to cope with them. One specialty area of risk management is called enterprise risk management, it teaches on non-financial risks.
Then financial risk management that is very like general risk administration specializing in a company’s finances. Like basic risk management, the subject practices the techniques of risk recognition, analysis, evaluation, and follow up. It concentrates more tightly on finances and banking solutions and employs financial tools to counter the business’s risk.
Rather than leaving entrepreneurs with a number of alternatives , financial risk marketing concentrates mainly on hedging, an application of 2 counter-balancing investment techniques that counteract the impacts of price fluctuations. Apart from these distinctions, the rest is almost similar.
Risks are natural in any business project, so when financial risks are concerned, businessmen do not have a choice but to handle them. That’s the reason that understanding of financial risk and its management is vital in the world of business. The technique won’t help businessmen to avoid risks, but allows them an opportunity to measure the effects of risk whenever they need to take a decision.
So it assists you comprehend the market much better. It offers you an understanding about collateral management, how precisely to invest in a sphere and how much could be the lost if it fails. Nevertheless the market risks are avoidable.
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The Bank of England and Federal Reserve held a two-day conference last week in London on big data and machine learning. All very interesting stuff.
There was an intriguing vignette as we emerged from the conference room for the frugal lunch on the first day.
Straight ahead was a table with sandwiches, fruit and the like. Most participants made for this, so many that a long queue soon formed, stretching well out of the room. But a sharp right instead brought you to a smaller table, with identical food. The wait was very much shorter.
This illustrates important aspects of modern economic theory.
In fashion markets and on the internet, for example, products or sites can rapidly become popular for reasons not connected to their inherent qualities. They become more popular simply because they are already popular. People start to follow the crowd rather than rely on their own judgment.
The same thing can be observed in bubbles in financial and property markets. An extreme example was seen in the case of Northern Rock in the run-up to the financial crisis in 2008. The bank did in fact have enough assets to pay its liabilities. But it experienced a short-term liquidity problem and approached the government for support.
The news leaked, and within 24 hours huge queues formed outside the branches as people scrambled to get their money out. The longer the queue, the bigger it became. The result was the first bank failure in the UK for 150 years.
This herd-like behaviour seems irrational. But an important paper by Sushil Bikhchandani and colleagues in the top-ranked Journal of Political Economy 25 years ago showed that it was perfectly compatible with the economic concept of rationality.
Suppose you have to make a decision, like the table to go to in order to pick up lunch. You might have some private information about the options. In addition, there is some public information available to all.
If enough people have chosen and have already given more weight to the public information, it will seem like it is more accurate than your own. So you are likely to give more weight to it when you choose.
This is exactly what happened at the central bank event. The first few people coming out of the conference used private information, and made for the table they could see. Others behind them could only see people getting lunch, and simply followed them. They used the public information about where lunch was available.
Those in the long queue had imperfect information, another key concept in economic theory. They were outside the room and could not see the other table in the opposite corner.
I considered approaching people in the queue to sell them information to shorten their wait. But it is a bit tricky to value information – yet another important issue in modern economics. As soon as I mentioned it, they would easily guess there was another table and find it themselves.
The conference itself was fascinating. But it was certainly gratifying to see economists behave as rational herders.
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by Marcus Mølbak Ingholt, Monetary Policy Department, Norges Bank.
This blog post provides an overview of research done on the interactions between epidemics and the economy. Causation runs both ways. Economic activity increases social interactions, causing epidemics to spread. Epidemics impede economic activity by inducing households to lower their demand and increasing the frequency of sick leave. Containment, mitigation, and suppression aimed at curtailing epidemics also curtail the economy in the short run. In the medium term, public health interventions may conversely stimulate the economy by suppressing the pandemic. Towards the end of the post, I highlight some avenues for future research relating to both the demand, supply, and financial sides of the economy.
The rapid global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the associated COVID-19 disease has sparked urgent questions about the impact of epidemics on the economy. The objective of this blog post is to provide a non-exhaustive overview of what we – from an academic research perspective – currently know about this impact. Where I see them, I also highlight some unanswered questions in this “coronomics” literature, and point to possible weaknesses of the current frameworks.
Macroeconomic Models with Contagion Effects
A rapidly growing body of research merge SIR or SEIR models of contagion into standard macroeconomic models (see, e.g., Alvarez, Argente, and Lippi, 2020, Bodenstein, Corsetti, and Guerrieri, 2020, Eichenbaum, Rebelo, and Trabandt, 2020, Glover, Heathcote, Krueger, and Ríos-Rull, 2020, Jones, Philippon, and Venkateswaran, 2020, and Kaplan, Moll, and Violante, 2020). SIR/SEIR models are differential-equation models used within epidemiology to study the spread of an infectious disease. The models divide the population into compartments, such as susceptible (S), exposed (E), infectious (I), and recovered (R), and illustrate the flows between each compartment. The models can be used to predict the prevalence (total number of infected) or the duration of an epidemic, or to evaluate the effect of, say, mitigation and vaccination measures.
In the macro-SIR models, an epidemic has both aggregate demand and aggregate supply effects. The supply effects appear because people reduce their labor supply, in order to avoid being infected, and because sick people are less productive. (The strength of these effects is unclear empirically. Many hourly employees have neither the right to paid sick leave nor the savings necessary for an unpaid leave. Thus, it seems unlikely that they will voluntarily self-quarantine, even if they fall sick.) In Jones, Philippon, and Venkateswaran (2020), supply effects also appear because people are less productive when working from home. The demand effects emerge since people reduce their consumption, in order to avoid exposure to the virus by limiting the time shopping and because of precautionary saving. In the models, the supply and demand effects generate large recessions even in the absence of public health interventions.
A cornerstone of the macro-SIR frameworks is that the competitive equilibrium is not Pareto optimal, because (infected) people do not internalize that their consumption and work activity may infect other people. Thus, there is an externality in the disease spread. This opens up the possibility of welfare-improving social distancing, implemented by the government by reducing economic activity. In Jones, Philippon, and Venkateswaran (2020), interventions also work through working-from-home technologies that front-load the optimal intervention, since working from home involves learning by doing.
Eichenbaum, Rebelo, and Trabandt (2020) make three interesting points about the economic effects of medical preparedness, treatments, and vaccines. First, in the case of too little medical preparedness, the competitive equilibrium involves a more severe recession, because people internalize the higher fatality rates caused by crowded hospitals providing substandard treatments. Thus, the public cuts back more aggressively on its consumption and work, to reduce the probability of being infected. Second, if people expect a treatment to arrive, they become more willing to engage in market activities, since the expected cost of an infection is smaller. This limits the severity of the recession, but also increases the number of people infected until the treatment arrives. Thirdly, with vaccines as a possibility, it is optimal to introduce more front-loaded and draconian mitigation measures to minimize infections. This causes a deeper, but hopefully also shorter, recession, as the measures may be lifted once the vaccine arrives.
The costs associated with COVID-19 are unevenly distributed. Health risks accrue disproportionally to the elderly. Yet, to the extent that this group has stable pensions, it is unaffected by the economic hardship brought about by mitigation measures. These economic costs instead accrue directly to workers who cannot work from home or have jobs requiring much social interaction (e.g., waiters or shop assistants). These workers also have disproportionally low incomes and low liquid wealth. Using heterogeneous-agent macro-SIR models, Glover, Heathcote, Krueger, and Ríos-Rull (2020) and Kaplan, Moll, and Violante (2020) show that this heterogeneity in life situations adds an unpleasant distributional dimension to the trade-off between the severity of a recession and the health consequences of an epidemic, already present in representative-agent macro-SIR models. (Kaplan, Moll, and Violante, 2020 assume homogeneity in health risks, and instead focus on profession-contingent wealth inequality. Heterogeneity in health risks should generally accentuate the policy trade-off also in their model.)
In countries with strong social protection, the heterogeneity in consumption responses following the COVID-19 outbreak may not be so large. For instance, Andersen, Hansen, Johannesen, and Sheridan (2020) find only a modest (3 p.p.) excess reduction in spending by workers in a shutdown sector, using Danish credit card data. A possible explanation for this is the government furlough scheme, implemented by the Danish government with the goal of preventing mass layoffs. The scheme replaces 75 pct. of workers’ salaries at qualifying firms. About 5 pct. of the Danish labor force is currently participating in the scheme.
Shutdowns: Demand or Supply Shocks?
Eichenbaum, Rebelo, and Trabandt (2020) effectively represent mitigation measures that shut down sectors of the economy as demand disruptions, in that these measures enter into households’ demand first-order conditions. Guerrieri, Lorenzoni, Straub, and Werning (2020) instead argue that shutdowns are “Keynesian supply shocks”, namely supply disruptions that trigger changes in aggregate demand larger than the disruptions themselves. Thus, prices fall rather than rise, as in the case of a regular adverse supply shock. The mechanism works as follows: When workers lose their income due to the shutdown, they reduce their spending. In one-sector models, this always causes a reduction in demand smaller than or equal to the reduction in income. In multi-sector models, however, the reduction in demand may be larger if the complementarity between goods from different sectors and the intertemporal elasticity of substitution are both sufficiently high. (Intuitively, I do not demand hotel accommodation unless I travel to another country, something than I am currently banned from doing.) Guerrieri, Lorenzoni, Straub, and Werning (2020) also argue that fiscal stimuli may be less effective than usual, because the stimuli, per construction, cannot help shutdown sectors. The authors instead advocate policies (e.g., lax monetary policy, loan forbearance, grace periods on tax payments, or rent subsidies) that reduce the fixed costs incurred by temporarily closed businesses, since such cost reductions may forestall bankruptcies.
Conceptually, what separates supply and demand shocks is the co-movement of prices and quantities. However, when a sector of the economy is shut down, the quantity produced turns to zero, while prices are indeterminate. This is the point that Guerrieri, Lorenzoni, Straub, and Werning (2020) also make. However, because prices are indeterminate, I believe that the reference to shutdowns as adverse supply shocks (or as demand shocks, for that matter) in macroeconomic models is imprecise. Shutdowns are something else, exactly because prices are indeterminate.
The Spanish Flu
A key take-away from the theoretical literature is that externalities arising from the interactions between epidemics and economic activity naturally point to a role for policy interventions. The last pandemic with severe economic repercussions was the 1918 Flu or the Spanish Flu. A group of papers empirically investigates the economic effect of mitigation measures taken during this emergency. Correia, Luck, and Verner (2020) regress manufacturing employment on proxies for the timing and intensity of mitigation measures across U.S. cities, along with additional control variables. They rule out interventions amid the pandemic as a source of economic decline. Moreover, their point estimates suggest that interventions might support employment by suppressing the pandemic. Whether the results generalize to COVID-19 is unclear. The Spanish Flu was chiefly fatal for working-age people. By contrast, the mitigation measures taken today are mainly aimed at protecting the elderly – a low-productive part of the population – from the disease.
Using international variation, Barro, Ursúa, and Weng (2020) regress measures of real activity on information about the intensity of Spanish Flu-related deaths, while statistically controlling for World War I-related losses. They find that GDP and consumption fell by 6 pct. and 8 pct., respectively, in the typical country, due to the direct and indirect effects of the flu. They argue that this is likely an upper-bound estimate of the medium-term effect of COVID-19 on the economy, again because this disease predominantly is fatal for the elderly.
A concern I have with both studies is their reliance on case fatality rates, defined as the number of diagnosed deaths relative to the diagnosed population. Diagnostic practices vary widely across regions. For instance, it could be that poor regions under-diagnose deaths, due to limited testing capacity. The estimated economic effect of an epidemic will then be biased upward if the economic effect can also be (partially) captured by other variables, such as time dummies. For this reason, epidemiologists often use all-cause excess mortality rates, which is the current all-cause mortality rate relative to its historical level. The idea behind using this statistic is that, as long as no other public health emergencies unfold contemporaneously, all excess mortality derives from the epidemic.
While an impressive amount of research has been done in a short period, many questions remain unanswered. Foremost among them is that the above-mentioned theoretical frameworks all assume that once governments lift their interventions, households’ consumption and labor-supply decisions will follow the same behavioral rules as before the crisis. Long-termed psychological effects related to, say, renewed travel-patterns, fear of restaurants, or social anxiety are thereby excluded by assumption. Such psychological effects could keep households’ demand low for a protracted period, particularly for services.
Standard macroeconomic frictions relating to demand still remain to be built into to macro-SIR models. For instance, falling real estate prices tend to propagate via the housing market, by eroding wealth, leading technical insolvency to proliferate, and causing banks to incur losses on mortgage lending. Such a development could lead to a credit squeeze, or, worse, a financial crisis. Moreover, as argued by Mian, Straub, and Sufi (2020), expansionary fiscal policies taken today boost households’ and governments’ debt levels and lead to smaller aggregate demand in the future, thus further lowering natural interest rates and supporting debt growth.
A retrenchment of the supply side could also slow down the recovery. Total factor productivity is likely to be persistently low, on account of disruptions of supply chains and the destruction of organizational capital associated with shutdowns and firm bankruptcies. Labor supply may too be smaller in the coming years, because of unemployment hysteresis effects, in addition to disease-related fatalities. Finally, labor productivity may fall because of insufficient business investment (e.g., due to strained balance sheets, demand-uncertainty, and debt-overhang) or deficient human capital investment (e.g., due to cancellations of apprenticeships and supplementary training).
Finally, further empirical evidence is needed to disentangle the mutual relevance of the theoretical mechanisms outlined above. This would provide a crucial step toward, not just an understanding of which research questions warrant each set of assumptions, but also a unification of the approaches already existing. I am convinced that this will remain a principal task of economists in the decade to come.
I would like to thank Adam Sheridan, Kasper Roszbach, Leif Brubakk, Mikkel Gandil, Nicolai Ellingsen, Norman Robert Spencer, Ragnar Juelsrud, SeHyoun Ahn, and Søren Hove Ravn for comments on the post. I would also like to thank Kåre Mølbak for introducing me to epidemiology.
The only thing particularly Spanish about the “Spanish Flu” is its name. Neutral Spain did not impose censorship during World War I. Widespread stories about the flu in Spanish newspapers therefore lead to the false impression that Spain was hit especially hard.
Bankplassen er en fagblogg av ansatte i Norges Bank. Synspunktene som uttrykkes her representerer forfatternes syn og kan ikke nødvendigvis tillegges Norges Bank. Har du spørsmål eller innspill, kontakt oss gjerne på [email protected].
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Most businesses face a landscape of uncertainty and a never-ending stream of risks and opportunities. Managers must continually project the likely financial impact of decisions, make recommendations, act on those decisions, determine how to pay for them, and evaluate the costs and effectiveness of what has been done. Many decisions are short-term, routine, and operational. Others are longer-term investment decisions that require substantial new resources, such as developing new services, expanding into new geographic markets, or undertaking business combinations or spin-offs. Each requires managers to forecast, plan, and make decisions based on a thorough understanding of both internal and external factors that can affect a company’s financial success. For the summative assessment in this course, you will bring your finance and economics knowledge to bear by preparing an external capital funding proposal fora major international investment at a publicly traded corporation. In order to secure the support of potential financial backers, your proposal will need to lay out what the proposed investment opportunity is, how it fits within the company’s broader mission and goals, its financial impact, and the amount being requested and why (including alternative funding mechanisms considered). In addition, it will also need to include information on the organization’s context, risk factors, and microeconomic assumptions that could affect the success of the investment. Prompt:Submit a short paper that addresses Section III, Part C; Section V; and Section VI of the final project.
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This course introduces basic cost accounting that provides information regarding ascertainment of cost per unit of different...
Mode Of Delivery
Module 1: Introduction to Cost and Management Accounting
Meaning, Nature, and Scope of Cost Accounting; Financial Accounting versus Cost Accounting; Limitations of Cost Accounting; General Principles of Cost Accounting; Cost Centre and Cost Unit; Methods of Costing; Techniques of Costing.
Module 2: Elements of Cost
Elements of Cost: Direct Material Cost, Direct Labour Cost and Overheads; Classification of Overheads, Allocation of Overheads versus Apportionment of Overheads; Methods of Re-apportionments of Overheads: Direct Redistribution, Step Distribution, Reciprocal Services Methods.
Module 3: Budgetary Control
Meaning - Budget and Budgetary Control, Objectives, Advantages and Limitations of Budgetary Control, Classification of Budgets, Preparation of Flexible Budget, Sales Budget and Cash Budget.
Module 4: Marginal Costing
Introduction to Marginal Costing, Contribution, P/V ratio, Break Even Point, Angle of Incidence, Margin of Safety, Break Even Chart, Applications of Marginal Costing: Make or Buy, Profit Planning, Dropping a Product, Acceptance of an Oder, Capacity Utilization, Key Factor, Cost Indifferent Point, Alternative Proposals, Price Fixation, Sales Mix, Suspending Activities.
Module 5: Responsibility Accounting and Performance Evaluation
Meaning and Importance of Responsibility Accounting; Responsibility Centres: Cost Centres, Profit Centres and Investment Centres; Evaluation of Cost Centres with Variance Analysis; Evaluation of Profit Centres.
Who Should Attend?
After completing this course and successfully passing the certification examination, the student will be awarded the “Cost and Management Accounting” certification.
If a learner chooses not to take up the examination, they will still get a 'Participation Certificate'.
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” retells the story of a patriot who shouts a harrowing warning to his fellow colonists, “A recession is coming! A recession is coming!”
Well, that’s not quite the story, but given the seemingly non-ending talk about a recession, you might think that economists are channeling Paul Revere’s midnight ride.
Yes, a recession is eventually inevitable, but is it imminent?
The long-running expansions of the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s gave rise to talk that a combination of fiscal and monetary policy may have ended the risk of a recession. Such talk was premature.
Today, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Analysts and short-term traders have become hypersensitive to any signs a recession may be looming.
Moreover, the public has taken notice. A quick review of Google Trends bears this out. Google searches for the word “recession” have jumped 61% over the last six months versus the prior five years.
Stock market volatility and the steep correction late last year, the recent slowdown in U.S. economic activity, and an inverted yield curve have all contributed to worries about an economic downturn.
Plus, the economic expansion is fast approaching its 10-anniversary. If the economy is still expanding in July, and odds suggest it will be, the current expansion will become the longest on record, exceeding the expansion of the 1990s, which lasted exactly 10 years.
Recessions are a part of the business cycle in a free market economy. But expansions don’t simply peter out. Expansions come to an end when economic and financial imbalances arise, such as a stock or housing bubble, or the Fed aggressively hikes rates in response to a spike in inflation.
That brings us to the question at the top of this month’s post.
What is a recession?
Contrary to the more traditional definition, a recession is not defined as two consecutive quarters of negative real (inflation-adjusted) GDP. If that were the case, we would have narrowly missed a recession in 2001. Q1 and Q3 posted negative numbers. Q2 was positive (St. Louis Fed).
Instead, an organization called the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has become the official arbiter of recessions. Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research.
The NBER defines a [[http://www.nber.org/cycles/r/recessions.html recession]] as “a significant decline in activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months.” It manifests itself in the data tied to “industrial production, employment, real income, and wholesale-retail sales.”
These are very broad categories. They are not tied to one or two sectors, which might be experiencing weakness at any given time.
For example during a recession, we’d expect to see declining retail and business sales. This would lead to a decline in industrial production and a rise in the unemployment rate.
It’s not as if the NBER confirms a recession has begun shortly after it begins. It took nearly a year for the NBER to confirm the last recession. By then, it was a forgone conclusion. A similar delay occurs when the economy begins to recover, and the NBER is tasked with calling the end of the recession.
Why do we care about recessions?
There are plenty of reasons. For most Americans, job insecurity increases, layoffs rise, and it becomes much more difficult to find work.
For investors, it’s a time of heavy uncertainty. Bear markets–a 20% or greater decline in the S&P 500 Index–are typically tied to recessions, as corporate profits decline and companies warn about the future.
The canary in the coal mine
Economists have always had trouble forecasting an upcoming recession. A few get it right; most miss it.
But it’s not as if we lack warning signs.
The Conference Board compiles what is called the Leading Economic Index®, or LEI. It’s akin to Paul Revere’s midnight ride. It has historically warned of an impending recession, but the timing is in question.
There are 10 components of the LEI. These are leading predictors of economic activity:
- Average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance
- Building permits for homes
- 500 common stocks
- 10-year Treasury bond less federal fund rate (yield curve–more on this in a moment)
- Average weekly hours for manufacturing,
- New orders for consumer goods and materials
- The ISM® Index of New Orders
- New orders for nondefense capital goods ex-aircraft
- Average consumer expectations for business conditions
- Leading Credit Index™
I get that the list may seem a little overwhelming and some categories are less familiar than others. That said, the Conference Board plugs each months’ numbers into a formula and reports on the LEI every month.
Why do we call them leading indicators? Simply because they tend to foreshadow future economic activity.
Why 10? One or two might send out false signals. That’s less likely with a compilation.
How do leading indicators work? Take first-time claims for unemployment insurance. When economic activity slows, we’d expect layoffs to tick higher. We might also expect stock prices to decline. And falling building permits would likely signal upcoming weakness in housing.
Given the LEI, why is it so difficult to forecast a recession? Looking back at the last seven recessions (back to the 1969-70 recession), the lead time given by the LEI has ranged from 7-20 months ([[https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2019/03/21/conference-board-leading-economic-index-expanding-in-near-term Advisor Perspectives]]). That’s quite a range.
Furthermore, there have been times when the LEI has given false recessionary signals, including the mid-1960s, the mid-1990s, the late 1990s, and during the recent expansion.
These “false positives” were temporary downticks. Nonetheless, the short-term declines could have been construed as a recessionary signal.
A cautiously upbeat signal
According to the Conference Board, the LEI has essentially been flat since October. It has correctly signaled a slowdown in the economy, but it has not signaled a recession.
In fact, a [[https://www.conference-board.org/pdf_free/economics/2019_03_13.pdf March report by the Conference Board entitled, “Fading Domestic Headwinds Will Keep Growth Above Trend,”]] is cautiously encouraging.
A shift in the atmosphere and a pivot by the Fed
During the third quarter of 2018, the economy was firing on all cylinders. At the September meeting of the Federal Reserve, policymakers were projecting three rate hikes in 2019–all 0.25 percentage point increases.
The Fed cut its forecast to two rate increases at the December meeting amid stock market uncertainty and signs U.S. growth was moderating.
At the conclusion of the March meeting, the Fed said it sees no rate hikes this year.
Furthermore, Fed Chief Jerome Powell was forced to push back on talk of a possible rate cut this year, arguing at his press conference that he expects “the economy will grow at a solid pace in 2019.”
The pivot is complete.
Kink in the curve–inversion
Recall the list of leading indicators. Number 4: the yield curve.
Normally, the yield curve is upward sloping. As the maturity of bonds lengthen, the investor receives a higher yield. Think of it like this: you expect to receive a higher interest rate on a two-year CD than a six-month CD.
But there are times when the yield curve inverts. Shorter-dated bonds yield more than longer-dated bonds.
On March 22, the yield on the three-month T-bill exceed that on the 10-year Treasury by 0.02 percentage points (U.S. Treasury Dept). That hasn’t happened since 2006.
Importance: the last seven recessions (going back to the 1969-70 recession–using NBER data and data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve) have all been preceded by an inversion of the yield curve. We must go back to 1966, when a brief inversion was followed by a steep slowdown in growth and not a recession.
On average, a recession ensued 11 months later.
An inverted curve is signaling that investors believe short-term rates will eventually come down in response to a weaker economy. It may also hamper lending by banks.
But, is it different this time? “It’s different this time” a four-word phrase that should always set off alarm bells. Usually it isn’t. But are we getting confirmation from other signals?
- Another strong recession predictor is an inversion of the 10-year/2-year Treasury. That has not occurred, as the 2-year yield has been falling along with the 10-year.
- The Conference Board’s Leading Index has been flat since October, signaling the slowdown in U.S. growth. But it has not declined.
- In addition, weakness in Europe has pushed yields down sharply overseas (Bloomberg), which may be encouraging some global investors to park money into higher-yielding U.S. bonds.
- The Fed is no longer eyeing rate hikes, and financial conditions have eased during the first quarter.
Recessions have typically been preceded by major economic imbalances, such as a stock market bubble or housing bubble. Or, a sharp rise in inflation forces the Fed to aggressively respond with rate hikes.
For the most part, neither conditions are currently present, reducing odds a near-term recession is lurking. Further, recent market action has been impressive. It’s not as if we haven’t seen some volatility, but year-to-date performance isn’t signaling an economic contraction is imminent.
Key Index Returns
|MTD%||YTD %||3-year* %|
|Dow Jones Industrial Average||0.1||11.2||13.7|
|S&P 500 Index||1.8||13.1||11.3|
|Russell 2000 Index||-2.3||14.2||11.6|
|MSCI World ex-USA**||Unch.||9.5||4.4|
|MSCI Emerging Markets**||0.7||9.6||8.1|
|Bloomberg Barclays US
Aggregate Bond TR
Source: Wall Street Journal, MSCI.com, Morningstar, MarketWatch
MTD: returns: Feb 28, 2019-Mar 29, 2019
YTD returns: Dec 31, 2018-Mar 29, 2019
**in US dollars
Let me emphasize that it is my job to assist you! If you have any questions or would like to discuss any matters, please feel free to give me a call.
As always, I’m honored and humbled that you have given me the opportunity to serve as your financial advisor.
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- Can you put a price on human life?
- What does life value mean?
- Are humans valuable?
- How much does it cost to have a kid?
- Can a person have two term insurance policies?
- How do I calculate life insurance needs?
- What is the value of human being?
- Is human life more valuable than animal life?
- How much would you pay for a year of life?
- Who invented human life value?
- Does life have value?
- Is valuing human life immoral?
- Why is it important to value human life?
- How much does it cost to get a life?
- How is human life value calculated?
Can you put a price on human life?
You can’t value a life, he says, but you can find out how much money people are willing to accept to risk their own.
Take a program to save lives in a large, well-known population with a risk that’s well-understood but small, and then ask, OK, what’s that worth?.
What does life value mean?
The value of life is an economic value used to quantify the benefit of avoiding a fatality. It is also referred to as the cost of life, value of preventing a fatality (VPF) and implied cost of averting a fatality (ICAF).
Are humans valuable?
Yes. Human beings are inherently valuable. “Value” is a special significance or importance that something, or some class of things have, that set them apart from other things or classes of things.
How much does it cost to have a kid?
According to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average cost of raising a child from birth through age 17 is $233,610. If that made your heart skip a beat, take a deep breath before you read on. Incorporating inflation costs, it will be more like $284,570.
Can a person have two term insurance policies?
You can buy two or more term insurance plans to fulfill your insurance needs. It is possible to have more than one beneficiary for the insurance plan. If you have two insurance plans, there is no stipulation of nominating the same beneficiary for both the insurance plans.
How do I calculate life insurance needs?
Calculate obligations: Add your annual salary (times the number of years that you want to replace income) + your mortgage balance + your other debts + future needs such as college and funeral costs. If you’re a stay-at-home parent, include the cost to replace the services that you provide, such as child care.
What is the value of human being?
Human values are the virtues that guide us to take into account the human element when we interact with other human beings. Human values are, for example, respect, acceptance, consideration, appreciation, listening, openness, affection, empathy and love towards other human beings.
Is human life more valuable than animal life?
In nearly all commonly accepted ethical and religious traditions, human life is considered intrinsically more valuable than animal life.
How much would you pay for a year of life?
A study figures that $129,000 represents the minimum cost of giving a person an additional “quality-of-life adjusted” year of life.
Who invented human life value?
Solomon Stephen HuebnerSolomon S. HuebnerBornSolomon Stephen HuebnerMarch 16, 1882 Manitowoc, WisconsinDiedJuly 17, 1964 (aged 82) Merion, PennsylvaniaOccupationEducatorYears active1904–19532 more rows
Does life have value?
Evidence that human life has value. It seems clear enough that many people find the value of human life to be intuitive. We don’t just feel like we want to live because we are deluded or manipulated by our instincts. We feel like our lives are highly meaningful parts of the universe.
Is valuing human life immoral?
And pricing human life provides information that can save large numbers of lives, certainly not an immoral activity. … The total value we put on our lives is extremely high (in most cases infinite), so we would not agree to be killed for any amount of money. Yet we put a very low marginal value on our lives.
Why is it important to value human life?
Human values are most important in life—so important that people are and should be ready to sacrifice almost anything to live with their values. Honesty, integrity, love, and happiness are some of the end values or destination values that human beings seek to attain, practise and live with.
How much does it cost to get a life?
Today, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget puts the value of a human life in the range of $7 million to $9 million.
How is human life value calculated?
The human-life approach is usually calculated by taking into account a number of factors, including, but not limited to, the insured individual’s age, gender, planned retirement age, occupation, annual wage, employment benefits, as well as the personal and financial information of the spouse and/or dependent children.
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Ways of better addressing the high cost of breakthrough treatments that either are or might soon be available for a range of chronic and rare diseases, from certain cancers to Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) or Becker’s muscular dystrophy (BMD), was the subject of recent research — with the authors suggesting that healthcare adopt an approach used by the housing market and offer securitized consumer healthcare loans (HCLs).
HCLs would be the equivalent of real estate mortgages for large healthcare expenses, spreading the prohibitive cost of new therapies and drugs over many years to make them more affordable to those in need. The securitization of HCLs — a financial engineering tool involving the pooling of loans to turn them into securities — might also make these loans attractive to investors.
“This is an instance where financial engineering could benefit the entire ecosystem,” Professor Andrew W. Lo of MIT Sloan School of Management said in a press release. “It helps patients by providing them with affordable access to therapeutic drugs and cures. It helps biopharmaceutical companies by enabling them to get paid back for the substantial investments in R&D they make to develop the therapies in the first place. And it helps insurance companies by linking payment to ongoing benefit.”
The authors believe that securitized HCLs might even become profitable, based on statistical simulations and models. A large and diversified fund of HCLs generated hypothetical returns equivalent to 12 percent, they reported.
“As an investment, securitized HCLs have another important advantage — they are not likely to be highly correlated with the stock market,” Lo added. “This makes them even more attractive for investors such as pension funds, mutual funds, and life insurance companies.”
The authors said the motivation for their research was the recent development of breakthrough treatments that come with prohibitively high costs, using as an example Glybera, a gene therapy to cure a rare condition known as lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPL). Glybera was approved for use in Germany, but at an upfront the price of approximately $1 million.
“The stark reality is that many patients don’t have access to transformative therapies like Glybera solely due to affordability,” David Weinstock, an MD from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a study co-author, said. “This is a problem that will only grow as scientists create more cures. In the next five to seven years we could see cures for diseases like ALS, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and many types of cancer, but those therapies could be too expensive for the average patient.”
All co-authors acknowledge that using financial engineering in healthcare is not risk-free, particularly as securitization was a key player in the recent global financial crisis led by the collapse of the housing market. They advise that financial securitization in healthcare — as in mortgages, education loans and consumer credit, where it is still in widespread use — requires both regulatory oversight and ‘consumer’ protection.
“But to argue that securitization is simply ‘too risky’ without a reasonable alternative is to relegate patients in desperate need to the status quo,” Professor Lo concluded. “Securitized HCLs make expensive breakthrough therapies more affordable right now. The science is here and it’s moving at breakneck speed. Now we need the financial models to catch up.”
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About Solar Power Technology
Solar energy is generated through the use of solar panels which get exposed to the sunshine from the sun. These panels have the ability to capture the sun’s energy and transfer it to a controller, battery, and then an inverter. This is the process of how solar energy gets converted into electricity that can be used to run household appliances and electrical equipment.
However, the problem with solar power technology is that it stores very little energy. Plus, the solar technology you have to purchase to generate the energy is expensive. To set up all of this solar equipment in a standard household, it would cost the owner between $18,000 and $25,000. This may seem like a lot but the upside is that it eliminates the monthly electrical bill that you’d normally be paying. Once you have a solar panel hookup, you’ll be getting all of your electricity from the sun for free.
The average American household uses 1 kW of electricity per hour. The average month has 730 hours in it and the average hourly price per kW is $0.10. This means the average American pays $73 per month for their standard use of electricity. But if you have major electronic devices or appliances such as computers, hot tubs, and big screen televisions then your electrical costs will be much more. Some Americans pay as much as $200 per month for electricity. So let’s say you want to eliminate this cost by converting your house to solar energy. If you were to spend $20,000 on a solar panel hookup, you would end up saving money on electricity after about 10 years. The longer you stay in your home after that, the more money you’ll be saving.
Solar Investment Tax Credit
The federal government is currently playing a big role in helping solar manufacturing companies drive down the prices of their solar equipment. One big way the government is doing this is by giving tax breaks to both businesses and individuals who purchase solar equipment for their property. The Solar Investment Tax Credit has just been extended by the federal government for residences and commercial properties that use solar power technology. This gives taxpaying businesses and individuals a 30% tax credit to help them lower their income tax bill. Not only that, but many local and state governments offer their own tax incentives and rebates for individuals and companies within their jurisdiction who purchase a solar system.
According to a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association, the Solar Investment Tax Credit has caused a 1600% increase in the number of solar energy system installations throughout the United States. As more people invest in solar technology, it will cause the marketplace to expand. Anytime there is an expanding marketplace it means more competition, more technological innovation and lower prices for consumers. So don’t be surprised if you see new solar companies being established over the next few years in order to compete in this growing market.
The only complaint that consumers have about solar energy systems is the cost. After all, who can afford to shell out thousands of dollars on a new solar energy system for their home? Even the tax credits won’t be able to make up for this price. But don’t worry, because solar companies are now starting to offer payment plans to their customers. Many of these “solar loans” require no downpayment and have very low interest rates. On top of that, you can still get a 30% federal tax credit applied toward the amount of money you paid toward your solar loan for that year. Therefore, you may be paying interest but you’ll also be getting credit back from the government just for making the purchase. So it kind of evens itself out.
“Do-It-Yourself” Solar Packages
Some solar companies are selling “do-it-yourself” solar packages which give property owners the opportunity to perform the solar panel installation themselves. That way they cut out the labor costs that are always added on to the total price of the solar energy system. Since the average solar panel is about $200, you could purchase four solar panels for $800 and generate 1kW of electricity with them. If you want to generate 5kW then it would cost you $4,000. However, you have to be confident that you can perform the installation yourself. If you are not a handy person with construction then you’ll need to have a professional install them for you. This will end up tripling the price of the solar energy system but at least you’ll know it was installed properly.
Overall, the amount of money you’ll save by using a solar energy system for your property will depend on your location. Remember that energy costs fluctuate all over the country. For example, Floridians spend a lot less money on electricity than people living in Boston. So if a Floridian were going to convert to solar energy, their annual savings on energy costs wouldn’t be as significant as someone in Boston who converts to solar. But regardless of where you live, you’ll always find ways to save money with solar energy systems. Just look out for the tax credits, solar payment plans, and the “do-it-yourself” deals. These are surely going to drive down prices on solar equipment over the next several years. comment↓
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John F. Kennedy Half Dollar
- Silver Content – 0.36169 oz.
- Gross Weight – 12.50 g
- Composition – 90% silver, 10% copper
- Coin Diameter – 30.6 mm
- Mint Dates – 1964
OverviewAfter President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assignation, Congress and the United States Mint quickly created the John F. Kennedy half dollar to memorialize him.By law, coin designs were only revised every 25 years, and the Benjamin Franklin half dollar had only been minted for 15 years. But Congress passed a special act authorizing the Kennedy half dollar on December 30, 1963.
DesignThe obverse (front) of the silver Kennedy half dollar has a bust of President Kennedy surrounded “LIBERTY,” and “IN GOD WE TRUST” crosses his neckline. The issue date is at bottom, except for coins minted in 1975 and 1976, when “1776-1976” appeared to commemorate the U.S. bicentennial.The reverse has the Presidential Coat of Arms, which the United States Mint has used on various medals. The denomination is at bottom. But in 1975 and 1976, Kennedy half dollars were minted with Independence Hall, Philadelphia, on the reverse to commemorate the U.S. bicentennial. By the hall are “200 YEARS OF FREEDOM” and “E PLURIBUS UNUM.” “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” and “HALF DOLLAR” follow the rim.
MintingKennedy half dollars have been minted with three metal alloys. In their first minting, they were 90% silver – the last 90% silver coin to be circulated by the United States. From 1965-1970, Kennedy half dollars were silver clad, and this was also true of the 1975-1976 bicentennial Kennedy half dollars. Later Kennedys contain no silver at all.Mint marks occur at two separate locations, depending on issue date. From 1964-67, the mark is above the “L” in “HALF” on the reverse. Afterward, it was moved below Kennedy’s bust on the obverse, below “W” in the motto.
This is a premium coin, meaning its value is tied to factors other than the value of the spot price of the precious metal it contains. Valuation factors include, but are not limited to, speculative interest, collector and investor demand, available supply, industry promotions, perceived value, economic conditions, and other factors we deem relevant. The value assigned to this coin at any given time may vary from retailer to retailer and Augusta cannot guarantee another retailer will value this premium coin at the same rate as Augusta would in any given circumstance. Augusta cannot guarantee buy-back of any item it sells and cannot guarantee another retailer will purchase this premium coin. For up-to-date market pricing and availability, please contact us directly.
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Natural gas currently represents a significant pillar for our energy system. In 2018, important coal-to-gas switching took place in the power sector and, by 2019, natural gas accounted for 23% of total EU primary energy consumption. Natural Gas accounts for more than 20% of electricity generation, and more than 40% of it is being consumed in buildings.
Today, the European Commission is committed to delivering a long-term vision on climate neutrality by 2050, with a target of at least 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This will hinge upon a host of new initiatives such as the renewable energy directive and energy efficiency directive, expected during the second quarter of 2021, so as to address system integration and the hydrogen strategy. Further legislation due in the fourth quarter will provide an opportunity for the gas sector to demonstrate its commitment to fighting climate change, as will the new market rules, by focusing on decarbonising gas.
This new climate ambition is a driving force for change and Eurogas, which represents more than 50 companies and industry groups from 24 countries in the European gas wholesale, retail and distribution sectors, stands committed in supporting the transition.
Hence, we undertook a study with DNV GL – an independent risk management and quality assurance consultancy – to determine how the EU could deliver on its climate ambitions. The study assesses a pathway to a carbon- neutral future, comparing it to the European Commission’s 1.5TECH scenario, outlined in the 2050 long-term decarbonisation strategy. What we see is that we could achieve the EU’s climate goals at significantly lower costs than European Commission estimates, as long as we develop the hydrogen economy in the 2020s.
Natural gas has a key part to play in reducing EU emissions, and has been since 1990. By 2030, in parts of Europe, using natural gas will displace coal and oil thereby improving air quality and reducing carbon emissions contributing to increased ambition for GHG reduction. More quick wins could be achieved by replacing oil with LNG in maritime transport, or using gas as a transportation fuel which would require CO2-emission mea- surement to occur via the well-to-wheel approach rather than the tailpipe one.
Despite this, however, natural gas will have to ultimately decarbonise itself in order to help deliver on a bona fide carbon-neutral economy, and several options to achieve this are being produced today such as biomethane and hydrogen (both blue and green).
Many of our members are developing both blue and green hydrogen projects and biomethane, which contribute to Europe’s leading role on clean gas technologies, providing jobs and securing economic growth.
Kickstarting the hydrogen economy needs to take place as soon as possible therefore, with a homogenous regulatory framework to back it including: a binding EU-level target for renewable and decarbonised gas consistent with the existing targets; a harmonised framework for Guarantees of Origin to ensure transparency and tradability; fostering the blending of hydrogen and methane so as to drive market uptake and ensure infrastructure interoperability.
If we do not build now, we will miss out on the chance of achieving carbon neutrality in any cost-effective way. Many EU countries recognise that hydrogen will be part of the future energy mix. There are projects in Germany, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, to name just a few. Eurogas will be working on making sure hydrogen is deployed at scale. There is 33 bcm/year of grey hydrogen produced in Europe and, if we were to work that into blue hydrogen quickly, it could already be a big win.
In this respect, and according to all credible studies from the European Commission to International Energy Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and our own, Carbon Capture and Storage is a necessity if we are to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. The chemicals industry, for example, considers natural gas with CCS and later Carbon Capture and Utilization to be a promising pathway to transition their operations towards climate neutrality. While the large-scale realisation of CCS has been met with challenges in the EU, a positive, stable regulatory environment would enable the sector to play its part fully on the path to carbon neutrality.
Renewable hydrogen will be key to achieving the EU’s 2030 climate ambitions and climate neutrality by 2050.
This will be driven by the massive build out of intermittent renewables and the difficulty to store electricity will result in the need for seasonal storage through hydrogen production, which in turn will help renewable developers to realise profits from their parks.
Ultimately, the bridge lies in a cohesive, single policy framework. This is needed to enable the development of new value chains for renewable and decarbonised gases. All options must be considered. In parallel, clear technical rules will facilitate hydrogen’s integration. Over time, this will allow the steady growth in final demand for pure hydrogen, in sync with the development of infrastructure, ensuring the transition to the clean energy economy.
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Hydrogen is a highly abundant component of the universe and is currently enjoying unparalleled momentum in Europe and around the world. With its ambition to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, Europe needs to speed up its energy transition and reduce by at least 55% its greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decade.
The transition towards a low-carbon economy is both an imperative challenge and a great opportunity to build a better future for our society. Clean hydrogen, whether blue or green, can indeed play a critical role in the decarbonisation path.
Hydrogen can enable economic sectors, in particular power generation, industries, transport, and buildings to substantially reduce their carbon footprint. Today, hydrogen production has a high environmental footprint because it mostly comes from fossil fuels. According to the International Energy Agency, hydrogen is responsible for around 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
The challenge is to scale up clean hydrogen produced from zero-emission electricity such as renewable and nuclear energy, and accelerate the deployment of hydrogen-based applications. Two other important challenges are to make clean hydrogen economically viable by lowering the costs of the electrolysis process and developing hydrogen transport infrastructure.
Europe is at a turning point to make the hydrogen economy a reality. With the publication of its Strategy for Hydrogen last summer, the EU laid out its vision to support the growth of clean hydrogen, outlined a number of key actions, and presented three strategic phases in the timeline up to 2050.
Hydrogen, which currently accounts for less than 2% of Europe’s energy mix, is expected to represent around 14% by 2050. The roadmap aims at establishing a framework that will enable a functioning hydrogen market.
The launch of the Clean Hydrogen Alliance which gathers together major players from the whole value chain – from production to application – will facilitate the necessary investment to help the scaling up of hydrogen technologies across the continent.
Regarding the legislative process, the Council adopted its conclusion in December calling on the Commission to further elaborate and operationalise the EU Hydrogen Strategy while the European Parliament is expected to adopt its position in Spring. This may lead to intense – but interesting nonetheless – political debates.
In this edition of the European Files, we explore the potential for a hydrogen-powered future in Europe through the perspective of policymakers and businesses. Their contributions analyse the existing economic and political hurdles and recommend policy incentives that will enable the upscaling of clean hydrogen technologies and support the transition towards a low-carbon economy.
Laurent Ulmann &
Cyrille Mai Thanh
- Renewable Hydrogen: A Key Driver for Europe’s Energy Transition
, European Commissioner for Energy
- From Ambition to Action: Enabling Europe to Become a Global Leader in Hydrogen Technologies
, European Commissioner for Internal Market
- The New Decarbonised Hydrogen Economy: a Growth Engine in a Post-Covid Europe
, French Minister of Economy, Finance and Recovery
- The Portuguese Hydrogen Strategy to Decarbonise its Economy: The Project to Produce Green Hydrogen by Electrolysis
, Portuguese Minister of Environment & Climate Action
- How Renewable Hydrogen Will Help Descarbonise the European Economy The Case for Spain
, Vice-President Government of Spain and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge
- Global cooperation is essential for realising hydrogen’s huge potential
, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency
- Building an investment case for hydrogen
, Vice President of the European Investment Bank
- Deploying Clean Hydrogen Energy for a climate-neutral Future
, MEP (S&D, Germany), Rapporteur on the Hydrogen Strategy, Member of the ITRE Committee, European Parliament
- Hydrogen – Making Europe a leader in each segment of this strategic value chain
, Executive Vice President ENGIE
- Directing Public and Private Investments Towards Hydrogen Production
, MEP (EPP Group), Shadow rapporteur on the Hydrogen Strategy, Member of the ITRE Committee
- Low-carbon electrolytic hydrogen: a win-win for climate and energy system integration
, Chairman and CEO of EDF
- The switch from natural gas to green hydrogen, and its importance for climate change promises
, MEP (Renew Europe – Denmark), Vice-Chair ITRE Committee
- A Danish perspective on a clever deployment of Hydrogen
, Director General of the Danish Energy Agency
- The International Dimensions of the European Hydrogen Strategy
, MEP (EPP Group), Member of the ITRE Committee
- Natural Gas and Hydrogen: Bridging the Regulatory Gap
, Secretary General Eurogas
- Towards greater hydrogen production capacity in Europe
, International Association of Oil & Gas Producers, Regional Director Europe
, Vice President Political and Public Affairs – Global Head of EU Affairs / Country Manager Belgium, Equinor Energy Belgium NV
- Why Europe Needs Targets for Hydrogen Energy Infrastructure Rollout
, MEP, EPP ITRE Coordinator
- Hydrogen valleys driving growth and jobs
, Executive director of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU)
- The scaling up of hydrogen, a European task
, MEP (S&D group), Member of the ITRE committee
- The future of Hydrogen under the Green Deal ambitions
, MEP (EPP – ND Greece) Member of ITRE Committee, European Parliament
- Hydrogen : Time to scale up !
, Executive Vice-President Member of the Executive Committee AIR LIQUIDE
- Changing the ground for a competitive hydrogen ecosystem in Europe
, Secretary General of Hydrogen Europe
- Full speed ahead: Developing European Infrastructure for Hydrogen
, Chief Executive Officer, Energinet Gas TSO and President of Gas – Infrastructure Europe (GIE)
- Towards a Continent Powered by Clean Electricity: Leading the Charge on Hydrogen
, Secretary General of Eurelectric
- Hydrogen Strategies and The Importance of Solving the Dual CO And Methane Performance Challenge
, MEP (S&D, Spain), Member of the ITRE Committee, European Parliament
- Hydrogen’s role to decarbonise the European gas grid
, General Director of ENTSOG
- Hydrogen as One of the Solutions for the Decarbonisation of Transport
, MEP (Renew Europe, Finland), Member of the TRAN Committee, European Parliament
- Green Hydrogen – The dream of energy transition or just a fade? What does it take to meet the high expectations of a European hydrogen market?
, MEP (Renew Europe Group), Vice Chair of TRAN Committee
- Hydrogen: Promising Zero-Carbon Technologies for Future Aircraft
, Executive Director – Clean Sky Joint Undertaking
- Hydrogen – the Great Unifier?
, President of the Solar Impulse Foundation
- Green Hydrogen for a carbon neutral transport sector
, MEP (S&D, Germany), Member of TRAN & ITRE Committees, European Parliament
- When hydrogen partners with electrons: clean heating for all
, Co-CEO Viessmann Group and CEO Viessmann Climate Solutions
- Hydrogen blending standards: is harmonisation needed?
, Florence School of Regulation – Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute
, Florence School of Regulation Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute
- Clean Hydrogen as A Major Enabler for Making Carbon-Free Ammonia and Fertilizers
, Technical Director, Fertilizers Europe
- Unlocking the Green Hydrogen Economy through Business Model Innovation
, CEO of EIT InnoEnergy
- EU Hydrogen at a crossroads: how to gear up?
, Vice-President of Renew Europe Co-chair of the intergroup on long-term & sustainable investments & Competitive European Industry
- Innovation – a key driver of the EU Hydrogen Economy
, Director-General Joint Research Centre, European Commission
- How can carbon-free hydrogen become more competitive?
, MEP (Renew Europe Group), Member of the ITRE Committee
- Clean Hydrogen costs in 2030 and 2050: a review of the known and the unknown
, Research Associate – Florence School of Regulation
, Director – Florence School of Regulation
- Hydrogen will not be the new oil of the XXI century
, President – The Shift Project
, Director – The Shift Project
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Where To Buy Crypto Stocks – What is Cryptocurrency? Basically, Cryptocurrency is digital money that can be used in place of traditional currency. Basically, the word Cryptocurrency originates from the Greek word Crypto which indicates coin and Currency. In essence, Cryptocurrency is simply as old as Blockchains. The distinction between Cryptocurrency and Blockchains is that there is no centralization or journal system in place. In essence, Cryptocurrency is an open source procedure based on peer-to Peer transaction innovations that can be performed on a dispersed computer system network.
One specific way in which the Ethereum Project is attempting to solve the problem of smart contracts is through the Foundation. The Ethereum Foundation was developed with the goal of establishing software solutions around smart agreement functionality. The Foundation has launched its open source libraries under an open license.
For starters, the significant difference in between the Bitcoin Project and the Ethereum Project is that the previous does not have a governing board and therefore is open to factors from all walks of life. The Ethereum Project enjoys a much more regulated environment.
When it comes to the projects underlying the Ethereum Platform, they are both striving to offer users with a new way to participate in the decentralized exchange. Nevertheless, the major distinctions in between the two are that the Bitcoin procedure does not utilize the Proof Of Consensus (POC) process that the Ethereum Project uses. In addition, there will be an effort to incorporate the newest Byzantium upgrade that will increase the scalability of the network. These 2 distinctions might show to be barriers to entry for prospective business owners, but they do represent important differences.
On the one hand, the Bitcoin community has actually had some battles with its attempts to scale its network. On the other hand, the Ethereum Project has actually taken an aggressive technique to scale the network while likewise tackling scalability concerns. As a result, the two tasks are aiming to provide various methods of proceeding. In contrast to the Satoshi Roundtable, which focused on increasing the block size, the Ethereum Project will have the ability to carry out enhancements to the UTX protocol that increase transaction speed and decrease fees. In contrast to the Bitcoin Project ‘s plan to increase the overall supply, the Ethereum group will be working on reducing the rate of blocks mined per minute.
The decentralized aspect of the Linux Foundation and the Bitcoin Unlimited Association represent a conventional design of governance that places a focus on strong community involvement and the promo of consensus. This design of governance has actually been adopted by several distributed application teams as a method of handling their projects.
The significant distinction in between the 2 platforms originates from the truth that the Bitcoin neighborhood is mainly self-sufficient, while the Ethereum Project expects the participation of miners to support its development. By contrast, the Ethereum network is open to contributors who will contribute code to the Ethereum software stack, forming what is called “code forks “. This feature increases the level of participation desired by the community. When it was used in forex trading, this design likewise varies from the Byzantine Fault design that was embraced by the Byzantine algorithm.
Just like any other open source technology, much debate surrounds the relationship between the Linux Foundation and the Ethereum Project. Although both have adopted different point of views on how to finest use the decentralized element of the innovation, they have both nonetheless striven to develop a positive working relationship. The designers of the Linux and Android mobile platforms have actually honestly supported the work of the Ethereum Foundation, contributing code to protect the functionality of its users. The Facebook team is supporting the work of the Ethereum Project by offering their own framework and creating applications that incorporate with it. Both the Linux Foundation and Facebook see the heavenly job as a way to enhance their own interests by providing an expense scalable and effective platform for developers and users alike.
Merely put, Cryptocurrency is digital cash that can be utilized in location of traditional currency. Generally, the word Cryptocurrency comes from the Greek word Crypto which suggests coin and Currency. In essence, Cryptocurrency is just as old as Blockchains. The distinction between Cryptocurrency and Blockchains is that there is no centralization or ledger system in place. In essence, Cryptocurrency is an open source protocol based on peer-to Peer transaction innovations that can be executed on a distributed computer system network. Where To Buy Crypto Stocks
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Before the creation of the common European currency, the “Euro”, on January 1, 2000, every European country had their own unique currency and monetary policies. Germany had the “Deutschmarks”, France the “Franc” and so on. However, after the creation and adoption of the Euro, Germany has had an increasingly troublesome secret euro problem.
The Euro today is the common currency of many countries (19) and the second most traded currency of the world. And as the main currency of the European Union (the “EU”), it is valued and traded on the basis of the monetary and fiscal health of the EU.
But not all the countries within the EU are equal in terms of their economies. Some countries, such as Germany, have strong economies. Whereas countries such as Greece and Spain, are much weaker. However, the Euro is traded and valued (generally) based on the EU economy as a whole – not on the individual basis of its member countries.
Should the single Euro currency be no more, the separate value of each member country’s currency would then be a reflection of their own nations health and weaknesses. And there lies the German secret Euro problem.
Because Germany’s economy is not only the strongest of the EU, it is also the most export driven. A weak Euro means that German exports are less expensive in world markets. The lower value of the Euro (compared to the now non-existent Deutschmarks) have greatly helped grow German GDP.
Without the Euro, a German Deutschmark would soar to higher levels, causing exports to fall and (more than likely) create a severe recession within Germany. In crude terms, the German export economy has greatly benefitted from the weakness of other EU countries and the subsequent lower “grouped economy” Euro value.
Though Germany may seem strong in its negotiations with Greece, and may not appear to want to keep the Euro and the EU together at all costs, the secret is that Germany is much stronger with the Euro than without.
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Process Costing – FIFO Method
Under the FIFO method of process costing, costs are transferred to next department and ultimately to finished goods in the order in which they entered the current department i.e. costs entering first are transferred first and hence the name FIFO–first-in-first-out.
Unlike the weighted average method, the FIFO method does not involve any averaging out of the total costs incurred during a period. It moves the cost of beginning work in process (including the costs incurred in current period) straight to cost of units transferred out and distributes the costs added during the period first to the cost of units transferred out and the rest to the cost of units in the ending work in process.
FIFO method involves following steps, majority of which are the same as in weighted average method:
- Preparing the quantity schedule: i.e. reconciling units in the beginning work in process, units added/started during the period, units transferred out and units in ending WIP.
- Bringing forward the cost of ending WIP of last period as cost of beginning work in process of the current period.
- Bringing forward the percentage of completion of the ending WIP of last period.
- Finding the costs brought forward from previous department and cost added in the current department under different heads: direct materials and conversion costs.
- Finding units started/added and completed during the current period.
- Finding total equivalent units.
- Finding cost per equivalent unit for each cost component.
- Allocating the cost between units transferred out and ending WIP.
Let us use the same example as in the article on process costing under weighted average method.
Prepare a cost of production report for the packaging department of Company ABC for the month of December 2013 under FIFO method of process costing. Important information is reproduced here.
- 20,000 units in work in process as at 1 December: $20,000 of direct materials and $40,000 of conversion costs (i.e. $10,000 direct labor and $30,000 manufacturing overheads). 100% of the direct materials cost and 40% of the conversion cost have been incurred in last period on these units.
- 200,000 units transferred in from production department during the month: at a total cost of $555,000.
- Costs added included: direct materials of $22,000 and conversion costs of $20,000.
- 180,000 units transferred to finished goods.
- 40,000 units in work in process as at 31 December: 100% complete as to costs transferred-in, 80% complete as to materials and 50% complete as to conversion costs.
The first step is the preparation of quantity schedule.
|As at 1 December||20,000|
|Units to be accounted for||220,000|
|Transferred out from units from 1 December||20,000|
|Units both started and completed during the current period||160,000|
|Units transferred out||180,000|
|As at 31 December||40,000|
|Units accounted for||220,000|
Now, calculate the equivalent units:
|Units in beginning WIP (A)||0||20,000||20,000|
|% of completion of beginning WIP in previous period (B)||0%||100%||40%|
|% of beginning WIP completed this period [C=100%-B]||100%||0%||60%|
|Equivalent units in beginning WIP [D=A×C]||-||-||12,000|
|Units both started and completed in current period (E)||160,000||160,000||160,000|
|Units of ending WIP (F)||40,000||40,000||40,000|
|Percentage of completion of ending WIP (G)||100%||80%||50%|
|Equivalent units in ending WIP (H=F×G)||40,000||32,000||20,000|
|Total equivalent units (D+E+H)||200,000||192,000||192,000|
Next, find cost per equivalent unit.
|Total equivalent units (J)||200,000||192,000||192,000|
|Cost per equivalent unit (I/J)||$2.775||$0.1146||$0.1042||$2.993|
We need to find the cost of units transferred out. Since we are using FIFO method, we first include the entire beginning WIP in the cost of units transferred out and then include units started/added during the period.
|Cost of beginning WIP brought forward from last period (K)||$60,000|
|Transferred-in costs [(100%-100%)*20,000*2.775] (L)||$-|
|Direct materials [(100%-100%)*20,000*0.1146] (M)||$-|
|Conversion costs [(100%-40%)*20,000*0.1042] (N)||$1,250|
|Cost incurred on beginning WIP in current period (O=L+M+N)||$1,250|
|Beginning WIP (P=K+O)||$61,250|
|Cost of units started and completed in current period (2.993*160,000) (Q)||$479,000|
|Cost of units transferred out (P+Q)||$540,250|
Cost of units in ending work in process comes from units added during the period:
|Units as at 31 December (R)||40,000||40,000||40,000||40,000|
|Cost per equivalent unit (S)||$2.775||$0.1146||$0.1042||$2.993|
|Percentage of completion (T)||100%||80%||50%|
|Total cost (R×S×T)||$111,000||$3,667||$2,083||$116,750|
It can also be calculated using the short-cut formula given below
Cost of ending WIP =
Cost of Beginning WIP + Costs Transferred-in + Costs Added in Current Department − Costs Transferred-out
Value of ending WIP based on this formula is:
Cost of ending WIP = $60,000 + $555,0000 + $42,000 − $540, 250 = 116,750
We can summarize the cost movement using the cost schedule given below:
|Cost to be accounted for||Accounted for as|
|Beginning WIP||60000||Transferred out||540,250|
|Cost transferred in||555000||Closing WIP||116,750|
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People are a valuable resource that every nation needs. Whether as consumers or workers, humans are a vital resource in order to help any nation grow and develop economically. By acting as consumers, people pump money into an economy by spending in order to purchase goods and services from companies that in turn employ workers. These workers earn a salary for their labors and for the contributions they make to a company in order for it to invent better processes, techniques, and products. But unless there are people, none of this is possible.
Currently, there is what demographers call a “global fertility crisis”. This means there are less babies being born who will eventually become consumers and workers. But most importantly, they will replace the individuals who will die, either prematurely or due to old age, and this will result in a population decline in many nations. Countries such as Italy, Japan, Spain, China, Australia, and the United States are experiencing declining numbers in their respective populations that will have long-term economic, financial, and policy implications. Unless something is done to reverse this global trend, the situation will only get worse.
What is happening
Many nations are experiencing a serious decline in their fertility rates. Foremost among these nations is Japan in which, according to the United Nations, saw their fertility rate decline from 2.75 children born per woman in the 1950s to 1.44 in 2020. This means a population decline of one million people since 2015. Other nations, such as Spain and Thailand, will experience serious reductions in their population of greater than 50 percent from the years 2017 to 2100. Spain is expected to see its population decline from 46 million to below 23 million in this time period, while Thailand will go from 71 million to below 35 million in the same span.
Going around the world, the decline only gets worse. For example, Central and Eastern Europe, along with Central Asiawill see their population head downward from a peak of 418 million in 2023 to a low of 324 million. If the economies of the nations located in these regions are expected to grow, then a severe population decline will not help. Countries such as Bulgaria contained 9 million at the conclusion of the Cold War but saw its population shrink to 7.1 million by 2017. For Bulgaria, the situation is only expected to worsen since some estimates feel that its population will decline further to approximately 5.4 million in 2050. In the same time period, nations such as Poland and Ukraine are expected to lose another 6 million in population while Hungary will shed 1.5 million people.
The United States is not immune to the global fertility crisis. Long seen as a nation that has a growing and robust population, the United States is starting to witness a decline in its growth. The year 2007 saw the fertility rate peak at 2.1 children born per woman. However, by 2016, the nation’s fertility rate dropped to 1.8. The United States has long been known as a nation that has permitted a fairly large amount of immigration from other countries to be used as a way to make up for any declines in population growth. Immigrants would bring along their families and start new ones in their adopted country. However, this is no longer true as the fertility rates in the United States have seen a decline since 1990 in all the major racial and ethnic groups who have relocated. For example, the fertility rate among Latinas has dropped precipitously from 3.0 children per woman in 1990 to 2.4 children per woman in 2010 and for black women the rate has gone from 2.5 to 2.0. There are analysts who feel that the onslaught of Covid-19 will only make matters worse since people will be fearful of having children in a pandemic that may last two or three more years.
Why it is happening
There are numerous reasons why the global fertility crisis is occurring.
First, the decline in the global fertility rate is occurring due to drop in the total fertility rate, or the TFR. The TFR represents the rate in which a population is able to replace itself from one generation to the next making up the replacement fertility rate. Demographers state that a minimum of two children are needed to make sure that there is a steady rate of population from one generation to the next. The TFR has seen a global decrease of five live births for every women in the 1960’s to a level of 2.43 births in 2017 which demographers feel is close to the critical threshold.
There is also the preferred context for having children. Now more women want to have children after completing their education, attain economic and financial security, and become involved in a stable relationship. But there are very often problems in achieving these goals and many women either have fewer children or none at all. Many women delay having children until they feel they are ready, but some forgoe having children since they feel they are never ready.
Another reason fewer babies are being born is the cost. Many parents will readily tell anyone that having children costs money. This includes feeding, clothing, education, child care, and health care expenses. With the cost of living, as well as the costs involved in raising a child, many people put off having children or decide to have one or two at the most. If the parents are wealthy, then the chances of having more children can increase substantially. There have been studies showing that there is a correlation between financial and economic wealth and increases in births.
There is also the increase in the use of contraceptives and better quality of contraceptive technology. More reliable, cheaper, and increased access to modern contraception makes it easier for a women or a couple to put off having children. There have been economists who have attributed approximately 40 percent of the fertility decline that started after 1957 to improvement in contraceptive access.
Increased college attendance, especially among women, could be another reason for women either delaying or having fewer children. More women have attended college or graduate school than in the past. This means putting off having children in order to complete their education. Also, with more students taking on student loans, it may mean putting off having children in order to pay off those loans.
Another key reason for the decline in the TFR is the trend by young people to postpone bearing children. In 1970, there were approximately 168 births for every 1,000 women in the 20 to 24 age brackets, while there were 73 births for every 1,000 women in the 30 to 34 age brackets. Now the trend is changing. For the first time in American history, in 2009 the birthing rate for women in the 30 to 34 age brackets, which is 97.5 births for every 1,000 women, exceeded that of women in the 20 to 24 age brackets at 96 births for every 1,000 women. The birthing rate for teen age girls, ages 15 to 19, has declined to 34 births for every 1,000 girls, which is the lowest ever in American history.
There are various economic implications of the global fertility crisis. The first involves replacing workers who have retired or left the labor force. There will always be a number of workers who will either take early retirement, retire at their appropriate age, or die prematurely. This is regarded as normal and totally expected. However, if there is an insufficient number of people to take the retiree’s places, then there is a severe worker shortage that will only get worse as time goes by. Without children being born at the normal rate, and then eventually entering the workforce in later years, there will be a worker shortage. What is occurring now is that the U.S. labor force is not growing at the rate it should and has slowed down precipitously from an average of 2.5 percent per year in the 1970’s to approximately 0.5 percent annually between the years 2010 to 2016. This rate is expected to be constant at this level for the next ten years. The problem is made worse if immigration into the United States is tightened considerably by the federal government and that companies are having a very difficult time finding new workers for industries such as construction, healthcare, and farming.
Another economic problem with a global fertility crisis is that societies will begin to age at a faster pace. If the number of senior citizens continues to increase and there are no babies to replace them in society, it will mean that the average age of many countries will go up. For a nation to see its economy grow, it needs young people who will consume a variety of products and use multiple services. Older people are past the consumption stage and will only purchase products and goods they need to survive. They are not looking to use new technology or take vacations and spend money. Senior citizens will often travel but at a slower pace. Younger people want to explore new places, use the latest technology, and try exotic foods. This means that younger people will be highly inclined to spend more and often. It is projected that by the end of the 21st century, 2.4 billion people will be over age 65, yet those under age 20 years old will only be at 1.7 billion. This imbalance between old and young people is not good for the global macroeconomy.
For those nations that provide vast and complex social programs, the global fertility crisis will hurt them especially hard. For example, Europe will be severely impacted by a shortage of children which will mean an eventual shortage of workers in the labor force. Many countries in Europe rely on higher tax revenues in order to pay for healthcare programs, pensions for the elderly, and a wide social safety net for all members of European society. The only way to pay for these programs is higher taxes or more workers in the labor force to pay taxes to support these programs. But when does the increasing amount of taxes become too much for workers to bear? These social programs rely on money coming in and money going out. If there is not enough money coming in, then policymakers will find themselves in a bind trying to provide the ageing population the services they will desperately need. European Union governments have tried to address their fertility crisis problem. For example, in 2018 Italy announced September 22nd as “Fertility Day” in order to encourage its citizenry to do its civic duty and reproduce in order to bolster the nation’s declining population.
A key economic implication is that many nations will start to experience declining Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the coming decades. There will be an eventual domino effect if the fertility crisis deepens. If there are fewer people, then fewer goods, products, and services will be consumed. This will lead to lower production or economic output in the long run, and eventually slower economic growth which translates into lower global GDP. This will ultimately mean that living standards will eventually decline also. This concept was brought forth by Stanford University economics Professor Charles Jones in his paper, “The End of Economic Growth?” Professor Jones sets forth a model of what could occur with global population decline. Professor Jones states that as overall output declines, global living standards would experience stagnation as the population disappears on a gradual basis. The domino effect is that there will be significant reduction in research and development, consumption, production, and even the introduction of new services. The global macroeconomy will slow down and the world will experience a vicious cycle as low fertility occurring in one generation will lead to low fertility in the following generation, and so on.
What will the future hold?
While this seems like a very scary future, it can be changed. But this means a revaluation of public policy in order to encourage more babies being born and that the TFR actually increasing over time. For example, government, at both the local, state, and national level will need to formulate policy that will provide support systems to working mothers and families who want to have children. This would mean programs such as subsidized day care and nursery school for children from infants to preschool. Child care is very expensive and subsidized child care would take a huge burden off the backs of working mothers and families who have a difficult time making ends meet. There must also be laws and regulations, on state and national levels, that would create family-friendly workplaces. Programs such as extended maternity leave, with full pay, could help working mothers care for their infants longer and create more loyalty to their employing companies.
There should also laws and regulations that allow paternity leave with full pay, so that new fathers could share in the care and feeding of their newly born children. There should also be new tax policies designed to benefit secondary earners instead of penalizing them for having children or taking an extended leave of absence to raise their babies. The bottom line is that unless new polices are introduced to encourage women to have babies and families to have more children, the economic implications will mean a downturn that will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to avoid.
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Climate Change and the Future of Risk
In 2012 Hurricane Sandy caused over $70 billion in damage along the U.S. Atlantic coast, leaving communities in desperate financial condition and pushing the National Flood Insurance Program, already financially stretched by a decade of severe weather-related claims, deeper into debt. In addition, coastal cities like Miami and Norfolk, Virginia now experience regular nuisance flooding, demanding huge investments in protective infrastructure to fend off rising seas.
How will the U.S. pay for infrastructure needed to minimize the impact of future disasters even as population grows in increasingly flood-prone areas?
Howard Kunreuther, Co-Director of the Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the challenge of balancing support for communities at risk for natural disaster with the economic and political challenges to doing so. He also highlights how human psychology can make it hard for people to grasp the likelihood of future disasters, and the role this has played in pushing the national flood insurance program to the brink of insolvency.
Andy Stone: Hey, and welcome to the Energy Policy Now Podcast from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, I’m Andy Stone. Severe weather events have become increasingly common in recent years with grave human costs and extensive damage to infrastructure. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused more than $70 billion worth of damage along the Atlantic coast, coastal cities like Miami and Norfolk, Virginia. Now floods with predictable regularity and extended droughts of fanned fires in damaging agriculture and the West. Today’s podcast explores the increasing uncertainty that global warming brings to the task of identifying, understanding and preparing for natural disasters that may happen years into the future. We’ll look at how the insurance industry is grappling with a future that looks less predictably like the past, the choices policymakers face when preparing for natural disasters and the related challenge of motivating people to protect themselves from future risk. Our guest is Howard called the Director of the Wharton School’s Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, and an expert on the management of low probability, high consequence events related to technological and natural hazards. He is also the James G. Dinan Emeritus Professor of Operations Information and Decisions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Howard, welcome to the podcast to be with you.
Howard Kunreuther: Thanks, Andy.
AS: Howard is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis. He has served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and is also coauthor of a new book with Robert Meyer on why we under prepare for disasters. The book’s title is ‘The Ostrich Paradox’. Howard risk that’s often in the future and very remote is something that can be very difficult to get one’s mind around. Can you describe the specific specific types of risk your work is focused on?
HK: Well, Andy, we actually started my late colleague, Paul and myself started the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Process Center 30 years ago now. And from the outset we were focusing on how we deal with low probability high consequence events. And when I mean when I say, I mean individuals, organizations, government at the state local and federal level and globally, climate change, obviously being a topic we’ll discuss today. And we’ve been focusing on that from the very beginning. We had the word decision processes in the title of the center, and it’s still there because we’re interested in how these various institutions and individuals make decisions and then stretching ways that we can try to improve them.
AS: When we’re dealing with extreme events that you’ve been dealing with extreme events and risk for several decades. How the view of risk evolved over time?
HK: Well, I think the big change we’ve seen is that people are now paying attention to the fact that individuals and organizations and the country do not do a very good job of dealing with them. We’ve had more of these disasters in recent years, we’re in a new era of catastrophes. They are now center stage on a framework of organizations, decisions, making and people are now concerned. As you indicated with hurricane Sandy, the consequences of floods and hurricanes on their own livelihood and own their own on their own property.
AS: So looking at risk, are you specifically looking at those major risks related to disasters, such as a hurricane Sandy, that type of thing?
HK: We’re looking at those risks that’s really taken a more center stage in recent years. We’re also looking at chemical accidents at terrorism at any low probability event that could be caused by natural forces or that could be person made.
AS: Now much of your work is with the insurance industry. What questions specifically, you’re trying to answer for insurers, for government, for others?
HK: I think our big question that we’re trying to answer is why we don’t take steps before a disaster to prepare for them. As you mentioned, the book that Bob Myer and I wrote, he’s my co-director of the Risk Center just recently on why we under prepare for disasters highlights the fact that there are just a set of biases that individuals have in making these decisions and our interest is in understanding them. And then trying to figure out ways that we can do a better job in the insurance industry is a critical player in all of this because they are ones who would provide financial protection when individuals may suffer from a disaster, But they also will encourage individuals and firms to actually take measures by reducing premiums if they mitigate. So they have a dual role to play here and they can be tied in with a lot of other policy tools, which we can talk about.
AS: Well, I want to jump to that issue right away. I mean, you’ve applied cognitive psychology and behavioral economics to understand why we don’t tend to prepare for disasters. People live in a flood zone. They know flood is going to happen at some point, but they don’t buy insurance. Why is that?
HK: Well, I think there’s several reasons Andy, as to why they don’t do it. The first is it’s not going to happen to me. It’s going to happen to someone else. I really don’t want to think about this. This is beyond, below my threshold level of concern. I’ve got a lot of other things to worry about and thinking about a flood, isn’t a very pleasant thought. Anyway, I’m living in an area where I’m enjoying the beach, I’m enjoying a whole set of air of amenities. The idea of thinking about the consequences of a hurricane is not something I prefer to think about. And we haven’t had one in a few years. And so why should I worry about that? And so that’s one aspect and the second is myopia, you know, I can’t afford to take steps to make my house safer. Insurance is one step, but I could elevate my house against damage from storm surge, from a hurricane or flooding, and yet the cost of doing that is extraordinarily high. And I’m really only concerned about what’s going to happen in the next two or three years. And I can’t justify taking those steps, even though they would be available for the length of the life of the house. And so it’s not just a one or two year proposition when you actually make your house safer, it’s 20 or 30 years.
AS: So the two sides to this one is buying insurance, for example, to prepare for that disaster. So you can recover. And the other is actually doing the measures that are needed now that when that disaster comes, for example, a flood associated with a hurricane your basement doesn’t flood because your house is up on stilts.
HK: Exactly. Right.
AS: Or you flood proofed your house or you did something, right?
HK: Exactly. So, and those two things go together. If you take those steps as you’re suggesting then your insurance premium should actually be decreased by you doing that. But if you’re not thinking about taking those steps or buying insurance, it’s out of sight out of mind, in which case, you’re not going to do anything.
AS: Don’t we learn from the past?
HK: We sure do, but it takes a disaster for us to learn. And that’s the real problem. It’s only after a disaster that people say, I wish I had bought insurance and sometimes they buy it and oftentimes they’ll take some steps to protect, but in the case of insurance, they may buy and then they don’t have a disaster for the next three or four years. And they say, my premium is wasted. I’m going to cancel my policy. And that’s not what insurance is about. It’s protection. It’s not an investment. And you should celebrate the fact that you haven’t had a disaster, right? The best return on an insurance policy is no return at all. So you can say, look, I’ve been lucky. I’ve been fortunate, but that is in the way people see it.
AS: Well, there’s an issue with, with flood insurance. It’s not required in this country, as I understand in many regions, or it may be required. If it’s, it’s tied into a federal initiative,
HK: It’s required if you’re living in a flood hazard area and your community is part of the National Flood Insurance Program, which is a federal program, then individuals are required to buy it. But it’s not very clear from all the data we’ve collected how many people actually have it. They may buy it initially and then cancel it and banks may not follow up. And so, as a result of that, we don’t have a lot of people in these areas who are protected, many of whom should be protected because they are required for a federally insured mortgage.
AS: The national Flood Insurance Program was developed in the late 1960s, I believe, to help make flood insurance more affordable, whether that program has been a success or not is somewhat up in the air?
HK: Well, the program was started in 1968 and just a little bit of background, the private insurers had been marketing flood insurance up till 1927 from the late 1890s. They had a couple of very serious floods in the Mississippi area and they decided that the risk was uninsurable. So there was really no flood insurance available for almost all homes and flood prone areas. When this program was started, what happened basically was that when they started it, they said, we are going to have rates that are subsidized for those who are currently there to preserve their property values. And the idea was that over time the rates would reflect the risk that hasn’t quite happened the way it had been anticipated. And so right now, what we have a program that a large number of people are not insured who are in the flood prone areas, as we’ve said a minute ago and there is a concern with respect to trying to have premiums that reflect risk so that you can actually let people know what their risk is and possibly charge people for that. But there is then an issue of affordability, what’s going to happen to the low income people whose premiums may go way up given the fact they’re in a high hazard area. And that’s an issue we’re very concerned about. How do you deal with those individuals?
AS: I want to come back to that issue of affordability in just a moment, but you know, when we’re talking about setting rates for this insurance, there’s obviously a quantification of that future risk. How is that risk quantified? And how does that, you know, that quantified risk then relating to what the insurance premium may be?
HK: It’s a really important question. And because if you don’t have some quantification of the risk and know what the risk is, you can’t even deal with issues like affordability and mitigation. Cause you got to know what you’re facing. And so I think the big issue right now, uh, that is facing the country Congress and the federal emergency management agency is how do you move towards, uh, at least data that enables you to talk about what a risk space insurance premium is, forget about charging it, what would it be? So people understand what their risk is, and that requires much better mapping than they currently have, we’ve mapping of the actual communities. And there are no map mapping of the community and the river to understand essentially what the likelihood will be a floods of different magnitudes. It requires elevation certificates on homes to say how much damage the home would face. And it then requires a want to put these together in a way to say, here’s what your insurance premium would be. If it turns out you are living in a community that’s flood prone, you are located in a particular spot relative to the river or the coast, because this is a problem that Miami and, and New York city and coastal areas face with storm surge, from flooding. And here’s what you are, what your risk is. Now we can tell you what you can do about it. And at the same time, we can provide you with insurance that will hopefully protect you out of premium. And this is the question, what do you charge people for this rate for this risk, but at least let people know that step. Number one,
AS: You brought up the issue of the flooding in Miami Beach, the nuisance flooding. I think this is also happening in Norfolk, Virginia, and other areas it’s related to sea level rise. And the thought is it’s related to climate change. How does climate change alter our ability to understand risk in the future if in the past. And I’m just assuming here we relied on reliable repeated weather patterns. If those weather patterns are changing, doesn’t that create a, a conundrum for people trying to understand the likelihood of a future disaster?
HK: Absolutely. And I think that the challenge right now facing our country and facing individuals in these areas is to put climate change and global warming on the agenda. And to recognize that there are developments here that could be very, very serious for individuals and for cities, as you pointed out, Miami Norfolk, New York City, is very concerned about that just for full disclosure, I’m on the New York City Climate Change Panel. And we have been spending a lot of time thinking about how do you get that information across in terms of what that risk will be if the sea is going to be rising as the climate scientists actually have indicated by a few inches and by more than that, over a period of time. And what about more intense hurricanes like hurricane Sandy occurring in the future? What is not going to do so we need to put that on the table because if we’re going to have development in these areas, or if we’re going to talk about that as structures that are currently there, it’s going to be very important to know what’s going to happen, not just next year, but over 20 or 30 or 50 years,
AS: Getting to the policy component of this talking about global warming is obviously a politically charged issue at this point. Do you see that there might be a cooperation, bipartisan cooperation that would allow this type of thinking you’re talking to, to go forward in Washington?
HK: I sure hope so. I mean, no one, I think has an answer right now. I certainly don’t in the, in the context of what Congress is going to do and what the president is going to do with respect to the climate change agreement in Paris, which we were a signature to. And I hope we remain one. So in that sense, I think we are waiting to see how that all develops. I think that if one puts on the table what we know and what scientists have been saying, I’m not a scientist, I’m an economist and an interested in risk. So I look at this from the point of view of the data they’ve collected, but what has certainly been clear to me, certainly being on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for a four year period is that this is an issue that is a real issue that we have to think about appropriate policies. And the hope is that this will be now understood and you want, don’t want to wait for another disaster or you don’t want to wait for a critical tipping point before that actually happens.
AS: Looking a little bit more locally, kind of the political perspective as well, there’s a large question in an overriding question of, do you want insurance rates to discourage people from living in certain areas, rebuilding and certain areas that have been hit by flooding? What do you do with people who may have subsidized insurance that if that insurance were truly reflecting risk, they may not be able to afford to live there. This is a huge issue as well.
HK: I agree. It’s a very important issue. There we’re facing the reform of the National Flood Insurance program and that is going to expire in September of 2017. And that issue I think, needs to be on the table. I think that there’s a lot of discussion on the role that the private sector can play with respect to that if they were going to be providing insurance and how that could compliment what the National Flood Insurance the federal program is doing. But unless we address the fact that yes, we do need to let people know what their rates are, Premiums will be. I would feel, you know, I think the general feeling is that people move into an area and they’re settling there. They should be then paying a risk based premium, an actuarially fair premium as we often call it and that was part of the flood program back in 1968. And that’s still part of the general idea of the flood program. But the key question that you’re raising is what happens to the people who are currently there and you one needs to address the issue of how to deal with fairness. And I want to put fairness on the table. All of a sudden the rug is pulled out from under them. And now they are saying, God, I have to pay a premium. It’s a lot higher than I paid before. I’m not sure I can afford it. I don’t think this is fair and need to somehow know how we need to somehow address that issue. I can talk about that in terms of how we address that.
AS: I’d love to hear more about that. I mean, that’s obviously a big policy issue at this point.
HK: I think the way we have been thinking about this and a colleague of mine who has just joined the risk center, Carolyn Kooskia and I have written on this, but also been part of a national Academy of Sciences Committee to deal with the affordability of flood insurance. And so spend a fair amount of time talking about this. And I think one idea that has come out and has been mentioned in that committee report is that right? That you tell everyone what their premium is going to be, but at the same time you say, look, we know that this is now going to be a lot higher than you can afford, and we need a criteria for what affordability would be based on income or housing costs, et cetera. And on the basis of that, we will help you out, help you out.Meaning the public sector we’ll help you out with some kind of a voucher or a tax credit to reduce essentially what you have to pay. And the point that Carolyn and I have made in this paper is that it would be very, very good if you were telling people, not only that we’ll help you out, but that there’s an opportunity for you to make your house safer in a way that is cost effective. And if you do that, your premium is going to go way down. And so we would like to tie the idea of the credit voucher or credit or some support to help them out with the idea that they do something to make their house safer. And in that way you help them because they now have a safer house and less to worry about in the future. And climate change being a part of that problem. But at the same time, you help out the public sector because they don’t have to pay as much because when the insurance premium goes down you might give that you give them a loan. You don’t say you have to pay the cost up front, which is when people do you spread it over time, which is a way of dealing with the myopia problem that I mentioned earlier. And then when you look at the cost, they’ll have the loan and the insurance premium discount that they’ll get, this is going to be more affordable and they will actually pay less. And the voucher would have to be less as a result. So that’s the direction we would like to see. And we’d like to emphasize the fairness part of all of that, so that people see that in a way you’re doing it, you’re being fair to them. And everyone has their own definition of fairness. We would say when the rug is pulled out, when people, all of a sudden face a problem that they hadn’t faced before, it’s unfair to all of a sudden charge them that kind of a premium.
AS: So basically somebody upgrades their home to be more resilient and with, with some type of subsidized loan to do that. And then over time, they actually save more on the insurance than that upfront costs.
HK: Correct. And even next year, they say more on the insurance. It’s not just over it’s every year that they have that policy and you hope they have that policy, or may require them to have that policy for the time that they’re in that house.
AS: Let me ask you this, in regards to some of the locations in the U S that we consider to be on the front lines of this issue right now, I’m thinking new Orleans, again, Miami, again, Norfolk, Virginia area. What is going on there in terms of insurance premiums, are people taking measures to, to prepare for some future disaster?
HK: Well, I’ll, let me just a brief note on the history of that in 2012, in July of 2012, three months before hurricane Sandy, there was a bill in Congress was passed. That actually indicated that you had a move towards risk-based premiums, and there should be a study on affordability to deal with that. The study got funded, but got delayed. But if that’s the study I’m referring to the national Academy study that did take place hurricane Sandy occurred three months later, and you now had a whole concern by people by senators and members of the house in Mississippi, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, and a lot of other places, you know, this is really not going to help us out with respect to people having to pay a very high premium and affordability had not been really come on the table in terms of what would happen to the low income people. So you had a new bill that got passed in the spring of 2014 that actually reduced the timing of risk-based premiums. And it wasn’t clear when they would actually occur. And there was really emphasis on Ford abilities. You have those things happening. So what’s happening right now is you have the reform of the national flood insurance program coming up with everything on the table, in terms of what are we going to do with respect to the premiums? What are we going to do with respect to affordability? That’s kind of in the background, but it’s there. How do we get people to reduce their risk? But at the moment, people are clearly aware of it, but they are not necessarily being charged those premiums. And so it’s unclear what steps they’re actually going to take.
AS: We, we brought up the issue, you brought up the issue of affordability for homeowners, for insurance, but there’s obviously also the issue of the insurance companies. Also being able to, to manage these disasters. That’s what the NFI P has been about, but it’s $25 billion in debt at this point, as a result from Sandy, I think holder from Katrina. I’m not sure about that. How do we ensure that programs survival? And I, I know you’ve talked about, you know, preparedness, but it is that, is that value.
HK: Well, I think it’s only viable if it turns out that we separate the issue of affordability from the premiums that are being charged, and it has to be a separate issue that people discuss on the, with fairness as a part of that discussion and saying, we recognize that with the subsidized premiums, this is the program is going to continually be in debt. And so if we’re going to really have a program that actually will thrive and also have the private sector marketing policies, they will have to charge a risk based premium. Otherwise they won’t want to market that policy. You have to have a recognition that there’s gotta be a separate set of funds, independent of the insurance aspect of the program that addresses affordability. And that has to come at the level of the, either the federal government is what I would think would have to be, it could be done through the States as well in some fashion, but there has to be that recognition. Otherwise you can’t really solve both problems. And the idea of mitigation that we were talking about a few minutes ago can help that by getting, making the houses safer. And as a result, the premiums will go down
AS: The NFP. Again, it needs to be authorized by September 30th. Will we get something?
HK:I sure hope so. I think everyone feels we have to, because you need to have the program in place in some form. The question is at what, in what form will it take? And I think there’s a lot of discussion right now in Congress, both at the house and at the Senate level on what kind of a bill will go forward for the reauthorization. And we’re very interested in that activity.
AS: Could you briefly give us an idea of what the two sides of the discussion are in Congress right now about the reauthorization?
HK: Those are pretty much what we’ve talked about. It’s the idea that you need to have, uh, it would be good to have the private sector more actively involved, and that will take risk space premiums for them to do that in some form. And if you have that, you have to have better mapping. So there’s a recognition of better mapping and better notions of what the future damage will be and models that will take them into account. So that the, so that one can determine what that risk based premium will be that side. Number one, with respect to that with the private sector, certainly being a part of it. And then the side number two is the concern that we’ve just been talking about. What’s going to happen to the people in these areas who are going to be facing a higher premium, and how will we deal with that issue? And that has not been discussed as widely as the notion of the risk based premiums, but it has to be in my opinion, part of the discussion. And I think we’ll probably see some of that. And you had some of that in hearings raising that issue, some of that as part of the bill. And I sure hope that will be the case, because if you don’t have that, what we’re going to see is a movement towards risk-based premiums, with a large number of people who are going to be in the position that you alluded to with your question earlier that they say, I can’t afford it. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m really in trouble here. I don’t want to move. I don’t know where I can move and I can’t move. And at watch point, we don’t really know what is going to happen. They may very well be uninsured and say, I’m not going to buy it. They may be required if they have a mortgage to buy it. And that’s an issue that would have to be dealt with. And then when you have the next flood and the next disaster, someone is going to have to bail them out, or we’re going to have to let them suffer. And the reason for pushing, for dealing with affordability before the disaster is to avoid a lot of very expensive disaster relief, to a large number of uninsured people, plus all the pain and suffering that they’re going to have with respect to their house. Maybe not being mitigated the way it should be, and they’re not being insured. And so that’s the issue on the table that I think Congress has to face and how will deal with that in the next few months is an open question, but we are very actively involved, are Wharton Risk Center with the Kleinman Center on that issue in terms of how we can address that and deal with that. And so the hope is that they’ll recognize both sides of the coin.
AS: One option is that these communities don’t rebuild after disasters. And in your book, ‘The Ostrich Paradox’, you brought up a very interesting anecdote about a group of families or community. I believe it was on Staten Island in New York city that decided not to rebuild the whole community moved. There was some kind of deal they made as well, that, okay, if we move you, can’t go ahead and flip this land to wealthy homeowners, but can you give some insight on what that might indicate?
HK: What I think it’s a very interesting opportunity for communities to ask themselves the question, are there things that we could do in Staten Island is a great example after Sandy, where there was enough support given to the whole community and you were able to move them elsewhere. So buyouts are one possibility, but it’s very hard for any individual to think about being bought out, but it is possible for communities to take steps and communities can take other steps as well to make their community safer. I think Miami is concerned about New York city, as I mentioned earlier, is very concerned about what the future is going to look like as is Norfolk and New Orleans. And so I think bringing in communities in terms of what they’ll do or having policies and programs that actually think about what could be done is very, very important. And I should mention, since you bringing up ‘The Ostrich Paradox’, we conclude the book with what we call a behavioral risk audit. And we use flood as our example, in that to say, what are you going to do to help individuals, communities, and decision makers take steps to improve their actions, recognizing that you have a set of the biases we mentioned earlier, uh, to deal with that. And I think buyouts are certainly one possibility in terms of thinking about that, but it has to be done in a way that is going to make sense to the people. Otherwise you’re never going to have it happen.
AS: Final question, going back to the whole issue of psychology as a country on a large scale, can we overcome our inherent, you know, sticking with inertia and not making change in a way that will allow us to prepare?
HK: I think that is the question of the decade and the century of, but I’ll certainly make it the decade of the year or the moment since you’re asking me this question. Now, I think the way we have been thinking about that in most of the research we’ve been doing at the Wharton risk center is to say, you want to put on the table long term strategies to deal with climate change and along the lines of what we’re dealing with. But unless you have short term economic incentives that will enable people to somehow and decision makers and at the public sector and private sector and individuals too, to recognize there’s some benefits in for them. Now, it’s going to be extremely difficult. And I will end your question with an acronym that we have used over the last few years that not only refers to politicians, but to all people, all individual decision makers, what’s that not in my everyone gets that, but it’s more than that, not in my term of office.
AS: We’ve been talking with Howard Kunreuther, Director of the Wharton School’s Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. Howard is the James G. Dinan Emeritus Professor of Operations Information and Decisions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Howard, thanks for talking.
HK: Good to be with you, Andy,
AS: And thanks to our listeners who are listening to this episode of Energy Policy Now from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, keep up to date on energy policy research and events from the Kleinman Center by subscribing to our Twitter feed @kleinmanenergy. And if you liked today’s episode, let us know what the review is on iTunes or GooglePlay. Have a great day.
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Credit cards give people the convenience to spend money for their wants and needs. Unfortunately, when they see their billing statement, they might get overwhelmed. They don’t know which balance to pay. Or, they can’t figure out the difference between the statement balance vs. the current balance.
Jump ahead to
What is the Statement Balance?
The statement balance is the amount charged on a credit card within a billing cycle.
The billing cycle doesn’t necessarily start and stop on the first and last day of a month. Instead, it is the number of days that defines a billing cycle, such as 30 days or 31 days.
For example, the billing cycle for January has a starting date of January 10 and a closing date of February 9. That is a 31-day billing cycle.
January Billing Cycle = January 10 to February 9
February Billing Cycle = February 10 to March 9
Continuing the example, on January 18, a person charged $2,000 on the credit card. Furthermore, they charged $1,000 on February 19.
Therefore, for the billing cycle from January 10 to February 10, the statement balance is $2,000! The charge for $1,000 is part of the next billing cycle because it occurred after February 9.
If a person doesn’t have enough money and can’t pay the full statement balance by the end of the billing cycle, then that remaining balance is rolled over into the following billing cycle.
What is the Current Balance?
The current balance is the overall balance regardless of the billing cycle. This definition is different from a statement balance, which is limited by the billing cycle.
For example, the statement balance for January is $2,000, and the ending billing cycle ends on February 9. There is an additional charge of $1,000 after February 9. Therefore, the current balance is $3,000 ($2,000 + $1,000).
How Does the Balance Impact Your Credit Score?
There are three leading credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) that collect account information from various creditors, such as card issuers.
They take into account different factors to determine a person’s credit score for their credit report. The higher the credit score, the more creditworthy a person is to qualify for the best credit.
The factors these agencies take into account are the following:
- Payment History: Has the borrower missed any payments?
- Outstanding Balance: What is the borrower’s debt-to-income ratio?
- Length of credit history: How long has the borrower had the account open?
- Applications for new credit accounts: Has the borrower recently applied for a new card account?
- Types of credit accounts: What kind of mix of credit does a borrower have?
The key factor to note here is a borrower’s outstanding balance, specifically their debt-to-income ratio. This ratio is also known as the credit utilization ratio.
Dividing the outstanding card balance by the credit limit calculates the credit utilization ratio. For example, an outstanding balance of $5,000 and a credit limit of $10,000 has a ratio of 50% ($5,000 / $10,000).
Unfortunately, the greater the credit utilization ratio then, the more it negatively impacts your credit score! A borrow should aim for a maximum credit utilization ratio of 30%.
Therefore, a borrower who has multiple credit cards and wants to increase their credit score should seek a utilization rate of 30% across all accounts and not just one credit account.
Aside from paying down the balance, another strategy is to increase their available credit limit. This strategy will effectively lower the ratio and improve a person’s credit score, which can help to make big purchases like a car.
A credit insurer needs to be contacted and made a request.
Which Balance To Pay On a Statement?
A credit card statement comprises three balances: minimum balance, statement balance, and current balance.
Paying the minimum balance will avoid paying any late fees. However, that does not avoid paying interest charges. The full credit will take years to pay off by only paying the minimum altogether.
Therefore, paying the statement balance is the surest way to avoid paying any interest charges! Anyone could pay off the current balance; they just need to make sure they have budgeted for it.
How To Calculate How Much Interest Charged
Three factors will determine the amount of interest charged: the number of days in a billing cycle, the annual percentage ratio, and the average daily balance.
The number of days in a billing cycle can vary (i.e., 28 days to 31 days). The number of days will help determine the daily interest rate and the average daily balance.
The annual percentage ratio (APR) is the interest rate for the entire year. Dividing the APR by the number of days in a year (i.e., 365) calculates the daily interest rate.
Multiplying the dollar amount by the number of days carried within a billing cycle calculates the average daily balance. When the dollar amount increases, then that the same calculation needs to be reapplied. Afterward, sum the numbers together and divide it by the number of days in the billing cycle.
I’ll go over an example:
Step 1: Determine the number of days in a billing cycle.
For the sake of example, I’ll use a 30-day billing cycle.
Step 2: Calculate the average daily balance.
For example, a balance shows $5,000 from Day 1 to Day 10 (i.e., ten days). From Day 11 to Day 30 (i.e., 20 days), the balance increases to $5,500.
The average daily balance is $5,333. The calculations is below:
Average Daily Balance = [ ($5,000 x 10) + ($5,500 x 20) ] / 30 = $5,333
Step 3: Calculate the daily interest rate.
For the same example, the APR is 5.00%. Therefore the daily interest rate is 0.0137% (5.00 % / 365).
Step 4: Multiply the average daily balance with the daily interest rate.
Based on the average daily balance, and the daily interest rate, the interest to be charged for that billing cycle is about $7.30 ($5,333 x 0.000137).
How To Save On Paying Interest Charges
Pay Off The Entire Balance
The fiscally responsible thing to do is pay off the statement balance’s total amount before the statement’s closing date. Paying off the whole balance doesn’t mean a person has to pay off the credit card after every purchase. Instead, they just need to make sure to pay off the balance by the end of the billing cycle.
Make Multiple Payments Within Billing Cycle
There comes a moment when a person can’t afford to pay the full card bill. They could pay the minimum to avoid the late fee, but they’ll still be carrying a balance and won’t avoid interest charges.
Therefore, if they’re anticipating to pay interest at the billing cycle, there is a way to save on paying interest charges.
Saving is accomplished by paying off the balance multiple times a month or within a billing cycle. By making multiple payments within a billing cycle, a person can reduce their average daily balance.
For example, from Day 1 to Day 31, the balance was $4,000. Without making any additional payments, the average daily balance is $4,000 ($4,000 x 31 / 31).
On the other hand, from Day 1 to Day 10, the balance was $4,000. After making a payment, from Day 11 to 20, the balance is $1500. After another payment, from Day 21 to 31, the balance is $500.
Therefore, the average daily balance while slowly paying down the statement balance is about $1,952! Check out the math below.
Credit Utilization Ratio = [($4,000 x 10) + ($1,500 x 10) + ($500 x 11) ] / 31 = $1,951.61.
If the balance were left unpaid from the start of the billing cycle to the end of the billing cycle, the average daily balance would be $4,000 by the due date.
Furthermore, a person can set up automatic payments so they won’t forget to make those multiple payments to reduce finance charges.
Avoid Cash Advances
Cash advances are similar to short-term loans that allow a borrower to withdraw cash immediately against their line of credit. However, they get charged a higher interest rate! Additionally, the interest starts getting applied on the same day of withdrawal.
Also, cash advances don’t have grace periods for late payments. Regular credit card paybacks allow a 21-day grace period.
Therefore, it can be quite costly and not a good idea to take out a cash advance and pay the high-interest charges.
On the other hand, I do want to mention that I do use cash advances for my small business. The only difference is that someone else is paying back the balance. Also, I avoid getting charged interest.
To learn more about how I leveraged money to support my business, check out the article: 4 “No Money” Ways To Invest In Real Estate.
We live in a digital world where you don’t have to carry cash anymore. Credit cards make purchases easy and convenient. However, the surest way to avoid paying any interest charges is by paying the entire statement balance!
It sounds more comfortable with making the minimum payment, but that never frees you from your card debt. You’ll end up paying interest every month. You can take advantage of a Vanilla card that often charges a lower interest rate.
Use credit cards to your advantage by collecting redeemable points, bank bonuses, and receive cashback deals. But, don’t use a credit card if you can’t afford to pay it back! If you share an account with a significant other, be sure to be transparent about your financial situation.
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Small Business Management
A business which is independently owned and operated and not in its field is called small business. A small business is one with few Manufacturing than 500 employees. A business which is usually organized and managed by the owner and or his family members. Management is generally defined as the position and organization of multiple activities in an organization.
A Small Business is a privately owned and operated business. A small business typically has a small number of employees. For example, in the United States, the legal definition of a small business is determined by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), which sets the criteria to be used by the SBA in making small business determinations. It is an autonomous U.S. government agency established in 1953 to bolster and promote the economy in general by providing assistance to small businesses.
Criteria by the SBA in determining the definition of a small include the number of workers employed or annual receipts. The following criteria are used by the SBA to define a small business:
- Manufacturing: Maximum number of employees may range from 500 to 1500
- Wholesaling: Maximum number of employees may range from 100 to 500.
Small business management requires business owners to use a mix of education, knowledge and expertise to run their company.
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Tax is an important element of growth system of any economy. Among the multitude of taxes, there is one tax that stands out that is the income tax. It constitutes a lion’s share in the tax structure of an economy. Income tax deals with taxation of the income of a particular individual in one financial year. It is directly levied on the income of the people thus affecting the income directly. The income can be in any form: wages, salaries, interest, dividend or anything else. Some incomes are taxable, other are not. So while filing Income Tax Return, the one filing it should take care of that. It is very essential to ascertain which of the incomes is taxable. This is all available on the official website of the Income Tax Department. You can go to the website and check out all the details.
The steps in computing tax on your income are:-
- Collect all the information about calculation of taxable income
- Computing total taxable income
- Calculating final tax payable/ refundable after using advance tax, TDS, and TCS.
There are pretty common tax mistakes that you need to stop doing. You need to know the following:-
- Interest up to Rs.10000/- is not tax-free in FDs.
- Interest on tax saving infrastructure bonds is taxable.
- Tax is payable on FDs and RDs in the name of children or wife.
You must compile information about your income from different sources firsthand. You need to assess your taxes and see if all the things have been done properly. Also, it is beneficial if you file your income tax return online. It has several benefits. You are spared of the hard work that you would have to do in case you do it offline.
How to deal with income from bank deposits and FDs?
Many taxpayers have a misconception that if the tax has been deducted at source, then there is no need to pay taxes but that is not the case. If the TDS is 10% and the taxpayer falls in the income bracket of 20%, then he is not exempt from the tax payable. She/he has to pay an additional 10% tax which has not been paid already. However, if your income is below the exemption limit, you have the right to reclaim the amount paid for TDS. Hence you are not relieved of payment of tax once you have paid the TDS. You have to either pay or receive the tax as per your income structure. The Rs.10000/- deductions are applicable for savings bank accounts and HUF businesses. Deductions are applicable on term deposits. You can claim the refund of TDS by submitting 15G or 15H. TDS is not applicable on interest on savings bank A/C. So, you need not take care of that while computing tax on interest on savings bank account.
Hence, you need to include your income from bank deposits while calculating Self-Assessment Tax.
Fixed deposits are among the most famous source of savings. The money of people is kept safe for a fixed period of time, yielding comparatively higher returns. Interest income from fixed deposits doesn’t have any exemptions and is fully taxable. It is added to your total income and is taxed based on the slab rates. The tax deducted at the source is adjusted in this sort of income. TDS is deducted when the interest is due and not when the FD matures. So you need to adjust the gross amount to adjust the liability every year, whether or not the interest is received. Interest on FDs is shown under the head ‘income from other sources’.
This is how you should pay income from FDs with respect to TDS:-
- The bank doesn’t deduct TDS- This happens when you fall below the tax paying income group.
- TDS is payable at 10%-This is when the PAN card is linked to the bank account
- TDS is payable at 20%- This is when the PAN card isn’t linked
Since, unlike the savings account, there is no exemption, the tax has to be paid in full.
Taxpayers should know that their 10-digit alphanumeric PAN number can be used to track your tax payments and bank transactions. They can get all the information in their database by entering that code.
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As the clean energy industry gains momentum, most of us are curious to know more about its benefits, how it works, and what it costs. But what are the biggest questions we all still have about renewables? We took a look at the top questions you’ve asked Google and provided some insight. Energy can be confusing, but with the right resources, we can all make better choices when it comes to our power.
1. Does renewable energy cause pollution?
Though all energy sources impact the environment to an extent, renewable energy produces close to no pollution and far less than fossil fuel energy. Let’s focus on wind power. Wind turbines produce no greenhouse gas emissions while they’re operating, but give off very small amounts during their production, transportation, and construction on-site. It is estimated that wind turbines generate between 0.02-0.04lbs of carbon dioxide equivalent per kWh during their life-cycle, whereas coal-generated electricity produces 1.4-3.6lbs. That’s up to 90x more pollution!
2.How can renewable energy help climate change?
Since renewable energy sources, like solar and wind power, emit close to no greenhouse gases, they can actually help reverse the effects of climate change. Climate change is caused by global warming, or when excess greenhouse gas molecules in the atmosphere absorb heat and radiate it back towards earth’s surface. If we adopt renewable energy, we produce fewer greenhouse gasses and, thus, we reduce the negative effects of global warming, including rising sea levels and disruption of natural climate patterns.
3.Can clean energy replace fossil fuels?
Yes! However, despite falling costs, wind and solar only produce a little over 5.5% of the world’s electricity. A few countries, as well as several states in the U.S., have ambitious goals for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Germany, for instance, aims to run on 80% renewable energy by 2050. The shift to 100% clean energy will depend on small-scale progress and cooperation, but it is doable.
4.Is clean energy cheaper?
The common assumption that clean energy breaks your bank is incorrect. Currently, fossil fuel generation costs between $0.05-0.07 per kWh in the US, while renewables are expected to cost $0.03-0.10 by 2020. Soon, turning to renewables won’t be just an environmentally conscious decision, but an economical one too. If you live in a deregulated state or a state with community solar, Arcadia can actually save you money each month on your utility bill given the availability of energy options in your area.
5. Who can use solar energy?
Not everyone has the proper roof or resources to accommodate solar panels. However, community solar is an option that is becoming increasingly available nationwide and doesn’t demand the same long-term commitment, upfront cost, or construction as rooftop solar. With community solar, electricity is shared by more than one household, and you can subscribe to a project available in your area even if you rent and live in an apartment.
6.Is community solar worth it?
Community solar is a more cost-effective way to switch to solar than installing panels. And it’s available to people who cannot install solar panels on their roof for a myriad of reasons. With dropping prices and growing availability of community solar, nearly everyone will soon be able to access solar power with no maintenance and no panels on their roof.
7.How does wind energy work?
Wind turbines send the wind’s energy to power a generator which creates electricity. Although the electrical output of a wind turbine depends on its size and the wind’s speed, it is estimated that nearly 25 million US households can be powered by the United States’ current wind capacity. Becoming one of those households is easier than you think. For example, wind energy is easy to access through Arcadia in as little as two minutes by simply connecting your utility account.
Hopefully, we have saved you a few Google searches and got you up to speed on the renewable energy industry. There is a good amount of information out there already and new technologies are being created every day - so there is always something new to learn.
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The purpose of financial aid is to provide assistance to matriculated students whose financial resources are inadequate to meet the costs of their education. Financial aid is intended to supplement, not replace, a family’s resources. A family’s resources include the student’s resources; spouse’s resources, if married at the time of application; and parents’ resources, if the student is a dependent. For that reason, most families should think of themselves as the first – and probably primary – source of funds for college. Annual family taxable and nontaxable income is not the only factor that is considered in evaluating eligibility for financial aid. A family’s assets also are considered, since a family with assets (such as a savings account or investments) is considered to be in a stronger financial position than a family with the same income, but no assets.
Financial aid programs vary widely as to their precise qualifications, but awards are generally determined on the basis of the eligibility criteria of the specific aid program, and without regard to sex, age, race and ethnicity, color, religion, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, military status or marital status, although special opportunities for underrepresented student populations do exist. With the exceptions noted, the major financial aid programs are open to part-time as well as to full-time students.
Most programs are open to United States citizens, nationals and permanent residents who have declared their intent to become United States citizens. Persons holding temporary student, exchange visitor or visitor visas are not eligible.
A student’s eligibility cannot be determined until he or she provides full information about financial need by filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). All financial aid applications, as well as detailed descriptions of financial aid, are available on the Financial Aid office web site. You are advised to apply for all assistance programs for which you may be eligible at least six weeks before your expected date of enrollment. All financial aid programs must be applied for annually after the first of the year.
There are three types of aid available at SUNY Empire State College:
- Grants/scholarships – money that does not need to be repaid;
- Loans – money that students borrow which must be repaid with interest;
- Work study – student employment.
The priority deadline dates for applying for financial aid is six weeks prior to the start date of the term. However, for students applying for Institutional scholarships the FAFSA priority deadline is April 1. Likewise, due to limited funding for Federal SEOG and APTS the priority deadline is April 1. Any applications received after April 1 will be considered until all funds are exhausted.
Financial aid files completed after the financial aid priority deadline date will be reviewed. However, the Financial Aid office cannot guarantee that financial aid will be processed in time for the student to register with a financial aid deferral. A federal financial aid file is complete when the college has received valid FAFSA data from the federal processor and all other documentation requested by the Financial Aid office. Completed files and APTS applications are reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis.
Students may be eligible to receive financial aid for the summer term if all eligibility requirements are met. Financial aid packages are initially awarded for the Fall and Spring terms. Students enrolling in a summer term will have their award package updated to include summer within 5-7 business days of completing their summer registration. Accepting financial aid awards for the summer term may affect the amount of aid available for the following Fall and Spring terms. Students enrolling for summer should contact the SUNY Empire State College Financial Aid office by email at [email protected] or call the SUNY Empire State College Student Information Center at 800-847-3000, ext. 2285 to review their eligibility for summer aid.
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Overview of Sole Proprietorship Registration
A sole proprietorship is a type of enterprise in which business is owned and managed by an individual. In a sole proprietorship business there is no legal difference between the owner and the business. To put it in another way a sole proprietorship is not a legal entity, where an is responsible for clearing off the debts of business. The sole proprietorship is a preferable and popular business form. It is simple and easy to form at nominal cost.
A sole proprietorship is a convenient and simplified way to commence a business in India. It is neither considered as a corporation nor a company where the business is owned by a single person who is the owner/director/shareholder of the proposed entity.
Some common examples of proprietorship business is shops such as chemist, saloons, grocery, etc.
An individual who wishes to sell his/her own products or services can run their business as a sole proprietor, and can enjoy the rights provided to a registered legal company. Most of the entrepreneurs find it as an ideal business entity and have registered their business under it. The loss or profit of the company is considered as the loss or profit of the individual and the income of the company are considered as the income of the owner as per the Income Tax Act.
Basic Requirements and Options Available for Sole Proprietorship Registration
Registering a sole proprietorship business is a digital process that can be accompanied with the help of an expert. However, a person interested in registering as a sole proprietorship requires fulfilling some basic requirements like opening a bank account in the name of the business entity, etc.
- Sole Proprietorship Registration through Udyog Aadhaar under Ministry of MSME
- Sole Proprietorship registration under Shop and Establishment Act
- Sole Proprietorship registration through GST Registration
SME Registration : Udyog Aadhaar under Ministry of MSME
Individual requires registering as an SME (small and medium enterprise) as per the provisions of the MSME Act. For it, you have to submit an online application. An Udyog Aadhaar is a unique identification number offered by the Ministry of MSME to the business owners. Even a sole proprietor can apply for udyog aadhaar along with all other entities such as company and partnership. However, it is not compulsory but is beneficial for the company, especially during the time of loan requirement at a low-interest rate. The government has launched various schemes for the improvisation of SMEs registered under MSME act.
Shop and Establishment Registration
Individual must have shop and establishment license as per the local laws. It is issued by the municipal parties based on the number of workers/ employees in the firm. Here, shop means any premises:
- a place where goods are sold, either by wholesale, retail, or
- a place from where services are offered to customers.
It includes an office, godown, a store-room, warehouse or work place, whether in the similar premises or otherwise, which is used in connection with such business/trade.
It does not include a factory, a residential hotel, commercial establishment, restaurant, eating house, theater or other place of public entertainment or amusement;
If you have a shop under the definition given above, then you can register your sole proprietorship business by making an application to the local Municipal Corporation of your city under the Shop and Establishment Act.
Registration under GST
GST registration is mandatory to carry business activities in India. Even if you are doing online business, you would require a GST number. GST registration is another way to get your sole proprietorship business registered. If you are dealing in any kind of exchange of goods and services then you can apply for GST registration. It is a great method of getting an identity concerning your sole proprietorship. However, there are certain important considerations that must be evaluated before opting this method.
Every registered business has to compulsorily collect the tax from the customers & file the GST returns periodically. It is not necessary for him to get registered & collect GST, if a sole proprietor has a turnover of lesser than Rs. 40 Lakhs (subject to few exceptions)
- PAN Card of the proprietor
- Aadhar Card of the proprietor
- Passport size photograph of the proprietor
- Office proof
- Bank Statement copy that contains bank account number, IFSC code, and address
Trademark Registration is required in case you wish to trade your goods or services with a special name or brand. It is profitable where there is a threat of some misuse of the name or mark used in your business.
License/Certificates Required according to the Nature of Business
- Drug license
- Regional Transport Office(RTO) permit
- Mandi license
- Labour license
- FSSAI license registration -Food Safety and Standards Authority of India
- Certificate issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, etc
Sole Proprietorship Registration
An individual can select any of the below-given options for the registration:
- SME registration
- Registration under Shop and Establishment Act as per the rules and regulations of the respective state
- GST registration
Why should one choose a Sole Proprietorship firm?
A sole proprietor is one of the best choices for entrepreneurs who wish to handle everything on their own. It is the most common form of business entity, where the small business owners generally start their businesses as Sole Proprietorship only. The benefit of sole proprietorship can be classified under two categories: those are 1) Entity type benefits 2) Registration benefits.
- Less Compliances
- Easy to start
- Cost Efficient
- Absolute Control
- Ease in opening the bank account in the name of business
- Separate Business Identity
- Provides flexibility in carrying out business activities
- Easy to start and close
- Hazel free business structures with very few compliances
- Self- Accountability
- Being your Own Boss
- Decision-making power
- Don’t have to share your income and profits with anyone
- No disputes between the Members
Benefits of a Sole Proprietorship Firm
Every business structure has its own benefits. Some of the specific benefits of a Sole Proprietorship Business are given below:-
- Simplest form of Business
We generally come across various shops in our local places carrying out small business operations. They are the Sole Proprietorships who do not involve any complexities & can be hold by a single person in an easy manner.
- Easy to Start
You must note that Sole Proprietorships do not need mandatory registrations under the eye of law. They only require licenses or registrations specific to the nature of particular business. Therefore, any person can start his/her business very easily with a trade name of their own choice. Any trade name can be used until and unless it does not infringe with any brand name.
- Require Lesser Investment
Sole Proprietorships business needs minimal amount of investment in order to start at the initial phase. Therefore, it is a great opportunity for that entrepreneur who wishes to set up a business with low investments as no minimum capital is prescribed for starting a Proprietorship business.
- No sharing of Earned Profits
The sole proprietor is the only person who manages and operates the whole business, which means that 100% of the profits belong to only him/her. It is profitable to not that no one else is entitled to a share in the profits earned.
- Minimum Legal Compliances
It is important to note that the sole Proprietorships are not administered by any specific law; therefore the legal compliances are automatically minimal by its nature. They do not need to avail the Certificate of Incorporation or Registration Certificate from the concerned authority. Subsequently, the compliances depend upon licenses or registrations taken by a specific sole proprietorship.
To make it simpler, sole proprietorship have to comply with the GST return filing if it registers itself under GST law, or any other related laws. Therefore, there is no such obligation of uploading the Annual report or other reports on the website of Ministry of Corporate affairs.
- Minimum Income Tax
In general, no separate tax is needed to be paid by because the Sole Proprietorship involves only a Sole proprietor. Sole Proprietorship and the Sole proprietor are meant to be same or the purpose of calculation of tax liability. The assets & liabilities of the Sole Proprietorship are the assets as well as the liabilities of the Sole Proprietor.
In accordance to the Income Tax Act, the sole proprietor is needed to file his/her IT returns, showing the profits earned in the business in that IT return itself. It must be noted that the tax is calculated at income tax slab rates as applicable to an individual, therefore any separate return is not required for the Sole Proprietorship firm.
- Information Remains in Private hand
Unlike Limited Liability Partnerships, Companies, etc. where audit reports and financial statements are made public for the users via MCA (Known as Ministry of Corporate Affairs) portal, the financial reports of Sole Proprietorships remain in private hands. Also, the list of all sole proprietorships is not easily available with the Government officials/websites.
- Own Decision Making
It is important to note that there is no chance of conflict of ideas or any sort of decisions in view of the fact that the Sole Proprietorship is managed & operated single handedly. Sole Proprietors has the sole right to do whatsoever he/she thinks to do is correct for the business.
- No Requirement for Audit
Sole Proprietorship is not obligatory to get its accounts audited in each and every financial year under the eye of law. However, the audit will depend upon the nature of business & the threshold turnover limits that has been specified for the conduct of the audit for that particular firm.
Documents Required for Sole Proprietorship Registration
Documents Required for Sole Proprietorship Registration
Aadhar of the Proprietor:
The proprietor of the proposed firm has to submit a scanned copy of his/her aadhar card. Aadhar card is required to register any business in India. A person cannot file Income-tax return unless his/her PAN card is linked with aadhar card. In case you don’t have an aadhar card or its information does not match with PAN card, get it corrected before the submission.
PAN card of the Proprietor
In addition to Aadhar card, PAN card is also a mandatory document for a proprietorship business registration. PAN card is issued by the Income-tax department t of India which contains a unique PAN card number. All the details of the prerequisite documents should match with the details of the PAN card.
Current Bank Account Details
If the proprietor owns a PAN and Aadhar card, then he is liable to open a bank account in the name of his company. In addition to these documents, he would require identity and address proof. Documents regarding GST registration are also required to open a current bank account.
A proprietor can carry out his business activities at any owned or rented place. He has to provide proof of his registered office, documents worked as proof are:
In case of owned property: any utility bill such as electricity bill, gas bill, water bill, etc. along with the NOC. The bill should not be older than two months
In case of Rented property: lease/ rent agreement along with the NOC from the landlord.
Additionally, few registrations given as follows are required for the registration purpose of the proposed firm:
Individual requires registering as an SME (small and medium enterprise) as per the provisions of the MSME Act. For it, you have to submit an online application. However, it is not compulsory but is beneficial for the company, especially during the time of loan requirement at a low-interest rate. The government has launched various schemes for the improvisation of SMEs registered under MSME act.
Shop and Establishment Registration
Individual must have shop and establishment license as per the local laws. It is issued by the municipal parties based on the number of workers/ employees in the firm.
Registration under GST
GST registration is mandatory to carry business activities in India. Even if you are doing online business, you would require a GST number. GST registration can be done in 5 working days with the following documents:
• PAN Card of the proprietor
• Aadhar Card of the proprietor
• Passport size photograph of the proprietor
• Office proof
• Bank Statement copy that contains bank account number, IFSC code, and address
• One has to file annual Income Tax returns on time.
• One has to file his GST in case they have GST registration
• If liable for TAX audits, the individual should deduct TDS (tax deducted at source) from employees income and file TDS returns
Difference between Sole Proprietorship and One Person Company (OPC)
Both of the entities can carry on their business activities with just one person as an owner or shareholder or director. Still, there are various points of differences between them.
Point of Difference
One Person Company (OPC)
A sole proprietorship is deprived of the limited liabilities of the members. Under which in case of debt or loss, the assets of the company as well as the owner would be used to incur the losses.
One Person Company enjoys the benefit of limited liability under which assets of the shareholder/ director/ owner remains protected.
In Sole Proprietorship, the income of the entity is considered as the income of the owner and is liable to pay tax as per his income.
OPC is taxed as a Private Limited Company, and there are no separate tax brackets for it.
Conversion into other business entities
A sole proprietorship does not require converting into any public or private limited company and can carry on its business activity as a single person entity, no matter what its revenues are.
OPC has to be converted into a private limited or a public limited Company. Once it has crossed the turnover limit of Rs 2 crores for 3 years or Rs 50 lakhs as a share paid-up capital income.
In a sole proprietorship, ownership can be granted to some other person through will and last testament that can or cannot be challenged in the court.
OPC can enjoy the rights of perpetual succession through the nominee
Sole Proprietorship has to get its account audited as per the provisions of Income-tax Act only in the case when company crosses its threshold limit
On the other hand, OPC has to fulfil all the compliances followed by a private limited company such as filing of annual returns and account audits, etc.
It is not so compulsory but is beneficial
Has to be registered as per the provisions of Companies Act, 2013 under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs
Cannot have foreign ownership
Allowed if one of the nominees of director is a foreign national. But both cannot be foreign nationals.
Minimum: sole proprietorship
Maximum: 1 person
Minimum: 1 person
Maximum: 2 person
Registration Procedure of Sole Proprietorship
Frequently Asked Questions
Any citizen of India can start a sole proprietorship. All you need is a current bank account which should be on the name of your business. Registrations requirement depends on what kind of a business you want to start up.
Most of the banks ask for a registration of Shops & Establishment Act Registrations. Other than this, you need PAN card, proof of your company's existence and address & identity proofs.
It usually takes around 15 days, no more than that. This is one of the reasons it a popular type of business among merchants and traders.
Business like grocery stores, manufacturing businesses, small traders and fast food vendors are most common to be sole proprietorships. Although bigger businesses can be sole proprietorship but it is not recommended as it would be hard to manage alone.
For the start up, you need to acquire PAN card, address and identity proof, rental agreement or sale deed and KYC documents.
This completely depends on the type of business you would be running as your sole proprietorship. If you are to run an air conditioned restaurant, you would need a Service Tax Registration and VAT Registration. However, if you have a grocery store then after you have made 5 lac from your business, you would have to have a VAT Registration as well.
Registrations like Service Tax and any of the registrations handled by the central government are available online. Such as GST, Trademark Registration, PAN, Udyog Registration, etc.
Yes, there is no restriction in that. The process is a little sophisticated and might take time but it is very much possible and a common process done by sole proprietorship owners.
Any Indian citizen can start a Sole Proprietorship Firm in India. They only need to open a current bank account in the name of the business, and other required licenses as stated above.
The greatest benefit of this kind of firm is that it is the least complex and the cheapest form of the business form of doing business.
Unlike another type of businesses, Sole Proprietorship Firms are not recognized by the Indian Revenue Services and hence not given any special tax benefits. Thereby, the owner needs to file the Tax returns as per the income generated.
You need to declare your intention to operate as a Sole Proprietorship Firm to act as one.
The proprietor personally is liable for the profits and losses of the business in a Sole Proprietorship.
You will need GST Registration if the turnover of your business exceeds the limit as prescribed by the government.
Yes, you can choose to change the form of your entity anytime you want as per by the government regulations.
There are only two requirements to start a Sole Proprietorship Firm. First is a name for your business, and the second is a place for setting up your business.
Sole Proprietorship Firm is best suited for unorganized and small businesses. It is because of the ease of incorporation and minimal compliance requirements that the individual needs to adhere.
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Questions like will thee be a loss or not? If there be a loss how large will it be? And other many problems confront a person and he/she possibly chooses to pass the risk over to an insurer. Once an insurer accepts such risks from the insured, it finds itself posed to similar many problems which confronted, the insured. The difference between the two is the insurer has some sense of protection in the sense that it has taken a large number of similar risks and knows that they will not all involve losses. However, insurers are not immune to the possibility of larger than expected losses or more losses than anticipated. They have to charge a premium at the start of the insurance year, without the benefit of hind sight and must live with that premium regardless of actual results.
This clearly demonstrates that the insurers themselves are exposed to risk. Thus, it is not a surprise if they themselves seek insurance protection., In other words the insurers insure the risk again. This is called reinsurance. In simple terms reinsurance is insurance of insurers.
4.2 Natures and Importance of Reinsurance
4.2.1 Nature and Characteristics of Reinsurance
Re-insurance is a method created to divide the task of handling risk among several insurance. Often this task is accomplished through cooperative arrangements called treaties that specify the way in which risks will be shared by members of the group. Reinsurance is also accomplished by using the services of specific companies and agents organized for that purpose. Reinsurance may be considered as the shifting by a primary insurer, called the ceding company, of the part of the risk it assumes to another company called the reinsurer.
That portion of the risk kept by the ceding company is known as the line or retention and varies with the financial position of the insurer and the other portion of risk is passed on to another reinsurer, the process is known as retrocession. An insurer transfers a part of his risk on a particular insurance by insuring it with another insurer or other insurers. Every insurer has a limit to the risk that he can bear. If at any time a profitable venture comes his way, he may insure it even if the risk involved is beyond his capacity, which is his retention limit. In such cases, in order to safe guard his interest he may reinsure the same risk for an amount in excess of his retention limit with other insurers, so that the loss due to risk is spread over many insurers.
4.2.2 Importance and Contribution of Reinsurance
One may wonder why an insurer that has gone to all the expenses and difficulty of security business would voluntarily transfer some of it to third party. There are several reasons for this, the main one being that the primary insurer is often asked to assume liability for loss in excess of the amount that its financial capacity would permit. Instead of accepting only a portion of the risk and thus causing inconvenience and even ill will of its customer, the company accepts all the risk, knowing that it can pass on to the reinsurer the part that it does not care to bear. The policyholder is thus shared the necessity of negotiating with many companies and can place insurance with little delay. Using a single insurer with a single premium also simplifies insurance management procedures. The policy coverage is not only more uniform and easier to comprehend, but the added guaranty of reinsurer also makes it much safer.
From the viewpoint of the insurer, reinsurance not only distributes risk, but also has other uses and advantages. Stabilized profit and loss rations are an important advantage in the use of reinsurance. It is true that good business often must be shared with others, but in return some bad business is also shared. In the long run it is usually considered more desirable to have a somewhat lower but stable level of profits and underwriting losses than to have a higher but unstable level.
This is not to imply that reinsurance arrangements necessarily reduce average profit levels, but they do smooth out fluctuations that would normally occur. Furthermore, reinsurance does not always mean the loss of premium volume for one of the results of reinsurance is the procurement of a new business. As a member of group of ceding companies organized to share mutual risks, one ceding company must usually accept the business of their insurers.
Reinsurance is also used to allow for a reduction in the level of unearned premium reserve requirements. For new, small companies especially, one of the limiting factors in the rate of growth is the legal requirement that the company set aside premiums received as unearned premium reserves for policyholders. Since no allowance is made in these requirements for expenses incurred, the insurer must pay for producers' commissions and for other expenses out of surplus. As the premiums are earned over the life of the policy these amounts are restored to surplus. Finally, reinsurance may be used to retire from business or to terminate the underwriting on a given type of insurance. If a firm wishes to liquidate its business, it could conceivably cancel all its policies that are subject to cancellation and return the unearned premiums to the policyholders. However, this would be quite unusual in actual practice because of the necessity of sacrificing the profit that would normally be earned on such businesses. It would probably be impossible to recover in full the amount of expense that had been incurred in putting the business on the books.
Through reinsurance, however, the liabilities for existing insurance can be transferred and the policyholders' coverage's remain undisturbed, if an insurer desires to retire its life insurance business and to cease underwriting this line, it may do so through reinsurance. Since the life insurance policy is non-cancelable, the policyholder has the right to continue protection. If it were not for reinsurance, the insurer would find it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve its objective of relieving itself from the obligation of seeing that the insurer's coverage is continued
4.3 Types of Reinsurance Agreements
Organizations for reinsurance are found in many form. It ranges from individual contractual arrangements with reinsurers to pools whereby a number of primary insurers agree to accept certain types of insurance on some pre-arranged basis.
4.3.1 Facultative Reinsurance
The simplest type of reinsurance is an informal facultative agreement, or specific reinsurance on an optional basis. Under this arrangement a primary insurer, in considering the acceptance of a certain risk, shops around for reinsurance on it, attempting to negotiable coverage, specifically on this particular contract.
The reinsurance agreement does not affect the insured in any way. Informal facultative reinsurance is usually satisfactory when reinsurance is of unusual nature for when it is negotiated only occasionally. Such an arrangement becomes cumbersome and unsatisfactory, however, if reinsurance agreements must be negotiated regularly.
Occasionally, an insurer will have an agreement whereby the reinsurer is bound to take certain types of risks if offered by the ceding company, but the decision of whether or not to reinsure remains with the ceding company. Such an arrangement is called a formal facultative contract or obligatory facultative treaty. It is used where the ceding company is often bound on certain types of risks by its agents before it has an opportunity to examine the applications. If the exposure is such that reinsurance is not needed or desired, the ceding company may retain the entire liability. In other cases it will submit the business to the reinsurer, who is bound to take it. Such reinsurance agreements are often unsatisfactory for the reinsurer because of the tendency for the ceding company to keep better business for itself and pass on the more questionable lines to the reinsurer.
4.3.2 Automatic Treaty
To protect all parties concerned from the tendency described above, to speed up transaction, and to eliminate the expense and uncertainties of individual negotiations, reinsurance may be provided where the ceding company is required to cede some certain amounts of business and the reinsurer is required to accept them. Such an agreement is described as automatic. The amount that the ceding company keeps for its own account is known as retention, and the amount ceded to others is known as cession.
Two basic types of treaties have been recognized
- Prorata treaties, under such treaties which premiums and losses are shared in some proportion, and
- Excess of loss treaties, under such treaties losses are paid by the reinsurer in excess of some predetermined deductible or retention. In excess of loss treaties there is no directly proportional relationship between the original premium and the amount of lose assumed by the reinsurer. There are many varieties of prorata treaties, but perhaps the two most common are the surplus treaty and the quota share treaty.
Surplus treaties cover only specific exposure policies covering individual or business firms while quota share treaties cover a percentage of an insurer's business, either its entire business or some definite portion.
Under an excess line, or first surplus treaty, the ceding company decides what its net retention will be for each class of business. The reinsurer does not participate unless the policy amount exceeds this net retention. The larger the net retention the more the other members of the treaty will be willing to accept.
Thus, if the ceding company will retain Birr.10,000 on each dwelling fire exposure, the agreement may call for cession of up to "five lines" or 50,000 for reinsurance. The primary insurer could then take a fire risk of Birr. 60,000. On the other hand, if the primary company is willing to retain only Birr.5,000 on a residential fire exposure, it may have only four lines acceptable for reinsurance, and could not take more than 25,000 of fire insurance on a single residence.
First surplus treaties call for the sharing of losses and premiums up to a stated limit in proportion to the liabilities assumed. Sometimes a second surplus, or even a third surplus, treaty is arranged to take over business that is beyond the limits set by the first surplus treaty. The surplus treaty is probably the most common type of reinsurance in use today.
Under quota share treaties, each insurer takes a proportionate share of all losses and premiums of a line of business. An illustration of the quota share treaty is the reinsurance pool or exchange. Pools are usually formed to provide reinsurance in given classes of business, such as cotton, lumber, or oil, where hazards are of a special nature and where the mutual use of engineering or inspection facilities provides an economy for participating members. Each member of the pool agrees to place all described businesses into the pool, but it shares some agreed proportion like 10% or 16.67 percent of the total premiums and losses. Quota share treaties are especially suitable for new small firms whose underwriting capacity is limited, and who would be unable to get started without such an arrangement because of the unearned premium reserve requirements.
It is not uncommon for a primary insurer to find that while it is willing to accept up to Birr.10,000 on each exposure insured in a given class, it is unable to stand an accumulation of losses that exceeds Birr.50,000. To impose a limit on such losses, the excess of loss treaty has been developed where the reinsurer agrees to be liable for all losses exceeding a certain amount on a given class of business during a specific period. Such a contract is simple to administer because the reinsurers are liable only after the ceding company has actually suffered the agreed amount of loss. Since the probability of large losses is small, premiums for reinsurance are like wise also small.
A variation of the excess of loss type of reinsurance is the spread of loss treaty under which the primary insurer decides what loss ratio it is prepared to stand on a given kind of insurance, and agrees with a reinsurer to bear any loss that would raise the loss ratio above the agreed level over a period of, say five years. Thus, the ceding company has spread its loss over a reasonable time period and, in effect, has guaranteed an underwriting margin through reinsurance. In this way an unusually high loss ratio in a poor underwriting year is averaged in with other years.
4.4 Ways of Administering Re-insurance
Most re-insurance is administered by professional re-insurers who specialized in re-insuring the portfolios of other insurers. However the re-insurer may be another insurer whose major business interest also is dealing with the public. Some insurers of this type have re-insurance department or subsidiaries that aggressively seek business from other insurers but most of them are re-insures only because many reinsurance agreements obligates the ceding insurer to re-insure some of the liability assumed by the re-insurer under this direct business. The other way is a polo that may or may not include the ceding insurer. Re-insurance arrangement may distribute the insurance and the loss in many different ways. Some of the distribution methods are:
- Under a quota share split, the insurance and the loss are shared according to some prearranged percentage. For example if a Birr 100,000 policy is written and the agreed split is 50-50, then the re-insurer assumes half of the liability and the remaining half loss will be assumed by the insurer.
- Under a surplus share agreement the re-insurer accepts that amount of the insurance in each of a stated amount and the loss is prorated according to the amount of the insurance assumed. For example, if a Birr 100,000 is the stated amount, the re-insurance's liability under a Birr. 200,000-policy amount would be (200,000 -100,000).
- Under an excess loss arrangement, the re-insurer agrees to pay that portion of the loss incurred under an individual contract in excess of some specified amount such as 100,000 Birr.
- Catastrophe re-insurance - like excess loss, but in this insurance the losses are those incurred by the insurer as a result of a single event under all contracts covered under the agreement. For example, the re-insurer might be obligated to pay that portion in excess of birr 100,000 of the losses incurred.
Reinsurance is an insurance purchased by an insurer to protect itself against losses on polices it has written that it does not wish to bear the entire exposure by itself.
- Considerations in setting the retention amount
The maximum loss an insurer can safely retain is affected by the following variables:
- the size of the insurance company
- its financial conditions
- the insurer’s management philosophy
- the characteristics of the exposure under consideration
- Parties in the insurance business
- the primary (ceding) insurer
- the re-insurer
- Distribution methods of reinsurers
- A quota share split arrangement: in this method parties to the agreement will share the loss based on some prearranged percentage.
- A surplus share arrangement: the reinsurer accepts the amount of the loss and insurance in excess of stated amount and the loss is prorated according to the amount of insurance assumed.
- Excess loss arrangement: in this type of arrangement the reinsurer will agree to pay a portion of the loss incurred in excess of some specified amount
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Fiscal policy encapsulate the pragmatic use of spending and taxation by the government to substantively influence the economy. The use of fiscal policies is heightened by John Keynes, who articulated that the government can do the changes in the performance of the economy through adjusting the taxes and the government spending.
The aims of government spending
The U.S and other capitalist countries substantively rely on the free market system to pragmatically direct resources to efficient use, produce the goods needed and allocate the final product CITATION Arg131 \l 1033 (Argy, 2013). However, this is not the best way to achieve economic goals, and thus, government spending is used to exercise some influence over the private economy. This is achieved through;
The redistribution of income because the market even if it allocates productive resources efficiently it may fail to satisfy the preferences of the citizens for greater economic equality.
Correction of the imperfect pricing by the market which is achieved through direct market regulation, use of taxes and subsidies
Provision of goods and services that the private markets cannot provide such as national defense.
Stabilization of the economy when it runs off course.
Government spending, by Major Category, Since 2011
Mandatory Discretionary Programmatic Outlays Offsetting Taxes Net Interest Total
In Billions of Dollars
2011 1,347.1 2,234.9 -209.0 230.0 3,603.1
2012 1,286.1 2,258.8 -228.3 220.4 3,537.0
2013 1,202.1 2,336.4 -304.8 220.9 3,454.6
2014 1,178.7 2,375.8 -277.3 229.0 3,506.1
2015 1,165.2 2,555.3 -256.5 223.4 3,687.4
The federal government spending has increased over the period except 2012. The increase is encapsulated by an increase in expenditure in the health sector, social security and the rise in interest payments. The increase in federal government spending is heightened by the increase in the cost of health care and spending on social security due to the increase in a population that is aging. The increase in interest payment has also led to an increase in the federal government outlay because of the increase in national debt.
Revenues, by Major Source, Since 2011
In Billions of Dollars
IndividualIncome Taxes Payroll Taxes CorporateIncome Taxes Excise Taxes Estate andGift Taxes Customs Duties Miscellaneous Receipts Total
2011 1,091.5 818.8 181.1 72.4 7.4 29.5 102.8 2,303.5
2012 1,132.2 845.3 242.3 79.1 14.0 30.3 106.8 2,450.0
2013 1,316.4 947.8 273.5 84.0 18.9 31.8 102.6 2,775.1
2014 1,394.6 1,023.5 320.7 93.4 19.3 33.9 136.1 3,021.5
2015 1,540.8 1,065.3 343.8 98.3 19.2 35.0 146.3 3,248.7
The federal government revenues encompass an increase from 2011 to 2015. The increase in revenues has been felt due the reforms implemented on the federal income tax. The principles encapsulated in these reforms ranges from cutting inefficient and unfair tax breaks, observing the Buffet Rule that substantively enhances tax fairness and the increase in job creation and growth.
Impact of these fiscals policies to the U.S economy
Through the use of expansionary fiscal policies that is higher government spending and lowering taxes will effectively raise the demand for goods and services and hence output and prices. The perspective is dependent on the state of the US economy. During a recession, where there is unused productive capacity, and unemployed workers increase in demand leads to more output without the change in the level of prices. At an economy with full employment, prices increase, but there is a minimum impact on total output.
Fiscal policy can be used as a stabilizer because of its ability to affect output which affects aggregate demand. The use of expansionary fiscal policy in times of recession can be used by the federal government thus restoring output at its normal level and creating employment CITATION Goo13 \l 1033 (Goodwin, 2013). When the economy is in the boom cycle thus spiraling inflation, the federal government uses a surplus budget which helps the economy to slow down. However, arguments against the use of fiscal policy as a stabilizer accentuate it is difficult to use it because of the inside lag. The inside lag encapsulates the time there is the need for fiscal policy and the time Congress, and the president implements it.
Fiscal policy changes the burden of future taxes. When the federal government uses the expansionary fiscal policy, it increases the national debt. This has an impact on the future tax plan because the interest on the debt will be paid in future years hence an additional burden to future tax payers.
Fiscal policy has an impact on the exchange rate and the trade balance. In the case of an expansionary fiscal policy, the increase in the interest rate due to government borrowing substantively attracts foreign capital. Foreigners bid up the price of the dollar in an attempt to get dollars to invest which creates an exchange rate appreciation. The appreciation of the dollar makes imports to the US cheaper and the exports to other countries expensive hence a decline in the trade balance.
Fiscal policy leads to a change in the composition of aggregate demand. When the federal government experiences a deficit, it issues bonds to meet some of its expenses and in doing so, it competes with private borrowers hence reducing the fraction of output that is made from private investment.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Argy, V. (2013). International macroeconomics: theory and policy. Routledge.
Goodwin, N. N. (2013). Macroeconomics in context. ME Sharpe.
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Last week was the United Nations’ World Oceans Day, kicking off a global initiative to call on world leaders to protect 30% of oceans by 2030. Innovation for sustainable oceans is a key theme this year, which is why it is so timely to be talking about cleantech in this arena. Cleantech Group (CTG) recently discussed this topic (and other Nature-Based Solutions), in detail with innovators, corporates and investors at our 17 June edition of Cleantech Interactive.
The Value of Oceans
Oceans cover more than 70% of the earth’s surface and produce half the world’s oxygen. Every second breath you take originates from the ocean. We also rely on these vast bodies of water for numerous ecosystem services, including:
Food for billions
Coastal defense e.g. mangroves and coral reefs offer storm protection
Their ability to provide a powerful carbon sink, shielding us from the worst effects of atmospheric carbon and climate change.
Every year, oceans provide $2.5 trillion worth of value and support 200 million jobs. Based on gross marine products, the ocean is the seventh largest economy in the world.
Yet, marine ecosystems represent some of the most heavily exploited ecosystems on the planet. Human threats like plastic pollution, acidification, climate change and destructive fishing practices combine to threaten this critical natural resource. In the wake of Covid-19, many fear an acceleration of plastic pollution as masks, gloves and hand sanitizer bottles have already been seen littering the ocean and beaches. These items can take up to 450 years to degrade.
The blue economy represents all economic activities related to our oceans which are not only sustainable but actively good for our oceans. This radical approach is being adopted across the world, highlighting economic opportunities while assigning a greater value to oceans.
Innovators across the globe are developing business models in the blue economy, models which include protecting, monitoring and learning about our oceans, as well as sustainably removing its resources and promoting biodiversity. In the past 12 months, CTG has monitored investments totaling over $25 million over 12 deals. Most of these investments have been seed stage or grants, highlighting the early stages of this ecosystem as well as the importance of accelerators like the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Plug and Play Tech Centre and Elemental Excelerator in their development. Most of these investments are for ocean exploration technologies, such as autonomous vessels or underwater drones, representing the global drive to better understand these vast resources.
Monitoring and Learning
“Now is the best time to be innovating in sustainable ocean technology,” explains Julie Angus of Open Ocean Robotics. Husband and wife co-founders, Julie and Colin Angus, have developed a solar powered ocean drone, also called an uncrewed surface vehicle (USV). The USVs can travel for months at a time, using only the sun to monitor and collect ocean data. One of their first pilot projects has been to map the sea floor for the Canadian coastguard for navigation and rescue.
CTG recently spoke to Julie, who outlined their business model. “We sell our vessels, run mission services and have future plans to be a data and ocean analytics company. With USVs, it is important to have flexibility. Each of these markets are not huge on their own so in order to generate high revenues, you need to be able to go after multiple markets. Also, each client has different data needs.” The company closed a pre-seed round of $400,000 in January this year and is preparing for a seed round in Q4 2020 or Q1 2021.
Restoration and Protection
Companies are emerging to protect and restore our oceans. The Ocean Cleanup, the developer of a vessel that removes plastic and non-biodegradable waste from oceans, received a $1 million grant in May this year. The grant was from the Benioff Ocean Initiative and Coca-Cola and will support the deployment of The Ocean Cleanup’s Interceptor vessel at Kingston Harbor, Jamaica.
Coral Vita has developed a commercial coral farming model which is geared to be a viable means to restore degraded reefs at large-scale. Half the world’s coral reefs are dead and over 90% are on track to die by 2050. This is not just an ecological tragedy but a socio-economic catastrophe, as conservatives estimates indicate that reefs generate $30 billion annually while sustaining 25% of marine life and the livelihoods of up to one billion people. The company uses breakthrough science to grow corals up to 50 times faster while strengthening their resilience to climate change threats. They then finance operations by selling reef restoration as a service to customers dependent on coral reefs’ valuable ecosystem services and by operating their farms as eco-tourism attractions and education centres.
In October 2019, Coral Vita was selected to the second cohort of the Ocean Solutions Accelerator, run by the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. They are currently raising $2 million to expand their Grand Bahama facility into the largest coral farm in the world, capable of growing 100,000 corals per year. CTG spoke to Coral Vita’s co-founder Sam Teicher who said “In the future we plan to operate coral farms in every nation with reefs around the world, each capable of growing one million or more corals per year. In doing so, we not only aim to preserve coral reefs and the communities that depend on them, but further galvanize the growth of a restoration economy to protect ecosystems and the development of other coastal resilience technologies.”
Sam also recently spoke at our Cleantech Interactive, Investing in Nature on 17 June.
Another collection of promising blue economy innovators are those focused on sustainable fishing. One such innovator is SafetyNet Technologies, the developer of an underwater light that functions to reduce bycatch by 90%. Bycatch represents the millions of unwanted fish caught during commercial fishing. The light, called Pisces, can be attached to fishing nets to deter certain fish and attract others. CTG spoke to Daniel Watson, co-founder of SafetyNet Technologies, who said, “The biggest driver for our technology is regulatory change. The European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy means fishing boats are checked more regularly and fined for bycatch. Our solution mitigates against this. It’s important to highlight that fishing crews don’t want bycatch. So, for example, if a fishing boat had the average of 20% of its cargo hold full of the wrong type of fish – that’s a potential 20% decrease in profit margin.”
Remora has developed fish tracking and tracing technologies which help fishing communities in Costa Rica prove their fish are responsibly sourced and as a result, those fisheries can charge a premium for their produce.
Emerging innovation and technologies in the blue economy are broad and varied, however most are early stage with little competition. The corporates that are investing in the blue economy are mostly those contributing to plastic pollution, such as the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies like Coca-Cola or Proctor & Gamble.
Technologies to transform the fishing industry face more competition with multiple methods to reduce bycatch and for fish traceability. Daniel Watson, from SafetyNet, outlines, “The many tools that exist range in price, size and complexity. Our direct competitors are working with sound to deter fish. Most solutions are, however, expensive, and it is important to offer affordable price points to be able to scale from artisan to industrial fisheries.”
Julie Angus at Open Ocean Robotics describes the competitive environment for Autonomous Ocean Data (AOD) collection as complimentary. “There are three main types of vessel: one is USVs, like us, the second are unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), which are like submarines collecting underwater data, and the third are buoys, which are stationary, collecting data from one spot. Each has benefits and disadvantages, but preferably we would have all three to monitor as the task of monitoring the ocean is vast.”
Keep an Eye on…
The rise in global sea-levels has increased. Between 1993 and 2018, the ocean rose an average of 3.2mm per year, but in the last five years this has been 4.8 mm per year. Meanwhile, coastal construction is also on the rise. This has opened markets for coastal surveillance, monitoring (using sensors, geospatial and satellite data) and risk analytics. As a result, the market for coastal surveillance alone is growing at a CAGR of 2.3%, expected to reach $3.1 billion by 2024, from $2.75 billion in 2019.
For more on Investing in Nature, have a read of our most recent report.
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Chilean Patagonia is a sparsely inhabited area well known for its lakes, mountains, fjords, glaciers and rich biodiversity. The National Parks System in Chile, represented by CONAF (Corporación Nacional Forestal, the National Forest Corporation) has been working with The Pew Charitable Trusts on Project Finance for Permanence (PFP), an innovative approach to achieving long-term financial sustainability for the national parks system.
To help support these efforts, CSF is conducting a series of analyses to demonstrate the economic impact of tourism to Chile’s national park system (SNAPSE, Sistema Nacional de Áreas Silvestres Protegidas del Estado, National System of State Protected Wild Areas) with a particular focus on parks in the Patagonia region.
Specifically, CSF is conducting:
- a travel cost analysis to explore recreational preferences across the national parks;
- a willingness to pay analysis to provide insight on adjustments to park entrance fees that could increase revenues for the park system;
- a literature review of the economic impacts of protected areas, especially in relation to local communities; and
- a matching analysis to compare communities with protected areas to those without protected areas, in terms of local development and population well-being
Our ultimate goal is to support sustainable financing and management of the Chilean national park system and meet international standards for protection.
Support for this project is provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Photo: Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
Photo Credit: David Ionut/ Shutterstock.com
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“A penny saved is a penny earned,” so said founding father Benjamin Franklin. Of course, these are wise words, but for those looking for future financial security, a more apt saying might be “a penny invested leads to pennies grown.”
When only saving money at current bank rates, those in the workforce now may not have the accumulated wealth to comfortably retire.
Many people have goals for which they are saving; whether it is for a rainy day or emergency fund, buying a car or home, or saving for a cozy retirement, people think saving is important and are compelled to squirrel away money. However, if people are only saving money, they might be able to achieve their short term goals of covering an unexpected expense or putting a down payment on a car, but, they are missing out on the opportunity to invest their money to gain the wealth needed for their long term goals.
It has become common knowledge a dollar earned today will not be worth as much in the future because the value of money tends to disintegrate over time. For example, if a person’s living expenses go up by 3 percent a year, and they put their savings into a bank account earning 1 percent interest on an annual basis, they will have lost buying power and find themselves at a serious disadvantage years down the road when they need those savings for income.
Conversely, if a person has put their savings into investments earning 7 percent on an average annual basis, they would not only keep up with the 3 percent inflation rate, but come out ahead of it and realize income growth.
A survey from Ally Invest found over 60 percent of people over 18 polled thought buying stock and investing in the market to be “scary or intimidating.”
The majority of younger workers are not investing at this time; this is due in large part to never learning about how to invest. According to PNC Investments, 62 percent of millennials polled reported their parents urged them to save money while only 33 percent say they were taught how to increase their wealth through investing. Not shockingly, they also discovered only a third of younger workers are secure in the knowledge they are saving enough money for the future.
People need to have a solid plan before considering which stocks to invest in to minimize risk.
Generally, people do not wake up out of the blue deciding today is the day they are going to start investing. Research and planning will help new investors feel their choices are solid. The good news is, younger people have more time until they retire, so, the stock market is actually the best place to put a large portion of their savings. The stock market, even with its historical volatility, has delivered solid returns over time.
Here is an example to illustrate the income growth potential: If a person is able to invest $500 a month, assuming a 7 percent average annual return, $240,000 of his or her own money accumulates over 40 years. Through compounding and the power of stocks, the monthly $500 investment could earn over a million dollars over the same amount of time, as opposed to a little over $60,000 in growth if the same money was saved in a bank with a 1 percent annual interest rate.
In addition to buying stocks, one should also consider investing in bonds and saving money as cash.
A well-rounded portfolio should have a portion invested in bonds. Bonds, as a rule, are much less susceptible to fluctuations in the market. At their core, bonds are loans taken out by a municipality, U.S. treasury, or corporation to be paid back in full at the end of a specified period, with interest payments usually occurring twice a year. Each type of bond has its own benefits and drawbacks.
Not all savings accounts are the same; knowing what one’s money is or is not cultivating while sitting in the bank could make a big difference in saving money over time.
Since the financial crisis of 2008, interest rates have remained abysmally low. With many banks offering a mere .01 percent annual interest rate, it is possible to find savings options paying as much as 2 percent. While that is still far below the attractive interest rates of years ago, it is a significant difference. People with money in the bank should also be aware of fees, even on savings accounts. It is not unusual for banks to charge fees for moving money through an ATM or charging fees for inactivity, which could not only eat up the paltry interest income gained, but, it digs into the original deposit.
The bottom line is, most people cannot put their entire savings dollars in the bank and hope to retire comfortably. By investing in the stock market, one can realize long term income potential. In addition to buying stocks, smart investors’ portfolios contain different types of investments including bonds.
Of course, it never hurts to have some money stashed in the bank, just in case.
For information on investing in stocks online, please, see How to Trade Stocks Online.
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Student debt can be devastating to a young person just starting out, and borrowing large amounts so early in life can have ripple effects that last for years.
In a new survey from Bankrate.com, 56 percent of millennials say they have delayed taking a major step like getting married or buying a home or a car because of their debt load. By comparison, 43 percent of Americans aged 30 or older said that debt had delayed their reaching some financial milestones. Those delays not only prevent people from making progress toward their life goals, but they also represent a drag on the economy overall.
The repercussions of student debt may also come as a surprise to some borrowers. More than half of those surveyed say they didn’t receive enough information or advice about the financial risks of taking on education loans. That number jumps to 66 percent among borrowers between the ages of 18 and 29.
Outstanding student loan balances have ballooned to $1.19 trillion, including an increase of $78 billion between March of 2014 and March of 2015, according to a report on household debt and credit by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
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All parents want their children to be successful and financially stable. But how many parents actually talk to their kids about finance and equip them with the tools children need to make smart decisions about money in the future?
According to the Parents, Kids & Money Survey conducted in 2009 by Baltimore-based financial services firm T. Rowe Price, about 60 percent of parents feel that financial discussions do not happen early enough. More than half of parents worry that they could be doing more to prepare their children to be financially competent by the time they turn 18. The study of 500-plus parents also revealed that parents, on average, grade themselves a B- when it comes to their own total understanding of basic saving and investing concepts such as setting goals, the importance of saving, smart spending, inflation and diversification. Many parents want to impart sound financial values to their children. However, parents do not always have the tools or feel knowledgeable enough to teach their kids about being savvy when it comes to money.
Children around the age of 5 begin to ask questions about money as they start grasping financial concepts. Parents can use everyday occurrences like a trip to the grocery store as a way to teach children about money. Taking time to explain the family grocery budget to kids helps them comprehend basic saving and spending concepts.
As the economy changes, financial discussions should also change. Use the economic downturn as a teachable moment. Be open and honest with your children during tough economic times. When the household spending budget is modified, it is important for parents to have an age-appropriate conversation with their children about the reasoning behind the adjustments.
Additional Tips for Talking to Your Kids About Money
- Make the conversation fun. Engage your children in a way they relate to or understand. As you discuss financial concepts, consider playing interactive financial games. Playing educational games with your children allows you to simultaneously entertain and inform your kids. While you are playing with your children, highlight the lessons being taught and build upon them by providing everyday examples that support the learning.
- Take advantage of teachable moments. Regular occurrences including buying groceries, getting money as a present and going shopping are ideal moments to impart basic financial lessons. According to the Parents, Kids & Money Survey, nearly half of parents neglect to use the occasion of receiving money as a gift as a teachable moment, and the majority of parents do not always capitalize on shopping or grocery store trips as opportunities to have a discussion about finances. Yet, these are opportune times to talk to your kids about money.
- Set a savings goal. Get your kids excited about saving by setting an attainable goal, like purchasing a new toy, outfit or game by the end of the month. Grant your kids with a source of income, perhaps giving them an allowance or money for performing chores. Encourage children to see how saving a little bit at a time helps with purchasing large items that interest them. Instill that if kids want something, they have to work and plan for it.
- Get your kids a piggy bank or other savings vessel. Piggy banks assist in teaching kids about money. Eighty-five percent of parents report that their child has a piggy bank, and nearly all parents say that having one sets a good example about the importance of saving.
- Let your kids see their money in action. Whether it’s offering an allowance, figuring out what to do with your child’s birthday money or opening a checking or savings account, allow your children to see their money in action. Also give kids the authority to make independent financial decisions regarding spending and saving their money. Permitting your kids to watch these concepts play out is an effective lesson that has monumental benefits in the long run.
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The financial market this content is often called the largest, most complicated and unpredictable market in the world. It is an important part of a well functioning economy, especially when it comes to protecting and creating wealth. This market is constantly on edge, both economically and in terms of the potential of losses. It has become a primary target of political and economic crises, even leading to large-scale failures.
Many people are concerned about the state of the financial markets, as this crisis affects not only their personal and professional lives but also the economies of many countries around the world. The main reasons for this are the following:
Uncertainty – This is the number one factor. If you go through the history of any industry you will find that the growth of that industry was largely based on its ability to create value by offering something that no one else could or would supply. There was a demand, and there was a supply. With the onset of globalisation and free trade many industries were forced to adapt to this new model, and some have been able to sustain success despite the current financial crisis.
A lack of trust – In the past, financial market participants did not trust each other. As a result, they did not share information and this created a high level of inefficiencies, a low level of liquidity and a low level of risk. Today, we know that there are too many players and too many companies to deal with, so a lack of trust is no longer an issue.
Limited Options – Financial markets provide an enormous amount of opportunity, and some areas of the market, such as insurance and investing, have become highly specialized and complicated. However, other areas, such as stock trading, have not seen a drastic change in the number of options available. It is likely that there will continue to be more options available in areas such as stock trading, but that this will not affect all investors as much, as it used to.
These are some of the factors that have resulted in the current financial market being one of the most volatile and unstable markets in the world. There is certainly plenty of risk involved, but as a result the financial markets are able to remain profitable for the majority of investors. This volatility is in part due to the fact that it is the largest market and has a large number of participants.
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HAVANA TIMES — Much of what I have written and have yet to write about Peak Oil is humorously addressed in the animated documentary There is No Tomorrow (See below). Written and directed by Dermot O’Connor, the film was produced by Incubate Pictures, in association with the Post Carbon Institute.
Below, I have summarized some of its main ideas:
- Nearly two trillion barrels in oil reserves have been discovered since we began to consume oil, and we have already consumed half of this.
- Individual countries tend to reach their production peaks 40 years after their discovery peaks. The world’s discovery peak was reached in the 1960s.
- 54 of the 65 countries with the largest number of black gold reserves have already surpassed their production peaks.
- In the 1960s, six barrels of oil were being discovered for every one barrel consumed. Today, this formula has been inverted: between three and six barrels of oil for every one discovered are consumed.
When the world oil production peak is reached, oil prices won’t experience an astronomical rise but will rather experience radical fluctuations.
- Initially, some 100 barrels of oil could be obtained for every 1 barrel invested in the production and refining process (TRE = 100). Today, only 10 barrels are obtained for every barrel invested (TRE = 10). The trend is downward. When the TRE is equal to or less than one, in other words when we begin to invest more than what we obtain, oil will cease to be a source of energy and will become an energy-depleting substance.
- The world coal production peak will be reached before 2040, but there’s already very little left of the high-energy hard coal.
- The world gas production peak (including conventional gas production) will be reached before 2030.
- If we were to produce all of the electricity generated by burning fossil fuels with nuclear power plants, uranium reserves would be exhausted in one or two decades.
- The fast nuclear reactors essayed in Japan and France (it was once thought they would be the answer to the energy problem) have proven an expensive failure.
- Attempts at achieving nuclear fusion are meeting with technical obstacles that cannot be overcome at the moment.
- All of the world’s solar panels generate as much electricity as two coal plants.
Like a Ponzi scheme, the capitalist system must either grow or die.
- Before the First World War, agriculture was maintained using solar energy – it was sustainable. Today, we need seven calories of fossil fuels to produce a single calorie of food.
- The world fishing peak was reached at the end of the 1980s. At today’s consumption pace, all edible fish species will be wiped out by 2048.
- La preparación todavía no ha comenzado. The Hirsch Report, published by the US Department of Energy, estimates that two decades is the minimum amount of time that today’s societies require to prepare and avoid collapse as a result of Peak Oil. We have not yet begun to prepare.
- Energy shortages, the exhaustion of resources, the loss of fertile land and pollution all stem from exponential growth.
- Society can take a step back to a simpler state – this does not necessarily entail total collapse or regressing to the Stone Age. Whether there is or there is no tomorrow depends on what we do as of right now.
I am particularly interested in stressing that Peak Oil does not in any way resemble the apocalyptic movements that abound on the Internet and the media, for consumption by the stupefied masses. It is not a prophesy; it is not necessarily apocalyptic and it has nothing to do with a conspiracy theory.
Its main assumptions (the documentary mentions some) are backed by regular science and are easy to comprehend. One needn’t resort to complex paradigms, quantum physics or relativity, or be an enlightened or privileged mind, to realize this.
The main “problem” it poses is that, in an indirect way, it speaks to people of their egotism, their lack of awareness, and of the need to make an effort and take a risk to change their current way of life, in the face of an uncertain future. This is a hard pill for the masses to swallow.
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Do you sometimes feel like all of your money is gone, and you don’t know where it went? If so, you are not alone.
It is common for many households to not know exactly what money is being spent and where the money is going. However, not keeping appropriate tabs on where your money is going can cause many issues, so it is crucial to learn how to track your spending.
An important part of being financially secure and responsible is learning to track your spending consistently. Once you start paying attention to where your money is being spent you can start budgeting appropriately and understanding how much money you can put towards paying off debt or put into a savings account. Keeping track of your expenses can also help you to identify spending issues as well. If you are unfamiliar with how much you spend, you likely do not know how much money you have for certain important expenses like bills, groceries or filling up your car with gas. This can lead to overspending in certain areas or even lead to not having enough money to cover your basic needs.
There are many different ways to track your spending, especially nowadays with there being so many different computer programs and apps designed for that very purpose. However, not every method works for everyone, so it is important to do your research and try out a few different methods in order to determine what works best for you. You may prefer to record everything by hand or to collect receipts. Or you may be more comfortable using an online program or an app that does most of the work for you. Continue reading to learn more about a few different methods you can use to keep track of your spending.
The envelope method is a tried-and-true strategy for both budgeting and tracking your expenses. It works by filling a few different envelopes with cash and labeling them with where you are going to spend that cash that week. For example, you could have an envelope with $30 labeled “Lunch,” an envelope with $70 labeled “Gasoline,” and $100 for “Groceries.” Ultimately, you can completely customize the way that you use the envelopes to fit your needs.
It is important to note that this method works best after you have tried it a few different times so that you can get a better understanding of how much money you really need in each category. You may find that $100 a week for groceries is not enough for your family or that you do not spend all of the money in a different envelope and have some left over. Once you have made adjustments you can begin to see exactly how much money is spent in the various different categories.
If you simply want to compile a list of exactly what you spend and where, you can always use a standard notebook and pen to mark down each transaction. By physically writing down what you purchased and how much you spent each time you are forced to think harder about each expense. This method holds you immediately accountable for each time you spend money, although it does take some practice to get into the habit. You also must ensure that you keep your notebook with you or have a different way to remember any transactions you make if you forget to bring it.
Another straightforward way to track your spending is by using an online spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel. You can create different categories and type in each amount spent and what it was spent on. You can jot down the amounts throughout the day and then update the spreadsheet when you get home, or you use other methods such as saving receipts to remember what money you spent.
Nowadays, many different bank accounts offer programs that track your spending and may even automatically categorize your spending into different groups. This way, you can simply login to your account and see where you have been spending the most money when using that debit or credit card. Some banks offer this capability through a mobile app or through their website.
If your bank does not offer the ability to see what areas you have been spending money in you can still use your bank statements to get an idea on your spending. Most bank statements should state the amount spent and also where the money was spent, so you can see how much was spent at grocery stores, how much was spent on entertainment and so forth.
There are many different online programs and apps available that can help you track your spending as well. Various websites allow you to link up your accounts such as your debit account, credit cards, and even your bills. These programs are helpful because after initially inputting your account information, the software does the rest of the work for you and organizes your spending into different categories. Online programs or apps can be beneficial because they typically do not require much work from you, and they are very efficient at tracking each expense.
After you have decided on which method to use to track your spending, it is crucial that you then use that data to make any necessary changes in your spending habits. Perhaps you discovered that you have spent too much money on eating out, so you can then adjust your budget for cutting back on those expenses. It is also a good idea to see how your spending changes each month so that you can notice any patterns that arise during certain times of the year.
Once you have reviewed your spending you can create a plan for where to cut back and where you want any extra money to go. Tracking your expenses is one of the most important steps towards becoming financially empowered, and it will certainly help you to be more comfortable with your financial situation and your ability to reach your goals.
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Nickel at the core of the bimetal technology
This chemical element, particularly appreciated for its alloys capability with the Iron for example, is widely used to compose the Bimetal material. This one is made of 2 layers of (mainly Fe+Ni) metal, having different expansion coefficients, and bonded together by lamination process.
The obtained strip has the property to change its curvature, under temperature variation. Playing with this curvature, DELTA CONCEPT develops its products, and fabricates components of thermostats, using the bimetal technology.
DELTA CONCEPT purchases its raw material in strips from 0,1 to 1mm thick, and from 5 to 50mm width.
The choice of the bimetal grade and of its dimensions is important. As it is made of 30% of Nickel, a quoted-on-the stock-exchange market raw material, its cost fluctuates, as a function of both the actual deposit and the international demand (from US$18,000 to US$20,000 per ton).
France owns 30% of Nickel stocks world reserves, thanks to its production in New Caledonia ! This makes the fortune of this overseas territory.
Five big world companies supply more than half of the worldwide offer: Norilsk (Russia), INCO (Canada), Falconbridge (Canada), Western Mining (Australia) and Eramet SLN (France).
Nickel production per country:
|Country||thousands of tons||% total|
|France (New Caledonia)||112||9|
|5 countries total||897||70|
Impact and costs control
The variation of this raw material price impacts our own production costs. In order to minimize them, we calculate the bimetal as soon as possible in our customer project phase, so to make it as accurate and as low cost as possible. The taken into account criteria are as follows:
- The bimetal grade to use,
- The band thickness,
- The weight of the piece, one it is cut.
Examples of applications at DELTA CONCEPT
They are numerous, and they can be split in two main categories : the slow deflection bimetals and the snap action bimetals, which are integrated in mechanical or electrical sub-assemblies.
This variety of applications allows our company to develop and to fabricate mechanical actuators, electrical circuit breakers, regulators and security flaps.
See our on-specification developments.
Other examples for Nickel use.
To know more about the Nickel :
« Zoom on iron-nickel alloys. They are used for their physical properties, which are sometimes surprising. For example, the invar, an iron-nickel alloy containing 36+% of nickel (FeNi36), is almost not expandable under 200°C. It is used in Cryogenics (for tanks of methane carriers), in laser physics (structure elements) or in cathodic ray tubes (shadow mask).
The used physical properties of iron-nickel alloys are the magnetic properties (high magnetic permeability alloys, low Curie point alloys, magnetostrictive alloys), the elasticity properties (low thermoelastic rate alloys), as well as their extraordinary expansion properties (no-expansion or controlled expansion alloys) »
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel
The nickel salts (hydroxycarbonate, chloride, sulphate…) are used in different industries, as electronics, catalysis, electroplating.
The nickel is also used in the cathode of nickel-manganese dioxide alkaline batteries, and of nickel-cadmium alkaline, nickel-metal hydride, and nickel-zinc storage batteries .
Electric guitar strings: the nickel is used for certain kinds of strings.
It is used in jewelry with gold, in order to obtain a better mechanical resistance, as well as original colors. Thus, copper+nickel+gold make yellow-gold or pink-gold, and nickel+gold make white-gold.
Another “historical” use of nickel is for money coins, where the quality of malleability and resistance of the product are particularly appreciated. Thus nickel is found in american and canadian coins, as well as 2 Euros coins.
It is interesting to state that as a transition metal, the nickel could be replaced by other elements: it is mainly used for its extraction and disposal low cost, compared to other technically possible solutions.
It is also used in the dental floss. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel
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A record share of Australia’s electricity came from renewable energy in 2016, largely thanks to improved rainfall in key hydro catchments and a series of new wind and solar projects, according to a new report released today by the Clean Energy Council.
The Clean Energy Australia Report 2016 says more than 17% of Australia’s electricity came from renewable energy during the year – the highest proportion at any time this century, putting Australia well on track to deliver the 2020 Renewable Energy Target.
Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton said 10 large wind and solar projects had been completed last year, with continued reductions in project costs contributing to unprecedented levels of commercial activity, setting the industry up for another record year in 2017.
“Every month brings new project announcements. While total investment in large-scale renewable energy was $2.56 billion last year, $5.20 billion worth of projects have secured finance in just the first five months of 2017 and have either started construction or will begin this year,” Thornton said.
The installation of rooftop solar systems was steady during 2016, he said, with 135,370 systems installed.
“The changes happening across the country right now are extraordinary. Renewable energy is now the cheapest kind of new power generation that can be built today – less than both new coal and new gas-fired power plants. The price of gas in particular has skyrocketed,” Thornton said.
Large-scale solar power is almost half the cost it was just a couple of years ago, and is now playing a huge role in meeting the national Renewable Energy Target.
“Innovation continues right across the renewable energy supply chain and new technologies such as energy storage are beginning to get their time in the sun,” he said.
“While the latest available employment figures show an industry contraction to 11,150 direct jobs in the 2015-16 financial year, these figures cover a low point for the sector following the Abbott Government’s RET review. Employment figures are likely to increase substantially in 2017 with over 35 large-scale projects already under construction or starting this year, adding up to more than $7.5 billion in investment and more than 4,100 additional direct jobs.
“These projects are more than half of what is needed to meet the rest of the RET between 2016 and 2020,” he said.
Some highlights from the report:
- 17.3% of Australia’s electricity came from renewable energy last year, the most of any year this century.
- Hydro made the biggest contribution, providing 42.3% of the total renewable energy following high rainfall in key hydro catchments.
- Non-hydro renewable energy such as solar, wind and bioenergy delivered 10% of Australia’s power in 2016.
- The ACT Government’s reverse auction program led to the cheapest wind power ever contracted, for $73 a megawatt-hour at Neoen’s Hornsdale 3 Wind Farm.
- About half of the projects which are under construction or will start in 2017 under the RET are large-scale solar, due to a plunge in costs over the past few years.
- Support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and innovative finance from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) have pushed the price of large-scale solar down to almost half what it was a couple of years ago.
- Ten new renewable energy projects came online in 2016 – seven solar plants and three wind farms.
- 6,750 battery systems were installed in 2016, 13 times the number installed in 2015.
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Women's time allocation
Women are still doing the majority of housework. In the literature, at least three theoretical currents are found to explain the inequalities between men and women in the allocation of time in paid and unpaid work. According to the human capital theory, these differences would be explained by the comparative advantages between the members of the couple, resulting from specialization (Becker, 1981).
For bargaining models, the allocation of time in paid and unpaid work would be the result of conflict and not economic rationality: the greater the bargaining power, the less domestic activity the family member would engage in. In theories based on norms and institutions, it is recognized that the division of housework within the household would be strongly determined by psychological and sociological aspects of gender identity. The unequal division of housework would then be a means by which gender roles appropriate to society's norms would be demonstrated and reaffirmed.
This unequal division, which is based on the supposed notion that women would have advantages in carrying out housework, has significant consequences on women's wages, career opportunities and has also been associated with low fertility rates in some countries.
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Hope for the U.S. hydrogen car industryMay 20, 2011
More members of Congress are championing the cause for alternative fuels.
There have been several proposals in the last few weeks urging the federal government to renew its support for hydrogen fuel. Many of these proposals seek merely to increase the funding of research and development programs. A new bill has entered the House of Representatives that could change the face of transportation in the country.
The bill, called the Open Fuel Standard Act, targets the auto industry specifically. Beginning in 2014, no less than 50% of new vehicles will have to run off alternative fuels. This standard rises to 80% in 2016 and again to 95% in 2017. The legislation notes currently existing alternative fuels, such as hydrogen and natural gas, but also takes into account the emergence of other fuels that have yet to be developed.
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) is one of the chief sponsors of the bill.
In a statement, Bartlett recently noted that the International Energy Agency documented that oil production had peaked in 2007. Since that time, oil production has fallen at a steady rate. As the world’s oil supply dries up, the price of oil rises. Bartlett believes that the Open Fuel Standard Act will give Americans a chance to end their dependence on oil before it is too late.
Support for alternative fuel has been growing in the Congress, despite the federal government’s recent budget cuts for hydrogen fuel programs. Much of this support in centered on hydrogen specifically. If the trend continues, hydrogen will become the nation’s fuel of choice.
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Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, told Parliament today that, since the 1995 drought, leakage in England and Wales has been reduced by some 1.8 million cubic metres a day, equivalent to the amount of water used daily by more than 12 million people.
The National Audit Office examined how the Office of Water Services (OFWAT) have carried out their responsibilities for regulating the way water companies in England and Wales manage leakage and promote the efficient use of water. They found that, since 1995, leakage has fallen from 31 per cent of the water put into supply to 22 per cent and that water companies are now in a stronger position to maintain the supply of water to their customers in dry weather. Water companies have also made progress in promoting water efficiency to reduce the amount of water wasted by customers.
But, leakage in England and Wales remains at more than 3 million cubic metres a day – nearly half the average flow rate of the River Thames in London – and the balance between the supply and demand for water is still tight in some parts of the country, principally in the south east of England. And the effectiveness of the different types of action taken by water companies to promote water efficiency remains unclear.
OFWAT now need to address several important unresolved issues. These include the uncertainty that remains over the total level of leakage, whether there is scope for reducing leakage in a cost-effective manner and the need to establish which actions to encourage customers to use water more efficiently are actually worthwhile.
Sir John commented:
“I am pleased that as a result of the improvements made by the water industry since the mid 1990’s leakage levels are now generally better than average by international standards. OFWAT will need to ensure that water companies maintain their focus on managing leakage and encourage their customers to reduce the amount of water they waste.”
OFWAT are attempting to reduce most of the uncertainties surrounding leakage in a study commissioned jointly with the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and the Environment Agency and through improved information and research into water efficiency commissioned by the industry. In this context, the National Audit Office recommend that in taking forward their work OFWAT should:
- Encourage companies to improve the quality of estimates of unmetered domestic consumption. The variations between companies’ estimates have resulted in uncertainty about the total level of leakage and make it difficult for OFWAT to monitor progress against leakage targets and to assess the scope for further reductions.
- Consider how the importance of securing supply to customers can best be taken into account when regulating leakage. Companies with high leakage and a small margin between the supply and demand for water are likely to need to reduce leakage further and OFWAT consider that there may be scope for this to be done without increasing costs overall.
- Reflect the potential benefit to the environment of reducing leakage and improving the efficiency with which customers use water. There is uncertainty as to how the costs and benefits to the environment and Society of leakage reduction and water efficiency should be calculated.
- Establish the financial costs and benefits of leakage control and the scope for reducing costs through technological advances. The value of water saved by reducing leakage and promoting water efficiency is uncertain and companies’ estimates of the value of the water saved have varied to such an extent that OFWAT have told them to resubmit their estimates.
- Obtain a better picture of the effectiveness of different types of action to promote water efficiency. OFWAT need toestablish a clear plan for improving the measurement of the outcomes achieved by companies from their water efficiency work to assess which measures are worthwhile.
- Promote greater sharing by companies of the results of their monitoring of the effectiveness of action to promote water efficiency. OFWAT should consider how best to disseminate the results of companies’ work on water efficiency by encouraging them, or providing them with incentives, to share information that at present companies keep to themselves.
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According to the study, "A reasonable person might wonder...whether the $80 million per year that the smelters seek for the purpose of retaining 1,375 jobs might be better spent on retraining the smelters' displaced workers, who are already skilled."
The study questions the long-term viability of the North American smelter industry in the light of long-term cost pressures affecting the country's coal and electricity industries. Short-term support only becomes viable if there is prosperity in the long-term, but if such support merely postpones an eventual shutdown, then such resources would 'be better spent on more promising long-term prospects'.
Rio Tinto Alcan claims that, while unprofitable, its Sebree smelter provides for 1,834 jobs both directly and indirectly. It claims that these jobs create a total value of $198 million per year. Christensen disagrees, arguing that such benefits are overstated. "We believe that these benefits are substantially overstated, particularly because the indirect impacts are likely to be a fraction of those claimed," the study says.
Christensen has no issue with Century Aluminium's claims for its Hawesville facility. The smelter creates 771 jobs directly plus 471 indirectly and creates a total value of $95 million per year.
For Christensen, there are two big risks for Big Rivers Electric Corp if the smelters are forced to close. First is losing the electricity contract or having to renegotiate them. Second is Big Rivers' dependence upon coal-fired power stations, which are becoming more expensive to run in the light of environmental considerations.
In many ways, Big Rivers is caught between a rock and a hard place. Smelter closure would impact power rates, but taking the discounting route would mean raising rates for other customers.
Chistensen believes the only silver lining for Big Rivers if the smelters did close would be the avoidance of a multi-million dollar spend on retrofitting its generators to meet EPA environmental requirements.
While world production of aluminium has been rising steadily since 1974, in the USA it has dropped from 5.5Mmt in 1974 to 5Mmt in 2011. Market share in North America has dropped from 41% in 1974 to 11% in 2011.
In 2000 there were 24 smelters in operation in the USA. Today that figure is just 10.
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The Indian Partnership Act, 1932 is an act enacted by the Parliament of India to regulate partnership firms in India. It received the assent of the Governor-General on 8 April 1932 and came into force on 1 October 1932. Before the enactment of this act, partnerships were governed by the provisions of the Indian Contract Act. The act is administered through the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The act is not applicable to Limited Liability Partnerships, since they are governed by the Limited liability Partnership Act, 2008.
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Ministry of Corporate Affairs website - http://www.mca.gov.in/
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Bailout-Or-Bust For Europe's AirlinesTyler DurdenSat, 06/27/2020 - 08:45
European airline carriers secured billions worth of government support since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. You will find more infographics at StatistaGermany's Lufthansa, the world's fourth largest airline, received a nine billion euros lifeline, the biggest German corporate rescue caused by COVID-19 so far. This was no exception.
On June 26, for example, the Netherlands announced the details of its financial support for KLM with a bailout package worth of 3.4 billion euros.
Earlier, France announced seven billion euros worth of support for Air France.
However, as Statista's Raynor de Best notes, this support comes at a cost for the airlines, as most European governments attach environmental conditions to their support.
This is because the sector's greenhouse gas emissions kept growing up until 2020. Between January and June 2019, for example, carbon emissions from departing flights that originated from Austria and Finland grew by 19 and eight percent, respectively.
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Economy is the art of managing all the aspects of imperial production to maximize efficiency and productivity, without cost overruns.
Priorities[edit | edit source]
- The primary concern of managing an empire is ensuring a positive cash flow. Credits are used primarily for rush-buying, but they are also passively drawn from the treasury to pay for the upkeep of existing colony structures, diplomatic deals struck with the other party (if paying tribute), and any cost overruns for large fleets.
- Secondary priority is maintaining your current population. Losing a population unit means more than just a planet shrinking, as you lose the income it produced and any production. When in doubt, always divert colonists to produce food.
- Finally, there is research and production. The priorities depend on the general strategic goal of your empire, but when in doubt, research points are always a good bet.
Maximizing efficiency[edit | edit source]
- One of the key things to remember is that surplus production, research, or food do not carry over between projects. For example, if a planet generates 30 production points per turn, but the current project only requires 10 to complete, 20 points are irrevocably lost. As such, efficiency includes micro-managing colonies and ensuring that the colonists are assigned to productive purposes. If a research project nears completion, the planet is about to gain a population unit, or the current building is going to be finished, limit waste by moving colonists to other projects for the turn, so that you have a net gain with minimal waste.
- Next, keep the costs down. This rather broad category includes fairly simple recommendations, such as prioritizing colony structures (build those that provide the biggest benefit in the long term, such as those increasing growth rates (cloning centers, for example) or the number of credits produced per population unit. Note the upkeep costs too, and don't build structures that don't benefit the colony.
- Similarly, economical ship designs in the ship blueprint editor are usually more advantageous, as stripping expensive modules allows you to field larger fleets faster.
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How is monopoly different from perfect competition?
What is a barrier to entry? Give some examples.
What is a natural monopoly?
What is a legal monopoly?
What is predatory pricing?
How is intellectual property different from other property?
What legal mechanisms protect intellectual property?
In what sense is a natural monopoly “natural”?
How is the demand curve perceived by a perfectly competitive firm different from the demand curve perceived by a monopolist?
How does the demand curve perceived by a monopolist compare with the market demand curve?
Is a monopolist a price taker? Explain briefly.
What is the usual shape of a total revenue curve for a monopolist? Why?
What is the usual shape of a marginal revenue curve for a monopolist? Why?
How can a monopolist identify the profit-maximizing level of output if it knows its total revenue and total cost curves?
How can a monopolist identify the profit-maximizing level of output if it knows its marginal revenue and marginal costs?
When a monopolist identifies its profit-maximizing quantity of output, how does it decide what price to charge?
Is a monopolist allocatively efficient? Why or why not?
How does the quantity produced and price charged by a monopolist compare to that of a perfectly competitive firm?
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The following article was written by a leading environmental activist, who’s also running for governor of California, not some fossil-fuel advocate.
Guest essay by Michael Schellenberger
People who read these stories are understandably left with the impression that the more solar and wind energy we produce, the lower electricity prices will become.
And yet that’s not what’s happening. In fact, it’s the opposite.
And yet — during the same period — the price of electricity in places that deployed significant quantities of renewables increased dramatically.
Electricity prices increased by:
- 51 percent in Germany during its expansion of solar and wind energy from 2006 to 2016;
- 24 percent in California during its solar energy build-out from 2011 to 2017;
- over 100 percent in Denmark since 1995 when it began deploying renewables (mostly wind) in earnest.
What gives? If solar panels and wind turbines became so much cheaper, why did the price of electricity rise instead of decline?
One hypothesis might be that while electricity from solar and wind became cheaper, other energy sources like coal, nuclear, and natural gas became more expensive, eliminating any savings, and raising the overall price of electricity.
But, again, that’s not what happened.
The price of natural gas declined by 72 percent in the U.S. between 2009 and 2016 due to the fracking revolution. In Europe, natural gas prices dropped by a little less than half over the same period.
The price of nuclear and coal in those place during the same period was mostly flat.
Another hypothesis might be that the closure of nuclear plants resulted in higher energy prices.
Evidence for this hypothesis comes from the fact that nuclear energy leaders Illinois, France, Sweden and South Korea enjoy some of the cheapest electricity in the world.
Since 2010, California closed one nuclear plant (2,140 MW installed capacity) while Germany closed 5 nuclear plants and 4 other reactors at currently-operating plants (10,980 MW in total).
Electricity in Illinois is 42 percent cheaper than electricity in California while electricity in France is 45 percent cheaper than electricity in Germany.
But this hypothesis is undermined by the fact that the price of the main replacement fuels, natural gas, and coal, remained low, despite increased demand for those two fuels in California and Germany.
That leaves us with solar and wind as the key suspects behind higher electricity prices. But why would cheaper solar panels and wind turbines make electricity more expensive?
The main reason appears to have been predicted by a young German economist in 2013.
In a paper in Energy Policy, Leon Hirth estimated that the economic value of wind and solar would decline significantly as they become a larger part of electricity supply.
The reason? Their fundamentally unreliable nature. Both solar and wind produce too much energy when societies don’t need it, and not enough when they do.
Solar and wind thus require that natural gas plants, hydro-electric dams, batteries or some other form of reliable power be ready at a moment’s notice to start churning out electricity when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining.
And unreliability requires solar- and/or wind-heavy places like Germany, California, and Denmark to pay neighboring nations or states to take their solar and wind energy when they are producing too much of it.
Hirth predicted that the economic value of wind on the European grid would decline 40 percent once it becomes 30 percent of electricity while the value of solar would drop by 50 percent when it got to just 15 percent.
In 2017, the share of electricity coming from wind and solar was 53 percent in Denmark, 26 percent in Germany, and 23 percent in California. Denmark and Germany have the first and second most expensive electricity in Europe.
By reporting on the declining costs of solar panels and wind turbines but not on how they increase electricity prices, journalists are — intentionally or unintentionally — misleading policymakers and the public about those two technologies.
The Los Angeles Times last year reported that California’s electricity prices were rising, but failed to connect the price rise to renewables, provoking a sharp rebuttal from UC Berkeley economist James Bushnell.
“The story of how California’s electric system got to its current state is a long and gory one,” Bushnell wrote, but “the dominant policy driver in the electricity sector has unquestionably been a focus on developing renewable sources of electricity generation.”
Part of the problem is that many reporters don’t understand electricity. They think of electricity as a commodity when it is, in fact, a service — like eating at a restaurant.
Rather, the price of services like eating out and electricity reflect the cost not only of a few ingredients but also their preparation and delivery.
This is a problem of bias, not just energy illiteracy. Normally skeptical journalists routinely give renewables a pass. The reason isn’t that they don’t know how to report critically on energy — they do regularly when it comes to non-renewable energy sources — but rather because they don’t want to.
That could — and should — change. Reporters have an obligation to report accurately and fairly on all issues they cover, especially ones as important as energy and the environment.
A good start would be for them to investigate why, if solar and wind are so cheap, they are making electricity so expensive.
Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” Green Book Award Winner, and President of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization.
Read more at Forbes Blogs
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You may have heard that there is good debt and bad debt. Good debt is typically considered debt that will work for you at some point in the future, such as a mortgage or a student loan. Bad debt, on the other hand, usually consists of consumer debt that will not do anything for you, such as credit card debt. While these are very simplistic definitions of good debt and bad, the definitions of good debt and bad debt are much more nuanced. No one should take on debt just because they think it is ‘good’ and without realizing all the ramifications it may bring.
Student Loan Debt
Tuition in America is extremely expensive and most people cannot afford to obtain a post-secondary education without going into at least some debt. However, not all college and university programs are created equal, and it is critical that you understand how much student loan debt is good, and when it starts to move into the bad category.
According to the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, you should not take out a student loan that is more than what you expect to earn in the first year. For example, if you want to work in education, you may consider going to school to obtain a master’s degree in education. Perform some research to determine how much you expect to make in your first year. If that amount is $65,000, you should not borrow more than $65,000. That total includes the student loan debt you will need for your total education, not each year.
This logic works because it is presumed that the longer you work in your chosen field, the higher your salary will climb. As such, you should be able to repay the debt and the accumulated interest within the typical 10 years you will have to repay it.
However, if the economy is on a downturn, or the job market is unstable, you may want to take on less debt than what you expect to make in your first year. Otherwise, your student loan debt could quickly be categorized as bad debt. If you are already enrolled in school when the economy takes a hit or there is a sudden lack of jobs in your field, consider taking on less debt in future years.
Historically speaking, mortgages have been considered one of the best types of good debt a person could incur because every time you make a monthly payment, you are building equity in your home. Still, there is perhaps no one in the country that knows more than Floridians that mortgages are not always a guarantee that everything will work out. Foreclosures can happen. Home prices do not always increase the way they are expected to, and if you borrow more than you can afford, or do not fully understand the terms of your mortgage, owning a home may actually hurt you more than it helps.
This was never more evident than during the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008. At that time, home prices plunged while adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM) were adjusted upward and many homeowners lost their home to foreclosure. Still, home loans are considered as one of the safest investments you could make today, but you must understand how much you should borrow, and the market conditions at the time you purchase the property.
The general rule of thumb is that your monthly mortgage payment should not exceed more than 28 percent of your gross monthly income. Remember as well that the recommended percentage includes not only the principal and interest on the loan, but also private mortgage insurance, property taxes, and other expenses that are included within the monthly payment.
In addition to following the percentage rule, you should also take many other factors into consideration when applying for a mortgage. To determine the monthly mortgage amount you can afford, consider the size of your family, as well as the possibility of future layoffs or any other event that may affect your ability to pay your mortgage on time every month.
Distinguishing Good Debt from Bad Debt
Although certain types of debt, such as home loans, are considered good debt and other types, such as consumer debt, are considered bad, clearly, it is not always that simple. When determining if debt is good or bad for your personal situation, you must ask yourself whether the debt will give more than what you put in.
It is a question that seems rather simple, but you really have to give the answer a lot of thought. Consider factors such as not only the principal amount, but also the interest that debt will accrue, and other ways you could use that money. When you start to look at debt this way, it is true that even a credit card could be considered good debt, as long as it will work for you in the end.
When Debt Becomes Ugly
It is clear that even when you incur purportedly ‘good’ debt, it can quickly become a bad situation. In the best of cases when this happens, people may experience financial hardship for a brief period of time before quickly getting back on track. Unfortunately, this often does not happen. When that is the case, the debt may turn from bad to ugly.
The worst type of debt, ugly debt, is that which causes a debt collector or creditor to take legal action against you. After you have not paid your debt for a while, a debt collector may file a lawsuit against you, which could result in wage garnishment or other consequences that could place you in even greater financial hardship.
Suffering from the Wrong Type of Debt? Call Our Florida Debt Defense Lawyers
Categorizing all of one type of debt as good or bad is one reason why debt soon becomes unmanageable for some and it turns into ugly debt. If you are suffering from debt and a debt collector or creditor has taken legal action against you, our Fort Lauderdale debt defense lawyers are here to help. At Loan Lawyers, we know how to defend against debt lawsuits so you do not fall further into financial hardship. For the best chance of success with your case, call us today at (954) 807-1361 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation.
Loan Lawyers has helped over 5,000 South Florida homeowners and consumers with their debt problems, we have saved over 2,000 homes from foreclosure, eliminated more than $100,000,000 in mortgage principal and consumer debt, and have recovered over $10,000,000 on behalf of our clients due to bank, loan servicer, and debt collector violations. Contact us for a free consultation and find out more about our money-back guarantee on credit card debt buyer lawsuits, and how we may be able to help you.
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How To Report Capital Gains Crypto Crypto Form 8949 – What is Cryptocurrency? Put simply, Cryptocurrency is digital money that can be used in place of traditional currency. Essentially, the word Cryptocurrency comes from the Greek word Crypto which indicates coin and Currency. In essence, Cryptocurrency is just as old as Blockchains. The difference in between Cryptocurrency and Blockchains is that there is no centralization or ledger system in place. In essence, Cryptocurrency is an open source protocol based on peer-to Peer transaction innovations that can be carried out on a distributed computer network.
One specific method in which the Ethereum Project is trying to solve the problem of clever agreements is through the Foundation. The Ethereum Foundation was developed with the goal of establishing software options around clever agreement functionality. The Foundation has launched its open source libraries under an open license.
What does this mean for the larger neighborhood thinking about taking part in the development and application of smart agreements on the Ethereum platform? For starters, the significant distinction between the Bitcoin Project and the Ethereum Project is that the previous does not have a governing board and therefore is open to factors from all walks of life. The Ethereum Project takes pleasure in a much more regulated environment. Anyone wanting to contribute to the project must adhere to a code of conduct.
As for the projects underlying the Ethereum Platform, they are both aiming to provide users with a new way to take part in the decentralized exchange. The significant differences between the 2 are that the Bitcoin procedure does not use the Proof Of Consensus (POC) process that the Ethereum Project makes use of.
On the one hand, the Bitcoin neighborhood has actually had some struggles with its efforts to scale its network. On the other hand, the Ethereum Project has actually taken an aggressive approach to scale the network while also tackling scalability concerns. As a result, the two jobs are aiming to provide various ways of proceeding. In contrast to the Satoshi Roundtable, which focused on increasing the block size, the Ethereum Project will be able to implement improvements to the UTX protocol that increase deal speed and reduction charges. In contrast to the Bitcoin Project ‘s strategy to increase the total supply, the Ethereum team will be dealing with reducing the rate of blocks mined per minute.
The decentralized aspect of the Linux Foundation and the Bitcoin Unlimited Association represent a traditional model of governance that places a focus on strong neighborhood involvement and the promo of consensus. This model of governance has actually been embraced by a number of distributed application groups as a way of handling their projects.
The significant distinction between the two platforms originates from the fact that the Bitcoin neighborhood is mainly self-sufficient, while the Ethereum Project expects the involvement of miners to fund its development. By contrast, the Ethereum network is open to factors who will contribute code to the Ethereum software stack, forming what is called “code forks “. This function increases the level of involvement desired by the community. When it was utilized in forex trading, this model likewise varies from the Byzantine Fault model that was embraced by the Byzantine algorithm.
Similar to any other open source innovation, much debate surrounds the relationship in between the Linux Foundation and the Ethereum Project. Both have actually adopted different viewpoints on how to best use the decentralized aspect of the innovation, they have both nonetheless worked difficult to develop a positive working relationship. The designers of the Linux and Android mobile platforms have actually openly supported the work of the Ethereum Foundation, contributing code to secure the performance of its users. Likewise, the Facebook team is supporting the work of the Ethereum Project by providing their own structure and creating applications that integrate with it. Both the Linux Foundation and Facebook view the heavenly job as a way to enhance their own interests by supplying an expense effective and scalable platform for users and designers alike.
Merely put, Cryptocurrency is digital cash that can be used in location of standard currency. Generally, the word Cryptocurrency comes from the Greek word Crypto which implies coin and Currency. In essence, Cryptocurrency is just as old as Blockchains. The distinction between Cryptocurrency and Blockchains is that there is no centralization or ledger system in location. In essence, Cryptocurrency is an open source procedure based on peer-to Peer deal innovations that can be performed on a distributed computer network. How To Report Capital Gains Crypto Crypto Form 8949
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New wage increase legislation went into effect on January 1 in 14 states.
Photo via Flickr user Bob Simpson
The year 2015 saw the rise of the Fight for $15 movement, a series of protests and demonstrations aimed at raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. While the federal minimum wage remains a paltry $7.25 an hour, minimum wage increases in many states and around the country went into full effect once the clock hit midnight on New Year’s Eve. As of 2016, California’s wage rises from $9 to $10; the same goes for Massachusetts. Arkansas increased the wage from $7.50 to a round $8 an hour. In all, 14 states began the new year implementing wage increases.
Some states, like Michigan, have staggered minimum wage increases over the course of several years, reaching $9.25 by 2018. Similarly, the city of Los Angeles will have a $15 minimum wage by 2020, with the 2016 wage increasing from $9 to $10.15 an hour.
According to a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research—titled “The Minimum Wage Is Too Damn Low”—if the federal minimum wage were readjusted for inflation and productivity growth, it would have reached $21.72 in 2012.
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Comparisons of wage rates across countries have become key ingredients in evaluating theories of international trade, the role of trade in exacerbating wage inequality, and the role of capitalist reforms in economic transition. Despite the importance of cross-country wage comparisons, it is widely agreed that no credible, comparable wage estimates exist. This paper suggests a simple procedure for comparing the average wage rate of workers in identical jobs in different countries and over time. The procedure is implemented with new data we have collected on average wage rates in McDonald’s restaurants in 27 countries that are at dramatically different stages of economic development. Real wage rates are computed at current exchange rates, and also after adjustment for purchasing power parity inunits of “Big Macs” per hour. The results indicate that real wages for identical jobs in the U.S., Japan, and Western Europe are some four to five times higher than in Eastern Europe, Korea, or Brazil, and an order of magnitude higher than in China, India, or Colombia.
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Open Goverment Data (also OpenGovData, OGD) is data that is made available by a public authority or government organization for free use by the public. Open Government Data is a common subset of the Open Government and Open Data movement. However, many authors use the term Open Data synonymously with Open Government Data and neglect the broader meaning of the term.
"The world is witnessing a significant global transformation, facilitated by technology and digital media, and fueled by data and information. [...] Open data is at the center of this global shift." International Open Data Charter (IODC)
The right to inspect public administration documents and files is already enshrined in law in many countries (e.g. by the Freedom of Information Act of the Federal Republic of Germany, effective since 1 January 2006, or the Public Information Act of Switzerland, BGÖ, effective since 1 July 2006). While many data have so far only been published on request, the Open Government movement is striving for the "Open by default" principle, i.e. that administrative data should in future be published by default, even without prior request.
Most governments that disclose data on a large scale have committed themselves to the Open Government model (OpenGov for short), whose principles are summarized with transparency, participation and cooperation. Through more transparency, government action is to be made more comprehensible for citizens. By providing open data, the state is accountable for how taxpayers' money is invested or natural resources are used. Participation means that citizens are to be involved in the decision-making processes of the state - politics benefit from new impulses and problem-solving approaches from society, in society itself political disenchantment is to be reduced and the acceptance of state action is to be increased. In addition, the cooperation of governments with civic organizations and companies should be actively promoted.
According to the study "Open Government Data Germany" (Klessmann et al., 2012), Open Government, in cooperation with existing approaches, is intended to stimulate an ecosystem of openness in which the various approaches mutually enrich each other due to interactions (see figure).
The goals of Open Government were formulated prominently in the Memorandum on "Transparency and Open Government", published by US President Barack Obama in 2009. They can also be found in the Declaration of the Open Government Partnership (2011), an international open government initiative.
The Open Government Charter of the G8 states (2013), whose successor declaration is the International Open Data Charter, which is currently being actively further developed, has a greater focus on Open Data as a component of Open Government strategies. The two declarations state five and six core principles for the publication of open administrative data, which are essentially identical, respectively, but they are formulated somewhat differently in the International Charter and supplemented by a number of conditions. The nations and organizations that support one of the two charters have agreed to gradually converge towards these goals and to create the necessary legal, organizational and technical framework. Together with the 10 Open Data Principles of the Sunlight-Foundation, which are often quoted in official government documents, the two charters are decisive for internationally recognized Open Data standards and goals. As the overview below shows, key points of the Sunlight Foundation Principles are also reflected in the descriptions of the Charter Principles. The table compares the principles, which correspond to each other thematically, and summarizes their essential contents.
|G8 Open Data Charter 1||International Open Data Charter (IODC)2||Open Data Principles of the Sunlight-Foundation|
Standard open dataExplanation: Until now, government and administrative data have often only been released in response to justified requests. In the future, all data will be published by default, unless there are special reasons to withhold it. The International Charter also requires governments to justify withholding data.
|1. Open by default||1. Open by default||-|
Quality and quantity / prompt and comprehensiveExplanation: Data should be published as early as possible, comprehensively and with high accuracy. Where possible, data should be provided in their original, unmodified form (primary source) and in the highest available resolution (granularity). Information should be written in simple, easily understandable language and the data should be fully documented.
The International Charter also calls for comprehensive and consistent data archiving and version management (lifecycle management), mechanisms for data improvement through user feedback, and for users to be consulted on major changes in data structure and availability.
|2. Quality and Quantity||2. Timely and comprehensive||1. Completeness
[ ... ]
Accessible and usable for allExplanation: The greatest possible number of users (and user groups) should be allowed to use the data for the greatest possible variety of purposes. Therefore, central data portals should ensure that open data can be easily found and retrieved. The provision is non-discriminatory and barrier-free, i.e. any user can access the data without first having to register, identify or fulfil any other access requirements. The data itself should be available in a generally understandable, machine-readable data format. The data should be free of charge and their free use should be guaranteed by open licences.
According to the IODC, public awareness and trained handling of Open Data as well as the availability of the necessary tools and resources should also be promoted.
Comparable and interoperableExplanation: The International Open Data Charter highlights the comparability and interoperability of data as an independent principle. Because more data is generally accessible, there are more and more ways to combine it and generate added value. An important prerequisite for this are generally valid data standards and data models.
|3. Usable by all||3. Accessible and usable||
4. Ease of physical and electronic access
5. Machine readability
7. Commonly owned or Open Standards
10. Usage costs
|-||4. Comparable and interoperable|
Improved governance and involvement of citizensExplanation: Through the publication of corresponding data, government action should be made comprehensible both within and outside the government, as well as in the international exchange between nations. More transparency can improve public services and hold the state accountable (e.g. for measures against corruption and mismanagement). The supporting governments and organizations of the two charters recognize that Open Data strengthens democracy and encourages government action to be more responsive to the needs of citizens.
|4. Releasing data for improved governance||5. For improved governance and citizen engagement||-|
Promoting development and innovationExplanation: Open Data can generate social and economic value in both the commercial and non-commercial sectors. In this context, innovation and creativity should be actively promoted. According to the IODC, citizens, social and private sector organisations and multilateral institutions should also be encouraged to publish data in order to enlarge the Open Data ecosystem. To this end, partnerships between stakeholders will be encouraged and an exchange of experience and technical expertise will take place. At schools and higher education institutions, data literacy and open data research will become part of curricula. This will build capacity and encourage developers, entrepreneurs, civil society, private sector organisations, scientists, media representatives, government employees and other users to unlock the potential of open data.
|5. Releasing data for innovation||6. For inclusive development and innovation||-|
Discuss and take notes:
Why do governments and public institutions advocate Open Data?
Even governments that are not clearly committed to the Open Government goals and that pursue some or even opposite policies publish some data as Open Data. Examples are Russia and China. What are the possible differences between the goals of these governments?
Adopted by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (USA) on 18 June 2013 ↩
Is actively developed as a follow-up to the G8 Charter and has been formally adopted by 19 national governments and supported by many government institutions and non-governmental organisations worldwide. (Status: 15.5.2018, in Europe only adopted by UK, Italy, France and Ukraine) ↩
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Albert Einstein? Napoleon Bonaparte? Baron Rothschild? Paul Samuelson? John D. Rockefeller? Advertising Copy Writer? Apocryphal?
Dear Quote Investigator: Salespeople and advertisers invoke the name of the scientific genius Albert Einstein when they wish to impress gullible individuals. The following grandiose statement has been attributed to Einstein:
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.
Sometimes the remark is credited to financial luminaries such as Baron Rothschild or John D. Rockefeller. Would you please explore this topic?
Quote Investigator: The saying appeared in a section titled “Probably Not By Einstein” in the authoritative volume “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press. 1
The earliest close match located by QI appeared in an advertisement for The Equity Savings & Loan Company published in the “Cleveland Plain Dealer” of Ohio in 1925. No attribution was specified. Boldface added to excerpts by QI: 2
The Eighth Wonder of the World—is compound interest. It does things to money. At the Equity it doubles your money every 14 years, but here is an even greater wonder of it—
Deposit five dollars a week for twenty years, say, and let the interest accumulate. You will have actually put away only $5,200, but you will have $8,876.80. The difference of $3,676.80 is what 5% compound interest has done for you.
QI hypothesizes that the statement was crafted by an unknown advertising copy writer. Over the years it has been reassigned to famous people to make the comment sound more impressive and to encourage individuals to open bank accounts or purchase interest-bearing securities.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
The Quote Investigator has written an article exploring a similar statement: “Compound interest Is man’s greatest invention”. The article is available here.
Advertisements using the label “Eighth Wonder of the World” have a long history. For example, in 1816 a lottery designed to raise money to repair the Grand Sunderland Bridge (Wearmouth Bridge) in England applied the label to the bridge: 3
Every Purchaser is presented with a beautiful Medal or Print of this Eighth Wonder of the World.
In 1853 an advertisement in a Boston, Massachusetts newspaper applied the label to an elixir of dubious value: 4
A Phenomenon in Medicine!
PROFESSOR MORSE’S INVIGORATING ELIXIR, OR CORDIAL.
THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE BOTANIC WORLD!
In 1883 an article in “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” of New York heralded the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge: 5
The Eighth Wonder of the World—eighth in point of time, but first in point of significance was today dedicated to the use of the People. Amid the booming of cannon, the shrill whistling of a thousand steamers and the plaudits of great masses of citizens the Brooklyn Bridge . . .
In 1911 an advertisement for a Big Wagon Show applied the label to a Shetland pony named Cupid who performed various tricks: 6
The Educated Shetland Pony, or the Pony With the Human Brain. Little Cupid is the Eighth Wonder of the World. He does more work in less time, with more ease and grace than any other living pony. He will add; subtract, multiply, spell words, pick out colors.
In 1916 an advertisement for Security Investment Company published in a Riverside, California newspaper proclaimed that compound interest was the greatest invention: 7
“Gentlemen, if the man who invented compound interest had of secured a patent on his idea he would have had without any doubt the greatest invention the world has ever produced.”
In 1925 the expression under analysis appeared in an advertisement in the “Cleveland Plain Dealer” as mentioned previously:
The Eighth Wonder of the World—is compound interest.
In 1929 an advertisement claimed that Napoleon Bonaparte was astounded by compound interest although he did not label it the eighth wonder: 8
When Napoleon had the marvels of compound interest explained to him, he exclaimed: “I wonder it has not swallowed the world.” Compound interest, or “interest compounded semi-annually,” is indeed a remarkable thing.
In 1965 “The Wall Street Journal” printed an advertisement for the Community Savings and Loan Association of Compton, California which attributed the saying to Baron Rothschild. There have been multiple Barons, so the name is ambiguous. The 1st Baron was a prominent banker named Nathan Rothschild who died in 1915: 9
Do You Know What Baron Rothschild Considered The Eighth Wonder Of The World?
COMPOUND INTEREST. Rothschild, one of the world’s richest bankers, was asked at a dinner party if he could name the Seven Wonders of the World. He said: “No, but I can tell you what the Eighth Wonder is. The Eighth Wonder should be utilized by all of us to accomplish what we want. It is compound interest.”
In 1967 the M.I.T. economist Paul Samuelson penned a column that included the saying: 10
Social security is squarely based on what has been called the eighth wonder of the world—compound interest. A growing nation is the greatest Ponzi game ever contrived. And that is a fact, not a paradox.
In 1981 a guest columnist in a Manitowoc, Wisconsin newspaper credited the saying to “Old Grandpa Rockerfeller”. The description corresponded to business magnate John D. Rockefeller although the odd spelling might be an allusion to an old person’s “rocker”: 11
Old Grandpa Rockerfeller the multi-millionaire who preached thrift said something I never forgot. He said, “The 8th wonder of the world is compound interest.” Unfortunately very few people understand the magic of compound interest.
In 1988 a financial analyst ascribed the saying to physicist Albert Einstein: 12
A. Michael Lipper, president of Lipper Analytical Securities Corp., quotes Albert Einstein’s remark that “The eighth wonder of the world is compound interest.” If you can invest at a sure 7 percent return, your money will double in 10 years. If you are patient, and stick with your investments over time, you will almost always come out ahead.
In conclusion, this article presents a snapshot of current research. The label “eight wonder” was applied to compound interest in an advertisement for a bank in 1925. No attribution was provided, and anonymous advertising copy writers have applied the “eight wonder” label to a wide variety of objects and ideas for more than two hundred years. QI has found no substantive evidence that Albert Einstein, Baron Rothschild, or John D. Rockefeller employed the saying.
Image Notes: Illustration of stacks of coins growing in height from PublicDomainPictures at Pixabay. Image has been resized.
(Great thanks to Jason Zweig whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration. Thanks also to researchers Barry Popik and Fred R. Shapiro. Popik found a match for the saying in 1965.)
- 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Section: Probably Not By Einstein, Quote Page 481, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper) ↩
- 1925 April 27, Cleveland Plain Dealer, (Advertisement for The Equity Savings & Loan Co., 5701 Euclid Ave.) Quote Page 26, Column 6, Cleveland, Ohio. (GenealogyBank) ↩
- 1816 October 26, The Leeds Mercury, (Advertisement for the Sunderland Bridge Lottery), Quote Page 2, Column 1, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩
- 1853 March 29, The Boston Atlas, (Advertisement for Dr. Morse’s Invigorating Cordial), Quote Page 4, Column 2, Boston, Massachusetts. (GenealogyBank) ↩
- 1883 May 24, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, GLORIFICATION! The Two Cities Celebrate the Work that Makes Them One, Quote Page 12, Column 1, Brooklyn, New York. (Newspapers_com) ↩
- 1911 September 28, Crawford Mirror, (Advertisement for “Lucky Bill’s” Big Wagon Shows), Quote Page 5, Column 1, Steelville, Missouri. (Newspapers_com) ↩
- 1916 June 28, Riverside Daily Press, Advertisement titled “The Greatest Invention” for “Security Investment Co.”, Quote Page 5, Column 3, Riverside, California. (GenealogyBank) ↩
- 1929 December 8, The Courier-Journal, Do You Know What 8 Per Cent Compound Interest Means? (Advertisement for Century Building and Loan Association, Dallas, Texas), Quote Page 10, Column 7, Louisville, Kentucky. (Newspapers_com) ↩
- 1965 October 5, Wall Street Journal, (Advertisement for Community Savings and Loan Association, Compton, California), Quote Page 18, Column 3, New York. (ProQuest) ↩
- 1973 The Samuelson Sampler by Paul Samuelson (Paul Anthony Samuelson), Chapter 8: Some Reflections on Equity, Column Title: Social Security, Date: February 1967, Start Page 146, Quote Page 148, Thomas Horton and Company, Glen Ridge, New Jersey. (Verified with scans) ↩
- 1981 October 14, Herald-Times-Reporter, Guest Editor: Financial security requires good planning by Robert Lindwall, Quote Page 4, Column 2, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. (Newspapers_com) ↩
- 1988 November 26, Courier-Post, Personal Finance: Investors know little about mutual funds by Grace Weinstein, Quote Page 8C, Column 1, Camden, New Jersey. (Newspapers_com) ↩
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Many electricity markets follow natural gas markets as the majority of the generation is fueled by natural gas, and those gas generators set the price of power as often as 80% of the time. However, as energy markets evolve, this historically tight correlation has broken in some regions, namely ERCOT.
Before 2018, natural gas fueled ~40% of electricity generation while coal fueled ~29% throughout the year. Though natural gas generation still holds a ~40% share of total supply, coal’s share has dropped by 8% due to major retirements in early 2018. These retirements forced ERCOT’s reserve margin below the recommended 13.75% to ~8-10% for summer 2018 and 2019, causing forward electricity prices to surge. In fact, despite future (2021) natural gas prices declining significantly since late 2018, future electricity prices for the same period have continued to rise.
The retirement of the predominantly inflexible coal plants stemmed partially from the buildout of renewables, particularly wind generation, as depressed off-peak periods, when the wind is strongest in Texas, challenged the economic viability of the plants. The integration of substantial wind capacity has been a significant driver of on and off-peak prices in ERCOT as the resource eventually seized five percent of coal’s market share in the generation stack. Off-peak prices have averaged just above $21/MWh as wind generation provides ample electricity supplies to the grid during those hours.
However, during peak hours and particularly during summer, when wind generation is lowest, prices are now exposed to spikes when wind generation is expected but does not show up. This risk was evident in summer 2019 when actual wind generation was 5,000 MW lower than expected, causing a price spike to $9,000/MWh. During that period, regional natural gas prices were once again flat, showing once again the disconnect between the two commodities as the market evolves.
Though natural gas still represents a significant input in ERCOT electricity prices, the connection between the two has been reduced as major retirement events, and the incursion of wind have become the main drivers of the market.
|
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