South Koreans are cashing into the soaring price of gold by trading in their (gold) teeth. “We are handling gold teeth far more than usual as the price of gold is rapidly increasing” Nam Seung Woo, CEO of dealer Gold Seven told AFP. And it’s not just teeth being cashed in; gold fillings and crowns from more than 100 customers in the past month.
Gas prices are on the rise in the US, land of cheap gas. President Obama and the Republicans have been going head to head over the energy policy – the president wants to repeal oil tax subsidies, House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement that oil companies should “pay their fair share”.
Women in the workplace play an integral role in contributing to the success of economies around the world. In the US, women in the workforce have been contributing to a large part of the US economy since the 70s. The productive power of women in the workforce accounts for a quarter of GDP, but the full potential of women in the US economy remains untapped.
The phenomenon of female infanticide in India is not new, but to what extent? It’s likely accounted for millions of gender-selective deaths throughout history. As John-Thor Dahlburg of The Los Angeles Times points out, “in rural India, the centuries-old practice of female infanticide can still be considered a wise course of action.”
PC suppliers like Microsoft and Intel are in store for some bad news. Acer told investors to brace, anticipating their second quarter sales to be down 10 percent from last year. The company’s netbook sales took a beating. A grim picture compared to Apple’s iPad first quarter earnings.
In the past, tablets were classed in the same category with notebooks, while smartphones were separate. For companies like Acer whose strategy is to focus on tablets and smarphones, the consolidation makes sense. Acer is hedging its bets on Android for the devices.
The US has always kept gas prices low, but that also means they experience more fluctuations. In addition, cheap gas prices fuel America’s demand for bigger gas guzzling cars than anywhere else in the world. Although that does leave the US more vulnerable to rising prices.
Government subsidies in the US mean cheaper gas prices than the rest of the world. But at $3.90 per gallon versus $9 in the UK, American’s are still complaining. In the meantime, Venezuela pays as low as 9 cents per gallon!
Aspiring politician Kit Fraser stripped to his boxer shorts outside RBS’s annual shareholder meeting last Tuesday. Inside the meeting, Chairman Sir Philip Hampton defended the bank from shareholder allegations over fat bonuses.
You wouldn’t expect the Japan’s devastating quake, or the unrest in the Middle East to impact global adspend, but it has. ZenithOptimedia issued a press release in which the company revised this year’s growth in the industry to 4.2 percent, down from their earlier forecast of 4.6 percent.
The estimate knocks off about US$2.4 billion.
Is one website more important than another on the worldwide web? Every user has his favourite sites – internet service providers (ISPs) currently operate on the principle of ‘Net Neutrality’, which guarantees that all online sites are treated equally and can be accessed at similar speed, regardless of content or content provider.
I was chatting with a great friend of mine, probably one of the IT industry analysts I respect the most in Asia Pacific, and we got onto social media. I won’t mention his name, l’est I get him in trouble, but he told me he wanted to launch a professional blog in his name, discussing issues around business value and IT. He has great knowledge in this area, is often advising IT companies to be more value focused on a daily basis, and he understands business because he’s been in that world too.
