Beijing is home to the world's most billionaires, edging New York City out

 

Night view of Central Business District with the new CCTV Tower, right, and other skyscrapers and high-rise office buildings in Beijing. Beijing is home to the world's most billionaires, pushing New York City out of the top slot. [Photo/IC]

Story Highlights:

--Beijing is home to 100 billionaires

--Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda is the richest Chinese

--China overtakes the US with the most billionaires

Beijing is home to the world's most billionaires, pushing New York City out of the top slot it had held for years, according to a Shanghai-based research and media outlet that keeps track of the world's wealthiest.

Despite a slowing economy, the Chinese capital added 32 billionaires, bringing its total to 100 and New York added four, giving it 95 billionaires, according to the Hurun Global Rich List 2016.

Moscow came in third with 66, and Hong Kong and Shanghai came in fourth and fifth with 64 and 50, respectively, Hurun said in its ranking of US dollar billionaires as of Jan 15.

Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda, one of China's top real estate developers, was the wealthiest Beijing resident with a net worth of $26 billion.

New York's top billionaires were businessman David Koch and Michael Bloomberg, the city's former mayor and media company owner. His wealth increased $16 billion to $37 billion, according to Hurun. Another city resident whose wealth increased is Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump. He added $5 billion to go to $6.5 billion.

While China has passed the US with the most billionaires, the Hurun report noted that none of the richest billionaires are from China. Eight of the world's 11 wealthiest, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the world's wealthiest with $80 billion, Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are from the US.

And the combined net worth of US billionaires is still nearly double that of Chinese billionaires, for a total of $2.4 trillion, just a little less than the GDP of France, according to the report.

Rupert Hoogewerf, the founder of Hurun, said initial public offerings are behind the rapid expansion of Chinese wealth.

In October, China overtook the US for the first time as the country with the most billionaires within its borders. About 568 billionaires now live in China and 535 in the US.

Hoogewerf said the number of billionaires for the rest of the world was held back by a slowdown in the global economy, the strengthening of the US dollar and the drop in oil prices. - China Daily/Asia News Network


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Apple's rot starts with its Samsung lawsuit win

Just like Microsoft, Apple's evolution from smart tech company to global uber-brand contains the seeds of its own destruction

The risk for Apple is that it focuses more and more on intellectual property rights – filing patents and litigating – than it does on product innovation. Photograph: Ahn Young-Joon/AP

Apple came close to destroying its business in the late 1980s by pursuing a suit against Microsoft claiming that Windows infringed the look and feel of the Mac desktop metaphor. Apple focused its hopes and business future on this lawsuit, while its market share dwindled. Rather than competing, it litigated. And lost.

Last week, it litigated against Samsung over its iPhone design and won.

The first justifiable conclusion might be that big companies get their way. The second might reasonably be that Apple doesn't change much: its business model remains aggressive self-righteousness. The third is what everybody knows: patent rules and philosophy are all screwed up.

As for the first point, Apple is not just a big company, but the biggest. And it is not just the biggest American company, but the most American company. It has entered a rarefied brand status in which it is now almost synonymous with American virtue: American as Apple. Its good design sense has become a major point of American pride, if not nationalism.

The brand is a national asset. Apple is AT&T in its pre-break-up from; it's GM, in its what's-good-for-General-Motors-is-good-for-the-country stage; it's United Fruit when it made US foreign policy; it's Microsoft when desktop computing was transforming the world.

 Commercial omnipotence

This is about as close to commercial omnipotence as it gets. Its unassailability, its right to be preternaturally aggressive, is built into its share price. We believe in Apple. So let us briefly consider the chance for a Korean company defending itself against (or, perish the thought, challenging) the greatest American company of the age in the eyes of an American jury.

And then, there's the self-righteousness. Apple is one of the most aggressive intellectual property litigators of all time. Its major moves have not been about protecting precise technical innovations, but about claiming the much softer zone of look and feel.

It sues for brand rather than engineering. It has pioneered a new modern sensibility: taste is what's most valuable; identity is king. It's sued about the lower case "i"; it's sued about the word "pod"; it's sued New York City over the "big Apple"; it's sued over using the words "app store".

This fierce defensiveness might be rightly understood in a psychological sense: Apple itself is based on stolen iconography. There was first the Beatle's Apple and there was Xerox PARC's desktop design.

Apple's self-righteousness masks its guilt. (It may be sheepish, too, about being more of a marketing organization than a technology company.) What's more, it knows better than anybody that if you relax your vigilance, somebody can easily walk off with what you've done – and improve it.

And then, in the algebra of Samsung's loss and Apple's victory, there's patent hell. Or absurdity.

 System of litigation

Patents are, arguably, no longer a system of protection; they are a system of litigation. Great numbers of patents are now filed, in an over-burdened system, to protect not innovations but the right to litigate over innovations. Indeed, any patent of value will ultimately be litigated.

What's more, as the system has become ever more over-taxed, as technology itself has become more complex, the ill-equipped and under-trained bureaucracy has increasingly taken to giving patents to wide-ranging abstractions.

Design concepts, behavior adjustments, and new approaches to problem solving are all patentable innovations. The system itself assumes that litigation is the check on the system. Which means, fundamentally, that the litigant with the most resources and greatest status wins.

But let us not argue the case that all this quite obviously impedes innovation and is part of a new unreal property land grab – not about technology at all, but about intellectual property: an effort to privatize much of what was once understood to be shared and public (indeed, not ownable, like the shape of the iPhone). But rather, for a moment, let's look at this as a form of hubris that has inevitable consequences.

The Apple that has won against Samsung is the same Apple that lost against Microsoft. In other words, it is the kind of company that, through sheer willfulness, discipline, and perfectionism, can achieve brand hegemony of a singular type. But it is, too, the kind of company – the exact sort of company – that becomes, perhaps inevitably becomes, the bete noire of consumerists, regulators and, of course, most of all, its competitors.

This is the story between the lines of its great victory and its further share price surge. On the one hand, there is this seemingly golden company. On the other hand, there is anybody with any sense of history knowing this is going to end badly.
  
American capitalism

Companies that acquire the nation's imprimatur often, if not invariably, over-reach. It is a characteristic of American capitalism: the price of getting really big and overbearing is that you incur an inverse reaction. In the early 1990s, an ambitious department of justice (a Republican administration DOJ at that) commenced its assault on Microsoft.

For better or worse, by the time the feds were finished, the company, with its rotten operating system, besieged and beleaguered, had become just one of many not-very-adept players in the space – an unimaginable outcome if you remember the once God-like power and scorched-earth wrath of Microsoft.

Apple, and its rotten phone, have a ways to go. But karma should not be underestimated as a factor in this game.

• • By Michael Wolff
  • guardian.co.uk

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Lee Kuan Yew On Getting the Best out of Life

“The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. If you’re not interested in the world and the world is not interested in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that’s real torture.”

MY CONCERN today is, what is it I can tell you which can add to your knowledge about ageing and what ageing societies can do. You know more about this subject than I do. A lot of it is out in the media, Internet and books. So I thought the best way would be to take a personal standpoint and tell you how I approach this question of ageing.

If I cast my mind back, I can see turning points in my physical and mental health. You know, when you’re young, I didn’t bother, assumed good health was God-given and would always be there.

When I was about 57 that was – I was about 34, we were competing in elections, and I was really fond of drinking beer and smoking. And after the election campaign, in Victoria Memorial Hall – we had won the election, the City Council election – I couldn’t thank the voters because I had lost my voice. I’d been smoking furiously. I’d take a packet of 10 to deceive myself, but I’d run through the packet just sitting on the stage, watching the crowd, getting the feeling, the mood before I speak.

In other words, there were three speeches a night. Three speeches a night, 30 cigarettes, a lot of beer after that, and the voice was gone. I remember I had a case in Kuching, Sarawak . So I took the flight and Ifelt awful. I had to make up my mind whether I was going to be an effective campaigner and a lawyer, in which case I cannot destroy my voice, and I can’t go on. So I stopped smoking. It was a tremendous deprivation because I was addicted to it. And I used to wake up dreaming…the nightmare was I resumed smoking.

But I made a choice and said, if I continue this, I will not be able to do my job. I didn’t know anything about cancer of the throat, or oesophagus or the lungs, etc. But it turned out it had many other deleterious effects. Strangely enough after that, I became very allergic, hyper-allergic to smoking, so much so that I would plead with my Cabinet ministers not to smoke in the Cabinet room. You want to smoke, please go out, because I am allergic.

Then one day I was at the home of my colleague, Mr Rajaratnam, meeting foreign correspondents including some from the London Times and they took a picture of me and I had a big belly like that (puts his hands in front of his belly), a beer belly. I felt no, no, this will not do. So I started playing more golf, hit hundreds of balls on the practice tee. But this didn’t go down. There was only one way it could go down: consume less, burn up more.

Another turning point came when -this was 1976, after the general election – I was feeling tired. I was breathing deeply at the Istana, on the lawns.

My daughter, who at that time just graduating as a doctor, said: ‘What are you trying to do?’ I said: ‘I feel an effort to breathe in more oxygen.’ She said: ‘Don’t play golf. Run. Aerobics..’ So she gave me a book , quite a famous book and, then, very current in America on how you score aerobic points swimming, running, whatever it is, cycling.

I looked at it sceptically. I wasn’t very keen on running. I was keen on golf. So I said, ‘Let’s try’. So in-between golf shots while playing on my own, sometimes nine holes at the Istana, I would try and walk fast between shots. Then I began to run between shots. And I felt better. After a while, I said: ‘Okay, after my golf, I run.’ And after a few years, I said: ‘Golf takes so long. The running takes 15 minutes. Let’s cut out the golf and let’s run.’

I think the most important thing in ageing is you got to understand yourself. And the knowledge now is all there. When I was growing up, the knowledge wasn’t there. I had to get the knowledge from friends, from doctors.

But perhaps the most important bit of knowledge that the doctor gave me was one day, when I said: ‘Look, I’m feeling slower and sluggish.’ So he gave me a medical encyclopaedia and he turned the pages to ageing. I read it up and it was illuminating. A lot of it was difficult jargon but I just skimmed through to get the gist of it.

As you grow, you reach 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and then, thereafter, you are on a gradual slope down physically. Mentally, you carry on and on and on until I don’t know what age, but mathematicians will tell you that they know their best output is when they’re in their 20s and 30s when your mental energy is powerful and you haven’t lost many neurons. That’s what they tell me.

So, as you acquire more knowledge, you then craft a programme for yourself to maximise what you have. It’s just common sense. I never planned to live till 85 or 84.! I just didn’t think about it. I said: ‘Well, my mother died when she was 74, she had a stroke.. My father died when he was 94.’

But I saw him, and he lived a long life, well, maybe it was his DNA. But more than that, he swam every day and he kept himself busy.. He was working for the Shell company. He was in charge, he was a superintendent of an oil depot.

When he retired, he started becoming a salesman. So people used to tell me: ‘Your father is selling watches at BP de Silva.’ My father was then living with me. But it kept him busy. He had that routine: He meets people, he sells watches, he buys and sells all kinds of semi-precious stones, he circulates coins. And he keeps going. But at 87, 88, he fell, going down the steps from his room to the dining room, broke his arm, three months incapacitated.

Thereafter, he couldn’t go back to swimming. Then he became wheelchair-bound. Then it became a problem because my house was constructed that way. So my brother – who’s a doctor and had a flat (one-level) house – took him in. And he lived on till 94. But towards the end, he had gradual loss of mental powers.

So my calculations, I’m somewhere between 74 and 94. And I’ve reached the halfway point now. But have I? Well, 1996 when I was 73, I was cycling and I felt tightening on the neck. Oh, I must retire today. So I stopped. Next day, I returned to the bicycle. After five minutes it became worse. So I said, no, no, this is something serious, it’s got to do with the blood vessels. Rung up my doctor, who said, ‘Come tomorrow’. Went tomorrow, he checked me, and said: ‘Come back tomorrow for an angiogram.’

I said: ‘What’s that ?’ He said: ‘We’ll pump something in and we’ll see whether the coronary arteries are cleared or blocked.’ I was going to go home. But an MP who was a cardiologist happened to be around, so he came in and said: ‘What are you doing here?’ I said: ‘I’ve got this.’ He said: ‘Don’t go home. You stay here tonight. I’ve sent patients home and they never came back. Just stay here. They’ll put you on the monitor. They’ll watch your heart. And if anything, an emergency arises, they will take you straight to the theatre. You go home. You’ve got no such monitor. You may never come back.’

So I stayed there. Pumped in the dye, yes it was blocked, the left circumflex, not the critical, lead one. So that’s lucky for me. Two weeks later, I was walking around, I felt it’s coming back. Yes it has come back, it had occluded. So this time they said: ‘We’ll put in a stent.’

I’m one of the first few in Singapore to have the stent, so it was a brand new operation. Fortunately, the man who invented the stent was out here selling his stent. He was from San Jose, La Jolla something or the other. So my doctor got hold of him and he supervised the operation. He said put the stent in. My doctor did the operation, he just watched it all and then that’s that. That was before all this problem about lining the stent to make sure that it doesn’t occlude and create a disturbance.

So at each stage, I learnt something more about myself and I stored that. I said: ‘Oh, this is now a danger point.’ So all right, cut out fats, change diet, went to see a specialist in Boston , Massachusetts General Hospital . He said: ‘Take statins.’ I said: ‘What’s that?’ He said: ‘(They) help to reduce your cholesterol.’ My doctors were concerned. They said: ‘You don’t need it. Your cholesterol levels are okay.’ Two years later, more medical evidence came out. So the doctors said: ‘Take statins.’

Had there been no angioplasty, had I not known that something was up and I cycled on, I might have gone at 74 like my mother. So I missed that decline. So next deadline: my father’s fall at 87.

I’m very careful now because sometimes when I turn around too fast, I feel as if I’m going to get off balance. So my daughter, a neurologist, she took me to the NNI, there’s this nerve conduction test, put electrodes here and there.

The transmission of the messages between the feet and the brain has slowed down. So all the exercise, everything, effort put in, I’m fit, I swim, I cycle. But I can’t prevent this losing of conductivity of the nerves and this transmission. So just go slow.

So when I climb up the steps, I have no problem. When I go down the steps, I need to be sure that I’ve got something I can hang on to, just in case. So it’s a constant process of adjustment. But I think the most important single lesson I learnt in life was that if you isolate yourself, you’re done for. The human being is a social animal – he needs stimuli, he needs to meet people, to catch up with the world.

I don’t much like travel but I travel very frequently despite the jetlag, because I get to meet people of great interest to me, who will help me in my work as chairman of our GIC. So I know, I’m on several boards of banks, international advisory boards of banks, of oil companies and so on. And I meet them and I get to understand what’s happening in the world, what has changed since I was here one month ago, one year ago. I go to India , I go to China .

And that stimuli brings me to the world of today. I’m not living in the world, when I was active, more active 20, 30 years ago. So I tell my wife. She woke up late today. I said: ‘Never mind, you come along by 12 o’clock. I go first.’

If you sit back – because part of the ending part of the encyclopaedia which I read was very depressing – as you get old, you withdraw from everything and then all you will have is your bedroom and the photographs and the furniture that you know, and that’s your world. So if you’ve got to go to hospital, the doctor advises you to bring some photographs so that you’ll know you’re not lost in a different world, that this is like your bedroom.

I’m determined that I will not, as long as I can, to be reduced, to have my horizons closed on me like that. It is the stimuli, it is the constant interaction with people across the world that keeps me aware and alive to what’s going on and what we can do to adjust to this different world.

In other words, you must have an interest in life. If you believe that at 55, you’re retiring, you’re going to read books, play golf and drink wine, then I think you’re done for. So statistically they will show you that all the people who retire and lead sedentary lives, the pensioners die off very quickly.

So we now have a social problem with medical sciences, new procedures, new drugs, many more people are going to live long lives.. If the mindset is that when I reach retirement age 62, I’m old, I can’t work anymore, I don’t have to work, I just sit back, now is the time I’ll enjoy life, I think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. After one month, or after two months, even if you go travelling with nothing to do, with no purpose in life, you will just degrade, you’ll go to seed.

The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. If you’re not interested in the world and the world is not interested in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that’s real torture.

So when I read that people believe, Singaporeans say: ‘Oh, 62 I’m retiring.’ I say to them: ‘You really want to die quickly?’ If you want to see sunrise tomorrow or sunset, you must have a reason, you must have the stimuli to keep going..’

Have a purpose driven life and finish well, my friends.

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Facebook? No thanks!

As Facebook grows, millions say, 'no, thanks'
 

(AP) NEW YORK -- Don't try to friend MaLi Arwood on Facebook. You won't find her there.

You won't find Thomas Chin, either. Or Kariann Goldschmitt. Or Jake Edelstein.

More than 900 million people worldwide check their Facebook accounts at least once a month, but millions more are Facebook holdouts.

They say they don't want Facebook. They insist they don't need Facebook. They say they're living life just fine without the long-forgotten acquaintances that the world's largest social network sometimes resurrects.

They are the resisters.

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"I'm absolutely in touch with everyone in my life that I want to be in touch with," Arwood says. "I don't need to share triviality with someone that I might have known for six months 12 years ago."

Even without people like Arwood, Facebook is one of the biggest business success stories in history.

The site had 1 million users by the end of 2004, the year Mark Zuckerberg started it in his Harvard dorm room. Two years later, it had 12 million. Facebook had 500 million by summer 2010 and 901 million as of March 31, according to the company.

That staggering rise in popularity is one reason why Facebook Inc.'s initial public offering is one of the most hotly anticipated in years. The company's shares are expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Friday under the ticker symbol "FB". Facebook is likely to have an estimated market valuation of some $100 billion, making it worth more than Kraft Foods, Ford or Disney.

Facebook still has plenty of room to grow, particularly in developing countries where people are only starting to get Internet access. As it is, about 80 percent of its users are outside U.S. and Canada.

But if Facebook is to live up to its pre-IPO hype and reward the investors who are clamoring for its stock this week, it needs to convince some of the resisters to join. Two out of every five American adults have not joined Facebook, according to a recent Associated Press-CNBC poll. Among those who are not on Facebook, a third cited a lack of interest or need.

If all those people continue to shun Facebook, the social network could become akin to a postal system that only delivers mail to houses on one side of the street. The system isn't as useful, and people aren't apt to spend as much time with it. That means fewer opportunities for Facebook to sell ads.

Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, says that new communications channels - from the telephone to radio, TV and personal computers - often breed a cadre of holdouts in their early days.

"It's disorienting because people have different relationships with others depending on the media they use," Rainie says. "But we've been through this before. As each new communications media comes to prominence, there is a period of adoption."

Len Kleinrock, 77, says Facebook is fine for his grandchildren, but it's not for him.

"I do not want more distractions," he says. "As it is, I am deluged with email. My friends and colleagues have ready access to me and I don't really want another service that I would feel obliged to check into on a frequent basis."

Kleinrock says his resistance is generational, but discomfort with technology isn't a factor.

After all, Kleinrock is arguably the world's first Internet user. The University of California, Los Angeles professor was part of the team that invented the Internet. His lab was where researchers gathered in 1969 to send test data between two bulky computers -the beginnings of the Arpanet network, which morphed into the Internet we know today.

"I'm having a `been-there, done-that' feeling," Kleinrock says. "There's not a need on my part for reaching out and finding new social groups to interact with. I have trouble keeping up with those I'm involved with now." Thomas Chin, 35, who works at an advertising and media planning company in New York, says he may be missing out on what friends-of-friends-of-friends are doing, but he doesn't need Facebook to connect with family and closer acquaintances.

"If we're going to go out to do stuff, we organize it (outside) of Facebook," he says.

Some people don't join the social network because they don't have a computer or Internet access, are concerned about privacy, or generally dislike Facebook. Those without a college education are less likely to be on Facebook, as are those with lower incomes.

Women who choose to skip Facebook are more likely than men to cite privacy issues, while seniors are more likely than those 50-64 years old to cite computer issues, according the AP-CNBC poll.

About three-quarters of seniors are not on Facebook. By contrast, more than half of those under 35 use it every day.

The poll of 1,004 adults nationwide was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications May 3-7 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Steve Jones, a professor who studies online culture and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says many resisters consider Facebook to be too much of a chore.

"We've added social networking to our lives. We haven't added any hours to our days," Jones says. "The decision to be online on Facebook is simultaneously a decision not to be doing something else."

Jones says many people on Facebook try to overcome that by multitasking, but they end up splitting their attention and engaging with others online only superficially.

Arwood, 47, a restaurant manager in Chicago, says she was surprised when colleagues on an English-teaching program in rural Spain in 2010 opted to spend their breaks checking Facebook.

"I spent my time on break trying to learn more about the Spanish culture, really taking advantage of it," she says. "I went on walks with some of the students and asked them questions."

Kariann Goldschmitt, 32, a music professor at New College of Florida in Sarasota, Fla., was on Facebook not long after its founding in 2004, but she quit in 2010. In part, it was because of growing concerns about her privacy and Facebook's ongoing encouragement of people to share more about themselves with the company, with marketers and with the world.

She says she's been much more productive since leaving.

"I was a typical user, on it once or twice a day," she says. "After a certain point, I sort of resented how it felt like an obligation rather than fun."

Besides Facebook resisters and quitters, there are those who take a break. In some cases, people quit temporarily as they apply for new jobs, so that potential employers won't stumble on photos of their wild nights out drinking. Although Facebook doesn't make it easy to find, it offers an option for suspending accounts (Look for a link under the "Security" tab in "Account Settings.")

Goldschmitt says it takes effort to stay in touch with friends and relatives without Facebook. For instance, she has to make mental notes of when her friends are expecting babies, knowing that they have become so used to Facebook "that they don't engage with us anymore."

"I'm like, `Hmmm, when is nine months?' I have to remember to contact them since they won't remember to tell me when the baby's born."

Neil Robinson, 54, a government lawyer in Washington, says that when his nephew's son was born, pictures went up on Facebook almost immediately. As a Facebook holdout, he had to wait for someone to email photos.

After years of resisting, Robinson plans to join next month, mostly because he doesn't want to lose touch with younger relatives who choose Facebook as their primary means of communication.

But for every Robinson, there is an Edelstein, who has no desire for Facebook and prefers email and postcards.

"I prefer to keep my communications personal and targeted," says Jake Edelstein, 41, a pharmaceutical consultant in New York. "You're getting a message that's written for you. Clearly someone took the time to sit down to do it."

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Arrests at New York 'Occupy' protests

Clashes and arrests in Zuccotti Park as 'Occupy' activists mark six months since birth of anti-corporate greed movement.
Critics say the movement lacks demands and direction [GALLO/GETTY]  Police and activists have clashed at a park in New York where hundreds of people had gathered to mark six months since the beginning of the city's Occupy Wall Street protests. The clashes, late on Saturday, came as some activists attempted to re-occupy Zuccotti Park, which police had earlier declared closed for the evening. The Manhattan park, close to Wall Street, was where the anti-corporate greed protest movement began in September last year. Activists spent months camping at the site, prompting similar demonstrations in other US cities and abroad. Police began making arrests after several hundred protesters had remained there, with some erecting a makeshift tent of cardboard and tarpaulin in contravention of rules banning shelters in the park. More than 100 police officers pushed through the park, clashing with protesters who attempted to stand their ground, The Associated Press news agency reported. The Reuters news agency reported that dozens of protesters had been led away in handcuffs, although there has been no official word on the number of arrests. Earlier in the day, hundreds of protesters had marched on nearby Wall Street, resulting in another unspecified number of arrests, police said. Organisers vowed that Saturday's rally was the first of several events planned to protest against perceived economic injustice. 'We are going to take it back' One of the activists taking part in the gathering said he hoped the park would again become a home for protesters, in defiance of a police ban on sleeping there which led to the eviction of the protest camp's occupants after two months. In-depth coverage of the global movement "They're hoping we'll all go away because it's cold," said Rob, 28, declining to give his last name. "The park's become the symbol both for us and for them. We are going to take it back." Protester Paul Sylvester, 24, of Massachusetts said he was "thrilled" to be back at the park but said he hoped the movement would begin to crystallise around specific goals. "We need to be more concrete and specific," he said. Critics say the Occupy movement lacks demands and direction and has lost momentum. But warmer spring weather in the US has brought expectations that Occupy leaders will try to regain their momentum. Protesters seemed invigorated by their relatively large numbers compared to the small turnouts during street demonstrations over the winter. At the park on Saturday, street theatre troupes performed and guitar players led sing-alongs. Some protesters marched through the streets of the financial district, chanting "bankers are gangsters" and cursing at police. Liesbeth Rapp, 27, who was performing street theatre about economic injustice, said protesters were ready to make some changes. "I think we've learned a lot about being strategically and tactically smarter," she said. "We're learning to decentralise, and to work in smaller groups." Source: Agencies  Newscribe : get free news in real time

London Offices Foreign Owned!

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 Over half London's City offices foreign owned - report

by Andrew Macdonald; Editing by Dan Lalor) Keywords: PROPERTY LONDON

LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - British investors own less than half the office properties in London's City financial hub, with foreign ownership of towers such as the Gherkin likely to continue, a report said.

Property company Development Securities said 52 percent of City office blocks were foreign owned in 2011, up from 8 percent in 1980, with German and U.S. investors hiking their stakes considerably over that period.

'City (of London) offices are perceived to offer quality and transparency -- a 'safe haven' for foreign buyers who have, in turn, deepened liquidity in the market,' chief executive Michael Marx said in the report 'Who Owns the City'.

IPD figures showed property values fell 50 percent during the global financial meltdown to August 2009, subsequently rebounding 25 percent, creating a buying opportunity for cash-rich investors such as sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance firms and real estate investment companies.

'Traditional owners -- livery companies, institutions, established property companies -- have experienced a sharp decline in City office ownership,' Development Securities said, noting these investors now held 17 percent of the office stock, from 29 percent in 2005.



In their place, German investors hiked their market share to 16 percent, from 1 percent in 1980. U.S. investors held 10 percent, from zero, while Middle East investors weighed in at 6 percent, from 3 percent, the survey found.

The 180-metre tall Gherkin tower -- so-called because of its shape, one of the most distinctive in the City -- has been part-owned by German property behemoth IVG Immobilien since 2007.

Foreign ownership increased during the global financial crisis, Development Securities said, noting the changing dynamics of globalisation and international investment would continue to be reflected in City office ownership.

'Such resilience would appear all the more remarkable in the light of the City's associations with the failures of the international financial system. What offsets the systemic risk in relation to the City's lack of diversification is the exceptional liquidity that characterises its office market.'

The Development Securities survey also showed the changing profile of owners, with a growing trend towards private ownership by high-net-worth individuals.

In terms of functional ownership, 41 percent of the office space was owned by companies in the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, and 57 percent by financial and business services firms.

More than half of the City of London's financial buildings are foreign-owned

By Richard Hartley-parkinson

Many landmark buildings in the heart of London's financial district are owned by foreign investors, it has been revealed.

Germany holds the keys to one in five properties across the City including the distinctive Lloyd's Building and Gherkin 

UK ownership is down to it's lowest ever level with just 48 per cent belonging to British people or businesses. In 1980 that figure was 90 per cent.

The Gherkin (right) is owned by a German investment fund Tower 42 (left) looks like it's about to be snapped up by a South African magnate

Lloyds building, famous for having all it's services built outside, is owned by a German bank

The trend is likely to continue in the same direction as more investors look to get real estate in the UK. Tower 42 - also known as NatWest Tower - is currently on the market and South African magnate Natie Kirsh is the frontrunner in the bidding.

Matthew Weiner, executive director of development securities PLC which compiled the report, said: 'It's gone from 40 percent in 2006 to now 52 percent, so every other building in the city is ultimately owned by somebody from overseas.

'What we've seen as well is the rise for the first time in private net worth individuals which we've never been able to identify in all the studies previously and I think that's an interesting dynamic against safe haven assets that London represents.'

More...

• Good news at last as borrowing falls by £1.2bn... but Cameron warns that cutting the debt is harder than he expected
• Driving commuters around the Benz: New York City's wealthiest enjoy hidden luxury in Mercedes vans that take up half the road

Other significant parts of the City that are foreign owned include 10 Gresham Street (50 per cent Canadian), City Point, Moorgate (American), and Paternoster Square (Japanese).

Mr Weiner believes that foreign ownership is actually beneficial to the British economy. He said: 'I think it's good for liquidity in the market and good for London's status as an international capital.

'I think also these investors coming in have got long term investment horizons which gives greater stability to the market which will help the occupational market as well and help London function as a centre.'

Ownership of buildings has also shifted significantly over the last 30 years.
In 1973, 40 per cent of offices in the City were owned by what the report calls traditional owners.

Now, that figure has fallen to three per cent while nearly 10 per cent are owned by individuals.

In the shadow of the very British icon of St Paul's Cathedral, Paternoster Square is in the hands of the Japanese

This table shows how the ownership of City of London buildings has changed since 1980

Around the time of the last recession in 2008, the number of institution owned buildings nearly halved as more specialist real estate groups snapped up property while prices were low.

Despite the economic downturn in Europe London remains the world's top financial centre - ahead of New York and Hong Kong.

The housing market shows a similar pattern as the eurozone crisis continues to hit Greece and Italy, with more and more investors putting their money in London properties.

Greeks and Italians have spent £406m this year on domestic ownership - a 120 per cent increase on 201, according to the Financial Times recently.

This has taken the total number of home-owners from the two countries in the capital to 10 per cent.

There has also been a rise in house purchases by Middle Eastern and North African investors, keen to take advantage of the weak pound.

‘Occupy Wall Street’ goes global !

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What Are We To Do By TAN SRI LIN SEE-YAN

Movements against bailouts, cutbacks and inequality picking up stream

SINCE its obscure beginnings, the “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS) movement has spread its wings, joining the “Indignant” of Spain (a movement born on May 15 when a Madrid rally sparked a worldwide campaign focussed on outrage over high unemployment and opposition to the financial elite).



The OWS group which has camped out in lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park (nearby Wall Street) now in its 5th week, has a valid complaint: its young social-media connected generation is losing faith in traditional structures of government and business, arguing it has been betrayed and denied opportunity. “We got sold out; banks got bailed out” was their chant as thousands marched from Wall Street to Times Square.

Inspired by these movements, rallies rippled across the globe last weekend targeting 951 cities in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and North and South America to take part in the demonstration. It's unclear how long protestors plan to stay. Some fear this could only be the beginning, as the world faces a systemic rise in anger, protest and political volatility that could last for years. With Middle-east unrest stirring again, a winter of discontent looks likely. It's not easy to pinpoint the underlying cause of their woes. Checkout their websites: they seem to demonstrate against corporate greed (bank bailouts and bonuses) and income inequality (government cutbacks). Worldwide they demand for a more fair and equal society.



Since the 2008 financial crisis, US bank profits were up 136%, but bank lending, down 9%. Indeed, bank lending has fallen in 10 of the past 12 quarters. To the OWS demonstrators, banks haven't fulfilled their part of the social bargain: bailouts for Wall Street in exchange for lending on Main Street. While banks now have more capital, they still aren't lending. Lending will continue to shrink. Banks say the demand isn't there. But 73% of small businesses say they are still being affected by the credit crunch. As I see it, banks remain very much risk adverse. Unlike in medicine, banks don't have the ability to quarantine financial contagion. There is a dangerous world out there.

What also irks protestors are Wall Street bonuses which have returned while ordinary workers suffered retrenchment and job insecurity with little help from Washington. A recent New York State report predicted that the financial industry will likely lose another 10,000 jobs by end 2012. That's on top of the 4,100 jobs lost since April and 22,000 since early 2008. Overall, New York area employment in finance and insurance had declined by 8.9% since late 2006.



The OWS movement has gained widespread support and encouragement, including from economics Nobel Laureates Stiglitz: “We have too many regulations stopping democracy and not enough regulations stopping Wall Street from misbehaving. We are bearing the cost of their misdeeds. There's a system where we have socialised losses and privatised gains”; and Kurgman: “Wall Street pay has rebounded even as ordinary workers continue to suffer from high unemployment and falling real wagesAnd their outrage has found resonance with millions of Americans. No wonder Wall Street is whining.”

Harvard's historian Niall Ferguson regarded the movement “still worth taking seriously” even though he concluded: “So occupying Wall Street is not the answer to this generation's problems. The answer is to occupy the Tea Party Call it the Iced Tea Party. Way cool.” Even the in-coming president of the European Central Bank has expressed support. However, the Times of London labelled the protests “Passionate but Pointless.”



US inequality

By far, the cause of OWS's frustration and outrage is best articulated in my friend Jeffrey Sachs' (Columbia University) latest book: “The Price of Civilisation.” In the US, the top 1% of households accounted for almost 25% of all households' income. The last time this happened was in 1929. In the first 3 decades of the 20th century, rapid industrial development raised income and wealth at the top, while mass immigration set the low bar. Then came the 1929 Great Depression and the New Deal four years later which railed against “a small group (who) had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labour and other people's lives.”

But, prosperity wasn't always accompanied by large-scale inequality. The 1950s and 1960s brought about rapid economic growth and a narrowing of inequality as a result of a more robust social safety net, fresh New Deal measures, World War II (WWII), and the vigorous post-war recovery which reversed the 1920s inequalities.

Since the 1970s, the United States tasted the fury of globalised competition but failed to grapple effectively with it. The deterioration in Main Street's earning prospects was papered over for the next 20 years by debt mortgage debt and consumer credit. Bear in mind median earnings of male workers peaked way back in 1973. The United States collects less tax as a percentage of national income (25% in 2009) than most advanced European nations (40-50%).

This reflected partly the Republican's one-idea approach: cut taxes permanently and impose fiscal austerity, often at the expense of lost competitiveness (reflecting insufficient public investment in education, infrastructure and human capital). OWS young demonstrators have a valid argument to make: they are frustrated trying to find a place in an economy where there is one job for every five jobseekers, and where youth unemployment is 18%. So much for the clich of Wall Street vs Main Street; “the greedy 1% uses the hard-done-by 99%.” The wider middle-class fears its prosperity has evaporated, demanding for a way to deliver growth once more. It's about time Americans get wise to the source of their economic woes it's a few hundred miles south of Wall Street.

US poverty 

According to the US Census Bureau, there are now more poor persons in America than at any other time in the 52 years records were kept. More than 15% of US families live below the poverty line in 2010. The line is set at US$22,000 a year for a family of four. This reflected the high unemployment of 9.1% 6.5 million jobs were lost in the recent recession. An additional 3 million Americans would fall below the poverty line if not for “doubling-up”, that is, adult children who can't afford life on their own return to live with their parents.



Today marks the first time in 20 years when US employment (as a percentage of population) has fallen below the rate in advanced European nations like UK, Germany and the Netherlands. The average weekly earnings (adjusted for inflation) of a typical US blue-collar worker is lower today than in 1964. Indeed, median inflation adjusted family income rose only about a fifth as much between 1980 and 2007 as it did in the generation following WWII. The US poverty profile is unlikely to change soon. That is why people are protesting. Many believe the current anger against autocrat politicians, bankers and elites is symptomatic of fundamental shifts in the structure of US (and indeed, global) population. Already, there are strains caused by aging populations driving up budget costs, reducing growth and blocking jobs from younger people.

Coincidentally, both the Boomerang generation and the Babyboomers generation are demonstrating together in OWS as they could very well end up in a political battle for dwindling government benefits. That is, the elderly fights to keep their entitlements (social security and medicare) to ward off poverty, and the younger population pushes for spending on education and training to avoid falling into it. Demographic issues are driving much of what we see today. A win-win is to continue pressuring the richest Americans to carry a larger share of the load. Despite congressional resistance, many of the wealthy in the United States do see it's in their interest to foster a less divisive society.

Smart government

While the benefits of globalisation are clear and I think, well appreciated (especially the rapid spread of technology embodied in the Internet and mobile telephony, and reduced poverty in emerging nations), the real problems associated with it are less well understood but nevertheless need to be urgently addressed.

Globalisation has (i) raised the scope for tax evasion; (ii) led to a loss of competitiveness among the less educated in advanced nations, particularly in the United States; and (iii) fuelled contagion, especially in finance.

In his latest book, Jeff Sachs pushed hard for a highly effective government to deal with these problems. Smart public policies are needed to (a) promote high quality education; (b) raise productivity by building modern infrastructure and inculcate science and technology; and (c) co-operate globally to regulate cross-border issues (e.g. finance and environment). His proposal is controversial at this time since it calls for more government not less, especially in the United States where economic inequality has reached a high not seen since the Great Depression.

Sachs also points to growing signs world-wide that people are fed-up with governments that cater for the rich and the powerful, and ignore everyone else. They call for greater social justice (not confined to the Arab Spring; also serious protests from Tel Aviv to London to Santiago to Sydney, and all over Europe, and now, in New York); and also more inclusive politics, rather than corrupt politics.

There are even calls for higher taxes on the very rich across nations (the United States has proposed the rich to pay more taxes; several European governments have talked of a new wealth tax; the European Commission has suggested a new financial transactions tax to raise US$75bil a year). Sachs refers to the most successful well-balanced economies today being in Scandinavia using high taxes to support smart public services, balancing economic prosperity with social justice and environmental sustainability. Sachs bemoaned that for 30 years, the United States has been going “in the wrong direction, cutting the role of government in the domestic economy rather than promoting the investments needed to modernise the economy and workforce.” It all started when President Reagan declared in 1980 that “government is not the solution to our problems it is the problem.”

Today, the solution lies in how the United States is going to fund its future competitiveness through building skills and raising productivity to fight for markets in the 21st century. This is also the way to go for the euro-zone.

Historically, Americans haven't been inclined to be aggressive enough to riot, as the Europeans, over inequality (contrast the protests in Rome, Athens, Madrid and London with those in New York). But the United States is in a new situation now where protestors are getting desperate in the face of intransigency, especially the uncompromising Tea Party. It is hard to rule that out when the American Dream is very much at stake.

At worst, I think the present situation can result in an economic malaise that lasts for decades. It makes politics most unpredictable. There is already political paralysis. But dramatic shifts in policy are possible. The rise of ideologues in a modern guise is also probable as we saw in the 1930s. I am afraid this is the new reality. We have to deal with it.

> Former banker, Dr Lin is a Harvard educated economist and a British Chartered Scientist who now spends time writing, teaching & promoting the public interest. Feedback is most welcome; email: starbizweek@thestar.com.my 

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Occupy Wall Street booming, now Occupy London Stock Exchange!

Wall Street protest grows to "occupy" Washington against corporate greed

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An Occupy Wall Street protester marches up Broadway in New York City, October 5, 2011. Protesters, who have staged demonstrations about the power of the financial industry and other issues and who have camped in Zuccotti Park near Wall street for nearly three weeks were joined by hundreds of Union members in a march and demonstration through lower Manhattan. [Photo/Agencies]

* Protests in New York number at least 5,000 * Regular American workers bolster protest numbers

NEW YORK - Anti-Wall Street demonstrations swelled on Wednesday, as nurses, transit workers and other union members joined a rally at the heart of New York's financial district to complain about unfairness in the US economy.

College students walked out of classes in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has grown in less than three weeks from a ragged group in downtown Manhattan to protesters of all ages demonstrating from Seattle to Tampa.

The protesters object to the Wall Street bailout in 2008, which they say left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from the federal government.

By late afternoon the crowd in New York numbered at least 5,000 and was growing. Union members made up a good portion of the demonstration, which was more than twice as large as the largest previous crowd last weekend of about 2,000.

Protesters carried signs reading "Jobs Not Cuts" and "Stop Corporate Greed" and chanted "Wall Street is our street" and "All day, all week, occupy Wall Street."

"Our workers are excited about this movement. The country has been turned upside down. We are fighting for families and children," said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.

Along with the swelling numbers in New York and smaller protests springing up in other US cities, there were signs the protesters are winning broader support.

US Representative Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, endorsed the movement.

"The gap between the haves and have nots continues to widen in the wake of the 2008 recession, precipitated by the banking industry. Yet we are told we cannot afford to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires," she said in a statement. "I'm so proud to see the Occupy Wall Street movement standing up to this rampant corporate greed."

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Communications Workers of America and the Amalgamated Transit Union joined the New York march, as did the nation's largest union of nurses, National Nurses United.

Students on college campuses added their voices. At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, students walked out of their classrooms at noon, holding signs reading "Eat the Elite" and "We Can Do Better than Capitalism."

The protests began in New York on Sept 17 and have spread to Los Angeles, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Tampa, St. Louis and elsewhere. A protest in planned in Washington on Thursday.

The protests have been largely peaceful, although last Saturday in New York, more than 700 people were arrested when demonstrators blocked traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.

In San Francisco on Wednesday, a crowd of several hundred marched in a loop around the financial district, chanting "They got bailed out, we got sold out" and "Join our ranks, stop the banks." Union nurses had a large presence at the protest.

"This is the beginning of a movement," said Sidney Gillette, a nurse at Children's Hospital in Oakland.

In Boston, protesters have set up a makeshift camp in the financial district. Retired teacher Frank Mello said he joined the movement to "demonstrate that we are stronger when we are united and Wall Street is as powerful as we allow them to be."

In Chicago, where dozens of protesters have gathered at the heart of the financial district every day, banging drums and holding up signs, office worker Tom McClurg, 52, said Wednesday was the first day he had joined the group.

"I'm hoping it's going to raise awareness here of people's opposition to domination by financial interest of their elected representatives," he said, adding, "I think there are a million times more people not here who are sympathetic."
Camped out in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan, the New York protesters have sometimes been dismissed by Wall Street passersby or cast in the mainstream media as naive students and mischief makers without realistic goals. Members of the group have vowed to stay through the winter.

Protesters to "occupy" Washington against corporate greed

 (Xinhua)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- As ranks of protesters grew in New York in the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstration, protesters are also converging in U.S. capital Washington D.C. for a planned " Occupy D.C." rally on Thursday, which is to take place at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Organizers told Xinhua that the rally is aimed at raising awareness of the American people in fixing the political system corrupted by corporate greed, and concentrating attention on people's needs.

Lisa Simeone, a spokesperson with the October 2011 movement, which is central in organizing the rally, said the protest has been in the making for about a year, and was scheduled to coincide with the start of the Afghanistan War. After the "Occupy Wall Street" movement in the U.S. city of New York took place, they decided to join the many occupations that's been going on around the country.

"Our main focus is that we are against corporatism and militarism," said Simeone in a telephone interview on Wednesday with Xinhua. She said that protesters want money out of politics, tax the rich and corporations, as well as cut military spending, end the wars and bring the troops home.

"People come to the rally for a lot of reasons," Jeremy Ryan, an activist participating in the rally told Xinhua in an earlier interview, noting many come because they are angry that big corporations are having too much influence on Washington politics.

"The over-arching theme" of the rally, said Simeone, is "human needs, jobs, homes, education, health care, not corporate greed."

Just like the New York demonstrations, which has been going on for weeks, the Washington rally is not likely to last only one day. Simeone said that they look at the rally as a beginning, not the end, and they will "occupy" Freedom Plaza, possibly for weeks to come.

"This isn't the be all and end-all resistance in this country," she said, noting that they want to create both philosophical and physical space for people to "realize they have to take this country back."

Simeone said that she doesn't know how long the occupation will go on or what the next steps will be.

"I do know whenever it ends, we are not going to stop acts of civil disobedience, and various acts of civil resistance and organization. That will be done in the myriad of ways around the country, and again, this is not the end, but only the beginning."

TROUBLE FOR BOTH DEMOCRAT, GOP

Simeone said that the rally is neither pro-Democrat nor pro- Republican. In fact, she said that the rally is "against both major political parties," noting the Democrats and Republicans are "equally corrupt," and "equally in the pocket of corporations and Wall Street and the military-industry" complex.

As the general election is approaching in the coming year, such sentiment could spell trouble for both the Democrats and the Republicans. Some might argue the Democrats could take a harder hit as the "occupy" movement took place mainly in "Blue States."

Simeone, however, said while many who participate in the rallies identify themselves as left-leaning, "there are many people in this movement who are from the right, or who identify as libertarian on economics or who have sons and daughters in Afghanistan or Iraq and have always been Republican or conservatives all their lives."

"They agree that the wars have to end, and they agree we have to get money out of politics," said Simeone, and she believes the movement has the potential to bring in a lot of people from all over the political spectrum.

According to the organizers, about 5,000 people have signed online pledges to come to the rally, but Simeone would not make a prediction on how many would show up. In keeping with the "occupy" rallies' tradition, the D.C. rally is also going to be fun, with musicians, poets and art activities, as well as classes and shops.

"This is also about building community with each other," said Simeone.

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US Financial sector layoffs rise, more cuts ahead

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By Lauren Tara LaCapra

NEW YORK | Tue Jun 21, 2011 4:48pm EDT
 

(Reuters) - U.S. financial firms have been cutting staff dramatically this year, with more layoffs expected to come from Wall Street, according to a report on Tuesday.

Unlike the widespread layoffs stemming from the financial crisis of 2008 that was followed by hiring when markets recovered, the 2011 reductions appear to be more permanent.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employment consulting firm, said the financial sector has outlined 21 percent more job cuts so far this year than it did in 2010. Banks, insurance firms and brokers have outlined plans to eliminate 11,413 positions through May, according to publicly available information cited by Challenger, compared with 9,431 during the same period a year ago.

Wall Street has long been characterized by fickle hiring patterns, but John Challenger, head of the consulting group, said new cuts reflect fundamental changes in the business structure and returns of financial firms.

"They will not be as profitable in the future as they were in the past," he said. "That means they're just not going to be able to afford the workforce levels that they had when they were more profitable."

Most cuts to date have occurred in retail banking operations, reflecting subdued economic activity and loan growth. Mergers have also led to headcount reductions as smaller regional banks combine forces.

However, Challenger expects layoffs at large investment and commercial banks to accelerate through the rest of 2011.



Regulatory restrictions and declines in trading volume have challenged the business models and profitability of large investment banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley.

Goldman reported an annualized return on shareholders equity of 15 percent during the first quarter, adjusted for special items, compared with more than 30 percent before the crisis erupted. Morgan Stanley, which now has a 20 percent return-on-equity target, delivered an annualized ROE of 6.2 percent in the first quarter.

Wall Street stocks have fallen along with profits in recent months. Goldman shares are down 19 percent so far this year, and Morgan Stanley's are off 17 percent. The KBW Bank Index of large-cap financials is down a more moderate 8.8 percent.

(Reporting by Lauren Tara LaCapra; editing by Andre Grenon)Newscribe : get free news in real time