Dec 11
In a society steadily moving toward a cashless future (if not yet a penniless one), we may be seeing a return to cash transactions in some cases, for a surprising reason:
A new law that was supposed to reduce costs for merchants that accept debit cards has instead sent Mr. Scherrs monthly processing bills much higher and forced him to reassess the way he does business.
Thats from an interesting Wall Street Journal article about an unintended consequence of the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul legislation.Vendors used to pay on a sliding scale for debit-card transactions; Dodd-Frank set a flat fee, which can lead to higher payments on small transactions:
Many business owners who sell low-priced goods like coffee and candy bars now are paying higher rates — not lower — when their customers use debit cards for transactions that are less than roughly $10. Ov
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Dec 03
MOSCOW, Dec 3 () – Mikhail Khodorkovsky is in prison not far from the Arctic Circle, but the story of the former oil tycoon who fell out with Vladimir Putin is being told near the Kremlin before Russia’s parliamentary election on Sunday.
Ten months after a successful opening at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, German director Cyril Tuschi’s documentary ‘Khodorkovsky’ had its Russian premiere on Friday night at a central Moscow movie theatre.
The showing at the opening of Moscow’s Artdocfest film festival marked a milestone in a somewhat rocky road for the film, which was reported stolen twice in the weeks preceding its Berlin premiere.
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Nov 24
The Chancellor will this week identify almost 10,000 British companies that are “the real of engine of growth” and set out plans in the latest phase of his Growth Review to champion the best and “professionalise” the rest.
In an admission that Government support for companies is too polarised between the small and the very large, George Osborne is expected to say during his Autumn Statement that mid sized companies – Britain’s equivalent of Germany’s Mittelstand – have been neglected by Whitehall for too long.
He wil
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Nov 17
Stocks are closing largely unchanged as investors balance positive signs for the U.S. economy with a looming deadline for a key Congressional committee. Steep declines earlier in the week gave the S&P 500 its worst week since September.
The Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators rose more than analysts were expecting, a sign that the economy may pick up in the coming months. Investors remained cautious as Congress remains deadlocked on the U.S. deficit.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 25 points, or 0.2 percent, to 11,796 Friday. The S&P 500 fell less than a point to 1,216.
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Nov 07
BERLIN – Nearly four in five Germans believe the euro will survive and more than half think Chancellor Angela Merkel is doing a good job of handling Europe’s debt crisis, according to a poll released Friday.
The ZDF television poll said 78 percent of respondents believe the euro — used by 17 nations — will survive and 18 percent say it won’t. That was much the same as a year ago — despite a worsening of the financial crisis that has now sucked in Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest economy.
Europe has already bailed out Greece, Portugal and Ireland but the Italian economy is considered for the continent to bail out.
The poll of 1,278 people, conducted by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen institute Tuesday through Thursday, showed 56 percent think Merkel is doing a good job of crisis management and 33 percent say she isn’t. The mar
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Nov 04
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, Portland, Maine will hold its first mayoral election in 88 years. (The mayorship previously rotated between city council members.) But it’s going to be unusual for another reason: voters will use a ranked choice system, which means they have to list the 15 candidates in order of preference. An image of the ballot appears below. Heres the AP’s David Sharp reporting on the complexities:
The ballot is too complicated to be understood by the city’s voting machines, so only first-place votes will be announced on the night of the election, said Caleb Kleppner, vice president of TrueBallot Inc. The f
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