Economist
Biodiversity down the barrel of a gun
THERE was a time when conservation meant keeping people away from nature. America’s system of national parks, a model for similar set-ups around the world, was based on the idea of limiting human presence to passing visits, rather than permanent habitation.
In recent years this way of doing things has come under suspicion. To fence off large areas of parkland is often impractical and can also be immoral—in that it leads to local people being booted out. These days, the consensus among conservationists is to try to manage nature with humans in situ. But there are still “involuntary parks”, to borrow a phrase from the writer and futurist Bruce Sterling, that serve to illustrate just how spectacularly well nature can do when humans are removed from the equation. ...
Which countries file for most international patents?
THE number of applications for international patents fell by 4.5% in 2009 compared with the year before to 159,000 as companies in Western countries cut back on R&D spending during the recession. Yet applications from east Asian economies, including Japan and South Korea, increased slightly, while those from China soared by 30%. Since 2005 applications from China have grown by 210% as the country has developed a home-grown high-tech sector. But, reflecting America's economic power and corporate dynamism, the United States is still the country from which the most filings orginate, and it has a huge lead. However, the number of American applications has fallen substantially from a peak of 54,000 in 2007.
...
Viktor Yanukovich seems the likely winner of Ukraine’s presidential election
UKRAINIANS expect little from their politicians. But some had hoped that the presidential election on Sunday February 7th might bring an end to the ruinous political turmoil of their country, whoever turned out to be the winner. Yet uncertainty, once again, rules.
With over 90% of votes counted, Viktor Yanukovich, the villain of the 2004 orange revolution, has a narrow lead of less than 3% over Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister and the princess of the orange drama. He had mustered 48.4% of the votes against her 46%. In absolute numbers, a gap of nearly 600,000 ballots looks somewhat more convincing. But Ms Tymoshenko dallied, refusing to accept defeat. ...
More anxieties about Europe's battered economies
• TAX-COLLECTORS and customs officers in Greece have already walked out in protest against planned austerity measures by the government. On Wednesday February 10th it will be the turn of civil servants, doctors and other state workers. A much bigger strike is expected later in the month and past experience suggests that protests could turn nasty. Yet unless Greece gets a grip on its public finances, the government will struggle to finance its loans. Similar anxieties are emerging elsewhere in Europe.
• LACKLUSTRE economic performances in Germany and Italy in the last quarter of 2009 are likely to prove a drag on the performance of the euro area as a whole. Figures released on Friday February 12th may show that the two big economies hardly grew at all in the fourth quarter, despite the euro area's pulling out of recession in the previous three-month period. Spain, another large economy in the region, is probably still stuck in recession. Job losses and weak consumer spending may put a dampener on the euro area’s recovery, which Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, has said is set to be modest and bumpy this year. ...
An end to frivolous patents may finally be in sight
DO PATENTS help or hinder innovation? Instinctively, they would seem a blessing, especially for backroom tinkerers. Patenting an idea gives its inventor a 20-year monopoly to exploit the fruit of his labour in the marketplace, in exchange for publishing a full account of how the new product, process or material works for all and sundry to see. For the inventor, that may be a reasonable trade-off. For society, however, the loss of competition through the granting sole rights to an individual or organisation is justified only if it stimulates the economy and delivers goods that change people’s lives for the better.
Invention, though, is not innovation. It may take a couple of enthusiasts working evenings and weekends for a year or two—not to mention tens of thousands of dollars of their savings—to get a pet idea to the patenting stage. But that is just the beginning. Innovations based on patented inventions or discoveries can take teams of researchers, engineers and marketing experts a decade or more, and tens of millions of dollars, to transfer to the marketplace. And for every bright idea that goes on to become a commercial winner, literally thousands fall by the wayside. ...
More evidence that America is experiencing a jobless recovery
A WEEK ago, Americans were told that their economy had expanded for a second consecutive quarter, and rapidly at that: output grew at an annual rate of 5.7%. This week, they are reminded that a return to growth has yet to benefit the jobless. The economy lost 20,000 jobs in January, a decline driven by the loss of 75,000 jobs in the construction sector. Economists had forecast an increase in employment of around 15,000. The unemployment rate, based on household rather than establishment data, showed a slight improvement, dropping from 10% to 9.7%, but nearly 15m Americans remain unemployed. As Larry Summers put it in Davos last week, the American economy is experiencing “a statistical recovery and a human recession”.
Several positive trends continued in January. Firms added 52,000 temporary workers and increased hours, just as they did in December, hinting at growing if cautious optimism. Employment rose in health, education and professional services, and retail employment grew by 42,000 in January, on a seasonally adjusted basis, after declining in December. Manufacturing employment also grew, by 11,000, the first increase since the beginning of recession. Analysts point out that the adjustment of the data is tricky around the holiday season, and actual underlying employment may have grown in January. ...
Manufacturing is growing again in most big economies
SURVEYS of purchasing managers indicate that manufacturing industries in most of the world’s big economies are growing. In big emerging economies such as Brazil, China and India, the indices compiled by Markit, a provider of financial information, were well above 50 in January, indicating robust growth. In each of those countries manufacturing was still shrinking in January 2009. There has also been a pronounced turnaround in America, where the Institute for Supply Management’s index for January was 58.4, in contrast to 35.5 in January 2009. Manufacturing is also expanding in Germany, France and Britain. But it is still shrinking in Greece and Spain, though much less markedly than a year earlier.
...
Big Oil is being forced to rethink its future
ON THE face of it the world’s big and publicly quoted oil companies should be celebrating some pleasing results this week. Royal Dutch Shell unveiled its results on Thursday February 4th, reporting that it had made $9.8 billion in 2009. Two days earlier BP boasted profits of $14 billion for the same year. Yet these billions are a disappointment compared with the bonanza of previous years (Shell, for example, raked in $31.4 billion in 2008 alone) when soaring oil prices pulled profits ever higher.
In the long term, however, the firms’ success depends on sustaining reserves. The big western oil companies are trying to expand through acquisitions and investment, but the opportunities do so are becoming scarcer. The firms are spending where they can. Exxon Mobil, the biggest listed oil company, says that exploration and capital spending hit $27.1 billion in 2009, 4% higher than in 2008. The company expects to spend $25 billion to $30 billion annually to the same end over the next five years. BP intends to spend some $20 billion this year on investment in new projects and drilling, roughly the same level as last year. ...
The most expensive works to come under the hammer
A SCULPTURE by Alberto Giacometti, one of the 20th century's greatest artists, fetched a record price at Sotheby's, a London auction house, on Wednesday February 3rd. The work, “L'Homme qui Marche I”, was bought for $104.3m (including buyer's premium), a tad more than a painting by Pablo Picasso, “Garcon a la Pipe”, which went under the hammer in 2004. The Giacometti probably fetched a high price because such large and important examples of his work rarely come onto the market. Not all masterpieces are auctioned. The most anyone has paid for a painting is a rumoured $140m in a private sale of a Jackson Pollock. In inflation-adjusted terms the priciest work of art ever sold at auction is Vincent Van Gogh's “Portrait du Docteur Gachet”—in 1990 it fetched the equivalent of $135.5m at today's prices.
...
The damage to Toyota, the world’s biggest carmaker, may be lasting
SAFETY recalls are a common enough occurrence in the car industry. If handled correctly, few have long-term consequences for the manufacturer involved. However, the disaster now engulfing Toyota is of a different order. Not only is Toyota’s brief reign as the world’s largest carmaker threatened but, more important, so too is its reputation for matchless quality and management. Rivals that had grown used to living in the Japanese firm’s shadow are quietly celebrating.
Toyota’s decision last month to recall 2.3m vehicles in America and then to suspend sales and production of eight models with potential faulty accelerator pedals (it later took similar steps around the world, involving 8m vehicles) has sent shock waves through the industry. The good news was that Toyota announced on February 1st that it had come up with a cure for the sticking pedals which, along with badly fitting floor mats (the subject of another massive recall late last year), have been blamed for at least 19 deaths and more than 2,000 incidents of “unintended acceleration”. ...
