Inc. (October 4)
There was “a collective sigh of relief from U.S. business owners and economic officials” with Thursday’s agreement “to send 45,000 striking longshoremen back to work, and reopen nearly 40 East and Gulf Coast ports that had been closed since Tuesday.” The move “allows nearly half of the nation’s imports and exports to begin flowing again, and avoid the serious blow to retailers and industrial companies—and the wider economy—that could have occurred if the walkout had continued.”
Tags: Agreement, Business, East coast, Exports, Imports, Industry, Longshoremen, Officials, Owners, Ports, Relief, Reopen, Retailers, Striking, U.S.
New York Times (June 6)
Office building losses are starting to “pile up, and more pain is expected.” The culprits? Weak demand for office space and interest rates and other costs that are higher than in many years. “The repercussions could extend far beyond the owners of these buildings and their lenders. A sustained drop in the value of commercial real estate could sap property tax revenue” that cities depend on and “hurt restaurants and other businesses that served the companies and workers who occupied those spaces.”
Tags: Cities, Costs, CRE, Culprits, Interest rates, Lenders, Losses, Office building, Office space, Owners, Pain, Pile up, Property tax, Repercussions, Restaurants, Weak demand
Reuters (September 15)
“Business owners who are trying to get back on track after hurricanes Harvey and Irma now face a different sort of challenge: trying to recoup lost income from their insurers.” Some experts predict approximately $70 billion in property losses from flooding in Texas alone. But recouping insured property loses is much easier than lost income. “Exclusions in the fine print of policies, along with waiting periods and disagreements over how to measure a company’s lost income, make business interruption claims among the trickiest in an industry renowned for complexity”
Tags: Business, Business interruption, Claims, Complexity, Exclusions, Flooding, Harvey, Hurricanes, Insurers, Irma, Lost income, Owners, Policies, Property losses, Texas
Wall Street Journal (August 7)
“The most striking fact about the recently announced sale of the Boston Globe and Washington Post is their low prices…. The prices reflect the decline of newspapers as a business in the Internet age, which is the kind of creative destruction millions of Americans have experienced. Disruption is the price a capitalist economy pays for innovation, and the news business is merely the latest example.” The new owners should be welcomed as they provide “an opportunity for new ideas and perhaps a turnaround.”
Tags: Boston Globe, Capitalism, Creative destruction, Decline, Disruption, Ideas, Innovation, Internet, Newspapers, Opportunity, Owners, Prices, Turnaround, Washington Post
The Economist (January 21, 2012)
The concept of limited liability, which protects shareholders, “is one of the greatest wealth-creating inventions of all time.” In many places, however, companies can be set up to hide or disguise the ultimate owners. “This is of great use to wrongdoers, and a huge headache for those who pursue them.” Both the World Bank and the OECD argue that the identities of owners should be disclosed. The Economist agrees. “Anyone registering a limited company should have to declare the names of the real people who ultimately own it, wherever they are, and report any changes. Lying about this should be a crime.”
The concept of limited liability, which protects shareholders, “is one of the greatest wealth-creating inventions of all time.” In many places, however, companies can be set up to hide or disguise the ultimate owners. “This is of great use to wrongdoers, and a huge headache for those who pursue them.” Both the World Bank and the OECD argue that the identities of owners should be disclosed. The Economist agrees. “Anyone registering a limited company should have to declare the names of the real people who ultimately own it, wherever they are, and report any changes. Lying about this should be a crime.”
