Archivio per la categoria 'events'

A resignation is noisy at Goldman Sachs

 

Greg Smith stormed out of Goldman Sachs and he indicated in a letter. As part of the bank has many grievances vis-à-vis his former employer. It considers in particular that the corporate culture built around teamwork, integrity and humility is not respected. Worse, he stressed that Goldman Sachs does not work for our clients but to boost its own profits. He said he heard company executives call their customers "puppets". He invited the leaders to challenge and to keep customers at the heart of their concerns. At last report, Greg Smith took care of products for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

For its part, the bank responded. "We disagree with the views expressed, this does not reflect how we manage our business," said a spokesman for the Wall Street Journal.  

Both say, this letter made the rounds of American media and social networks. SurTwitter, the reactions are numerous. Here is a selection of crispy from Internet users. First, that of comedian Seth Meyers who believes that reading the resignation letter is funny. Then, one of Heather K Mak who believes that this writing is a ray of sunshine. Finally, ironically, a Greek citizen said someone feels guilty, to Greg Smith my credit score.

This resignation letter Goldman Sachs is a fun read. nyti.ms/xt5H5D

– Seth Meyers (@ sethmeyers21) March 14, 2012

huge ray of sunshine Into the banking world from year former executive director at goldman sachs via @ @ and sustainnyc mchivot nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opi

. – Heather K Mak (@ heatherkmak) March 14, 2012

Finally, a Goldman Sachs Executive Speaks the Truth huff.to / zDVbAO via @ huffingtonpost Finally, somebody is feeling guilty!

– Vic Panagiotakopoulo (@ VPanagio) March 14, 2012

Other reactions go even further since a forged letter of response from the bank's president, Lloyd Blankfein, circulates:

http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/03/14/a-response-from-goldman-sachs/

Not to mention the comments of a fellow Canadian and parody of the letter, entitled "Why I quit the empire," by Darth Vader.  

ALSO READ:

"The resignation of Greg Smith

"Great deals from Goldman Sachs

"Trade unionism between Goldman Sachs in Japan

Armor Lux took advantage of the election campaign

 

The main presidential candidates did not wait for the election to take one of their promises. Determined to fight for the Made in France, they sent their activists dressed in Finistere. In January, the campaign manager Francois Bayrou has commanded Armor Lux 5000 T-shirts.

Since then, Young Pop, the UMP and, more recently, the PS bought at MSY Finisterian its famous knitwear knitted cotton. In total, 17,000 Armor Lux has sold T-shirts in the colors of political parties. "From the mesh knitting, dyeing, through cutting and making up the printing of the logo, everything is done here in Quimper," said Jean-Guy Le Floch, CEO of the SMEs of 550 employees, which distributes its products under the Armor Lux, Land and Sea and Bermuda.

Riding this wave of local purchasing, the leader readying ammunition for the coming weeks. He launched the production of gray fabric needed to manufacture 100,000 pieces. "Until the second round of the presidential election, our online t-shirt will turn right", says he. The price difference is however quite sensitive: depending on the model, Armor Lux sells between 7 and 5.50 euros each, while made in China is on the market at around € 1.20.

60% of production is delocalized

In 2011, the company achieved a turnover of 82 million euros, against 75 the previous year. "We develop our downtown retail network a hundred square meters, and around the stores between 700 and 1 000 m². Undoubtedly, consumers want authentic products, "said Jean-Guy Le Floch. On the first two months of the year, sales to the public increased by 12%. Armor Lux has forty outlets and will open in the second half of four new stores, including one of 1,500 m² in Plaisir (Yvelines). A test for the Breton brand, wishing, after creating three stores in Paris, make its products known to Parisians.

This growth in business volume also comes from major public commissions won by the manufacturer. After the Post Office in 2003 and Aéroports de Paris and SNCF, the national police, the Regional Council of Brittany and Truffault Armor Lux entrust today to achieve the work clothes of their employees. Result: this sector represents 40% of the activity. But the logic of increasing prices dragged down leads Jean-Guy Le Floch to outsource nearly 60% of production in Morocco, Tunisia, Romania and Bulgaria. The presidential candidates are notified.

ALSO READ:

"Armor-Lux offers a Miss France as the face

"The clothing in the shelter of a new surge of cotton

"Clothing: Marks eschewed China

Pinterest, the new star of Web 2.0

 

This is the new sensation of the Web. Pinterest is a social network dedicated to the passions of its users. Launched just two years ago in California, the service meets today nearly 12 million unique visitors per month according to Comscore. He topped the 10 million users faster than any independent site before him. This performance earned him today to have the attention of technophiles warned, brands and websites.

Atypical among rising stars in the Web, they are housewives, brides and others have cross stitch who rushed on the first Pinterest. Its advantage: a simple and aesthetic. Its members "pin on" a click of fashion images, decorating and cooking, gleaned from the Web, on a "virtual corkboard". Clicking on the picture, the user is returned to the original site. These collections can be shared with other users who sign up as a Twitter following. In short, the Twitter blog simplified by reducing the notes to short messages of 140 characters and Twitter today Pinterest simplifies by replacing the text and images.

The founders of Pinterest, Ben Silberman, Evan Sharp and Paul Sciarra, is "to connect the world through the objects they find interesting." While services like Facebook play on social ties between people, the founders of Pinterest believe that "a book, a toy or a recipe may be a common bond between two people." The two services are complementary, Pinterest offering content to share with relations built on Facebook paydayloans. Since the launch of an application for Facebook in January, Pinterest saw its daily audience from Facebook to rise by 60%.

15.8 minutes per day

Above all, playing the card of interests, Pinterest wowed an audience engaged and quality. A study by the agency Modea, two thirds of users are women. 28% of members belong to a household whose annual income exceeds $ 100,000. They spend an average of 15.8 minutes per day on Pinterest, is already more than Facebook (12.1 minutes).

For brands, this is a gold mine. Overseas, more than a hundred have created a page on Pinterest. They will present fashion collections (Gap), recipe ideas depending on the season (Whole Foods) or albums more unexpected, like the collection of "literary tattoos" assembled by the publisher Random House. In referring to commercial sites, collected images generate sales and, potentially, affiliate income for Pinterest. This is the strategy already chosen by the competitor Pinterest, TheFancy.com.

Revenue side, there is no urgency for Pinterest which raised $ 27 million in October 2011, bringing to $ 37.5 million in funds raised since its inception. These rounds were an opportunity to enter the capital of eminent members of the "PayPal mafia" like Max Levchin, the cofounder of the online payment service, and Kevin Hartz, one of its investors.

SNCF TGV depreciates its 700 million euros

 

SNCF will release on February 16 as "good" annual results, in the words of its leadership. Yet they will undergo a severe movement of the plane. On 14 February, the president of SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, unveiled to participants of a seminar on "business model TGV" that his group would carry out an impairment of € 700 million on its TGV . "The value of TGV, now in the books of the SNCF, amounts to nearly 4.5 billion euros," he said, according LaTribune.fr who reports his remarks. We will depreciate the 700 million euros because we have too many trains and they are mostly old. "

The fleet has 457 SNCF trains whose average age is 17 years. This decision comes as the SNCF profitability of the branch TGV group – very profitable long – has deteriorated in recent years. An evolution largely attributed by the public company to the concomitant increase in tolls which it must pay with Réseau Ferré de France (RFF), owner of the tract. Since late last week, SNCF and RFF have agreed on changes in rates of tolls until 2018. Guillaume Pepy was this medium-term visibility a prerequisite for engaging in orders for new trains. He said Tuesday that such investments would only be possible when the operating margin of the travel industry would reach 20%. Or it tops out at 14% today.

Until 2015, the fleet will continue to welcome new trains: 15 "Euro Duplex" will be delivered by Alstom in 2012, 11 in 2013, 11 in 2014 and seven in 2015. According to its chief financial officer, David Azema, who intervenaitle February 15 parliamentary days when the rail is in fact particularly after 2025 that the station should replace trains end of life.

ALSO READ:

"The station puts its employees in the plan

"IDTGV the laboratory for ideas of the SNCF, expanding its services

New measures to facilitate the ECB bank lending

 

The absolute independence of the European Central Bank vis-à-vis the policy preventing him from speaking. Mario Draghi has openly acknowledged Thursday: "I received a few minutes ago a call from the Greek prime minister said an agreement had been reached and endorsed by the major parties," said President of the ECB at its monthly press conference in Frankfurt. Thus he was able to announce before everyone else – maybe a little too quickly, given the float that followed in Athens – the good news entrusted to him by Lucas Papademos, the former vice President of the ECB.

But, according to the principle that it is easier to comment on the affairs of others than on his own, he refused to say clearly that the ECB may decide to reduce the debt of Athens, parallel commercial banks: "We are not part of negotiations. But what we hear is that the parts are pretty close to agreement. "

"Prohibited by the European treaties"

Pressed with questions, the successor to Jean-Claude Trichet ended up giving the key to participation of the ECB program "voluntary" Burden Reduction. "If the ECB redistributes some of its profits to the Member States of the ECB … it's not on monetary financing (public debt, which is prohibited by the European treaties), "he dropped. Clearly, it confirms one of the options that have been circulating for a week: the ECB could leave the unrealized gains on its purchase of Greek bonds. Which is approximately 12 billion, knowing that the bonds were acquired on the market at a discount and would be repaid at their face value at maturity.

By hiding again behind the texts prohibiting the bailout States, Mario Draghi shows the difficulty of his task. "The time is long when monetary policy was limited to setting interest rates. Since the debt crisis, the ECB must navigate waters very political, "says economist of a major French bank.

Inflation above the 2%

Monetary field itself, new relaxations are in any case by no means excluded. "Inflation should remain above 2% during the next few months, before falling back below 2%," said Mario Draghi. He worries more than ever a dry supply of bank credit: "We are actually concerned about the slowdown in the credit."

This is why the Governing Council decided to relax the rules on eligibility of collateral (securities pledged as collateral) that commercial banks have to raise cash. These conditions are changed to "temporarily" for seven national central banks, including Bank of France. "Residential real estate loans to individuals are eligible," said a statement released Thursday afternoon in Paris, which lists the technical conditions.

On a neighbor, Mario Draghi provides that the next issue of liquidity to three years, to be held on February 29, could be done "over the range of the previous operation of this type." The banks had obtained, 22 December 2011, 489 billion and 1% over three years.

ALSO READ:

"Clean Sweep in finance

Spanish

"Euro area: the first visit of the year in Brussels

"The ECB defends its massive aid to banks

Taking rang in Dubai, where the 2011 Air Show closes today. Contrary to the fears of some, Dubai 2011 has been a vintage correct with more than $ 40 billion of contracts (the rate catalog) reaped in four days by Airbus and Boeing. A good result after the fireworks of the Paris Air Show in June, which had resulted in some 100 billion dollars of contracts for only 72.2 billion Airbus.

Public debt crisis, threat of recession in western countries, job losses in banking, automobile … Nothing seems to affect Airbus and Boeing, who see a looming record year. Like ATR, the world leader in regional aircraft propeller, which flies from strength to strength.With three ATR 42-600 (50 seats) operated by the company in Dubai Siberian North Star, the manufacturer of Toulouse, a subsidiary of EADS and Finmeccanica, accumulated 148 orders since the beginning of the year. Historic levels for ATR and higher than the previous record of 2007 (113 orders). ATR now assumes 80% of the market for new aircraft from 40 to 90 seats, all confused engine (jet or turboprop).

With 221 orders and commitments announced in Dubai for $ 20.5 billion, Airbus also exceeded by mid-November 2011 its goal of 1,500 gross orders. "Our NEO A 320 was again the star of the show," welcomed John Leahy, Airbus chief executive, in charge of clients. Remotorisée version of best-selling Airbus to come into service in 2015, was commissioned to 130 copies in Dubai bringing its backlog to 1420 NEO.

The President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, on the road to Bordeaux, reaffirmed his loyalty to the social spirit of the National Council of Resistance and ran to secure a social model to which the French are "deeply attached". "The honor of France is to have built a democratic and social Republic on the ruins of World War II," he said. And specify that it "does not have it said that the legacy of the National Council of Resistance has been betrayed," but felt that these critics are the ones "who have protected the French credit by mortgaging the future of their children and grandchildren without telling them. " He explained that he wanted to open a debate "calm" on the financing of social protection, as it takes "to reform permanently" the system to "adapt" because "the status quo is a danger guaranteed online payday loans."

Rights and duties

"We can not, we can not afford to get into a spending strategy. The real answer requires a transformation of social policy, "said Nicolas Sarkozy. He wants to rights of insured persons are duties. He confirmed that the beneficiaries of the RSA (RSA) should now work seven hours to the community, as announced by the Minister of Solidarity and social cohesion Roselyne Bachelot, September 22. "It should not be a system but a worthy charity," he added.

He announced the creation of a High Council of the financing of social protection "will have to work before the end of the year," to think about solutions. "A third of our GDP is devoted to social protection.

The summit between China and Europe is postponed

The annual summit between China and the European Union, to be held Tuesday in Tianjin (northeast China), will probably be postponed to a later date, according to European sources consistent.

The inability of Europeans to agree on remedies to the crisis of sovereign debt and the prospect of an additional emergency summit in Brussels next week will prohibit the EU President Herman Van Rompuy to honor its meeting with President Hu Jintao and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the BBC a European official.

The involvement of China and its financial resources in a regulation of the European crisis was one of the issues implicit go to Tianjin.Was the first time that the three European leaders, Herman Van Rompuy, and José Manuel Barroso and Ashton had to go all in China.

The last EU-China Summit was held October 6, 2010 in a tense atmosphere in Brussels, Europe has called on China to let its currency appreciate more and make progress on human rights two days before the announcement of the Nobel Peace jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

Unemployment: The ILO points to a "traumatized generation"

Getting started in the world of work is ever more difficult task. To put it mildly. In its latest report on youth unemployment, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) provides an alarming. The generation of a "traumatized" by the tightness of the labor market.

At the height of the economic crisis between 2008 and 2009, the number of unemployed youth had increased in an unprecedented way: 4.5 million additional young people came to swell the numbers of job seekers, when the average change is usually the order of 100,000 people a year. Since then, youth unemployment has dropped. In 2010, he touched 75.1 million people, or an unemployment rate of 12.7%. In 2011, this trend will continue according to the ILO, and the number of unemployed youth as low as 74.6 million people, 12.6%.

But this is good news in appearance, the organization warns. These good figures actually underestimate the extent of a growing number of unemployed youth withdrawing from the labor market, discouraged. The rate of young workers fell from 49.4% in 2009 to 48.8% in 2010. In Ireland, the same phenomenon would reach dramatic proportions. By including the discouraged unemployed, the rate of youth unemployment, which rises already at 27.5% (against 9% in 2007), culminate in fact almost 47% payday loans with no fax. Similarly in China, Austria and Hong Kong, the real unemployment rate is double the official figure.

"More difficult years"

As for those who manage to integrate the labor market, what they find is often "less than ideal."Part-time, for example, rose sharply, by nearly 9 percentage points in Spain, 17 points in Ireland … "The magnitude of the peak recorded since the beginning of the economic crisis suggests that many young people have taken what they could find. This is confirmed by the increase in the rate of underemployment among young people, "the report said.

And the future painted by the ILO is not much brighter. "Uncertainty in the economic environment, coupled with the greater sensitivity of youth unemployment in the economy makes the recovery in employment for this category highly uncertain. This can announce several more difficult years, "says the ILO. The organization also warns governments continuing economic difficulties could generate a distrust of young people towards political and economic systems."This factor played an undeniable role in the Arab Spring," says the ILO.

ALSO READ:

"The exodus discreet and inexorable Greek youth

Trichet in favor of a revision of the treaties

As his term ends at the head of the European Central Bank (ECB) October 31, it is not a Jean-Claude Trichet to lecture who spoke Sunday at the Grand Rendez-Vous on Europe 1 / Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui en France / i> Télé, to discuss the crisis at the moment Europe.

With his experience of eight years at the head of the institution, who was also governor of the Banque de France, has recommended that Europeans hear the messages addressed to them. His advice? First, be "extra vigilant" with regard to public finances. Rejecting the idea that the euro area and its currency are "threatened" by the crisis, it nevertheless stated that "all countries without exception must be extremely careful." "Protect yourself rather than cure," he summarized, adding that "it depends on us that we can have the least slower growth."

Then you have to "think about the future," stressed the President of the ECB. "Tomorrow, I think we need to change the treaty to be able to prevent a member of the euro area to roam and create problems for everyone else," he said, referring to the Greek crisis that Europe in a hard to control cashadvance. He called for a reform that would make the European Council "able to impose decisions" in a country slide, with "possible sanctions".

It includes some of the "outraged"

"We must strengthen the management and governance of globalization in all fields," he also said in reacting to the movement of indignation that spreads in several major cities."There are obviously a number of lessons from the crisis that the lessons are harsh: it is not possible to leave a financial system and consequently a global economic system that is as fragile." This does not mean "demolish" the banks, he insisted, recalling that "pay three-quarters of the economy."

That he referred to as de-globalization theme is in vogue right now, as advocated by the Socialist-Arnaud Montebourg, and one can imagine Jean-Claude Trichet tense in his chair … and find that it is a call to strengthening of global economic governance.