https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/rss en-us AT SXSW, a techie festival that took place in Texas earlier this month, some lucky attenders were able briefly to immerse themselves in HBO's fantasy television series, "Game of Thrones". By donning virtual-reality goggles made by Oculus VR,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1336 Wed, 23 Apr 2014 11:37:35 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1336-facebook-and-virtual-reality-a-game-of-goggles VR Goggles The effect of today's technology on tomorrow's jobs will be immense-and no country is ready for it. INNOVATION, the elixir of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution artisan weavers were swept aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has displaced many of the mid-skill jobs that underpinned 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were. For those,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1185 Thu, 27 Feb 2014 11:16:49 -0500 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1185-coming-to-an-office-near-you Workplace Twister IT IS a brutal management technique in which bosses grade their employees' performance along a "vitality curve" and sack those who fall into the lowest category. Known as "ranking and yanking", it had its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s. In America its popularity faded somewhat after it was seen to have contributed to the fall of Enron. Now it is back in the headlines... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1076 Tue, 03 Dec 2013 14:24:37 -0500 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/1076-motivating-workers-ranked-and-yanked Marissa Mayer Rising disability claims may explain America's shrinking labour force. IN THE early 1980s the distressing persistence of high unemployment in Europe was labelled "Eurosclerosis". Some now wonder whether "Amerisclerosis" is the right word to describe America's labour market. It is true that unemployment has slowly dropped from a peak of 10% in late 2009, to 7.3% at present. But this decline overstates the health of the jobs market. The labour-force participation rate, the share of the working-age population either working or looking for work, has... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/972 Fri, 11 Oct 2013 05:03:52 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/972-the-missing-workforce-millions The world's leading investment bank puts itself under the spotlight. RUMOURS of a cash crunch and hidden losses on derivatives start flying. Markets turn jittery. Stocks fall and counterparties begin to pull in credit lines. One of the world's largest financial firms is on the brink of collapse, threatening to plunge the world into yet another crisis. In a boardroom high above New York the firm's senior executives meet representatives of Goldman Sachs and ask for... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/971 Fri, 11 Oct 2013 05:02:53 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/971-goldman-sachs-reform-school-for-bankers BERTRAND RUSSELL, the English philosopher, was not a fan of work. In his 1932 essay, "In Praise of Idleness", he reckoned that if society were better managed the average person would only need to work four hours a day. Such a small working day would "entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life." The rest of the day could be devoted to the pursuit of science, painting and writing. Russell thought that technological advancement could free people from toil. John Maynard Keynes mooted a similar idea... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/970 Fri, 11 Oct 2013 05:01:41 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/970-your-working-hours-get-a-life SHORTLY after the Federal Reserve hinted in May that it might start to ease up on its monetary stimulus, rich-country bond yields shot up; emerging-market currencies and stock markets cratered. Was it all for nothing? On September 18th, at the end of a closely-watched meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policy-setting body, chose not to "taper". Instead, it said it would keep buying $85 billion a month of Treasury and mortgage bonds with newly-created money (the policy of "quantitative easing", or QE). Although the Fed had never actually promised to act in September... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/927 Tue, 24 Sep 2013 07:31:36 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/927-the-federal-reserve-taper-tiger Ben Bernanke "I'VE only got one IT guy," says Segun Akintemi, the chief executive of Renaissance Credit, a Nigerian moneylender that opened for business in October 2012 and signed up about 3,000 customers in its first six months. "Whenever I walk past his desk he is surfing the web." That the firm has just one bored computer specialist is not a sign of backwardness. On the contrary,... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/807 Mon, 05 Aug 2013 05:19:44 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/807-the-it-cloud-silver-linings "It could have been worse" was the common refrain as American banks began reporting their second-quarter earnings. Indeed, the striking characteristic of the returns was their consistency. Big and small, local and national, lenders across the country have been benefiting from some common tailwinds. Legal settlements are becoming sparser; the economy is expanding, albeit feebly, and the housing market is recovering; auditors are... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/806 Mon, 05 Aug 2013 05:18:33 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/806-us-banks-the-triumph-of-low-expectations Slow Economic Growth IN SOME countries the need to grease the palms of officialdom remains a depressing fact of life. That, at least, is the finding of a new survey by Transparency International, a Berlin-based campaigning group. Over one in four people said they had paid a bribe in the past year for public services relating to tax, health, police, land and others. Bribery is most widespread in... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/805 Mon, 05 Aug 2013 05:17:34 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/805-sticky-fingers-who-s-bribing-who Visitors to America this summer will find their money does not stretch quite as far as on previous trips. The dollar has risen this year against a broad range of currencies, so holiday purchases will be a bit pricier than usual. A strengthening dollar is a rare thing. The upward bursts in the early 1980s and the late 1990s were deviations from a generally falling trend. Since it was freed from the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates four decades ago... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/804 Mon, 05 Aug 2013 05:16:51 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/804-the-rising-dollar-green-and-back American Flag THE solitary, lumbering trolls of Scandinavian mythology would sometimes be turned to stone by exposure to sunlight. Barack Obama is hoping that several measures announced on June 4th will have a similarly paralyzing effect on their modern incarnation, the patent troll. According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/694 Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:40:04 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/694-obama-goes-patent-troll-hunting Troll FOR translating a 22ï؟½minute video from English into Spanish at short notice, 7Brands Global Content, a professionalï؟½translation firm based in New York, quoted "approximately $1,500". This fee seems in line with the local going rate for the job from a firm which boasts membership of three professional associations and clients such as Chase and Bank of America. Not so long ago, paying the local rate was the only option. Today anyone seeking to get this sort of job done is only a click away from... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/693 Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:38:56 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/693-your-workforce-in-the-cloud FINANCE is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close. This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms. Those that want to borrow are matched with those that want to lend. Banks and credit-card firms are kept out of the picture. Talk to enough people in the field and someone is bound to mention the "democratization of finance". But as the industry matures, it is... http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/692 Wed, 12 Jun 2013 04:36:32 -0400 https://www.businesswatchnetwork.com/articles/692-end-of-the-peer-to-peer-lending-show