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The management team at Simply Business, one of UK’s largest business insurance providers, has completed a management buyout. The deal was achieved with support from funds advised by AnaCap Financial Partners, (“AnaCap”), the specialist European financial services private equity firm.
Established in 2005 by parent company Xbridge, Simply Business was amongst the first online brokers within the commercial insurance market. Using technology to simplify the process of buying small business insurance, the company has achieved rapid growth from revenues of £4.2 million in 2006 to £22.9 million in 2012. The business now insures more than 225,000 small businesses across the UK.
Simply Business is focused on growth in the extensive small business market, made up of around 4.8 million companies across the UK and worth around £3 billion gross written premium per year. The online market in particular is set to grow by more than 25 per cent annually as customers increasingly switch to the online purchase of insurance products.
Simply Business is led by CEO Jason Stockwood, who joined the business in 2010, and has a successful background in e-commerce management having held senior positions at Travelocity, Lastminute.com and Match.com. AnaCap’s Peter Cartwright and Ben Hollowood will also join the Board of Directors.
Jason Stockwood, CEO of Simply Business, said:
“We have laid down the gauntlet to the commercial insurance industry in recent years, combining home-grown infrastructure and innovative products to place the customer at the heart of the business. The management buyout enables us to build on this success, accelerating our growth aspirations and vision for the future, while continuing to innovate and challenge the traditional industry model.”
Peter Cartwright, Co-Managing Partner of AnaCap, commented:
“This is a rare opportunity to support the management buyout of a clear market leader in a fast-growing niche of the insurance industry. The management and staff have done an outstanding job of growing Simply Business over the past eight years and we look forward to working with Jason and his team to meet and exceed their ambitious plans for the future.”
For more information please contact:
Anna King/Ben Jenkins
020 7009 3123
About Simply Business
Launched in 2005, Simply Business provides an online brokerage service, delivering policies tailored to individual business requirements. Using the power of tech and data to create the best possible customer experiences, Simply Business employs over 600 people across offices in London, Northampton, and Boston in the US.
Owing to its internal underwriting capability, Simply Business can cover over 1,000 trade types – ranging from plumbers to accountants to dog walkers. An accredited B Corp for their positive social impact, Simply Business has also been voted the Sunday Times Best Company To Work For twice in a row.


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Parksons Packaging has signed up with Komori’s flagship product GX 740+C – a 7-color plus coater. The 18,000 sph press will come with full options of color management and color inspection and state-of-theart Komori technologies, which will raise the bar on productivity and high precision quality control inspection system inline.
Sangam Khanna, president and managing director of Insight Communications and Print Solutions said, “Komori is very happy with opening a new leaf with Parksons Packaging and this is our second order from Parksons and Insight and Komori will depute extra efforts in packaging support to meet the growing demands of the customer’s customer.”
Toshiyasu Kubotera, general manager for exports in the Asian, Oceania and Latin American countries at Komori added, “We are ever eager to listen to our customers. The Indian customers are really well-informed and need more technology as we feel packaging
is here to stay and has good growth prospects in India (approximately 8% per annum) and packaging companies need to address the ever growing and high demand of customers and keep investing in newer technologies.” Komori plans to build strong technical assistance in the field of packaging in India and is committed to doing so from this financial year.
Komori director Masaru Tsukamoto also emphasized that Komori maintains a strong focus on the Indian market and hopes to start sending highly skilled staff from Japan every alternate month for better customer support. “Komori has the world’s best graphic centre
with eight machines lined up in Japan and offers courses in printing. So far many of our customers have benefited from this in terms of their productivity and quality in India and
around the world. We welcome our customers to use these facilities to enhance their quality, productivity and skill levels,” he concluded.

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India to resume poultry meat exports to the EU
The European Union (EU) has lifted a five-year ban on the import of poultry meat from India, although conditions will apply.
Meat products, including bladders and intestines prepared from fresh meat of domestic poultry, including meat of farmed and wild game birds, which are to exported must carry a health certificate issued by the Export Inspection Council of India. There will be a four month transition period for consignments with existing health certificates, provided this is signed before July 30.
"It's very good news for the Indian poultry sector, as opening exports to the EU will boost overall sentiment. But it will be interesting to see whether any relaxation is made in the quality specifications to commence exports," said Mohan V K, general manager (sales and marketing), Suguna Foods.
A ban was imposed on India poultry meat imports to the EU following a bird flu outbreak in India five years ago. Fears of contaminated products entering the market have subsided, after India culled millions of chickens in the wake of the outbreak.
Currently, India exports various poultry products, including eggs and processed meat, worth Rs 500 crore a year. Of this, the EU accounts for 20-25%.
"Given the quality specifications are very stringent, very few companies will qualify for the export norms set up by the EU. Hence, even if the EU market is opened, the Indian poultry sector won't be able to gain much. But opening the EU market will boost the overall sentiment for exports to other countries as well," said Mohan.
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The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is charging three former executives of Torex Retail Plc with fraud offences. The company came to the attention of investigators four years ago after a trading update in 2007 which claimed all was well was quickly followed by a profit warning. The SFO raided several properties as a result, and the …
Am I the only one who initially read that headline as 'Fraud charges for 3 former Tory execs'?
- NASA boffin: RIDDLE of unusual BULGE FOUND ON MOON is SOLVED
- Apple winks at parents: C'mon, get your kid a tweaked Macbook Pro
- SOULLESS machine-intelligence ROBOT cars to hit Blighty in 2015
- BuzzGasm! Thirteen Astonishing True Facts You Never Knew About SCREWS
- China in MONOPOLY PROBE into Microsoft: Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 yuan


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Last weekend (23-24 Oct 2021) saw the first ever National Snow Show at the NEC, Birmingham, with exactly 9,273 visitors and 150 exhibitors attending the two-day exhibition.
Organisers have dubbed the event a ‘phenomenal success’ despite the hugely challenging circumstances for the entire industry.
After 16 months of planning the event kicked off with snowsports legends Chemmy Alcott, Billy Morgan, Jamie Nicholls and host Scott Penman meeting visitors and handing out goodies to over 500 visitors who were waiting for the doors to open, before cutting the ribbon and declaring the show open. The event quickly filled, and the visitor numbers were steady throughout the event.
Stephen Morgan, MD at Raccoon Events Active Division, the organiser of the event, commented:
“We knew the event would be good but we were blown away by the reaction from both the industry and the visitors. It was a hard 16-month slog to get the show to where it was, in hugely challenging circumstances, no one knowing what the state of the travel industry would be in 21/22 and following on from the toughest year the industry has faced in a very long time. The support of key organisations, the faith our early adopter brands showed and the appetite from the public to attend a snow show meant we were able to deliver a very successful event. We have huge plans for the Show with 2022 already shaping up to be double the size. We have already signed more brands than we had at this year’s event and have some incredible speakers booked up.”
The show, the first in the UK since the last London Battersea Park show in autumn 2019, hosted beginners ski and snowboard lessons on the SnowDome dry slope, saw some incredible demonstrations and lessons on the Skate Mini Ramp from Graystone Action Sports, tested people’s endurance and strength in the RAF Nordic Biathlon experience, and pitted friend against friend on the Palm Culture Balance Board feature.
“We have received a lot of feedback from the event and we are taking it all on board, we are planning to have more brands, more space, more have-a-go experiences and more destinations with the latest kit available to buy with a healthy mix of consumer focused content and trade opportunities on board for 2022,” Stephen concluded.
(Pictured top: L-R Billy Morgan, Stephen Morgan, Chemmy Alcott, Jamie Nicholls and Scott Penman)


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This Friday, March 1, 2019, is Chef Art Smith’s birthday!
And there’s a celebration taking place at Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ in Disney Springs for the occasion!
According to @HomecominFL on Twitter, guests who purchase an entrée this Friday will receive a free single-layered slice of Hummingbird Cake!
We wish you a VERY Happy Birthday, Chef!
Find out what we think you can’t miss at Homecomin’ in our DFB YouTube Video!


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Dell’s not wasting any time this year when it comes to Black Friday shopping. Though its ad for the major shopping holiday was just released today, there are already deals live right now to browse and even more to prepare to snag in the next few weeks as the big day approaches.
Deals worth considering
Desktop computers, laptops, essential office accessories, home theater equipment, and more are all going on sale during Dell’s Black Friday sale, with select discounts available right now! That makes Dell one of the first to get in on the Black Friday festivities this year, though that doesn’t mean it will have the best deals. Below we shout out a few of our favorite deals in its ad this year to keep in mind while you’re shopping this month.
Dell G5 Gaming Desktop
One of the year’s best budget desktops is becoming even more affordable come Thanksgiving Day! This doorbuster goes live at 10PM ET on 11/28, bringing its regular cost of $630 down to just $499.99 while supplies last.
Bose SoundTouch 10 Wireless Music System
This tiny wireless speaker is receiving a 50% discount at Dell starting November 24! That takes its price down to just $99. It can instantly access your music library via various streaming services thanks to its built-in Wi-Fi functionality, and it also has Amazon Alexa integration for voice control.
New Alienware Aurora Pro Gaming Desktop
Featuring a 9th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 9700K processor with 16GB memory, a 512GB SSD, NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2070 8GB graphics and Alienware’s High-Performance Liquid Cooling, this is one of the most powerful computers you’ll find on sale during Dell’s Black Friday sale. It drops to $1,699.99 from a regular price of $2,079.99 starting 9AM ET on Black Friday, 11/29 while supplies last.
Other deals to keep an eye on:
- Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K – $24.99 (was $49.99)
- LG 65″ 4K Smart HDR Ultra HDTV + $50 Dell eGift Card – $479 (was $649)
- Inspiron 14 3000 Laptop – $129.99 (was $249.99)
Deals worth ignoring
Dell’s Black Friday ad is full of great deals, but there are always a few at every store that aren’t as great as they seem. Some we may see near the advertised price weeks before Black Friday begins. Other times. you can find better deals at other retailers on the same day, so you should always keep your eyes open for what might be an even better discount.
- Dell 24 Gaming Monitor (S2419HGF) for $99.99
- Dell Thunderbolt Dock TB16 with 180W Adapter for $145.99
- Ultimate Ears MEGABOOM Bluetooth Speaker for $99.99
Get the latest Black Friday deals delivered straight to your inbox!
Though Dell’s Black Friday deals officially begin today, most of the best offers are being held back until Thanksgiving Day or Black Friday. Doorbusters start at 10AM ET on Thanksgiving Day and continue on throughout the day, while the Black Friday doorbusters begin at 8AM on 11/29. Stay tuned for even more Dell news, including all the info you’ll need regarding its upcoming Cyber Monday sale.
Are you ready to conquer Black Friday and Cyber Monday yet? If not, don’t worry. We will help you out every step of the way. Be sure to sign up for our Black Friday newsletter, and keep your eye here for more ads and leaks as they are made available.


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Organisers of Ludlow Food Festival, at the castle from September 10-12 are promising more than 180 different food and drink producers, top chefs and food experts... and they are making the Fire Stage bigger than ever.
The Fire Stage, this year taking over the whole of the Inner Bailey, will be bigger than ever with plenty of space for those live demonstrations.
There will also be two pop-up feasts: one by Marcus Bean of Brompton Cookery School, and another by the Fire Stage chefs who will come together to cook collaboratively and deliver a delicious feast. The Fire Stage area will open later meaning revellers can enjoy a relaxed vibe with music by a DJ, relaxing by the Kadai firebowls.
Mixing the best names in the business with a wide range of top-quality food and drink producers from across the Welsh Marches is what the organisers say they do best.
Among the stars due at Ludlow Food Festival this year will be the award-winning duo behind Honey & Co, Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer.
And this year popular local chefs Andy Link, from the Riverside at Aymestry, and Mark Harris, from the Pheasant at Neenton, will be joining the throng.
This year’s festival is being held in partnership with Wardington’s Original Ludlow Gin. The UK’s first food festival, Ludlow Food Festival was established back in 1995.
And this year festival-goers have even more to sink their teeth into with a pop-up cookery school, food photography courses, wine and gin-tasting workshops.
There will as usual be plenty to chew on with bakers, chocolatiers, freshly churned ice cream, locally produced charcuterie, artisan cheeses, herbs and honey, through to unusual wines, crafted ciders and beers and more in between.
Hannah James, events manager for Ludlow Food Festival, said: “It’s great to be back in action, in the grounds of Ludlow Castle, where we have been for almost all of the festival’s history except when we moved online last year – a global pandemic has been the only thing to bring the food festival to a halt since it began.
“Visitors can be confident that we’re making our event Covid safe, in line with government regulations and in places going beyond what is required. We are looking forward to bringing visitors our usual mix of culinary excellence, with top names in the business, and the best of independent food producers. We cater to every taste and interest with a wealth of talks and demos for a perfect fun-filled adventure all centred around food.”
Ludlow Food Festival is open on Friday September 10, from 10am-5pm, Saturday 11, from 10am-6:30pm, and Sunday 12, from 10am-5pm.
One-day tickets only are priced at £12 for adults, children aged five-13, £4 and under fives are free.


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The Swiss Wrestling and Alpine Festival (ESAF) is set to take place in Pratteln in the canton of Basel-Landschaft from August 26 to 28. A crowd of 400,000 spectators is expected to descend on the area across the three days, making this the largest sporting event in Switzerland. Since 2009, Sallmann AG, the owner of the brand name ISA bodywear, has released its Wrestler collection of underwear in the run-up to the Schwingfest, as the ESAF is colloquially known in Switzerland. "Schwingen" is a special Swiss type of wrestling. The imagery and patterns used on the underwear correspond to the occasion: Alpine treks, prized bull studs and the famed alpine flora edelweiss.
The family business based in Amriswil in the canton of Thurgau was asked whether it wanted to become what is known as a “King’s partner” for Schwingfest 2009. This is the second-highest tier of ESAF partner. Andreas Sallmann, who was CEO of Sallmann at this time and is now Honorary President of the Swiss Textiles industry association, indicated the he would be keen to accept this invitation. In return for sponsorship, the company set up a stand at the Schwingfest to showcase its first Wrestler collection.
Current CEO Christian Sallmann remains firmly behind his father’s decision. “The Schwingfest corresponds with the values of our company”, he states. The fabric used in the underwear collection is produced and printed in Switzerland. Items from the collection can already be bought via the online shop, while the company will again be running a stand at the event in Pratteln this year.


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Men and women concerned about the signs and symptoms of breast cancer can now head down to the shops to get checked out.
Superdrug has become the first high street retailer in the UK to offer breast examinations to customers.
The chain has teamed up with charity CoppaFeel! to put on appointments with trained nurses who will explain how to check breasts and give advice and tips.
No touch sessions are now available at 56 locations across the UK, including at stores a short distance from Hull.
The important new scheme has been backed by Love Island star Olivia Buckland, who wanted to lead the campaign after finding a lump herself.
She said: "After finding a lump in my own breast in the past and having it removed, the chance to work with CoppaFeel! & Superdrug really resonated with me.
"It's amazing that Superdrug is now offering this service on the high street with their friendly, trained nurses, making it accessible for everyone to have a breast or pec checking conversation. I want to work to normalise these checking conversations for everyone, and this launch is a big step closer to doing so."
Superdrug stores in York, Leeds, Sheffield and Doncaster are all offering the new appointments which aim to get reassurance for anyone concerned.
Research conducted by Superdrug found a staggering 82 per cent of women and 63 per cent of men feel uncomfortable discussing changes in their breasts.
Caris Newson, head of healthcare services at the retailer, said: "We are absolutely delighted to be supporting CoppaFeel! in helping people understand how to check their breasts or pecs through offering this additional consultation within our Superdrug nursing clinic appointments.
"At Superdrug we know how important it is to increase the level of conversation about breast checking and equip people with the skills and confidence to regularly check their breasts.
"Our trained nurses will be able to talk all patients through how they can carry out a self checking examination and offer them information and leaflets on regular checking. We hope this will be the start of more conversations and more checks around the UK."
Superdrug hopes to run at least 100,000 consultations in the first year.
Sophie Dopierala, director of Education and Health Comms at CoppaFeel! said: "Our annual research shows for most women who aren't checking their breasts, knowledge on what to look for remains the main barrier.
"We are delighted to announce our partnership with Superdrug. Using their trained nurses to encourage people on how to check their boobs or pecs will ensure we are reaching a whole new audience with the breast awareness message."
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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is far more trouble than it’s worth. On the one hand, I can understand the entertainment industry’s desire to preserve its business model. It would be foolish to expect otherwise, but the subsequent costs to society are dire. The unintended consequences of this act are the lawsuits that threaten to turn copyright into monopoly and the infringement of personal and community rights especially fair use and free speech.
Eric Corley has been sued for posting software, but disturbingly for linking to other websites and posting source code. The former is a weakening of fair use and the latter is basically a dangerous weakening of the First Amendment. It should be legal for licensed owners of copyrighted material to be able to backup this material, esp. if its of high value. PlayStation games are a great example. Getting a $1.00 DVD-R scratched up is far less costly than a $40 game disc. But this is almost a non-issue standing against the infringement of speech. And this is affecting our educators, who are barred from teaching certain topics because of the issues with copyright law, e.g. studying how DeCSS works. The consequences of this are quite troubling. Once industry can impose its will on academia on what can and cannot be taught, we are in serious trouble.
At the same time, there seems to be no way out but for the gradual extinction of movie studios and recording companies as we know them. They provide an information good (music, movies, software) in an era where information is nearly costless to copy and distribute. This has been their bread and butter for decades. Yet information in a free society wants to be free, as hackers readily attest. And on a more cynical note, consumers don’t want to pay for information, at least as much as they have been in the past. Witness the MP3 music industry revolution. Apple et al. has shown that the light at the end of the tunnel is to allow fair use and reasonable profits (economic rents) for the industry. Sadly, this hasn’t translated to other industries such as movies.
Even worse for business are the unrelated litigation resulting from the DMCA. I don’t think lawmakers even intended the law to help printer manufacturers to create a supply monopoly for their printers, for example. As a result, some have seen the light.
Basically it all adds up to more trouble than the law is worth. Congress should make an effort to understand better what it regulates before writing such sweeping legislation that has such far reaching negative effects.


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DETROIT (WXYZ) - Honda has made their splash at the North American International Auto Show by unveiling their Urban SUV Concept.
The company says the vehicle shows where they are moving and points towards the styling direction of a small SUV that will launch in Japan later this year. The still unnamed vehicle will hit the US market in 2014.
Honda says the new vehicle will be priced below the CR-V when it hits the market.
It will also feature the Fuel Efficient Earth Dreams Technology. Earth Dreams is Honda's latest generation of engines that are designed to have high output and high fuel efficiency.
The Urban SUV represents an expansion of Honda's Global Compact Series, a line of vehicles that includes the Honda Fit subcompact.


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On July 1st, 2021, new EU trade regulations completely changed how exporting goods from the UK to the EU works. New requirements impact sellers in both the EU and the United Kingdom.
Any change to trade regulations anywhere in the world brings with itself some sort of a mess. A great example of that is the massive disruption in trade that happened after Brexit. Although everyone knew it was happening on January 1st, 2021, most people and businesses were not ready for this. This is best illustrated by the huge number of people who experienced issues with both shipping and taxes once the UK had officially left the European Union.
Looking at the movement of goods between the EU and UK, you can see countless stories of people who discovered that they needed to pay extra for their parcels once the goods were delivered. Or you can read about cases where companies were not ready for new customs checks and regulations. This unpreparedness resulted in delays and confusion for everyone involved.
The new regulations are here. Customs will enforce them. And if you don’t comply, you will not be able to do successful business in the EU.
What will change for companies in the UK?
Up until now, most of the consumer goods imported into the EU have not been declared in customs.
Most of them fell under the Low-Value Item Exemption. This exemption is abolished. Meaning that all goods entering the EU must now be declared in customs and VAT needs to be paid for them by the seller. One must collect VAT on all goods they are selling to the EU at the point of sale. What’s more, the VAT rate is dependent on the country of destination. Sellers must therefore be able to determine the VAT rates of specific goods for all of the EU countries they want to deliver to.
To declare VAT and other duties, the EU is introducing the Import One Stop Shop (IOSS). IOSS allows businesses to collect, declare, and pay VAT on low-valued consignments (up to 150 euros in value) in one EU member state. This system replaces the current obligation to register in every country where one is selling goods in the EU.
What happens if I don’t comply with the new regulations?
It is safe to say that the EU will start enforcing these rules very quickly. Sellers who hope to get past them will discover that their goods get stuck in customs. And their customers will be unhappy.
Eurora Intelligent Cross Border Compliance Platform can handle all of these issues. Eurora is a cross-border compliance platform that was developed with just that goal. To fully automate all aspects of cross-border trade and to make shipping goods to any part of the world as easy as possible. Eurora’s fully automated and science-backed AI-based solutions allow companies to save time and resources while handling large amounts of data near-instantly and precisely.
For non-EU sellers, Eurora can also be the fiscal representative in the EU who manages and handles taxes and duties under the IOSS scheme. We are one of the first companies in the world to offer this service.
If a company also uses other Eurora services like the Duty & Tax Calculation or HS Code Allocation, our system can easily put together the VAT data needed for the IOSS. And also put together electronic declarations and deliver them to customs automatically.
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you wish to learn more about how to keep selling goods to the EU.


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$21million of funding for food to boost brainpower
AgResearch scientists are leading new research that could revolutionise New Zealand foods with new ways of boosting flavour and texture, and products designed to make our brains perform better.
Supported by industry and research partners, AgResearch is looking to the future for premium food exports with programmes that have recently been awarded more than $21 million by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Endeavour Fund.
Joining us to talk about the new funding and focus for the cutting edge research is the CEO for AgResearch, Tom Richardson.
Win a Supreme Car Groom thanks to Top Notch Grooming
RadioLIVE and Top Notch Grooming are giving one lucky winner the chance to win a full car supreme groom every fortnight.


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Sony's Xperia Z2 smartphone is excellent, says John McCann on Techradar.com. It does everything you'd expect from a high-end device and provides a pleasing user experience. "A great all-rounder."Price: £599. Contact: www.sonymobile.com.
Can you build a smartphone small without hopelessly compromising what it can do? The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact at last has proved that the answer is yes, says Stuff magazine.Price: £450. Contact: www.sonymobile.com.
Survive a financial nuclear winter
The “cockroach portfolio” is as hardy as the indestructible insect it is named after, says Dominic Frisby
By Dominic Frisby Published
NatWest-owned Ulster bank boosts easy access savings rate to 5.2%
Rates on easy access savings accounts have hit over 5%, with Ulster Bank now giving savers the chance to earn 5.2% on their cash savings. We have all the details.
By Marc Shoffman Published


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Hello, Forex traders! Hope you had a fantastic and very beneficial for your budget week! And we hope even more for the next one to be even more successful. To secure your current trading strategy, don’t forget to update yourself with the latest events and happenings on the financial market. So, please, let aside your broker webpage for a while and read our pack of latest and hottest Forex news- 23rd to 29th March 2015! Let`s get started!
The Budget Deficit in Spain Has Reached Shocking Numbers For 2014
A recent report for the previous 2014 has released some shocking news and number for the economy in Spain. It turned out that the budget deficit in the sunny country reached 5.7% from the Domestic Gross Product overall amount. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in Spain additionally puts some pressure on this number. Moreover – Spanish experts in the field believe that the Spanish unemployment rate in Spain will rise even more and will exceed to 22%. Though, still, European Union is entirely convinced that Spain does obey its economy obligations to EU and up to now there will be no significant collapses for it due to Spanish economy bad news. We also remind you that recently Spain was obliged to return a significant part of its taxes budgets back – about 1.7 billions of USD due to a court finding.
The Economy in USA Has Expanded During 2014
Another report for the previous 2014 year has made us inform you about a significant fact that refers to foreign currencies and Forex market, too. Recently, USA has released its report for the overall economy overview during 2014. The results are quite positive for the States. It is clear that the economy in USA has expended and probably all of us have expected this, but the number of this expansion is definitely impressive – with about 2.4%. Moreover, according to the same report, the corporative profits in USA also signs progress, because such profits actually appear for the first time after 2008 year. This is definitely the huger and the fastest expansion for the economy in USA since 2010 and the prediction for the current 2015 are more than just positive. Last, but not least, bear in mind that the companies in USA also sign some good profits, because they have even increased their reserves with about 80 billions of USD.
Switzerland Faces Harsh Times
After the collapse that Swiss Central Bank has caused to the entire world – especially for Forex world – with its unexpected and sudden action with the increasing of Swiss Franc value, probably it is time for some justice, because the latest economy and financial news for the company are not positive at all. Switzerland is facing harsh times and a slow period of deflation has taken place during the previous week. On the other side, the experts from Swiss National Bank go on warning the entire world that the negative effect on the economy activity in the country made by the stronger Swiss Franc will continue. The deflation is of course caused by the sudden move of EUR in January. The index of the consumer prices will also fall into a very deep negative territory. This will additionally take the Swiss economy away from any significant growth or progress.
Japan Has Reached Zero Inflation Again
As to the inflation in Japan, there is nothing so much to worry about – or at least the Japanese financial and economy experts claim so. The Japanese inflation has reached zero level and this result does not account the effect by the increasing of the national tax for the sales during last April. The drop of petrol price, meanwhile, complexes the Japanese task to achieve its inflation goals. Still, though, the inflation in Japan remains 2% for February, which is 0.2% lower than the inflation index in January. We remind you that in the middle of March the President of the Japanese Central Bank warned that the inflation may become negative due to the dropping prices of the petrol and back in those days the Central Bank wanted to achieve at least 2% for its inflation till spring.
The Actual Salaries in Germany With Huger Than The Expected Rise
One of the main goals for the German government in 2014 was the increase of the salaries. The goal is achieved, but it even left behind the expected numbers. The actual salaries for 2014 year reached higher sums that the predictions mentioned. It turned out that the rise is about 1.7%, which is not higher than the predicted sums only, but even higher than the largest increases during the last few years or since 2008.
Ok, guys, these were all of the most important and interesting Forex news for the previous week! See you here soon once again!


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Infertility is a systemic health issue that many couples do not understand and have a hard time talking about. When a woman is ready to conceive, her heart is passionately involved because she has committed all her love to courageously bringing new life into the world. When she struggles to conceive, she feels inadequate.
A woman’s ability to conceive relies on a well-functioning endocrine system that naturally regulates a delicate balance of hormones within the body. With so many industrial toxins and endocrine disrupting chemicals warring against her natural chemistry inside, hormone levels can be disrupted, suppressed, or artificially increased, sending conflicting messages and changing how the glands function altogether.
Since 23 states have now legalized marijuana for medical use, and since numerous studies have confirmed its value as medicine and have proven that it is safe, it seemed the logical next step to begin relaxing the laws at the federal level.
An Ohio Amish girl diagnosed with leukemia who had fled the U.S. with her family to avoid chemotherapy has been cured after being treated with natural remedies in Central America, according to her grandfather. Doctors fought the family’s decision to end chemotherapy, saying Sarah Hershberger would die without it within six months.
Issac Keim told the Akron Beacon Journal that his granddaughter Sarah recently celebrated her 11th birthday and seems vibrant and healthy.
According to Mr Keim, blood and imaging tests indicated that Sarah’s cancer is gone.
Unbeknownst to the general public, billions of dollars of drug company and government grant money has flowed into finding lead compounds for new drug development over the past 50 years. Although much has been learned about the power and relative safety of natural substances in preventing and treating disease in the process, natural substances rarely if ever find the sustained capitalization necessary to make it through the additional FDA hurdles required for drug approval, which costs over 800 million dollars per drug.
Inadvertently, some of the very same companies and interests which would like for natural substances not to receive the same drug-approval status available to the synthetic ones, are funding research that prove basic vitamins, foods and spices are at least as effective, sometimes more effective, and often much safer and affordable than the drugs they are developing to replace or supplant them.
This means that tens of thousands of studies have already been performed demonstrating that natural substances may prevent and/or treat disease, at least in the test tube and animal models. GreenMedInfo.com, contains close to 20,000 of these. What is even more amazing is that these scientific results often confirm the traditional uses for these natural substances in ancient Indian medicine, Chinese medicine, and countless other folk medicine traditions around the world. This can only make their use more compelling for individuals or healthcare practitioners, as folk medicine contains many thousands of years of tried and true human experience applying these substances to diseases – often with great success.
He then took a mouse embryo in the earliest stage of development and cut it into 5 pieces. The pieces were placed into the mother mouse and 5 identical mice were born.
Prof. Yingqing Zhang noted that in the development of an embryo, that the same beginning embryonic stages occurred every time when a new organ or limb began to form. In the lower animals this beginning cell or limb bud can be excised and it will form a whole new animal.
He discovered that each of these limb or organ bud embryos contain the information to form a whole new organism. He calls these ECIWOs or Embryo Contains the Information of the Whole Organism.
His cause of death is unknown and it is unknown when or where he died. It is assumed he died in 2004 in Shandong, PRC. Upon his death, his department was shut down and his life’s works including all textbooks and over a million original case studies were destroyed.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 by FAO and WHO to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme.
And here is why I am telling you this:
“The WHO Is A Private Corporation Just Like The Federal Reserve And Receives More Than Two Thirds of Its Funding From The Pharmaceutical Industry.” – Dr. Rima Laibow
The fascist New World Order health inquisition at work!
And those elitists who run your governments, the big corporations (incl. Big Pharma), the MSM and the central banks are about to take away what is left from your freedom and they will only stop when there is NOTHING left.
Think this will not affect you? The coming greatest financial collapse in world history created by the elitists, the Greatest Depression, will affect everyone.
We and our children will live in Orwell’s ‘1984’ if we don’t stop them and even more important create alternatives that do not include them NOW.
(Read the comment from Nicola Spencer and visit http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_herbal_medicine_ban/?copy)
Patients have lost access to hundreds of herbal medicines today, after European regulations came into force.
Sales of all herbal remedies, except for a small number of popular products for ‘mild’ illness such as echinacea for colds and St John’s Wort for depression have been banned.
For the first time traditional products must be licensed or prescribed by a registered herbal practitioner.
Both herbal remedy practitioners and manufacturers fear they could be forced out of business as a result.
From April 30 many herbal products will begin to disappear from the shelves of Ireland’s 300 herbal outlets following an EU directive which will regulate medicinal herbs in the same way as pharmaceutical products.
BRUSSELS, April 29 (Xinhua) — As Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is expanding its presence in the global market, a disputed European Union (EU) herbal directive to be fully implemented on Sunday could be a stumbling block on the road.
Starting from May 1, herbal medicinal products, most of which have been sold as food supplements for decades in the EU market, will no longer be allowed unless they have obtained a medicine license, according to the EU Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive adopted in 2004.
The directive introduced a so-called simplified registration procedure with a seven-year transition period for traditional herbal medicinal products to be licensed, including Chinese and Indian traditional medicines.
However, as the transition period is to expire on Saturday, no single Chinese herbal medicinal product has been granted the license.
“For the time being, we can only stock as many herbal medicinal products from China as we can,” said Professor Lin Bin, director of a well-known TCM clinic in the Netherlands.
Croatian natural medicines producers have been anxious over the European Union directive that has just taken effect and which regulates traditional medicinal products.
2004/24/EC bans teas and other herbal remedies to be sold as medicine but rather as food or food supplements, regulated by Codex alimentarius.
The Codex has been accepted by 120 countries around the world including Croatia, and prescribes that these products must be scientifically controlled for about a decade.
Research of one such product costs around 100,000 Euros, the daily Jutarnji List writes.
These developments have made some of Croatia’s herbalists anxious as to how this could affect their livelihood.
Vedran Korounic, the president of the Croatian Society for Natural Medicine says that no country is obligated to accept everything from the Codex. If Croatia does not adopt a law banning the sale of herbs as medicines, no significant changes would take place.
On April 30, 2011, natural healing remedies made of herbs and plants are going to be banned by a directive from the European Union, leaving pharmaceutical products as the primary option for patients .
The directive, called the THMPD (Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive) seeks to not just ban the use of herbal remedies but to actually criminalize them — making the growing or keeping of herbs for use in teas just as illegal as those for less conventional use.
The use of traditional and herbal remedies has already been banned in Canada.
According to the Alliance for Natural Health, the EU, in a pact with Big Pharma, hopes to force the use of pharmaceutical products no matter whether they are truly the right choice for your situation.
On the other hand, proponents claim they are attempting to protect the naive from shoddily produced ‘snake-oil’ elixirs and medicines. They claim that herbal remedies will still be available but that they will simply be safer.
Herbal remedies are used throughout the world and have been in use since the beginning of history.
This proposed ban is seen by the ANH as a direct attack on your right to seek alternative medicine for yourself or your family, the motive being to force your money into the pockets of big pharmaceutical companies.
The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) is at the forefront of a massive effort to stop what they deem ‘this unprecedented attack’ on the rights of patients. The ANH is taking legal action against this directive, with the assistance of the European Benefyt Foundation (EBF).
Between them they have already managed to raise 90,000 pounds to fight the court case, but they’re requesting your help, too. Because, they say, if people don’t cry out in protest, it will be seen as agreement of the ban, or as lack of interest, which is why a citizens action group has been formed and has been circulating a petition to counter the THMPD Directive.
If the ban is allowed to take effect, the ANH says it will effectively eliminate access to phytotherapy, herbalism and all of the traditional plant-based remedies of Indian, Amazonian, African and Chinese cultures. In a very real sense, then, this could also be seen a a cultural attack on specific ethnic groups and ways of life.
I know it sounded like hyperbole when you were informed about the Codex Alimentarius and its goal to control the world through food and medicine. Today we are seeing this diabolical plan galloping forward to reach its goal to ban all holistic healing protocols and natural/organic food. The Codex clearly supports GMOs, antibiotic use on each and every animal (including your pets), use of hormones for animal products and toxic sprays for agriculture. It applies Napoleonic Law which makes everything illegal unless otherwise approved. That includes organic foods, herbs, and other holistic methods we use for our health and survival.
Please watch this 10″ video on the current banning of herbs in all of Europe and sign the petition. Then pass it around. Time appears to be of the essence.
Then support the ANH (Alliance for Natural Health-EU) in their legal challenge of this draconian directive.
BTW, Canada did pass its Codex bill in 2008 (C-51) which bans herbs and homeopathic remedies are being limited. People did not believe Canada would do something like this, but they did. The FDA is raiding small raw milk farms in the US at an increasing rate only to create financial hardship and force them out of business. The Codex demands that any country that signs onto the Codex force their national laws to change to comply. Codex uses the World Trade Organization model in some ways and we have been seeing the FDA, USDA and the Obama administration aggressively pushing the Codex agenda forward. It is illegal in the sense that it forces people to use toxic chemicals against their will/knowledge. It attacks our civil liberty to pursue our personal lives in peace the way we chose.
“It is the industrialization tool for the entire US food supply”
“It brings all of Codex standards and guidelines into implementation”
“This bill means that no farmer can safe seed”
“If it does pass, you and I, our children, our loved ones will suffer and we will die”
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http://www.harvest-tech.com () —
Harvest Technologies, one of North America's preeminent additive manufacturing service bureaus, is celebrating its 15th anniversary and recent expansion at a new location in the Belton Business Park. The company will be hosting an Open House & Ribbon Cutting Event on Thursday, August 19th sponsored by the Belton Economic Development Corporation and Belton Area Chamber of Commerce. "We applaud their success throughout their 15 years of operation in the community and are very pleased that they chose Belton," stated Tommy Baker, Executive Director of the BEDC.
The newly reconfigured facility is streamlined for maximum work flow and optimal quality control. CEO David K. Leigh said, "We have been very fortunate to be able to grow and expand given the current economy. This new facility has enabled us to gain critical efficiencies in current operations and has set the stage for future production growth. This new facility reinforces our commitment to and leadership in advanced additive manufacturing."
Harvest Technologies manufactures functional prototypes, show models, casting patterns, tooling fixtures & jigs, and end-use parts from 3D CAD data. The company serves a wide variety of industries including consumer products, aerospace/aviation, medical devices, engineering & design, automotive, gas & oil, industrial equipment and the U.S. Military.
Harvest opened in 1995 as a one-person one-machine home based business. Over the next few years the company began serving numerous small to midsized companies throughout North America, as well as large-scale clients such as Ryobi Power Tools, GE Fanuc Automation, General Motors, Whirlpool and Hasbro. Today Harvest is a supplier to thousands of customers worldwide and is certified as an ISO 9001:2008 and AS9100b manufacturer.
Open House & Ribbon Cutting Event: Thursday, August 19, 2010 from 4:30 to 6:40 pm at 815 Kirkley Blvd., Belton, TX.
For more information contact Jenna Hickman at (254) 933-1000 or email@example.com (mailto:firstname.lastname@example.org)


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CeBIT Australia shuts up shop
The tech-extravaganza that is CeBIT Australia closed its doors on Thursday after playing host to some 700 exhibitors and an anticipated 30,000 visitors throughout its three days.
Sprawling across four halls in the Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre, the focus of the technology fest was trained once again on solutions for business, but also served up a smattering of must-have gadgetry and technology developments for the masses.
The biggest announcement of the week was Walt Disney's tie up with Optus, in a joint partnership to create an Internet Channel for kids. Their "family friendly" content will be available from July, comprising Disney video clips, music videos, movie trailers, games and cartoons.
For the older crowd, users of the popular BlackBerry handheld were treated to demonstrations on a real golf putting green showcasing a brand new feature developed by Research In Motion affiliate eGolfScore. The software lets participants track their own and other competitors' golfing scores. The scores are displayed via their BlackBerry device and the technology can be deployed during charity golf contests or through participating golf courses.
Addressing a completely different type of outdoor pursuit at the show was new technology from PTP, a German maker of mobile technology for those on the move. Amid a range of products aimed at in-car communications, it was showing off a Bluetooth headset for motorcyclists complete with internet speaker and microphone. Delivering a fully hands-free experience, the device responds to voice commands and even blocks out wind noise.
For those looking for technology solutions closer to home, security company Adel demonstrated a range of door handles with in-built fingerprint recognition. The company said that as long as 80 per cent of a fingertip was present, the door handle would identify its user. And when the battery which operates it goes flat - there is also back-up access in the form of an old fashioned lock and key.
Although Microsoft was absent at this year's CeBIT, its spirit was kept alive through the EO Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC). Based on the Origami concept first devised by Microsoft, the EO sits somewhere between a tablet PC and PDA and allows users to take handwritten notes, surf the internet, exchange instant messages, listen to music, watch movies and play games.
Gazing beyond the gadgets and onto the services they can provide, the expo also hosted a panel discussion on the future of digital music, featuring executives from Sony BMG, Optus and Motorola.
With mobile penetration riding at 90 per cent in Australia, the mobile sector is now looking to take on the likes of Apple's iTunes for a slice of the digital music market, and taking advantage of this looming opportunity was the main theme of the discussion.
However the latest figures from Sony BMG reveal the competitive challenges ahead. "Since iTunes went live in Australia, it has become our eighth largest music retailer and we are just seeing that grow and grow", said Gavin Parry, new media director at Sony BMG.
He added that "slightly clunky" Digital Rights Management (DRM) software from Microsoft was currently helping to consolidate Apple's leadership position in the market against its growing flock of internet and mobile phone competitors.
In other CeBIT news, organisers reported that exhibitor numbers were up on last year, with a more diverse range of companies choosing to take part for the first time.
"While our main focus is on business, the attendees are also people who take an interest in technology. What is today a consumer product, tomorrow is a business product," said Jackie Taranto, managing director for Hannover Fairs.
But despite many exhibitors hailing the 2006 show the best yet, she conceded that Australia's biggest technology show had ironically become a victim of its own technology.
The official CeBIT website was overwhelmed by traffic just prior to and in the early days of the show, which meant it was only available intermittently, hampering visitor registrations and remote access to information. The cause of the disruption was attributed to the extra resources added to the site this year, which saw more visitors logging on than in previous years.
"It wont happen again," said Ms Taranto.


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The door has been opened to a new generation of web addresses The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has voted in favour of relaxing controls on the classification of domain...
Design of hyrdogel battery pack based on biology of electric eels
Intel didn't bother telling US-CERT about the vulnerabilities until information about them was leaked in January
Ubachs has had CIO roles at Staples, Procter & Gamble and Ipsos
"Most people use the internet to broaden their media horizons," claims Dr Grant Blank - not lock themselves up in 'echo chambers'


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The growing preference for healthier food without preservatives by the young and working-age population would boost the need for CS facilities.
NEW DELHI, Oct 13 (BNC Network): As COVID-triggered new normal sets in, the cold storage (CS) segment in India is expected to witness significant growth over the next few years on the back of a strong consumer and industrial base, a study by realty consultant CBRE shows.
Following the COVID-19 outbreak, the demand for CS is also being further fueled by a wider omni-channel distribution of F&G (food and grocery) across tier I and tier II cities in the country, says CBRE South Asia Pvt. Ltd.,
Cold chain network would also play a vital role in reducing the loss of the produce.
States including Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Punjab Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Haryana and Karnataka accounted for 91% of the total CS capacity in India in 2019. The overall CS RE (Real Estate) stock of in the country is estimated to reach 1,400 – 1,500 million sq. ft. by 2023.
Anshuman Magazine, Chairman, India & South East Asia, Middle East & Africa, CBRE said, “CS facilities play an integral role in improving the shelf life of products and are an important enabler for several industries working across fresh food production and delivery; along with healthcare and other products such as flowers and chemicals. Considering the potential of the CS segment in the country, we expect that consumer/industry-led factors in India would continue to attract the interest of leading players in the coming years.”
The growing preference for healthier food without preservatives by the young and working-age population would boost the need for CS facilities. Additionally, traditional preferences in India have always been higher for fresh produce, thereby further driving the need for setting up CS facilities closer to residential areas
The emergence of the ‘cloud kitchen’ concept is also likely to boost demand for CS facilities.
Ram Chandnani, Managing Director, Advisory and Transaction Services India, CBRE South Asia, said, “The CS segment has the potential to positively impact the ecosystem around the F&B industry. In this age of digitisation and improved internet access, we expect the demand for OFD services in both rural and urban areas to grow and further propel the demand for CS facilities in India.”
The size of the online F&G retail industry is likely to quadruple by 2022; and the size of the dairy industry is likely to more than double by 2023. Government initiatives to reduce post-harvest waste, encourage investment and improve logistics efficiencies are also expected to boost the overall CS capacity, value and RE stock.
The projected growth of F&G, online F&G, dairy, food processing and pharma industries over the next few years is thus likely to drive demand for CS and reduce product wastage. CS facilities are also integral for promotion of the rural economy as they would link the marketplaces across all locations.
Abhinav Joshi, Head of Research, CBRE India, explained, “Increasing urbanization and a rise in retail food processing have been accelerating the demand for products that need efficient CS facilities. Local grocery and departmental stores are also becoming smarter and developing innovative ways to deliver food, thus expanding the market for OFD (online food delivery) services and consequently CS facilities.


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Stories about the retail downturn are everywhere. More than 3,000 stores have declared bankruptcy in 2017, and the year isn’t even half over. There’s a similar downturn in retail lending: In New York City, retail lending decreased more than 30% from 2015 to 2016, excluding retail condos and mixed-use properties.
While this may seem to show a decisive, market-wide shift away from retail financing, the picture is more complex than it first appears.
Several lenders have decreased their overall retail lending in New York City. Retail origination by Bank of America dropped 89% in the Big Apple, year over year, to $125 million in 2016. Goldman Sachs issued $115 million in NYC retail lending in 2016, down 80% from the previous year.
Among foreign lenders, Bank of China’s year-over-year retail lending in NYC dropped 96%, to $15 million in 2016. U.S. Bank issued $582 million in retail lending in 2015, almost all of which went to a loan on the 1.1 million-square-foot Manhattan Mall. However, in 2016 U.S. Bank’s NYC retail lending was negligible. Neither Metlife nor Credit Agricole did any retail lending in NYC in 2016.
Now that you know who’s sitting out this inning of the retail lending game, let’s take a look at who has picked up the slack. JPMorgan increased its retail lending 54%, to $427 million, and Natixis increased its lending to $130 million, a jump of 211% from 2015 to 2016. United Overseas Bank financed $290 million in retail loans in New York City in 2016, 143% more than in 2015, though its NYC commercial real estate lending dropped overall.
Stay tuned to see what 2017 holds for retail lending — but the wave of bankruptcies we’ve seen so far this year may not herald good news.
This article originally appeared on CrediFi.com


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Safeway-operated stores nationwide have signed on to sell fruit punch, orange and grape flavors of AquaBall, the zero-calorie, stevia-sweetened, vitamin-enriched flavored water from Bazi International.
Convenience store sales of Rockstar Energy were down 5.1% for the four weeks ending July 6, according to Nielsen. Joey Cannata, Rockstar’s EVP of sales and distribution, said the company will combat the trend with innovations, including the recent introduction of "supersour" flavors and a zero-calorie Rockstar Pure Zero line.
Honest Tea is launching a carbonated line, Honest Fizz, in Root Beer, Lemon "Limey", Orange Pop and a cherry Professor Fizz flavor. The stevia-sweetened zero-calorie drinks is debuting at Whole Foods stores in select markets in 12-ounce cans and six-packs.
Safeway stores nationwide are now carrying zero-calorie Vitamin Squeeze Powder Water Enhancers from Ecosentials. The water enhancers are offered in Strawberry Watermelon, Lemonade, Fruit Punch, Acai Grape Pomegranate and ENERGY Black Cherry flavors, and are rich in electrolytes, zinc, vitamin C, chromium and vitamins B3, B5, B6 and B12.
PepsiCo plans changes to its SoBe, Gatorade and Lipton brands. The company has three zero-calorie variants on SoBe Life Water ready to launch "the moment the FDA approves" the all-natural sweetener stevia. The company also has new packaging for Gatorade, as well as new sparkling and functional Lipton teas.
Coca-Cola and Cargill have filed for 24 U.S. patents related to a South American herb called stevia that is used to sweeten food and beverages. "Stevia is the world's only zero-calorie, zero-glycemic, all-natural sweetener," said Steve May of SweetLeaf stevia products. "It's kind of the holy grail of the sweetener business." The FDA, however, sent a warning letter last month to Hain Celestial Group regarding concerns about the potential health effects of stevia.


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Is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) a Scam? An MBA Economist’s Perspective
Doesn’t it seem like a couple of hundred dollars no longer fills a grocery basket like it used to not long ago at Whole Foods Market, Safeway, Costco—or even Walmart? Suddenly, Americans are experiencing a sense of disbelief that’s new for many and rarely seen in this country since the early 1980s. It’s known as receipt shock.
Signs of receipt shock abound. Puzzled grocery shoppers who usually throw their receipts away now linger on their way to store exits, all the while searching for barcode scanning errors during impromptu audits that would impress CPAs. At the next stop on many of these trips, a typical 18-gallon gas tank that shoppers could fill up for only $40 during the first Covid lockdowns in February 2020—when nobody drove—now requires double or even triple that much money in expensive areas of California, like Beverly Hills.
To be sure, the inflation statistics reported by the federal government are higher than they’ve been in years. But the figures carried by mainstream media news reports still don’t even remotely approach the skyrocketing prices that shoppers now experience, resulting in the public’s belief that actual inflation now runs well above the government’s reporting. This disconnect—the growing gap between buyers’ perceptions and the government’s reality—has consumers wondering, “how can this happen?”
Simply put, this perception gap exists because quiet changes in government statistics now reflect academic constructs devoid of relevance to shoppers’ use of those statistics in the real world. Even savvy shoppers like MBAs and our other BSchools readers usually lack awareness or understanding of these changes.
The CPI: What Our Professors Didn’t Teach Us
All national governments estimate inflation rates within their national income accounting programs. In the United States, the main measure of inflation remains the Consumer Price Index, or CPI. This index has been produced by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics each month during the post-World War II era, and previously for another half-century under other names.
Most of us in the management education community—including undergraduate, MBA, and specialized business master’s degree students and alumni—originally learned about the CPI during our undergraduate Economics 101 macroeconomics principles coursework. There, we learned that this index is the most widely observed and applied measure of inflation across America.
The BLS calculates the CPI by comparing the prices of a fixed, standardized “market basket” of goods and services over two different time intervals. In essence, the inflation rate equals the CPI’s percentage growth from one year to the following year. This calculation yields the value we frequently observe in the press.
Our professors and teaching assistants taught us that as originally conceived, the CPI was intended to assess the cost of maintaining a standard of living that’s constant. That way, one could accurately compare those costs across months, years, or even decades. As such, the index accurately and completely measured the effects of inflation—and during a rare couple of years, deflation—for Americans’ out-of-pocket outlays.
Moreover, we learned that the CPI also encompasses several components that function as proxies for measuring inflation in different contexts. Some of these components are intended to display the degree of inflation experienced by key demographic buyer segments.
One such group includes urban buyers tracked by the CPI-U index, which focuses on the purchase experiences of buyers in cities because those areas tend to have higher costs for rent and energy than rural farm communities.
We also learned that the most frequently cited component of the index is the Core CPI, which omits food and energy prices from the market basket. That’s because food and energy products tend to display volatile price fluctuations that can bias the overall index. For example, weather conditions like droughts can result in temporary speculation in commodities markets that can drive up prices of goods like wheat and soybeans for temporary periods. Excluding these often results in a more stable overall index.
Surprisingly, the treatment of the CPI in most of these economics courses is stylized, and as we’ll see in this report, their coverage doesn’t reflect how radically the index has changed in recent years.
For example, more future executives have studied Economics by Dr. Campbell McConnell of the University of Nebraska than any other economics textbook over the last 50 years. Nevertheless, as late as 2019, the 21st-edition of that textbook, for the most part, presented the CPI as if it were still 1982—the year before the first changes started to impact the index.
This is one reason why so many college grads and MBAs don’t understand the disconnect they’re now observing between the prices in their shopping baskets and the CPI: nobody told them about all the behind-the-scenes, under-the-radar changes that radically transformed the index. Those changes are controversial because they exert profound effects on the measurement of inflation in the United States.
The Modified CPI Washington’s Elected Officials Want
Every federal elected official has a vested interest in a Consumer Price Index that understates the true inflation rate by as much as possible. Why? Several motivations exist, but let’s talk about the two main drivers. They relate to the financial markets—especially the credit market—and government transfer payments.
First, other things equal, a lower inflation rate typically indicates a more robust overall economy, and that perception is critical to keeping both voters and investors happy. Only a couple of unusual periods in American economic history resulted in undesirable deflation, like the Great Depression and the 2008 Great Recession. So overall, lower inflation is usually the objective of policymakers at the federal level.
Now, suppose that the true inflation rate exceeds the CPI as calculated by the Bureau. In that case, investors will realize a disappointing real (inflation-adjusted) rate of return that falls short of their expectations. That’s because unexpected inflation eats away at their gains.
For example, during the early 1980s, cash management accounts and money market funds were paying as much as 12 percent annual interest. However, many of those investors were actually losing money because across the nation, the overall inflation rate was even higher—about 15 percent.
But second, here’s the driving factor that can make or break Washington’s political careers: to optimize the economy’s performance, federal elected officials need to satisfy their constituents’ expectations while minimizing government transfer payments for a broad range of entitlement programs.
Social Security is the classic example. It’s not relevant to elected officials how reducing Social Security payments might improve economic growth, because that’s a step they’ll never attempt. This is a “third rail” program because its beneficiaries will destroy the re-election chances of any politician who votes to lower Social Security benefits.
However, through COLAs—cost of living adjustments—the Consumer Price Index is inextricably linked to such entitlements. A lower CPI will result in lower transfer payments—diminished costs that reduce government spending on programs like Social Security without any political risk to elected officials.
The Boskin Commission
Politicians aren’t stupid—they very well understand these dynamics. Not surprisingly, starting in about 1983, they’ve consistently exerted pressure on the BLS to increasingly understate inflation measurements.
But it wasn’t until 1995 that those efforts gained momentum when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified before Congress that he believed the CPI overstated the growth in living costs. House Speaker Newt Gingrich then started to push for changes to the index.
At the time, Gingrich and his Republican allies were some of the most hated politicians in the country because their stubborn refusal to approve a continuing budget resolution actually shut down the federal government. They didn’t expect such a fierce political backlash would result; they needed damage control, and were searching for a face-saving way out. They found it in pronouncements by Dr. Greenspan and Stanford professor of economics Michael Boskin, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under President George H. W. Bush.
Dr. Greenspan and Dr. Boskin both advocated lower spending on Social Security to provide Gingrich with the “maneuvering room for budget negotiators” that he wanted through a “more accurate” Consumer Price Index. A New York Times story in September 1995 reported:
. . .economists believe one of the most important [CPI upside biases] is when consumers shift their buying patterns in response to changing prices, substituting one product for another. The index is based on a fixed market basket of goods and services. But, for example, if the price on an item like steak gets too expensive, consumers may switch to hamburger.
The Senate Finance Committee then appointed a special commission chaired by Dr. Boskin in 1995 to review the way that the BLS was calculating the CPI. Known as the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index, it was only the second such Congressional investigation ever conducted in history.
The commissioners comprised an all-star “dream team” of the biggest names in economics. Besides Stanford’s Dr. Boskin, the superstars included two Harvard University professors: Dr. Zvi Griliches and Dr. Dale Jorgenson, who served as the chairman of Harvard’s Department of Economics. The commissioners also included Dr. Robert Gordon, the chairman of the economics department at Northwestern University.*
The CPI Under Fire
Nevertheless, the Boskin Commission enabled changes to the CPI that have drawn harsh fire from critics. One vocal detractor is William Ackman, the billionaire founder of the activist Wall Street hedge fund Pershing Square Holdings and a Harvard MBA. As reported by Bloomberg, in December 2021 Ackman tweeted:
Housing inflation is unlikely to abate based on supply and demand trends. The inflation that households are actually experiencing is raging and well in excess of reported gov’t statistics.
But an even more ardent critic appears to be John Williams, a Dartmouth College graduate who holds an MBA in economics from the Tuck School of Business. Based north of San Francisco, Williams has managed an economics consulting firm for Fortune 500 clients since the 1980s, and since 2004 he’s also produced the widely-quoted economic statistics and forecasting website Shadow Government Statistics.
Williams faults the Commission for permitting for the first time—and as foreshadowed by the above Times story—market basket substitution during the estimation process in response to changing consumer preferences. In that way, the BLS can substitute chicken for steak in its estimation basket if steak prices become expensive. That might help reduce government entitlement spending because, in contrast to the inflation rate measured by the fixed basket, the substituted basket lowers the reported inflation rate.
However, the change also defeats the purpose of maintaining a consistent market basket of products—and that is the only effective methodology that permits accurate comparisons of inflation rates over time. According to Williams,
The examples used in arguing for changing the CPI clearly were tied to prices rising and resulting consumer demand shifting to a lower-quality product. Simply put, that was the destruction of the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living concept and was the primary consideration of those seeking to change the CPI, although other issues would come into play. The drive here was to get a lower inflation reading, irrespective of whether the data were “more accurate.”
But substitution wasn’t the only Commission recommendation the BLS implemented. First, the Bureau decided to reselect goods and services in the market basket every two years instead of ten; the argument for doing so was that the agency needed to factor in the prices of new products rapidly adopted throughout the economy, like smartphones.
However, critics charge that choosing a different basket every 24 months provides many more opportunities to add cheaper products to the index, even if they’re not popular sellers.
Next, the BLS introduced price adjustments for “hedonic” quality improvements. In cases where the government believed that a product’s quality improved—the usual situation—it frequently reduced the product’s price that it applied in CPI calculations. In other words, the BLS stopped using market prices for all its CPI calculations but instead used costs kept in a “second set of books” based on the agency’s own opinions.
But where the CPI train really flew off the rails relates to the Bureau’s valuation adjustments for shelter, which accounts for a quarter of the total current inflation reporting in the CPI-U index. Before 1983, the BLS factored the actual market prices of homes into the index, but these days relies on a curious construct known as Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER). According to Williams, the BLS estimates housing costs based on what homeowners theoretically would pay themselves to rent their own homes to themselves—then estimates each month how much homeowners raise rents on themselves! Says Ackman:
Reported inflation is understated. Owners’ Equivalent Rent (OER) relies on owner surveys to estimate inflation in housing costs. This is an extremely imprecise metric. The single family rental market provides more accurate data. OER in today’s reported Core CPI was [only] 3.5% [year over year].
Is the Consumer Price Index a Scam?
We may have used a touch of editorial license in this article’s title. Strictly speaking, the Consumer Price Index isn’t really a “scam” like criminal fraud or racketeering schemes. After all, it’s doing what Congress and policymakers intend it to do. It’s performing precisely in the ways that the BLS intends—and the results it produces reflect those policy decisions.
But does the CPI accurately reflect real-world public perceptions? Ackman and Williams argue that it does not. Take a close look at the following graph:
This is not an illusion. This is an accurate representation of the U.S. inflation rate, calculated using two different models.
The red trend line reflects the Urban Consumer Price Index calculated using the current BLS estimation model. The right axis of the graph shows that the current CPI-U at the time of this writing in February 2022 is just slightly less than 7 percent. This is the figure currently reported by mainstream news outlets.
However, the blue trend line embodies the CPI derived by Williams using the BLS estimation model in effect during 1980. Williams converted the differences between the updated BLS models and the 1980 model into constants, then applied those constants to adjust the trend line. The right axis shows that the February 2022 inflation rate, applying the model in effect during the nearly quarter of a century between 1961 and 1983, is actually about 16 percent.
Think about that fact. Let that 16 percent sink in for a moment.
This is the real reason why that $200 we mentioned at the beginning of this article doesn’t buy as much at the supermarket as it did only a few months ago. Calculated using a more authentic estimation model traditionally applied by the BLS—one that accurately reflected the public’s real-world perceptions in 1980—this estimate is roughly equivalent to the stratospheric inflation rate Americans were struggling with at the beginning of the Reagan Administration.
All in all, that 16 percent inflation rate better explains the price increases we’re all paying today.
* A few years ago, I had the privilege of talking with Dr. Gordon after an address he delivered to the Northwestern Club of San Francisco co-sponsored by the Kellogg School of Management and Charles Schwab Corporation, one of the largest employers of MBAs in the Bay Area at the time. Many of the justifications for the Commission’s recommendations that Dr. Gordon summarized in that speech appear in his paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, “The Boskin Commission Report and its Aftermath.”


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alcatel-lucent - News, Features, and Slideshows
Alcatel-Lucent and chipmaker Sckipio Technologies are debuting modem technology that will help make speeds of hundreds of megabit per second over copper cables a reality.
By Mikael Ricknäs | 18 June, 2015 01:18
Alcatel-Lucent this week extended its carrier SDN product line with an automation and network control system designed to accelerate service provisioning from multivendor IP and optical infrastructure.
By Jim Duffy | 21 May, 2015 06:55
The possible acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent of France by Finland-based Nokia would bring together complementary patent portfolios and increase their scale against larger global competitors, analysts said Tuesday.
By Matt Hamblen | 15 April, 2015 05:49
As tech companies increasingly rely on analyzing and selling user data to boost revenue, trust is emerging as one of the defining issues of the year for the IT sector.
By Marc Ferranti | 06 March, 2014 22:06
A number of different technologies are being developed or improved to offer higher speeds for fixed and mobile broadband networks, as operators are preparing to compete with each other and carry video traffic in 3D and at higher resolutions, which is expected to happen in the coming year.
By Mikael Ricknäs | 08 December, 2010 03:14
Cloud, big data and analytics, mobile, social, and IT security have impacted networking – bringing it almost to breaking point. This whitepaper looks at the future of networking to accommodate these evolving trends.
With employees and customers increasingly depending on corporate websites, reliability and security have become more critical than ever.
- What you can learn from Nordstrom's use of the cloud
- Windows 10 roll-out will break Internet traffic records
- The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Tuesday, July 28
- Test like crazy for Java happiness, report says
- OnePlus refines its successful formula with new phone
- Brinks safe can be hacked with just a USB stick
- Samsung event in August portends new smartphone launch
- Amazon takes on MySQL with Aurora
- Over 10 million Web surfers possibly exposed to malvertising
- Car and pedestrian collision? There'll soon be an app for that
- Windows 10 adds full support for Canadian French, Mexican Spanish
- To see benefits, heath wearables must keep people engaged
- Someday your phone may stop an oncoming car
- NSA will lose access to 'historical' phone surveillence data Nov. 29
- Microsoft fixes crash-bug in Windows 10 just days before launch


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VisionTrack has reported record levels of growth due to “rapid adoption” of CCTV and video telematics, with fleet and transport sales tripling in 2018.
VisionTrack revealed that the number of fleet and road transport operations using its technology solutions tripled during 2018, and that it experienced a rise of over 280% in installed connected cameras and mobile DVR systems.
VisionTrack’s managing director Simon Marsh (pictured) said: “2018 was a huge year and we are targeting further success over the next 12 months as we expand the business and introduce new product innovations.
“The rapid pace of growth is set to continue, building on our impressive results towards the end of the year.
"This included our two biggest ever months in the second half of 2018, which resulted in the combined sale alone of more than 10,000 connected-and non-connected vehicle camera units.”
During 2018, VisionTrack secured a number of contract wins and established a host of insurance and telematics partnerships, including the launch of both white label and branded initiatives.
It invested heavily in its sales, customer services, technical support and development capabilities.
In particular, the company’s overall workforce has more than doubled in the past 12 months, while its in-house R&D team and developers have tripled in size to assist in the creation of next generation hardware and software solutions.


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The latest joint color matching “Black/Phantom” of Air Jordan 1 Low created by Travis Scott and Nike/Jordan Brand has been exposed in July. According to the color matching naming, various online sneaker intelligence accounts have also produced corresponding renderings, and waiting for a long time Afterwards, this time, the appearance of real shoes finally officially appeared.
Different from the original imagination, “Black/Phantom” does not seem to be the black-gray-white color scheme predicted in the past. The real design is almost presented in black, with white stitching and logos to form a contrast, Travis Scott himself has also been captured a few days ago. use. It is reported that the release date of this shoe should be close to the Christmas holiday on December 15 this year, and the price is $150. Interested readers may wish to pay more attention.


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Lego has put together a cool Harley-Davidson Fat Boy kit.
Harley-Davidson is attempting to pull off the biggest cultural shift a motorcycle company has ever seen.
The partnership will see a 350-class motorcycle built for the Chinese market, then branching out to other Asian markets in coming years.
Want to study motorcycles in university? Now you can, but you’ll have to move to Wisconsin.
Three cruisers (the Harley-Davidson Iron 883, Yamaha Bolt, Indian Scout Sixty) and one sorta-cruiser hybrid (Moto Guzzi V9 Roamer) battle it out.
Delivery for new electric bike is expected this fall.
Five year deal sees workers getting a raise, and Harley-Davidson investing in its factories.
Here’s a good look at Harley-Davidson’s upcoming engine.
Menomonee Falls workers protest as contract is set to run out.
Harley-Davidson sees recall over labeling issues.


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- Auto Components
- 2 min read
EU reviewing steel imports in view of possible glut
Quotas for 26 grades of steel, including stainless, were set at the average of imports in 2015-2017 plus 5%, with a 3% hike last year.
The EU put in place safeguards in 2018 to control incoming steel to protect European manufacturers after Washington's imposition of 25% steel tariffs closed the U.S. market to many exporters.
Quotas for 26 grades of steel, including stainless, were set at the average of imports in 2015-2017 plus 5%, with a 3% hike last year. Imports beyond the quotas are subject to a 25% duty.
EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said on Tuesday that the adjustment for this year would take place by July 1 as planned. Initially, the Commission had envisaged a further 5% increase in the quotas, albeit subject to a review.
Lots of lawmakers and EU countries had expressed concerns about possible stockpiling of steel, particularly by China, and what would happen to these stocks when the restrictions were eased, Hogan said.
"We are looking at the review of the steel safeguards in this context," he told members of the European Parliament in a video session.
Third country exporters could seriously disrupt the EU market, he said, depending on their behaviour when demand in the 27-nation bloc revived.
"Certain third country exporters may well decide to sell their product at below cost or at all cost or at any cost, with a view to gaining larger stakes in a smaller EU market," he said.
EU steel production is already down by about 50% and new orders have fallen by 70-75%, with further production cuts planned as demand continues to fall given a near complete shutdown of the auto sector and a significant decline in construction, EU industry body Eurofer said.
Eurofer said it was already seeing extremely low prices on offer from third country exporters for certain steel grades.


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In its “Expert Outlook 2019: Find Balance” report, global ethnographical market research firm Canvas8 set out to find out what was on the ever-shifting mind of today’s consumer. The body of work, which drew insights from 42 experts in specialties ranging from shopping, health, technology, entertainment, money, careers and citizenship, ended up establishing a blueprint of the strategies brand owners can embrace. One of the more striking revelations was that consumers are searching for balance—equilibrium— in all aspects of their lives: between humans and technology, brand and personal, global and local. There, jumping up from the data, was the formula for success. Today’s brands will need to be authentic, real and human, even as technology drives more and more consumers to think digitally.
Get this article and more with a quarterly issue of Print Illustrated magazine in print! Subscribe for free here.
The findings do not surprise marketing thought leaders like Dan Goldstein, who believes the biggest shift in the brand-consumer relationship is the rise of the “Informed Consumer.” With the internet connecting people to countless brands and information, consumers have myriad choices. That puts the onus on brands to guide those choices by building favorable impressions with the right people at the right time.
“Getting repeat business has less of a psychological barrier, perhaps, but there’s still a lot of competition for many products and services,” says Goldstein, President and Owner of Page 1 Solutions, a full-service digital marketing agency. “Fundamentally, brands have to remain relevant and reliable in the eyes of consumers because the consumers themselves have the power to choose that is the furthest thing from traditional.”
The lesson that jumps out is in a brand’s marketing approach. Simple is best. “Customers don’t want complicated,” says Goldstein, who also authored “Win with Multi-Channel Digital Marketing.” “Consumers educate themselves before making purchases, but the brands that get the attention and sales are the ones that use the customers’ own language to connect with them both intellectually and emotionally.
Your brand may very well be reputable, but if you over-rely on jargon to market your services or use clinical or technical language rather than speaking to your audience, few customers are going to take the time to get to know what you do and come to trust that your brand will meet their needs.”
In the checklist for connecting brand and consumer, there are a few big business goals that are important today. These include high visibility, where buyers spend much of their time online (websites, social media platforms, digital video, etc.), prominence in online search for the products and services a brand offers, a preponderance of positive reviews testifying to their stellar reputation, and most importantly, leads that convert into new business and revenue.
“The most successful brands incorporate several of these marketing strategies into a multi-channel marketing plan,” Goldstein says. “We have found that when our clients implement multiple marketing strategies in a coordinated manner, they experience significantly better results.”
THE STORY MATTERS
Everyone likes a good story. And in a time when brands are fighting for each and every read, stories matter. It is the strategy that Kindra Hall has drilled relentlessly into the minds of the brands who rely on her guidance, including Facebook, Hilton Hotels, Tyson Foods, Target, Berkshire Hathaway and Harvard Medical School, all of which have followed her lead. As President and Chief Storytelling Officer at Stellar Collective, a consulting firm focused on the strategic application of storytelling to today’s communication challenges, Hall says that every buyer, regardless of where they are playing on the selling spectrum, is skeptical and curious. It is a fact she believes every brand owner should understand.
“Buyers are able to sniff out spin, and will spend hours researching and learning more,” Hall says. “To keep your buyer at the center of your strategy, give them what they want. Stories feed their curiosity while simultaneously illustrating that you are the real deal.”
And that means being authentic to your story.
“Start with the first story—the founder story,” Hall says. “What is the moment the company started? Was it after losing a pair of glasses on a flight (Warby Parker)? Noticing the lack of basic footwear for the homeless (Bombas Socks)? Trying to pay rent by renting out air mattresses on the living room floor to strangers (Airbnb)? Once you have the story of how and why your brand started, share it in as many ways and lengths and platforms as possible to connect your buyers to you.”
In the end, what brand owners want is to communicate the essence of who they are beyond buzzwords and jargon in a way that will stick with their audience and consumers. “They want you to be authentic and memorable,” Hall says.
“The alternative leads to questions and harms the delicate relationships brands have with their audiences. Unified, consistent content and storytelling allows brands to build lasting, loyal relationships.”
5 TRENDS EVERY BRAND OWNER SHOULD KNOW
As the marketplace shifts away from escaping reality toward the need to address it, brands are having to place a greater emphasis on staying in step with what their communities need. The “Expert Outlook 2019: Find Balance” report by Canvas8 took an introspective look into the wants and needs of today’s consumer. Here are five trends that should be on the radar of every brand today:
- RESPONSIBLE CONSUMERISM COMES AROUND. While not a new trend, responsible consumerism is going more mainstream. With the ability to stay informed, buyers want brands that help them make better, more responsible choices.
- GET REAL, BE REAL. The goal for every brand is to be real. That means having a deep understanding of their customers, but also the many diverse needs that cuts across all aspects of their lives.
- BRANDS AS EDUCATORS. In some ways, brands are becoming the new business schools, both in terms of soft (critical thinking) and hard skills (AI and future-facing preparedness).
- AUGMENTED HUMANITY. As technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) continue to encompass today’s workspaces, customer expectations for convenience are rising. That means brands will have to be cautious about privacy concerns.
- PERSONALIZED PRIVACY. Digital experiences are better-connected thanks to AI, but as stated above, so are privacy concerns. Brands must work harder to facilitate seamlessness while offering new solutions.


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Facebook Reports Massive Q3 Earnings and 1.55 Billion Monthly Users
It’s not breaking news that Facebook is dominating social media and absorbing everything that becomes remotely interesting or popular (think WhatsApp and Oculus Rift).
The firm can surely afford it though – in what Mark Zuckerberg describes as a ‘good quarter,’ Facebook managed to amass $4.5 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2015. The same quarter last year saw the organization earning $3.2 billion, meaning the jump has been a hefty $1.3 billion.
As a result, the social playground has posted a profit of $896, a good $90 million from a year ago.
In the eyes of most, that’s more than just a ‘good quarter’ as it’s been aptly put by Mr. Zuckerberg.
The money generation is largely thanks to ads. Almost all of the income generated was from advertisements – just short of $4.3 billion. That’s a 45% increase in revenue generation from ads from last year, which was at “only” $2.96 billion exactly one year ago.
This revenue generation also comes with noticeable increase in activity. Facebook has reported that it boasts 1.55 billion monthly active users, and more than a billion people visit the site on a daily basis. Most of these users are now accessing the social media network from mobile devices.
“On mobile, we continue to have a lot of momentum. More than 1.39 billion people now use Facebook on mobile devices, including more than one billion on Android. 50 million people also use Facebook Lite, our app for people on low bandwidth connections, and one of our fastest growing interfaces. This is a great sign of how our mobile strategy continues to make progress across markets, devices and platforms.”
Zuckerberg also used the recent earnings call to talk about his desire to ‘serve the global community’ by connecting everyone on the planet. The idea certainly attracted investors, as shares of Facebook increased by as much as 5.8 percent to hit almost $110.
Source: Hot Hardware


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It’s been a tough year at Forbes. The media company, which owns Forbes magazine, Forbes.com and a handful of other magazines like Forbes Woman, has already gone through two rounds of layoffs across the business and editorial staffs and more bad news might be on the way.
The New York Post‘s Keith Kelly reported today that Elevation Partners’ co-founder Roger McNamee has stepped down from Forbes’ board and will be replaced by Bre Pearlman, who has “a reputation as an aggressive cost-cutter.”
McNamee (left) was the main driver behind Elevation’s purchase of a 40 percent stake in the Forbes family-owned company two and half years ago but, as Kelly pointed out, his departure from the board may show that the company’s chance for growth is slim.
We’re hearing that the mood within the Forbes editorial offices — which recently completed a merger between the online and magazine staffs — is nervous, which former Forbes staffer Peter Kafka has also reported.
Update: A Forbes publicist sent us the memo that went out to staff today from Steve Forbes.
“We fully understand the concerns that the present difficult environment causes,” the memo said. “We want to thank everyone for their hard work. We profoundly believe that the steps being taken, not only short-term painful ones, but also new growth initiatives, will make Forbes stronger than ever when economic recovery comes.”
The full memo after the jump


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Jeep is hard at work on the next-generation Wrangler, though the truck is still a few years from hitting the trails. The new model will still be aimed at off-roaders, but rumors suggest it will be a little more comfortable than previous versions to appeal to more people.
- Mid-engine Corvette spied in daylight
- Matt LeBlanc threatens to quit Top Gear
- Best Lease Deals for June 2016