Norway will provide the EU around NOK 3 billion (EUR 347 million) per year to reduce social and economic disparities and promote cooperation in Europe in the period 2009-2014, a 22 per cent increase over the previous period.(Photo: Foreign Minister Støre) This is the result of an agreement signed between the EEA/EFTA countries and the EU on new financial contributions.Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre commented: "The new EEA Financial Mechanism gives Norway a historic opportunity to strengthen cooperation with the new EU member states. Many of these countries are struggling with high unemployment and a difficult economic situation. It is very much in Norway's interest to promote economic and social development in these countries."The scope of the mechanism is now closer to Norway's priorities, with focus on the environment, climate change, renewable energy and tripartite cooperation. The EEA Grants will be available to the 12 most recent EU members plus Portugal, Greece and Spain, while the Norway Grants will be earmarked for the 12 newest members. The priority sectors will be environment and climate, health, research, education and culture, decent work and civil society, the judiciary and human resources.
Norway will provide the EU around NOK 3 billion (EUR 347 million) per year to reduce social and economic disparities and promote cooperation in Europe in the period 2009-2014, a 22 per cent increase over the previous period.(Photo: Foreign Minister Støre)
This is the result of an agreement signed between the EEA/EFTA countries and the EU on new financial contributions.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre commented: "The new EEA Financial Mechanism gives Norway a historic opportunity to strengthen cooperation with the new EU member states. Many of these countries are struggling with high unemployment and a difficult economic situation. It is very much in Norway's interest to promote economic and social development in these countries."
The scope of the mechanism is now closer to Norway's priorities, with focus on the environment, climate change, renewable energy and tripartite cooperation. The EEA Grants will be available to the 12 most recent EU members plus Portugal, Greece and Spain, while the Norway Grants will be earmarked for the 12 newest members. The priority sectors will be environment and climate, health, research, education and culture, decent work and civil society, the judiciary and human resources.
British Gas wants you to Pay As You Save | Money | The Guardian
How would you like £10,000 to make your home more energy efficient? British Gas is looking for 100 households to take part in a new scheme called Pay As You Save. The trial will help the government decide how it delivers on its pledge to make the UK's homes more energy efficient.Although the launch was rather lost, by coinciding with the first day of the Copenhagen talks, the pilot scheme will see householders given a loan to allow them to install either energy efficiency measures or micro-generation projects, such as photovoltaic solar panels.The householder pays back the loan over as much as 25 years, through the money saved by reduced gas and electricity bills, or the income generated by the energy they produce. The consumer can therefore pay for the energy- and climate-saving measures without incurring extra monthly costs.The government has pinned its hopes on this scheme as it struggles to upgrade the nation's housing stock and produce more electricity from renewable sources. This week the Conservative party said it would launch a similar scheme in partnership with Tesco and Marks & Spencer if it won the next election. It was apparently unaware of this trial.
How would you like £10,000 to make your home more energy efficient? British Gas is looking for 100 households to take part in a new scheme called Pay As You Save. The trial will help the government decide how it delivers on its pledge to make the UK's homes more energy efficient.
Although the launch was rather lost, by coinciding with the first day of the Copenhagen talks, the pilot scheme will see householders given a loan to allow them to install either energy efficiency measures or micro-generation projects, such as photovoltaic solar panels.
The householder pays back the loan over as much as 25 years, through the money saved by reduced gas and electricity bills, or the income generated by the energy they produce. The consumer can therefore pay for the energy- and climate-saving measures without incurring extra monthly costs.
The government has pinned its hopes on this scheme as it struggles to upgrade the nation's housing stock and produce more electricity from renewable sources. This week the Conservative party said it would launch a similar scheme in partnership with Tesco and Marks & Spencer if it won the next election. It was apparently unaware of this trial.
I'll bet British Gas shareholders really, really want this scheme to be a success...... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Google, which has an estimated 90% market share of UK internet searches, last year used a cross-border network of subsidiary companies to ensure it did not pay a penny in corporation tax on its £1.6bn advertising revenues in Britain. The international corporate structure enables Google to avoid paying what could otherwise have been a corporation tax bill in the UK of as much as £450m. Recently filed accounts for subsidiary company Google UK Limited show none of the search engine's advertising revenues from British customers were accounted for in the business, despite operations in London and Manchester incurring "administrative expenses" of £177m last year, including a wage bill of £70m. Read more...
The international corporate structure enables Google to avoid paying what could otherwise have been a corporation tax bill in the UK of as much as £450m.
Recently filed accounts for subsidiary company Google UK Limited show none of the search engine's advertising revenues from British customers were accounted for in the business, despite operations in London and Manchester incurring "administrative expenses" of £177m last year, including a wage bill of £70m.
Read more...
srsly, though, watch the deferred payments or "provision for income taxes" as compared to reported tax payments. Cumulative tax liability amounted to 7% of 2008 gross income, 27% of 2008 net income. FY 2008, 2009 10K annual and Notes on consolidated financial statement, select pivot points.
1, 9 [ForEx]... Generally, the functional currency of our international subsidiaries is the local currency. The financial statements of these subsidiaries are translated to U.S. dollars using month-end rates of exchange for assets and liabilities, and average rates of exchange for revenues, costs and expenses. Translation gains and losses are recorded in accumulated other comprehensive income as a component of stockholders' equity. We recorded $38.6 million and $61.0 million of net translation gains in 2006 and 2007, and $84.2 million of net translation losses in 2008. Net gains and losses resulting from foreign exchange transactions are recorded as a component of interest income and other, net. These gains and losses are net of those realized on forward foreign exchange contracts. We recorded $5.3 million of net gains, $16.2 million and $35.6 million of net losses in 2006, 2007 and 2008 from assets and liabilities denominated in a currency other than the local currency. 2, 12 [equity]... As a result, and in accordance with EITF Issue No. 03-6, Participating Securities and the Two-Class Method under FASB Statement No. 128, the undistributed earnings for each year are allocated based on the contractual participation rights of the Class A and Class B common shares as if the earnings for the year had been distributed. As the liquidation and dividend rights are identical, the undistributed earnings are allocated on a proportionate basis. Further, as we assume the conversion of Class B common stock in the computation of the diluted net income per share of Class A common stock, the undistributed earnings are equal to net income for that computation. 3... Cash and investments (shorter: the deal is to keep a portfolio of agency, muni, and corporate debt loaded)
2, 12 [equity]... As a result, and in accordance with EITF Issue No. 03-6, Participating Securities and the Two-Class Method under FASB Statement No. 128, the undistributed earnings for each year are allocated based on the contractual participation rights of the Class A and Class B common shares as if the earnings for the year had been distributed. As the liquidation and dividend rights are identical, the undistributed earnings are allocated on a proportionate basis. Further, as we assume the conversion of Class B common stock in the computation of the diluted net income per share of Class A common stock, the undistributed earnings are equal to net income for that computation.
3... Cash and investments (shorter: the deal is to keep a portfolio of agency, muni, and corporate debt loaded)
I do get a kick out of GOOG bashing. This joint is its own RE bubble -- prices will never fall! LORDaMercy! if I had demanded a nickle from every wanker who said, indiginantly, "Google doesn't do advertising!" I coulda bought into the ground floor. LOL.
subsidiaries, worldwide Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
The real question is how that point could be conveyed to a broader audience. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
gawd bless the GOOG. best search engine EVAHHH. Gonna launch best dark fiber wi-fi and free cartoons and HEVs EVAHHH.
See Income statement and statement of stockholders' equity. Operating costs attributable to "stock-based compensation expense" apart from bareley declared costs of new "stock-based compensation" and CFO repos, i.e. redemption by one of 2,965 common shareholders at any given time.
srsly. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
karma ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
In Capital as Power Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler address one of the oldest theoretical conundrums in the discipline of political economy--the theory of capital-- with a view to supplying a more satisfactory answer to the question "what is capital?" While the work clearly fits into the tradition of radical political economy it is not easy to place it in any one school, and this for very good reason: Nitzan and Bichler are trying to create a new approach to political economy. The release of this highly ambitious book is aptly timed, for as the global political-economic crisis unfolds and existing theories and paradigms come into question, a space will be created in which new theoretical alternatives might be welcomed. One way of classifying approaches to political economy is through theories of value. A theory of value is a metaphysical assumption about how prices are formed. Both neoclassical and Marxist approaches have a theory of capital and price formation that are derived from a utility and labour theory of value respectively. However, Nitzan and Bichler claim that both theories of value fail. They cannot explain what capital is, how and why it accumulates, what gets accumulated and, similarly, how prices are formed and why they fluctuate over time. In place of neoclassical marginal utility and Marxist abstract labour Nitzan and Bichler propose a power theory of value. For the authors, "the secret to understanding capital accumulation ... lies not in the narrow confines of production and consumption, but in the broader processes and institutions of power," the implication being that capital is not an economic category anchored in material reality, as both mainstream and radical theories maintain, rather it is a "symbolic representation of power"!. "Power" in the sense they employ it does not mean "economic power" or "political power" but "organized power at large". Most political scientists will likely find this problematic. Academic department- alization and liberal ideology have tended to divide the study of society into separate, though overlapping systems. The "economic" system is different than the "political" in that markets and business are institutionally separate from the state and government. Each system operates according to its own logic, pursues different goals, utilizes different means, has its own discourse, and so on. In order to follow their argument, however, we must suspend this bit of conventional disciplinary wisdom.
One way of classifying approaches to political economy is through theories of value. A theory of value is a metaphysical assumption about how prices are formed. Both neoclassical and Marxist approaches have a theory of capital and price formation that are derived from a utility and labour theory of value respectively. However, Nitzan and Bichler claim that both theories of value fail. They cannot explain what capital is, how and why it accumulates, what gets accumulated and, similarly, how prices are formed and why they fluctuate over time. In place of neoclassical marginal utility and Marxist abstract labour Nitzan and Bichler propose a power theory of value.
For the authors, "the secret to understanding capital accumulation ... lies not in the narrow confines of production and consumption, but in the broader processes and institutions of power," the implication being that capital is not an economic category anchored in material reality, as both mainstream and radical theories maintain, rather it is a "symbolic representation of power"!. "Power" in the sense they employ it does not mean "economic power" or "political power" but "organized power at large". Most political scientists will likely find this problematic. Academic department- alization and liberal ideology have tended to divide the study of society into separate, though overlapping systems. The "economic" system is different than the "political" in that markets and business are institutionally separate from the state and government. Each system operates according to its own logic, pursues different goals, utilizes different means, has its own discourse, and so on. In order to follow their argument, however, we must suspend this bit of conventional disciplinary wisdom.
Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Geneva, touted as a haven for London bankers facing heavier U.K. taxes, may lure fewer than predicted thanks to a housing shortage, crowded schools and a 44 percent income-tax rate. Barclays Plc President Robert Diamond this month joined a chorus of financial leaders in arguing that the U.K.'s 50 percent tax on bonuses would drive bankers away from London. The Swiss Private Bankers Association said the "arbitrary" tax will boost the allure of Geneva, whose bankers oversee about 10 percent of the world's foreign-held private wealth. "It's a joke, it's lobbying," said Tim Dawson, an analyst at Geneva-based brokerage Helvea AG. "People are dreaming if they think the London investment banking world is going to move. There is more office space in Canary Wharf than in the whole of Switzerland," he said, referring to London's second financial district.
Barclays Plc President Robert Diamond this month joined a chorus of financial leaders in arguing that the U.K.'s 50 percent tax on bonuses would drive bankers away from London. The Swiss Private Bankers Association said the "arbitrary" tax will boost the allure of Geneva, whose bankers oversee about 10 percent of the world's foreign-held private wealth.
"It's a joke, it's lobbying," said Tim Dawson, an analyst at Geneva-based brokerage Helvea AG. "People are dreaming if they think the London investment banking world is going to move. There is more office space in Canary Wharf than in the whole of Switzerland," he said, referring to London's second financial district.
