CHART: The UK's Poor Got Even Poorer Despite The Economic Recovery | ||
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Low-income Britons are getting poorer and poorer as the perks of the economic recovery are being concentrated among high-skill, high-wage earners. Data released today by the Office for National Statistics confirm that the economy is on a positive path, but that "real weekly earnings for the average employee fell by 10.3%" between 2008 and 2014. Almost everyone saw their earnings fall in real terms since the recession. The problem is that the wages of lower skilled workers fell further in real terms than those of higher-skilled workers. High-skilled workers earnings' fell only by 11.1%, while low- and medium-skilled jobs sustained a much deeper fall of up to 13.5%, as shown by the chart below:
The report defines low-skilled occupations as sales and costumer services operators, and plant and machinery operatives. Medium-skilled are listed as service occupations, skilled traders and administrative and secretarial occupations. High-skilled are managers, directors and senior officials, and professional and technical occupations. (The study does not take the self-employed into account.) The UK recovery is one of the strongest among developed economies: In Q3 2014, the UK had GDP growth of 0.7%, the seventh successive quarter of positive economic growth, and the longest run since 2008. Three are the main reasons for the fall in the value of wages: 1. Wages have not kept the pace with inflation: Average Weekly Earnings growth (AWE, the line in red on the chart below) used to be much higher than inflation rate (light blue columns) before the financial crisis. The trend flipped after 2008. In 2011, earnings grew at only half the pace of inflation, and only in the second half of this year has inflation gone below earnings. 2. More people are working part-time: this type of job is prevalent in low- and medium-skilled professions, and this may have caused a greater fall in real wages among those on low incomes. 3. Fewer people are working at lower-skill jobs: between 2008 and 2011, the share of jobs which were low- or medium-skilled fell from 55.9% to 54.8%, according to the report. As low-skilled workers normally earn less than the high-skilled, a move from one category to the other means those remaining in the low-skilled band are essentially the lowest of the low, and they earn on average even less than they did before. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ukraine Prime Minister: There Has Been An Accident At A Nuclear Plant In The Southeast | ||
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Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Wednesday that there has been an accident at a nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine, Reuters reports. "I know that an accident has occurred at the Zaporizhye NPP," Yatseniuk said, asking new energy minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn to make clear when the problem would be resolved and what steps would be taken to restore normal power supply across Ukraine. News agency Interfax Ukraine said the problem had occurred at bloc No 3 - a 1,000-megawatt reactor - and the resulting lack of output had worsened the power crisis in the country. Interfax added that the bloc was expected to come back on stream on Dec. 5. There are reports that the damage is minor, with no damage to the reactor. Ukraine gets about half its power from nuclear plants. "Assuming it is indeed as minor as now appears, suggest Yatsenyuk goes on a 'how to talk about nuclear incidents without sowing panic' course," Guardian journalist Shaun Walker, who has covered the conflict in Ukraine, tweeted.
Ukraine voted on a new government on Tuesday night. Under President Petro Poroshenko and Yatseniuk, Kiev has cut aid to the eastern regions held by pro-Russian rebels since soon after protesters toppled Kiev's pro-Moscow president in February. Fighting has continued despite a ceasefire agreed on Sept. 5. In the rebel stronghold of Donetsk a senior separatist figure said rival sides agreed a new local truce from 10.00 a.m. ET around the city airport. "But this is 65th time we agree about this. I don't rule out that there is going to be 66th time," Andrei Purgin said. Sounds of fighting abated but did not stop. Kiev said rebels renewed attacks on the airport in the evening. Russia acknowledges supporting the separatists but denies Western charges of being a party to the armed conflict.
This post will be updated with details as they arrive.
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UKIP MP Says The Party Would Slash Britain's Overseas Aid Budget By 80% | ||
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Douglas Carswell, UKIP MP for Clacton, has suggested that his party would slash the Overseas Aid budget by £9 billion in order to cut the deficit: Overseas aid spending is currently ringfenced by the Coalition. Explaining his decision Prime Minister David Cameron has claimed that protecting the overseas aid budget is key not only for reasons of compassion but also for Britain's national interest. As he said in a 2011 article in The Guardian: "So it is in our national interest not just to deal with the symptoms of conflict when they arise, but also to prevent that conflict by addressing the underlying causes – poverty, disease and lack of opportunity...That is why I believe we are right to protect our aid budget." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Obama's Inner Circle Never Really Had Room For Hillary | ||
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In this excerpt from Clinton, Inc: The Audacious Rebuilding Of A Political Machine, Daniel Halper, a political writer and online editor at The Weekly Standard, compiles candid interviews with former Clinton administration aides, friends, and enemies to reveal the hardened relationship between Hillary Clinton and President Obama. As Hillary, the pragmatist, had demanded before taking the job, she did have regular "one-on-ones" with the president. For Clinton this offered the visual, at least to the Washington press corps, that she was an integral player. To Obama it was a chance for respectful listening and making sure that Hillary personally felt looped-in to the happenings at the White House. But it never seemed to stop him from doing whatever he wanted to do once she left the room. "As secretary of state I think that her relationship with the president was cordial, but never close," says Senator John McCain, who served as the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and observed her up close. McCain's a foreign policy hawk—one more aligned with Hillary than Obama, so it is with a tinge of regret the former Republican presidential nominee makes this observation on morning in his Senate office. "I don't believe that when crucial decisions were made that she was necessarily in the room ... [W]hen it came to some crucial decisions I don't think that Mr. Donilon (national security adviser to Obama) was swayed by her opinion. I'm not saying she wasn't consulted, but I think it's very well known she was not in the inner circle of decision makers on national security."
"I think she had very little interaction" with the president, says veteran State Department employee. "A lot of this was, you know, she would go to meetings of the NSC (national security council) when she was in town and called, but it was a very distant relationship." The NSC sidelined Clinton at every turn—as it did other cabinet secretaries from Gates to his successors at the Pentagon, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel. "They would send [the defense secretary] to someplace like Botswana while they crafted North Korea policy at the White House," one former Defense Department official says. "Obama brought her into the administration, put her in a bubble, and ignored her," says a former high-ranking diplomat. "It turned out to be a brilliant political maneuver by Obama, making it impossible for her to challenge him, unless she left the administration, and not giving her an excuse that she could resign in protest. So she was stuck."
Once she realized she would never really be a major player in Obamaland, Hillary Clinton did what she always did: adjusted her course. "She kept her head down on large issues," says a former Obama administration official. "She did a nice job of tamping down any tension between her and the White House." And she focused on her own future. With Clinton taking to the skies and traveling the world, her post at the State Department became a platform for the United States and Hillary Clinton. Excerpted from Clinton, Inc: The Audacious Rebuilding Of A Political Machine, by Daniel Halper, (HarperCollins Publishers, 2014). Excerpted with permission by Daniel Halper and HarperCollins Publishers. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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China rolls ahead with train makers' merger | ||
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Shanghai (AFP) - China is moving forward with the merger of its two top train makers, state media said Wednesday, with a plan to create a massive group to export high-speed railway technology. State media have previously said the merger of state-owned China CNR Corp. and CSR Corp. will help prevent "cut-throat" competition between the two when seeking business overseas. The merger could also put the combined entity in a stronger position to take on the likes of Germany’s Siemens and Bombardier of Canada. A draft plan for the merger has been submitted to China's cabinet, the State Council, for discussion and approval, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It quoted a source from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, which manages state firms. The new entity's Chinese name will be "China Railway Rolling Stock Group", the 21st Century Business Herald reported, citing an unnamed source. CSR will take the lead, taking over CNR in an all-share deal and absorbing its business and employees as well as assets and debts, the newspaper said. Neither company has commented on the proposed merger, which came to light in October through media reports. The two companies, both dual-listed on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges, have suspended their shares from trading pending "important" announcements, exchange filings show. CSR was embroiled in a 2011 scandal after a high-speed train crash near Wenzhou city killed 40 people and sparked an investigation that found evidence of bribery in railway construction. It was also part of a consortium that won a $3.75 billion high-speed railway contract from Mexico in early November. The contract was cancelled shortly afterwards amid questions over the legality of the bidding process. CSR's net profit rose 58.29 percent year-on-year to 3.97 billion yuan ($651 million) in the January-September period, according to the company. CNR secured a deal in October to supply metro trains to the US city of Boston. Its net profit jumped 65.1 percent year-on-year to 3.96 billion yuan in the first three quarters of this year, the company said. The firms share the same origin, a rail vehicle manufacturer spun off from the former railway ministry in 2000 and split into two. The railway ministry itself was merged into another state agency in March last year and its commercial functions turned over to a new company, China Railway Corp. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things In Tech You Need To Know Today (MSFT, TWTR, GOOG, VZ) | ||
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Good morning! It's going to be a cloudy day in London. Here's the tech news you need to know today. 1. Steam has launched a video game streaming service to compete with Twitch. Steam already has over 100 million users. 2. Uber will begin testing its carpooling service in New York this week. It lets riders share the price of a ride. 3. Hackers may be planning a big attack on the Xbox Live gaming service for Christmas. One group claims that it has already carried out a test attack. 4. North Korea is refusing to deny hacking into Sony Pictures. A government representative said "Wait and see." 5. Stephen Hawking says that artificial intelligence could kill all humans. He says that humans wouldn't be able to compete with intelligent machines. 6. Uber reportedly gave an interview candidate access to its rider database. It allegedly happened last year. 7. Twitter has launched new measures designed to stop abuse. You can now see a list of people that you have blocked. 8. The UK has issued new guidelines on what is allowed in online porn. You can't show harmful activities anymore. 9. Google is donating $1 million to help New York public libraries provide high-speed internet access. It could help 10,000 people. 10. Verizon has quietly killed its new tech news website. SugarString was a pilot project. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Kalashnikov fight Russia sanctions with fashion line | ||
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Moscow (AFP) - The makers of Russia's iconic AK-47 assault rifle are moving into fashion to get around Western sanctions on its weapons. At a flashy event in Moscow on Tuesday, Kalashnikov Concern unveiled a new look and a new red-and-black K-shaped logo as guests were handed empty AK bullet magazines. The arms producer was one of the companies targeted this year by Western sanctions imposed over Moscow's role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. It led to a freeze in delivery of up to 200,000 rifles to the United States and Canada, and the cancelling of an advertising campaign there to be spearheaded by Hollywood actor Steven Seagal. But far from scaling back, Kalashnikov is set to double production and diversify into clothing and accessory lines, company CEO Alexei Krivoruchko, told Russian news agencies. He said the company intends to quadruple its sales by 2020 through expanding domestic sales, doubling production capacity and an increase in exports to South America, Asia and Africa. Kalashnikov makes weapons for military, civilian and sports use mainly for export markets. Sales of its Saiga shotguns and rifles have actually increased in the US since sanctions were imposed, according to reports. The bestselling 1940s-designed AK model has become ubiquitous due to its low price, simplicity and reliability, with more than 70 million sold worldwide. In 2014 Kalashnikov sold 140,000 guns, double the figure in 2013, the company said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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