Countries are still working out their responses to a globalised and inter-connected world.  This report from the Canadian International Council is an absorbing example of an approach for Canada.  Its the more absorbing because Canada sits on one of the longest borders in the world, with the United States.  One of the early themes is the reliance of Canada on free trade amongst US, Canada and Mexico, yet trade with the US is dropping sharply since 2000 as the US became more protectionist of its borders.  Exports to US have dropped from $37bn to $26bn in the period 2000 to … Continue reading ‘Open Canada’ | Report from Canadian International Council

FT have been running the CEBS announcement on European bank stress test live since 16:45 BST.  Biggest surprise the the small number of failures.  One Spanish bank is all I picked out so far.  Portugal, Italy all passed.  I have seen nothing on Greece as yet.   More later.   Technorati Tags: stress tests,CEBS Continue reading CEBS bank stress tests being announced live

Internet has resulted in more than a fair share of amateur experts on everything from technology to economics.  it was interesting to watch the antics of the armchair group when back in May Apple market cap overtook Microsoft.  The end of an era, as reported by their technology reporter. Fast forward to this morning, and look at the market caps. No-one doubts the shift to mobile and I still love my iPhone.  However care should be taken in isolating daily jumps in emotional stock markets which can generate attention grabbing headlines that may well prove to be proof of a … Continue reading “Apple passes Microsoft as No. 1” | oops … all change again this morning

An interesting chart from ft.com that reviews marketing shifts in the UK.  While there is a general downward shift in marketing in Q2, the mix continues to shift away from traditional and towards internet. Q2 2010 Bellwether: marketing spend down The latest IPA/BDO Bellwether survey published today (12th July 2010) reveals that marketing budgets were revised down in Q2 amid uncertainty regarding the economic outlook, with around 20% of companies reporting a downward revision against 15% that reported an increase.  Business confidence has also dipped with positive sentiment the lowest for a year. However the rate of budget trimming was … Continue reading IPA/BDO Bellwether survey indicates further shifts in marketing spending

This is an off-topic rant on iOS 4.  if you are not using iPhone please disregard 🙂 <rant> As cool as the iphone is, there are some things that just don’t change under the covers, whether its windows, or apple OS and thats memory management.  This is lazy code development. The example here is the use of memory in the fake multitasking implemented in iOS 4.  Multitasking is not multitasking in iOS 4 – it is restricted to 3 areas (audio, VoIP, and location data).  Read here for the experts outline.  So if it is not real, then at least … Continue reading iPhone memory management and supposed ‘multitasking’