There is a lot of reluctance about giving governments the power to pick winners as they dispense research cash to businesses.

The worry is that choices are inevitably guided by politics, rather than merit. Critics also point out that governments have a poor track record of identifying good business opportunities. The result is that too often money is wasted.

Malaysia’s Petronas is lining up Asian energy players to help build a Canadian liquefied natural gas megaproject, but there is a catch. Before anyone joins the ownership team, the prospective partners must sign long-term contracts to buy LNG.

The state-owned energy giant is optimistic that it will find partners eager to participate in the massive development planned by Petronas-led Pacific NorthWest LNG LP. Petronas has a 90-per-cent stake in Pacific NorthWest, while Japan Petroleum Exploration holds a 10-per-cent interest.

Malaysia’s Petronas is lining up Asian energy players to help build a Canadian liquefied natural gas megaproject, but there is a catch. Before anyone joins the ownership team, the prospective partners must sign long-term contracts to buy LNG.

The state-owned energy giant is optimistic that it will find partners eager to participate in the massive development planned by Petronas-led Pacific NorthWest LNG LP. Petronas has a 90-per-cent stake in Pacific NorthWest, while Japan Petroleum Exploration holds a 10-per-cent interest.

A condition of becoming a co-owner is to agree to take delivery of LNG in Asia. “When you look at our project, our partners will be fully integrated and have a physical need for LNG,” Pacific NorthWest president Greg Kist said in an interview.

“All of our LNG volumes will be committed to partners who will buy their proportion, and that creates an alignment of interests.”

The multibillion-dollar plans include transporting natural gas in northeastern British Columbia to remote Lelu Island in the northwest part of the province.

Asia is a great potential market. In future, people will still buy  gasoline and gas to fill up their tank in the ‘s

sourcehttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/petronas-moves-to-secure-asian-market-with-natural-gas-megaproject/article15480512/

Pacific

If there’s one mistake Howard Schultz is determined not to repeat, at least not any time soon, it’s this: retirement.

Starbucks’s seemingly tireless chief executive stepped away in 2000 (he took the chairman position), only to watch his company’s financial results begin to evaporate, as rapid expansion, a misguided foray into food – not to mention the economic downturn – took their toll.

Starbucks is enjoying record operating results again, despite a $2.8-billion (U.S.) penalty imposed on it this week after it lost a grocery distribution battle with Kraft.

Now 60, at a time when other CEOs might think about handing over the reins, Mr. Schultz says he’s more in need of a caffeine fix than ever. There are no talks of succession and neither of his two children are involved in the busines

Everyone needs to retire at a certain age in order to enjoy the rest of his life. However, the CEO of Starbucks does not do so because none of his children are involved in business, so he is worried and how do not know who to pass his business to the next generation.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/careers-leadership/for-starbuckss-howard-schultz-a-sip-of-retirement-was-more-than-enough/article15472477/

Alberta’s oil sands producers have received some timely support from the International Energy Agency, with the industry – and indeed the Canadian government – facing increasing condemnation over the failure to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

As the United Nations climate summit continues in Warsaw this week, the IEA chief economist Fatih Birol played down the oil sands’ contribution to global warming, and said the long-term challenge is to access the energy-hungry markets of Asia while slowing the growth in emissions.

On two week-long trips to Australia in the past month, the CEO and vice-chairman of Saputo Inc. has travelled hundreds of kilometres in the state of Victoria to meet with dairy farmers who own shares of Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory Co.

Since Saputo went public in 1997, the Montreal-based company has completed 22 deals totalling $4.2-billion. But never before has it been engaged in a public bidding war. Its opponents, local producers, have played the nationalist card, depicting Saputo as a foreign producer that would turn the Australian dairy market upside down.

Getting a foot in Australia is key for Mr. Saputo. When the 47-year-old executive succeeded his father a decade ago, he set Saputo on an international course, believing that the country’s biggest dairy processor had outgrown Canada. Australia, with Argentina and New Zealand, is one of the few countries that has the infrastructure to produce dairy products and ingredients on a large scale and has access to milk at low international prices.

The demand of milk has been increasing these years, so the supply can’t satisfy people’s daily demand anymore. Due to this reason, the dairy company is expanding to an international company, and trying to transport good from Australia and New Zealand to Canada. It is a good strategy that can be used when a company need more products and also inspired me how to choose  the operating company.

source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/saputos-global-dairy-expansion-sets-its-sights-on-australia/article15480711/

A Bank of Canada working paper released this week says central banks are unlikely to cede their monopoly on issuing currency to a new generation of web industry giants, such as Facebook and Amazon.

That’s because virtual currencies are prisoners of their basic function: Getting consumers to buy more stuff.

As a result, these companies are unlikely to ever make their virtual currencies fully convertible into regular cash, according to the study, Some Economics of Private Digital Currency. And without full convertibility, the use of virtual money is limited to the virtual world.

The case of Bitcoin – a fully convertible, pure digital currency – is more problematic. Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury department started requiring that all virtual transactions worth more than $10,000 (U.S.) be reported to authorities to prevent virtual currencies being used for money laundering and other illegal purposes.

The authors don’t reach a firm conclusion on whether governments should crack down on virtual currencies, pointing out that regulation might stifle innovation. At the same time, they warn that “multiple competing platforms creates inefficiency” that will dissuade people from embracing them.

Internet is getting more and more involved in our daily life. As a deviant, the bitcoin appears. Even though it is only a virtual currency, people are now making it useable in real world suck as using bitcoin to buy a cup of coffee or anything online. A revolution of currency is up.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/virtual-cash-is-no-threat-to-the-real-thing-bank-of-canada-paper-says/article15410873/

The Parti Québécois government is vying to reboot the province’s economy with a new $2-billion plan that it says will create more than 40,000 jobs by 2017.

The money injected into the province will fund employment and development in a number of targeted areas:

• $566-million for the renovation of infrastructure, including community centres, arenas and schools
• $516-million for the development of an electric transit industry in Quebec that will build electric cars, electric railways, and related infrastructure.

The new plan also includes more than $700-million in tax credits as well as discounted hydro rates for companies which invest to create new jobs.

Reflection: Even though there are many people opposing this plan, but I think this plan is very efficient and effective for the recession in a short term. As a result of this plan, unemployment rate will drop significantly since the government encourages people to get jobs. There also appears a chance that the economy may stay out of the recession, and is charged with full energy.

source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/pq-announces-2-billion-jobs-plan-1.1928834

The White House signalled on Monday that it would be open to a short-term hike in the U.S. debt limit as the United States moved a step closer to its first-ever default while a separate impasse.

The shutdown, which centres on a fight over funding for President Barack Obama’s new health care law, has pushed hundreds of thousands of workers off the job, closed national parks and museums and stopped an array of government services.

A default could have far bigger consequences. Economists say it could trigger a financial crisis and recession that would echo 2008 — or worse. The 2008 financial crisis plunged the U.S. into the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Those who remain at home or are working without paycheques are a step closer to getting back pay once the partial government shutdown ends. The Senate could act this week on the measure that passed the House unanimously on Saturday.

The shutdown of U.S. government have caused lots of economical problems. It is totally inefficiency. unemployment is rising sharply. Few people working lead to a long line up for document may missed or delayed many economic opportunities. Fortunately, the government is going to reopen very soon, so worker will get go back to their work very soon

source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/white-house-open-to-consider-short-term-rise-in-u-s-debt-limit-1.1928976

There’s no refuge in the suburbs from Canada’s housing affordability problem.

You can buy a house for less money in the suburbs than you can in a big city, but the cost of commuting may kill almost all your savings. Some number-crunching by a public-spirited mortgage broker in the Toronto area makes this point quite clearly.

David Hughes, with the Mortgage Group Ontario Inc., divides his clients into a couple of groups with respect to attitudes toward living in suburbia: One group wants to live in the suburbs and is fine with the idea of commuting, and then there are those who want to live downtown, but can’t afford the prices. He finds people talking more about the cost of two working parents commuting by car every day. He explains this shift as being a result of the bigger mortgages people are taking on, and the considerable cost of buying and owning a car.

If you plan to live outside the city where you work, commuting costs must be part of your housing affordability analysis. Mr. Hughes said he delicately makes this point to clients that come in with thoughts of suburban living. “I don’t want to see anyone impoverished by their choice.”

Living in the suburbs

Living in the city

Assumptions

• Car costs estimated at $9,500 per year for a compact car using CAA numbers times two vehicles
• Downtown transportation costs pegged at $235.50 for 2 adult transit passes per month plus discretionary transit spending of $264.50 per month
• Mortgage is paid over 25 years at a constant rate of 3.5 per cent

SOURCE: DAVID HUGHES
GRAPHIC BY STUART A. THOMPSON AND JOHN SOPINSKI

Reflection: As the price of houses is rising crazy, lots of people choose to move to some remote areas to save their money; however, the commuting cost may exceed what people expect Therefore, wisely choosing the living place becomes more important nowadays.

source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/mortgages/the-real-cost-of-suburbia/article14733912/

APPLE doesn’t keep secrets the way it once did. Before the company’s latest product launch on September 10th rumours swirled that it would depart from its practice of rolling out one new iPhone a year and launch two instead. And so it did. But at least the pricier of the new smartphones, the iPhone 5s, will make it easier for users to keep their secrets safe, thanks to a fingerprint scanner built into its “home” button. This feature, too, slipped out early, as did news of the arrival of a cheaper, plastic-backed and unusually colourful

iPhone 5c

Apple has changed their product’s style with risks. Tim Cock is not following the routine that the past CEO Steve Jobs used to showed us. In order to make more profits, Apple published two iPhones without much surprise, and many fans point out that even the fingerprint feature was not exactly ground-breaking. Instead of providing customers better quality, Apple aims for the missing market. Furthermore, due to the lost of secrecy, the product’s launching does not remain a surprise anymore, and therefore becomes meaningless.

Stakeholder involved:

Developers of Apple, Stockholders of Apple, Customers of Apple

Marketing&Finance:

Apple should improve their sealing of their new products in order to keep their reputation and media’s attention. Apple may make a lot more money in a shirt term, but the power of the brand becomes weaker than it used to be.

source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/09/apples-new-iphones