This year’s king is Apple- Not Cola, not anymore. Apple has successfully gained the first place on the 100 most variable brand, replacing Cola’s position. Perhaps it’s because brands like Apple or google not only provides a much deeper version of advanced technology, but it has also changed the way we live our lives,

or it’s never ending products development; are they valued because of the huge amount of money they spend on their R&D, which results in the provision of the latest, most advanced technology that they could possibly give to their customers?

or are they valued simply for the years and years of effort in building the ‘perfect’ image? or the way they differentiate themselves by always being the first to develop the i-products? No matter what reason it is, Apple has now positioned itself as the most valuable brand and the status itself shows how much approvals they are getting from their always-loyal customers.

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As our reliance on technology increases, social medias such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. suddenly matters a lot, more than ever. It’s not only used for social interactions, it can also be used as an instant advertising, a form of marketing strategy, used by businesses to target a broad range of people in just one click, a simple way to get customers.

Just in a minute, apple’s market capitalization increased by $17 billion. And now the question is- How? How, indeed. Well, the answer is none other than Twitter. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Icahn posted the following tweet:

“Had a cordial dinner with Tim last night. We pushed hard for a 150 billion buyback. We decided to continue dialogue in about three weeks.”

Who would have ever guessed that it takes only a mere tweet to get customers this interested? Apple immediately gained a “Fast Money” right after Mr. Icahn’s Twitter post. Since social media is a kind of mouth-to-mouth advertisements, if used properly- it can be big and that’s exactly what happened to Apple.

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US is undoubtedly in the middle of a very harsh situation and whoever says otherwise, obviously hasn’t seen it in a bigger-picture-kind-of-way. The fact that US is now faced with an economic blow; tons of debt ceiling drama, has pushed Mr. Obama to take a step up and calls for a shutdown. A shutdown with zero progress and for which also to be closed as soon as the fifth day ends.

Despite Government’s various attempts at avoiding any further debts, none of them worked- and worst is that they still need to pay for the bills. Borrowing a few more is just out of question, because that would just push the debt above the limit. For them to avoid default, they have to raise their debt ceiling. Other options are simply impossible to achieve; it’s either taxes have to go up really high, or spending must be reduced greatly. So the only ‘smart’ option left would be to raise the debt ceiling.

If none of them works, then recession, bond market crisis, declining stock market, low value of dollar, unemployment would likely to occur, and if that’s what happen, then US is certainly heading towards a big crisis.

References: 

http://money.cnn.com/interactive/news/economy/whats-up-with-the-debt-ceiling/?hpt=hp_t1

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/07/news/economy/shutdown-economic-impact/index.html?iid=SF_BN_LN

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24419564