How to Buy Vacant Land for Development

What needs to be considered when buying land to build onA lot of people are starting to gain an interest in purchasing land outside the city limits to build houses and other types of buildings. That’s an excellent idea, but there are several vital aspects that you have to consider when choosing vacant land. Buying…

The myth of isolationist America

Is the United States turning inward and becoming isolationist? That question was posed to me by a number of financial and political leaders at the recent World Economic Forum at Davos, and was heard again a few days later at the annual Munich Security Conference. In a strong speech at Davos, Secretary of State John Kerry…

How Businesses Can Help Charities Do Good

Businesses are not solely good for their owners. A healthy, stable business provides jobs for its employees, tax revenue for the government, and often valuable, important products and services to their customers – whether businesses or individual consumers. In a social context, businesses can do even more good, supporting communities and charities local to their…

The race for video game innovation

Derided for years by older generations as an industry purely aimed at children, the video games industry has grown to such a level that it is now among the most dominant – and most profitable – of all the entertainment industries. Worth around $80bn, the global video game industry has exploded in popularity over the…

The call of corporate consolidation

It’s highly unlikely that the average American consumer had heard of a company calledShuanghui International until the middle of this year – but they certainly will over the next few years. The Hong Kong-based but mainly China mainland-owned company is a producer of meat products that only got going 30 years ago. As for its…

Trapped on a sinking island

Like politicians everywhere, Puerto Rico’s legislators never like to be reminded of failure – not least (in their case) the island’s dubious distinction of sliding into recession in 2006 when much of the West was still in the throes of an economic boom. After eventually becoming a self-governing US territory (a new constitution was approved…

China’s economic growth slows

Even though it has propelled the global economy for much of the last decade, recent figures have shown China’s economy is slowing down to its lowest rate in 14 years. Official figures released today reveal that GDP growth for 2013 was 7.7 percent, down 0.01 percent on the previous year’s number. Despite this slump, growth was higher…

China: IMF must empower emerging markets

China has entreated member nations of the IMF to give more power to emerging markets. The request was brought about after US lawmakers blocked the IMF’s move to reorganise power structures in favour of emerging markets. The change would give countries such as China, Brazil and India more weight in relation to the emergency lender’s…