EUROPEAN UNION
New finance law proposed
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has proposed the introduction into European law of “individual responsibility” that would expose financial sector wrong-doers to criminal sanctions. “This Thursday I am going to propose that individual criminal responsibility for financial players be recognized in European law,” Barroso said in comments run by Le Parisien newspaper yesterday. Such a move would oblige member nations that do not yet have such a law on their statute books to make the necessary changes. “We have seen abusive behavior on the markets, some of which has provoked the current crisis. We are going to regulate these practices,” Barroso said.
EUROPEAN UNION
Global tax called unrealistic
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Saturday that it was “not realistic” to set up a financial transaction tax at the global level, but Europe should go it alone. However, on the question of whether the tax could be imposed globally, as Germany has pushed for, Schaeuble said: “It is not realistic at the current time.” Last month, Europe went ahead with proposals to tax the financial sector, ignoring US opposition in a move that has also provoked grumblings in London which fears capital flight. Schaeuble said earlier in the week that Germany would go it alone if needed on such a tax, which enjoys support among publics being forced to make sacrifices as governments cut back spending.
TECHNOLOGY
California honors Jobs
Amid global mourning for the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, California Governor Jerry Brown declared yesterday “Steve Jobs Day” in the southern US state. “In his life and work, Steve Jobs embodied the California dream,” Brown said in a statement. “To call him influential would be an understatement ... His innovations transformed an industry, and the products he conceived and shepherded to market have changed the way the entire world communicates.”
UNITED STATES
Inflation slows, output steady
The cost of living in the US probably eased last month and the pace of factory production held steady, consistent with the US Federal Reserve’s forecast of moderating inflation and slow growth, economists said reports would show this week. Consumer prices rose 0.3 percent, the smallest gain in three months, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before Labor Department data on Wednesday. Industrial output increased 0.2 percent for a second month last month, while sales of previously owned homes declined, other reports may show.
Clothing retailer Gap Inc and supermarket chain Safeway Inc said they are limited in how much they can raise prices to make up for higher raw materials expenses as weak job and income gains squeeze consumers. Contained inflation expectations and labor costs gave Fed officials scope last month to pursue monetary policy geared at stoking the economic recovery. “The burden has shifted away from inflation,” BNP Paribas economist Bricklin Dwyer said. “The Fed’s concern right now is that growth slows too much. The economy is just muddling along.” The industry at the forefront of the recovery that began in June 2009 — manufacturing — stumbled in the third quarter as the global economy cooled and US consumers cut back.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the