2014年经济学人 沙特对美明修栈道 国际货币基金组织总结教训

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Business this week

Federal air-accident investigators¹ began looking into what caused a spaceplane owned by Virgin² Galactic to explode over theMojave desert during a test flight, killing³ one pilot. The accident is a setback⁴ for the burgeoning⁵ private space industry. Virgin Galactic had been hoping to take rich tourists to the edge of space in the aircraft perhaps as early as next year. Sir Richard Branson, its founder⁶, promised to keep the project going and build a second spaceplane. He had planned to be aboard the inaugural⁷ passenger flight.

Access to the internet

Robert Hannigan, the head of Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency, called for more support from internet giants such as Google and Apple in gathering⁸ information about suspected terrorists. He described social-media sites as “the command and control networks of choice” for terror groups, and criticised the extra security measures being added to the internet by companies in their efforts to deter⁹ surveillance by Western spies.

Haruhiko Kuroda, the governor of the Bank of Japan, strongly defended the massive expansion of the government's quantitative-easing measures, announced on October 31st. Mr Kuroda said that he would do whatever it takes to cure Japan's “chronic disease of deflation”, though critics think the scale of the new initiative will distort markets. After the policy was revealed the Nikkei stockmarket index jumped to a seven-year high and the yen¹⁰ tumbled against the dollar.

Inflation in the euro zone will remain below the European Central Bank's target of almost 2% until at least 2016, according to the latest official economic forecast from the European Commission, which also sharply reduced the outlook for growth next year, to 1.1%.

America's economy grew at an annualised rate of 3.5% in the third quarter, thanks in part to increased government spending and exports. But the unexpectedly large growth of the trade deficit¹¹ in September suggests that the GDP figure will be revised downwards¹².

Amid the rouble rubble¹³

The announcement by Russia's central bank that it would curb¹⁴ its support for the rouble pushed itto new lows against the dollar and the euro. The bank spent more than 30 billion propping¹⁵ up the currency in October and it raised interest rates to 9.5% just recently. Limiting its interventions¹⁶ will increase inflation, but also protect foreign reserves and help avert¹⁷ the risk of a full-scale currency crisis.

The price of Brent crude sank to a four-year low afterSaudi Arabia cut its price for oil forAmerica while raising it elsewhere, seen by some as an aggressive move by the Saudis to increase market share. With the Saudis trying to boost oil imports intoAmerica, BHP Billiton, meanwhile, was hoping to test a ban on oil exports fromAmerica by selling oil it has extracted but processed only very lightly inTexas.

A report by the IMF's internal auditor¹⁸ concluded that having first advised countries to adopt fiscal¹⁹ stimulus²⁰ during the global financial crisis, the fund's later push for austerity had “turned out to be a mistake and its timing²¹ unfortunate”, because the recovery was fragile. Christine Lagarde, who has led the IMF since 2011, said the auditor's report benefited from hindsight.

The trial of the most senior Swiss banker to be charged with helping²² Americans evade²³ tax came to a swift end, when a jury inFlorida took just over an hour to find him not guilty. Raoul Weil used to run the wealth-management division at UBS. The prosecution²⁴'s case was based partly on testimony²⁵ from his former subordinates, some of whom struck deals to avoid prosecution. His defence team was so confident about winning that it didn't bother calling any witnesses.

Alibaba issued its first earnings²⁶ report since making its stockmarket debut²⁷ in September. The Chinese e-commerce company's revenue in the third quarter grew by more than half, to 2.7 billion, from the same period last year, mostly because many more people inChina are using mobile devices to shop.

Ryanair,Europe's biggest low-cost airline, reported solid earnings for the latest quarter and raised the outlook for its annual profit. The butt²⁸ of many jokes about poor airline service, Ryanair has refocused on attracting business passengers and overhauled²⁹ its systems, reducing its online booking process from 17 to five clicks. Its boss, Michael O'Leary, who once described passengers as “idiots”, said that being nice was new to him, but was turning out to be a winning strategy.

A tasty deal

United Biscuits, a British baker³⁰ that includes Jaffa Cakes and Twiglets among its brands, was sold by its private-equity owners toYildiz,Turkey's biggest food company, for a reported 2 billion.