UK cash system is 'at risk of collapse'

- The UK’s cash system will collapse without urgent legislation to protect it, according to a new study.

Panel members behind the Access to Cash Review, which published its final report a year ago, said action is needed to protect cash for as long as people need it.

They say that in the 12 months since their last review, significant issues within the country’s cash infrastructure remain.

The review was set up by ATM network provider Link to help understand how consumers use cash and how their requirements to access physical money will change over the next five to 15 years.

It previously predicted that society would be at the point of being "virtually cashless" by 2035, with fewer than one-in-10 transactions being made in cash.

But trade association UK Finance now expects the UK to hit this point within the next decade.

Panel members also pointed to figures showing that, over the past year, 13% of free-to-use UK ATMs have closed, as lower levels of cash use have made them economically unviable. About 25% of ATMs now charge people to withdraw their cash.

They also warn that the Post Office's cash access service is under serious threat.

Barclays recently reversed plans to stop customers accessing cash withdrawal services from post offices following a backlash.

Various initiatives have been set up by the industry to help maintain people's access to cash, including cashback initiatives at local shops and a "request an ATM" service.

But the panel said it believes the only way to manage the cash system is for the government to legislate and give regulators the tools that they need to protect cash access.

Tissues, toilet paper, paper towels and diapers getting more expensive

- Get ready to pay a little more for Pampers, Charmin, Bounty, and Puffs.

Procter & Gamble said on Tuesday that it was in the process of raising Pampers’ prices in North America by 4 percent. P&G also began notifying retailers this week that it would increase the average prices of Bounty, Charmin, and Puffs by 5 percent.

P&G is raising prices because commodity and transportation cost pressures are intensifying. The hikes to Bounty and Charmin will go into effect in late October, and Puffs will become more expensive beginning early next year.

These products are significant sales drivers and market share leaders for P&G.

Food companies, such as Coke, Boston Beer, Hershey, and Tyson Foods, have announced price increases in recent weeks, but P&G’s move will serve as a test for how willing Americans are to pay up for big household brands. The strategy could leave the company vulnerable to low-cost competitors or pushback from retail partners. Walmart was P&G’s biggest buyer in 2017, accounting for 16 percent of its $65 billion in sales.

“There is uncertainty and will be volatility with these pricing moves. They will negatively impact consumption. We’ll have to adjust as we go and as we learn,” Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller told analysts on Tuesday.

Mexico imposes tariffs on $3 billion worth of US exports

CNN - In retaliation for the Trump administration announcing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico and much of the rest of the world, Mexico Tuesday imposed a series of tariffs against US exports to its market valued at $3 billion. They'll hike the price of products including pork, apples, potatoes, bourbon as well as different types of cheese.

The tariffs range between 15% and 25%, and could raise the price of US goods by that amount, cutting deeply into US exports to its neighbour.

"It is necessary and urgent to impose measures equivalent to the measures implemented by" the US, said the statement issued by the Mexican government. Mexico had signaled last week that it intended to retaliate against the US steel and aluminum tariffs.

In addition to the agricultural products and bourbon, Mexico imposed tariffs on a variety of US steel products exports.

While Mexico exports more goods and services to the US than it buys, it is also the second largest market for US exports, buying $277 billion worth of US goods and services last year, according to the Commerce Department.

That put it behind only Canada in terms of the value of US exports.

The tariffs imposed Tuesday will affect just more than 1% of US exports to Mexico. But they'll have a significant impact on the targeted US industries.

For example Mexico is the largest market for US pork exports according to the National Pork Producers Council, an industry trade group. It says that 25% of US pork exports last year went to Mexico.

"A 20% tariff eliminates our ability to compete effectively in Mexico," said Jim Heimerl, the trade group's president and a pork producer from Johnstown, Ohio. "This is devastating to my family and pork producing families across the United States."

California's economy is now the 5th-biggest in the world, and has overtaken the United Kingdom

- California's economy is so large, and has grown so quickly, that it is now the fifth-biggest in the world all by itself, according to US government data.

Figures released on Friday by the US Department of Commerce put California's effective GDP from 2017 at around $2.747 trillion. It said the state's economy grew by 3.4% in the past year.

That growth puts it ahead of the United Kingdom, which has a GDP of $2.625 trillion, according to data published last month by the International Monetary Fund.

According to the Associated Press, California's boom has been especially pronounced because of its thriving tech, entertainment and agricultural industries.

The difference is even more stark in light of the respective economies' populations: Britain has around 66 million inhabitants, compared to California's 40 million.

The United Kingdom has experienced sluggish growth in the past year and many consider its future economic prospects in peril because of its impending exit from the European Union, characterised by fraught negotiations.

It also highlighted currency fluctuations which helped increase the US dollar figure for California's economy at the expense of Britain's.

The Amazon Health-Care Threat Has Arrived

bloomberg.com - The great and oft-heralded Amazon.com Inc. foray into health care is here, and it's not what we expected.

The company isn't diving headlong into drug distribution or becoming a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM). Along with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc., it announced a more interesting idea Tuesday -- a new company aimed at lowering the cost of employee health coverage.

Though no one sector will face the full wrath of Bezos, this joint venture is a potential competitive threat to all of health care's many middlemen.

This isn't Corporate America's first stab at controlling ballooning health-care costs. Caterpillar Inc. runs its own PBM for employees. Forty plus U.S. companies are part of the Health Transformation Alliance, founded in 2016 to "fix our broken health care system" by pooling data and uniting to wrest better terms from PBMs, among other things.

But Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan seem to have bigger ambitions than just negotiating prices with service providers. You don't need to create a whole new company or devote significant resources to do that.

A key line in the detail-light release announcing the new company is that it will be "free from profit-making incentives." That looks like a shot at PBMs and health insurers, who try to lower costs but also maximize profit for stakeholders, resulting in a perverse and very expensive system. But it could also be aimed at health-care providers, given their Byzantine pricing and the outsize share of costs they represent.

The release said the new company's "initial focus" will be on using technology to provide simpler, cheaper, and more transparent health care for employees of the three founding firms. Whatever that means, it seems likely the ultimate aim may be to independently design and run employee health coverage.

With nearly 1.2 million employees and hundreds of billions in combined revenue -- along with the combined expertise of three of the most successful companies in history -- Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan have the requisite firepower to do this.

Insurers and PBMs now must worry about other companies following this blueprint. Even scarier for them is the idea that the Amazon/Berkshire/JPMorgan company will eventually recruit other employers to join it. That's a real possibility, given the venture's ambition and the fact that it's creating a new company rather than a less-formal alliance. In the release, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon teased the idea of potentially helping "all Americans."

Incumbents aren't necessarily doomed just yet. This venture is in its infancy, and health care is complicated. The U.S. system is opaque, fragmented, and heavily regulated. Technology is often proclaimed as a health-care cost panacea, and rarely delivers.

The most effective way to reduce health-care costs is to restrict choice. People hate when they are denied their preferred care or medicine by an insurer or PBM. Imagine the reaction (and broader brand consequences) if Amazon is doing the denying.

There's also the question of negotiating power. The triumvirate may have 1.2 million employees, but UnitedHealth Group Inc. -- to take one example -- provides or manages employee health insurance for nearly 30 million people.

But because the new company isn't initially trying to make a profit and will likely aim to avoid paying high fees to middlemen, it may not have to push provider or drug prices quite as low to get a good result. Think the difference between active and passive management, but for health care.

The pedigree of the companies involved and the current lack of detail may have me reading too much into this effort. But if it's as ambitious as it sounds, then health-care incumbents are in trouble.

Iceland equal pay law set to end gender pay gap

usatoday.com-

Until now women in Iceland have earned an average 19% less than their male colleagues. But those days are over. A new law makes equal pay for equal work a must in the country — irrespective of gender, ethnicity, sexuality or nationality.

The new law, which went into effect New Year's Day, covers about 150,000 workers in the country. The measure applies to 1,200 companies in Iceland that have at least 25 workers, and the firms will have to publish their wage scales.

There are courses to help the companies implement the new pay scales. Upon completion, the companies get a certificate that have to be renewed every three years.

The measure intends to close the gender pay gap by 2022. Although other countries have made similar moves, for now Iceland is the global pioneer.

"The legislation is basically a mechanism that companies and organizations ... evaluate every job that's being done, and then they get a certification after they confirm the process if they are paying men and women equally," Dagny Osk Aradottir Pind of the Icelandic Women's Rights Association, told Al Jazeera. ContinueReading

Further Reading: Introduction to how capitalism works

“Equal Pay for Equal Work” – socialist or capitalist?

Feminism is incompatible with capitalism

Amazon.com to Buy Target Corporation?

Actually, it Makes Some Sense.

investorplace.com: It remains to be seen if the eye-opening prediction that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) will acquire Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) this year was just a savvy publicity stunt, or an actual expectation. With TGT stock jumping nearly 2% on the mere mention of the idea though, the market may well be leaning towards the latter.

It was Loup Venture co-founder Gene Munster’s, by the way (yes, the same Munster that used to handicap stocks for Piper Jaffray), that made the call. He explained within a report dissecting a total of eight predictions for 2018 “Target is the ideal offline partner for Amazon for two reasons, shared demographic and manageable but comprehensive store count.”

It’s an idea that would have been laughable just a couple of years ago. While few could argue that Amazon isn’t the king of e-commerce, moving into the brick-and-mortar world wasn’t quite Jeff Bezos’ milieu.

In light of some recent acquisitions though — not the least of which was buying grocery chain Whole Foods Market — the idea doesn’t seem far-fetched at all today. More important, to current Target shareholders, such a deal may be the last bastion of hope for a graceful exit of an increasingly-troubled trade. Munster also thinks, should a deal go through, Amazon’s offer would be on the order of 15% more than the current per-share price of TGT stock.

With that as the backdrop, there are more arguments in favor of this proposed pairing then Munster laid out.

World's Wealthiest Became $1 Trillion Richer in 2017

Bloomberg.com - The richest people on earth became $1 trillion richer in 2017, more than four times last year’s gain, as stock markets shrugged off economic, social and political divisions to reach record highs.

The 23 percent increase on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people, compares with an almost 20 percent increase for both the MSCI World Index and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos added the most in 2017, a $34.2 billion gain that knocked Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates out of his spot as the world’s richest person in October. Gates, 62, had held the spot since May 2013, and has been donating much of his fortune to charity, including a $4.6 billion pledge he made to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in August. Bezos, whose net worth topped $100 billion at the end of November, currently has a net worth of $99.6 billion compared with $91.3 billion for Gates.

George Soros also gave away a substantial part of his fortune, revealing in October that his family office had given $18 billion to his Open Society Foundations over the past several years, dropping the billionaire investor to No. 195 on the Bloomberg ranking, with a net worth of $8 billion.

By the end of trading Tuesday, Dec. 26, the 500 billionaires controlled $5.3 trillion, up from $4.4 trillion on Dec. 27, 2016.

“It’s part of the second-most robust and second-longest bull market in history,” said Mike Ryan, chief investment officer for the Americas at UBS Wealth Management, on Dec. 18. “Of all the guidance we gave people over the course of this year, the most important advice was staying invested.” (ontinueReading

US Holiday Sales See Largest Increase Since 2011

usnews.com - Retail holiday sales in America had their largest increase this year since 2011 — jumping 4.9 percent compared to the same time (Nov. 1 to Dec. 24) last year, according to a report from Mastercard SpendingPulse.

Online shopping, which increased 18.1 percent from last year, was a big reason for the bump. Despite the store closings throughout the year, the ease of online and last-minute shopping and the availability of fast-shipping options helped retail sales.

"Overall, this year was a big win for retail," said Sarah Quinlan, senior vice president of market insights at Mastercard. "The strong U.S. economy was a contributing factor, but we also have to recognize that retailers who tried new strategies to engage holiday shoppers were the beneficiaries of this sales increase."

Early promotions from retailers encouraged consumers to buy. The first three weeks of November saw significant jumps in sales, according to the report. Additionally, Black Friday and Super Saturday — the Saturday before Christmas — were the two biggest days of single-day spending for retail sales.

Although overall spending grew 4.9 percent, sales in different categories differed. Sales in electronics and appliances increased 7.5 percent, the strongest growth in the last 10 years. Home furniture and furnishings, as well as home improvement saw increases of 5.1 percent. Jewelry sales increased by 5.9 percent, mostly by last-minute shoppers, the report found.

Department and speciality apparel stores traditionally see most of their sales happen in-store as opposed to online, and despite their many closings, their sales saw moderate gains.

The SpendingPulse report is based on aggregate sales activity in the Mastercard payments network, along with survey based-estimates for other forms of payment, such as cash and checks, according to Mastercard. The data exclude auto sales. (ontinueReading

The Richest 1% Now Own More Than 50% of the World’s Wealth

fortune.com - The richest 1% now owns more than half of all the world’s household wealth, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. And they say inequality is only going to get worse over the coming years, with millennials having a particularly tough time.

The Swiss bank released its latest Global Wealth Report on Tuesday, together with a statement that contained the immortal phrase, “The outlook for the millionaire segment is more optimistic than for the bottom of the wealth pyramid.”

The research showed that there are increasing numbers of dollar millionaires. This is partly because the strength of the euro has created 620,000 more of them in Germany, France, Italy and Spain (conversely, depreciating currencies in the U.K. and Japan have seen 34,000 and over 300,000 people in those countries respectively lose the status).

But almost half of the new dollar millionaires are in the U.S. itself. “So far, the Trump Presidency has seen businesses flourish and employment grow, though the ongoing supportive role played by the Federal Reserve has undoubtedly played a part here as well, and wealth inequality remains a prominent issue,” said Michael O’Sullivan, CIO for International Wealth Management at Credit Suisse.

Credit Suisse expects to see a 22% rise in dollar millionaires by 2022, from 36 million to 44 million. The problem is, the numbers of adults who have less than $10,000 are expected to shrink by only 4%.

The bank’s researchers see wealth inequality as largely being a result of the financial crisis— it rose across the world between 2007 and 2016, because financial assets were growing faster than non-financial assets. The top 1% started the millennium owning 45.5% of all wealth, and now they have 50.1%.

As for what’s been happening since mid-2016, Credit Suisse described a mixed picture. Non-financial wealth has been increasing “substantially,” but inequality is still rising.

“Despite higher mean wealth per adult, median wealth fell again this year in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Our projections for 2022 suggest more pessimistic scenarios for the immediate years ahead,” the researchers said.

“Looking at the bottom of the wealth distribution, 3.5 billion people—corresponding to 70% of all adults in the world—own less than $10,000. Those with low wealth tend to be disproportionately found among the younger age groups, who have had little chance to accumulate assets, but we find that millennials face particularly challenging circumstances compared to other generations,” they wrote.

Essentially, millennials are more likely to be unemployed or earning less, priced out of the housing market, and unable to get a pension. Baby boomers have most of the wealth and the housing, so “millennials are doing less well than their parents at the same age.”

Millennials may be better educated than earlier generations, but Credit Suisse’s researchers said they expected only a “minority of high achievers and those in high-demand sectors such as technology or finance to effectively overcome the ‘millennial disadvantage.'” (ontinueReading

PM elect Jacinda Ardern: ‘Capitalism has failed New Zealanders’

theaustralian.com.au - New Zealand prime-minister-elect Jacinda Ardern has said she is prepared to pull out of the Trans Pacific Partnership while outlining her goals for her first 100 days in office.

Ms Ardern, who has been on a weekend media blitz, also warned the Turnbull government she would retaliate if Australia moved to restrict tertiary entry for New Zealanders.

Ms Ardern has cited New Zealand’s poverty and homelessness among her top priorities, yesterday calling capitalism a “blatant failure” in her country. Today, she doubled down.

“There is no point gloating about the economic growth of a nation if you have some of the highest rates of homelessness in the developed world,” local media quoted Ms Ardern as saying.

“My view is there a role for us to play where we are being much more proactive and intervening where there are signs the market is failing our people.”

Said she was not concerned her comments might trigger a “winter of discontent” with the New Zealand business community.

“Not at all ... I intend to work in partnership [with business] Ours will be a government of partnership.”

However, the 37-year-old Labour leader said she was prepared to pull out of the TPP trade agreement if it precluded her government from restricting foreign ownership for housing.

“Our view has been that there has to be a balance between delivering for our exporters but also making sure we can protect the ability of New Zealanders to buy homes, our view is we can do both.”

Raising the minimum wage to $NZ16.50 is also on her 100-day agenda, the New Zealand Herald reports.

She said she planned to visit Australia “as soon as I am able” and urged the Turnbull government not to follow through with a shelved plan to increase tertiary fees for Kiwi students and other permanent residents. She warned her government would reciprocate if it did.

“I hope we have the mutual access that we had in the past so I certainly hope that it doesn’t come to that,” Ms Ardern told Sky News on Sunday.

“But if we do find that New Zealanders aren’t able to access tertiary education in the same way as Australian students currently do then there will be flow-on effects here.”

In her first major TV interview since her elevation on Thursday, Ms Ardern said New Zealanders were not feeling the benefits of prosperity. Asked if capitalism had failed New Zealanders on low incomes, the prime minister-elect was blunt: “If you have hundreds of thousands of children living in homes without enough to survive, that’s a blatant failure. What else could you describe it as?”

“When you have a market economy, it all comes down to whether or not you acknowledge where the market has failed and where intervention is required. Has it failed our people in recent times? Yes.

“Wages are not keeping up with inflation (and) and how can you claim you’ve been successful when you have growth at roughly 3 per cent, but you have the worst homelessness in the developed world?”

Real measures that the public can rate the government on are important, Miss Ardern said, citing improved waterways, child poverty, homelessness and building 10,000 new homes every year to judge them on.

Ms Ardern said the biggest difference between National and the incoming coalition government would be change, vowing the Labour-NZ First-Greens coalition would be active and “won’t leave anything to chance”.

She also said there would be compromise on Labour’s desire for the minimum wage to be raised to NZ$16.50 and New Zealand’s First to have it at NZ$20.

“We have common ground and you will see change in this area.” Ms Ardern said despite there being three parties in a coalition, things have come a long way since MMP began in 1996, and there was confidence this would be an “effective and efficient” government. (ontinueReading

Further Reading:

Big biz leaders say capitalism needs to be reformed

New Zealand: New Prime Minister, New Direction

How America Hates Socialism without Knowing Why

China Crowns New Richest Man

- Property tycoon Xu Jiayin, who founded the Evergrande Group, has knocked Dalian Wanda owner, Wang Jianlin, off the top of China’s rich list to become the country’s wealthiest man.

The Hurun Report, which is China’s best-known list of wealthy individuals, estimates the 59-year-old’s wealth has quadrupled to $43 billion in 2017. Xu, who is also known as Hui Ka Yan, moved up nine places from last year.

His company Evergrande is China’s largest property group by sales, which has no doubt been pushed on by China’s booming property market—which Beijing has been attempting to tame. But Evergrande’s business is built on a large amount of debt. According to CNN, there are concerns on whether it can sustain its growth and ratings agency Fitch warned that it won’t be able to significantly reduce that debt due to its high interest expenses and payouts to shareholders.

Other winners include Ma Huateng, the founder and chief of internet conglomerate Tencent(TCTZF, -0.88%) , who took the No. 2 spot from Alibaba (BABA, -0.88%) executive chairman Jack Ma—now in third. Jianlin dropped to fifth after declines in the share price of Dalian Wanda. (ontinueReading

Scientists find $1.8m worth of gold in Swiss wastewater

- Switzerland’s gold refineries may want to consider starting a recycling programme.

Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology estimate that about 43 kilograms of gold — worth about $1.8 million — passes through the country’s wastewater every year.

In some sites in the southern Ticino region, “concentrations of gold in sewage sludge are sufficiently high for recovery to be potentially worthwhile,” the researchers said in a report published Tuesday. “This can be attributed to the presence of several gold refineries in the region.”

The study involving 64 water treatment plants also found about 3,000 kilograms of silver — equivalent to about $1.7 million — going to waste every year, much of it residue from the chemical and medical industries.

Switzerland is major gold-refining hub. About 70% of the world’s gold passes through the country’s refineries on average every year. (ontinueReading

Toys R Us considering bankruptcy filing due to shrinking sales

via .thedrum.com - American company Toys R Us maybe set to file for bankruptcy as a result of the decline in sales and heightened competition according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

The report also clained that the pressure from suppliers has intensified for Toys R Us and the company and its restructuring advisers are considering filing for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia.

Toys R Us has hired lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis to help restructure $400m debt the company will have to repay in 2018.

Toys R Us has been unable to keep up with the demands of consumers who have turned to platforms like Amazon and Walmart to purchase toys in recent years.

In the 80s, one of the most instantly recognised adverts on UK TV, was released by Toys R Us. (ontinueReading

US: Middle-class income hit highest level on record in 2016, Census Bureau reports

via washingtonpost.com - America's middle class had its highest-earning year ever in 2016, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday.

Median household income in America was $59,039 last year, surpassing the previous high of $58,655 set in 1999, the Census Bureau said. The figure is adjusted for inflation and is one of the most closely watched indicators of how the middle class is faring financially, as the Census surveys nearly 100,000 homes.

The Census said the uptick in earnings occurred because so many people found full-time jobs — or better-paying jobs — last year.

America's poverty rate also fell to 12.7 percent, the lowest since 2007, the year before the financial crisis hit. The percent of Americans without health insurance for the entire year also dropped in 2016 to just 8.8 percent, largely thanks to expanding coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Economists welcomed the news as evidence the recovery had finally taken hold after years of frustration for the middle class as they watched the stock market soar but their incomes barely budge. Donald Trump tapped into this anger in the 2016 campaign, often saying people were no better off economically than they were in 2000.

“The slow early-2000s recovery and expansion, combined with the damage done by the Great Recession, has led to nearly two decades of lost income growth for typical American households,” says economist Elise Gould of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

Almost every demographic group saw an increase in income last year, Census officials found. They cautioned, however, that the Census changed its methodology in 2014, so they are hesitant to definitively say it's the highest median ever, but they acknowledge there has been very strong growth in the past two years.

Google and Walmart are partnering on voice shopping in a challenge to Amazon’s Alexa

via recode.net - Alexa, how do you spell “competition”?

Google and Walmart have entered into a partnership to make hundreds of thousands of Walmart products available to purchase through the Google Home voice-controlled speaker, the tech giant’s answer to the Amazon Echo, the companies told Recode on Tuesday.

Owners of the Google Home gadget will be able to order one item at a time from Walmart completely by voice, or add multiples items to an online shopping cart for larger orders, and complete the purchase via the Google Home app later on.

Google first introduced voice shopping to Google Home earlier this year with partner retailers like Costco, Walgreens and PetSmart in a bid to offer commerce functionality like Amazon’s Alexa voice service already did.

In late September, Walmart will join those retailers in the program as well as on the Google Express shopping marketplace, which started out as a same-day delivery service in a handful of markets but has since expanded to include more traditional shipping speeds from partner retailers so that the service could cover the entire contiguous U.S.

On both sides, the partnership seems like a smart hedge in the event that shopping by voice actually takes off. For Google, Amazon has already emerged as an unlikely foe as more and more online shoppers start their product searches on Amazon instead of on the traditional search engine, where Google is used to placing lucrative ads alongside those type of search results. A study last year found that 55 percent of U.S. adults start their online shopping trips on Amazon.

And if voice commerce becomes popular and shoppers actually start searching for products by speaking to a device, Walmart is perhaps the only retailer in the U.S. that comes close to offering the breadth of Amazon’s product catalogue. (ontinueReading

Related:  Amazon Cutting Whole Foods’ Prices Cost Other Grocers $11 Billion In Value

Jeff Bezos: Amazon founder is world's new richest man

BBC - Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has overtaken Bill Gates to become the world's richest person, worth $91.4bn (£70bn).

A 2.5% rise in Amazon shares on Thursday means Mr Bezos's wealth has now eclipsed the Microsoft co-founder by $1.4bn, according to Forbes.

Mr Bezos, 53, owns about 17% of the shares in Amazon, whose value has now exceeded $500bn.

The online retailer reports second quarter results after Wall Street closes on Thursday.

For the first three months of this year Amazon's sales jumped 23% to $35.7bn. The company expects a rise of 16% to 24% for the quarter to June.

In recent years Mr Bezos has focused on his Blue Origin space rocket business and the Washington Post newspaper, which he bought in 2013.

Soaring technology stocks have fuelled huge growth in the worth of entrepreneurs such as Mr Bezos and Facebook founder Mark Zuckberberg, 33, who is now worth $72.6bn according to Forbes. (ontinueRading

California man sues after lottery officials refuse to pay $5M prize because underage son bought ticket

via fox25boston.com - A man is suing the California Lottery Commission, claiming officials refused to pay a $5 million prize because his underage son purchased the ticket.

Ward Thomas sent his 16-year-old son into a Mobil gas station in Long Beach to exchange winning scratcher tickets for more tickets in October, the Los Angeles Times reported. The store employee did not ask the teen for ID, the suit alleges.

The son handed the tickets to his father, who discovered that evening that one of the tickets was a big winner. Thomas validated that the ticket was a $5 million winner at a 7-11 store and at a California Lottery district office, the suit claims.

But the lottery commission never made a payout to Thomas. The suit alleges that the lottery commission withheld the prize money because his underage son bought the ticket. One has to be at least 18 to participate in the state's lottery. The lottery commission reviews all jackpot winning tickets, including reviewing security footage from the purchase point. The state and lottery commission are accused of failure to discharge a mandatory duty.

Thomas also names the gas station as a defendant, claiming there were no signs stating that one had to be 18 to purchase lottery tickets, even if they were purchasing on behalf of someone else who was of age. The gas station is accused of breach of express and implied contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and negligence, according to lawsuit documents.

Thomas is seeking more than $50,000 in general damages.

Brazil's Lula Sentenced to Prison on Corruption Charges

Bloomberg.com - Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was convicted of graft and money-laundering for his part in the country’s sweeping corruption scandal, potentially removing him from the political scene just as his prospects of returning to the presidency were gaining momentum.

Sergio Moro, the lead judge in the multi-billion dollar corruption probe known as Carwash, sentenced Lula to nine and a half years, according to a document from the federal court in Parana state. The judge has not asked for the former president’s immediate arrest. Lula’s lawyers could not be reached for comment.

The guilty sentence delivers a major setback to Lula’s intentions of leading the Workers’ Party back to power in the 2018 election. The 71-year-old former labor leader remains one of the most popular presidents in Brazilian history and he had managed to consolidate his position in recent months as the front-runner for next year’s race. If his sentence is upheld on appeal, he will become ineligible to run. The conviction of the left-wing leader comes just days before a lower house vote on whether to put President Michel Temer on trial for corruption.

Graft investigations had been drawing closer to Lula for over a year, as prosecutors filed charges against him in five separate criminal cases, which range from allegations of influence peddling to accepting perks from companies in exchange for government favors. The former president has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said the accusations are part of a campaign to discredit him. After today’s sentence, he faces four more trials.

"Lula is on his way to ineligibility," said David Fleischer, professor emeritus at the University of Brasilia. "It changes the whole political spectrum if he can’t run."

Brazil’s real and benchmark stock exchange accelerated gains after the decision was announced and were up 1.4 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively, in afternoon trading in Sao Paulo. Meanwhile, Brazil’s five-year credit default swap spread, a gauge of investor risk perception, dropped to the lowest in nearly two months. (ontinueReading

Washington: Seattle City Council approves income tax for high-earning residents, people outraged

- The Seattle City Council unanimously approved a new city income tax for high-earning residents on Monday July 10.

"We are here not to tax ordinary working people; we’re here to tax the rich," Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant said at the city council meeting.

Under the ordinance, wealthy residents would pay a 2.25 percent tax on income in excess of $250,000 for individuals and in excess of $500,000 for married couples who file taxes jointly.

Supporters estimate between 10,000 and 11,000 people would be subject to the tax, based on past Census Bureau data.

The city estimates the income tax will raise about $140 million a year.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray called the ordinance a "fight for economic stability, equity, and justice.”

“Seattle is challenging this state’s antiquated and unsustainable tax structure by passing a progressive income tax,” Murray said in a statement.

Supporters say the tax would provide a progressive revenue stream to pay for crucial city needs such as affordable housing, transit, homeless and other services. They also want to test the legality of an income tax in Washington state.

"We also know that when Mayor Murray signs this into law on Friday, we will have won a battle, but the war will just be beginning," said Katie Wilson, secretary of the Transit Riders Union.

Supporters referenced an expected legal challenge since opponents say the tax is illegal and unconstitutional. At issue, the uniformity provision in the Washington state constitution, which states “taxes need to be uniform upon the same class of property.”

Since the 1930's, the court has ruled that income is property, meaning the city’s plan wouldn’t be legal unless the State Supreme Court reinterprets the law.

Both supporters and critics acknowledge Washington has a very broad definition of property, as defined by the current law.

"The word 'property' as used herein shall mean and include everything, whether tangible or intangible, subject to ownership," reads Article VII of the state constitution.

Murray and other ordinance supporters said the city welcomes that legal challenge, expecting this to potentially serve as a test case before the Supreme Court.

"Our Supreme Court may be the final word on Seattle’s proposed high earners income tax, but remember this is the same court that has held our state legislature in contempt for failing to adequately fund public education," said City Attorney Pete Holmes.

It's unknown when a suit could be filed or who would bring it forward.

Supporters of the tax said that the measure entered disputed legal territory. Even if the case was expedited, it could take over a year before the case is settled, and possibly longer before the city would get revenue.

Critics claim it could spur people to move outside city limits.

"This illegal and undesired income tax will lead to business owners and community leaders leaving the city for a more favorable business climate," said King County Republican Party Chair Lori Sotelo.

Critics also warn that the tax would be increased and expanded over time.

"Starts out as a tiny tax, then becomes a huge tax on the people," Washington state GOP Chair Susan Hutchison said. (ontinueReading