Laura Slatteryperuses the week in business
The numbers
€575 billion
The total size of the liabilities of Irish-owned banks – the third highest in the euro zone, according
to research by stockbrokers Davy. Thesumismore than 300 per cent of the Irish economy's GDP.
€6.4 billion
The latest “mini-Madoff” to emerge, Texan billionaire and cricket enthusiast Allen Stanford, has been accused of defrauding investors of about this much through a “certificates of deposit” scheme.
Quote of the Week
“Far from seeking to protect anybody, which is a nice juvenile conspiracy theory . . . this suggestion of protection is a totally baseless one. It is wrong, it is contemptuous, it has no basis in fact and it’s a political slur and a political smear campaign.”
Brian Cowen denies all inferences that he protected members of the Anglo Irish Bank 'Golden Circle'
Quote of the Week 2
“Why should I have this guy running down the country? Who the f*** is he? How the hell are they doing?”
British business secretary Peter Mandelson lets fly at Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz, who claimed that te UK was in an economic spiral with 'very, very poor' consumer confidence.
GOOD WEEK
Fastfoodies
As knife-and-fork restaurants struggle to keep theSan Pellegrino flowing, it's much more financially healthy to be a comfort food vendor these days.KFC has announced that it is to expand its finger-lickin' footprint by some 300 stores in the UK and Domino's Pizza has snaffled a carnivorous 15 per cent rise in like-for-like sales in the past six weeks. Domino's is now hoping to convince the
cost-cutting corporate market that pizza is a viable option for a working lunch.
Starbucks
TheSeattle-born caffeine disseminators have discovered the joys of a radical new technology designed to bring a warm buzz to rapidly decaffeinating bloodstreams without having to wait around via “Ready Brew” – aka instant coffee.When he wasn’t brawling with Peter Mandelson, Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz claimed the coffee chain had “cracked the code” on instant coffee and that its introduction was by no means “insane” or “desperate”.
BAD WEEK
Japan
Embarrassing gaffes.Low approval ratings. Incoherent television appearances.Who would be a finance minister? Not Shoichi Nakagawa, who resigned from his position as the Japanese equivalent of Brian Lenihan this week after appearing at a G7 news conference giving muddled answers and appearing to enter a wine-assisted slumber, just days before it was announced that Japan's economy is contracting at the fastest rate since 1974.
Bank of America
Okay, soweknowthat Citigroup wasobliged to cancel its $50million order for a private jet, but Bank of America perhaps went a little too far in its crackdown on business travel expenses when it asked 23 members of staff to hand back the airfare on a business trip that was aborted at the last minute. It sounds reasonable until you consider that the cancellation was the result of complete engine failure followed by a somewhat unorthodox emergency splash-landing in New York's Hudson river. The
bank has apologised for its error.
