Category: Politics

FIFA’s Blatter Under Pressure

Visa, McDonald’s, and Coca Cola, among the biggest sponsors of the FIFA World Cup, have called on Sepp Blatter, the head of soccer’s governing body, to resign immediately.

Here’s McDonald’s statement:

The events of recent weeks have continued to diminish the reputation of FIFA and public confidence in its leadership. We believe it would be in the best interest of the game for FIFA President Sepp Blatter to step down immediately so that the reform process can proceed with the credibility that is needed.

Coca Cola said:

For the benefit of the game, The Coca-Cola Company is calling for FIFA President Joseph Blatter to step down immediately so that a credible and sustainable reform process can begin in earnest. Every day that passes, the image and reputation of FIFA continues to tarnish. FIFA needs comprehensive and urgent reform, and that can only be accomplished through a truly independent approach.

Visa added:

We believe no meaningful reform can be made under FIFA’s existing leadership. And given the events of last week, it’s clear it would be in the best interests of FIFA and the sport for Sepp Blatter to step down immediately.

→ The Atlantic

The Free Market: It’s Like Uber, But for Everything

There is increasing speculation that Uber’s long-anticipated initial public offering could be valued at $100 billion, a value that has been created by undercutting the prices of traditional taxis and offering more and better service. If that’s how much wealth can be generated just by rediscovering the laws of economics in this one narrow area, think what could be accomplished if we do it for the economy as a whole.

It would be like Uber, but for everything.

→ The Federalist

Melania Trump, the Silent Partner

Observers of the business and ongoing theater of a Trump candidacy are bound to be struck by the passive role played by the candidate’s wife, one seeming to predate gender equality, in an embrace of values from an era when a potential first lady might be less likely to have served as her husband’s former law firm mentor (as Michelle Obama once was) than his carpet ornament.

→ The New York Times

VW : A Mucky Business

If depositors, lenders and counterparties were to refuse to roll over funds to VW, the company could hang on for a bit. It has €33 billion of cash and marketable securities on hand, as well as unused bank lines and the cashflow from the car business. The German government would lean on German banks to prop up their tarnished national champion, 20% of which is owned by the state of Lower Saxony. So far the cost of insuring VW’s debt has risen, but not to distressed levels. Still, unless the company convinces the world that it can contain the cost of its dishonesty, it could yet face a debt and liquidity crisis.

→ The Economist

Capitalism Must Throw The Book At Its Culprits

  
For capitalism to retain public faith we need a system where the rich can get poorer as well as the poor richer. There need to be snakes as well as ladders in the boardroom board game.

Individual accountability for sins is the big omission in too much of contemporary capitalism. To use an analogy that the bosses of VW might understand: we need the corporate equivalent of a sharp spike in the middle of a car’s steering wheel. If the consequences of dangerous driving were greater we might have safer roads. The same is true of corporate stewardship. If there are no downsides in excessive risk-taking, only upsides, then shareholders should not be surprised if CEOs lead their companies to catastrophe.

→ The Times