Tausi Insider

The Canadian dollar CADUSD strengthened to a seven-week high against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday as U.S. inflation pressures cooled and Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said the economy could avoid a major rise in the unemployment rate. The loonie was trading 1.2% higher at 1.3370 to the greenback, or 74.79 U.S. cents, after touching its strongest level since Sept. 20 at 1.3334. “The U.S. dollar fell sharply in a broad-based way and the loonie has benefited from that,” said Rahim Madhavji, president at KnightsbridgeFX.com . “There were a lot of people that were long the U.S. dollar and short some of the other currencies … so a lot of people are closing position.” The greenback fell sharply against a basket of major currencies, bond yields tumbled and Wall Street rallied after U.S. consumer prices rose less than expected last month, data that may allow the Federal Reserve to ease up on aggressively hiking interest rates. The Bank of Canada has also been tightening at a rapid ...

Amazon.com Inc AMZN-Q is reviewing unprofitable business units, including the devices unit, to cut costs, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Shares of the company rose 11 per cent in morning trade. Amazon did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. As part of the months-long review, Amazon has told employees in some unprofitable divisions to look for jobs elsewhere in the company because the teams they were working on were being suspended or closed, the report said. Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant business, is also under review, the Journal reported, adding that the unit had an operating loss of more than $5-billion a year. https://www.tausiinsider.com/amazon-reportedly-reviewing-unprofitable-business-units-in-bid-to-cut-costs/?feed_id=443268&_unique_id=649f39059fcb3

A ReconAfrica oil drilling site in Namibia. John Grobler/Tausi Insider A Canadian oil company says it will push ahead with exploration drilling and seismic work in Namibia, despite its failure to find commercial amounts of oil in its latest well. Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. RECO-X, also known as ReconAfrica, is exploring for oil in the Kalahari region of Namibia, not far from the Okavango River, which flows into the Okavango Delta, a world-famous wildlife region that attracts thousands of tourists annually. Environmentalists have been fighting the project for the past three years, with help from celebrities such as Prince Harry and Leonardo DiCaprio. They are concerned that it could jeopardize elephant migration routes and underground water sources that reach the Okavango River. ReconAfrica announced on Wednesday that it did not find enough oil for its Makandina 8-2 Well to be commercially viable. The well, which it began drilling in late June, was at a total depth of 2,056 met...

Tesla has considered plans for exporting made-in-China electric vehicles to the United States and Canada, two people with knowledge of the planning told Reuters, a step that would connect its largest factory to North America, its largest market. Tesla has been evaluating whether Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles made in Gigafactory Shanghai could be sold in North America as soon as next year, according to the people, who declined to be named because the process was confidential. Tesla’s evaluation has included consideration of whether parts made by Tesla’s China-based suppliers would be compliant with regulations in the United States and Canada, they said. The Shanghai plant has been working toward an initial plan for a small-batch test run of production of vehicles in the first quarter of 2023 that would be compliant with North American standards for potential export, one of the people said. After Reuters published its article on Friday, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, in a Twi...

The Mastodon site is shown on a smart phone in Oakland, Calif., on Nov. 11, 2022. Sites like Mastodon and even Tumblr are emerging as new (or renewed) alternatives to Twitter. Barbara Ortutay/The Associated Press Twitter has been a bit of a mess since billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the helm, cutting the company’s work force in half, upending the platform’s verification system, sparring with users over jokes and acknowledging that “ dumb things ” might happen as he reshapes one of the world’s most high-profile information ecosystems. On Thursday, amid an exodus of senior executives responsible for data privacy, cybersecurity and complying with regulations, he warned the company’s remaining employees that Twitter might not survive if it can’t find a way to bring in at least half its revenue from subscriptions. While it’s not clear if the drama is causing many users to leave – in fact, having a front-row seat to the chaos may prove entertaining to some – lesser-known sites Mastodo...

Amazon.com Inc AMZN-Q is planning to lay off about 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as soon as this week, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The cuts will focus on the e-commerce giant’s devices unit, which houses voice-assistant Alexa, as well as its retail division and human resources, according to the report, which also said the total number of layoffs remains fluid. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. As of Dec. 31 last year, Amazon had about 1,608,000 full-time and part-time employees. Amazon joins a bandwagon of U.S. companies making deep cuts to its employee base to brace for a potential economic downturn. Last week, Facebook-parent Meta Platforms said it would cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13 per cent of its workforce, to rein in costs. https://www.tausiinsider.com/amazon-reportedly-plans-to-lay-off-10000-people-in-corporate-technology-jobs-starting-this-week/?fee...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Nov. 3. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press John H. Cochrane is a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author of The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level , available January, 2023. Jon Hartley is a PhD student in economics at Stanford University and a research fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. The most important source of Canada’s inflation is simple: Starting in 2020, the government borrowed more than $700-billion, and mostly handed it out. People spent it, driving up prices. It was, of course, proper for the government to help people and businesses gravely hurt during the COVID-19 pandemic. And debts and deficits do not automatically cause inflation – Canada can borrow an immense amount without an impact on the price level if the government has a believable plan for repayment. But t...

Airbnb Inc ABNB-Q said on Wednesday it had recorded a “disproportionate” 31 per cent rise in single-room listings on its platform in the third quarter, as more people sought extra income in the face of a cost-of-living crisis. The company said property listings rose across regions, without disclosing specific numbers, and to aid the growth, it unveiled an app update on Wednesday to make the process easier. “We have seen a lot of people being more interested than even before in hosting to defray their cost of living,” Airbnb Chief Executive Brian Chesky said, as high inflation due to the Ukraine war puts fragile household budgets under pressure. About 46 per cent of hosts on Airbnb said they used the extra money from renting out properties to pay for food and other items, while one in 10 said it helped them avoid eviction or foreclosure, the company said, citing a survey. Some popular tourist destinations have, however, blamed the company for aggravating housing shortages, as landlord...

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee said Wednesday it plans to hold a hearing in December to investigate the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The committee said it expects to hear from the companies and individuals involved, including FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research, Binance, FTX and related entities, among others. “The fall of FTX has posed tremendous harm to over one million users, many of whom were everyday people who invested their hard-earned savings into the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds,” Financial Services Committee chair Maxine Waters said. FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, leaving an estimated 1 million customers and other investors facing total losses in the billions of dollars. The collapse reverberated across the crypto world and sent bitcoin and other digital assets plummeting. House Financial Services committee top Republican Patrick McHenry said “we must get to the bottom of th...

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN-Q is slashing some Canadian jobs amid what is believed to be the deepest wave of layoffs in the company’s history, as the tech sector scrambles to cut costs amid a months-long downturn. The Seattle e-commerce and cloud-services giant began the layoffs Tuesday, it said. Staff involved in its Alexa voice-assistant team appear to comprise a significant portion of the cuts, according to social-media posts. “We’ve been working over the last few months to further prioritize what matters most to our customers and the business,” wrote Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice-president of devices and services, in a message to staff that the company made public Wednesday. “After a deep set of reviews, we recently decided to consolidate some teams and programs.” Like many tech executives announcing layoffs in recent months, Mr. Limp attributed Amazon’s decision to “an unusual and uncertain macroeconomic environment.” It’s been nearly a year since markets began to turn on the tech s...

British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt, in London, on Nov. 17. Alastair Grant/The Associated Press Millions of people across Britain face higher taxes and energy bills after the government on Thursday announced an emergency budget focused on restoring the country’s financial credibility and bolstering an economy battered by soaring inflation. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt unveiled a £55-billion ($86-billion) package of tax increases and spending cuts designed to demonstrate that Britain is committed to paying its bills after his predecessor spooked financial markets by proposing tax cuts without saying how they would be paid for. Mr. Hunt sought to cushion the blow by pledging to protect the most vulnerable, announcing that he would increase welfare benefits and state pension payments in line with inflation and help low-income residents with their energy bills. The government will also maintain investment in energy and infrastructure projects to boost economic growth, he said. Even so, th...

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, in London, on Nov. 17. TOBY MELVILLE/Reuters Britain’s Conservative government on Friday defended its decision to hike taxes for millions of working people in the “squeezed middle” class as it tries to shore up an economy battered by double-digit inflation and the reckless tax-cutting of recently ousted Prime Minister Liz Truss. An emergency budget announced by Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt on Thursday includes £25-billion ($30-billion) in tax hikes, including higher income tax for middle and top earners and steeper local household taxes. The Treasury acknowledged that the moves will take taxes as a share of national income to its highest level since World War II. The combination of high inflation – predicted to be 9.1 per cent for 2022, largely driven by soaring energy costs from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and stagnating salaries means a 7 per cent decline in U.K. living standards over the next two years, according to the Offic...

A home burns as the Camp Fire rages through Paradise, Calif., on Nov. 8, 2018. Noah Berger/The Associated Press Every year, millions of people are forced to leave their homes due to a variety of climate or natural disasters, ranging from floods – one-third of Pakistan was inundated last summer – to droughts and topical storms. The term “climate refugee” has entered the environmental lexicon and the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) has said there could be 1.2-billion such refugees by 2050 as the planet turns into a frying pan. The number is a guess, but perhaps not a wild one. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says that an annual average of 21.5-million people have been displaced by extreme weather events since 2008, though it’s an open question whether global warming specifically can take the blame. Typically, we consider climate-induced movements – “disaster displacement” or “cross-border disaster displacement,” to use the technical terms – to be a southern hemisphere phe...

A sign at Twitter headquarters is shown in San Francisco, Nov. 18, 2022. Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s account on Twitter on Saturday, reversing a ban that has kept the former president off the social media site since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden’s election victory. Musk made the announcement in the evening after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be restored. The “yes” vote won, with 51.2 per cent. “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted, using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.” Shortly afterward Trump’s account, which earlier had appeared as suspended, reappeared on the platform along with his former tweets, more than 59,000 of them. His former followers were gone, but the account quickly picked up hundreds of thousands of them. It is...

This is the weekly Careers newsletter. Déjà Leonard is a copywriter and freelance journalist based in Calgary. Historically, when someone is laid off it’s something they keep to themselves, or share privately with family and close connections who may be able to help them find another opportunity. It makes sense. Being laid off can be an emotional experience , leading to feelings of anger, sadness, fear and shame. Some people even experience physical symptoms like fatigue, weight loss or gain, and muscle pain. However, over the past few years, the feeds of social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter have been filled with professionals sharing news that they have been laid off, and how it has personally affected them. The past few years have normalized announcing layoffs Evangeline Berube, vice-president of strategic accounts at employment agency Robert Half, said she spends a lot of time on LinkedIn in her role and has observed this spike in announcements. “I think some of this is al...

Julie Maranda, the chief medical officer at Accenture, took the Digital Transformation Executive MBA at McMaster’s DeGroote School of Business in Hamilton because she wanted to gain skills that increased her digital literacy. Christinne Muschi/THE GLOBE AND MAIL To help her decide where to do her MBA, Julie Maranda made an elaborate spreadsheet, taking into consideration cost, time, prerequisites and a slew of other factors, including what skills future business leaders need to stay relevant. The Digital Transformation Executive MBA (EMBA) through McMaster’s DeGroote School of Business in Hamilton won out because Ms. Maranda, who is the chief medical officer at consulting firm Accenture, says she needed to go beyond the traditional leadership teachings of an MBA and to tap into the skills that were outside her comfort zone. “Being in health care in particular, the reason for me to go back to school at my age was because I really felt that as a leader, I needed to up my digital litera...