Bloomberg BusinessWeek, May 23, 2016 (I)

choi

(1) David Leonard, Making No Cents; The US Postal Service's bad business model is embodied in a recent rate decrease. ("Opening Remarks")

(a) Excerpt in the window of print: Every time the USPS tries to operate like a real company, government happens

(b) two consecutive paragraphs:

"the April 10 stamp price decrease [domestically, for a one-ounce letter from 49¢ to 47¢], the first in 97 years. US postal rates are among the lowest in the industrialized world. In 2015, according to the USPS, it cost 96¢ to mail a 1-ounce letter in Britain and $1.51 to send one in Denmark, which is about 200 miles across at its widest, roughly 3,800 miles less than the distance from Anchorage to Palm Beach. Until recently, Spain was the only nation in the developed world that charged less; now the US and Spain are tied at the bottom.

"It's not as if the Postal Service was making too much money. It lost $5 billion last year, and with the reduction it will likely lose an additional $2 billion a year. However, the Postal Regulatory Commission, which oversees the USPS, insisted on it.

(c) My comment:
(i) There is no need to read the rest, which basically say USPS needs cash.
(99) Postal Regulatory Commission
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Regulatory_Commission
("created by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. Like the Postal Service, it was defined in law as an independent establishment of the executive branch")

choi

(2) Helping Americans Move out of Poverty; It's time to make mobility once again a key to better opportunities. (BloombergView)
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/a ... cans-out-of-poverty
("Poor children do better when they move to places with less poverty, less crime, higher-performing schools, and more two-parent families. That's just common sense, but if you're skeptical, the research confirms it. One recent study found that living in a significantly better neighborhood from birth raises adult income on average by about 10 percent")

Note:
(a) The print and online version differ (in style) a lot -- only because the latter is longer, half of which, here and there, is the same as print. The quotation above is from print.
(b) If true, China was/is dumb to restrict movement, as was Imperial Russia.

(3) Bruce Einhorn and Narayanan Somasundaram, Aussies Tax Foreigners Extra for Buying Homes.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/ar ... ra-for-buying-homes

Quote:

"Foreigners accounted for 20.9 percent of Australian home sales in the year through June 2015, up from 7.9 percent in the 12 months ended June 2013. The foreign money has fueled an already fast-climbing market: Home prices have risen 50 percent in the biggest cities since the end of 2008.

"Last year the federal government cracked down on unlawful purchases, such as buying an existing home. (Foreigners can buy only newly built homes.) As a result, the government forced foreigners to sell 27 properties worth more than A$76 million ($55 million). In December the government introduced fees for foreign investors: A$5,000 for a property worth as much as A$1 million and A$10,000 for every additional A$1 million. The state of Victoria will double a property tax for foreigners in July. Nationwide, the surcharge on legal documents prepared for a house sale will increase to 7 percent from 3 percent for foreigners; a land surcharge on absentee owners will go up to 1.5 percent, from 0.5 percent.

My comment:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Local banks tighten mortgage rules for outsiders
(b) I have been dirt poor in most of my years in US (more than 3 decades), so buying anything of value is out of question. But soon after I came to US, I found foreigners did not face hurdles in buying stock, real estate etc. The same in Taiwan, though.