Corporations appearing to not pay their fair share of tax in the UK is a running theme. Starbucks, Google, Amazon, and now water companies, are all having their turn in the limelight. Let’s have a brief tour around each.
Firstly, sorry to be the bearer of bad news — but it turns out that you aren’t paying enough for your extra hot single-shot caramel skinny latte (as per a Starbucks press release, emphasis ours): Read more
This guest post was submitted by Jason Abbruzzese of FT.com.
A little more than a year ago, Citi chief economist Willem Buiter said water was on its way to becoming “the single most important physical-commodity based asset class, dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities and precious metals”. Read more
FT Alphaville reports that Citigroup’s global strategists are recommending investors play the urbanisation trend by buying into water companies, arguing that the concentration of the world’s population and increasing standards of life will drive up demand for the liquid commodity. Even Willem Buiter, Citigroup’s chief economist, a man most often seen railing at the vagaries of central banks, has got stuck in with a 4,000-word essay on the subject. “I see fleets of water tankers (single-hulled!) and storage facilities that will dwarf those we currently have for oil, natural gas and LNG,” he writes. Read more
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