The Road to Hell - Imagine the post #pandemic misery of business #travel

Let's hope it won't be so! 

Imagine the post-pandemic misery of business travel

The public announcements could be worrying, at the least

May 2nd 2020

GOVERNMENTS ARE keen to get employees back to work in order to limit the economic damage of covid-19. And some companies will also be eager to send employees out in search of clients. But a vaccine is unlikely to be ready for at least another 12 months. So the next business trip you make might be an endurance test. Imagine the public announcements that travellers will hear.

Ding dong. Welcome to the renamed Heathrow Waystation 5. We decided the word "terminal" might be a little off-putting to passengers in the current circumstances. Please check in your baggage so it can be disinfected: apologies to those whose suitcases are made out of genuine leather as there will probably be stains. But never mind, it will be a good excuse to go shopping when you get to your destination. After check-in, head straight to security for your nasal swab and temperature check. As everyone needs to stand six feet (two metres) apart, the queue currently snakes around the building.

When you make it through security, head to duty-free where you can choose from our extensive selection of hand sanitisers. Hope you ate before you arrived because none of the restaurants is open. Travel safely. Ding dong.

Welcome aboard Acme Airlines flight 107 to New York. I am your pilot, Captain Richards. Social-distancing rules mean no co-pilot as there is not enough room in the cockpit for more than one person. But don't worry; I brought a flask of coffee with me and I haven't fallen asleep on a flight yet. If I don't give you an update every 30 minutes, the cabin crew will hammer on the cockpit door.

We won't be able to give you our normal in-flight food and beverage service but please enjoy the complimentary bottle of water, packets of salted nuts and crisps, and the empty seat next to you. Just a warning, though, to those of you who have chosen to sit by the window. Passengers must observe distancing rules so you won't be allowed to squeeze past the person in the aisle seat if they fall asleep. In any case, only three people are allowed in the line for the restroom at any time. You may want to go easy on that water. If you need anything extra, the cabin crew will come and help you. Give them a few minutes as they need to don a hazmat suit first.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have arrived at JFK airport. We have good news and bad news. The good news is that passenger traffic is lower than normal. The bad news is that, given the need to disinfect the electronic passport reader after each use, the line for immigration is still two hours long. And no, you can't use your cell phone to catch up on calls while you are in the waiting area. Welcome to the land of the free. Be brave.

Good afternoon and thanks for choosing Hotel Purgatory for your stay. Our motto: you can check in any time you like but, if we hear you coughing, you can never leave. Your disinfected room pass is already available in a disinfected envelope. Unfortunately, as only one person is allowed in the elevator at a time, the wait time to get to your room is 60 minutes. By the way, the same delay applies in the morning, so if you are heading for meetings, you had better book an early alarm call. There are no baggage porters, so we hope you packed light.

To reduce the risk to staff, the room will be cleaned only after you leave, so make your own bed. Feel free to take home the shampoo in the shower: no one else wants to touch it. The spa, pool and bar are closed for obvious reasons, and there is no room service. Enjoy your stay.

Morning all and welcome to the 2020 Risk Managers' Conference. Or should that be the Risk Takers' Conference? Ha ha. Rest assured this is a fully sanitised room. This year's slogan: We Care About Your Health Because Your Employer Doesn't. When it comes to questions, we won't be passing round microphones, so please speak as loudly as possible. Panel sessions are difficult at the moment, so will be limited to two speakers at opposite ends of the stage.

We are afraid that a buffet lunch is unavailable so take a chance on one of the street-food carts outside the conference centre. Your choice will sort out the real risk managers from the also-rans. This wouldn't be a conference without exhibition stands in the foyer. Our sponsors will be delighted to see you, but only from a safe distance, and wearing a mask. Finally, please familiarise yourself with the exits behind me, on the left and right. Obviously they are there in case of a fire but they could come in handy if someone has a coughing fit.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "The road to hell"

The #cannabis #business: Here come the suits, man | The Economist

 
D'you think he's a real cop?

Here come the suits, man

EVERY stoner has been there. You are sprawled on the couch, smoking trees of the finest Super Lemon Haze, when the phone rings: a friend needs picking up from the station. Happily, help is on the way: pop a Buzzkill, one of several products in development by the masterminds at Hudson Nutraceuticals, and the metabolising of tetrahydrocannabinol in your liver is accelerated, helping you sober up.
Such is the claim of Mike Schreibman, a former NBC executive who co-founded Hudson last summer. He understood he was on to something, he says, when he ate too much cannabis-infused chocolate sauce one day and realised he would do anything to stop the room from spinning.
Mr Schreibman was one of many entrepreneurs peddling their wares this week at a cannabis jamboree in Denver organised by ArcView, an angel-investment group. Together they raised over $1m. But bar the large pot plants on the stage, in many respects the meeting was no different from other gatherings of American investors and businessfolk. Ties, women and non-white faces were scarce. Pitches were peppered with jargon and cheerfully optimistic revenue projections, though not always a clear indication of the product or service on offer. But there was also a strong atmosphere of camaraderie, a sense that here there was an industry to be built rather than turf wars to be fought.
That is because the ground at last appears to be clearing for the cannabis industry in America. In 1996 California became the first state to legalise the drug for medical use (19 others, and Washington, DC, followed). But aggressive enforcement of federal law, under which pot remains illegal, and unpredictable regulatory regimes have made life miserable for growers and dispensary-owners. Investors have largely stayed on the sidelines.
Yet in November 2012 Colorado and Washington became the first states fully to legalise the drug. And last month the federal government indicated that it would not stand in the way of their experiments so long as they were properly regulated. Soon afterwards, says Steve DeAngelo, one of ArcView's founders, he was contacted by three well-known investors who had previously been unwilling to countenance cannabis. Now they wanted in.
With several more states likely to legalise cannabis in the coming years it is little wonder gold-rush metaphors are being thrown around. The legal cannabis market was worth $1.2 billion in 2011, reckons ArcView. By now it will be much bigger. Some look forward to a fully legalised industry worth $100 billion or more.
Still, says Steve Berg, an adviser to ArcView, investors remain wary of any outfit that "touches the leaf" directly. Thus the heavy presence at ArcView of ancillary businesses in which risks as well as returns are lower: from cannabis-oil extractors to electronic plant-trimmers. Some have built their business models around regulatory schemes: the pitch of Canna Security America, which is seeking $2m to expand, is that it helped write Colorado's security regulations. Who better to help a dispensary implement them?
Participants in the conference speculated about the shape the industry might take as it develops. One day rolling a spliff from home-grown weed will seem as quaint as baking one's own bread, suggests Mr Schreibman (who despite his chocolate-sauce experience has never smoked). Cosmetics and herbal remedies will be huge with soccer moms, muses another attender. Adam Cohen, who set up a cannabis-investment fund last year, thinks that once the full extent of the drug's medicinal uses becomes clear the federal government will be forced to reclassify it.
Inevitably something is lost as Wall Street steps in. A veteran ArcView investor recalls a charming but hopeless presentation by two stoner entrepreneurs who had built a device to convert Starbucks coffee cups into water pipes. Not only might a spruced-up cannabis business have no room for such innovations, he feared, it would be much less entertaining.

Read the article online here:

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21586868-once-shunned-industry-turning-respectable-here-come-suits-man?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/herecomethesuitsman

Foreign firms continue to come to Switzerland despite problems in "paradise"

SWITZERLAND - A MAGNET FOR FOREIGN FIRMS

Mar 24, 2011 - 21:27

Cracks showing in business oasis Switzerland

There are not many empty flats left in Swiss cities (Keystone)

by Matthew Allen, swissinfo.ch

---

A shortage of affordable homes and international schools, along with a prolonged row over tax, threatens to weaken Switzerland's magnetic pull for foreign firms.

Lured by low tax rates and a high standard of living, a steady stream of overseas companies have set up operations in Switzerland in recent years. But there are signs of growing discontent from new arrivals.

Top of the grumble list is the astronomic rise in house prices in Geneva, Zurich and Zug – a trend that has already priced many locals out of the market, and threatens to do the same for foreign workers.

"The new Eldorado has become even more of a magnet and there is a risk that this could result in a social crisis," Emmanuel Fragnière of Geneva's HEG School of Business Administration told swissinfo.ch earlier this month.

"Politicians are very happy to collect the new taxes, but they need a coherent policy to promote the location that takes into account structural difficulties."

Problems are also showing up in Zug and in Rolle, situated between Geneva and Lausanne.

Noise control

"No one imagined what would happen with so many people from outside Switzerland coming here to work," Rolle Social Democrat politician Patrick Bréchon told swissinfo.ch.

"They are not really creating local jobs. The housing market is like a jungle. House prices have shot up unbelievably and infrastructure – transport, roads and schools – is really behind."

Local complaints have also been matched with anecdotal evidence of foreign workers finding it tough going in their newly adopted country. The British magazine, the Economist, interviewed newcomers complaining of boredom and a lack of places in international schools.

"You need muscle to get kids in international schools," said one financier named only as Alex. "Otherwise it's a Swiss school, where your kids will find it hard to settle."

Others experienced problems adapting to stricter Swiss regulations on noise and refuse collection than they were used to at home.

Geneva-based relocation expert Francois Micheloud acknowledged that the huge influx of foreign firms and workers had created some structural problems, made worse by slow planning and construction rules.

Tax uncertainty

But he firmly believed that solutions could be found to ease the pressures, such as developing rural areas north of Lausanne or in canton Vaud.

"We are not like Monaco – a small piece of rock where you cannot build any more," he told swissinfo.ch. "Bottlenecks will be resolved by companies spreading out to areas that are still within reach of Geneva airport."

Switzerland's vaunted tax competitiveness is also coming under sustained pressure from the European Union. The Swiss authorities have made noises that the corporate tax system could be revamped to meet some EU demands, but nobody knows how this could be done.

"Companies interested in relocation to Switzerland should know what the tax rules will be like in future," tax expert Stephan Kuhn of Ernst & Young told swissinfo.ch. "They would not come to Switzerland if the tax system is unpredictable and subject to major increases."

British-based companies, on the other hand, received a boost from Wednesday's budget announcement that tax rates would be cut by two per cent in the next three years, a full percentage point more than previously thought.

Incentives remain

This prompted advertising giant WPP to consider relocating its tax base back to Britain from Ireland, where it had recently moved.

In a recent interview in the British Observer newspaper, the chief executive of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, Andrew Witty, chided British firms for heading to cheaper tax regimes, saying they had broken their bond with society.

"We could go, in theory, anywhere for a low tax rate. But first of all, how do you know that country isn't going to change its tax rate in ten minutes?" he said.

However, Britain's new 23 per cent rate would still be higher than the Swiss burden. Depending on where a company is based, combined effective federal and cantonal rates vary between 24.5 and 14 per cent.

Francois Micheloud is convinced that the relocation of foreign firms to Switzerland will continue "for many years to come".

"The incentives for companies to come to Switzerland remain the same as before: competitive tax rates, excellent transport links, a central European location, access to a highly skilled work force, clusters of business competence and flexible labour laws," he told swissinfo.ch.

"And Switzerland is still a delightful place in which to live."

Matthew Allen, swissinfo

Fifty Ugliest Cars of the Past 50 Years: A Half-Century of Automotive Eyesores - BusinessWeek

Fifty Ugliest Cars of the Past 50 Years - A Half-Century of Automotive Eyesores

1 of 52next slideprevious slide

A Half-Century of Automotive Eyesores

By Damian Joseph

Considering how many new cars are rolled out every year, it's no surprise that a few might be just plain homely. There's a chance that certain styles might become fashionable with a dash of retro hip. (Well, maybe not from the 1970s.) But for the most part, the following 50 cars will never be anything but design duds.

next slideprevious slide

Fifty Ugliest Cars of the Past 50 Years: A Half-Century of Automotive Eyesores - BusinessWeek

________________________