House averts government shutdown, backs Ryan budget [Reuters]
The U.S. House of Representatives eliminated the threat of a government shutdown next week, approving on Thursday a stop-gap funding bill that temporarily eases partisan tensions after months of bitter fights over budgets. In a rare show of cooperation, the Republican-controlled House voted 318-109 to approve legislation that keeps government agencies and programs funded through the end of the fiscal year on September 30. The debate over how to shrink U.S. deficits now shifts to rival budget plans from Republicans and Democrats for the 2014 fiscal year starting on October 1.
BASF Lowers Mid-Term Profit Goals on New Accounting Standards [Bloomberg]
BASF is adopting the new accounting rules, called IFRS 10 and 11, a year earlier than required. The Libyan exploration arm Wintershall AG, which was fully included in the books, and BASF’s joint venture with Sinopec in China, which was partially included, will now only be reported under the so-called equity method. That means that the sales from those units won’t be reported, while their share of net income is included in Ebit. “The new targets are purely a result of the accounting changes,” Manfredo Ruebens, head of BASF’s finance department said today at a press conference. The new rules stipulate that you can consolidate a unit if you actually control it. “It doesn’t just go by voting rights anymore,” he said.
A groundbreaking new study concludes that the rich became permanently richer and the poor permanently poorer from 1987 to 2009. Five economists, including one from the U.S. Treasury and two from the Federal Reserve, used data from nearly 34,000 working age households’ 1040s, W-2s and Social Security records to tease out how much of the much discussed rise in income inequality in the U.S. might simply reflect more volatility in earnings, with families having good and bad years. Their unhappy conclusion: almost all of the rise in inequality is life-long.