All posts tagged: finance

New finance leasing rules put renewables back on the table

New finance leasing rules put renewables back on the table

Published by skeptic

More from this theme Recent articles The Academy Trust Handbook 2024 is making it easier for trusts to borrow money for investments that support renewable activity or energy efficiency. This is welcome, but there are risks. This year, the rules on when finance leases need to be approved by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) have been relaxed so prior approval is not required for leases related to LED lighting systems or “to support renewable activity”. This is a positive step forward that will help schools achieve their sustainability goals and save costs, even as they wait for further details to be released. However, just because schools can borrow money doesn’t mean they necessarily should. Schools must ensure their deals maintain the principles of value for money, regularity and propriety. This deregulation could be allowing trusts to take on financial commitments they are unprepared for, which can end with unforeseen costs. It is not always obvious whether an arrangement is an operating or a finance lease. Both involve a lessee/school paying to use something …

Nvidia Says Its Blackwell Chip Is Fine, Nothing to See Here

Nvidia Says Its Blackwell Chip Is Fine, Nothing to See Here

Published by skeptic

A large portion of Nvidia’s growth this quarter was driven by data center revenue, totaling $30.8 billion for the quarter, which was up 112 percent from last year. The company’s gross profit margin was 74.5 percent, essentially flat from a year ago. But analysts expect that Nvidia’s margins could shrink as the company shifts to producing more Blackwell chips, which cost more to make than their less advanced predecessors. Nvidia’s earnings reports are seen as an important bellwether for the AI industry as a whole. The chip architect’s advanced GPUs, which power complex neural network processing, are what made the current generative AI boom possible. As Silicon Valley giants raced to build new chatbots and image-generation tools over the past few years, Nvidia’s revenue exploded, allowing it to surpass Apple as the most valuable public company in the world. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November of 2022, Nvidia’s stock price has increased nearly tenfold. Almost every major tech company working on AI, even those building their own processing units, rely heavily on Nvidia GPUs …

Can We Achieve Fair Campaign Finance?

Can We Achieve Fair Campaign Finance?

Published by skeptic

  Supporters of both major political parties often grumble about the controversial role of money in politics, usually alleging corruption due to candidates being “owned” by donors. Was it always this way? Have any laws been passed to try to limit corruption in the form of candidates being improperly influenced by donors? From the era of machine politics to today’s super PACs, it is undeniable that wealthy donors hold lots of influence over politicians. How did this scenario come to be? Can anything be done to level the playing field? From the Gilded Age to today, here is a look at the vital role of money in US elections.   Pre-Civil War Campaign Finance An 1824 campaign poster for Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Jackson, who is considered the first active presidential campaigner. Source: Library of Congress   Campaign finance was not a major issue prior to the American Civil War (1861-65) because few candidates above the local level actively campaigned for office. For the first few decades of the United States, most candidates were self-funded …

Conflict questions as Labour moves to single regulator

Conflict questions as Labour moves to single regulator

Published by skeptic

More from this theme Recent articles Ministers face questions about how they will maintain independent financial oversight of academies after announcing they will close the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and beef up the role of powerful regional directors. The government announced this week that the ESFA will be “integrated into the core Department for Education” by March next year. The two-stage move will give schools a “single point of contact for financial management and support”, the government said. But the announcement has prompted concerns that regional directors could be overly influenced by ministers. For instance, regional directors were tasked with growing the academy agenda, while the ESFA was tasked with independently investigating cases of financial mismanagement in schools. Scrapping ESFA ‘bad news for transparency’ One former ESFA official, who wanted to remain anonymous, said it was “bad news for transparency and fairness in education”.  “The ESFA was a key, rational bulwark against the cronyism of regional directors. This government stripping away of the checks and balances of executive agencies does nothing for pupils.” …

ESFA to close as regions group take over school finance oversight

ESFA to close as regions group take over school finance oversight

Published by skeptic

The government’s education funding agency will be closed down, with its financial oversight for schools rolled into the regions groups. The Education and Skills Funding Agency will be “integrated into the core Department for Education” by March next year, government said today. The move will happen over two stages and give schools a “single point of contact for financial management and support”, government said. The ESFA is currently an executive agency of the Department. Schools financial support and oversight functions will transfer from October 1 and be brought together with the regions group, nine areas overseen by regional directors. This will support the launch of regional improvement teams by January, government added, allowing a “single regulator model with governance and accountability sitting in one place”. Education secretary Bridget Phillipson added: “This will provide a single seamless voice to schools and ensure that financial improvement is central to school improvement.” Funding and assurance functions will be centralised on March 31 next year, when the ESFA will close. It will enable a single, joined-up approach to funding …

Have laptop, can travel: the rise and rise of the commuter student | Student finance

Have laptop, can travel: the rise and rise of the commuter student | Student finance

Published by skeptic

The university experience used to be characterised by moving away from home, living in halls, and being immersed in campus life. But with rents and living costs soaring, more students than ever before are staying at home and commuting to university. Blackbullion, a financial education website for university-goers, describes the “relentless rise of the commuter student” in its Student Money and Wellbeing Report 2024. The survey, of 1,200 students, found that 46% were commuting, a statistic attributed to the cost of learning crisis, and technological advances providing remote access to lectures and library resources. The research, which included undergraduates and those doing postgraduate degrees and PhDs, highlighted that “if current trends continue, commuter students will soon become the majority of our post-school learners”. How do the costs compare? Jaheim Karim commuted more than 100 miles from Derby to London three or four times a week for his postgraduate MA magazine journalism degree at City, University of London. The two-hour journey by train and tube cost up to £250 a week, and was entirely self-funded as …

Who Wants a ‘Man in Finance’?

Who Wants a ‘Man in Finance’?

Published by skeptic

This year’s “Song of the Summer” is highly contested; artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Charli XCX, and Sabrina Carpenter have been duking it out at the top of the charts. But an unexpected hit has emerged from TikTok. You may have heard it yourself: “I’m looking for a man in finance. Trust fund. Six-five. Blue eyes.” Repeat, until the man himself appears—or the ghost of Andrea Dworkin rises up to roll her eyes. Megan Boni, a video creator also known as Girl on Couch, shared the sample in April with a prescient caption: “Did I just write the song of the summer?” Her 19-second clip has gone on to collect nearly 60 million views and inspire hundreds of parodies and remixes—including by music-industry superstars such as Diplo and David Guetta. Investment-banker bros have played it at parties across New York. Costumed dancers (in the requisite banker uniform of a blue button-down and zippered vest) have performed it in flash mobs around London. “Man in Finance” even slipped into the Kamala Harris meme rotation as the …

Climate activists bemoan scant progress on finance as Cop29 looms | Cop29

Climate activists bemoan scant progress on finance as Cop29 looms | Cop29

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Finding the finance needed to stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis will be “a very steep mountain to climb”, the UN has conceded, as two vital international conferences failed to produce the progress needed to generate funds for poor countries. With less than five months to go before the Cop29 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan in November, there is still no agreement on how to bridge the near-trillion dollar gap between what developing countries say is needed and the roughly $100bn a year of climate finance that flows today from public sources in the rich world to stricken developing nations. Rich countries have so far given little indication that they are rising to the challenge. The G7 summit of heads of state of the world’s richest countries, in Italy last weekend, skirted the topic of climate finance with warm words on the “importance of fiscal space and mobilising resources from all sources for increased climate and development action, particularly for low-income and vulnerable countries”. Campaigners said the group’s promises to “work on …

Global rich must pay more to tackle climate crisis, says architect of Paris deal | Climate finance

Global rich must pay more to tackle climate crisis, says architect of Paris deal | Climate finance

Published by skeptic

Rich individuals in all countries must pay more to tackle the climate crisis, whether through taxes or charges on consumption, one of the architects of the Paris agreement has said. There is a growing consensus on the need for some kind of global wealth tax, with Brazil, which will host the Cop climate summit next year, an enthusiastic supporter. Meanwhile, poor countries are struggling to raise the estimated $1tn (£785bn) a year of external finance needed to help them cut emissions and cope with the impacts of the climate crisis. Another proposal is for a frequent flyer levy, as the richest people tend to take far more flights – in any year about half of the people in the UK do not fly, for instance. Laurence Tubiana, the chief executive of the European Climate Foundation, said a levy could be targeted at business class and first class seats. Other possible sources of revenue include a carbon tax on international shipping, which could raise billions without disrupting global trade, according to research from the World Bank. …