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  The Mess at the BBC Will Never End The public broadcaster desperately needs the public to believe in it. Between its own stumbles and ceaseless right-wing hostility, it is in danger of losing its way. Last week, the  Daily Telegraph —the traditional newspaper of Britain’s conservative élite—reported on the existence of a secret memo that appeared to shatter the illusion that the BBC is an impartial news organization. The memo, some eight thousand words long, took the form of a letter to the BBC’s board and was written by Michael Prescott, a recent editorial adviser to the broadcaster. Prescott is a former journalist at the London  Sunday Times . In the letter, Prescott attested that he did “not hold any hard and fast views” on U.S. politics, or on the Middle East, nor did he have any political agenda at all. But, after three years as an adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, he had been driven to despair by the broadcaster’s refusal to addres...
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  Un estudio da un suspenso a las condiciones laborales en Glovo, Cuideo, Uber y Cabify La investigación, de la Complutense y CC OO, solo aprueba a Just Eat entre siete empresas del sector EMILIO SÁNCHEZ HIDALGO Madrid El informe evalúa a las plataformas mediante 10 principios básicos Se trata de saber, por ejemplo, si aseguran a sus empleados el salario mínimo Las plataformas digitales ofrecen muy malas condiciones de trabajo, mucho peores que las del promedio del mercado laboral. Esta es la principal conclusión que se extrae del segundo informe Fairwork España, publicado ayer y elaborado por la Universidad Complutense y la Fundación Primero de Mayo (asociada a CC OO) a partir de una metodología implantada por el Instituto de Internet de la Universidad de Oxford. Consiste en evaluar las condiciones de trabajo en plataformas mediante 10 principios básicos. El cumplimiento de cada uno otorga un punto. En España, de las siete plataformas analizadas, tres se quedan en blanco (Taskrabb...
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  El vaciamiento de la democracia NICOLÁS SARTORIUS Nicolás Sartorius es abogado y escritor. Su último libro es La democracia expansiva (Anagrama). Ahora que se habla de blindar derechos no hay nada más urgente que hacerlo con algunos del Estado de bienestar Uno. No hay un hecho más grave hoy en España y Europa que el deterioro provocado y progresivo que se está produciendo en el Estado de bienestar o modelo social europeo. El escándalo en la sanidad andaluza por la falta de cribados ante los posibles cánceres de mama de miles de mujeres; las excesivas listas de espera por carencia de medios materiales y humanos en el conjunto de la sanidad pública; la falta de personal sanitario y la precariedad en sus condiciones de trabajo; el fenómeno acreditado de que en ciertas comunidades autónomas —en especial Madrid— avanza la privatización de la enseñanza, ahogando las finanzas de las universidades públicas, mientras surgen como setas los centros particulares, son algunos ejemplos de cómo...
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  Big Tech’s Soaring Profits Have an Ugly Underside: OpenAI’s Losses Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.   Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News Investors take a lot of comfort from the solidity of Big Tech earnings as worries grow about artificial intelligence overinflating valuations. But those earnings have an ugly underbelly: ever-bigger losses at the generative AI startups that spend big on chips and data centers supplied by the profitable public companies. Quarterly profits soared at  Nvidia ,  Alphabet ,  Amazon  and  Microsoft  as  AI-related revenue poured in  ( Meta’s  were wiped out by tax). Cash flows are mostly fine, albeit a lot is now going into building new data centers. Some of the money comes from actually selling AI services to businesses, particularly at Alphabet and Microsoft. But much of the AI-related profits come from being a supplier to, or investor in, the private companies building the large l...
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  AI Boom Is Looking More and More Fragile Stocks linked to the trend have swung downward as doubt rises about sustainability and payoff Perfect isn’t good enough, and any sign of weakness is a disaster: Justified or not, that’s the current mood in the markets about the artificial- intelligence boom. Recent history suggests that the gloom won’t last. But the shake-up serves as a strong reminder that the early years of AI pose a challenge for investors accustomed to measuring returns on a 12-month time horizon. Generative AI services require massive data centers and state-ofthe- art chips and server racks that don’t come together quickly. The companies at the heart of AI now are talking about years of major investments still ahead. The latest episode of fragility started last week, when shares of some of the sector’s leading lights lost ground. After a recovery Monday on news of a possible end to the government shutdown, AI-exposed stocks fell again.  Nvidia  lost 7% last ...
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  Small Stock Problem, Big Stock Warning Some shoppers just glance at the label while others scan for unhealthy ingredients before putting something in their supermarket basket. If you overlooked the high-fructose corn syrup and sodium benzoate in your small-cap stock fund recently then congratulations are in order: The most-followed U.S. benchmark for the category, the Russell 2000, has beaten the competitor S&P 600 by an unusual 8 percentage points since the low in April. That has implications for all investors, including those who don’t dabble in smallcap stocks, so pay attention. People already watching the trend closely include professional stock pickers. Most small-cap funds, including every one recommended recently by Morningstar, use the older Russell. Its supercharged performance has made it harder for them to beat their benchmark recently. The only criteria for entering the Russell is size whereas S&P also requires companies to be profitable when they join the ind...
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Escape From Zohran Mamdani’s New York By Reuven Brenner Arnold Toynbee’s “Cities on the Move” (1970) documents the history of big cities around the world becoming impoverished and insolvent—some never to recover. Many of the patterns he describes apply to New York now. Real estate contributed roughly $35 billion of the $80 billion in city tax receipts in fiscal 2025, and personal taxes another $18 billion. The financial sector, real estate, construction, tourism and retail trade sectors are the major contributors to these revenues. The biggest risk to political platforms promising increased taxes in a city drawing such sources of revenues is that all these are mobile. Real estate—or, as the French call it,  immobilier—  seems to be an exception. But while immobility is the characteristic material feature of land, it is financially mobile, in that its value can rise and fall. Politicians often make the mistake of ignoring this distinction when they tax it. The owners of real es...
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