Who would have thought that a 2.5£ million penthouse will be offered to take in Elephant and Castle? One of London’s more controversial districts, that many believe is a disaster sprung from plans that went wrong way back in the 60’s. The southern district which is less than 3.2 kilometer far from Westminster, was always described as simple, grayish and ordinary. On the contrary, the new emerging tower in the heart of it, the “Strata SE1″ residential block is anything but ordinary. The 43 floor tall building will be the highest residential tower in London according to the “Financial Times”.

London's New Hope?

The skyscraper’s height is “174.9 meter”, said Karl Debenfort from Chestreton Homberts real estate agency, “but he looks almost twice as tall, you can see it from any street corner in London. It is a symbol for a better future throughout the area”. The tower is the most protruded project out of many regeneration projects, which are the goals of an ambitious plan to change the area. The Strata, which is expected to be open in April, contains 408 apartments, amongst them you can find: studio apartments for 285£ thousand, one bedroom apartments for 369£ thousand, two bedroom apartments for 495£ thousand and penthouses for 2.5£ million.

The first ten floors are given over to affordable housing and the top eight boast penthouses with views across London. The tower which is already nicknamed by the locals as the “Razor” because of its similarity to an electric shaver, was designed by the architecture firm Hamiltons and is both revolutionary and functional- the building’s rooftop will include three wind turbines which will provide the electricity need for the entire building (it will still be connected to the city’s power lines, just in case). When the blades, nine meters across, are lifted into place later this month they will help create the first “wind farm” of its kind to be integrated into a building.

Nick Stanton, leader of Southwark council, which is the driving force behind the regeneration of Elephant and Castle, says: “We want to give people space and smaller buildings on smaller developments that are green and safe, with better homes, shops, community facilities and a new park.” In conclusion, the Strata is a bright positive change set in the heart of an urban catastrophe which is now undergoing a green make over and is hoping to wind up just like Pittsburgh did a few years ago.

Want to learn more? Try the Elephant and Castle Regeneration Project on Wikipedia.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Like Obama, the European Union is stuck with a high unemployment rate.

For the first time since the Euro currency was launched in 1999, the unemployment rate among the 16 countries which are members of the EU and use the common currency has reached 10%. EuroStat, the Statistical Office of the European Union, had published last week the data which shows that the unemployment rate had risen in 0.1% from October, and is now standing on the highest level since August 1998, an 8% increase compared to 2008 at the time.

As mentioned above, Spain is suffering from the highest rate of unemployment at 19.4%, while Holland is proud to have only 3.9%, the lowest rate. This inequality re-raised the claims that the common Euro currency is of more beneficent to some countries than to others.

The unemployment rate of 27 EU members which don’t use the Euro like Britain and Sweden had also risen in November by 0.1% to 9.5%. Through out the entire Euro bloc you can find countries who are suffering from the recession such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus. In addition, many economies are rapidly shrinking for instance in Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Romania and even in the United Kingdom.

Altogether in November, 22.9 million of people where unemployed in the European Union, 15.7 million out of them are from the Euro bloc. The EuroStat had also published data showing on a 0.4% growth in the Euro bloc’s economy in the third quarter of 2008, due to Germany and a 0.3% growth in the entire European Union. A reason to be optimistic? We aren’t so sure…

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

You need money to make money.

The tool for measuring “fairness” of the distribution of wealth is the “Gini coefficient“. This tool can point out how the wealth is divided by the general population. A coefficient of 100 would describe a situation in which one individual holds all the income of the country. Although this is only a theoretical value, there are some countries, especially monarchies and dictatorships that have high “Gini coefficients” such as Sierra Leone with a coefficient of 62.9. In the United States the “Gini coefficient” is 45.2 (2006); this is high compared to Great Britain, which has a coefficient of 34 (2005). While capitalistic, democratic countries are mostly in the middle of the range, the communist countries mostly get the lowest values possible. For example, the Czech Republic has a value of 26 due in part to the influence of the former communist regimes. This measurement tool reveals a high correlation between the form of government and fairness.

One major ingredient that helps the rich get richer is capital. You need money and a lot of it in order to invest in the stock market or in new projects. Most of the people lack the critical amount of money to invest or the proper motivation and vision which are required in order to invest their money and gain more than the normal interest rate over a long period of time. If we look at the cost of the human work force over the years, we will see that it is getting very expensive. But we will not stop consuming products just because they are expensive. If the human cost in production will get too high we will have to find new ways to lower the cost, especially by technological improvements. So in the future, robots and computer algorithms will take care of the production line and services. This progression may lead to a more equal society and a better distribution of wealth, but in order to keep human advancement we must reward individual that creates innovation and new technological improvements, or otherwise our society will look more and more like Communism, and Communism paralyzes any desire to innovate because people do not earn much from their hard work.
In conclusion, in my opinion the gap between poor and rich will keep growing, but at a slowing rate as more and more people invest their time in developing new frontiers.

Omri.

The CEO Game.