Beijing's About to Roll Out Its Harshest Smoking Ban Ever - Bloomberg Business

Beijing's About to Roll Out Its Harshest Smoking Ban Ever - Bloomberg Business: "China has long been one of the most smoker-friendly countries in the world, with few restrictions and virtually no taboos when it comes to lighting up. Go into most restaurants in China, and expect to be engulfed in a choking cloud of tobacco smoke. The bars, not surprisingly, are worse. Offering a cigarette to a new acquaintance is considered polite, while refusing it is often seen as rude. Sparking up next to children, pregnant mothers, or anyone else is pretty much considered normal. Now all that’s supposed to change.
Starting on June 1 in Beijing a blanket ban will be imposed on smoking in public places, after the city’s Municipal People’s Congress passed the tough new law in November. Affected will be all workplaces, schools, hotels, public transport, airports (which will no longer have designated smoking rooms or lounges), and Beijing’s many historic tourist spots, including the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. The harshest antismoking rules ever to be imposed in China (18 other cities already have lighter bans) is seen as a trial run for a national law, already drafted but still some distance from passage."



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Mastercard CEO: The Rich Should Ride The Bus - Forbes

Mastercard CEO: The Rich Should Ride The Bus - Forbes: "The setting was the first Chicago Forum on Global Cities, and Banga’s remarks followed a debate between the two former treasury secretaries about the relative impact of urban and national policies on growth (video).

With most of the world’s population now living in cities, and billions more expected, Hank Paulson insisted manageable growth depends on well-planned cities.

Robert Rubin contended that national policies have more influence.

For example, Paulson said the environmental footprint of cities would “drive the outcome” of climate change or climate mitigation, and Rubin disagreed:

“It seems to me that the single most important thing we can do is change the price of carbon,” Rubin said, “and that can only be done at the federal level.”

 Rubin served as treasury secretary from 1993-99, Paulson from 2006-09. Both men worked together at Goldman Sachs in the 1970s and 80s.

“You need enlightened national policies, I don’t want to even debate that,” Paulson agreed, ”but we are going to have a heck of a mess on our hands if we don’t get the urbanization policies right.”"



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Is demand pricing coming to Disneyland? - LA Times

Is demand pricing coming to Disneyland? - LA Times: "In an online survey sent to annual pass holders, the Walt Disney Co.'s theme park operation sought opinions on a pricing schedule for daily tickets to the company's resorts in Orlando, Fla., and Anaheim. A three-tiered pricing system would mark daily tickets as Gold, Silver and Bronze.


For Disneyland's 60th, there's Mickey, Minnie and cutting-edge technology
Gold tickets could be used every day of the year, according to the survey; Silver tickets could be used every day except peak days and popular holiday weeks. Bronze admission passes could be used only on off-peak weekends.

Under the scenario depicted in the survey, one-day, one-park admission prices for Disneyland would range from $115 for Gold tickets, $105 for Silver and $99 for Bronze tickets."



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The middle-class malaise that dare not speak its name | Zoe Williams | Comment is free | The Guardian

The middle-class malaise that dare not speak its name | Zoe Williams | Comment is free | The Guardian: "Private school fees are paid by 7% of the population; private health insurance is taken out by 11%. This isn’t really the middle: the determination to retain the term middle class for those who are actually wealthy is akin to the care with which the right wing never describes its views as rightwing, preferring “commonsense”. It is a constant project to reframe what is normal in the image of what is normal for one person in 10.

But actually, on this matter, the middle classes are pretty normal. Income has stagnated across every section of society apart from the top 1% (whom the Telegraph would probably call upper middle or well-to-do). GDP per capita is lower than it was seven years ago. “That,” said the economist Joseph Stiglitz in an interview on Sunday “is not a success.”

The extent to which we are all in this wage-stagnating swamp together is a question of age rather than class
It’s hard for the wealthy to mobilise around their declining living standards. Their options are limited. When so much of your wealth is spent avoiding the social structures on which solidarity is based – education, the health service, our crap dentistry of international renown – who do you complain to? Who are you going to stand shoulder to shoulder with? Your outrage at the world is limited in its expression to your power as a consumer. That’s why the incredibly angry, bright pink man yelling at a BT helpline is such a staple of modern British sitcoms; as a guardian angel against feelings of impotence and injustice, BT can’t really help – even if it does answer the phone.

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So there’s the stain of self-interest barring entry to the language and power and solace of unity. There’s also a huge amount of shame involved in being in debt or struggling, especially against the backdrop of assumption that privilege is somehow the result of a lifetime’s sound financial decisions."



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