All eyes, or at least Scottish eyes, were on Scotland’s vote for independence this past week. The Scots did in fact vote to continue their 307-year union with England, leading to sighs of relief worldwide as breaking up something that old couldn’t help to cause global ripples.
An opinion from the Washington Post leading up to the vote outlined similarities between Scotland and Russia. While Russia’s economy is sputtering, Russians think the economy is actually improving, probably because they are feeling national pride at President Vladir Putin’s new foreign policy stance, wrote Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University. The same is true in Scotland – the strong sense of nationalism made people underestimate the economic dangers of separation.
Any eyes that weren’t on Scotland were likely on China, or matters related to China, and what isn’t these days?
Alibaba, the Hangzhou, China-based e-tailer, went public on the New York Stock Exchange (stock ticker BABA) at $68 US a share, valuing the company at $168 billion US. The shares opened trading at $92.70 and immediately surged to almost $100 before dropping back.
Bloomberg’s William Pesek wrote, though, that investors should be wary. While Chinese anti-trust regulators have been targeting foreign companies like Microsoft, they aren’t likely to do that with a home-grown company, Pesek says. But Alibaba has only been allowed to get as big as it has because the Chinese government allows it to and that could change.
And lastly but not least, Apple’s new iPhones came out on Friday in selected countries including Canada. In Vancouver police had to be called to control the lineup, according to CBC. But while a factory in China is cranking out 540,000 units of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus every day, not one of them will be sold in China, according to Quartz.
