EVERY WEEKEND, TheJournal.ie asks its readers to put their feet up and take a look back at all the goings-on from the world of business.
So once again it’s time to delve deep inside The Briefcase for all the important – and sometimes less-important – financial news that has come out this working week:
Everyone loves cheap oil… except those producing it
Rewind the clock about 6 months and a barrel of Brent crude oil, if you were in the market for such a thing, would set you back about $110.
Now step back to today and you would expect to pick up two for a c-note, with even a little pocket change left over depending on the day-to-day fluctuations.
While the euro’s plunge has taken some of the gains out for consumers, Ireland has still enjoyed a drop of nearly 25% in the price of petrol and diesel at the pump.
Unfortunately, companies a bit further down the fuel food chain have been slower to react to the unexpected windfall.
Airlines like Aer Lingus, which spends about a quarter of all its expenses on fuel, are predicting a big lift in profits due to cheap oil, but are yet to pass on those savings to passengers.
Gas prices have also fallen on the oil glut, although again there has been little change so far to Irish energy bills.
Consumers are being urged to vote with their feet and help drive prices down from suppliers which are trying to take the cash while they can.
But all that cheap oil has been wreaking havoc on the budget’s of big exporting nations. That is particularly true for the OPEC consortium, which is locked in a price war with US shale oil producers in an attempt to drive them out of business.
And then there are the companies closer to home, such as oil giant BP or smaller domestic firms like Petroceltic, which have been frantically rewriting plans to cope with the new world order of dramatically lower prices.
Which goes to show, one man’s oil feast is just another’s famine.
Every once in a while, an idea so simple – yet so brilliant – comes along in the business world that it leaves would-be entrepreneurs slapping their foreheads in frustration and crying: “I’m an eejit, why didn’t I think of that?”
And then there’s ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com.
The brain child of 22-year-old Australian Mathew Carpenter, the site offers pretty much what it says on the box for the price of AUD$9.99 (about €7).
Within 24 hours of going live he was trying to sell the website and even begging customers to stop placing orders as the idea of “sending stupid fucking glitter to terrible people” went global.
What’s so bad about glitter I hear you say? Let’s ask conservative US politician Newt Gingrich:
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