Germany - gadget leasing: ByeBuy Raises €1M To Make It Easier To Switch Gadgets - by Steve O'Hear

 German startup ByeBuy, which offers a pay-as-you-go and on-demand alternative to gadget ownership, has raised a €1 million seed round. Backers include Commerzbank subsidiary Main Incubator, in addition to Rocket Internet’s venture arm Global Founders Capital, Hannover Innovation Fund, KRW Schindler Investments, and previous investor Seedcamp.

The new capital will be used for a planned U.S expansion, as well as finding new ways to power what ByeBuy CEO and founder Michael Cassau, who was previously at Goldman Sachs and Rocket Internet, calls the “switching economy”. This will include partnering with online and offline retailers to offer ByeBuy as a checkout option.

Just as you don’t have to own a car to drive one, the startup wants to make gadget ownership a thing of the past, providing consumers with the option to consume the latest tech on a monthly rental basis with the advantage that they can switch or ‘upgrade’ at any time.

“We offer people the opportunity to enjoy their favourite items on a fully flexible pay-as-you-go basis and remove the high implicit and explicit cost of accessing cool products,” Cassau told TechCrunch back in June.

Since then ByeBuy has ratcheted up around 1,000 members and is available in 4 countries: U.K., Germany, Netherlands and Austria. It now lists 200 or so products on its site and Cassau says the startup is seeing “very strong traction across all asset classes,” citing the Apple Watch, iPhones, and MacBooks, along with the PS4/Xbox, e-health/fitness trackers and cameras as particularly strong products.

More interesting is the possibility of ByeBuy’s model being offered at online retailers and even traditional brick ‘n’ mortar stores. “This means for example you can see us soon as a payment alternative at your favourite consumer tech ecommerce store, where, in addition to credit card and PayPal, you may see ByeBuy as a new checkout option,” explains Cassau.

“A monthly price without any commitment instead of buying or committing to 3-year financings. We step in and buy it for you so you don’t you have to. Switch and send back at any time.”

Read more: ByeBuy Raises €1M To Make It Easier To Switch Gadgets | TechCrunch

Britain-EU: 12 reasons why Cameron will lose on Brexit – by Denis MacShane

Commentators on British affairs spend much of their time dwelling on Brexit these days; and while acknowledging the passion and verve of the Out camp, their consensus appears to be that the British are too pragmatic a people to tear down the European status quo. Here’s why the pundits are wrong, and why Britain will vote to leave the European Union in the forthcoming referendum called by Prime Minister David Cameron.

1. British history is different

Britain has not been invaded or occupied, or lost sovereignty to any foreign power, in centuries. When people like Alexander Stubb, Finland’s finance minister, tell the BBC that the EU has brought “peace, prosperity and security and there’s no price tag on that,” such soaring rhetoric may play well in countries that once were taken over by the Nazis or Soviets, but it sounds much too far-fetched and continental for the average Brit.

2. No-growth eurozone

Britain was pro-European from the 1950s to the 1980s when continental Europe had growth rates double or triple those of the U.K. Since the launch of the euro, however, the EU has been the slow coach of the global economy, comfortable but out-performed by North America and the BRICs, with all the exciting economic energy coming from Silicon Valley, Singapore, Apple, Samsung, and anything made-in-China. U.S. universities add economic value. European universities give us cause for philosophical introspection.

3. Britain’s off-shore media owners

Britain is unique in allowing its major newspapers to be owned by men who pay no tax in Britain and who dislike the EU. That’s their right, but as a result, the news coverage of Europe over 25 years has been skewed to crude misreporting and propaganda. Even the Guardian regularly runs pro-Brexit columns from its stars like Simon Jenkins or Owen Jones, the rising young-left writer. The BBC has turned Nigel Farage into a national hero by giving him unimpeded access to all major political discussion programs.

4. Tony Blair

The former Labour prime minister was pro-European, but he dodged all difficult European decisions. He offered a referendum on joining the euro, which meant the pound would never fold into the single currency. He offered a referendum on the EU constitutional treaty, which forced Jacques Chirac to do the same, and thus, with the help of a divided French Socialist Party, brought European integration to a full stop in 2005. Cameron has copied Blair by offering a referendum on Brexit. At least Blair was smarter. He bought time with referendum pledges but never actually held one.

5. The Tory party

From Churchill’s United States of Europe speech in 1946 through Edward Heath’s joining Europe in 1973 to Margaret Thatcher adopting majority voting and thus sharing sovereignty in the European Single Act of 1985 — initiatives all opposed by Labour — the Conservatives were the European party in Britain. Today, all top Tories proclaim themselves Euroskeptic. It has been impossible to be selected to be a Tory MP without swearing an oath of Euroskepticism to party militants.

6. Pro-EU campaign muddles

A dismissive Napoleon said England was a nation of shopkeepers, so the U.K. has found one: Stuart Rose. He began selling underwear in Marks and Spencer and rose to become Britain’s Number One shopkeeper and thus was seen as a natural choice to head the anti-Brexit campaign. But a few months before he featured as a star in the pro-Brexit “Business for Britain” organization, so the double-messaging is confusing.

7. Money

The Vote Leave campaign is drowning in cash, with £20 million raised already. Rich City types, Mayfair hedgies, online betting billionaires, and others sitting on cash piles who like access to top political personalities have funded endless Euroskeptic campaigns since the 1990s, ranging from Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party to Lord Rodney Leach’s Open Europe think tank. By contrast the Remain or In campaigners are badly underfunded. Under the law on political donations, FTSE 100 firms that oppose Brexit cannot give money to political campaigns without a special shareholders’ meeting which CEOs do not want to call for fear of infiltration by UKIP and other anti-EU fanatics.

8. Brussels and Strasbourg

It’s not their fault, but the bigwigs of Brussels and orators of Strasbourg cut no ice in Britain. They are seen as over-bossy, over-greedy, and over there. Nigel Farage boasted on TV in 2009 that he had collected £2 million in expenses as an MEP, and ever since, MEPs have been seen as being on a rolling gravy train. At every meeting on Brexit someone asks why the U.K. should belong to an organization that cannot even audit its books properly. Most top EU leaders speak fluent “EU-nglish.” It is perfectly understandable. But in a nation that is taught by Shakespeare to mock foreign accents, being told to love Europe by non-natives doesn’t work.

9. Brits can have two votes

The most seductive line from the Out campaigners is that nothing much will change. The ambitious mayor of London, Boris Johnson, constantly tells anyone who will listen that the U.K. will “flourish” outside the EU. Others say that a Brexit vote will have a catalytic impact on a sclerotic EU that will finally accept British demands for reforms which return Europe to its earlier condition of sovereign nation-states. And then when Britain is offered a Europe it likes, a second referendum can take it back in.

10. Business

Employer outfits like the Confederation of British Industry, the British Chambers of Commerce, or the Institute of Directors have produced report after report in recent years criticizing the EU for red tape and supporting dialogue with trade unions. Business has told the prime minister he must get concessions from Brussels to weaken social Europe or special protectionist measures for the City. The sound of the CBI, BCC or IOD on Europe this century has been one long moan. Now they are panicking as they realize that their non-stop complaints about what Cameron calls the “bossy and bureaucratic” EU have been absorbed by their members, who may decide to vote down an outfit that British business has been so hostile to.

11. The liberal Left

It’s not just classic little Englander xenophobes who find fault with Europe. The Labour Party in Scotland last weekend voted to oppose TTIP, and for many of the leftish intelligentsia Europe is a wicked conspiracy to promote globalized capitalism with all power flowing to multinationals at the expense of workers. The Guardian recently gave a page to a leading TV economics reporter, Paul Mason, to denounce the treatment of Greece by Europe. Another totemic veteran of British leftism, Tariq Ali, gravely informed his readers that he would vote Out in Cameron’s plebiscite to show solidarity with the Greeks and their Syriza government. He did not seem to know that in the July referendum and September election, the Greeks voted Yes to Europe and then Yes to staying in the euro — so for British lefties to vote the U.K. out of Europe is solipsistic self-indulgence even by British leftie standards.

12. Europeans

The Brits, over the years, have been shaped by foreigners arriving from persecution or poverty — Protestants from France, Jews from Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany, Poles and Hungarians from Communist tyranny, peasant laborers from Ireland and black, Muslim and Hindu citizens from the Commonwealth. But the enlargement of the EU to poor east and south-east European nations has seen a massive influx of 3 million new inhabitants in little more than a decade. They work hard, pay taxes, pay rent and fill churches. But for the average Brit, too many have arrived too fast, and so the cry to “regain control of our frontiers” resonates.

Denis MacShane is a former minister of Europe in Tony Blair’s Labour Government. He is the author of “Brexit: How Britain Will Leave Europe” (IB Tauris, 2015) and works as an adviser on European politics and policy in London and Brussels.

Read more: 12 reasons why Cameron will lose on Brexit – POLITICO

The Netherlands: Rotterdam Islamic University under fire again after lecturer attacks Kurds - by Janene Pieters

Ahmet Akgunduz, the rector at the Islamic University of Rotterdam, has once again caused an uproar with hateful remarks about political opponents. This time he said that he is praying for those responsible for the recent bombing in the Turkish capital and called the Kurds “dogs”.

On his twitter account Akgunduz wrote a series of tweets including that he is “praying for the heroes who are exterminating the dogs that dig ditches”. Erik-Jan Zurcher, a professor of Turkish language and culture in Leiden, explained the tweet to Dutch newspaper AD. “With ‘dogs’ Akgunduz is referring to the Kurdish youth who dig trenches to defend themselves in southeastern Turkey against the army.” he said to the newspaper. The “heroes” are the bombers. “So he is praying for the salvation of the bombers.”

The VVD has had enough. “It can’t go on like this”, parliamentarian Pieter Duisenberg said to the newspaper. He can’t understand how the Akgunduz can be in charge of an institution that educates Dutch students. “He is working on segregation instead of seeking a connection with the Netherlands. How can a school with this man as figurehead still have the approval of the Dutch government?”

In July the Tweede Kamer, lower house of parliament, already wanted the RUI’s accreditation withdrawn. This can only be done if the quality of education at the university is inadequate. Accreditation board NAVO ruled that there is nothing wrong with the quality of education and that the accreditation will remain in tact.

Education Minister Jet Bussemaker currently has a legislative proposal in front of the Council of State that would giver her the power to intervene at institutions that do not comply with the order to social responsibility. “Once the law is in force, I will not hesitate to use its power”, the Minister said.

This is not the first time that Akgunduz is under fire for hateful statements. In June, just before the recent elections in Turkey, the rector called on Turkish people to vote for the right-wing AK party on his Facebook profile. “Do not vote for gay and Armenians”, he wrote. In January last year, Duisenberg also called for the IUR’s accreditation to be withdrawn after a comment that could be interpreted as permission to commit violence. In 2013 Akgunduz called protesters against the Turkish government wicked and supporters of Assad, who kill Muslims. 

Note Almere-Digest: when will the Dutch Government actually do something about Ahmet Akgunduz and take away his accreditation, instead of just talking about it?

Read more: Islamic University under fire again after lecturer attacks Kurds - NL Times

Turkey election: Erdoğan’s AKP wins outright majority – as it happened - by Matthew Weaver

With most of the votes now counted - here’s a summary of the election and its aftermath.

• Turkey’s strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, tightened his grip on power decisively as his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) swept back to single-party government with a convincing win in national elections. With more than 95% of the votes counted, the party won almost 50% of the vote. That would give it about 325 seats in the 550-seat parliament, comfortably ahead of its three main rival parties and easily enough to form a government on its own.
• Prime minister and AKP leader, Ahmet Davutoğlu, hailed the result as “victory for democracy”. Addressing party supporters at a victory rally he said: “Hopefully we will serve you well for the next four years.”
• The Leftist pro-Kurdish HDP surpassed the 10% threshold necessary to win seats in the new Parliament. But its support dipped from the 13% it secured in June’s elections to just over 10%.

Note EU-Digest: Turks have probably voted themselves into a permanent dictatorship by Mr. Erdogan and his religiously oriented AKP.
 
Read more: Turkey election: Erdoğan’s AKP wins outright majority – as it happened | World news | The Guardian

Elections: Turkey’s Erdogan Should Listen to the Voters

Not so long ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey from 2003 until 2014 and president since, was hailed as a model leader of an emerging economy with an admirably moderate Islamist bent.

At the helm of the Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) he had created, Mr. Erdogan oversaw an economic recovery and introduced democratic reforms (part of an effort to win admission to the European Union), achieved a truce with Kurdish nationalists and curbed the power of an ambitious military. 

Yet today, on the eve of a second national election within five months, which Mr. Erdogan engineered after being battered in the first, many of those achievements have been undermined, in no small part because of Mr. Erdogan’s relentless drive to win and consolidate power.

The Turkish military is again bombing Kurdish separatists; opposition parties have trouble holding rallies or getting airtime; rivals are branded as terrorists; opposition media is intimidated or muzzled. The economy, which grew an impressive 9.2 percent in 2010, is now expected to grow by 3 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Read more: Turkey’s Erdogan Should Listen to the Voters - The New York Times

Post Capitalism: The Economy Of The Future? - by Paul Mason

Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone continual change – economic cycles that lurch from boom to bust – and has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, journalist and Channel 4 economics news editor Paul Mason wonders whether this time capitalism itself has reached its limits and is changing into something wholly new.

At the heart of this change is information technology: a revolution that has the potential to reshape utterly our familiar notions of work, production and value; and to destroy an economy based on markets and private ownership.

Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swathes of economic life are changing. Goods and services that no longer respond to the dictates of neoliberalism are appearing, from parallel currencies and time banks, to cooperatives and self-managed online spaces.

Vast numbers of people are changing their behaviour, discovering new forms of ownership, lending and doing business that are distinct from, and contrary to, the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism.

Watch the video presentation: Post Capitalism: The Economy Of The Future?

Turkish Elections: Turkish police storm opposition Bugun TV during live broadcast

Is Erdogan holding on to power with brute force?

Police in the Turkish city of Istanbul stormed the offices of opposition television station Bugun TV during a live broadcast on Wednesday (October 28), just days before a general election.

The raid is part of a crackdown on companies linked to a preacher who is an arch enemy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Footage showed police spraying water cannnon at people in front of Koza Ipek outlet Bugun TV, which is owned by cleric Fethullah Gulen who is accused of plotting to overthrow the president.

Authorities on Tuesday took over 22 companies owned by Koza Ipek in an investigation of alleged financial irregularities, including whether it funded Gulen. The company denies wrongdoing.

Erdogan has clamped down on commercial interests belonging to once-influential followers of Gulen, his former ally, after police and prosecutors considered sympathetic to the cleric opened a corruption investigation of Erdogan’s inner circle in 2013.

For the complete report: Turkish Elections: Turkish police storm opposition Bugun TV during live broadcast