Planet Business: Danbury Street, diplomacy and the ‘dot plot’

Deck the halls with Christmas bonuses instead of parties, say workers

Sam Bass, who lives in this basement flat at 10 Danbury Street, Islington, received a letter addressed to the British prime minister Theresa May. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA Wire

In numbers: Christmas wishlist

93

Percentage of people who would prefer a Christmas bonus to an office party, according to a survey by IrishJobs.ie. The other 7 per cent just really like a free bar.

75

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Percentage of business people surveyed on behalf of An Post who agreed it was important to be thanked at Christmas by the companies with whom they do business. It's the season of goodwill and the prompt payment of invoices.

56

Percentage of the jobseekers on IrishJobs.ie who said they had not received a salary increase in 2016, and yes, most are planning to ask for one in 2017.

Image of the week: Prestigious address

This is 10 Danbury Street, in Islington, north London, which looks like a pretty nice place to live. It’s not, however, quite as prestigious as 10 Downing Street, with which it was confused by postal workers.

Technology consultant Sam Bass, who lives in this basement flat, was rather surprised to receive a letter addressed in admittedly scrawling handwriting to Ms Theresa May PM, 10 Downing Street, London.

“As far as I’m aware, the prime minister has never lived here,” said Mr Bass, who reposted the letter without opening it.

The lesson is always use the proper postcode – or, failing that, block capitals.

The lexicon: The Fed’s “dot plot”

The US Federal Reserve has, for some five years now, published a "dot plot" that shows each member of its policymaking committee's projections for where they expect its benchmark federal funds rate to be at the end of the current year, the following year and beyond.

As charts go, the “dot plot” looks a bit like the world’s slowest game of Space Invaders, but it’s also a pretty simple way of reading the Fed’s tea-leaves and seeing quite how united, or divided, they are on future policy.

And the bottom line, figuratively speaking, is that US interest rates are expected to rise in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

For more information, please consult Mr D Trump or just hang off his every tweet like everybody else.

Getting to know: Danny Truell

This week's "charity begins at home" award goes to Danny Truell, a former managing director of Goldman Sachs who is also the chairman of the World Economic Forum's long-term investment council.

For his services as chief investment officer of the Wellcome Trust, the biggest charitable foundation in the UK, the City banker took home £3 million.

The organisation, which says it wants to retain the talent of highly skilled investment managers, gave much of its £1 billion in donations to laboratory studies and clinical trials involved in the fight against the zika virus, ebola and HIV.

It also backs the Channel 4 documentary shows The Secret Life of 4,5 and 6 Year-Olds.

Still, though, that’s a big wedge to earn from a charity.

The list: People incensed by Trump this week

Kanye West may have dropped in to Trump Tower for a friendly chat, but here’s a non-exhaustive selection of people, companies and entire countries infuriated and appalled by the US president-elect just over the last few days.

1. Lockheed Martin: A Trump tweet wiped $3 billion off the value of the defence company's shares, just one week after he took a similar pot-shot at Boeing.

2. Tech employees: A group of tech workers have signed a declaration letting Trump know they will never help him create a “Muslim database” or any similar register.

3. Michael Moore: Trump "is gonna get us killed", says the documentary-maker, who also predicted that Trump would win the election.

4. His own intelligence agencies: No, he doesn’t want to be briefed on important security matters, thanks, and the CIA can shut up about Russian election hacking.

5. China: Beijing isn't best pleased with Trump's apparent desire to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Apart from that, it's all going swimmingly.