Business Weekly
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2021
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Business Weekly, we take a look at the splitting up of a 129-year old behemoth. General Electric announced that it will divide itself into three separate companies. Does this mean the end of conglomerates that span several sectors and make a multitude of diverse products? Also, the former finance minister of Afghanistan tells us that the Taliban takeover was due in no small part to massive corruption within the government. We take a look at the row over the increasing amount of raw sewage that's being allowed to flow into the UK's rivers. Also in the programme – the sale by Elon Musk of some of his shares in Tesla, after asking his Twitter followers whether or not it was a good move. And as the German media giant, Axel Springer, announces plans to force managers to tell HR departments if they start a sexual relationship with a subordinate, we take a look at the difference between American and European corporate cultures. Business Weekly is presented by Matthew Davies and produced by Philippa Goodrich.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Weekly. I'm Matthew Davis. |
| 0:09.0 | In the program today, we'll talk to the former finance minister of Afghanistan. |
| 0:14.0 | He tells us the Taliban would have been unable to seize control had it not been for corruption on a massive scale. |
| 0:22.3 | By the time the Taliban entered Kabul, he says, most of the government's 300,000 police and soldiers existed only on paper. |
| 0:30.4 | Also in the program, Elon Musk's Twitter poll on whether or not he should sell the 10% stake |
| 0:36.1 | in Tesla, and maybe it's not such a green and pleasant land |
| 0:40.8 | described in William Blake's poem, Jerusalem. |
| 0:43.5 | There's a growing concern and anger |
| 0:45.6 | over the increasing levels of raw sewage in England's rivers. |
| 0:50.6 | First, though, this week, General Electric, |
| 0:53.3 | that 129-year-old symbol of American industrialisation, |
| 0:58.2 | announced at long last, many observers noted, that it would split itself up. |
| 1:03.2 | The conglomerate will divide itself into three separate companies, aviation, healthcare, and power. |
| 1:10.2 | Founded by the inventor of the light bulb, Thomas Edison, in the late 1880s, |
| 1:14.6 | by the 1970s and 80s, General Electric had seemingly penetrated into most aspects of American life. |
| 1:22.4 | You can make your families life much brighter. |
| 1:26.2 | You will find your work much lighter. |
| 1:29.1 | It's as easy as can be when you live better. |
| 1:33.8 | Electrically, you can have your take-out. |
| 1:36.3 | Meals were cooked on GE stoves or in GE microwave ovens, |
| 1:40.4 | and clothes were washing in GE washing machines. |
| 1:43.5 | Commuters took trains to work built by GE or drove cars, financed by GE. |
... |
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