04/08/2016 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live. Mark Carney, take to the stage, he warned we

could see a slow down if we voted to leave the EU. Will he cut rates for

the first time since 2009? Live from London, that our top story

today on Thursday the 4th of August. -- that is.

It is shelter from the Brexit storm, the Bank of England weighs up action

as the economy teeters possibly on the brink of recession. It is

expected that Mark Carney will press that rate cut button and reduce

rates by a quarter of 1%. It will be the first interest rate cut in

Britain since 2009. Also in the programme, Toyota in a spin. Asia's

largest car-maker says profits tumbled by almost 15%. This is as

the car giant contends with falling sales in the United States and

increasingly stronger yen. A busy day on the markets. Europe very keen

to see the interest rate cut. But everything is up because of that job

market news. A glitzy fundraising dinner is set

speak to the boss of a company that speak to the boss of a company that

hopes to revolutionise the way charities raise money. Also,

ditching your digital devices to detox the mind, body and soul.

Logging out and signing off seemed to be the new trend, but are you

ready to disconnect? Or are you addicted? Let us know.

Lots of messages coming in already. We've been bombarded by the

technology question. The will they won't they

merry-go-round over a possible UK rate cut is in full swing today

as the country looks to stave off The bank disappointed a lot of

people. economic data since then has led

many to believe that they will be As you can see here rates haven't

moved much for quite a while now 0.5% a year after year, almost eight

years we've seen that. We haven't seen a rise since 2007.

Leading economists now fear that there's a 50/50 chance of the UK

falling into recession as a result of the Brexit vote and lower

interest rates are one of the ways to reduce that risk.

The theory goes that lower rates make saving money less

attractive while reducing the cost of borrowing.

This in turn drives people to borrow and spend more,

That all sounds great but unfortunately there are also

With rates already so low there are fewer levers to pull

if things get worse for the central bank.

Japan and the EU have both tried negative rates but many economists

argue that this has done more harm than good.

Prolonged ultra-low rates also tend to encourage unsustainable debt

With borrowing so cheap people and businesses are far more likely

to pay over the odds for things they can't really afford.

Our Economics Editor Kamal Ahmed joins us on the programme.

Welcome and good morning. This isn't an easy job. How do you signal that

you will do whatever it takes to support an economy, but at the same

time not exacerbate the problems of faltering confidence which we've

seen from some of the data from the past few weeks? The Bank of England

has marched us up the hill of we are going to cut rates. We were here a

month ago when the monetary policy committee, the committee that takes

the decision of nine economists of interest rates, we thought in July

they would cut rates. The bank didn't. I think that was mostly down

to the lack of data after the 23rd of June vote on leaving the European

Union. There has been a lot of data since then. I think the chance of a

cut, which will be announced at midday today in London, is far

higher than it was in July. I think Mark Carney has said that he wants

to see more monetary easing. He has been supporting that by two very

significant members of the NCP. -- supported. I think we mustn't forget

that cutting rates isn't all they could do. They also could introduce

more quantitative easing, the buying of government debt, that increases

the money supply in the economy. Or they could announce that they want

to support bank lending, that is producing more money, more cheap

money for banks to lend into the economy. There are other levers. But

the big issue for Britain at the moment is the monetary policy, it

isn't the interest rate, it is fiscal policy. What will the new

government do, the new Chancellor, Philip Hammond, when they announce

their first sort of Budget, the Autumn Statement, in November,

December? It isn't just a British thing at the moment. We have the

global picture. If we see a move from the Bank of England that will

just replicate what we'd seen the Australian central bank do, they

have cut down to a record rate, and the bank of Japan. Central banks

are, once again, getting very active. Central banks have been

trying to take the weight, or do the heavy lifting of economic growth.

Probably they would argue, and Mark Carney has said this in the past,

almost too much has been expected from central banks. To the point of

which now the responsibility is moving much more sharply towards

governments. You said in your intro to our discussion that negative

interest rates haven't done a huge amount. There is some truth in that.

But interestingly, if you take Britain out of the equation, and

Britain has been suffering economically since the referendum,

the Eurozone is doing better now, China is doing better now. There is

some evidence Japan is doing better. The American economy has been

struggling. Overall this monetary commerce hugely loose monetary

policy, around the globe does appear to be feeding through to the

Eurozone, at least to slightly stronger growth. -- this monetary

policy, this hugely loose monetary policy. When you look at some of the

data, particularly around lending, it does not seem to be the case that

banks are not willing to lend. It seems to be the case that people are

not willing to borrow. They just don't want it. You are right. This

is not just a supply problem it is a demand problem. Already in the

aftermath of a referendum the Bank of England actually reduced capital

requirement on banks to encourage them to lend. Banks are already in a

position where they are able to lend far more than demand is in the

system. I think that is around, again, fiscal policy. It's around

businesses feeling they will borrow money for a reason. There will be

big infrastructure projects that could support the economy. At the

moment businesses are hoarding cash because they don't feel confident

about the future. Clearly that uncertainty has grown now Britain

has voted to leave the European Union. Because it is unclear what

our relationship will be with the rest of the EU. Those are the areas

where uncertainty is an issue for businesses. They are not shouting

that they cannot borrow at low enough rates, borrowing is

incredibly come historically cheap. What businesses need to invest is

certainty around the political situation, the economic policies of

the new UK Government, and what it's going to do on taxing, spending, and

borrowing. Its moves on that, I think, will increase the demand

issue, which you have struck upon, rather than the supply issue. Thanks

very much. I am glad you agree with me.

CHUCKLES Let's talk about Japan now.

Toyota has just published financial results for the first

It is almost building up to a perfect storm, right? US car sales

falling and the Japanese currency has been a bit strong.

That's right. It is essentially the strong currency which has hit

earnings for Toyota. It's the world's guest auto-maker. They are

blaming the strong yen for the nearly 15% fall in its profits over

the April to June quarter. It also said sales in the US are down. That

strong yen means the profits it brings home from markets like the US

are lower. It is only really worth more when the yen is weak. It also

makes them more competitive overseas. But the yen has been

rallying since the start of the year rallying since the start of the year

because of those volatile equity market and Britain's vote to leave

the European Union. That prompted many investors to buy it because

they see it as a safe haven investment. We also saw other

factors like the earthquake earlier this year. That hit one of Toyota's

the production centres. It hit sales of about 60,000 vehicles. We also

saw Toyota cutting for profits. We are seeing it slide to a four year

low. A perfect storm. Not looking good. But there were still profits,

$5.4 billion, and the shares closed today before the results were out at

nearly 2% higher. Thanks very much. Electric car maker Tesla lost

$293 million in the three That's the 13th

quarterly loss in a row. It also missed analyst's

expectations for sales forecasts and fell short

of production targets. The company insists however

that it is on track to deliver 50,000 Model S and Model X vehicles

in the second half of the year. The world's biggest

sports-maker, Nike, has announced that it will stop

selling golf equipment. Last year sales at Nike's golf unit

fell by 8% to $706 million, it's the third year

in a row of declines. Earlier this year Nike's rival,

Adidas, also announced its intention Who is going to make the golf stuff?

Hopefully nobody will be playing any golf.

Atlantic City's Trump Taj Mahal will close at the end of the summer.

The casino owned by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, is the latest

in a string of casino closures for the New Jersey Beach resort.

Four of its 12 casinos remain shut after closing in 2014.

The magic of television, I'm on my legs.

Japan's main market the Nikkei recovering some of that

It has had a heck of a right of late. -- ride.

A bit of a rebound in oil prices from four month lows also supporting

We will get the big jobs figures on Friday from the US, remember.

In Europe - and the big news will be at midday -

will the Bank of England cut rates to the lowest level in the central

Currency dealers are a bit uncertain how sterling would react

to a rate cut, as it has been largely factored in already.

and find out what'll be making the biz headlines in the US.

On Wednesday we heard from media companies Time Warner

On Thursday, Viacom, the owner of Nickelodeon,

Comedy Central and the film studio Paramount Pictures,

The legal drama over control of the $40 billion media empire,

as well as disappointing results at American box offices, means that

investors will have lots of questions for company executives.

And as the job market in the US picks up, the professional social

networking site Linkedin expects its earnings to do the same

Investors will be looking for more details on its $26 billion

acquisition by Microsoft which was announced last month.

And, of course, investors will want to know if they expect any

impact of the Brexit vote on the company.

Let's have a quick look at some other stories that

This is about twitter. Twitter shares surged by about 17% on a

rumour that this guy here, he is the former boss of Microsoft, might be

interested in buying the entire site. There have been lots of

reports. Him and somebody else, right?

Yes. Him and another investor are getting ready to buy Twitter.

Ballmer Last year announced a 4% stake in the company. Worth about

$12 billion. The problem with Twitter is it is a

company that has never made a profit. Its last numbers that came

back, the biggest problem is building the monthly users, the

active users, I should say. It was only a few weeks ago where we had

the latest numbers and they built them in the last few months by about

3% only. Experts are saying it just is not enough, and then you have the

competition from Snapchat. And lots of people deciding they

don't want their devices. They are putting down their Magri devices and

having a digital detox. We will talk about that later. --

their devices. Still to come - are glitzy

fundraising dinners set to become Later in the programme,

we speak to the boss of one company which hopes to revolutionise the way

charities raise money. You're with Business

Live from BBC News. British bookmaker Ladbrokes has just

released financial results The BBC's Theo Leggett

joins us now. He has been going through some of

the numbers. Tell us more. This time last year, the first six months of

2015, Ladbrokes racked up a more than ?15 million loss, but this time

it's turned it around on the pre-tax figure is ?25.2 million worth of

profit. It's all about football. There have been some problems with

Leicester City winning the Premier League costing the company ?3

million. But on the other side of the coin, the European Championship,

where England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, not doing

terribly well. Not great for fans but good for the bookies. The only

one bucking the trend was Wales. The overall picture from the European

Championships was that the number of bets was up and it was very

profitable for Ladbrokes and other bookies. Ladbrokes in the process of

merging with Coral, a big strategy change, try to sell off a number of

shops, but at the moment the strategy seems to be working. There

is lots of competition in the sector at the moment with a lot of

consolidation and regulatory changes as well. An interesting space to

follow. It has been for some time. What Ladbrokes is doing with its

merger with Corel is bringing together two of the big players on

the high street. Some are suggesting high street bookmakers have had

their day and it's going all on the Internet but Ladbrokes are saying

that isn't necessarily true. Yes, a lot of betting happens on the

Internet but high Street bookmakers are doing well as well. To prove the

point, they will sell 400 shops, and they reckon they have found a buyer,

currently unnamed, but they think the buyer will purchase sometime in

the second half of the year. We are talking about detoxing from digital

devices, could you live without your smartphone and devices for a few

days? Absolutely not, I need to keep up with your Twitter feed! You are

so diplomatic, a cheeky man. Thank you so much. Look up the hashtag

sockwars. Private health care firm Bupa says

it's profits have fallen 45% because of the oil price slide in the first

half of the year. Our top story - The Bank of England

is today expected to announce that it's cutting interest rates

to a 0.25%. If that happens, it'll be

the first change in the rate It will also be the lowest level of

interest rates in the bank's 322 years of history. We've been waiting

for something to happen for 88 months, so we are quite excited

there might be a rate cut today. Most economists believe the Bank

will act, with data showing a significant fall in economic

activity since Britain voted That happened in construction and

manufacturing ants as well as the service industry.

Charity auctions have long been associated with the super-wealthy,

There's now one company which hopes to make fundraising a less

Similar to eBay, E-Solidar is an online marketplace

However, all sales that take place on the platform must go

The company also sources memorabilia for charities,

meaning you don't necessarily need to meet someone famous

in order to auction off a signed football shirt.

Despite serving the charity sector, E-Solidar does aim to turn a profit.

Last year, E-Solidar received $600,000 from venture

Marco Barbosa is the founder of E-Solidar.

Great to have you with us. I guess we will start with that, the

600,000, you have to make money, so how do you? Everything we raise we

send to charity, so we cannot make money without impacting on charity

and vice versa. You must have spotted a gap in the market to set

up this business, so what were the structural issues you saw with big

charities? Big charities, about 90% of the income for charities goes to

5% of the charities, and 81% of charities are struggling to raise

funds to survive. The other side, from the consumer perspective and

the corporate sector, they struggle to navigate the charity world and

the complexity. Some charities have yet to fully grasp the technology,

so we want to make the bridge between the companies and the people

that want to support charities and the charities themselves. In

something like this, transparency is so important, it's important for

everybody, but for a charity, how do you go about making sure? We explain

very clearly on the website what we do, and the fee that we take. It's

about improving technology, bettering tools, owing to the market

and understand the pain from the charities and also for the

consumers, how they are struggling to help the charities and also the

corporate sector. What's the endgame for the company? As far as I can

think or remember, there isn't a big listed company out there in the

charity space. Will that be you? We hope so. In maybe 8-10 years, if we

manage to keep growing, we would like to be made an IPO, and show the

world it's possible to have the profitability and the capitalist

world, together with the social impact of the charity giving. At the

same time we are supporting great causes and making a better bridge

between the for-profit and nonprofit markets. Is that realistic? Seeing

the nonprofit sector be as profitable as the profit sector.

Surely by definition they are not. We have that visceral reaction of

people making a lot of money to help people. We strongly believe it's

possible to help people. We know it's very hard, but if we work with

and for charities, attracting venture capital is very tough, but

we think we can show to other entrepreneurs that it's possible. So

we can open this mentality and show that it's possible. What's on the

site just now, what do you have listed? A shirt from the cycling

athletes. A shirt from the Portuguese team. We have the glasses

from Elton John. Just go back to the question, we are a company that

supports communities and we hope everyone can invest. Great stuff, so

sorry, but thank you for coming in. Internet overload has led

millions of people in the UK to take a digital detox,

according to research The survey found more than 30%

of internet users have taken between a day

and a month away from the web. Almost 60% of those surveyed

considered themselves BBC's Emma Simpson has this

report... Nothing beats getting

away from it all. If I Google that, we will be

able to look today. I find it totally impossible just

to put it away and not I like to keep in touch

with everybody and I like to be able to post all my photos to Facebook

so my friends can see where we are. We are now spending the equivalent

of just over a day a week online A third of adults have taken

a "digital detox" or break to strike For instance, 16% of us have made

a point of going somewhere with no Many parents are making their kids

take an online break. Nearly two thirds have been digitally grounded,

but this lot say they know when to stop. I don't find it something you

need every day. Because I'm more than happy biking up and down, I

don't have to be on the Internet. We are better connected

than ever before. But the challenge is to not let

technology take over our lives. There will be more business news

throughout the day on the BBC Live webpage and on World Business

Report.