06/05/2014 World Business Report

house was empty at the time. Those are the latest headlines from

BBC World News. Now for the latest financial news with Sally.

What really happened duringite rish banking crisis. Now Parliament is

discussing setting up an inquiry to find out.

From eBay seller to running a fashion empire. We talk to the ent r

epeneur behind the Nasty Girl brand. `` entrepeneur.

A very warm welcome. You're with World Business Report. Also in the

programme: Tough economic decisions ahead in

Australia. They could prove to be very unpopular. We'll have the

details for you. But first of all, let's focus on Ireland and the

Parliament there today is expected to discuss setting up an inquiry in

to the 2008 banking crash which virtually brought the country to its

knees and forced Ireland in to an international bailout and a very

painful process of austerity. Six years on, mystery persists over what

actually happened behind closed doors in the run`up to the financial

crisis. Ireland is still reeling from the

shock waves of the banking crash which cost the country 64 billion

euro. It brought economic collapse forcing an international bailout and

austerity which continues. A decade of gloom driven by wreckless `` of

boom driven by wreckless ending ended with the property crash. Banks

were starved and struggled to keep going and it is what happened next

which is under scrutiny. Late one evening, senior bankers arrived at

government buildings in Dublin to warn Ireland's banking system faced

collapse. The coalition government agreed in the early hours to

underwrite all Irish bank deposits with Cabinet ministers in their beds

agreeing by phone. But this short`term fix had major long`term

impacts. The Irish state was tied directly to the unknown liabilities

of private banks. These were to prove too large to sustain, leading

to disaster. But mystery and secrecy remains over what precisely happened

that night and what advice was given. We need to know the truth.

And we now have evidence on every street you walk down and every door

you knock on and every place, both town and village and parish around

the country, the catastrophic consequences of the light touch

regular gags introduced by Fianna a Fial. `` regulation. Last month,

former chairman of Anglo`Irish Bank, Sean Fitzpatrick, was cleared of all

charges of illegal lending at the bank with some losses of 30 billion

euro. The new parliamentary inquiry is limited and prevented by law from

apportioning blame, which will mean that the first public hearings with

key politicians compelled to attend. Many in Ireland will be hoping that

the inquiry will help to unravel some of the mystery ofs of Ireland's

banking crash, which have cost the country dear.

Let's now talk about what's going on at the tech crunch event because

what began as a woman's desire to work for herself has turned in to a

multi`million dollar business. Nasty Girl is an online retailer that got

its start by selling vintage clothing on eBay. Nasty Girl now has

its own clothing line and is called one of the fastest growing retailers

of the United States. Its founder will be talking at Tech Crunch, the

annual boot camp in New York for start`ups. Our correspondent went to

meet her. This is Tech Crunch in New York `

the place to be if you're a start`up looking for some funding or even

wanting some advice from other success stories. It's events like

these that give many tech companies their first big break. But Sofia

Amaruso has a different story. The founder of the online retailer Nasty

Gal got her start not here, but using eBay, and is now one of tech's

biggest stars. You know, when I started the eBay store, I was trying

to work for myself. I had no idea that when I chose the idea Nasty

Gal, I would be saying it seven years later, but it worked. At one

point, your company was named the fastest growing retailer in the

United States. To what do you credit that success? The e commerce

landscape has changed since we began, but we've always carried

really unique pieces starting with vintage. The with the most editorial

vintage pieces, super crazy memorial vintage pieces and that was my

buying training. And we went out to trade shows and now we're designing

and designing for a girl with an appetite for something unique. Do

you consider yourself a tech company? E`commerce is what we do.

We use technology but I don't know what business doesn't use

technology. I wouldn't call us a tech company, but I wouldn't call us

a traditional retailer either. Many e`commerce sites are opening bricks

and mortar stores. Is that something that you're considering and is that

also something that's necessary for these kinds of companies? We will be

opening stores within the next year, which I'm really excited about.

We'll start in LA. I think that the brand is best experienced in all

channels, so while some people have to go offline to continue growing,

maybe their business is more niche, for us, it is really a choice. I

want to let our customers touch and feel our clothes. I want to see

someone run out of a store happy with a shopping bag. I've never had

that experience. It's a lot of people talking on social media,

which is awesome and I love that. But being able to hang out with the

customer in the real world is the most exciting thing. It's exactly

that experience ` of physically finding something perfect, that made

Nasty Gal. She created Nasty Gal there.

Now, let's talk about what's going on in Australia. The there is

grappling with some unpopular economic choices that could prove to

be politically toxic. Our correspondent is in our Asia

business hub in Singapore and I know that you're recently back from

Australia, so talk us through what's going on. Well, you know, Sally,

it's a bit of a moot point about how tough the government has to be in

Australia, and that's why all of this pre`Budget speculation is

causing so much angst. The Federal Budget is due next week. They're

expected not to touch interest rates because the economy is picking up

speed, but when it comes to the Budget, the Australian government is

saying repeatedly to anyone who will listen that everyone has to do the

heavy lifting and the government can't keep paying more and more out

and the spending has to be brought in. To tell you about the unpopular

things on the table or confirmed. A deficit reduction levy that would

temporarily increase the top tax rate. That's gone down with a lead

balloon, including with members of the government itself. And also cuts

to the pension, or at least delays to when you can get one. That's

already been announced. The retirement age will be pushed out to

70 in the decades to come. That's caused an uproar because even though

relative to the US, Australia has pretty low unemployment rates, there

are still a lot of people who can't get work and they reasonably ask

that if no`one is going to employ them in their prime working age, who

is going to hire them when they're 65 or 6 or 69. Alright, we have to

leave it there but we'll discuss the politics behind all of that when we

talk to you again. It sounds very familiar, doesn't it! Retirement age

going up. Let's look at other business

stories. Coca`Cola is planning to remove a controversial ingredient

from some of its brands by the end of the year following an online

petition. BVO is found in Coca`Cola's fruit and sports drinks

like Fanta and Powerade. There are concerns that an element is also

found in flame retardants. Pepsi removed it from the Gatorade sports

drink last year. The insurants group AIG has reported

a 27% drop in quarterly profits. The company's net income fell to $1. 6

billion, down from $2 million at the same time last year.

And shares of Apple closed above $600 for the first time since 2012.

Analysts say that this is because investors are more optimistic about

the iPhone and new product launches later this year and the company's

share buy`back programme. And Apple has revealed the stock compensation

for the retail chief on last night's closing price is worth just over $68

million. She was the former CEO of Burleyy.

Nice if you can get `` Burbury. Let's have a look at the markets

now: Japan is shut and Hong Kong is closed and South Korea is closed.

These markets are all trading, as you can imagine, a quiet session

because the key markets are closed tau. Among the stories being watched

is the Australian interest rates decision that's coming in a few

hours' time. Also, Janet Yellen will testify before the Senate tomorrow

talking about their move at the Federal Reserve to draw back on the

stimulus, so more questions on that. They're all looking ahead to that.

And that's World Business Report. See you soon.

Many thanks to Sally for that. We'll get to the papers in a moment.

First, though: A shortage of beds with forcing some

mental health patients in England to travel hundreds of miles for

treatment or even to sleep on mattress on the floor. Earlier this

year, one patient was admitted to a unit for the deaf because no beds

were available anywhere in England. Our social affairs