Think! And Engage!: June 2011

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Stressed Indian Women

Indian women most stressed in the world: Nielsen survey - The Economic Times: "NEW DELHI: In the most buoyant, confident and optimistic part of the world, life isn't exactly happy and stress-free for half its citizens.

The latest study done by Nielsen reveals that Indian women are the most stressed in the world today. An overwhelming 87% of Indian women said they felt stressed most of the time, and 82% had no time to relax.

The survey, conducted early this year, covered 6,500 women from 21 developed and developing countries like Sweden, the US, the UK, France, the BRICS economies. It was conducted online among women (over 18 years of age) and cut across social and income class."

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The Money Ax

wall-street-layoffs-begin-wsj: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance: "The trading slump on Wall Street has battered profits and is about to cost some people their jobs.

Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE: CS - News) started laying off investment-banking employees Tuesday, and the cost-cutting push could claim 400 to 600 jobs, according to people familiar with the situation.

This month, Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS - News) has eliminated 100 jobs in its investment bank, including some stock-trading employees. The latest cuts are on top of 600 layoffs in January, a person familiar with the situation said.

And at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS - News), the annual survival-of-the-fittest culling of 5% of the securities firm's employees won't be enough in 2011, according to someone familiar with the New York company's plans.

Deeper cutbacks will be made throughout Goldman, this person said, especially in the U.S. Goldman still plans to add more employees in Singapore, Brazil and India.

"Banks are chopping a lot of wood, both deadwood and live wood," said Michael Karp, managing partner at executive-search and consulting firm Options Group.

The cutbacks are coming largely because of sluggish revenue growth on Wall Street's trading desks.

Regulators have clamped down on trading strategies that once generated huge profits but then backfired with staggering losses during the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, bread-and-butter trading clients from hedge-fund managers to mom-and-pop investors are doing less buying and selling, depriving firms of commissions and fees.

"There's definitely apprehension," said Roger Freeman, an analyst with Barclays Capital. On a recent visit with Goldman, Mr. Freeman discussed with executives how some hedge funds with small trading gains preferred to lock in those gains from earlier this year rather than risk losing them on new trades.‬‪

[More from WSJ.com: Dodgers' McCourt Scores Bankruptcy Win]

Howard Marks, chairman of Oaktree Capital Management LP, which manages more than $80 billion in assets for pension funds and other investors, told clients in a letter last month that "other people's increasingly aggressive behavior tells me to seek cover."

Lots of other investors are heading for the sidelines. Average daily trading on U.S. stock exchanges slipped in the second quarter to its lowest level since 2007's fourth quarter, according to Barclays Capital."

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Brand Lessons

How Maggi Pazzta, Fair & Lovely Max men's fairness cream & Parle's 20-20 cookie are threatening category leaders - The Economic Times: "ITC's Sunfeast pasta dominated the Indian ready-to-cook pasta market with a 70% market share last year; today, it trails Nestle's Maggi Pazzta, barely a year after the latter was launched, thanks mostly to the immense popularity of Maggi instant noodles.

Nestle has more than 42% share in the small-but-fast-growing pasta market while ITC holds around 40%, according to data from market research firm Nielsen.

What seems to have worked for Nestle is that the 25-year-old Maggi brand was already leading the ready-to-cook food category across the country and Pazzta could just piggyback on Maggi's brand equity. Maggi Pazzta is not really an exemption.

A number of new challenger brands such as Hindustan Unilever's Fair & Lovely Max men's fairness cream, Parle's 20-20 cookie and Marico's Parachute cooling oil-all launched in the last two years-have grown rapidly to threaten and, in some cases, even topple category leaders."

Monday, June 27, 2011

Corporate Supreme Court

Another decision supporting Corporate Interests, in line with other Roberts' Court Decisions.

Justices Reject Ban on Violent Video Games for Children - NYTimes.com: "WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday struck down on First Amendment grounds a California law that barred the sale of violent video games to children. The 7-to-2 decision was the latest in a series of rulings protecting free speech, joining ones on funeral protests, videos showing cruelty to animals and political speech by corporations.

In a second decision Monday, the last day of the term, the court also struck down an Arizona campaign finance law as a violation of the First Amendment.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for five justices in the majority in the video games decision, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, No. 08-1448, said video games were subject to full First Amendment protection."

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Faking even Integrity

Obama's signature: Is it real or is it autopenned? - Yahoo! News: "For decades, presidents of both parties have let an autopen do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to scrawling their signatures. The machine was recently put to use signing a bill into law, apparently a first.
Overseas and out of reach when lawmakers passed an extension of certain provisions of the Patriot Act, President Barack Obama employed the autopen to sign it, a step the White House has been mum about ever since.
'I always heard the autopen was the second most guarded thing in the White House after the president,' says Jack Shock, who had permission to wield former President Bill Clinton's autopen as his director of presidential letters and messages.
Jim Cicconi, who oversaw the use of autopens for President George H.W. Bush, recalls that the plastic signature templates for the machines — yes, there was more than one autopen — would wear out from repeated use.
Ronald Reagan had 22 different signature templates, including 'Ron,' ''Dutch' and other iterations, to boost the aura of authenticity surrounding his fake signatures, says Stephen Koschal, an autograph authenticator who two years ago published a guide to presidential autopen signatures."

Bachman, Palin, and the Other Hypocrites: Taking from the Public, but criticizing the Government

Michele Bachmann denies benefiting from government aid - latimes.com: "Rep. Michele Bachmann deflected allegations Sunday that she and her immediate family had benefited from government assistance despite her demands to cut the federal budget, saying hundreds of thousands of dollars for her family farm and a counseling clinic went to employees and her in-laws.

'My husband and I did not get the money,' the Minnesota Republican said on Sunday news shows one day before officially opening her presidential campaign in Waterloo, Iowa — her birthplace.

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that Bachmann, a 'tea party' favorite, had benefited from government funds and federal farm subsidies.

An examination of her record and finances showed that a counseling clinic run by her husband received nearly $30,000 from Minnesota and the federal government in the last five years. And a family farm in Wisconsin, where she is listed as a partner, received about $260,000 in federal subsidies.

In Bachmann's financial disclosure forms, she reported receiving between $32,503 and $105,000 in income from the farm, at minimum, between 2006 and 2009.

Bachmann and her staff had declined to comment to The Times. But asked about the issue on 'Fox News Sunday,' she insisted that she and her husband had not benefited at taxpayers' expense."

Committing the SIN: Social Influence Network

Got Twitter? What's Your Influence Score - NYTimes.com: "If you have a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account, you are already being judged — or will be soon. Companies with names like Klout, PeerIndex and Twitter Grader are in the process of scoring millions, eventually billions, of people on their level of influence — or in the lingo, rating “influencers.” Yet the companies are not simply looking at the number of followers or friends you’ve amassed. Rather, they are beginning to measure influence in more nuanced ways, and posting their judgments — in the form of a score — online."

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Ethanol and Gasoline Subsidies- Fueling a Moral Deficit

Ethanol Production Wastes Corn - NYTimes.com: "Even in a crowd of rising food and commodity costs, corn stands out, its price having doubled in less than a year to a record $7.87 per bushel in early June. Booming global demand has overtaken stagnant supply.

But rather than ameliorate the problem, the government has exacerbated it, reducing food supply to a hungry world. Thanks to Washington, 4 of every 10 ears of corn grown in America — the source of 40 percent of the world’s production — are shunted into ethanol, a gasoline substitute that imperceptibly nicks our energy problem. Larded onto that are $11 billion a year of government subsidies to the corn complex.

Corn is hardly some minor agricultural product for breakfast cereal. It’s America’s largest crop, dwarfing wheat and soybeans. A small portion of production goes for human consumption; about 40 percent feeds cows, pigs, turkeys and chickens. Diverting 40 percent to ethanol has disagreeable consequences for food. In just a year, the price of bacon has soared by 24 percent."

Friday, June 24, 2011

RIch and Healthy Food for ENquiring Minds

Environment news, comment and analysis from the Guardian | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "Guardian Environment Network: Our web picks"

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