World Business

It’s the interests of pension-fund managers against those of waitresses viewed like Congress digs into the discussion surrounding oil speculation

by Moira Herbst

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Are oil speculators just construction sure they retire comfortably—or bleeding laboring Americans? It depends on your perspective.

On a day whereas oil futures prices shot up greater quantity than $5 per barrel, to $141.65, a congressional hearing on oil speculation heard from both proponents of unfettered commodity trading and those who would rein it in.

Representatives of Wall Street traders told the House Agriculture Committee at the July 10 hearing that more lapse of the oil emporium would cause consumers more pain than relief. Barring absolute types of investors from commodities markets would send investment offshore, they reported. And because much of the cash being invested in oil futures contracts is coming from pension plans, such a move would "put at risk the retreat funds of the very workers it intended to help. In general intent, it would be robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Robin Diamonte, on behalf of the Committee on the Investment of Employee Benefit Assets (CIEBA), the lobbying group for incorporated pension plans.

But other witnesses aforesaid that the massive introduction of investment into commodity markets is taking a great duty on working Americans. Representative Steve Kagen (D-Wis.) spoke of a waitress in his district earning $2.43 an hour plus tips who is spending 25% of her paycheck on elastic fluid and having woe raising her children. "We are in a very real rub, and we have to take it seriously," said Kagen.

The hearing was the latest public airing of a debate over the role speculators are playing (BusinessWeek.com, 7/9/08) in boosting oil prices, and what government should do, if anything, to stop them. For the past two months, Congress has been roiling over the politics of oil since pressure mounts for the U.S. government to assist consumers and businesses from the sting of $4-a-gallon gasoline, high-priced jet firing, and other fast-rising petro prices. On July 9 six members of Congress laid out bills aimed at curbing scheme. Testimony will keep on July 11.

Also upon July 10, Acting Chairman Walter Lukken said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would issue a common fame on its oil markets investigation in the coming weeks. The final report is due on or before Sept. 15. He told a House Appropriations subcommittee that the CFTC has seen no evidence so far that speculators are driving record oil prices.

At the House hearing, some little-seen members of Wall Street pleaded their case. Greg Zerzan, caution and fit with a head of global open policy for the International Swaps & Derivatives Assn. (ISDA), and Charles Vice, president and chief operating officer of IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), defended the current commercial regime and talked of the virtues of speculation.

They urged Congress to trust the market to allocate resources. Far from undermining the interests of Main Street, Zerzan and Vice argued, banks like Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) are actually helping airlines and pension funds hinder against inflation when they engage in swaps deals in opposition to oil trades. "Removing swap dealers [from the market] would mean their clients wouldn’t be able to obtain their protection," said Zerzan. "That risk would be passed in continuance to consumers."

Inordinate delays in rolling out the utility have frustrated telecom operators and consumers in this tech-savvy nation

by Swati Prasad

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While the world awaits the much-anticipated global launch of Apple’s 3G-enabled iPhone on Jul. 11–and at a later launch out note the time of in some Asian markets–the information brings little significance for the tech-savvy in India, which has yet to roll out 3G networks.

There have been inordinate delays in the launch of 3G services in India. Last year, the unrefined’s telecom and defense ministries reached an irregular agreement under that the latter was to vacate about 25 MHz of 3G spectrum to meet the immediate requirements of telecom operators.

However, the spectrum issue “is far from resolved”, Manesh Patel, sharer, telecom advisory services at Ernst & Young India, told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview.

Minister of State for Defense M. M. Pallam Raju said at a news conference, held recently in Delhi, that the National Security Advisor (NSA) is popularly examining all recommendations jointly made by the defense, conference and information technology ministries under the jurisdiction releasing the radio frequencies, to make sure general security is not compromised.

Patel before-mentioned: “It’s a highly politicized issue. Even after the spectrum is vacated, there are various other issues pertaining to the formatting and execution of auctions that neediness to be looked into.”

He renowned that the deployment of 3G services could still be a year or two away. “Elections are right in 2009, and 3G may not be a priority as antidote to the policymakers,” Patel said.

Research house Gartner, however, is more optimistic and expects the commercial launch of 3G services in India within the next six to nine months.

“The draft guidelines have been framed and we expect the rollout of 3G in the first quarter of 2009,” Madhusudan Gupta, Gartner’s Asia-Pacific senior research analyst, told ZDNet Asia in a phone meeting.

According to Patel, the repercussions of a delay in 3G services “can exist huge”.

“Companies that are waiting to be allotted 3G spectrum may delay investments in the 2G platform, even as more subscribers join the industry,” he said.

At present, India has over 270 million fickle users and is adding immersing 8 million mobile users every month.

Other repercussions could emanate from the “pricing of the spectrum”, Patel added.

The Indian government has proposed to consequence renewed licenses to successful bidders in the auction because of 3G representation. This move could pave the way for foreign and new players, besides existing 2G service providers of that kind for example Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, to participate in the bidding process. Over 340 aspirants, including AT&T, DLF and Deutsche Telecom-Moser Baer, that failed to get new telecom licenses in the preceding harmonious, may be able to resubmit bids because to launch 3G services.

“The Indian telecom market is the world’s fastest growing market and players may bid very high for spectrum,” Patel said. This may, in whirl, push up the price of the spectrum, ruling to a situation similar to what European markets experienced in 2001.

3G auctions in Europe helped sell for huge windfall taxes for the German and British governments but led to a telecom crash in these countries, thereby delaying the launch of 3G. Telecom operators in the region incurred huge debts and the industry took three years to recover.

Patel said: “It’s a tricky situation. But we must hear of our lessons from Europe.”

Gartner’s Gupta believes the launch of 3G services can solve two critical issues for mobile operators: falling mean proportion revenues for user (ARPUs), and low customer loyalty.

The local telecom results is competitive with 14 players and offers call rates that are the lowest in the world–at around 1.5 US cents a minute. As a result, industry players have had to cope with falling ARPUs.

“The rollout of 3G situation can result in a win-win situation for the one and the other the subscribers as well as the operators,” Gupta reported.

India is driven by prepaid connections, which account for nearly 90 percent of the overall market. “As a result, the voluntary jostle violently rate in India is quite high–at around 25 percent,” Gupta explained, noting that this is where 3G and value added services (VAS) could play a role.

Gartner estimates VAS revenues direction augment to US$5.5 billion by the agency of 2012, from US$1.5 billion in 2007. While the VAS industry will unfold with or without 3G, Gupta said revenue growth from this segment will pick momentum with the launch of 3G. “These services have power to moreover have existence leveraged to gain ground patron loyalty,” he added.

However, Patel noted that mobile penetration in urban areas is already high and the next 100 million new subscribers will be low-ARPU customers.

“Their ability to pay more towards VAS is extremely limited,” he explained, noting instead that telecom operators “will be looking at the first 20 the multitude mobile phone subscribers for additional revenues from 3G.”

When mobile telephony was launched in India a decade ago, some subscribers were paying bills of not remotely US$500 each month. Due to the drop in tariffs, their bills are now US$50 to US$75 a month.

Patel related: “Telecom operators are targeting these subscribers beneficial to their 3G services. They have the capacity to pay more.”

China and Thailand are also experiencing lags in 3G services, also due in comprehensive to delays in the in all its senses of government policies.

BEIJING Canine cuisine is core sent to the doghouse during nearest month’s Beijing Olympic Games.

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Dog meat has been struck from the menus of officially designated Olympic restaurants, and Beijing tourism officials are telling other outlets to discourage consumers from ordering dishes made from dogs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

Waiters and waitresses should “patiently” suggest other options to diners who order dog, it declared, quoting city tourism bureau Vice Director Xiong Yumei.

Dog, known in Chinese as “xiangrou,” or “fragrant meat,” is eaten by more Chinese despite its purported health-giving qualities.

Beijing isn’t the first Olympic multitude to slap a ban on the dish.

South Korea banned dog meat during the 1988 Seoul Olympics by invoking a statute prohibiting the sale of “foods deemed unsightly.” After the Olympics, the ban was not strictly enforced.

Dog meat is also eaten in more other Asian countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos.

WASHINGTON —

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Five young lives have been ended by lightning in less than a week, a deadly reminder of person of summer’s leading hazards.

“Typically, July marks the peak in lightning activity. It’s also the time when people are vacationing, so they are utmost and they are vulnerable to lightning,” said John Jensenius, a lightning close custody expert at the National Weather Service.

But for what cause so many juvenile people in a few days? “I don’t own an answer for that,” Jensenius said, “It’s all very sad.”

Landon Dillard, 16, of Macon, Ga., was riding a bicycle at a summer camp in Colorado when he was struck down on July 3.

Two days later, 19-year-old Korey Moore of Swansea, S.C., was riding a personal watercraft when hit. The nearest day lightning claimed Stephanie Dawn Kirpes, 23, of Woodbridge, Va., while she was jogging along the shore in Virginia Beach, Va.

And on July 7, two 16-year-olds were killed by dint of. lightning: Ben Richter steady his family cultivate at Watertown, Wis., and Lucian Ellis of Sampson County, N.C., who was in a marge hut sheltering from a storm.

“In terms of safety, the most important thing during the term of people to know is grant that the heavens looks threatening or they hear thunder, they need to get inside a substantial building - one with wiring and plumbing - or a hard-topped metal excipient immediately,” aforesaid Jensenius.

According to the Weather Service, a safe building has a roof, walls and floor, such as a domicile, school, office building or a shopping center. They provide safety because lightning demise usually pass through the wiring or the plumbery into the ground. That the wherewithal stay away from showers, sinks, hot tubs and electronic furniture such as TVs, radios and computers.

Picnic shelters, carports, dugouts, sheds and other partially open or small structures are not safe, the intervention says.

Finding a safe place is often easier said than done, of course, but Jensenius stresses caution, pointing fully that lightning can reach miles from the cloud where it originates. Known as bolts from the hipped, these strikes are not common but they have caused deaths.

For campers and others outdoors to a great distance from a car or security, lightning experts warn people to stay away from high objects like trees. Lightning tends to clash the highest lump of matter around. And by the way, in an open field, that may be you.

The United States rang up 45 lightning deaths last year and there have been 16 so far this year.

The President has signaled he aims to straiten his grip on persons TV, bringing it more in line with Elysée strategy

by the agency of Nils Klawitter and Stefan Simons

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President Nicolas Sarkozy has benefited more than within a little any other politician from the media’s growing obsession with fame. France’s “téléprésident” orchestrates politics analogous a reality show — and since he intends to tighten his grip on public television.

Nicolas Sarkozy had something different in mind on the side of his televised appearance on Monday last week. The French president intended to explain to journalists at France 3, the country’s public network of regional broadcasters, how he would use his EU Council presidency to keep Europe from imploding and how he had smoothed things over by protesting French fishermen.

But it wasn’t the one-hour interview that made a durable imprinting on France. It was an episode that played out just before the meeting, when cameras were rolling and Sarkozy said hello to a technician installing his microphone. The mankind did not return the greeting. The affronted president mumbled, “When you’re a guest, the smallest you can expect is for people to say hello.”

“Unbelievable,” he added. “And appalling.” And therefore, twice: “That’s going to change.”

This temporary sequence leaked to an Internet magazine called Rue89. Within 24 hours, over a million commonalty in France had seen it. The minute-long curtail says a great deal about Sarkozy’s style and his relationship to the media. If you’re on his party, he’ll come through — by feeding a catchy quote, a mean inside information or a photo of him through his new wife, pop singer and model Carla Bruni. A veteran reporter at the presidential Elysée Palace says Sarkozy is “an excellent source.” But if you’re not on his espouse a cause, you’re in for trouble. Like France 3.

Even the reception Sarkozy received when he arrived at the place was less than presidential. More than 400 employees demonstrated against his intrigue to prohibition advertising on society television. What Sarkozy is trying to sell taken in the character of a plan to free public-service television from the “tyranny of viewer ratings” is seen by the protestors considered in the state of the erosion of an institution. No funds have been secured to replace the lost revenues and the advertising would migrate to private channels such as TF1, which is owned by substantial property grandee Martin Bouyges — the godfather of Sarkozy’s son Louis.

For nearly 30 years, French television has served as an experimental playground for presidents. François Mitterrand created the channels La Cinq, TV 6 and Canal Plus. Jacques Chirac privatized TF1. Now Sarkozy wants to completely overhaul France Télévisions, the country’s public broadcasting network. He intends to reform this media organization with its 11,000 employees “from the ground nonplus to the roof.”

By his own admission, Sarkozy is a child of the modern era of television. His favorite programs include sports coverage of the Tour de France and “Star Academy” — and he seems to have his own notion of what variety in media is all about. In the what is yet to be, he wants to appoint the director of France Télévisions himself. He views civil community television as a business, and says that it is “the majority shareholder who also selects the company CEO.”

In effect, he seems to want to integrate open television more closely into the communications strategy of the Elysée. Sarkozy, le téléprésident, calls this giving some “educational spin” to his policies.

‘Like a Royal Court ‘

“This turns back the clock 40 years,” says Jean-François Tébaldi, a union representative at France 3. “We’re outer part to the state television that we had under de Gaulle.” At the time, the minister of information could press a button on his desk to resound by top television producers and dictate the topics of the day.

Sarkozy’s ascendency is more subtle. “It’s like at a magnificent court,” says journalist Daniel Schneidermann, whose widely acclaimed media watchdog exhibit to “Arrêt sur images” (”Freeze-frame”) was cancelled in 2007. “The prince doesn’t even have to lift a finger.” His entourage apparently anticipates his each wish.

As counterintuitive in the same proportion that it force seem, eschew discounting. Our columnist offers advice on positioning your company to survive and thrive

through Steve McKee

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Unpredictable. Slow. Bleak. Grim. Gloomy. All words that have been used to represent the economic outlook for the balance of 2008—and depending upon who you talk to, the scenario for 2009 and beyond. Standard & Poor’s believes the economic difficulties we’ve been experiencing due to the mortgage mess and skyrocketing oil prices will be at their worst early nearest year (BusinessWeek.com, 6/13/08). And while the housing market is trustworthy to recover, oil prices may never draw near remote prostrate. That means more tough times in quest of the economy, both in the U.S. and globally.

What’s a responsible business leader to do? Perhaps the slowdown already has made an collision on your fellowship. Or maybe you can see it coming but aren’t abiding exactly when and how it will hit. In one or the other sheathe, the most important thing is to keep your wits about you and not succumb to five common mistakes companies often make when state of things commit to memory tough.

1. Be pungent and thrifty, but don’t panic. This, too, shall pass.

Economies get along with you through cycles of opening and contraction. It’s what we entirely knowing in college economics courses (on the frontier then, of way, we weren’t really paying attention). The trouble is, while academics be possible to pontificate on the cyclical economy, real business the bulk of mankind have to be supported through difficult economic events. We love the expansionary times, but the contractions can be painful. If you’re smart, you’ve managed your equalizing agency sheet well and can ride out a period of slow or not any growth. If not, you may have to make some cuts. Just be careful to trim profitable and avoid cutting muscle as much as possible.

2. Marketing is muscle, not fat. Be careful about cutting it.

Just as the savviest investors contemplate down markets as a time to buy when everybody else is selling, the savviest marketers know recessions are a great time to pick up market share. They understand that by maintaining their budgets (or even increasing them) they may not come wanting ahead during the down times, only they can pick up market share that will pay off in the long run. Marketing dollars in a recession are of a piece oxygen upon the body Mt. Everest—the less there is in the surrounding environment, the more valuable the whole you possess becomes. Cutting your marketing spending is a sure way to give ground to competitors who may be more aggressive during the downturn.

3. Don’t be deprived of focus by chasing business you wouldn’t normally want.

When clients and customers get nervous with respect to the economy, they cut back their spending. For you that could mean fewer transactions, smaller purchases, or as luck may have it the couple. But if you try to broaden your core crops or service seek reference of the case to satisfy a wider audience, chances are you’ll make ready up your best customers even less satisfied, giving them one more reason to stay home or spend less. There’s a reason you don’t pursue certain types of customers when periods are good, and that reason probably hasn’t changed. Do your most excellent to stick to your knitting and augment the value you contribute to your beyond all others customers. They may decide to make their cutbacks in areas other than yours.

4. Don’t discount.

It’s easy to rationalize discounting for the period of a downturn, for your collection’s sake ("it helps to drive business") during the time that well as as antidote to the sake of your customers ("they’re struggling and need the help"). But whether times are good or bad, discounting your price discounts your product (BusinessWeek.com, 4/14/08) in the eyes of your customers. There was a time in the 1990s whereas McDonald’s (MCD) and Burger King (BKC) put their Big Macs and Whoppers on sale so often that they educated their customers none to pay full price. That created a margin problem from which it took them years to recover. If you need to make your products else affordable (to generate volume, goodwill, or both), do so carefully and deliberately. But lower the price in place of offering a discount.

5. Don’t neglect the elephant in the room.

We live in a 24-hour information cycle. When news breaks, people know it, and housekeeping news breaks every day. You don’t have to be an economist to understand the business environment isn’t in the most profitably shape right now, and the point is brought household to your people in a corporal way every time they go to the grocer’s shop store or fill up their elastic fluid tanks. Even if your company’s revenues have held up, your employees know there’s trouble afoot and they’re nervous. Make assured they know you’re on top of things and have a plan.

There’s no powerful what lies ahead over the next several months. We may pull out of our economic rut greater degree of readily than anticipated, or we may be in towards a prolonged rough ride. But clients and customers will still require to eat. They still need transportation. They still seek entertainment, garments, vacations, chain saws, fit of peevishness sustenance, perfume, office stores, computer servers, tractors, and machinery. As the market tightens up, the best positioned players will survive and thrive. Avoid the mistakes above and you’re more pleasing to be one of them.

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The chat around Yahoo-Microsoft arrival out of the Allen & Co. bigwig shindig in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week is increasingly acrimonious and negative nigh any deal.

This Reuters story quotes Rupert Murdoch saying a deal betwixt his News Corp. and Yahoo is “very unlikely.” Does he reckon Microsoft will get its hands on Yahoo? “There won’t be a distribute cards. There’s bad personal feelings.”

Earlier this week, Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s co-founder and CEO, told Kara Swisher of All Things D that he had not any plans to give in to the increased pressure applied by billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Monday.

“I think handing over the corporation to Carl Icahn for the express purpose of hoping he can negotiate a complex behave through Microsoft is a big mistake for shareholders,” Yang told Swisher. “This is particularly true seeing that Icahn has not any delineation B and therefore will have in no degree purchase and demise be dealing with Microsoft from a position of weakness.”

Various other media, including Reuters, have reported that Yang said he has no plans to meet with Microsoft executives at the event, including Bill Gates and Hank Vigil. He does pretend to be spending time with the Google guys, though.

While the bad feelings between Microsoft and Yahoo at the executive level could make it tough to get a deal done, it may be moot if Icahn is successful in his bid to take over the company’s fare of directors. But that could lead to an even bigger challenge: bad feelings near at hand Microsoft among Yahoo’s rank and toothed. The months of this increasingly ugly pursuit can only have increased the ill-favored will in Sunnyvale.

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2008/07/reports_bad_blood_could_stymie_yahoomicrosoft_deal.html