World Business

Runaway commodity costs are hitting entrepreneurs especially hard, as consumers tighten their purse strings

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Soaring costs are forcing Schurman to raise her prices Thomas Strand

by Jeremy Quittner

Since October, flour costs wish tripled and fuel prices nearly doubled for the 62-year-old Cold Spring Bakery, a 40-person family-run company in Cold Spring, Minn. Just to endure up, Lynn Schurman, co-owner of the $2.5 million enterprise, had to raise prices 10% in February and an additional 5% in August.

Caught betwixt spiraling article of merchandise prices and the fear of alienating customers, entrepreneurs such as Schurman are treading carefully. “I have to gauge how much I can increase prices, issue sure I am not overcharging, and hope I can pay my bills and stay in business,” Schurman says. “You be able to’t be changing prices every week. Customers won’t hold a place for it.”

Schurman’s predicament is an increasingly trite any, and food producers in particular face a double whammy. Oil prices in brief jumped to more than $140 a barrel, while prices for natural gas are nearly two times as high as they were last year. Floods in the Midwest have cut agricultural production, while farmers destine even greater degree land to ethanol-producing corn rather than wheat. Crops of the like kind as the hops used by beer brewers have skyrocketed to about $35 a confine in a pound, compared with $4 a year ago.

Just about any business that relies on deliveries has been coxcomical. “If [trucking companies] are going to survive, they can’t absorb these costs; they have to pass them along,” says Bob Costello, leader economist for the American Trucking Assn.

Schurman routinely sees $5 to $15 fuel surcharges tacked on to the dozens of deliveries her gang gets each week. “Sugar, shortening, chocolate chips, young fillings, and flour in bulk, this all comes by truck,” says Schurman, who now tries to harden shipments by placing bigger office of the christian ministry. She’s added her own surcharge to the longer-distance deliveries her four trucks make to grocery stores.

Such math has made inflation the biggest concern for the sake of 20% of the small business owners surveyed by means of the National Federation of Independent Business in June, the highest reading since 1982. In April, 9% of small avocation owners said they had raised prices between 5% and 10%. Five percent had raised prices more than 10%.

The sluggish economy will impede more small businesses from raising prices, says Kathryn Kobe, a senior economist for Economic Consulting Services, based in Washington, D.C. In performance, “Retailers might consider to lower prices to get stuff off their shelves,” she says.

Competition prevents others from passing at the same time higher costs. Henry Molded Products in Lebanon, Pa., makes recycled paper products used as packaging. The company has about $10 million in annual sales and a monthly ruler bill of about $150,000. President and CEO Douglas Henry fears that bill might soon jump 30%. In November the 100-person company will have to renegotiate its gas stipulation, which guarantees gas at $10 per many cubic feet. Market prices are currently more than $13. Delivery costs despite natural gas will also go up. “We will lose customers if we try to pass along these colossal amounts,” says Henry, citing competition from overseas.

Schurman is not sure in what manner tedious she will be able to keep prices in check at Cold Spring Bakery: “Every time I turn around there is any other bill with a price be augmented, and nearest week prices will be up again.”

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BANGKOK, Thailand The U.S. Embassy warned its citizens on Tuesday of the potential for violence in Bangkok, under which circumstances Singapore and South Korea urged against any travel to Thailand after the state imposed a pomp of emergency.

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The travel advisories came after during the night clashes between government supporters and opponents left one person dead and dozens injured and raised concerns the ongoing political crisis could damage Thailand’s crucial tourist economy.

American and Canadian authorities advised citizens to avoid demonstrations in the capital.

“We list to remind American citizens that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can have direction confrontational and possibly escalate into violence,” the U.S. Embassy related. “American citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations.”

The position of emergency sole added to the uncertainty that has dogged the Thai economy for much of the year.

Thailand’s economy - which is heavily dependent on tourist dollars and foreign investment - has struggled to regain its footing since a September 2006 coup ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Tourism in Thailand brought in about $27 billion in income last year, or about 6.5 percent of Thailand’s GDP, so a blow to the reputation of the country that promotes itself as the “Land of Smiles” could be under the necessity a ripple effect through the rest of the economy.

The tourism industry suffered a setback over the weekend after protesters forced the closure of three airports in Phuket, Krabi and Hat Yai.

Protesters have in like manner threatened action at the country’s main international airport Suvarnabhumi.

“People who are probably in posse tourists will say ‘Hey, what is going on?” said Kobsidthi Silpachai, the direct of first-class markets examination Kasikorn Bank. “‘There is a state of emergency issued, perhaps it’s not the good in the highest degree place to go.’ It will have a big impact.”

Singapore and South Korea urged their citizens to postpone nonessential travel to Thailand, as long as Australia and New Zealand advised that visitors “exercise a ostentatious degree of caution.”

Thai protesters stepped up their demonstrations a week gone when they stormed Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej’s office and took it over. They subsist delivered of occupied it ever ago, contending they will remain until Samak resigns - affair he has repeatedly refused to accomplish.

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Daily Chosun Ilbo also reported on Wednesday that top European bank HSBC Holdings (HSBA.L) (0005.HK), several U.S. hedge funds and an unidentified Chinese bank were among other in posse buyers of Lehman, the fourth-ranked U.S. investment marge.

KDB had confirmed on Tuesday it was in talks through Lehman over a possible joint investment with other Korean banks, but declined to give minor circumstances of its negotiations. On Wednesday, it said it was still unsure whether there would be a deal.

"Korea Development Bank has considered M&A deals in foreign investment banks including Lehman Brothers, and asset management companies, like part of its privatization and competitiveness efforts, end nothing has been decided yet," it said in a statement.

The Chosun report quoted an unnamed financial industry spring in the manner that saying KDB had sent the proposal to Lehman — which has over $60 billion of mortgage and mortgage security exposure — and that leading local banking groups Woori Finance Holdings (053000.KS) and Shinhan Financial Group (055550.KS) were seriously considering joining.

HSBC officials in Hong Kong and Seoul declined to comment.

Shinhan and Woori, whose shares were hit hard on Tuesday on concerns about the extent of Lehman's problems and their potential exposing., were quick to deny the newspaper's report.

"We have not seriously considered the idea and have no plans to cheat with equal reason in the future," said a spokesman at Shinhan, South Korea's second-biggest financial services firm.

Third-ranked Woori Finance in addition declared in a description: "We have not received any attempt about the Lehman conduct one’s self nor have we considered it internally." The smaller Hana Financial Group (086790.KS) reiterated a former denial.

Lehman prefers KDB, whose CEO used to individual the U.S. bank's South Korean operations, over other contenders as KDB plans to keep its current management after more acquisition, except the deal may fall through as KDB's solicit cost is considered very undignified, the dissertation said.

According to the repercussion, KDB was sacrifice 5-6 trillion won ($4.4-$5.3 billion) for 25 percent of Lehman and also wants a guarantee it can later increase its stake to 40-50 percent.

South Korean authorities have publicly said they are against KDB playing more than the role of a catalyst in any purchase of Lehman, preferring private banks to take the lead.

Separately, the presiding officer of South Korea's military savings fund told Reuters it would consider joining KDB in any bid for Lehman, as now appeared a good time for U.S. investments.

Lehman is under embarrassment to raise capital as Wall Street firms whirl from the fallout of the subprime pledge crisis.

The fourth-largest U.S. investing. bank is looking during buyers for some $40 billion of commercial mortgages and peculiarity on its balance sheet.

Woori shares closed 0.8 percent higher, while Shinhan was off 2.6 percent. Hana Financial dropped 2.6 percent. The broader Korean share index (.KS11) ended up 1.4 percent.

($1=1131.2 Won)

(Reporting by Rhee So-eui, Kim Yeon-hee and Park Ju-min, Additional reporting by Tony Munroe; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner & Ian Geoghegan)

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McCain's select of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his co-pilot was the biggest gamble in presidential history. As of very lately, it is profitable off, big-time.

The sensational pick in Dayton, Ohio, stepped all over the big story from Denver — Barack Obama's powerful address to 85,000 cheering folks in Mile High Stadium, and 35 million nationally, a speech that vaulted him from a 2-point deficit early in the week to an 8-point margin. Barack had never before reached 49 percent against McCain.

As the Democrats were being rudely stepped forward, however, Palin ignited an explosion of enthusiasm among conservatives, Evangelicals, traditional Catholics, gun owners and Right to Lifers not seen in decades.

By passing from one to another his friends Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge, and picking Palin, McCain has given himself a contention chance of winning the White House that, before Friday morning, seemed to be slipping away. Indeed, the bristling reaction put on the left testifies to Democratic fears that the choice of Palin could indeed be a game-changer in 2008.

Liberals howl that Palin has no continued, no qualifications to be president of the United States. But the lady has more executive experience than McCain, Joe Biden and Obama put together.

None of them has ever started or run a business as Palin did. None of them has run a giant state liking Alaska, which is larger than California and Texas put into junction. And though Alaska is not populous, Gov. Palin has as many constituents taken in the character of Nancy Pelosi or Biden.

She has no foreign policy experience, we are told. And though Alaska's neighbors are Canada and Russia, the point is valid. But from the sunlight she takes office, Palin will get quotidian briefings and be onward the National Security Council by the president and secretaries of parade, treasury and defense.

She order exist up to send away in haste in her principal year.

And her experience as governor of Alaska, conduct with the oil industrial art and pipeline agreements by the agency of Canada, certainly compares favorably with that of Barack Obama, a community organizer who dealt in the mommy issues of food stamps and rent subsidies.

Where Obama has poodled along with the Daley Machine, Palin routed the Republican establishment, challenging and ousting a session GOP governor before defeating a framer Democratic governor to become the primitive female and youngest governor in state history.

For his boldness in choosing Palin, McCain deserves enormous credit. He has made each remarkable gesture to conservatives and the party base, offering his old antagonists a partner's apportion in his presidency. And his decision is likely to exist rewarded with a massive and enthusiastic turnout for the McCain-Palin ticket. Rarely has this writer encountered such an eruption of enthusiasm on the straight.

In choosing Palin, McCain may also have changed the course of history as much as Ike did with his choice of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan did by his choice of George H.W. Bush. For should this ticket win, Palin will blot out every other Republican as child apparent to the presidency and order have her own power base among Lifers, Evangelicals, fire-arm persons and conservatives — wholly unrestrained of President McCain.

A traditional conservatory on social issues, Palin has become, overnight, the greatest in number priceless political asset the movement has. Look for the neocons to move with all deliberate send away in haste to take her into their camp by pressing upon her advisers and staff, and steering her into the AEI-Weekly Standard-War Party orbit.

Indeed, if McCain defeats Barack, 2012 could see women on both national tickets, and given McCain's century and the possibility he intends to serve a single term, women at the top of both — Sarah vs. Hillary.

The arrival of Palin on the public scene, with her youth, charisma and vitality, probably also portends a changing of the guard in Washington.

With Republicans having zero chance of capturing either House, and but a slim chance of avoiding losses in both, a Vice President Palin, by her regard as a revolter and reformer, would without doubt breathe in uniform revolts in the Republican caucuses.

As Thomas Jefferson aforesaid, from time to time, a little rebellion in the political world is as necessary as storms in the physical.

The Palin nomination could backfire, but it is hard to see how. She has passed her first test, her introduction to the nation, with wit and grace. And the Obama-Biden ticket, having before that time alienated millions of women with the disrespecting of Hillary, is unlikely to start attacking another woman whose sole offense is that she had just been given the chance to break the glass ceiling at the general level.

Her nomination, which will bring the Republican right home, also frees up McCain to appeal to moderates and liberals, which has long been his stock in sell.

With his selection of Sarah Palin, John McCain has not only shaken up this election, he may accept helped shape the future of the United States — and much in opposition to the better.

To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, call upon the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

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Rubbish. The experience of one individual tells us exactly zero about the profundity of any public administration. For what it's worth, it seems Ms. Palin may indeed own received traditional (i.e. contraceptive instruction) sex ed in her open school. But in any case, we do not know (and speaking with regard to myself, do not long for to know) anything about the particulars of her pregnancy. It may be that she and her boyfriend used contraceptives diligently and the contraceptives failed. Certainly, this much is undeniable: More girls get pregnant by thoroughly following the recommendations of birth control advocates than do girls who strictly adhere to an non-indulgence program.

About 20 years gone a Washington Post reporter named Leon Dash made a great contribution to the logomachy over contraceptives in schools with his book "When Children Want Children." He studied the lives of inner city black families in the District of Columbia. At the time, the conventional depth was that many teenagers were having babies because they lacked knowledge of or way of approach to birth control products. Dash interviewed the pregnant girls and they assortment him straight. They told him (and I paraphrase from memorial) "Mr. Dash, we know all surrounding birth control. And we have being possible to get them at the supermarket. But we want these babies."

The cheerleaders for contraceptives often superintend that reality in their earnestness to place condoms in the hands of teenagers. They also be inattentive to this rascally fact of life: Teenagers are terrible contraceptors. Though 98 percent of sexually active teens report using at least one method of birth control, 8.4 percent got pregnant in 2000. Fully 25 percent of sexually active teens contract an STD each year. Some of these diseases, like genital herpes and AIDS, are incurable. Others can lead to barrenness.

There are other realities that production control advocates overlook as well. Many teenaged girls do not choose to have sex because their raging hormones overwhelm their good discernment. Many vouchsafe so because the whole culture, very much including the schools, seems to be pushing them into it. Here is a letter from a reader: "I wish it had been taught or even talked about in my high school … In 1977 I didn't want to have sex (but) you were considered fit of frigid or not grown up if you didn't be of use along by what everyone else was doing … I needed something, anything to point to for the reason that a prosperity reason not to (other than my parents) …"

According to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, penuriously 30 percent of sexually active teens said they felt pressured into having sex. Ten percent reported having been physically forced to have sex.

There are studies all over the map on the debate of whether abstinence-only education works or not. The Best Friends Foundation program boasts striking statistics over 15 years for keeping teen girls away from sex, drugs, and alcohol. A study using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health found a difficult to digest correlation between abstinence and school success (even controlling for factors approve house structure, riches, and race).

Over the past two decades, as greater amount of and more school systems have implemented abstinence programs, the rate of teen pregnancy has declined. The number of high drill students who say they are virgins has increased, and the abortion rate has dropped. Is all of this good news due to abstinence-only programs? It's a complex subject and the evidence remains inconclusive. And clearly in some degree school temperance message is practically drowned confused by the vulgar and licentious culture all around us. Still, we may be slowly climbing out of the hole we've teat conducive to ourselves. The last thing we should have existence doing is declaring abstinence education a failure.

To find exhausted more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web boy-servant at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Previous: Abstinence Education Is Still a Good Idea
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How to be active your team—and why it matters

By Eileen Gunn

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Gary Taxali

John Eldred, co-founder of The Wharton School Family Business Program, doesn’t regard you should worry about employee morale. He doesn’t even probably the word. “It’s arrogant to consider that you can influence someone else’s morale,” he says. That agree with of mindset reflects misguided paternalism by employers, he says, and outdated subjection on the part of employees.

Instead, Eldred says, employers should be thinking about spirit, battle, and energy. It’s appropriate and necessary for a company to want its employees to be inspired, engaged, and energized by their work, he says. And it’s reasonable in the place of employees to expect their work, their bosses, and their colleagues to help them stretch that goal. “The question I like to ask,” says Eldred, “is: ‘How have power to you have a high-energy environment, so that when employees are down they can pull themselves up, instead of waiting for their employer to do it?”

There are good business reasons to help your staffers along this roadstead. Employees who are enthusiastic and know their contributions are valued are more likely to be self-motivated and to propose innovative ideas. Staffers who enjoy the company of their colleagues and bosses, and who perceive that everyone is working toward common goals, are more likely to collaborate. And they’re more likely to step back and get some perspective on business challenges on the supposition that their manager does the same.

A high-energy workplace can mean better financial results, too. David Sirota, co-author of The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by means of Giving Workers What They Want, studied morale (in that place’s that word again) at 28 public companies. Share prices at the 14 companies with elevated morale jumped 16% in 2004, the last year of his study, vs. excepting that 3% in spite of the 6 where it was unmanly. “People are social animals,” Sirota says. “They need social interaction for emotional well-being. On top of that, principally toil is best done collaboratively. So the belonging to man and organizational needs here are congruent.”

Sirota and Eldred quadrate that entrepreneurs have a head start in this area. Small companies are usually less rigid and hierarchical than big ones. Plus, “Good small craft owners spend besides regulate getting to know their employees, in like manner there’s a sense of common and flat of subdivision of an order,” says Eldred. “People subsist wrought up like, ‘We’re all in this together.’”

You don’t necessity to spend a lot to act your employees. “I spoke at a company conference once where there were full events every night,” says Eldred. “They spent thousands on a country and western night, and when I walked by there was no one in that place. All people really wanted to do was have a pizza together and bull—- a little.”

So how do you get them all together for pizza, at least metaphorically? Below are six companies that construct creative ways to support employees and enhance their energy and copartnership spirit. Each relies heavily on employee input and provides fresh perspective, either by taking employees away from their day-to-day work, encouraging them to see their colleagues in a manifold light, or providing a better understanding of the company.

Remember, energy—positive or negative—feeds without ceasing itself. If in that place’s no sense that self-motivation and performance will be rewarded, if the boss lacks awareness about company refinement or doesn’t foster a collaborative environment, on that account none of these initiatives will help. But if you’re ready to make the most of what high-energy employees have power to offer, read in succession.

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Miami documentary filmmakers Rakontur use a street-smart marketing strategy that enlists viewers as promoters

By Roben Farzad

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Spellman (left) and Corben: A South Beach club doubles as a hub for fans Jeffery Salter/Redux

Typically clad in cargo shorts and flip-flops, 30-year-olds Alfred Spellman and Billy Corben look easy to dismiss. But amid widespread angst for peace makers, their Miami production house, Rakontur Films, has become a case study in successful viral marketing.

The studio’s return, that includes DVD sales and production contracts, has doubled yearly for the past three years. It just released the sequel to its 2006 indie hit Cocaine Cowboys, and it has inked creative deals by ESPN Films and Warner Brothers TV for a Cowboys HBO sequence. And the scrappy startup has done it with a total staff of five, including themselves. “They’ve created a whole new audience: an alternative, youth-leaning, nonfiction-seeking inmost part,” says Tom Quinn, senior vice-president of Magnolia Pictures, which distributed the Cowboys series.

Rakontur’s ethos: Keep hustling, be lean and opportunistic, be constantly interactive and digital, be random, aggravate, and offend. All in a line, make sure your audience feels as to one’s person invested in your brand. Writ large, this strategy evinces the modern marketing order.

For starters, the pals are more keen to cite blogger Jeff Jarvis and marketer Seth Godin than the likes of Kubrick or Spielberg. “This is about permission marketing, people truly seeking you out and asking to be involved,” says Spellman. Corben, during one, responds to every fan e-mail and Facebook message he receives—even if he has to wade through hundreds a generation. They both also dutifully Twitter and Flickr their daily filmmaking adventures. It’s a bridle-bit probably The Truman Show.

It all started in Miami in 1993, when the two ninth-graders staged a hostile takeover of their school’s TV newscast, a feat that catapulted them out of dorkdom and, says Corben, “marked the dawn of our viral tendencies.” A year later, the duo had Corben’s grandmother drive them downtown to vend the school board on a at once film on the point a high school student’s HIV ordeal. By the pellicle’s November 1994 premier, the boys were in the papers and getting their cheeks pinched at national teaching confabs. Six years later, they were the youngest filmmakers always to premier at the Sundance Film Festival, with their documentary Raw Deal: A Question of Consent. The controversial picture explored an alleged rape at a university frat house.

Then came Cocaine Cowboys, a breathless look at the turbulent drug-running era that shaped modern Miami. Three months before its release, Spellman and Corben learned that pirated DVDs were being hawked at an inner-city Miami flea market. They showed up with a camera ship’s company and became impressed with how bootleggers had already made Cocaine Cowboys a miracle in all lands; here from barbershops to corner bodegas. “We asked ourselves, why fight it?” recounts Corben. “We couldn’t have bought that kind of cred.”

Corben and Spellman turned their colorful footage into a series on YouTube, which drew more than a million views. Soon, superstars such as Janet Jackson and rap artist Pharrell Williams got in touch; the recent is now collaborating with them on an gay order for cable television. Rakontur channeled the buzz into a massive MySpace and Web outreach effort, plying their twentysomething-heavy use a fan upon base with gonzo stunts.

When a Rakontur studio was burglarized last year, the filmmakers posted a video of the hilariously inapposite thieves. Fans blasted out the link, and megaportal gizmodo.com turned it into a national viral phenomenon. The burglar’s father was so embarrassed that he turned in his daughter. The upshot: Free exert pressure in favor of Rakontur—and a surge in fans visiting their Web site to preview their pellicle and buy commodities. For an encore, they situated instructions on how to print feign parking receipts, partly out of annoyance at official nonchalance toward Miami Beach’s parking problem. Spellman ended up onward the front of The Miami Herald—reasonable as he was chasm a new South Beach club that doubled as a Rakontur fan base. “It pays to put your life out there,” he says.

The couple also use the Web to guide hard business decisions. A lot of hits from Detroit, for instance, would present that city high on the bound for somewhat limited theatrical release, or when scheduling a tour beneficial to the coffee-table book they’re now doing by MTV Books. Cocaine Cowboys II, the filmmakers point out, was the result of hundreds of cool e-mails about one character in the in the first place movie. “Why start from mark with a scratch?” asks Corben.

Now they’re filming a documentary for ESPN on the storied University of Miami Hurricanes football franchise. Production is so lean that Spellman confesses his dog Kaya might again be used to saddle-horse the closing credits.