HIDDEN COST OF WAL-MART JOBS

Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the United States, with over one million workers. It is the largest food retailer and the third largest pharmacy in the nation. The company employs approximately 44,000 workers in California, and has plans to expand significantly in the state over the next four years. Wal-Mart workers receive lower wages than other retail workers and are less likely to have health benefits. Other major retailers have begun to scale back wages and benefits in the state, citing their concerns about competition from Wal-Mart. We estimate that Wal-Mart workers in California earn on average 31 percent less than workers employed in large retail as a whole, receiving an average wage of $9.70 per hour compared to the $14.01 average hourly earnings for employees in large retail (firms with 1,000 or more employees). In addition, 23 percent fewer Wal-Mart workers are covered by employer-sponsored health insurance than large retail workers as a whole. The differences are even greater when Wal-Mart workers are compared to unionized grocery workers. In the San Francisco Bay Area, non-managerial Wal-Mart employees earn on average $9.40 an hour, compared to $15.31 for unionized grocery
workers—39 percent less—and are half as likely to have health benefits.

At these low-wages, many Wal-Mart workers rely on public safety net programs— such as food stamps, Medi-Cal, and subsidized housing—to make ends meet. The presence of Wal-Mart stores in California thus creates a hidden cost to the state’s taxpayers. This study is the first to quantify the fiscal costs of Wal-Mart’s substandard wages and benefits on public safety net programs in California. It also explores the potential impact on public programs of Wal-Mart’s competitive effect on industry standards.


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Carrefour vs. Wal-mart: The Battle for Global Retail Dominance

Carrefour SA (Euronext: CA) (pronounced [karˈfur]) is a French international hypermarket chain, with a global network of outlets. It is the second largest retail group in the world in terms of revenue after Wal-Mart. Carrefour operates mainly in Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Dominican Republic and Colombia, but also has shops in North Africa and Asia. Carrefour means "junction" in French. Having Wal-Mart began to expansion in Europe by purchase of Asda, Carrefour began to treat the Wal-Mart moves as a threat to its business dominance not only in Europe but also in the world retailing market. This articles take a look on the business of hypermarket retailing, its history of growing importance and the competitive scenario in the growing competition between the giant retailers in the market.

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Feng Shui: Its Impacts on the Asian Hospitality Industry

Feng shui originated in China about 3,000 years ago and has since spread to Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Korea. However, while the concepts may remain basically the same, the name may have changed as it evolved in each new area. So for example, in South Korea it is known as poong soo jiri. In the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Lai Chuen Yan[3] described feng shui as being “a mystical combination of Chinese philosophical, religious, astrological, cosmological, mathematical and geographical concepts”.

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Japan in USA

Japanese has been a major car producer since 1980s. Japan has getting strong foothold in US car market due to open market fewer restriction and huge potential market. This article is looking into the issues of Japanese producer in United States. Led by the robust and steady commitment of the United States, the national economies of the world are entering the 21st century as part of an increasingly blended, global enterprise. The automobile industry has prospered, as national brands have transformed into international alliances—global engines generating not only products, but also jobs and investment capital while lowering prices and increasing quality and choice for people around the world. Today, Ford holds a 33.4% equity stake in Mazda; Renault holds a 36.8% equity stake in Nissan. General Motors holds a 49% equity stake in Isuzu, and has increased its investment in Suzuki. Mitsubishi Motors builds the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Stratus in its plant in Illinois. Toyota and General Motors together build the Toyota Corolla and the GM Prizm in their NUMMI, joint-venture plant in California. Over the last two decades, as manufacturers increasingly invest and produce in foreign markets, there has developed such a wide range of inter-relationships between the world’s automakers that it is difficult, if not impossible, to tell by brand name what is an American, Japanese, or European car. Most Americans agree that a car made in America by Americans is a U.S. product regardless of brand name.

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The U.S. Online Population

According to Internet World Stats, of the estimated 302 million Americans in 2007,
211 million of them (70 percent) are using the Internet. This represents 19 percent
of the estimated 1.11 billion Internet users worldwide. In contrast, Americans
make up only about 5 percent of the world’s total population.18 The Internet is
becoming an important part of the everyday lives of Americans. As of early 2007,
parents spent an average of 33 hours per month (about one hour per day) using the
Internet, and children between the ages of 8 and 14 spend over 19 hours per month
online.19
• According to a December 2006 Pew survey, 69 percent of U.S. women and 71
percent of U.S. men use the Internet. About 83 percent of Americans aged 18 to
29, 82 percent of Americans aged 30 to 49, 70 percent of Americans aged 50 to
64, and 33 percent of Americans aged 65 and above use the Internet. About 49
percent of Americans with a household income less than $30,000 a year, 75
percent of Americans with a household income between $30,000 and $49,999 a
year, 90 percent of Americans with a household income of between $50,000 and
$74,999, and 93 percent of Americans with a household income of $75,000 and
above use the Internet. About 36 percent of Americans with less than a high
school education, 59 percent of Americans with a high school education, 84
percent of Americans with some college education, and 91 percent of Americans
with a college education or more use the Internet.20
• According to a study from early 2007, about 31 million U.S. households (29
percent of the total number of U.S. households) did not have Internet access and
did not plan to obtain Internet access over the next year. A survey of these
households asked why they were not interested in getting Internet access and
found that 44 percent were not interested in anything on the Internet, 17 percent
were not sure how to use the Internet, 14 percent had Internet access at work, 14
percent could not afford a computer, 8 percent could not afford service, and 3
percent said Internet service was not available for their home.21
• According to eMarketer, 51.7 percent of U.S. Internet users in 2007 were
females.22 U.S. Census data from 2000 found that females made up 50.9 percent
of the U.S. population.23
• Although improvements in wireless and mobile technology have made Internet
access through hand held devices easier, Americans are not necessarily using them
very often. More than 60 percent of U.S. broadband users own a mobile device
capable of accessing the Internet, but only about 5 percent of them use the
mobile Internet.24
• The abundance of media has increased the prevalence of multitasking. Some 70
percent of U.S. adult Internet users watch TV while online, 61 percent listen to
the radio while online, 36 percent read magazines while online, and 33 percent
read the newspaper while online.25

Source: Digital Economy Fact Book 2007

Ensure your Health: Learn about Employee Health Benefits

Being an employee of any company allows you to receive some perks, fringe benefits and privileges aside from the salary that you regularly receive.

One of the most important benefits that you should get at work is a health benefit or medical plan. Especially for jobs which present risks on your health or on your life, make sure that you are always adequately insured.

First, take a look at the disadvantages to you, as an employee, if you do not have sufficient health benefits from the company that you work for:

- If you suffer from a long-term or temporary illness that would lead you incapable to go to work for a long period of time, your savings can be gone in an instant.

- With the onslaught of hospital bills that you would need to shoulder, other members of your family will be affected as well if you share household expenses.

- Your own personal well-being will be at risk if you do not have ample health benefits.

To prevent these from happening, you should know the basic health benefits that you are entitled to once you become officially employed by a company.

'Health Benefit Plans for You'

The government offers the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan to assist all workers with their health care needs.

Here, health and dental plans developed by insurance companies and labor unions are offered to employees of the government. The coverage and premiums, however, vary from state to state.

Your employer might have a traditional health insurance company where you will have the option to visit any physician or hospital, and the costs will be covered under the plan that you have.

For employees of private corporations, there is the HMO or the Health Maintenance Organization. Hospitals, doctors, health insurance companies and providers who have are members of a health maintenance organization offer the services.

The advantage of HMO's over traditional employee health benefit providers is the discounted costs that they offer. Because employers pay them a fixed fee for each person that they hire, they are assured of a steady stream of patients so they can afford to offer discounted rates.

There is also the PPO or the preferred provider organization which consists of health care providers and a health insurance company who provides benefits for employees. This also results in reduced premiums because doctors and hospitals are given a constant number of clients through employees who will utilize their services.

Companies may offer any of these three health insurance coverage.

With health care costs soaring every year, it is your responsibility as an employee to ask about the health care benefits that you are entitled to.

Here are a couple of tips on how you can better understand your health insurance coverage:

1. Read your employee handbook.

A detailed description of the health insurance coverage that you will get should be indicated in the handbook.

2. When in doubt about something, go to your Human Resource Department.

This is important especially for people with medical conditions. Ask about the limitations of the health insurance coverage as well as the deductibles.

You will never know what medical emergency might come up during the time that you are employed. It is better to be prepared and know everything about the health benefits that you are entitled to, rather than asking about them when you are already lying on the hospital bed and not being able to do something about it.

Dave Poon

Hiring Employees: Checking References To Insure Quality People

When you must take on employees for your business, you will have to go through the hiring process. After preliminary interviews, you should be able to narrow the field to three or four top candidates. And that is the time to do a little detective work to insure you have the right (and honest) employees coming in.

It's estimated that up to one-third of job applicants lie about their experience and educational achievements on their resumes or job applications. No matter how sterling the person seems in the interview process, a few phone calls upfront to check out their claims could save you a lot of hassle - and even legal battles - later on. Today, courts are increasingly holding employers liable for crimes employees commit on the job, such as drunk driving, when it is determined that the employer could have been expected to know about prior convictions for similar offenses.

Unfortunately, getting that information has become harder and harder to do. Fearful of reprisals from former employees, many firms have adopted policies that forbid releasing detailed information. Generally, the investigating party is referred to a personnel department, which supplies dates of employment, title and salary - nothing more.

There are ways to dig deeper, however. Try to avoid the human resources department if at all possible. Instead, try calling the person's former supervisor directly. While the supervisor may be required to send you to personnel, sometimes you'll get lucky and get the person on a day he or she feels like talking. Sometimes, too, a supervisor can tip you off without saying anything that will get him or her in trouble. Consider the supervisor who, when contacted by one potential employer, said, "I only give good references." When the employer asked, "What can you tell me about X?" the supervisor repeated, "I only give good references." Without saying anything, he said it all.

Depending on the position, you may also want to do education checks. You can call any college or university's admissions department to verify degrees and dates of attendance. Some universities will require a written request or a signed waiver from the applicant before releasing any kind of information to you.

If the person is going to be driving a company vehicle, you may want to do a motor vehicle check with the motor vehicle department. In fact, you may want to do this even if he or she will not be driving for you. Vehicle checks can uncover patterns of negligence or drug and alcohol problems that he or she might have.

If your company deals with property management, such as maintenance or cleaning, you may want to consider a criminal background check as well. Unfortunately, national criminal records and even state records are not coordinated. The only way to obtain criminal records is to go to individual courthouses in each county. Although you can't run all over the state to check into a person's record, it's generally sufficient to investigate records in three counties birthplace, current residence and residence preceding the current residence.

For certain positions, such as those that will give an employee access to your company's cash (a cashier or accounting clerk, for instance), a credit check may be a good idea as well. You can find credit reporting bureaus in any Yellow Pages. They will be able to provide you with a limited credit and payment history. While you should not rely on this as the sole reason not to hire someone (credit reports are notorious for containing errors), a credit report can contribute to a total picture of irresponsible behavior. And if the person will have access to large sums of money at your company, hiring someone who is in serious debt is probably not a very good idea. Be aware, however, that if a credit check plays any role in your decision not to hire someone, you must inform them that they were turned down in part because of their credit report.

Jeff Casmer

How Employee Misconduct Affects All Worker Productivity

In any workplace, despite the number of employees, there are instances of employee misconduct. As a manager, you cannot hide from it when it happens. And you must deal with it consistently, fairly, and quickly. It is critical to workplace morale that you manage this problem properly. Otherwise it will cost your company in both time and money.

Forms of Employee Misconduct

There are several forms of employee misconduct. This article will just discuss a few major ones. First, an employee can be disruptive and disturb others in the same work area. Commonly, this takes the form of employees who are comedians and spend more time being funny than doing work. Such employees claim they are having fun to make it a better place to work.

An example, of course is the standard "horseplay" where employees carry out inappropriate physical antics. However another, more recent problem involving misconduct, is with the use of e-mail and instant messaging.

Employees like to e-mail and instant message jokes around the office. But some employees get carried away and spend much valuable time sending that perfect tidbit of humor.

Big problems arise from these types of disruptions especially when left unchecked. Physical antics by one employee can endanger the safety of his or her coworkers. This can cause problems for the company with OSHA or other regulatory agencies. Other issues arise when one or more of the recipients do not find the joke funny or are offended by it. Occasionally, this leads to an employee filing a lawsuit against the company. Both situations cost the business time and employee.

Besides disruptive behavior, employee misconduct occurs when an employee is abusive or refuses to follow directions. Their personal behavior may make everyone around them uncomfortable and may even create a hostile work environment. Sometimes these employees have a following of other coworkers who are just as abusive and insubordinate.

A third type of employee misconduct is when the employee has excessive absences either excuse or unexcused. Typically coworkers do not expect much from these employees and everyone is demoralized because of it. Usually other employees have to pick up added work so the project gets done leading to inefficiencies.

And lastly there is the employee who is criminal. This employee steals property, takes money, and does bodily harm to others.

Action Required Quickly

If left unattended to, misconduct will quickly demoralize the other employees you supervise. While everyone reacts differently, your top performers are usually going to be your first casualties of demoralization.

Finding out exactly what happened is the first action you as manager need to take in response to employee misconduct. Sometimes, exactly what happened is hard to decide because other employees may be too afraid to speak about it. But you must get all the facts. If you fire an employee for this particular misconduct you had better have documentation. This means talking with the employee accused of misconduct and carrying out an investigation. Most importantly always keep your ear to the ground since employee misconduct can damage your business.

IBM

Founded in 1888, the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is an American computer technology corporation and one of the leading and largest in the industry. The company strives to lead in the invention, development, and manufacture the industrys most advanced information technologies, that include software, storage systems, computer systems, and microelectronics. The International Business Machines Corporation takes these advance technologies and turns them into value for customers through their professional solutions, services and consulting businesses all over the globe.

International Business Machines Corporation manufactures and sells software, computer hardware, infrastructure services, consulting services, and hosting services in a variety of areas from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. This company has nearly three hundred thirty thousand employees all over the globe and revenues of ninety one billion dollars yearly as of 2005. It is the biggest information technology company in the world and holds more patents than any other company in the industry of technology.

The past years, revenues from services and consulting have been better than those from manufacturing, and notably IBM has also been steadily increasing its workforce in developing countries such as IBM India and cutting back in the US and Europe. The International Business Machines Corporation has consultants and engineers in over one hundred seventy countries, and having eight laboratories for IBM Research all located in the Northern Hemisphere, five of which are outside the US. Employees of IBM have earned five National Medal of Science, five Nobel Prizes, five National Medals of Technology, and four Turing Awards.

IBM is among the top twenty Semiconductor Sales Leaders worldwide. Blue Eyes is the given name of a human recognition venture started by IBM allowing people to interact in a more natural manner with computers. The Blue Eyes technology aims to allow devices to recognize and use natural input such as facial expressions. The scroll mice and other input devices that sense the users pulse, monitor facial expressions, and movements of eyelids, are the initial developments of this project.

IBM Corporations business operation includes hardware such as servers, storage, personal systems, printing systems, and retail solutions; software which connects operating systems, business processes, and applications impeccably; services that includes comprehensive IT services integrating with business insight to reduce costs, assert competitive advantage, and improve productivity; financing companies selling or acquiring IT related products and services; research on innovative technologies that produce leading-edge solutions; technology in developing, marketing, and delivering leading chip technologies and services.

The IBM Corporation also puts tremendous efforts to promote workforce diversity and equal opportunity. IBM became the first ever major company in the world to not use genetic information in its employment decisions on October 10, 2005, a few months after IBM announced its support of the National Geographic Genographic Project.


































TJ Madigan

Advertising And Marketing - Corporate Branding

In the cutthroat world of business, every company is consistently vying for the interest and attention of consumers and constantly looking for ways to expand their market. This is the main reason why advertising and marketing corporate branding is a key factor in the success of any business entity.

Some people assume that corporate branding is only important for people who are relatively new players in the corporate arena. Since they are the ones who desperately need to establish their identity and to make their presence known to both competitors and consumers as well. This is true. However, even old companies should realize that they too should give equal importance to advertising and marketing corporate branding.

It is a widely accepted concept that in order to build an excellent reputation in any industry, it is a prerequisite that the company should first work on establishing a specific identity. This would certainly vary from one company to another; depending on what image they would want to project. Advertising and marketing corporate branding strategies will significantly help the company in creating a highly effective and well-established corporate identity.

But still, not only the small and budding companies can benefit in advertising and marketing corporate branding. Since building the companys identity is not at all a short-term project than can just be discarded after a degree of success has been achieved. Creating an effective corporate branding identity is an ongoing process, a constant interaction between the company, the competitors, and of course with the consumers.

A well-managed company would take pride in maintaining not only an impeccable reputation throughout the years of its operations but also in being able to adeptly keep up with even the most imperceptible change in the markets preferences. This is one of the important factors that would ensure that the company would be able to maintain a firm footing in a highly unpredictable industry.

To be able to persistently adapt to the fickle minds of consumers and compete with other fresh and highly aggressively players in the industry, a company would need a very strong advertising and marketing corporate branding scheme.

It is important to keep up with the ever-changing market trends, and continually reinvent the image of the company according to what would be the top priorities based on the consumers perception. There are companies who have invested in constant market research and development to be able to come up with a good and effective marketing approach.

Since different industries would produce varying reactions on certain marketing stimuli, a success in one industry would not necessarily ensure its efficacy in another industry. It requires a custom made approach, backed up with extensive market and industry studies.

The Marketing Research Challenge

Many firms, driven by a need to better communicate with their customers and other stakeholders, recognize that marketing "is not a specialized activity at all. It encompasses the entire business and is necessary for a healthy business . It is the whole business seen from the customer's point of view." Every aspect of the marketing mix - the product, channels of distribution, price, and marketing communications - affects customers' response to a product/service.

The Marketing Association defines marketing as "the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual (customer) and organizational objectives". The marketing concept is a business philosophy that defines marketing as a process intended to find, satisfy, and retain customers while business makes a profit. Central to both of these definitions is the role of the customer and the customer's relationship to the product, whether that product is a good, service, or idea. Thus, in order for a company to investigate whether or not it has successfully managed to satisfy its customers, or to examine what type of products and/or services it would be profitable to introduce, it has to conduct marketing research.

Marketing Research "is the planning for, collection, and analysis of data relevant to marketing decision making and the communication of the results of this analysis to management." As the previous definition illustrates, in order to measure the success of the marketing plan, a marketing research is the appropriate tool for a company to use. By having a thorough knowledge of factors that have an impact on the target market and the marketing mix, management can be proactive rather than reactive. Actually, research is the difference between viewing the turbulent marketing environment as a threat or as an opportunity.

Two types of research exist; secondary and primary. Both must be used in order for a company to satisfy the previous objectives. Secondary research must be in terms of collecting / gathering all the necessary information that is already published. These data, that can become the company's database, acting as the first step of the research in order to perform the situation analysis, identify its competitors, perform a benchmarking strategy, and define those segments that wants to target, in terms of population, usage rate, demographics, behavioral patterns and lifestyle.

Directly related to the information gathered by the secondary research, next a primary one must occur. With the use of primary research-information that is not currently available, a company's management team will be able to understand better the potential customers needs and target those that are not adequately served by the existing practices. Also, primary research will monitor the sales increase of the company, follow with the competitors' plans, and measure effectiveness of the business practices, such as quality of services offered, or communication tools used by the company.

Moreover, marketing experts refer to two major categories of data collection methods. These are divided into quantitative and qualitative methods. Named as quantitative, are studies that use mathematical analysis that can reveal statistically significant differences. On the other hand, qualitative research is a method that the researched data are not subject to quantification or quantitative analysis.

Particular attention must one pay at the research sample. Depending on the incidence rate, the percentage of the people or households in the general population that fit the qualifications to be sampled, the sample size must be large for the quantitative methods and small for the qualitative methods of research. Companies manage to create synergy among the above-the-line and below-the-line activities only if the competitive advantage is stressed adequately to all publics. Keeping track of the tools used and their effectiveness is a must, if the company is willing to maintain a constant dialogue with its target audiences and to ensure them that its image is accompanied by the values that are stressed and these are appealing and relevant to their customers' needs. Thus, the research must be constant and ongoing. Today, the opportunities that arise have to be recognized promptly, and used at the right time. What a manager must ask himself/herself, is "Is my business and I devoted to the best actualized way towards the publics' needs that I wish to serve?"

Kadence Buchanan

Tips For Choosing High-Performance Mutual Fund

Most people who invest in mutual funds don't know what they are doing. They take advice from someone at a bank or perhaps a friend and plunk down money into a fund. Sometimes this strategy works, but most of the time, it doesn't.

When you invest your money in a mutual fund, you are trusting someone to invest in the stock market for you. Because of this, you want to be sure this person knows what he or she is doing. Also, you want to make sure that this person is not charging you too much to manage your money for you. Mutual funds fees are "hidden," in the sense that they do not charge you an upfront fee but rather a percentage of the amount of money in your account. If this percentage is too high, you would do better just blindly picking stocks yourself.

Here are five helpful tips for choosing the right mutual funds.

1. Keep the fees low. Generally, expense fees should not be much higher than 1% if it is just a basic domestic equity fund. You should never invest money in a fund that also charges a "load," which is an additional fee that is ridiculous to pay. Never invest in funds that charge loads; those funds are for suckers.

2. Check the asset base. Mutual fund managers only know of so many good investments. When they have too much money to manage, they begin investing in stocks they don't like much but need to invest in anyway or else they'll just have money laying around. There's little reason to invest in a fund with over $5 billion in assets. It's best if it's under $2 billion generally.

3. Consider an index fund. This is a fund that tracks a stock index, such as the S&P 500. For these funds, the manager just buys whatever stocks happen to be in the index. Since this is not much work, the fees are much lower. Even though this method is simple, it has proven to perform better than most mutual funds. Some high performance index funds include FSMKX (Fidelity S&P 500) and VIMSX (Vanguard S&P 400 Midcap.

4. Evaluate the fund's strategy. If you have a long term outlook, look for a more aggressive fund that invests in small-cap stocks, international stocks, and riskier stocks in general. High risk tends to result in high performance in the long run. If you are more risk-averse, consider an S&P 500 index fund.

5. Keep the fees low. Did I mention this already? Well, I'll mention it again. This is where most people mess up. Make sure you are not paying a load or paying too much in fees to the mutual fund.

More information about mutual funds can be found at Research Mutual Funds.

All About Insider Trading

Insider trading is the trading of a company's shares by people who work for the company, such as senior level executives, directors and those who own more than 10% of the total shares. Insider trading is illegal since the trading is based on some privileged information that the insider has access to, but is not known to the public at large. The act of misappropriating some privileged information, or violating duty and trading or relaying information illegally is illegal in the United States. The office bearer has made a contract to serve the shareholders and to protect the interest of the shareholders so the office bearer violates their duties if the office bearer trades based on company owned privileged information for their own gain. The United States has had laws against insider trading going as far back as 1909. At this time the law declared if a company's director bought his company's shares because he knew its value was about to increase suddenly, it was fraud.

Not just senior level executives are capable of insider trading. Anyone in the company with privileged information is capable of insider trading. For instance, if an employee of company 1 learnt about the takeover of company 2 by company 1 and buys the shares of company 2 it is illegal insider trading, since that employee is violating the interests of the shareholders of company 1. According to US federal laws, companies have to specify a certain period when their staff can safely trade stocks without being accused of illegal insider trading.

Penalties for Insider Trading
Penalties for insider trading include a fee of three times the profit incurred or the loss caused to the company by insider trading. The insider may be banned from being a company executive or removed from the board of directors. The culprit may even have to face a jail term. The SEC (Stock Exchange Commission) offers rewards as bounty to those who help apprehend insiders who practice illegal insider trading.

Laws must be enforced to protect the investors, to ensure a fair, efficient market that is transparent and ethical, and to reduce systemic risk. Laws are needed to control insider trading, trading ahead of the shareholders, and to avoid misuse of client's assets. These principles are the core principles issued by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and more than 85% of the world's security and comodities regulators have agreed to follow these principles.

Legal Insider Trading
Insider trading can be legal when a company's insider does not break any law and trades his shares in a normal mannerm reporting it to the SEC. However, some groups oppose the notion of any insider trading being illegal. They argue that trading by insiders is allowed in real estate sectors so it should be legalized in other sectors as well. They don't think the securities market should be treated any differently. They believe insider trading makes the stock market more efficient.

Effects Of Insider Trading On Shareholders
When insider trading occurs repeatedly, the common shareholders end up losing money, whereas the insider pockets a sizeable profit cheating the company and the trust the shareholders have placed in the corporation. Despite the laws and the penalities, insider trading continues and most often the perpetrators of this illegal act are left unapprehended due to lack of proper evidence. This has a negative effect on shareholders in general.

Ref: David Gass

Wal-Mart Takes on Wall Street

Whether people like or hate Wal-mart, the large retail chain store, there is one thing they do agree on. Wal-mart has cornered the market on merchandising products that average middle class American families can afford. Widely criticized for putting "mom and pop places" out of business and not paying their employees fair wages, the company has undergone a lot of scrutiny over the last few years, and now they are gearing up to be under the watchful eye of America once more.

Wal-Mart is ready to take on Wall Street, as company executives try to enter the store into the banking business! An attempt in 1999 to purchase an Oklahoma Savings and Loan was met with a negative result by Congress. People are afraid that if Wal-mart enters into the world of banking, smaller banks won't be able to compete with the amenities they offer. Opponents of the plan include Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ironically once sat on Wal-Mart's board, but feels it wouldn't be prudent to remind people of those ties with an election year closing in on her ...

Those who support the idea point out that Wal-mart would do for the average American's banking needs what it does for their retail needs. It would make banking available for the little people that big banks tend to overlook. Right now, most banks force lower income families (i.e. those that can't afford to carry big balances in their checking accounts) to pay higher than normal fees.

Wal-mart isn't trying to become a full-fledged bank. They gave up on that idea the last time they were rejected in their attempts. They simply want to apply for a charter that will help them reduce their credit card fees. At present the company offers a check cashing service that costs patrons $3 to have a check cashed. While this may seem a bit expensive, it is much cheaper than the percentage fees that most check cashing businesses charge.

Started in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world. Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the United States, Mexico and Canada. It also has given back to shareholders over 180,000% in total returns since it went public in 1972. There should be no wonder that several Walton heirs feature on Forbes' list of billionaires; they include Christy Walton, Jim Walton, S. Robson Walton, Alice Walton, and Helen Walton who all hover around a net worth of $16 billion.

Ref: Salim Jordan

When in Japan, Do as the Japanese Do; When in Rome, Do as the Japanese Do:

The Achilles’ Heel of Japanese Business Philosophy

Japan, using the wakon yosai, Japanese spirit and Western knowledge philosophy, rapidly and painfully industrialized and caught up with the West by the time of the First World War. Feeling superior to the rest of Asia, they believed they had a manifest destiny to control and direct Asia. This attitude was a primary cause of the Second World War and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Only a vain people would have challenged an economy ten times richer than their own to battle and still believe their destiny was ultimate victory. This arrogance proved to be their undoing and the miscalculation ended with the neartotal destruction of Japan. Now, 50 years after Pearl Harbor, Japan’s arrogance is again raising its ugly head. Its economic dynamo, second only to the USA, has indeed taken that nation from the depths of despair just after the Second World War to the ranks of a true economic world power. Surging Japanese nationalism and a rising tide of arrogance and condescension towards the rest of the world is merely the groundswell of worse storms to come. This economic prosperity resulted from not only the hard work and sacrifice but also US open markets and military protection. The Japanese trade barriers permitted export while virtually prohibiting imports. The unilateral taking without any giving in turn led to the successes of the last 40 years. Not understanding the real reasons for their success but rationalizing it to their uniqueness and superiority has instilled in the Japanese an arrogance about their way as the only way and superior to the rest of the world. Once again, in the years to come this arrogance will come back to haunt them, as they will take on a revitalized North America and Europe who will insist on an equal playing-field on all locales.


By Paul A. Herbig and Robert Milam

American sogo shosha: American trading companies in the twenty-first century

Japanese General Trading Companies or sogo shoshas have been instrumental in the phenomenal Japanese economic miracle of the last 40 years. In 1982, the USA passed the Export Trading Company Act to home grow its own sogo shoshas; to date the Act has been ineffective – yet the need remains. Examines what trading companies are and what functions they perform. Observes the steps that need to be taken to make them profitable and successful. Trading companies are postulated to be an integral part of this country’s future.

By
Paul Herbig & Alan T. Shao