tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68002799874921988952024-03-07T22:58:03.359-08:00Blog / THOUGHTS on International BusinessUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-68216475623936438012010-10-23T07:39:00.001-07:002010-10-23T07:39:28.643-07:00Google reconoce que robó claves de correo<div class='posterous_autopost'><div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote><div> <p> </p><p>La pol�mica de los coches de Google Street View suma un nuevo elemento. Los veh�culos usados para crear los mapas con visi�n a pie de calle, <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Street/View/deja/recolectar/redes/wifi/elpeputec/20100515elpeputec_1/Tes" target="_blank">adem�s de guardar datos sobre las redes inal�mbricas</a> de los habitantes de las ciudades monitorizadas, extrajeron claves para entrar en sus correos electr�nicos y en su contenido.</p> <div> <p> </p><div> <ul> </ul> </div> <div> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#">China compite con Google y lanza Map World</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#">Google admite que recoge datos privados sin permiso</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#">El 3% de los usuarios alemanes pide a Google salir de sus mapas</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#">Google anuncia medidas para mejorar la protecci�n de datos</a></li> </ul> </div> <div> <p> </p><div> <div> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#">Empresa: GOOGLE (Google)</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <p> </p></div> <div> <h3>La noticia en otros webs</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">webs en español</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">en otros idiomas</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <p> </p><p>Equipados con un dispositivo inal�mbrico, registraron en varios pa�ses datos sensibles, seg�n Google, de manera inadvertida. La compa��a, adem�s de pedir disculpas, ha reconocido que va a cambiar su pol�tica de privacidad a ra�z de este error. Google insiste en que la base del problema ha sido un error de c�digo que se filtr� por accidente en <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Google/admite/recoge/datos/privados/permiso/elpepisoc/20100516elpepisoc_4/Tes" target="blank">la recolecci�n de im�genes para StreetView</a>.</p><p>Alma Whitten, directora del departamento de privacidad para ingenier�a y productos de la empresa, ha minimizado los da�os: "Los coches solo ten�an acceso moment�neo, mientras se mov�an, a los datos de la gente. Se borrar�n autom�ticamente". Aun as�, los reguladores de m�s de 30 pa�ses han pedido a Google que d� explicaciones m�s detalladas sobre qu� tipo de datos almacenan.</p><p>El vicepresidente del �rea de ingenier�a e investigaci�n de la compa��a, Alan Eustace, ha publicado <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/creating-stronger-privacy-controls.html" target="blank">una entrada en el blog oficial del buscador</a> en la que se compromete a tomar una posici�n m�s dura con la gesti�n de los datos de usuarios. Pretende as� dar un paso m�s all� en el c�digo <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html" target="blank">publicado en el mes de mayo</a>.</p> <p> >> BANNER_bottom NO DEFINIDO <br /> </p></div>"); // Display ads in a table document.write("<div>"); document.write("<div class="cab_google estirar">"); document.write("<h2><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes/%5C%5C%5C%5C"> </a></h2><div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div> <div>Vota</div> <div> <span><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#%3Fctn%3DvotosD%26aP%3Dmodulo%253DEVN%2526params%253Did%25253D20101022elpeputec_6.Tes%252526fp%25253D20101022%252526to%25253Dnoticia%252526te%25253D%252526a%25253D1%252526ov%25253D44" title="Sin inter�s" rel="></a><a 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href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#">Empresa: GOOGLE (Google)</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" title="China compite con Google y lanza Map World"><strong>China compite con Google y lanza Map World</strong></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" title="Google admite que recoge datos privados sin permiso"><strong>Google admite que recoge datos privados sin permiso</strong></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" title="El 3% de los usuarios alemanes pide a Google salir de sus mapas"><strong>El 3% de los usuarios alemanes pide a Google salir de sus mapas</strong></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" title="Google anuncia medidas para mejorar la protección de datos"><strong>Google anuncia medidas para mejorar la protecci�n de datos</strong></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#">Fotograf�a: Un coche de Street View</a></li> </ul> </div> --> <div> <h3>Otras ediciones </h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com">Publicado en <strong>ELPAIS.com</strong></a> en la secci�n de <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#"><strong>Tecnolog�a</strong></strong></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#">Versi�n texto accesible</a></li> <li>Edici�n de Bolsillo, edici�n para <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#"><strong>PDA/PSP</strong></a> � <a href="#"><strong>M�vil</strong></li> </ul> </div> <a name="EnlaceComentarios"></a> <div> <div> <h3>Comentarios<span> - 23</span></h3> <div> <div> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">1</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">2</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">3</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">4</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">5</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">Última</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">Siguiente �</a></li> </ul> </div> <p>Página 1 de 5</p> <p> </p></div> <ul> <li> <p>23</p> <p> <strong>Juan</strong> <span>- 23-10-2010 - 11:33:16h</span><br /> </p> <p>Google: Pat�tico</p> </li> <li> <p>22</p> <p> <strong>Z</strong> <span>- 23-10-2010 - 09:52:14h</span><br /> </p> <p>Queridos todos, es una cuestion de confianza, como todo en la vida. La confianza se gana con transparencia y �tica. Y se puede perder en un pis pas. Por otro lado, los terr�colas somos obstinadamente repetitivos y los casos de �xito siempre caen en los mismos comportamientos abusivos. Google necesita urgentemente un contrapoder, como USA en general, que le pongan las pilas y que se restablezca de nuevo alg�n equilibrio. El usuario/consumidor debe ser el �nico tirano, ni confiar ciegamente, ni desconfiar, simplemente tener el control en todo momento. Las empresas viven de los consumidores, "dig�moslas" c�mo tienen que ser. Est� en nuestras manos. </p> </li> <li> <p>21</p> <p> <strong>Pablo</strong> <span>- 23-10-2010 - 09:46:54h</span><br /> </p> <p>Desde luego que con las nuevas tecnolog�as los ciudadanos estamos "vendidos" a cualquiera (empresa, gobiernos o quien sea). Y lo peor de todo es que es verdaderamente dif�cil controlarlo y mantener la privacidad intacta. Aunque visto desde otro lado, �hasta que punto ser�a permisible esta falta de privacidad frente a delitos...? Me queda la duda si realmente es que tiene que ser as�... Desde luego que parece un Gran Hermano.</p> </li> <li> <p>20</p> <p> <strong>Jose Carlos</strong> <span>- 23-10-2010 - 09:22:52h</span><br /> </p> <p>Los que tienen tel�fonos android saben que hay un m�todo de conexi�n al los mapas a parte del gps y ese es con las redes wifi, as� te situas r�pidamente y comienzas el programa en un segundo y no en 5 min.( siempre que uses el gps integrado) Ahora bien, de todos es sabido que google recopila datos de todos los internautas, cada vez que se busca en google se queda registrada la ip y por lo tanto ya se sabe de donde procede la b�squeda y quien la hace, no te digo nada si se utiliza su navegador Chrome...No digo que sea por mal pero toda esa informaci�n que recopilan en manos equivocadas pone al descubierto a millones de internautas pues saben lo que buscamos, nuestras preferencias, nuestros pecados...joder! que Google se est� convirtiendo en algo parecido al Gran Hermano de Orwell</p> </li> <li> <p>19</p> <p> <strong>estudioso de Lo Progre</strong> <span>- 23-10-2010 - 09:14:42h</span><br /> </p> <p>dame mapas y dime tonto.</p> </li> </ul> <div> <div> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">1</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">2</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">3</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">4</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">5</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">Última</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes#" rel="nofollow">Siguiente �</a></li> </ul> </div> <p>Página 1 de 5</p> <p> </p></div> </div> <div> <dl> <dt>Normas de uso</dt> <dd>Esta es la opini�n de los internautas, no de ELPAIS.com</dd> <dd>No está permitido verter comentarios contrarios a las leyes españolas o injuriantes.</dd> <dd>Reservado el derecho a eliminar los comentarios que consideremos fuera de tema.</dd> Una vez aceptado el comentario, se enviará un correo electrónico confirmando su publicación.--> </dl> <p> </p></div> </div> <p> </p></div></div></blockquote><div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Google/reconoce/robo/claves/correo/elpeputec/20101022elpeputec_6/Tes">elpais.com</a></div> <p></p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/google-reconoce-que-robo-claves-de-correo">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-74206470969945394422009-10-18T18:22:00.001-07:002009-10-18T18:24:54.300-07:00Idea: Triple bottom line<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote class="posterous_long_quote"><h1>Triple bottom line</h1> <p class="info">Aug 27th 2009
<br />From Economist.com</p><h2>It consists of three Ps: profit, people and planet</h2>
<br /> <p>The phrase “the triple bottom line” was first coined in 1994 by John Elkington, the founder of a British consultancy called SustainAbility. His argument was that companies should be preparing three different (and quite separate) bottom lines. One is the traditional measure of corporate profit—the “bottom line” of the profit and loss account. The second is the bottom line of a company’s “people account”—a measure in some shape or form of how socially responsible an organisation has been throughout its operations. The third is the bottom line of the company’s “planet” account—a measure of how environmentally responsible it has been. The triple bottom line (TBL) thus consists of three Ps: profit, people and planet. It aims to measure the financial, social and environmental performance of the corporation over a period of time. Only a company that produces a TBL is taking account of the full cost involved in doing business.
<br /></p><p>In some senses the TBL is a particular manifestation of the balanced scorecard (see article). Behind it lies the same fundamental principle: what you measure is what you get, because what you measure is what you are likely to pay attention to. Only when companies measure their social and environmental impact will we have socially and environmentally responsible organisations. </p></blockquote></div> <p>The idea enjoyed some success in the turn-of-the-century <em>zeitgeist</em> of corporate social responsibility, climate change and fair trade. After more than a decade in which cost-cutting had been the number-one business priority, the hidden social and environmental costs of transferring production and services to low-cost countries such as China, India and Brazil became increasingly apparent to western consumers. These included such things as the indiscriminate logging of the Amazon basin, the excessive use of hydrocarbons and the exploitation of cheap labour.</p> <p>Growing awareness of corporate malpractice in these areas forced several companies, including Nike and Tesco, to re-examine their sourcing policies and to keep a closer eye on the ethical standards of their suppliers in places as far apart as Mexico and Bangladesh, where labour markets are unregulated and manufacturers are able to ride roughshod over social and environmental standards. It also encouraged the growth of the Fairtrade movement, which adds its brand to products that have been produced and traded in an environmentally and socially “fair” way (of course, that concept is open to interpretation). From small beginnings, the movement has picked up steam in the past five years. Nevertheless, the Fairtrade movement is still only small, focused essentially on coffee, tea, bananas and cotton, and accounting for less than 0.2% of all UK grocery sales in 2006.</p> <p>One problem with the triple bottom line is that the three separate accounts cannot easily be added up. It is difficult to measure the planet and people accounts in the same terms as profits—that is, in terms of cash. The full cost of an oil-tanker spillage, for example, is probably immeasurable in monetary terms, as is the cost of displacing whole communities to clear forests, or the cost of depriving children of their freedom to learn in order to make them work at a young age.</p> <a name="further_reading"></a><h2><em></em>Further reading<em></em></h2> <p>Elkington, J., “Cannibals with Forks: the Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business”, Capstone, 1997</p> <p>Savitz, A.W. and Weber, K., “The Triple Bottom Line: How Today’s Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success—and How You Can Too”, Jossey-Bass, 2006</p> <p>Willard, B., “The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line”, New Society Publishers, 2002</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-83861989805056292612009-10-18T17:14:00.001-07:002009-10-18T18:26:40.860-07:00Down Mexico<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote class="posterous_long_quote">Oct 13th 2009
<br /><p class="info">From Economist.com</p><h2>Brazil-envy is rife in Latin America’s other big economy</h2>
<br /> <p>When Brazil was not only included but named first among the BRICs, the widely used acronym for the leading emerging economies, Mexican business leaders protested that their country should also have been there. Well, maybe. But adding an "M" to the initial letters of Brazil, Russia, India and China would have made the name much less catchy (MBRICs? BRIMCs?). And the man who coined the acronym in 2001, Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs, has said that Mexico (along with South Korea) was in fact considered, but did not quite fit. </p> <p>Mexico’s Brazil-envy is more intense than ever, as this columnist discovered last week in Mexico City. One local business leader said he was optimistic about the economic outlook, but that was because “I choose to be, because I don’t want the alternative—and, besides, next year can’t be any worse than this, can it?” Others mostly seemed worried, predicting several difficult years ahead.</p> <div class="content-image-float" style=""><span>Alamy</span>
<br /></div> <p>The Mexican economy was hit hard by the slump that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year. Brazil’s economy suffered much less—and is already roaring back, in sharp contrast to Mexico’s. This is symbolised by the strength of Brazil’s stockmarket. Last week Santander, a Spanish bank, raised $7 billion by selling shares in its Brazilian subsidiary, the biggest share offering the country has seen. In June the initial public offering (IPO) of Visanet, a Brazilian credit-card firm, raised almost $5 billion, and there are several other big local offerings in the pipeline. By contrast, the most recent IPO in Mexico was in June 2008. </p> <p>Part of the problem is that Mexico, especially since the creation of the <a href="http://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/en/view.aspx" title=" (opens in a new window) " target="_blank">North American Free-Trade Area</a>, has increasingly specialised in making things cheaply for export to America, a strategy that looks less than brilliant now that the American consumer is on strike. Meanwhile, commodity-rich Brazil is benefiting from exporting to China, which has made up for weaker exports to America with a domestic spending binge which, among other things, requires lots of imported materials to build new infrastructure.</p> <p>But that is by no means the only difference between the two economies. Mexico has lately been plagued by some serious management gaffes. Cemex, a cement firm that was not so long ago an exemplar of the trend for world-beating multinationals to emerge from developing economies, is suffering serious indigestion after borrowing heavily to make foreign acquisitions at the peak of the market. </p> <p>Comercial Mexicana, the country’s third-largest retailer, lost a fortune after a currency hedge moved against it when the dollar soared during the financial crisis. This presented an opportunity to Wal-Mart, an American retailer which is the market leader in Mexico. It has taken advantage of its rival’s weakness by expanding rapidly, opening a couple of hundred new stores in the country this year. The only other business with such ambition in Mexico at the moment is the empire of Carlos Slim, a telecoms magnate, which has also been busy expanding during the crisis. More success for the powerful Mr Slim—now perhaps the richest man on earth—is regarded even by Mexicans as something of a mixed blessing.</p> <p>Mexican business people are also depressed by growing fears for their own security. Violence is increasing in the country as the government takes on the illegal drug cartels, prompting them to retaliate brutally. Mexico is now close to the top of the list of countries where kidnapping is likely. Crime in Brazil’s cities is also bad, but it does not seem to be getting notably worse. </p> <div class="pullquote">Pemex continues to decline as Brazil's oil reserves, and its state oil firm, Petrobras, soar</div> <p>In the eyes of business leaders the government’s lack of success against organised crime is on a par with its failure to reform the economy. Although some business people are content that the Mexican economy is dominated by a small, powerful clique, many feel that the lack of competition is a serious problem. Many also lament the failure to reform the sluggish state oil and gas monopoly, <a href="http://www.pemex.com/index.cfm?action=content&sectionID=123" title=" (opens in a new window) " target="_blank">Pemex</a>, which continues to decline as Brazil’s reserves, and its state oil firm, <a href="http://www2.petrobras.com.br/ingles/ads/ads_Petrobras.html" title=" (opens in a new window) " target="_blank">Petrobras</a>, soar. Just as worrying is the slow progress in revamping the tax system. Mexico has one of the world’s lowest ratios of tax collection to GDP, which deprives the government of the funds it needs to do its job properly.</p> <p>Brazilian entrepreneurs found that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Workers’ Party were much less hostile towards business in office than in opposition. Lula’s most likely successor in next year’s election is an experienced figure from the business-friendly Social Democrats, who in their last stint in the presidency passed vital reforms that laid the foundations for Brazil’s recent strong growth</p> <div class="banner advert"><div style="text-align: left;"> </div> <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="HTTP://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab" width="300" height="250"><param name="movie" value="HTTP://ec.atdmt.com/ds/DEDENACCEACE/Accenture_Image10_Flash/Accenture_Road_300x250_3x_30.swf?ver=1&clickTag1=http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/38cb/3/0/%2a/b%3B218196624%3B0-0%3B3%3B31658731%3B4307-300/250%3B33493603/33511481/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3f<a href=" com="" go="" 171700902="" 1="" 01=""></object>In Mexico, judging by the mood at last week’s <em>Economist</em> conference in Mexico City, <a href="http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/en/felipecalderon" title=" (opens in a new window) " target="_blank">President Felipe Calderón</a> may frustrate the business community, yet business leaders have little enthusiasm for the favourite to succeed him, the soap-star-dating governor of Mexico State, <a href="http://portal2.edomex.gob.mx/edomex/gobierno/acercadelgobierno/elgobernador/index.htm" title=" (opens in a new window) " target="_blank">Enrique Peña Nieto</a>. Still, at least they take some comfort from the fact that the hard left’s candidate, <a title=" (opens in a new window) " target="_blank">Andrés Manuel López Obrador</a>, who so nearly defeated Mr Calderón for the presidency three years ago, is lagging in the polls. </div> <p>Mexican business leaders fear that their president, following his party’s heavy defeat in recent parliamentary elections, may see out his remaining three years as a lame duck. The one hope is that, seeing how bad things look, Mr Calderón may be provoked into embarking upon the fundamental reforms that the economy so badly needs. In that light, what could be more encouraging than the government’s decision on October 12th to take on one of Mexico’s most powerful unions by closing down a big, state-run electricity provider? If this battle is won, perhaps Mexican business people can start believing that their country has what it takes to become more competitive and powerful than its big rival down south. If not, plenty more gloom and doom are likely to follow. </p></blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14634193">economist.com</a></div> <p></p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/down-mexico">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-73927979645380596062009-10-05T18:43:00.001-07:002009-10-05T18:43:08.987-07:00HP may be ready to deal, as tech M&A heats up
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote class="posterous_long_quote"><div><div class="fontresize10"><p>Hewlett-Packard Co may get acquisitive again despite its recent absence from the technology sector's M&A scene, analysts said, and Brocade Communications Systems Inc may a prime target.</p> <p>Brocade is putting itself up for sale, and HP has looked at the company's assets but has not made a formal bid, sources told Reuters. Brocade and HP declined to comment.</p> <p>Brocade makes routers and switches for blade servers, as well as software to help companies manage data efficiently. It has been expanding its partnerships and already sells equipment to HP, International Business Machines Corp and Dell Inc.</p> <p>Analysts say HP's sprawling portfolio has cushioned it against the shock of the IT spending downturn, but that investors now want to see the world's largest computer company move to ramp up growth. Some say one way to do that is through acquisitions.</p> <p>Stifel Nicolaus analyst Aaron Rakers said HP is likely looking to acquire in areas such as software and networking, to complement its ProCurve networking product.</p> <p>HP has been relatively quiet on the M&A front, Rakers said, given that the company is still working through last year's blockbuster $13 billion acquisition of EDS.</p> <p>"As we roll out into the next couple of quarters, I wouldn't be surprised to see them do something," he said.</p> <p>Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu said HP and its rivals are focused on offering customers an end-to-end suite of products. Cisco recently began selling computer servers targeted at data centers, pitting the company against HP and IBM.</p> <p>"It makes sense for HP to add to its portfolio in two areas: one is networking, the other is software," Wu said. "The more software and the more networking that they do, the better the margins."</p> <p>Wu said Brocade would be a good fit for HP, noting that an offer for Juniper Networks -- another tie-up much speculated on in markets -- the No. 2 networking equipment maker after Cisco, would be a bolder and more expensive move.</p> <p>M&A HEATS UP</p> <p>Juniper's market capitalization of roughly $13.8 billion is more than three times that of Brocade. F5 Networks (FFIV.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is another networking name that crops up in acquisition talk.</p> <p>As the IT sector has stabilized, the economy steadies and credit looses, M&A has been picking up. Last week, Cisco agreed to acquire Norwegian videoconferencing company Tandberg for $3 billion, leading analysts to wonder whether HP would respond.</p> <p>There were also major deals in an IT services sector that analysts say is ripe for consolidation: Dell's $3.9 billion bid for Perot Systems Corp and Xerox Corp's $5.5 billion play for Affiliated Computer Services.</p> <p>HP has a formidable warchest of $13.7 billion in cash should it decide to deal. It has made more than 45 acquisitions since 2001.</p> <p>Besides EDS, major deals in recent years include the $4.6 billion acquisition of Mercury Interactive in 2006, and the $1.5 billion purchase of Opsware in 2007-- two of the more than two dozen software deals HP has made since 2001.</p> <p>The company wages battle on many fronts in the IT sector, from Dell and Acer in PCs, to IBM in services and servers, to printers.</p> <p>Pacific Crest Securities analyst Brent Bracelin said last week that HP has been in "digesting mode" with EDS but added: "I would expect them to get back into an environment where they become much more aggressive as they enter 2010."</p> <p>"HP isn't in a position where they're going to be left out of the consolidation race."</p> <p>HP has been tightly managing costs as it works through the EDS deal. It expects to generate $3 billion in savings by the time the integration is complete.</p> <p>Rakers said the services sector deals in recent weeks provide more evidence that HP's purchase of EDS was a smart one.</p> <p>"The EDS stuff was validated, if you look at the multiples that Dell's paying for Perot," he said.</p> <p>(Editing by Edwin Chan; Editing by Richard Chang)</p></div> </div> <div> Next Article: <a href="/articles//.htm"></a> </div> <div>Copyright 2009 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.</div></blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20091005/hp-may-be-ready-deal-as-techa-heats_all.htm">ibtimes.com</a></div> <p></p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/hp-may-be-ready-to-deal-as-tech-manda-heats-u">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-5741573236645652002009-09-29T17:50:00.001-07:002009-09-29T17:50:02.277-07:00"Brasil es el país del mundo más parecido a EE UU" · ELPAÍS.com
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote class="posterous_long_quote"><p>Desde Brasilia, Mangabeira analiza las grandes líneas de la vida política, social y económica de Brasil y las grandes corrientes internacionales, pero eso no le parece suficiente. "Lo que intento es definir iniciativas concretas que encarnen o anticipen ese cambio en la trayectoria institucional del país. Escoger iniciativas en políticas públicas sectoriales que tengan efecto práctico inmediato pero que también prefiguren el cambio de rumbo que necesita el país". Uno de los últimos libros de Mangabeira se titula<i> ¿Qué debería proponer la izquierda?</i></p><p><b>Pregunta.</b> ¿Qué debería proponer hoy la izquierda en el mundo?</p><p><b>Respuesta.</b> Básicamente hay tres izquierdas en el mundo. Hay una vendida, que acepta el mercado y la globalización en sus formas actuales y que quiere simplemente humanizarlas por medio de políticas sociales. Para esa izquierda, sólo se trata de humanizar lo inevitable. Su programa es el de sus adversarios, con un descuento social y una renta moral y narcisista. Hay otra izquierda, recalcitrante, que quiere desacelerar el progreso de los mercados y la globalización, en defensa de su base histórica tradicional (los trabajadores sindicalizados de grandes industrias). Y hay una tercera izquierda, la que me interesa, que quiere reconstruir el mercado y reorientar la globalización con un conjunto de innovaciones institucionales. Para esa izquierda, lo primero es democratizar la economía de mercado, lo segundo capacitar al pueblo y lo tercero, profundizar la democracia. Yo entiendo ese proyecto como una propuesta de la izquierda para la izquierda. Diría, con un lenguaje provocativo y algo teológico, que la ambición de esa izquierda no es humanizar la sociedad, sino divinizar la humanidad. El objetivo es elevar la vida común de las personas comunes al plano más alto.</p><p><b>P.</b> ¿Cómo analiza hoy día la crisis económica internacional?</p><p><b>R.</b> Yo diría que hace mucho tiempo que el mundo está sometido al yugo de una dictadura de falta de alternativas y que, en general, en la historia moderna, los cambios fueron forzados por las guerras y los colapsos económicos. El trauma fue el requisito de la transformación. Hoy hay una gran pobreza de ideas sobre las alternativas en el mundo. Las ideas que orientaron la izquierda históricamente, como el marxismo, son fallidas, y la respuesta a la crisis financiera internacional revela de una forma muy dramática las consecuencias de esa pobreza de ideas. No hay nada que no sea una versión momificada del keynesianismo vulgar, es la única luz en esta oscuridad. Hasta ahora, el debate ha estado casi enteramente dominado por dos temas superficiales: el imperativo de regular los mercados financieros y la necesidad de adoptar políticas fiscales y monetarias expansionistas. Son ideas muy por debajo de la dimensión del problema.</p><p><b>P.</b> ¿De qué habría que debatir entonces?</p><p><b>R.</b> Todo lo que se puede hacer en materia de regulación de los mercados financieros y de expansionismo fiscal y monetario depende, para su eficacia, del enfrentamiento de tres temas más importantes. Primero, la necesidad de superar los desequilibrios estructurales en la economía mundial entre los países con superávit en comercio y ahorro, empezando por China, y los países deficitarios en comercio y ahorro, comenzando por EE UU. El motor del crecimiento mundial, en los últimos años, fue el acuerdo implícito entre esos dos elementos. Ese motor se ha roto y vamos a tener que conseguir otro. Eso exigirá grandes cambios en EE UU, en China y en la organización de la economía mundial.</p><p><b>P.</b> ¿No se trata de regular, sino de reorganizar?</p><p><b>R.</b> Efectivamente. Vamos al segundo punto: la necesidad de que la regulación de los mercados financieros sea parte de una tarea mayor, que es reorganizar la relación entre el sistema financiero y la producción. De la forma en que se organizan hoy las economías de mercado, el sistema productivo está básicamente autofinanciado. ¿Cuál es entonces el propósito de todo el dinero que está en los bancos y en las bolsas de valores? Teóricamente sirve para financiar la producción, pero en realidad sólo va oblicuamente a ese cometido. Eso es el resultado de las instituciones existentes. En este sistema, las finanzas son relativamente indiferentes a la producción en tiempos de bonanza y son una amenaza destructiva cuando surge una crisis como ésta. Es decir, son indiferentes para el bien y eficaces para el mal.</p><p><b>P.</b> ¿Y el debate sobre la distribución de la riqueza?</p><p><b>R.</b> Ése es el tercer punto. El vínculo entre recuperación y redistribución. Todos admiramos la construcción en la segunda mitad del siglo XX en EE UU de un mercado de consumo en masa. En principio, la construcción de ese tipo de mercado exige la democratización del poder adquisitivo y, por lo tanto, redistribución de la renta y de la riqueza, pero en EE UU sucedió lo contrario, hubo una violenta concentración de la renta y de la riqueza. ¿Cómo consiguieron la construcción de un mercado de consumo en masa? Parte de la respuesta está en lo que sucedió con la supervalorización inmobiliaria ficticia. Ha habido una falsa democratización del crédito, que hizo las veces de la democratización de redistribución la renta, que no hubo. Y ahora que ese sistema está destruido, es necesario crear una nueva base para el mercado. Lo que les digo a mis conciudadanos es que quiero una dinámica de rebeldía, que necesita como aliada la imaginación institucional.</p><p><b>P.</b> ¿Cómo son las relaciones entre Brasil y Estados Unidos?</p><p><b>R.</b> Yo digo siempre que Brasil es el país del mundo más parecido a EE UU. Son dos países con tamaños semejantes, fundados con población europea y esclavitud africana, multiétnicos. Muy desiguales, pero donde la gente común sigue pensando que todo es posible. EE UU está buscando, en este momento de inflexión histórica, un sucedáneo al proyecto de Roosevelt. En Brasil estamos en una búsqueda paralela de un modelo de desarrollo. Mi propuesta es que construyamos experimentos comunes en las instituciones que definen la economía de mercado y la democracia (FMI, Banco Mundial, OMC, ONU).</p> </blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Brasil/pais/mundo/parecido/EE/UU/elpepiint/20090209elpepiint_7/Tes">elpais.com</a></div> <p></p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/brasil-es-el-pais-del-mundo-mas-parecido-a-ee">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-59657582089422212412009-09-26T00:25:00.001-07:002009-09-26T00:25:39.623-07:00Leaders' Statement: The Pittsburgh Summit
<p><span class="contentImg"></span>In a historic shift, the G20 emerged from its summit in Pittsburgh today as the world’s official forum on global economic issues, replacing the outdated G8.</p> <p>As expected, the group addressed two main crisis-related challenges—supporting the recovery by maintaining stimulus packages and rebalancing the global economy, and applying lessons learned from the crisis to financial regulations and international financial institution (IFI) reform. In addition—and in keeping with its new-found status—it approached a crucial long-term issue, climate change, for the first time. While the G8 may continue to deal with issues of foreign relations, the G20 has clearly stepped into its role as the main economic global forum. This shift is the single most important result to come out of the summit, but is not its only achievement.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://pittsburgh.ehclients.com/images/uploads/2009_0924_leaders_g20.jpg" /></p><b><br />Here the Leaders' Statement:</b><br />1. We meet in the midst of a critical transition from crisis to recovery to turn the page on an era of irresponsibility and to adopt a set of policies, regulations and reforms to meet the needs of the 21<sup>st</sup> century global economy.<p />2. When we last gathered in April, we confronted the greatest challenge to the world economy in our generation. <p /> 3. Global output was contracting at pace not seen since the 1930s. Trade was plummeting. Jobs were disappearing rapidly. Our people worried that the world was on the edge of a depression. <p />4. At that time, our countries agreed to do everything necessary to ensure recovery, to repair our financial systems and to maintain the global flow of capital. <p />5. It worked. <p />6. Our forceful response helped stop the dangerous, sharp decline in global activity and stabilize financial markets. Industrial output is now rising in nearly all our economies. International trade is starting to recover. Our financial institutions are raising needed capital, financial markets are showing a willingness to invest and lend, and confidence has improved. <p />7. Today, we reviewed the progress we have made since the London Summit in April. Our national commitments to restore growth resulted in the largest and most coordinated fiscal and monetary stimulus ever undertaken. We acted together to increase dramatically the resources necessary to stop the crisis from spreading around the world. We took steps to fix the broken regulatory system and started to implement sweeping reforms to reduce the risk that financial excesses will again destabilize the global economy. <p />8. A sense of normalcy should not lead to complacency. <p />9. The process of recovery and repair remains incomplete. In many countries, unemployment remains unacceptably high. The conditions for a recovery of private demand are not yet fully in place. We cannot rest until the global economy is restored to full health, and hard-working families the world over can find decent jobs. <p />10. We pledge today to sustain our strong policy response until a durable recovery is secured. We will act to ensure that when growth returns, jobs do too. We will avoid any premature withdrawal of stimulus. At the same time, we will prepare our exit strategies and, when the time is right, withdraw our extraordinary policy support in a cooperative and coordinated way, maintaining our commitment to fiscal responsibility. <p />11. Even as the work of recovery continues, we pledge to adopt the policies needed to lay the foundation for strong, sustained and balanced growth in the 21<sup>st</sup> century. We recognize that we have to act forcefully to overcome the legacy of the recent, severe global economic crisis and to help people cope with the consequences of this crisis. We want growth without cycles of boom and bust and markets that foster responsibility not recklessness. <p />12. Today we agreed:<p />13. <i>To launch a framework that lays out the policies and the way we act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced global growth</i>. We need a durable recovery that creates the good jobs our people need.<p />14. We need to shift from public to private sources of demand, establish a pattern of growth across countries that is more sustainable and balanced, and reduce development imbalances. We pledge to avoid destabilizing booms and busts in asset and credit prices and adopt macroeconomic policies, consistent with price stability, that promote adequate and balanced global demand. We will also make decisive progress on structural reforms that foster private demand and strengthen long-run growth potential. <p />15. Our Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth is a compact that commits us to work together to assess how our policies fit together, to evaluate whether they are collectively consistent with more sustainable and balanced growth, and to act as necessary to meet our common objectives.<p />16. <i>To make sure our regulatory system for banks and other financial firms reins in the excesses that led to the crisis</i>. Where reckless behavior and a lack of responsibility led to crisis, we will not allow a return to banking as usual. <p /> 17. We committed to act together to raise capital standards, to implement strong international compensation standards aimed at ending practices that lead to excessive risk-taking, to improve the over-the-counter derivatives market and to create more powerful tools to hold large global firms to account for the risks they take. Standards for large global financial firms should be commensurate with the cost of their failure. For all these reforms, we have set for ourselves strict and precise timetables. <p />18. <i>To reform the global architecture to meet the needs of the 21<sup>st</sup> century</i>. After this crisis, critical players need to be at the table and fully vested in our institutions to allow us to cooperate to lay the foundation for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. <p />19. We designated the G-20 to be the premier forum for our international economic cooperation. We established the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to include major emerging economies and welcome its efforts to coordinate and monitor progress in strengthening financial regulation. <p />20. We are committed to a shift in International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota share to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries of at least 5% from over-represented countries to under-represented countries using the current quota formula as the basis to work from. Today we have delivered on our promise to contribute over $500 billion to a renewed and expanded IMF New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB). <p />21. We stressed the importance of adopting a dynamic formula at the World Bank which primarily reflects countries’ evolving economic weight and the World Bank’s development mission, and that generates an increase of at least 3% of voting power for developing and transition countries, to the benefit of under-represented countries. While recognizing that over-represented countries will make a contribution, it will be important to protect the voting power of the smallest poor countries. We called on the World Bank to play a leading role in responding to problems whose nature requires globally coordinated action, such as climate change and food security, and agreed that the World Bank and the regional development banks should have sufficient resources to address these challenges and fulfill their mandates.<p />22. <i>To take new steps to increase access to food, fuel and finance among the world’s poorest while clamping down on illicit outflows</i>. Steps to reduce the development gap can be a potent driver of global growth. <p /> 23. Over four billion people remain undereducated, ill-equipped with capital and technology, and insufficiently integrated into the global economy. We need to work together to make the policy and institutional changes needed to accelerate the convergence of living standards and productivity in developing and emerging economies to the levels of the advanced economies. To start, we call on the World Bank to develop a new trust fund to support the new Food Security Initiative for low-income countries announced last summer. We will increase, on a voluntary basis, funding for programs to bring clean affordable energy to the poorest, such as the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program. <p />24. <i>To phase out and rationalize over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies while providing targeted support for the poorest</i>. Inefficient fossil fuel subsidies encourage wasteful consumption, reduce our energy security, impede investment in clean energy sources and undermine efforts to deal with the threat of climate change. <p />25. We call on our Energy and Finance Ministers to report to us their implementation strategies and timeline for acting to meet this critical commitment at our next meeting. <p />26. We will promote energy market transparency and market stability as part of our broader effort to avoid excessive volatility. <p />27. <i>To maintain our openness and move toward greener, more sustainable growth</i>. <p />28. We will fight protectionism. We are committed to bringing the Doha Round to a successful conclusion in 2010. <p /> 29. We will spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. <p />30. We warmly welcome the report by the Chair of the London Summit commissioned at our last meeting and published today.<p />31. Finally, we agreed to meet in Canada in June 2010 and in Korea in November 2010. We expect to meet annually thereafter and will meet in France in 2011. <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/leaders-statement-the-pittsburgh-summit">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-41628581929812247512009-09-26T00:09:00.001-07:002009-09-26T00:09:01.172-07:00G-20 to take a bigger role in global economy
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46426000/jpg/_46426878_007281955-1.jpg" border="0" height="260" alt="G20 leaders' group photo" width="466" /></div><p> President Obama, hosting his first Group of 20 summit, managed to achieve most but not all of his top objectives, including getting member nations to agree to review one another’s economic policies to ensure they do not provoke a repeat of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.</p><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>“Because our global economy is now fundamentally interconnected, we need to act together to make sure the recovery creates new jobs and industries while preventing the kind of imbalances and abuses that led us into this crisis,’’ Obama said at a news conference at the close of the two-day meeting.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>The summit was the third gathering of G-20 leaders since the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year triggered a global economic free fall. Since then, early signs of recovery have emerged around the world, and in the weeks leading up to the summit, the G-20 leaders faced questions about whether it was time to tighten interest rates and withdraw hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus spending. They arrived in Pittsburgh already in agreement that the global economy was still too fragile to warrant a pullback.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>“A sense of normalcy should not lead to complacency,’’ the leaders said in a joint statement. “The process of recovery and repair remains incomplete.’’</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>The global economy has become stable enough, however, for the leaders to turn their attention to preventing future financial crises. The United States and European nations were able to settle differences over how best to stem irresponsible risk-taking by financial companies. The United States had emphasized the need to raise the quality and quantity of capital that banks must hold to cover potential losses. The Europeans had stressed restrictions on bankers’ pay, including hard limits. In the end, the leaders agreed to those principles - but without the hard limits - as well as better aligning executive compensation with long-term performance and more transparency for trading in complex securities known as derivatives.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Obama was also able to get Europe and China to commit to avoid pursuing economic policies that fuel the huge global imbalances blamed by economists for helping spark the current crisis. Under the agreement, countries with large deficits such as the United States would promise to borrow less while major exporters such as China and Germany would pledge to stimulate domestic consumption. The members agreed to use the International Monetary Fund to help review their economic policies to make sure they do not generate harmful imbalances.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>While other G-20 members signed off on the US proposal, many remained skeptical of its effectiveness and its purpose.</p></div> <div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>What made it easier to sign on is that countries that fail to adhere to the agreement face no penalties.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Critics noted that similar arrangements have been tried before, with little impact on national decisions.</p> </div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>But Edwin Truman, a fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former Treasury official, said this latest attempt at rebalancing global growth is promising because it puts leaders on the record and potentially raises the political stakes for them if they fail to comply.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>The G-20 also agreed to make itself the principal forum for global economic issues, eclipsing the older, West-dominated Group of Eight and further institutionalizing the new economic order. The Obama administration sees increasing the clout of emerging economies in international institutions as essential to getting developing nations to play a bigger role on other issues such as climate change.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>To better reflect the growing role of China, Brazil, and other emerging nations, the G-20 leaders also approved a change of the governance structure of the IMF and World Bank. Summit participants agreed to increase developing nations’ quota of representation shares by 5 percent at the IMF and 3 percent at the World Bank.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>Changing the structure of those institutions is key to helping prevent future crises, said Simon Johnson, a former IMF chief economist and Peterson Institute fellow. Countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan began building huge reserves after the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s and their bad experiences with the IMF.</p></div><div class="articlePluckHidden"><p>“They have to believe in the IMF so they don’t build huge reserves,’’ Johnson said.</p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/g-20-to-take-a-bigger-role-in-global-economy">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-85631385781629356532009-09-24T08:19:00.001-07:002009-09-24T08:23:18.423-07:00Fed says U.S. recovery is underway<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/16/business/16bernanke-600.jpg" alt="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/16/business/16bernanke-600.jpg" /><br /></div><br /><br />The Federal Reserve on Wednesday upgraded its assessment of the U.S. economy, saying growth had returned after a deep recession, while reiterating its promise to hold interest rates very low for a long time.<br /><br />The Fed also said it would slow its purchases of mortgage debt to extend that program's life until the end of March, in a move toward withdrawing the central bank's extraordinary support for the economy and markets during the contraction.<p> The U.S. central bank, as widely expected, held its benchmark overnight lending rates at close to zero percent.</p><p>"Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in August suggests that economic activity has picked up following its severe downturn," the Fed said in a statement after its two-day policy meeting.</p><p> "Conditions in financial markets have improved further and activity in the housing sector has increased," it said.</p><p>U.S. government bond yields ended lower on the news that the central bank had reiterated a pledge to keep rates ultra-low for an extended period.</p><p> "I think it confirms that the economy still needs a little bit of help and that rates aren't going to go up anytime soon," said Alan Lancz at Alan B. Lancz & Associates in Toledo, Ohio.</p><p>But a stock market rally fizzled on concerns the Fed was setting the stage for pulling back from its efforts to stimulate the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 81.77 points or 0.83 percent at 9,748.10.</p><p> "There's still a lot of problems with mortgages, the housing market in general as well as the banking sector," said Dan Faretta, a market strategist at Lind-Waldock, a brokerage firm, in Chicago.</p><p> The Fed said it would gradually slow the pace of its purchases of mortgage-related debt in order to promote a smooth transition in markets as the Fed has been the biggest buyer.</p><p>But it made clear it would purchase the full amount of $1.25 trillion in agency mortgage-backed securities. In its August statement the Fed had said it would buy "up to" that amount, but dropped those two words on Wednesday.</p><p> At least one member of the Fed's policy-setting committee had proposed curtailing mortgage-backed securities purchases, saying they provide too much of a boost as recovery takes off.</p><p>The Fed doubled the size of its balance sheet to more than $2 trillion as it flooded financial markets with money during the crisis last year.</p><p> Some policy-makers worry the bloated balance sheet risks triggering inflation if the Fed waits too long before removing its stimulus measures and raising interest rates.</p><p>However, the U.S. central bank on Wednesday played down concerns about price pressures in an economy where the jobless rate is at a 26-year high and factory capacity is greatly underutilized.</p><p> Policy-makers said inflation would remain subdued for some time with substantial slack in the economy dampening cost pressures, and with long-term inflation expectations stable.</p><p>In August the Fed had noted rises in energy and commodity prices, but dropped that reference this week, suggesting that worries about inflation had diminished.</p><p> The Fed has maintained its support for the economy, even after cutting interest rates to near zero, through a campaign to buy $300 billion of longer-dated U.S. government bonds and $1.45 trillion of mortgage-related debt, in order to keep lending rates low.</p><p> The Fed opted in August to taper down the U.S. Treasury debt purchases by the end of October, and had been expected to opt for a similar gradual withdrawal for its mortgage debt buying which initially had been scheduled to close at year-end.</p><p> The U.S. central bank must walk a delicate path between acknowledging the recovery evident in the economy, and assuring investors that it remains attuned to the risks of a double dip recession as policy stimulus fades next year.</p><p> This means exiting in time from aggressive steps aimed at boosting growth to avoid igniting inflation as the economy picks up steam, while not smothering the recovery in the process.</p><p>Recent data has pointed to turnarounds in manufacturing, housing markets and consumer sentiment, and many analysts expect strong growth in the third quarter after four quarters of contraction. However, with unemployment at a 26-year high of 9.7 percent, most analysts nevertheless expect consumer spending to remain weak and damp the recovery.</p><p> (Reporting by Alister Bull, Mark Felsenthal, David Lawder and Ellis Mnyandu and Ryan Vlastelica in New York; Editing by Simon Denyer) </p><p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/fed-says-us-recovery-is-underway-0">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-80750226076420960422009-09-22T15:16:00.001-07:002009-09-22T15:18:34.352-07:00Trade agreements: Doing Doha down<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14363297">economist.com</a></div> <p>SOMETHING is usually better than nothing. Shorn of all of the economic jargon and legal niceties, that is the logic behind the booming business in bilateral trade deals that is sweeping Asia. As the Doha round of world trade talks languishes, Asia’s trading nations say that they cannot afford to sit on their hands and wait for Doha to revive. Better, they argue, to loosen up trade with simpler deals between a couple of countries or, if you are truly ambitious, a handful. </p><p>Some regional trade deals in the right circumstances have indeed added to economic well-being. But the sorts of deals that are now being signed in Asia, just when multilateral trade desperately needs supporting, are likely to do less for their countries’ economies than for the egos of the politicians who sponsor them. Taken as a trend, they amount to a dangerous erosion of the system of multilateral trade on which global prosperity depends. </p><p>In 2001 there were just 49 bilateral and regional free-trade agreements (FTAs) in place. A deal signed last month between India and South Korea raised the total to 167 (see article). That recent agreement was trumpeted as a boon for both economies. South Korean firms say they are keen to make more use of India as a manufacturing base from which to export to the rest of the world. In return, Indian programmers will more easily be able to set up shop in South Korea. </p><p>More such agreements are likely to follow. And who could object to that? In a world of collapsing exports and rising protectionism, the fashion for bilateral deals looks like a welcome boost to the idea that trade is good. Peer deeper, however, and the message is far less reassuring.<br />Noodles all round </p><p>For a start, bilateral deals impose so much paperwork and bureaucracy on trade that companies rarely make use of their provisions. Only about a fifth of 609 firms in four Asian countries surveyed by the Asian Development Bank in 2008 took advantage of the agreements that applied to them. </p><p>When bilateral agreements are attractive to companies, it is often for the wrong reasons. Many bilateral trade deals offer favourable treatment to a few companies from a particular country at the expense of all the rest from elsewhere in the world. The companies that lose out may well be lower-cost producers, since such agreements are dictated more by politics than by economics. If so, the economy will suffer. Even if such a deal is eventually superseded by a broader one, it may already have caused long-term damage by allowing less efficient firms to become entrenched. Economies that are too small to extract concessions from their bigger bilateral negotiating partners fare particularly badly. </p><p>Then there is the complexity of the growing number of bilateral and regional deals. Each has its own rules and administrative requirements, leading to a confusing spaghetti (or perhaps noodle soup) of preferential agreements, instead of the predictability that multilateralism promises. As such agreements multiply, there is less chance that they create the wealth that their authors claim. </p><p>Some claim that the tricky issues that stand in the way of a multilateral deal can be more easily resolved when only two countries are sitting at the table. That rarely happens: in the rush to conclude an agreement, such issues are often shelved. India’s deal with ASEAN last year, for instance, put aside the poisonous question of farm trade, which was one of the deal-breakers in the Doha talks last July. </p><p>Bilateral agreements, thus, do not, on the whole, serve as stepping stones to a comprehensive global deal. On the contrary, they both distract governments from the multilateral process and offer cover for politicians’ failure to advance it. Moreover, the fear of losing favourable treatment in a bilateral agreement can deter governments from talking tough in multilateral negotiations. </p><p>Some defenders of bilateralism admit all this, but cling to one argument they regard as clinching—that bilateral agreements are at least possible, whereas the chances of concluding Doha seem ever more remote. The comparison, they say, is not between local deals and a global one, but between regional deals and no deals at all. </p><p>This argument ignores the lessons of the past. The history of the multilateral trading system is littered with rows, hiatuses, disillusion, despair—and sudden success. In the 1970s many people wrote off the precursor to the World Trade Organisation. The ministerial meeting of 1982 failed and the later Uruguay round of talks nearly collapsed, before being successfully concluded. Even now, amid deep pessimism about ever finishing Doha, the Indian government is holding a summit of trade ministers in the hope of restarting the talks. If they truly want Doha to succeed, the bilateralists need first to acknowledge that their own deals are poisoning its chances.</p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/trade-agreements-doing-doha-down-the-economis">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-34113297460905034682009-09-21T14:09:00.001-07:002009-09-22T15:18:59.903-07:00México en lenta recuperación, según Moody's
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/media/ALeqM5hWQodx2MFqvvj8nrts_0uMiOTViQ?size=l" alt="" /><p /></div>Moody's afirma que la recuperación de la economía mexicana será lenta y gradual, ya que aunque algunos sectores empiezan a mostrar mejoría, ésta no es generalizada y tampoco se puede afirmar que ya se tocó fondo. La calificadora señala que algunos sectores empiezan a mostrar mejoría, pero no es generalizada; indicó que el año próximo la economía seguramente crecerá arriba de 2.0%, pero sólo será un rebote.<p /> El director general de Moody's de México, Alberto Jones Tamayo, explicó que el proceso de recuperación será muy lento, "no estamos mirando meses, ni siquiera trimestres", y aunque hay sectores que están revirtiendo su caída "no se puede generalizar con afirmaciones de que ya se tocó fondo".<p /> "De ahí a que las condiciones de demanda ya cambiaron, de que ya dio la vuelta, de que vamos a comenzar a remontar la recesión y vamos a tener crecimiento, no, definitivamente no, es la visión que tenemos", argumentó. Estimó que el año próximo la economía mexicana seguramente crecerá arriba de 2.0%, pero sólo será un "rebote aritmético" debido a la fuerte caída que registrará la actividad económica este año, cercana a 8.0%.<p /> "Eso está lejos de ponernos en una situación como la que nos encontrábamos hace más de dos años; en otras palabras, una caída de 8.0%, con una recuperación de 2.0%, es una caída de 6.0%, cuando el año anterior apenas crecimos 2.0%", estimó.<p /> En su opinión, con la contracción económica en la actual administración federal se ha retrasado el crecimiento de México por más de tres años, y vaticinó que seguramente este será un sexenio perdido en materia económica. Esto, porque además "el gobierno no tiene otra alternativa que ser austero en lo que resta del sexenio", ante la debilidad que presentan las finanzas públicas por la baja recaudación y la caída de los ingresos petroleros.<p /> Es por ello, añadió Jones Tamayo, que no habrá un detonante adicional para el crecimiento económico que pudiera provenir del gasto público, especialmente del que más hace falta, que es la inversión en infraestructura.<p /> "Entonces, sí podemos descontar que de aquí a que termine este administración el crecimiento económico habrá sido muy insuficiente para el país", proyectó el director general de Moody's de México. Algunas industrias mexicanas ya empiezan a mostrar una reversión en la velocidad con la que ha caído su producción, "pero no es una situación generalizada".<p /> El directivo señaló que algunas ramas de la industria manufacturera pueden registrar alguna reversión, derivada de que los paquetes de estímulo multimillonarios que Estados Unidos aplicó desde hace casi un año están dando algún pequeño efecto.<p /> Asimismo, está el hecho de que los inventarios en muchos sectores también se acabaron hace poco tiempo, lo que ha llevado a un proceso para reinventariar, y eso significa volver a producir. Aclaró que algunas industrias como la bancaria no sólo no estuvieron en recesión, sino que han continuado creciendo, en particular la rama de servicios financieros, lo que ha sido un gran mitigante ante la severa crisis que padece el país.<p /> "Pero de ahí en fuera la situación sigue siendo muy complicada para la mayor parte, especialmente para la industria manufacturera", precisó el representante de Moody's al estimar que ante este panorama el proceso de recuperación en México será muy lento. Indicó que hay ramas muy acotadas de la actividad económica de México en las que ya se aprecia una mejoría, como son la industria automotriz y de autopartes, que ya empiezan a recibir pedidos de Estados Unidos.<p /> Sin embargo, insistió, esto es un proceso muy gradual, "no se alcanzarán los niveles de producción que se tenían en 2007 en varios años, es un proceso muy lento". Sobre las calificaciones soberanas de México, que Moody's afirmó hace apenas unas semanas en Baa1 con una perspectiva estable, explicó que esta acción se basó en que la agencia no anticipa ningún cambio sustancial que pudiera mover la nota actual.<p /> "En Moody's consideramos que no hay razón para pensar que la clase política de México va a cambiar de puntos de vista respecto a la situación actual y no anticipamos ningún cambio", señaló Jones Tamayo. Ante la posibilidad de que las otras calificadoras de riesgo crediticio, Standard & Poor's y Fitch, modifiquen las notas soberanas de México tras la aprobación del paquete económico de 2010 que se discute en el Congreso, subrayó que las decisiones de Moody's son independientes.<p /> "Para nosotros nuestras decisiones son absolutamente independientes, la mejor prueba de ello es que hace unas semanas afirmamos algo que ya veníamos diciendo, que la perspectiva era estable, a pesar de que otras personas puedan pensar diferente", aclaró. <p /> Moody's afirma que la recuperación de la economía mexicana será lenta y gradual, ya que aunque algunos sectores empiezan a mostrar mejoría, ésta no es generalizada y tampoco se puede afirmar que ya se tocó fondo. La calificadora señala que algunos sectores empiezan a mostrar mejoría, pero no es generalizada; indicó que el año próximo la economía seguramente crecerá arriba de 2.0%, pero sólo será un rebote.<p /> El director general de Moody's de México, Alberto Jones Tamayo, explicó que el proceso de recuperación será muy lento, "no estamos mirando meses, ni siquiera trimestres", y aunque hay sectores que están revirtiendo su caída "no se puede generalizar con afirmaciones de que ya se tocó fondo".<p /> "De ahí a que las condiciones de demanda ya cambiaron, de que ya dio la vuelta, de que vamos a comenzar a remontar la recesión y vamos a tener crecimiento, no, definitivamente no, es la visión que tenemos", argumentó. Estimó que el año próximo la economía mexicana seguramente crecerá arriba de 2.0%, pero sólo será un "rebote aritmético" debido a la fuerte caída que registrará la actividad económica este año, cercana a 8.0%.<p /> "Eso está lejos de ponernos en una situación como la que nos encontrábamos hace más de dos años; en otras palabras, una caída de 8.0%, con una recuperación de 2.0%, es una caída de 6.0%, cuando el año anterior apenas crecimos 2.0%", estimó.<p /> En su opinión, con la contracción económica en la actual administración federal se ha retrasado el crecimiento de México por más de tres años, y vaticinó que seguramente este será un sexenio perdido en materia económica. Esto, porque además "el gobierno no tiene otra alternativa que ser austero en lo que resta del sexenio", ante la debilidad que presentan las finanzas públicas por la baja recaudación y la caída de los ingresos petroleros.<p /> Es por ello, añadió Jones Tamayo, que no habrá un detonante adicional para el crecimiento económico que pudiera provenir del gasto público, especialmente del que más hace falta, que es la inversión en infraestructura.<p /> "Entonces, sí podemos descontar que de aquí a que termine este administración el crecimiento económico habrá sido muy insuficiente para el país", proyectó el director general de Moody's de México. Algunas industrias mexicanas ya empiezan a mostrar una reversión en la velocidad con la que ha caído su producción, "pero no es una situación generalizada".<p /> El directivo señaló que algunas ramas de la industria manufacturera pueden registrar alguna reversión, derivada de que los paquetes de estímulo multimillonarios que Estados Unidos aplicó desde hace casi un año están dando algún pequeño efecto.<p /> Asimismo, está el hecho de que los inventarios en muchos sectores también se acabaron hace poco tiempo, lo que ha llevado a un proceso para reinventariar, y eso significa volver a producir. Aclaró que algunas industrias como la bancaria no sólo no estuvieron en recesión, sino que han continuado creciendo, en particular la rama de servicios financieros, lo que ha sido un gran mitigante ante la severa crisis que padece el país.<p /> "Pero de ahí en fuera la situación sigue siendo muy complicada para la mayor parte, especialmente para la industria manufacturera", precisó el representante de Moody's al estimar que ante este panorama el proceso de recuperación en México será muy lento. Indicó que hay ramas muy acotadas de la actividad económica de México en las que ya se aprecia una mejoría, como son la industria automotriz y de autopartes, que ya empiezan a recibir pedidos de Estados Unidos.<p /> Sin embargo, insistió, esto es un proceso muy gradual, "no se alcanzarán los niveles de producción que se tenían en 2007 en varios años, es un proceso muy lento". Sobre las calificaciones soberanas de México, que Moody's afirmó hace apenas unas semanas en Baa1 con una perspectiva estable, explicó que esta acción se basó en que la agencia no anticipa ningún cambio sustancial que pudiera mover la nota actual.<p /> "En Moody's consideramos que no hay razón para pensar que la clase política de México va a cambiar de puntos de vista respecto a la situación actual y no anticipamos ningún cambio", señaló Jones Tamayo. Ante la posibilidad de que las otras calificadoras de riesgo crediticio, Standard & Poor's y Fitch, modifiquen las notas soberanas de México tras la aprobación del paquete económico de 2010 que se discute en el Congreso, subrayó que las decisiones de Moody's son independientes.<p /> "Para nosotros nuestras decisiones son absolutamente independientes, la mejor prueba de ello es que hace unas semanas afirmamos algo que ya veníamos diciendo, que la perspectiva era estable, a pesar de que otras personas puedan pensar diferente", aclaró. <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/mexico-en-lenta-recuperacion-segun-moodys">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-49553815403610176722009-09-13T21:29:00.001-07:002009-09-13T21:52:35.895-07:00Score One for Fair Trade
<img src="http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/media/ALeqM5j-ExI7g0b4smEafbowjmOntbfafQ?size=l" alt="" /><p /><i>By Will Marshall and Jim Arkedis</i><p />Public support for free trade these days is not exactly robust, with the recession and the unrelenting erosion of U.S. manufacturing jobs. To a significant extent, Americans’ attitudes about trade and globalization depend on their confidence that the rules of world commerce are both fair and enforceable.<p /> That’s why the World Trade Organization’s ruling late last week in a case involving Boeing and European arch-rival Airbus is a big and welcome victory that shows rule-based trade works.<p />In an interim decision, the WTO found that European governments have lavished Airbus with illegal production subsidies known as “launch aid.” This loan program gives Airbus a huge advantage in financing new airplanes that private companies like Boeing can’t match.<p /> Unlike standard loans, which have to be repaid over some fixed period of time, launch aid is paid back through royalties on aircraft sales. This essentially means that Airbus doesn't have to repay loans on planes that don't sell. With such generous and forgiving bankers, it’s little wonder that Airbus overtook Boeing in 2003 as the world's largest aircraft supplier.<p /> The WTO’s final decision isn’t expected for several months. Nonetheless, its initial ruling is a victory for Boeing, which says Airbus has reaped about $15 billion in launch aid from European governments. Although organized labor often has taken a skeptical if not hostile stance toward international trade, Boeing’s unions strongly backed the U.S. government’s decision to file the case in 2004. The unions realized that Boeing competitiveness was suffering and that only fair and enforceable trade rules would ensure it.<p /> The panel’s decision also vindicates the internationalist vision of progressive U.S. leaders—Franklin Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton—who labored over a half century to construct a rules-based global trading system. It is that system, with its emphasis on openness, reciprocity and adherence to common rules, that keeps global competition from becoming a zero sum game.<p /> The WTO is the system’s umpire. But while it can decide trade disputes on the merits, it has no power to enforce its rulings. That’s up to national governments. However, the WTO can authorize governments to impose retaliatory tariffs on countries that break the rules laid down by international treaties.<p /> If the interim ruling holds, the United States could slap tariffs on European goods bound for America, pressuring Europe’s governments to give up Airbus’ launch aid. If you're wondering why the federal government doesn’t just tax Airbus' American exports, it wouldn’t be effective: Airbus sells only a fraction of its planes to American carriers. Washington wields better leverage by taxing lucrative European exports like wine and cheese, or luxury cars destined for our shores.<p /> We hope it won’t come to that. The sensible thing would be for the Europeans to accept the WTO’s decision and bring Airbus into compliance with international trade rules. But the Europeans don’t seem to be giving up. As it happens, they have political, as well as economic, motives for shoveling subsidies to Airbus. Without the subsidies, Airbus could be forced to save money by cutting labor costs to make up for the loss of cheap capital. Many Europeans, spooked by rising competitive pressure from Asia, worry that Airbus might respond by shipping more production jobs overseas.<p /> Consequently, the Europeans will likely appeal the WTO decision. Furthermore, they filed a counter-suit that alleges Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner" is heavily subsidized as well, though that decision shouldn't have any bearing on this one.<p /> In any event, the WTO’s decision strikes an important blow for both open markets and global cooperation. For Americans, it affirms the principle that economic competition should not be distorted by heavy government loans and subsidies. For Europeans, it shows that global governance through international institutions like the WTO actually works, at least in the economic realm.<p /> Finally, the ruling sets a healthy precedent for vigorous, unsubsidized competition, just as a host of other nations – China, Russia and Brazil – are casting a jealous eye on the world’s lucrative aerospace market.<p /> So, for now, score one for trade that’s free and fair.<p />Marshall is the President of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI); Arkedis directs the PPI’s Project on National Security and Foreign Policy.<p />Follow Jim Arkedis on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/gjark3" target="_blank">www.twitter.com/gjark3</a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/score-one-for-fair-trade">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-41339842568654249672009-09-12T21:42:00.001-07:002009-09-13T21:52:35.895-07:00Políticas y reformas por la creación de empleos.
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://gothamist.com/attachments/jen/2008_09_lehmanbye.jpg" alt="http://gothamist.com/attachments/jen/2008_09_lehmanbye.jpg" /><br /><i><br /></i></div><i>Por: José Luis Alfaro</i><br />Felipe Calderón llegó a su tercer informe de gobierno con un país que presenta más problemas que soluciones: narcotráfico, inseguridad, la emergencia sanitaria por la influenza, sequía, y una profunda recesión económica que ha producido una falta de inversiones y desempleo.<p /> El que fuese el "candidato del empleo" tiene en su periodo uno de los niveles de más alto desempleo (el anterior fue en 1995), pues en julio este indicador alcanzó una tasa de 6.12% de la Población Económicamente Activa (PEA), con lo que cerca de 2.8 millones de personas se encontraron sin trabajo. Aunque ni el gobierno federal ni cualquier otro organismo podrían haber prevenido esto con demasiada anticipación, pues los ciclos económicos tienen sus tiempos, también es cierto que una política laboral más flexible y la competitividad que tiene el país pudieron actor a favor o en contra de lo que finalmente se presentó.<br /> <br />Este momento es ideal para evaluar que es lo que el gobierno puede mejorar sus políticas respecto a la generación de empleo. Y lo ha intentado.<p />Recientemente se puso a disposición la página <a href="http://www.tuempresa.gob.mx">www.tuempresa.gob.mx</a> en donde se ofrece todos esos trámites que se tienen en México para iniciar una empresa. Con esta nueva herramienta los ciudadanos podrán crear su empresa en menos de dos horas, y alcanzando sólo el 50% del costo actual. Esta es una alentadora noticia pues países de América Latina como Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Perú han superado a México en temas de emprendimiento y creación de nuevas empresas, acorde con los resultados de la encuesta del <b>Global Entrepeneurship Monitor</b> (GEM) que desde 1997 mide la actividad emprendedora de varias naciones. Este mecanismo permitirá que los ciudadanos reporten sus obligaciones fiscales y se disminuya las actividades que están fuera de las normas. Claro está que depende del gobierno y de los mismos ciudadanos que haya más empresas registradas.<p /> Por otra parte se ha hablado de una reforma profunda a nuestras leyes que permita la flexibilidad del mercado laboral. César Nava, presidente del Comité Ejecutivo Nacional del PAN ya lo ha puesto sobre la mesa (aunque es una reforma que lleva más de 10 años por llevarse a cabo). <br /> El grado de flexibilidad laboral que hay en una economía, depende casi exclusivamente de las dificultades que una empresa tiene al momento de cancelar su contrato con el trabajador. Este debate lo está ahora viviendo Chile y lo han puesto sobre la mesa los candidatos a Presidente, quien será elegido por un periodo de 5 años en el 2010. Se plantea que las empresas pueden destruir empleos cuando las cosas no andan bien, haciendo que la tasa de desempleo suba casi tan inmediato en cuanto aparecen las dificultades económicas para el país que las sufre. Sin embargo, también funciona cuando la situación ha mejorado, y eso permite la creación de empleos de forma más fácil.<br /> <br />Será interesante analizar como propone la bancada del PAN (el ala conservadora del espectro político mexicano) los cambios a este marco jurídico. Sobretodo cuando el PRI, el partido con mayor curules, y sus diputados que tienen sus raíces en la CTM se oponen a tal reforma pues dicen que "la iniciativa privada busca por todos los medios impulsar este proyecto con el argumento de que necesitan elevar la productividad y atraer inversiones, pero a costa de los salarios y prestaciones de la clase trabajadora."<br /> <br /><b>México</b> necesita ya de acciones concretas y trabajo en equipo; ya no se necesitan más estudios ni mesas de diálogos pues está claro que es lo el país requiere en el 2010, creación de <b>empleos</b>.<br /><b><br />Bibliografía</b><br /> Martínez, Rodrigo. "Tasa de Desempleo en México toca peor nivel en 14 años". IBT Mexico. 27 Aug. 2009 <<a href="http://www.ibtimes.com.mx/articles/20090827/tasa-desempleo-mexico-junio-julio.htm">http://www.ibtimes.com.mx/articles/20090827/tasa-desempleo-mexico-junio-julio.htm</a>>. <br /> <br />Grupo, Reforma. "Reprueba México en Creación de empresas". Invertia Infosel. 27 Aug. 2009 <<a href="http://ve.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.aspx?idNoticia=200908251541_TRM_78333334&idtel=">http://ve.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.aspx?idNoticia=200908251541_TRM_78333334&idtel=</a>>. <br /> <br />Chávez Ramírez, Irma. "Flexibilidad del mercado laboral". BUAP. 25 Aug. 2009 <<a href="http://www.aportes.buap.mx/17ap3.pdf">www.aportes.buap.mx/17ap3.pdf</a>> <br /> <br />Reuters, "Planteamientos de los candidatos presidenciales chilenos". Invertia Chile. 27 Aug. 2009 <<a href="http://cl.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.aspx?idNoticia=200908252141_RTI_1251236502nN25233715&idtel=">http://cl.invertia.com/noticias/noticia.aspx?idNoticia=200908252141_RTI_1251236502nN25233715&idtel=</a>>. <br /> <br />Yañez, Sonia. "Consideraciones sobre flexibilidad laboral ." Centro de Estudios de la Mujer. 27 Aug. 2009 <<a href="http://www.cem.cl/pdf/flexibil_laboral.pdf">www.cem.cl/pdf/flexibil_laboral.pdf</a>>. <br /> <br />"La cruzada por el nuevo Código del Trabajo” La Nacion.cl. 30 Aug. 2009 <<a href="http://www.lanacion.cl/prontus_noticias_v2/site/artic/20090829/pags/20090829195928.html">http://www.lanacion.cl/prontus_noticias_v2/site/artic/20090829/pags/20090829195928.html</a>> <br /> <br />"Reforma laboral no pasará este periodo: CTM." El Universal. 26 Aug. 2009 <<a href="http://www.el-universal.com.mx/notas/612196.html">www.el-universal.com.mx/notas/612196.html</a>>. <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/politicas-y-reformas-por-la-creacion-de-emple">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-13029182418783502352009-09-10T12:20:00.001-07:002009-09-13T21:49:12.383-07:00US trade gap widens as trade flows recover
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/slideshow/ALeqM5gDD6E86EEDnEkJNUkfTP_qv8s2LQ?index=0&ned=us"><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jlalfaro/jfJnHFqCtkvxxwJpuiglIHvzlIeBtfrfIqppAxoewydaaaBctjdkDccvpuoB/media_httpwwwgooglecomhostednewsafpmediaALeqM5gtHknOJcAqz2POLP9zyZRgLmmFQsizel_lEHHoasakBdswCa.hostednewsafpmediaALeqM5gtHknOJcAqz2POLP9zyZRg-LmmFQ.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jlalfaro/jfJnHFqCtkvxxwJpuiglIHvzlIeBtfrfIqppAxoewydaaaBctjdkDccvpuoB/media_httpwwwgooglecomhostednewsafpmediaALeqM5gtHknOJcAqz2POLP9zyZRgLmmFQsizel_lEHHoasakBdswCa.hostednewsafpmediaALeqM5gtHknOJcAqz2POLP9zyZRg-LmmFQ.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="332"/></a> </a> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/slideshow/ALeqM5gDD6E86EEDnEkJNUkfTP_qv8s2LQ?index=0&ned=us">google.com</a></div> <p>By Veronica Smit (AFP) – 6 hours ago </p><p>WASHINGTON — The US trade deficit widened in July as trade volume rose and imports surged, government data showed Thursday in a fresh sign the economy is emerging from recession. </p><p>The Commerce Department reported the trade gap jumped to 32.0 billion dollars, from a revised 27.5 billion dollars in June and eclipsing the average analyst forecast of 27.4 billion dollars. </p><p>The trade shortfall was 16.3 percent higher than the previous month, the largest percentage increase in 10 years. </p><p>The report added to recent signs of a nascent recovery in the world's largest economy and around the world from the worst downturn in six decades. </p><p>"While wider trade deficits are normally not good news, in this case, the rise in demand for foreign consumer and business goods tells us the US economy is healing," said Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors. </p><p>Christopher Cornell of Moody's Economy.com. agreed, saying the report confirmed the economy had "turned the corner" from recent sharp declines. </p><p>"The stage is set for recovery that we all hope will take flight in the coming months," he added. </p><p>The US trade gap had fallen in May to the lowest level since November 1999 as the global economic crisis strangled trade flows. In July, the trade deficit was 47 percent below the year-ago level. </p><p>Trade volume with the rest of the world reflected a burgeoning global recovery. After falling for nine consecutive months from August 2008 to April 2009, volume jumped 3.6 percent in July, accelerating from a 2.3 percent rise in June. </p><p>Imports vaulted 4.7 percent to 159.6 billion dollars, the highest monthly increase since the Commerce Department began publishing the data in 1992. </p><p>"The impressive import numbers, if they hold up, point to a pickup in US consumer spending," said Jennifer Lee of BMO Capital Markets. </p><p>Consumer spending -- which drives two-thirds of US economic activity -- rose slightly in July as financially stressed Americans struggle to cope with a deep recession that began in December 2007. </p><p>The world's largest economy shrank at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter after a steep 6.4 percent contraction in the first quarter. But recent data points to growth in the third quarter. </p><p>July imports rose in most categories, led by a 21.5 percent surge in imports of autos and parts. </p><p>Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, said the government's popular cash-for-clunkers auto scrappage program accounted for nearly half the gain in imports. </p><p>"But the underlying trend in the deficit is still downwards," he said. </p><p>Imports of industrial supplies rose by 3.9 percent, consumer goods by 5.0 percent and capital goods by 4.5 percent. Food imports were the exception, falling 0.9 percent. </p><p>The politically sensitive trade deficit with China widened sharply, as imports increased by the strongest pace since November 2008, pushing the yawning gap to 20.4 billion dollars from 18.4 billion dollars in June. </p><p>Critics accuse China, the United States's second-largest trading partner after Canada, of manipulating its yuan currency to gain an unfair trade advantage. </p><p>Exports also rose in July, to 127.6 billion dollars, a 3.2 percent increase from June that was the strongest gain since May 2008 and due in part to a 2.4 percent rise in capital goods and a 24.5 percent jump in autos and parts. </p><p>The July oil deficit rose slightly, by 600 million dollars from June, to 17.9 billion dollars. </p><p>The average price of imported crude oil climbed for the fifth month running, to 62.48 dollars a barrel, a gain of 59 percent from February. </p><p>The trade deficit with Canada rose to 2.2 billion dollars from 1.5 billion dollars in June and that with the 27-nation European Union vaulted to 8.0 billion dollars from 4.5 billion dollars. </p><p>With Japan, the deficit rose to 3.9 billion dollars from 3.7 billion dollars. </p><p>The deficit with Mexico, by contrast, shrank to 2.9 billion dollars from 3.4 billion dollars. </p><p>Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved</p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/us-trade-gap-widens-as-trade-flows-recover">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-26509468931167968412009-09-08T16:44:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:42:18.309-07:00The Return of Corporate Dealmaking Activity
<img src="http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-EK261_roi99_G_20090908172241.jpg" alt="http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-EK261_roi99_G_20090908172241.jpg" /><br /> <div class="byline"><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">By </span><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/michael_j_de_la_merced/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Michael J. De La Merced" style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">MICHAEL J. de la MERCED</a></div> <div class="timestamp"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Published: September 7, 2009</span><p /></div>Kraft Foods’ hostile bid for Cadbury on Monday was only the latest potential blockbuster deal in recent days. In the last week, several multibillion-dollar deals have been announced, including those involving prominent companies like Walt Disney and eBay.<p /> Yet many of the bankers and lawyers who piece these mergers together, well versed in reading economic tea leaves for signs of an industry’s health, caution that deal-making is likely to rise only in fits and starts for now.<p /> “The clouds have broken a little bit, and there’s a little bit of sunshine,” said Douglas L. Braunstein, the head of investment banking for JPMorgan Chase. “But it’s too early to say the storm’s over.”<p />Deal activity remains far below the giddy heights of only a few years ago. About $1.32 trillion worth of deals have been announced this year through Monday, according to data from Thomson Reuters. That figure is down 37 percent from the same point last year and 56 percent from 2007. (It also includes deals that have yet to close.)<p /> In fact, until last week, August shaped up to be the slowest month for deals since 1994, according to Thomson Reuters. Now, it is just the slowest month since last November.<p />Still, there was hope that Merger Monday — so called because of companies’ tendencies to announce deals at the beginning of the week — seemed to be back in full force last week. Its presence had largely disappeared since the onset of the financial crisis.<p /> Since the beginning of the year, the conditions that foster deal-making activity have largely improved. The stock markets have rallied, helping to establish a perceived floor for share prices. The broad economic recovery has inspired confidence in corporate boards that the worst is over.<p /> Many of the announced deals through Monday, including Kraft’s offer, Disney’s $4 billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment and eBay’s sale of a majority stake in its Skype unit, also involved different types of activity, from hostile bids to corporate mergers to private equity transactions.<p /> “We see this as the beginning of the next upturn,” said Roger C. Altman, the chairman of Evercore Partners, the boutique investment bank. He added that in his view, upturns tended to last five to seven years, while downturns, like the one that began in the second half of 2007, last on average about two to three years.<p /> And management teams have regained confidence in pursuing targets they have eyed for some time. That has even meant hostile bids, like PepsiCo’s pursuit of its two largest North American bottlers, which the company completed last month. For many buyers, Mr. Braunstein said, the fundamental question is not whether deal-making is possible, but this: should I be doing something in this environment?<p /> “It was just a matter of time before buyers returned,” said Boon Sim, Credit Suisse’s head of mergers and acquisitions for the Americas. “The general thinking seems to be, if you do not do something now, prices will be higher 12 to 18 months from now. So why wait?”<p /> Just as crucial for deal-making, banks have slowly become willing to open up their wallets to finance transactions for a broad range of companies, beyond blue-chip acquirers like Pfizer and Disney. Several merger advisers pointed to the acquisition of Skype and the sale of Procter & Gamble’s prescription drugs business to Warner Chilcott as signs that bankers and other financiers were willing to back riskier deals, involving borrowed money from companies with less-than-sterling credit ratings.<p /> Bankers and lawyers agree that the financing markets will most likely never return to the frothy heights of the credit boom in 2007, which enabled private equity firms to borrow liberally and often outbid corporate rivals. The ensuing financial fallout has left many companies with debt they are hard-pressed to pay, forcing some to seek bankruptcy protection.<p /> But even the troubled deals of yesterday have led to opportunities for companies and private equity firms, which are snatching up targets out of Chapter 11. The number of bankruptcy-related mergers and acquisitions has risen to 241 this year through August, a 65 percent increase over the same time in 2008, according to Thomson Reuters data.<p /> For months, the lack of financing has hurt private equity firms’ stock-in-trade of buying companies. Even now, many of these firms have been forced to borrow less to strike their deals, cutting into their returns, according to Richard E. Climan, a partner at the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf who worked on the Skype deal.<p /> While merger activity has risen over the last 30 years, the path back to a healthier deal-making industry is likely to be a slow one over the next several months, advisers say. What lies in store is mostly expected to be more of what has transpired this year: opportunistic purchases by corporations with healthy credit ratings, stock values and cash.<p /> “There will be more deals next year versus this year,” Mr. Sim, of Credit Suisse, said. “But I don’t think the floodgates are going to open until the fundamentals improve materially.”<p /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/business/economy/08merger.html?_r=1&ref=business">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/business/economy/08merger.html?_r=1&ref=business</a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/the-return-of-corporate-dealmaking-activity">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-74078799077379697612009-09-07T13:18:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:42:18.310-07:00Grandes contrastes en el impacto de la crisis en economías emergentes
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.hansagcr.com/specialities/emerging_markets.jpg" alt="http://www.hansagcr.com/specialities/emerging_markets.jpg" /><br /></div><span class="txt-01"><br /><i>Por Andrés Vernon </i></span><br /> Al igual que en los países industrializados, el<b> impacto de la crisis económica global en las economías emergentes ha sido sumamente desigual.<br /></b><br /><b>China y la India</b> han logrado mantener un crecimiento positivo, mientras que otros, como <b>México</b>, presentan caídas sin precedente en su actividad económica.<p /> En el caso de <b>China</b>, la encuesta de The Economist pronostica un nivel de crecimiento de 8.1 por ciento este año, que si bien es considerablemente menor al promedio de dos dígitos en años recientes, es un buen resultado a todas luces.<p /> Esto en buena medida debido a un estímulo fiscal superior a 3.0 por ciento este año, que logró contrarrestar la baja en exportaciones.<p />Por su parte, la India tiene un crecimiento esperado de 5.5 por ciento para este año, según los pronósticos de los especialistas. En su caso, la relativamente baja participación de las exportaciones en su economía (20.4 por ciento del PIB) y el hecho que los servicios representan el 38 por ciento de sus ventas al exterior explican parte de su éxito.<p /> Aunque son los casos más destacados, en Asia no son los únicos. Potencias emergentes, aunque con un bajo nivel general de ingreso, como<b> Indonesia</b> (alza pronosticada en PIB de 4.1 por ciento en 2009) y <b>Vietnam</b> (un incremento de 4.2 por ciento) resultarán relativamente poco afectadas, en parte por el todavía importante peso del sector agrícola, que es siempre el menos dañado en recesiones.<p /> Otros países con notable orientación agrícola, como <b>Brasil</b> (un caída de 1.0 por ciento) y<b> Argentina</b> (con un descenso de 3.5 por ciento) de mayor nivel de desarrollo, registran mejores resultados que otras naciones de su región.<p /> Los países más golpeados son precisamente aquellos que tienen una amplia dependencia en las exportaciones de bienes duraderos (como automóviles y aparatos de línea blanca), así como finanzas públicas frágiles que impiden el uso masivo de estímulos fiscales y monetarios.<p /> <b>México </b>es un caso típico en este grupo. Si bien la caída en el Producto Interno Bruto (PIB) fue más moderada en el segundo trimestre (-4.4 por ciento en términos reales anualizados respecto al trimestre previo), el volumen de producción se ubicó 10.3 por ciento por debajo del mismo periodo de 2008.<p /> Incluso con la recuperación esperada en los últimos dos trimestres de este año, la más reciente estimación del Fondo Monetario Internacional apunta a una contracción de 7.1 por ciento para todo 2009.<p />Otros países con un perfil similar incluyen a<b> Eslovaquia</b> y <b>Hungría</b> en Europa Oriental, cuyas economías cayeron en el segundo trimestre 5.43 y 7.6 por ciento, respectivamente, con relación al mismo trimestre de 2008.<p /> Por su parte, el PIB de <b>Turquía</b> cayó 13.8 por ciento en el primer trimestre con base anual. En general, se espera que estos países presenten caídas en 2009 ligeramente menores que las de nuestro país.<p />Tanto en <b>México</b> como en estas naciones el estímulo monetario ha sido limitado por inflaciones que rebasan (ligeramente) el 5.0 por ciento anual.<p /> A su vez, las economías recientemente industrializadas asiáticas han sido afectadas en grado similar. Tanto <b>Taiwán</b> como <b>Singapur</b> tendrán un crecimiento negativo superior a 5.0 por ciento este año, según pronósticos de los analistas, mientras que <b>Corea del Sur </b>caerá 1.8 por ciento.<p /> Sin embargo, en el segundo trimestre la producción en <b>Singapur y Corea</b> registró un repunte notable anualizado de 20.7 y 9.7 por ciento, respectivamente, en relación con el trimestre previo.<p />Hasta ahora, el único factor positivo en este grupo de países ha sido la ausencia de una crisis financiera. Los países bálticos, que presentaron importantes burbujas crediticias en años recientes, muestran el daño que pueden causar dos crisis simultáneas.<p /> La encuesta de The Economist señala que las economías de <b>Lituania, Latvia y Estonia</b> presentarán caídas de 15, 17 y 13 por ciento este año.<p />Por su parte, los países exportadores de materias primas también han resentido la crisis debido a su impacto en los precios de estos productos. El caso más notable es <b>Rusia</b>, cuya economía cayó 10.2 por ciento en el segundo trimestre respecto al mismo periodo de 2008. Otros países con saldo negativo, aunque más moderado, incluyen a <b>Venezuela, Chile, Perú</b> y <b>Sudáfrica</b>.<p /> En el otro extremo, muchas economías asiáticas han logrado sobrellevar los eventos debido a factores como la inercia de alto crecimiento, bajos vínculos comerciales con la economía mundial y fuertes paquetes de estímulo fiscal. <br /> (Con información de El Financiero/GCE/APB) <a href="http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/ElFinanciero/Portal/cfpages/category.cfm?nodeid=5">http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/ElFinanciero/Portal/cfpages/category.cfm?nodeid=5</a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/grandes-contrastes-en-el-impacto-de-la-crisis">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-53527077184996313892009-09-07T12:32:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:42:18.310-07:00Crisis having dramatic impact on developing countries; millennium development deadline at risk.
<p class="html_subtitle" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.unctad.org/Templates/WebFlyer.asp?intItemID=4999&lang=1"><img src="http://www.unctad.org/sections/home/img/hl0111_en.jpg" border="0" alt="Contribution of Migrants to Development" /></a><a href="http://www.unctad.org/Templates/WebFlyer.asp?intItemID=4999&lang=1"> </a><a href="http://www.unctad.org/Templates/WebFlyer.asp?intItemID=4999&lang=1"> </a> </p><p class="html_subtitle"><b><i>Excessive deregulation and risk taking are at origin of financial turmoil -- huge income losses and greater poverty are the consequences, says new UNCTAD report </i></b></p> <p><em>Geneva, 7 September 2009</em> -- Since September 2008 the financial crisis has turned into a full-fledged recession affecting virtually all markets and countries, either through direct financial contagion or through falling export earnings and lower migrants´ remittances. As a result, the world economy is experiencing its first contraction since the Second World War, with attendant effects on employment in all countries. The contraction now makes it virtually impossible to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015, says UNCTAD´s <strong>Trade and Development Report 2009</strong> (TDR)<a href="http://www.unctad.org/Templates/webflyer.asp?docid=11874&intItemID=1528&lang=1"></a></p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/crisis-having-dramatic-impact-on-developing-c">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-58457923126554271992009-09-03T11:17:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:41:20.737-07:00WTO's Lamy says crisis barriers hurting trade
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote class="posterous_long_quote"><p>By Jonathan Lynn<span></span></p><span></span> <p> NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The World Trade Organisation must remain vigilant about protectionism as job losses continue to mount in the wake of the global crisis, Director-General Pascal Lamy said on Thursday.</p><span></span> <p> Many countries had raised trade barriers -- mostly legal under WTO rules -- to counter the crisis, Lamy said before a meeting of trade ministers to advance the WTO's Doha round.</p><span></span> <p> "None of them has triggered so far a tit-for-tat chain of retaliations, but there is no denying the fact that they have some kind of trade-chilling effect," he told India's main business lobby FICCI.</p><span></span> <p> Lamy said completing the Doha round would be an effective measure to tackle the crisis and prevent protectionism, adding that the talks, now in their eighth year, had entered the "beginning of the end-game".</p><span></span> <p> The meeting, called by India, had to draw up a clear road map for the Doha talks and provide direction to officials negotiating the details in Geneva to realise repeated pledges of political leaders to complete the deal in 2010, he said.</p><span></span> <p> "Given the sort of 2010 deadline which leaders have given us... given what's happening and not happening in the Geneva kitchen, we need a stronger linkage between what the dining room says and what the kitchen does," he said.</p><span></span> <p> Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said the Delhi meeting would not negotiate specific issues but tackle the mismatch between words and action.</p><span></span> <p> "Let's be frank in acknowledging that even the unequivocal expression of political resolve has not yet been translated into action. Many of you have shared your concerns with me over the imperceptible progress in re-energising the negotiations," he told ministers in a welcome address.</p><span></span> <p> European Union Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said it was realistic to aim to reach a deal by the end of 2010.<span></span></p><span></span> <p> But she said the EU opposed efforts to reopen the agriculture package as it now stands, following an ultimately abortive meeting of ministers in July 2008 and subsequent revised negotiating draft.</p><span></span> <p> "I think that would be a very, very risky business if someone should be tempted to try and reopen... I can guarantee that from the European Union there's no more juice to get out of this lemon," she told Reuters in an interview. </p><span></span> <p> Lamy said trade was a victim not a cause of the crisis, and recalled that the WTO now expects trade volumes to contract 10 percent this year under the impact of shrinking demand in the crisis, protectionist measures and lack of trade finance.</p><span></span> <p> But trade is a motor of development, said Lamy, a French socialist who was previously European Union trade commissioner.</p><span></span> <p> Mindful of his presence in New Delhi -- itself undergoing rapid modernisation as a result of India's economic growth and great-power ambitions -- Lamy recalled that trade expansion over the past five years had created 14 million jobs in India.</p><span></span> <p></p><span></span> <p> DEADLINES MISSED</p><span></span> <p> The Doha round was launched in late 2001 to help poor countries prosper through more trade, but has missed deadline after self-imposed deadline since then as rich and poor countries and exporters and importers squabble over details.</p><span></span> <p> Ministers came near to a breakthrough in July last year but the talks have made little substantive progress since they collapsed amid rancour between the United States and India.<span></span></p><span></span> <p> But Lamy said it was an oversimplification to see one of the issues behind the collapse -- a safeguard for developing countries to block a flood of food imports temporarily to help poor farmers -- as a clash between India and the United States.</p><span></span> <p> "It's not a north-south issue," he said, pointing out that developing country food exporters such as Thailand and Paraguay had been alarmed by the safeguard proposals laid out by less competitive agricultural states such as India and Indonesia.</p><span></span> <p> As he spoke, 700-1,000 farmers marched in protest outside the FICCI building. "Save farmers, save farms" read one placard.</p><span></span> <p> "This WTO is a monster. We will be finished. The government should do something," Het Ram, a farmer aged 48, told Reuters.</p><span></span> <p> (Additional reporting by Surojit Gupta)</p><span></span> <span></span> <div class="linebreak"></div></blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-42200020090903?sp=true">in.reuters.com</a></div> <p></p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/wtos-lamy-says-crisis-barriers-hurting-trade">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-74885498980986944832009-08-31T20:03:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:42:18.310-07:00Asia’s Recovery Highlights China’s Ascendancy
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/global/24global.html?ref=global"><a href='http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jlalfaro/rzoiijifkvCBEtyeAmlxAmlmHqtxkmvAabrwEjwmGvmCjblFsDEanmcqxxBq/media_httpgraphics8nytimescomimages20090824businessCHINAspanjpg_BduoChasasHGfdl.jpg.scaled1000.jpg'><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jlalfaro/rzoiijifkvCBEtyeAmlxAmlmHqtxkmvAabrwEjwmGvmCjblFsDEanmcqxxBq/media_httpgraphics8nytimescomimages20090824businessCHINAspanjpg_BduoChasasHGfdl.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="256"/></a> </a> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/business/global/24global.html?ref=global">nytimes.com</a></div> <p>By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ <br />Published: August 23, 2009 </p><p>PARIS — In past global slowdowns, the United States invariably led the way out, followed by Europe and the rest of the world. But for the first time, the catalyst is coming from China and the rest of Asia, where resurgent economies are helping the still-shaky West recover from the deepest recession since World War II. </p><p>Economists have long predicted that an increasingly powerful China would come to rival and eventually surpass the United States in economic influence. While the American economy is still more than three times the size of China’s, the nascent global recovery suggests that this long-anticipated change could arrive sooner than had been expected. </p><p>Such a shift would have significant ramifications for the United States and the rest of the West, even after the global economic recovery takes hold. </p><p>“The economic center of gravity has been shifting for some time, but this recession marks a turning point,” said Neal Soss, chief economist for Credit Suisse in New York. “It’s Asia that’s lifting the world, rather than the U.S., and that’s never happened before.” </p><p>China’s government-dominated, top-down economy is surging after Chinese banks doled out more than $1 trillion in loans in the first half of the year, in addition to a nearly $600 billion government stimulus program. </p><p>Though the benefits are manifest, some economists wonder whether China is laying the groundwork for sustainable growth or just increasing its export capacity despite more frugal spending habits on the part of Western consumers. </p><p>“The big question is what happens next,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard. “If the consumer in the United States and Europe doesn’t come back, I’m not sure Asia has a Plan B.” </p><p>But robust demand among Chinese consumers and businesses is one reason oil prices have doubled to more than $70 a barrel since bottoming out early this year, and China is likely to keep buying American debt as Washington borrows heavily to finance its myriad stimulus and bailout plans. </p><p>The United States is also being shoved aside as the make-or-break customer for export-driven nations like Germany and Japan. China overtook the United States as Japan’s leading trading partner in the first half of 2009, while in Europe manufacturers are looking east instead of west. </p><p>“What we’re losing in the trans-Atlantic trade with the U.S., we are gaining in China,” said Jens Nagel, head of the international department of the German Exporters Association. </p><p>In the near term, however, the United States should benefit from a resurgent Asia, as the American economy finally begins growing again, as expected in the second half of 2009. </p><p>“Vigorous rebounds overseas, particularly in East Asia, suggest that U.S. imports and exports will soon improve,” Mr. Soss said. </p><p>Last week, Hewlett-Packard pointed to double-digit revenue growth in China as a rare bright spot in an otherwise lackluster earnings report. Meanwhile, overall American exports to China have already been picking up, rising to $5.5 billion in June from $4.1 billion in January. </p><p>“The numbers are volatile, but the trend is clear,” said Robert Brusca of FAO Economics in New York. “It’s a big contrast with Japan, where U.S. exports are still dropping, but China is different.” </p><p>Of course, other factors have played a significant role in helping the global economy begin to stabilize, including trillions of dollars in support from central banks for frozen credit markets, as well as bailouts and rescues of major financial institutions, insurers and automobile companies. </p><p>But as the engine for future demand growth shifts from the government back to the private sector, and Americans remain wary of returning to their free-spending ways, Asian consumption is expected to pick up at least some of the slack. And if China does slow, as some experts fear it could in the second half of 2009, the United States’ effort to climb out of recession could be that much harder. </p><p>After the recession of 2001-2 and the slowdown in the early 1990s, the American economy served as the global locomotive, said Michael Saunders, head of European economics research for Citigroup. </p><p>Back then, he said, China and other Asian countries lacked huge cash reserves that could buttress them in the event of recession. But in the last decade, China has enjoyed huge trade surpluses with the West, and it holds $2.13 trillion in foreign reserves, solidifying its position as a rapidly emerging economic power. </p><p>Citigroup recently increased its estimate for annual Chinese economic growth to 8.7 percent in 2009 from 8.2 percent, and to 9.8 percent next year from 8.8 percent. </p><p>While economists like Mr. Soss expect that growth to spill over to the United States shortly, the effect is already visible in Europe. </p><p>Indeed, after the French and German economies shocked most economists this month by turning in positive performances for the second quarter, the normally conservative Deutsche Bank released a report titled, “Eurozone Q2 GDP: Made in China?” </p><p>For now, the answer seems to be yes. “It’s quite amazing, because usually Asia doesn’t play such a big role in European exports or output,” said Gilles Moec, senior European economist with Deutsche Bank in London. </p><p>French exports to China and other East Asian economies rose 18.7 percent in the second quarter, according to customs data, a sharp turnaround from the 16.2 percent drop recorded in the previous quarter. Overall exports to the region from the 16 countries that use the euro currency increased 6.3 percent in the second quarter, reversing a 6.2 percent drop in the first quarter, Mr. Moec said. </p><p>While Western European countries have been more timid about embarking on big spending programs because of their already mounting deficits, and European banks took huge hits on their holdings of subprime American debt, Beijing does not face either obstacle. </p><p>In the first half of 2009, Chinese banks lent a record $1.1 trillion in new loans, setting off fears that the lending binge might create a bubble over the long term. </p><p>China’s moves have also helped its neighbors increase industrial production sharply from recession lows. Since hitting a trough in late 2008 and early 2009, industrial production has jumped 28 percent in Korea and 26 percent in Taiwan. In July, American industrial production rose for the first time since December 2007, but it remains just half a percentage point above the bottom in June. </p><p>“Asia is still relatively small in the world, but it reflects how the world is changing, and economic power does translate, of course, into political power,” said Simon Johnson, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund and now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “You can use it to win friends and influence people, as the Chinese are already doing in Africa and Latin America.” </p><p>Nadim Audi contributed reporting from Paris. <br />Sign in to Recommend More Articles in Business » A version of this article appeared in print on August 24, 2009, on page B1 of the New York edition.</p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/asias-recovery-highlights-chinas-ascendancy">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-8914526678795791552009-08-31T19:58:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:22:07.801-07:00Malaysia’s New Labor Rules Hurt Business<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/08/31/world/31labor-iht2_ready.html"></a><a href="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jlalfaro/vHoFJehrmvpflbuFBtGFHtECCtyhxsgEiagndBhBEJkJllaxhlHIikvdgiBI/media_httpgraphics8nytimescomimages20090831worldlabor6502jpg_tycGwvizyfmBzry.jpg.scaled1000.jpg"><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jlalfaro/vHoFJehrmvpflbuFBtGFHtECCtyhxsgEiagndBhBEJkJllaxhlHIikvdgiBI/media_httpgraphics8nytimescomimages20090831worldlabor6502jpg_tycGwvizyfmBzry.jpg.scaled500.jpg" width="500" height="327" /></a> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/08/31/world/31labor-iht2_ready.html">nytimes.com</a></div> <p>KUALA LUMPUR — It is lunchtime at the Wangsa Ukay restaurant in suburban Kuala Lumpur, and regulars are coming in for local favorites like roti canai, chicken curry and tea tarik, the sweet, milky drink that is ubiquitous across Malaysia. </p><p>The owner, Muneandy Nalepan, has time to stop and talk for now, but when peak times hit on weekends, he and his wife must pitch in to help clear tables. </p><p>He used to have a staff of 120 — almost all foreigners — working in his five restaurants across the city. But after the government made it more difficult for businesses to hire workers from abroad, he is down to 80 because he has been unable to replace the 40 employees who had to return home after the maximum work period of five years. </p><p>Unable to find Malaysians willing to work as cooks, waiters or dishwashers, he is awaiting approval to employ more foreigners. But if he cannot get more workers soon, he says, he may close one of his outlets. Mr. Muneandy, an 18-year veteran of the industry, is even considering other business ventures. </p><p>“To run a restaurant, it’s becoming impossible,” he said. </p><p>It is not just restaurateurs complaining. Many business owners, from furniture producers to rubber glove manufacturers, say a labor shortage is harming productivity. </p><p>In January, Malaysia banned the hiring of new foreign workers in the manufacturing and service sectors after a government report predicted that 45,000 people could be laid off during the Lunar New Year at the end of that month, the New Straits Times reported. </p><p>“There is no valid reason to bring in foreign workers at this time,” Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar told the paper. </p><p>The ban was backed by labor groups. The Malaysian Trades Union Congress proposed a freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers last October. </p><p>“Because of the global economic downturn, we were worried about the impact on jobs for Malaysians as well as foreigners,” said Raja Sekaran Govindasamy, the group’s secretary general. “We don’t want workers to be brought in and abandoned, because that then causes hardship.” </p><p>In 2008, there were an estimated 2.2 million foreigners — mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Myanmar and Vietnam — working legally in Malaysia, a nation of 28 million. Some reports suggest the country was home to another one million illegal workers. By March this year, the number of foreigners with work permits had fallen to 1.9 million, according to Shamsuddin Bardan, executive director of the Malaysian Federation of Employers. </p><p>“About 300,000 permits were not renewed, and people were sent back,” he said. </p><p>Malaysia recorded 31,392 layoffs from January through July, and the country’s unemployment rate rose to 4 percent in the first quarter of this year, the latest period for which figures are available. That was up from 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. </p><p>Closing the doors to foreign workers is hardly a uniquely Malaysian response to the global economic downturn. Taiwan, South Korea and Australia also announced plans this year to reduce the number of new foreign worker visas, according to the International Labor Organization. </p><p>But in Malaysia, the cutbacks are not simply a result of the economic crisis. The government has said it wants to reduce the number of foreign workers to 1.5 million by 2015. Some believe weaning the country off its dependency on foreign workers is crucial to increasing local wages. </p><p>The average monthly wage in the manufacturing sector has risen to between 650 and 700 ringgit, or $185 to $200, in the past three months, up from 450 ringgit, the national news agency Bernama reported in August. </p><p>Mr. Raja said foreign workers often accepted lower wages than Malaysians. The country has no minimum wage. Typically, foreigners are brought in by a business offering a job, he said, or by an outsourcing company that promises them work. </p><p>Mr. Shamsuddin said that companies could still apply to recruit foreigners but that the process had become more difficult. </p><p>For example, he said that since April 1, employers have had to advertise vacancies locally for two months, up from one month, before they could apply to recruit foreigners. And employers must now pay an annual levy — as much as 1,800 ringgit — for any new foreigners they employ, he said; the fee used to be paid by workers. Mr. Shamsuddin said the government had abandoned plans to double the levy after the federation complained. </p><p>Dominant Semiconductor, a light bulb manufacturer with factories in Malaysia and China, is struggling to fill about 1,000 vacancies. Its chairman, Goh Nan Kioh, said the company was allowed to employ one foreigner for every local worker but could not find enough Malaysians to help increase its total work force. If the labor shortage continued, he said, the company might consider moving more of its labor-intensive operations to China. </p><p>The rubber glove industry is also struggling to find enough workers to fill orders, which have surged with the spread of swine flu. </p><p>“It’s a pity that right now when we are facing a big jump in demand, we are not getting enough workers,” said K.M. Lee, managing director of Top Glove and president of the Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers’ Association. </p><p>The employers interviewed said they were trying to reduce their dependency on foreign workers by exploring ways to automate and to increase pay to attract locals. However, they say that foreign workers remain crucial for now because they cannot find enough locals willing to take what some call the “three D jobs” — dangerous, difficult and dirty. </p><p>“If you are going to get a Malaysian to come to work, it’s very difficult,” said Mr. Muneandy, the restaurant owner. “They feel that by working in a restaurant, their pride is in question. They feel that Malaysians have already come to a stage where they are above certain other Asian countries.” </p><p>Mohamed Ariff, executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research, blames the country’s dependence on foreign labor on the decision to “open the flood gates” to migrant workers in the late 1980s, first in the plantation sector, then in manufacturing. </p><p>Mr. Ariff said that in the early 1990s, when wages in the manufacturing sector were rising, factories had considered introducing labor-saving technology but that many had shelved those plans when the government let them employ more foreign workers. </p><p>“The technology transfer suffered enormously,” he said. “Malaysia was trapped into an unskilled, labor-intensive economy.” </p><p>Malaysia should give up its labor-intensive operations to countries with lower wages, like China, he said, and concentrate on more highly skilled work like research and development, financial and health care services. </p><p>Some workers’ rights groups, though, are concerned that new restrictions on foreign laborers may result in more people migrating to countries before they obtain a valid work permit. That can leave them more vulnerable to exploitation, the International Labor Organization said. </p><p>Figures released by the government last week showed that the economy had emerged from recession in the second quarter. Mr. Raja, the labor leader, said that although job losses were easing, the unions believed the freeze on foreign workers should continue. If there is a need for more workers in the coming months, he said, companies should be able to extend the visas of foreign workers already in the country. </p><p>Sunil Nemdang, a 21-year-old Nepalese man, came to Malaysia in May on the belief that an agent had a job for him. He was given a work permit and told that he would work as a security guard. However, when he arrived, there was no job. </p><p>With the agent still holding his passport, Mr. Sunil is sleeping on the floor of a Nepalese restaurant alongside his three cousins, who made the trip with him, while he tries to get his documents back. </p><p>Despite the harsh introduction to life in Malaysia, he has not given up on his dream of earning money to send home to his parents, poor farmers living in a village in eastern Nepal. “If I get a good job, I want to work here for two or three years,” he said.</p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/the-new-york-times-world-image-malaysias-new">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-35013950179767125222009-08-31T13:57:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:42:18.310-07:00Blue Chip, White Cotton: What Underwear Says About the Economy
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/30/AR2009083002761.html"><img src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/jlalfaro/rxhDGJqcxewsqiqFaAHathDjeFGIhIrawBAxygHInuzdBanGyycDyqAzppJD/media_httpmedia3washingtonpostcomwpdyncontentgraphic20090831GR2009083100002gif_fvcjhIydjwlmmqI.gif.scaled500.gif" width="228" height="615"/> </a><div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/30/AR2009083002761.html">washingtonpost.com</a></div> <p>For one answer to the nation's most pressing economic question -- when will the recession end? -- just take a peek inside the American man's underwear drawer. </p><p>There may be some new pairs there, judging by recent reports from retailers and analysts, and that could mean better days ahead for everyone. </p><p>Here's the theory, briefly: Sales of men's underwear typically are stable because they rank as a necessity. But during times of severe financial strain, men will try to stretch the time between buying new pairs, causing underwear sales to dip. </p><p>"It's a prolonged purchase," said Marshal Cohen, senior analyst with the consumer research firm NPD Group. "It's like trying to drive your car an extra 10,000 miles." </p><p>The growth in sales of men's underwear began to slow last year as the recession took hold, according to Mintel, another research firm. This year, Mintel expects sales to fall 2.3 percent, the first drop since the company started collecting data in 2003. </p><p>But the men's underwear index -- or, conveniently, MUI -- may also have a silver lining. Mintel predicts that next year, men's underwear sales will fall by 0.5 percent, and as with many economic indicators, a slowing of a decline can be welcomed as a step in the right direction. Retailers are reporting encouraging signs in the men's underwear department. Sears spokeswoman Amy Dimond said stores are beginning to see more sales. At Target, spokeswoman Jana O'Leary said sales of men's underwear have been stronger over the past two months and multi-pair packs are moving. </p><p>No less an oracle than former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has given this theory credence, as described in a report on NPR two years ago. But you don't have to take his word for it. Just ask Kenneth Sanford, 59, of Capitol Heights, about his underwear. He said he usually buys new boxers every three months or so in maroon, black or white. But he had to stop working for medical reasons, and now he's having a hard time finding a new job. </p><p>To save money, he doesn't go out for ribs with his friends and family as much anymore. And when he indulges, he gets one piña colada instead of two. He hasn't bought a new pair of underwear in at least eight months. </p><p>"It's been a while now," Sanford said. "I just don't ever go shopping." </p><p>Of course, there are more conventional indicators of the nation's economic health. The gross domestic product fell 1 percent during the second quarter. Consumer spending and consumer confidence have been on a roller coaster this year. Home sales show some signs of bottoming out. But sometimes it is the little things that can be the most telling. </p><p>Leonard Lauder, chairman of the cosmetics company Estee Lauder, famously looked to lipstick sales as a barometer of consumers' mind-set during the last downturn. He believed that women were looking for small indulgences to lift their spirits during a tough economic time, though that theory has not held up in this recession, as sales of lipstick at mass retailers fell 8 percent over the past year, according to the research firm Information Resources. </p><p>Others look to a reported rise in prescriptions of anti-depressants and sleep aids last year as a sign of consumers' fragile state. </p><p>But perhaps no other purchase is as intimate as underwear. Few, if any, other people see it, so it's an easy place to skimp. According to Mintel, men buy an average of 3.4 pairs of underwear in a year. But from 2004 to 2008, the proportion of men buying single pairs at a time increased from 5 percent to 8 percent, while the share of men opting for packs of four or more fell slightly, from 68 to 66 percent -- indicating that shoppers may be trying to save money by buying only when necessary. </p><p>"People still need underwear," said Michael Kleinmann, president of FreshPair.com, an online underwear retailer. "They just have less money to spend." </p><p>The company sells high-end men's underwear that can run as much as $30 per pair, along with brands that cost less than $10. Kleinmann said that such less expensive pairs have had double-digit-percentage sales growth recently, while demand for pricier pairs is slowing. </p><p>Cohen, of NPD, said he hopes the recent positive signs in men's underwear will spill over into other need-based purchases. With the recession nearing two years, shoppers are at the stage where their stuff is simply beginning to wear out, providing an incentive to return to the stores. </p><p>"The consumers may be down, but they're not out," said Cohen, who is bullish on an economic recovery. "If this were a true, deep, long, embedded recession, they wouldn't even be buying underwear."</p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/blue-chip-white-cotton-what-underwear-says-ab">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-32101618836080756232009-08-30T13:45:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:22:17.815-07:00Las claves de la Cepal para mejorar el intercambio comercial con China.
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote><div> <p align="justify">Hace diez años, <span><a href="http://www.eclac.cl/prensa/noticias/comunicados/1/36931/tablaparaCP2_Paninsal_China.pdf" target="_blank">China no estaba dentro de los principales destinos para las exportaciones latinoamericanas</a></span>, y los productos chinos tampoco eran los más requeridos por las importadoras locales. Sin embargo, el panorama actual es completamente distinto. Hoy todos apuntan al gigante asiático que -gracias a su sostenido crecimiento y sus políticas para sortear la crisis mundial- se ha transformado en el segundo socio comercial de América Latina, y definitivamente con ganas de ser más. El reciente informe de la Cepal, “<span><a href="http://www.eclac.cl/publicaciones/xml/6/36906/PANORAMA_DE_LA_INSERCION_INTERNACIONAL_2008_2009.pdf" target="_blank">Panorama de la inserción internacional de América Latina y el Caribe</a></span>”, explica cómo China se ha convertido en el mercado preferente para las exportaciones e importaciones latinoamericanas. </p><p> <strong>El estado actual del intercambio <br /> </strong><br /> - Pese a la drástica contracción del comercio mundial de productos manufacturados, “gracias al dinamismo de la economía china, la demanda internacional de productos básicos mineros y energéticos se mantuvo elevada en el primer semestre de 2009. Por eso, para América del Sur, que se especializa en la exportación de productos básicos, la novedad es que la crisis está reforzando su tendencia a depender menos del ciclo estadounidense y más de los ciclos de China y Asia”. </p><p> - En el período de Enero - Junio 2009, el volumen de las exportaciones de América Latina y el Caribe bajó en 15,3%; en tanto las importaciones de la región cayeron en un 25,3%. En el primer semestre de 2009 los envíos a China cayeron un 4,1%, mientras las exportaciones a la Unión Europea y a Estados Unidos descendieron 36,3% y 35,3%, respectivamente. </p><p> - “Las cifras preliminares del primer semestre indican que son precisamente las importaciones chinas de algunos productos básicos las que estarían apuntalando las exportaciones de la región a este país, que —con una tasa de crecimiento del PIB del 8% proyectada para 2009— continúa demandando elevados volúmenes de materias primas. En cierta medida, el mercado interno de China ha salido al rescate de las exportaciones latinoamericanas. Este fenómeno ha beneficiado sobre todo a varios países de América del Sur en su calidad de exportadores netos de materias primas”. </p><p> <strong>Cómo enfrentar la poscrisis <br /> </strong><br /> “El contexto global poscrisis –explica el documento de la Cepal- estará marcado por la restauración del equilibrio fiscal en las economías industrializadas y por la necesidad de adoptar decisiones sobre la forma de abordar el cambio climático que elevarán los costos de las empresas y afectarán la competitividad de las naciones”. </p><p> Este escenario lleva a proponer un plan basado en la integración regional, ya que ofrece “la posibilidad de ampliar los mercados nacionales y las escalas de producción”, asimismo permite “el avance de las pequeñas y medianas empresas, dada su mayor presencia relativa en el comercio intrarregional, y estimula la diversificación productiva, al favorecer las exportaciones de mayor valor agregado y contenido manufacturero”. </p><p> Si bien se han presentando dificultades políticas para la integración regional, se sugiere que se debe construir espacios de convergencia, aceptando la diversidad: “Es preciso reconocer que en América del Sur existe una amplia gama de modalidades de inserción internacional. Ellas reflejan claramente las disonancias conceptuales sobre la forma de abordar los temas de comercio, integración, innovación y competitividad, en suma, respecto de cómo lidiar con el reto de la globalización”. </p> <p align="justify"><br /> <strong>Cómo fortalecer el intercambio con China</strong> </p><p> - Fortalecer los mecanismos de integración existentes en América Latina, creando un referente que facilite el diálogo con China y <span><a href="http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asociaci%C3%B3n_de_Naciones_del_Sureste_Asi%C3%A1tico" target="_blank">ASEAN</a></span>. En la actualidad, cerca del 60% del comercio de equipos de transporte y maquinaria, y piezas y componentes, se realiza a nivel intrarregional. Así, con China como núcleo, la región de Asia Pacífico se ha convertido en una “fábrica mundial” de equipos de transporte y maquinarias. </p> <p align="justify"><br /> - Se debe crear una política de prioridades regionales en las relaciones con China, con lo que se respondería a la <span><a href="http://english.gov.cn/official/2008-11/05/content_1140347.htm" target="_blank">política oficial que estableció el gobierno chino con respecto a América Latina</a></span>. </p> <p align="justify"><br /> - América Latina debería esforzarse activamente por atraer inversiones chinas y, al mismo tiempo, atreverse a invertir en China. </p> <p align="justify"><br /> - Las perspectivas de inversión china en la región se han visto fortalecidas tras el ingreso de este país al Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Por su parte, el Banco de Desarrollo de China explora también una posible aproximación estratégica hacia América Latina. Su accionar podría verse beneficiado mediante sesiones de trabajo con instituciones regionales que le transmitan las prioridades de inversión y el énfasis estratégico de los gobiernos latinoamericanos en materias comerciales. </p> <p align="justify"><br /> - Una tarea urgente sería generar iniciativas conjuntas con China para la promoción del turismo proveniente de este país, por ejemplo, aplicando medidas orientadas a facilitar el desplazamiento y la circulación de turistas dentro de la región. </p> <p align="justify"><br /> - El documento también destaca el reciente acuerdo de canje de monedas entre Argentina y China, que le permite al gobierno argentino pagar las importaciones chinas en yuanes. El objetivo de este esquema es garantizar la fluidez de las liquidaciones de las operaciones de comercio en caso de una eventual falta de liquidez internacional. </p> </div></blockquote> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://asiapacifico.bcn.cl/noticias/economia-y-negocios/cepal-explica-como-mejorar-intercambio-comercial-con-china">asiapacifico.bcn.cl</a></div> <p></p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/las-claves-de-la-cepal-para-mejorar-el-interc">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-22240499870836334572009-08-25T18:31:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:40:37.430-07:00Transformando la industria del retail
<b>Por: Jesús González*</b><br /><a href="http://eleconomista.com.mx/print/223364">http://eleconomista.com.mx/print/223364</a><p />El Desarrollo Sustentable es un tema que día con día está cobrando mayor interés y valor en las empresas mexicanas.<p /> El Desarrollo Sustentable es un tema que día con día está cobrando mayor interés y valor en las empresas mexicanas. Sin embargo, es importante recalcar que no es una actividad filantrópica, sino que analiza de forma integral el desempeño de la organización desde tres perspectivas diferentes y complementarias:<p /> El económico, relativo a la necesidad de que la empresa sea rentable para perdurar en el tiempo.<p />El social, que atiende los impactos internos y externos que pudieran tener las operaciones de la empresa<br />Y el ambiental, que cuida el impacto que ejerce la operación de la empresa sobre el medio ambiente y los recursos naturales.<p /> <b>Nuevos requerimientos</b><br />El interés de las compañías por enfrentar los retos y las oportunidades que presenta el ser sustentable ha aumentado, pues reconocen que es necesario atender los nuevos requerimientos de los grupos de interés o stakeholders, quienes ejercen influencia sobre la empresa.<p /> Antes, mientras se ganara dinero, al negocio le iba a ir bien. Actualmente se requiere un balance entre la generación económica del negocio, el medio ambiente y el tema social, que asegure que las generaciones futuras van a disfrutar al menos de las mismas oportunidades y recursos que nosotros tenemos hoy.<p /> Sustentabilidad o Desarrollo Sustentable es un concepto que debe estar incluido en la esencia de cualquier ente político, económico y social. Obligado a estar tanto en el plan estratégico como en la estructura de operación en el día a día del negocio.<p /> La operación y la sustentabilidad no son independientes, deben de fundirse en uno solo. La sustentabilidad debe ser adoptada por los empleados y, también, por la cadena de suministro de la organización.<p /><b>SU VALOR</b><br /> Recientes estudios hablan de cómo se observan las organizaciones en su actuación desde una perspectiva ética, ambiental y social, de su gestión de Desarrollo Sustentable.<p />La industria del retail tiene un lugar aceptable; sin embargo, no está en los primeros lugares de la lista. Hay industrias mejor vistas como la de alimentos y bebidas que se encuentra en el primer lugar, seguido por la de tecnología, el sector financiero (bancos) y en el cuarto lugar se encuentra la del retail.<p /> Para poder mantener una empresa sustentable, lo primero es darse cuenta de que se tienen que hacer inversiones y no gastos. Debe verse como “si no invierto hoy en ese cambio, mañana puedo no tener siquiera negocio”.<p /> <b>Transformando el retail</b><br />Para administrar el cambio, se debe establecer un punto de partida y un punto estimado de llegada.<br />Es elemental medir en el tiempo cómo se va a hacer, cuánto va a costar, qué recursos humanos, materiales y tecnológicos se necesitan.<p /> Las empresas de retail se obligan a replantear ciertos desafíos relevantes en su industria para transformarse en organizaciones sustentables, que logren beneficios y ventajas en el mercado, como por ejemplo:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"> <li>Cambio Climático: reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero bajo el Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio.</li><li>Manejo de energía: analizar cómo reducir al máximo el consumo de energía y utilizar las nuevas tecnologías (eólica, solar).</li> <li>Construcción: construcciones ecológicas, desecho de materiales de construcción.</li><li>Refrigerantes: la importancia de tener una medición de cuánto están contaminando.</li><li>Transporte de productos (flotillas): eficiencia en el menor número de viajes, menos contaminación, menos CO2.</li> <li>Desperdicios, alimentos que sobran: método para deshacerse de alimentos y volverlos composta, pues de esta forma los desechos se eliminan de una forma óptima y se aprovechan para algo benéfico.</li><li>Desperdicio de consumibles: artículos de oficina (tóxicos).</li> <li>Empaques y bolsas: decenas de millones de bolsas se utilizan diariamente a nivel mundial y multiplicadas por los 365 días del año se tiene como resultado una asombrosa contaminación, considerando, que el plástico tiene un proceso de degradación de más de 100 años.</li> </ul>Actualmente ya hay tecnologías para que las bolsas sean biodegradables y tengan un proceso de ajuste al medio ambiente en un plazo de tres a cinco años. También existen otras opciones como el uso de bolsas de reuso.<p /> <b>Materias primas sustentables</b><br />De dónde se obtienen los productos.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Productos perecederos: ¿De dónde los obtengo?, ¿cuál es su manejo de pesticidas?</li><li>Textiles: Sustentables (naturales, biodegradables) o sintéticos (dañinos a largo plazo).</li> <li>Madera: Productos certificados en sustentabilidad con un proceso de reforestación definido.</li><li>Productos del mar: ¿Qué tipo de procesos siguen?, ¿se realiza en zonas permitidas?</li></ul><br /><b>Socio Justo</b><br /> Ligado a la cadena de suministro, ¿quiénes son los proveedores? Realizar un proceso de revisión y certificación de proveedores.<p />Proveedores: vigilar que las adquisiciones que se hagan a proveedores cuenten con un cierto estándar sustentable. Una empresa de retail no puede decir que es sustentable si vende tenis hechos por niños de ocho años en un país asiático, debido a que tiene un efecto social negativo.<p /> Pequeñas y medianas empresas: ¿Qué tanto se relaciona con pequeñas y medianas empresas? En México, más de 95% de los trabajos y de la generación de ingresos provienen de éstas. Si dentro de los proveedores se cuenta con una gama amplia de PYMES se está generando un beneficio social al apoyar a la economía local.<p /> <b>Salud</b><br />Productos benéficos para la salud: México se encuentra entre los cinco países con mayor obesidad en el mundo, ¿qué tipo de productos vendes?, ¿cómo los promocionas? En las empresas de retail, así como se encuentran asesores de maquillaje y perfumes ¿se debería promocionar asesores que hablen de balance alimenticio? Se da un beneficio social, al tiempo que se incrementan las ventas.<p /> Ser una empresa con un plan estratégico de Desarrollo Sustentable es una tendencia mundial que va ocupando la atención de empresas de diferentes industrias.<p />La industria del retail de nuestro país ha realizado esfuerzos en los tres pilares (económico, social y ambiental), sin embargo, aún tiene áreas de oportunidad que debe mejorar mientras es un requisito opcional.<p /> En un futuro será un elemento obligatorio para la industria y los costos de no hacerlo antes de tiempo y de manera planeada serán mayores.<p />*Jesús González es socio de la Práctica de Asesoría en Riesgos de KPMG en México y su correo electrónico es <a href="mailto:asesoria@kpmg.com.mx">asesoria@kpmg.com.mx</a> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/transformando-la-industria-del-retail">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-13748267269595733452009-08-24T15:17:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:41:31.423-07:00Doing Business in the Developing World
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <blockquote><div> <h3>globalEDGE International Business Blog</h3> <a href="#" style="float: right;">Back to Blog Home</a><br /> <table border="0"> <tr> <td> <div style="font-size: 20px; margin-top: 5px;"> <a href="#" style="text-decoration: none;"> Doing Business in the Developing World</a> </div> by <em>Steven</em> on <em>Monday, August 24, 2009 - <span style="font-size: 11px;">5:09:31 PM EST</span></em> <p></p><p>It isn’t a secret that many aspects of developing countries are unappealing to the global businessperson. Decrepit urban and rural areas, lawlessness, and violence often cause companies to avoid these areas either out of fear for employee safety, logistics, or simply because they can’t find a way to make doing business there profitable. However, the fact still stands that these areas have hundreds of millions of potential customers lacking many goods and services. Additionally, there have been numerous pioneering companies which have had to modify their business strategies in order to adapt to the economic climate of these regions, and have subsequently thrived there. Here are a few of the issues that have arisen in these areas, and tips from successful companies on how they’ve handled them: </p> <p><strong>Challenges of the market: </strong><br /> -Lack of functioning legal systems makes contracts rarely enforceable.<br /> -Prevalence of theft, vandalism, and physical violence.<br /> -Lack of skilled workers.<br /> -Regional poverty makes finding customers who can afford goods and services difficult.<br /> -Conventional advertising rarely has the means to reach the people in these environments. <br /> -Winning the acceptance of the people in the area amidst religious, cultural, and linguistic diversity.</p> <p><strong>Tips for succeeding in these markets:</strong><br /> -Identify local entrepreneurs and potential partners who can help your business to get acclimated with the culture and economic climate of the area. <br /> -Approach the business endeavor with the mindset of helping the target community by fostering social and economic good. This mindset will be contagious to the employees, partners, and customers and will maximize cooperation and profitability.<br /> -Be willing to experiment with new business processes. The intricacies of these markets almost necessitate a trial-and-error approach.<br /> -Make your partners feel important. Although one partner may only draw a small profit for your business, by including them in meetings, functions, etc., you help to foster a dedicated, resilient business partnership.</p> <p>For more on doing business in developing areas, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204830304574131501706235362.html" target="_blank">check out the whole story</a> from the Wall Street Journal!<br /> </p> <b>Tags:</b> <a href="#">Entrepreneurship</a> · <a href="#">Business Risk</a> </td> </tr> </table> <p> <a name="comments" target="_blank"></a></p><div style="font-size: 20px;">Comments</div> <p> <a href="http://globaledge.msu.edu/loginForm.asp" title="website login">Login to Comment</a><br /> If you are not yet a member of globalEDGE, please <a href="#">create a free account</a>. </p></div></blockquote><div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://globaledge.msu.edu/blog/articles/?t=Doing_Business_in_the_Developing_World&ArticleID=427">globaledge.msu.edu</a></div> <p></p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/doing-business-in-the-developing-world">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-10644562987905680772009-08-20T20:00:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:42:18.311-07:00Investment Strategies - Financials in Focus
<div class="posterous_bookmarklet_entry"> <object height="417" width="500"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hJF0QQOk7FM&hl=en&fs=1" /></param><param name="wmode" value="window" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /></param><embed allowfullscreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hJF0QQOk7FM&hl=en&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" height="417" wmode="window" width="500"></embed></param></object> <div class="posterous_quote_citation">via <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJF0QQOk7FM">youtube.com</a></div> <p></p></div> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via web</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/investment-strategies-financials-in-focus">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6800279987492198895.post-3003357895186922892009-08-18T16:47:00.001-07:002009-09-08T18:40:37.430-07:00México y Brasil buscarán un acuerdo de libre comercio
Los Gobiernos de México y Brasil acordaron ayer instalar una mesa de trabajo para "profundizar sus relaciones comerciales y de inversión". Una búsqueda que podría derivar en un acuerdo de libre comercio entre las dos economías más grandes de América Latina, según señalaron en una declaración conjunta los presidentes de ambos países, Felipe Calderón y Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.<p /><p>Según Calderón, los vínculos de su país con Brasilia pasan por su mejor momento en los últimos años.</p> <p>"(Estoy) Convencido de que Brasil y México deben construir una alianza poderosa y eficaz que contribuya al bienestar de Brasil, México y América Latina", resumió el mandatario.</p> <p>En tal sentido, los presidentes anunciaron que iniciarán conversaciones para la creación de un área de libre comercio.</p> <p>La posibilidad de un tratado de este tipo había sido planteada el sábado, en un encuentro de Calderón con empresarios brasileños en la Federación de Industrias de Sao Paulo.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img title="lula-calderon" class="size-full wp-image-30641" src="http://www.latribuna.hn/web2.0/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/lula-calderon.jpg" height="312" alt="Los jefes de Estado de México, Felipe Calderón, y de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva." width="420" /></p> <p>"Un acuerdo de libre comercio genera beneficios para todos. México posee en la actualidad acuerdos de ese tipo con 44 países, y los empresarios brasileños podrían beneficiarse de ser parte de un entendimiento de este tipo", consideró el líder mexicano.</p> <p style="text-align: center;">Con la visita a Brasilia, Calderón clausuró una gira por la región en la que previamente hizo escala en Colombia y Uruguay.</p> <p style="font-size: 10px;"> <a href="http://posterous.com">Posted via email</a> from <a href="http://jlalfaro.posterous.com/mexico-y-brasil-buscaran-un-acuerdo-de-libre">jlalfaro's posterous</a> </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0