The only way Japan's birthrate is going up is if the government(local and national) really buck up and provide some strong financial incentives. The catch is, they cannot afford to provide the kinds of incentives they really need to. Did you know that in Japan people have to pay for the delivery of their babies? The typical cost would be between 300,000 yen and 600,000 yen. If there are complications the price can easily double. Congratuations new Mom and Dad, you owe us 10 grand! The government really needs all the money that parents fork over, ward tax, national tax, all kinds of school fees, puchases on all the stuff kids need. You can't really lower tax to the very people who you are trying to get your tax revenue from in the first place without someplace to make up the difference. With a 10% consumption tax looming just a couple of years off, I expect Japan's birth rate will decline even more.
But if any opposition candidates told the public that Koizumi and those who had remained loyal to his plan were not offering a policy at all, their voices were drowned by the din created by the media in which "reform", "reform", "reform" echoed from all sides. Anything they tried to get across about genuine policy, and about Japan's real problems was also lost in the frenzy created by Koizumi and his election tacticians; a frenzy that was supposed to reflect the Japanese public's deep desire for reform. In forty years of watching Japanese elections I have seen many funny as well as disturbing things, but found that Japanese voters usually have some sense of balance and common sense. Last Sunday's must have been the most nonsensical postwar election ever to have taken place in this country. Mostly due to the incredibly superficial imagery on TV and the strange Japanese enchantment with the term "reform".
These shifts have been large and complicated, and they have had important and unusual consequences. The first is that capital now flows primarily from poor countries to rich countries. In 2004, emerging economies, including the newly industrialised economies of East Asia, sent almost $350 billion to rich countries. Yet according to the economic textbooks, capital seeking the highest returns should flow from rich (and capital-intensive) countries to poorer ones that have less of it.
The second consequence is that outside China, less saving by households rather than investment by firms has become the engine of global economic growth. The world economy continues to hum because consumers, particularly American ones, are content to become ever more indebted. That willingness appears closely related to the rapid rise in house prices across much of the globe.
These patterns are a long way from historical norms. Can they last? In the long term, the answer is clearly no. Household saving cannot keep on falling, and America's foreign borrowing cannot keep on rising. The question is when and how the tide might turn.
Japanese companies are not just talking about alternative fuel sources, they're doing something about it -- everything from solar cells to wind turbines. Taisei Corporation announced recently that it will start building an ethanol plant in Osaka, which will be capable of producing about 1,300 kiloliters annually when it opens in January 2006, and 4,000 kiloliters by 2008. The ethanol is added 3% to gasoline, for cleaner, richer burning fuel. Whereas in the USA, ethanol typically comes from corn, Taisei's ethanol will uniquely come from 48,000 tons of recycled wood from building demolitions.
Reduction in consumption. In the early 80's, long after the impetus provided by the second oil shock, Japan consumed about 250 million kiloliters of imported fuel and 85 terawatt hours of electricity, a bit over half what it consumes now. And yet, 20 years ago, Japan did more manufacturing at home than it does today.
Japan's 127.7 million population is forecast to peak in the next year or so and to decline by around 20 per cent by 2050.
The population is also expected to concentrate increasingly in major cities. Some 100,000 people move to the Tokyo area each year from the countryside, according to government data.
But economists said the shift of people and businesses to cities, and the resulting slide in land prices in the countryside, was not necessarily bad as Japan tries to makes its economy more efficient. "As the population declines, it is more natural for people and businesses to concentrate in certain areas and for land prices to reflect that," said Azusa Kato, an economist at BNP Paribas.
Economically, there was no need for populations to be spread out evenly, she said.
"For example, it's more difficult to provide good social services if people are too spread out," she said. "A major problem in Japan's fiscal policy has been a system that spent a lot everywhere." Heavy public works spending has been credited for helping to distribute wealth evenly in Japan's postwar economy, but it also left the country with the highest debt in the industrial world.
While moving factories to China and other parts of Asia may hurt the countryside in coming years, economists say, Japan needs to move on to more service-based and technologically advanced businesses anyway.
"With a shrinking population, the key issue is how to improve productivity," said Naoki Iizuka, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
China and Japan have been discussing disputed rights to energy reserves that may include as much as 200 billion cubic meters of gas.
To the dismay of health experts, diabetes is becoming a global problem. In the next couple of decades, the prevalence of diabetes is expected to triple in Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, to double in the western Pacific and to nearly double in Europe. With an estimated 33 million cases, India has the most people with diabetes; China has 23 million.
Lots of doctors will tell you that the reason for the explosion is obvious: Americans are eating too much and exercising too little, and much of the world is following our bad example. There is no question that excessive weight increases your risk of becoming diabetic. But that explains only part of the problem. Diabetes has a strong genetic component, and scientists are beginning to suspect that certain evolutionary factors, as well as your mother's metabolic or nutritional status during pregnancy, may predispose you to develop diabetes. That may explain why Indians from the subcontinent often become diabetic after gaining just a few pounds and why the consequences of obesity seem far more devastating for Americans of African, as opposed to European, descent.
Turkey's aspiration to the E.U., its adjustment to the global economy, its booming tourist trade and, now, the first signs of mass immigration - all of these make the country a more porous place than it has been for the past century. But the treatment of Armenians, Greeks, Jews and others remains a sensitive subject. Turkey has been mostly free of the anti-Semitism that is widespread in all other Muslim countries of the Middle East. But "Mein Kampf" is now a best-seller, on sale in at least a half-dozen low-price Turkish-language editions. The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is also for sale, and its theses are trumpeted regularly in Vakit, the large-circulation Islamist daily.
On a clear day, San Joaquin looks like a bucolic farming community, complete with almond groves, cornfields and orange trees. But most of the time the valley -- trapped between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges, with two major highways running north to south through it -- is smoggy, filled with air that has fostered widespread respiratory disease.
Italian companies have been reluctant to expand partly because of a labor law, known as Article 18, that makes it virtually impossible for firms with more than 15 employees to cut the workforce because of an economic slowdown.
Under the law, any employee can seek an immediate recourse to an independent tribunal to decide if there was ``just cause'' for the dismissal. If the court rules in favor of the worker, he or she is reinstated and given backdated pay.
The government's attempt to scrap Article 18 in April 2002 triggered Italy's first general strike in eight years. The government abandoned the effort.
Berlusconi now promises to scrap a regional levy that is added on top of the established corporate tax rate of 33 percent. The tax, known as Irap, is charged against the value of a company's products. That leads some executives to condemn it as a disincentive to growth. Introduced in 1998, the tax is 4.25 percent and Italy's 20 regions can add an additional 1 percentage point.
The third myth is perhaps the most enduring. It is that China is essentially just a low-cost location for assembling products for the rest of the world’s consumers. The trade surplus is therefore the logical result of this. In fact, as Hedrick-Wong points out, China is neither particularly dependent on exports nor on foreign direct investment. While exports are large, about 36% of gross domestic product, so are imports, 34%. The difference puts China in a very different position to, say, Japan during its phase of dramatic export-led growth two to three decades ago.
CHAOS, gridlock, lunacy – those were just some of the more printable nouns used by a shell-shocked German business community last week to describe the farcical outcome of their country’s general election. Left-wing parties grabbed the majority of the vote last Sunday and conservative challenger Angela Merkel was robbed of an outright victory, triggering a hung parliament, a full-blown political crisis and prompting internaAtional financial institutions to wonder whether Germany will ever be capable of pulling itself out of its slow decline.
In the summer of 2004, Mr. Jiang, who had retained control over China's military after handing off his other titles to Mr. Hu, was viewed as competing with Mr. Hu for influence and creating a potentially dangerous rift in the power structure.
In one version of what followed, Mr. Zeng suggested to Mr. Jiang that he offer to resign ahead of the party's annual planning session that September. He implied that the resignation offer, which he suggested would be rejected by Mr. Jiang's loyalists on the Politburo, could clear the air and give Mr. Jiang a fresh mandate to retain his control over the military.
Mr. Jiang did something similar two years earlier, before an important party congress, and the tactic worked.
This time it did not. Mr. Hu, acting as vice chairman of the military commission, circulated Mr. Jiang's resignation among the military brass instead of the Politburo. Many military officers wanted to see the leadership transition completed and rallied around Mr. Hu as their new civilian leader. Mr. Jiang's resignation was then presented to the Politburo as a fait accompli.
Mr. Jiang, sidelined at his retreat in the Fragrant Hills outside Beijing, was described as furious and tearful when he realized he had been out-maneuvered.
In May, Mr. Hu and Mr. Zeng convened top officials to warn that just as governments in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan had been toppled, the government in China could be, too. They argued that the United States had fostered social unrest in those places and had similar designs on China, said people who said they had been told about the speeches.
They have since forced nongovernment organizations that focus on the environment, legal aid, health and education to find government sponsors or shut down. Many groups are also under pressure to stop accepting money from the United States and other foreign countries.
The leadership has also fired editors at publications that defied orders from the party's Propaganda Department, including, most recently, the bosses of the elite Workers' Daily newspaper and its associated publishing house, party insiders said. They have also tightened rules on foreign investment in China's television industry.
For many young people in Iran, one reality of everyday life is powerful boredom. Though rules enforcing Muslim dress have been relaxed in the past three years, there is little to do, even in a city of about 10 million. The stillness of a Tehran street on a weekend day is almost sepulchral.
"People here can't have a drink in the pub. The young people can't go to a music club," said Bijan Nasirimanesh, director of Persepolis, a drop-in center for drug addicts. "You have the paradox in this country of, coming at you from inside, everything is totally religious, and from outside, MTV and Western culture."
But the lingering crisis over Iran's nuclear programme playing out this week at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna offers a more revealing test of Iran's diplomacy.
In sweeping away most of the team that negotiated with the Europeans for two years over Iran's nuclear programme, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad has removed a lot of experience.
Hassan Rowhani, Cyrus Nasseri and Hossein Mousavian had won the grudging respect of their European counterparts. All three also talked to the international press, and were well capable of defending and explaining Iran's positions under questioning.
During June's presidential election, all candidates and senior figures denied that the nuclear programme was an issue. Policy was made, they said, by consensus in the "system", a word taken to mean the whole leadership including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. Events since Mr Ahmadi-Nejad took office in August, however, show that practice is not always in line with pronouncement.
This is stalemate and a recipe for drift. Iran has won a victory in that it is not being referred to the security council. But it hasn't won international recognition of its "right" to enrich uranium. And Tehran is unlikely to resume uranium enrichment as this would jeopardise current support from Russia and China in blocking referral.
Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman called on Thursday for EU-Iran talks to resume.
It is hardly a victory for Iran that Europe is far closer to the US than for years. And while the Europeans are unhappy Iran is converting raw uranium into gas, they can at least draw satisfaction from the fact that Tehran's uranium enrichment remains suspended.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6209aca4-2b73-11da-995a-00000e2511c8.html
The danger ahead, then, is the momentum that an increasingly strong, bold, nationalistic premier would add to what seems like an increasingly possible collision course between China and Japan as they vie for the spot of East Asia's preeminent power. Despite increasing economic interdependence, Japan and China seem to be driven more by passion and animus than economic rationality. Status, prestige, and pride are proving dangerous bedfellows for two nations consecutively vying for more regional predominance and maritime control. Although the inevitability of such a collision is far from assured, the months and years ahead will prove to be formative ones not only on Japan's domestic political culture, but on the implications for East Asian stability, as well.
The revival process of Nissan today is officially finished," said Mr. Ghosn, who is chief executive of both Nissan and affiliate Renault SA of France.
Boosting sales was a cornerstone of a plan called "Nissan 180" in which each digit – 1, 8, 0 – represented a target, or what Mr. Ghosn calls "commitments." By 2005, Mr. Ghosn promised Nissan would increase annual vehicle sales by one million units, raise operating-profit margins to 8% or more, and cut the car maker's long-term debt to zero.
Mr. Ghosn had succeeded in raising profit margins and reducing debt by 2004, early in the lifespan of the Nissan 180 plan. But the sales increase was considered a tougher challenge, and some critics doubted whether Mr. Ghosn and his senior managers could pull it off.
News of the plan's success is likely to bolster Mr. Ghosn's reputation as one of the most accomplished executives in the automobile industry. When Mr. Ghosn took the helm of Nissan in 1999, becoming one of the first few foreigners to run a Japanese company, Nissan was a deeply troubled company that many doubted would survive. Mr. Ghosn reduced the payroll, streamlined management and closed factories.
Today, Nissan is one of the most profitable car companies in the business. In April, Mr. Ghosn unveiled a new three-year plan called "value up," in which he promised to maintain hefty profit margins, to boost annual sales to 4.2 million vehicles by the fiscal year ending March 2009 and to earn an average of 20% on the capital it invests during the next three years.
These days, she is game for anything - including rapping with Diddy while wearing $8 million worth of bling from Harry Winston. (What are the chances that between a rapper and a Westport, Conn., caterer, it's the caterer who has done time?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/arts/television/22martha.html?8hpib
Over the past decade, India has emerged as the leader in the rapidly growing global market for white-collar “outsourcing” jobs – a notable component of India’s rapid economic growth. It has been widely reported that up to half a million American jobs may have been “lost” to India in recent years through outsourcing, and some analysts project that the number will soon reach a million, as the Indian and Chinese back-office sectors expand by 30 percent a year. In 1-800-INDIA, Thirteen/WNET's Wide Angle reveals the transformation taking place inside India. Traveling to Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi and home to India’s first call center, 1-800-INDIA follows four women who work for GECIS, the nation’s largest BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) company, with over 13,000 employees. Profiling these young women working at well-paid, demanding jobs that require long hours, late-night shifts, and Westernized work habits, 1-800-INDIA reveals the personal and cultural impact of this sweeping global trend.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/09/12/DI2005091201361.html?nav=nsc
Few Indian schools -- excepting a handful that include the IIM campuses -- can offer the same breadth of B-school education that the top U.S. programs offer, says Shyam Sunder, the James L. Frank professor of accounting, economics, & finance at the Yale School of Management in New Haven, Conn. The MBA is just too new to them.
It's too early to tell if Corporate America is losing out due to the number of Indian students choosing to go back home after garnering some experience in the U.S. But some India-based recruiters are concerned that they won't be able to afford to hire back talent that has been earning the significant pay typical of American MBAs. Starting salaries are upward of $80,000 in the U.S. and only $18,000 in India, although the cost of living is lower, says Rohtash Mal, CEO of AirTel, Bharti Televentures in New Delhi.
"People are really screaming for more knowledge of where the food comes from," said Baldvin Jonsson, the pleasantly emphatic Iceland-born consultant who is leading the country's food invasion. "You tell them fish comes from the ocean, and they ask, 'What kind of ocean? Is it a very polluted ocean or is it from a third-world country where people aren't getting paid enough to live for fishing?' "
With the help of Icelandair's cheap fares to Europe and the country's mix of quirky nightlife, socialist sensibility and ancient culture, Iceland became a must-have passport stamp for hip travelers in the late 1990's. Four years ago, Icelandic tourism officials began a food festival, flying in chefs from around the world to cook for a week filled with wine and lamb.
Mr. Jonsson argues that Iceland was the first sustainable country in the world, and it remains one of the purest places from which to eat.
Certainly, the sheep stock hasn't been cross-bred or fed much differently from when Viking settlers first brought the animals to the island 1,100 years ago. The North Atlantic waters that feed the cod industry is free of industrial pollution, at least of any that has originated from Iceland's shores. Vegetables are grown in greenhouses warmed by volcanic vents and the country's biggest city is heated by geothermal energy.
http://nytimes.com/2005/09/14/dining/14icel.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=all
Industry is at its wits’ end with the state of city’s infrastructure. It sees an urgent need for somebody to ‘take charge’, take measures where agencies can work in cohesion, streamline traffic flows, fill up potholes properly and build roads that last.
Just look at the way the traffic system is handled. It is clear the traffic police cannot do much about it. Let us bring a prof e s s i o n a l who has designed and handled traffic systems abroad. The city’s code-writers seem to be doing enormous amount of work for streamlining traffic systems abroad. Why can’t we use this expertise in improving Bangalore’s systems?
Why can’t we get somebody like Infosys mentor Narayana Murthy to be the mayor of Bangalore? We need someone of that stature who will immediately command respect.
Today, Bangalore is an international destination but the government does not seem to realise this. Just take a look at the drainage system. There are no proper sewerages and there are open drains all over the place.
Let us try to emulate some of the systems put in place by cities like London, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. There is nothing wrong with it. Tried and tested methods are the need of the hour. Professional management can make a lot of difference.
The government is just not showing any urgency. And it is not just about IT. I keep seeing reports about the CM wanting to meet IT honchos. But the city is suffering as a whole, not just the IT crowd.
And what is KIADB doing? It has just become a real estate agency. It needs to provide companies with much more.
There has to be greater public-private partnership in developing infrastructure. A number of companies are interested in developing roads adjacent to their corporate offices, but they should be allowed to collect a toll fee.
Or at least they should be given tax incentives. But the government would not allow that. The state has to realise the corporate bodies cannot function like charitable organisations. TNN
http://epaperdaily.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOI/navigator.asp?Daily=TOIBG&AW=1126681394484
Problems & solutions are right here
Make Short-Term, Time-Bound Plans Industry captains offer two-pronged solution to the Karnataka government to prop up Bangalore’s crumbling infrastructure: Address the present needs on a war-footing, then strategise long-term measures.
By Mini Joseph Tejaswi/TNN
Bangalore: More than the big picture, look at the immediate, present needs. That’s the brief message — if terse, somewhat — the city industry mandarins turfed out to the powers-that-be. Upset that infrastructure problems have still not been addressed with Bangalore’s signature event IT.in closing in, the industry captains have made “immediate needs’’ the operative word in their charter of demands. Long-term projects like airport and Metro Rail are fine. But Bangalore’s redemption from traffic travails lies in forking out short-term and time-bound measures. In short, make Bangalore liveable. The industry behemoths have trotted out suggestions in good measure. The suggestions are as simple as they’re practicable: fill potholes, relay worn-out roads, clean up drains, stop water logging, draw up a “doable’’ comprehensive traffic management plan and push civic bodies to work in unison. According to them, the government has come short on drawing out projects, timebound execution, allocation of resources and process streamlining. Anant Koppar, president of Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC), says the government and civic bodies are looking at bigger solutions to solve infrastructure problems instead of ensuring that the available infrastructure such as power, water and roads is effectively utilised and maintained. Bangalore’s residents, he says, are tired of the pass-the-buck attitude of civic bodies. He gives an example: “BWSSB or KPTC digs up roads. When someone questions them, they start blaming other civic arms for ruining the road. This can be put an end to only by bringing these bodies under a single umbrella.’’ He says the government should look at improving the infrastructure facilities at the existing airport, and not merely talk of the new airport that will take close to another three years to become operational. The existing airport, he notes, still has just one X-ray machine at its international terminal to handle the huge traffic volume that the airport now sees. Is the industry willing to chip in with resources? Some are, provided the government can build “credibility’’ for itself and ensure the money is spent properly. Some are willing to contribute in terms of mindshare, ideas, project engineering and execution plans. But Koppar says: “Building and maintenance of infrastructure, ultimately, is the state’s responsibility. We are already creating immense economic value for city, enhancing the spending power of Bangaloreans and contributing to the exchequer.’’ During 2004-05, IT and ITeS employees were paid a salary of Rs 10,000 crore, of which 30 per cent has gone into the state coffers.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon: Apoliticise the system. Our system of electing mayor is a joke. Why can’t we get somebody like Infosys chief mentor Narayana Murthy to be the mayor of Bangalore?
Bob Hoekstra, CEO, Philips Software: There’s none in the government who can stand up and do something concrete to improve the city. Babus and netas lack passion and love for the city. Development is the government’s business.
Karnataka’s high-profile annual event Bangalore IT.in 2005 faces yet another major boycott threat, this time from the Bangalore Chamber of Industry & Commerce (BCIC), which has over 400 members, including 135 IT and ITeS companies. The reason is once again Bangalore’s deteriorating infrastructure.
BCIC president Anant Koppar said: “This collective stand is in the wake of the government’s apathy towards infrastructure woes, particularly in terms of traffic congestion, power shortage and airport infrastructure. The state’s lack of concern has subdued not just the IT industry pace, but has affected all business verticals and the common man.’’
“The Garden City and IT Capital of India will soon be seen as the pothole city of India.’’
The government had been promising adequate measures to address these issues. But all these promises, he said, had turned out to be hollow. Year on year, infrastructure services are seen to have deteriorated in and around Bangalore, the city that has held tremendous technology promise. “Our intention is not to disrupt the event. However, the prevailing situation is real, intense, and certainly demands drastic measures.’’
Earlier, the Bangalore Forum for IT, an organisation of 18 major IT companies, had announced a boycott of this premier event.
Asked to comment, IT secretary Shankarlinge Gowda had this to say: “More than that of the state, IT.in is an industry event. It will only benefit the industry in terms of networking, exposure and business flow. I do not see any logic in a section of the industry resisting such a brand building opportunity.’’
