In times of financial dire straits, both the hustler and the corporate honcho become the best management gurus around. They both have some nuggets of wisdom to share. The credit crunch seems to bring out the best in them. Their leadership traits are put to a test and subsequently bloom. There are, however, some more management tricks that a drug leader can teach the corporate big guy.

Drug dealers are often on the brink, living ‘permanently in a world of zero credit.’ They can hardly get loans from banks, so they tend to excellently manage their cash flows. That’s a trick that the dealer can impart to the corporate boss – to run things in a way where you know that nothing or no one can bail you out, and that you’re on your own.

The CEO would also do well to learn the art of ruthlessness from the drug dealer. While the drug dealer should always hand over good stuff to his clients, not tweaking the good stuff a bit is tantamount to not taking care of his business interest. This ruthlessness would work well for the CEO especially when he has to axe a good part of his workforce so as to control his cost center and protect his profit center.

Another area that a drug dealer can teach a CEO in is accountability. The drug dealer is totally accountable for whatever goes on and happens in his trade. He just has to survive the deal, whatever it takes and however the ins and outs of it turn out. This is total responsibility. The CEO would do well to embrace such complete personal dependability. In other words, like the drug dealer who is out to protect his trade through total attachment to the belief in what he does because his life literally depends on some given strategies, the CEO should also employ the same adhesion to the belief that what he does, and how he does it, should and would work.

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Via Financial Times

Brazil is getting ready to break the patents of North American pharmaceutical products if the World Organization of the Trade decides today that the country can make it, in retaliation to the subsidies granted to the North American cotton farmers, it informed the Brazilian press.

Brazil challenged the subsidies of the USA to the cotton in 2002 and, two years later, OMC decided that the about of US$ 3 billion paid to the farmers of cotton of the USA a year distorted the global prices and they violated the trade rules.

An option would be to increase the import tariffs against the North American goods. But Brazil is getting ready to take measures in relation to the intellectual property, a much more significant area to the USA. OMC should include that possibility in its decision today.

According to a matter published in a Brazilian newspaper, the government prepared a decree to allow to the Brazilian pharmaceutical industries to produce medicines protected by North American patents.

The expected decision for today comes to the surface in a context of growing frustration in Brasília in relation to the Obama government’s reluctance of acting on the subsidies to the agricultural production that they affect the cotton and other sections of the Brazilian agribusiness, including the sugar and the ethanol.

Via: Financial Times.

While the current recession may be pinching them a bit, some of the world’s billionaires see the proverbial silver lining in the global economic rain clouds. Credit their healthy outlook on money, maybe. They earned their billions, so what can stop them from earning more? – well, only the (real) end of the world, perhaps.

Forbes magazine released its list entitled ‘Billionaire Vultures’ composed of deal-hunting and fortune-seeking top moneymakers such as Mexico’s Carlos Slim Helu and US investor George Soros. Others on the list are founder of Saudi Arabia’s MBI International group Mohamed bin Issa Al Jaber, member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahayan, American investors Wilbur L Ross Jr, John Catsimatidis and Nicolas Berggruen,  US-based Gerald Ford, Germany’s Gunter Herz, and Russia’s Mikhail Prokhorov.

Which brings us to the tiny matter called investment opportunities. These people are obviously no dilly-dallying pansies when it comes to making money. Hey, if they were, they could have stopped at the millions. These people know, only because they have reached this billionth far, what business risks really mean. They know risk like the back of their hand, and a global economic meltdown is just one of ‘em risks. It is really no puzzlement why they are betting (once again) in a time of economic turmoil.

Besides, these people also know that if they stop investing, the buck stops there. Economy’s health rests on the continuous flow of investments that subsequently generate all the other fruits of trade, commerce, employment, income, purchasing power, etc. It’s a (capitalist) vicious cycle, really.

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Via livemint.com

The International Labor Organization estimates that as much as 231 million will be unemployed this year. The director general of the ILO, Juan Somavia of Chile, says that the financial crisis has become a ‘global job crisis.’ He reports, “The global unemployment could affect 231 million people in 2009, an increase of 52 million as compared to 2007.”

The head of the ILO regrets that the current economic climate “has threatened, in just a few months, much of the progress that the world has done over the past fifteen years in reducing poverty.”

In his view, the crisis was caused by an “unbalanced and unfair” model that has been implemented over the recent years. This model has, in his opinion, overvalued the role of the market, undervalued the role of government, and undermined the dignity of work and respect for the environment.”

Somavía explained that the situation is particularly difficult for developing countries, such as some of those in Latin America where rising unemployment has added an increase in poverty, with workers earning less than two dollars a day.

To exit the current situation, Somavia emphasized the importance of promoting the flow of capital to revitalize the economy and urged banks to lend money. “Banks need to revert to its traditional role of lending money to businesses and individuals, the real drivers of the economy. These invest, trade, and consume,” he said.

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Via International Labour Organization

More people are becoming comfortable with user generated online content. Exactly the reason behind the phenomenal success of Wikipedia. But it‘s one thing to refer an online source of information on your favorite movie or a particular mobile model and quite another to trust a user-generated website for stock information.

Wikinvest is building a database of user-generated investment information on popular stocks. A senior at Yale writes about the energy industry, for example and a mother in Arizona tracks children’s retail chains. Users annotate stock charts with notes explaining peaks and valleys, edit company profiles and opine about whether to buy or sell.

“Our philosophy as a site is that there are a lot of things added when humans participate,” said Michael Sha, who started the company with Parker Conrad in 2006.

But the Wikimodel has its shortcomings. The absence of a single arbiter of accuracy could result in manipulators spreading misleading information to try and move stocks. To prevent this, Wikinvest requires contributions to be factual and to cite evidence, and it depends on users to quickly remove those that are not. It covers companies only with a market value of at least $100 million because they are more actively traded and less susceptible to price manipulation. And if someone lies about a company, they are subject to prosecution for securities fraud.

Of course, people “have to understand that whenever you use a wiki, you get what you pay for.” And take more responsibility for their investment decisions.

Via : International Herald Tribune

In recent years Brazil has become a worldwide exporter of military equipment such as tanks of war, of combat aircraft and missiles.

Brazil will sell one hundred missiles to Pakistan for the detection of radar. The artifacts will be provided by the company Mectron, associate of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES). The transaction was approved here Tuesday by the Board of Foreign Trade (Camex) of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.

Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, stressed at the end of the meeting of Camex, it is an operation with the government of Pakistan, ie a deal between two states.

The missiles will cost 85 million euros, and approval of the transaction, as referenced by the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), which means security of the country against the manufacturer, Mectron, through the Bank of Brazil and BNDES.

According to Jobim, the delivery of the missiles will develop the productive capacity of Mectron, raising its production by 500%. These is a small company, but high-technology, which produces missiles to equip aircraft with a capacity of anti-radiation and able to destroy radar systems.

“Brazil negotiates with Pakistan, not with Pakistani terrorists,” he said. “To cancel this deal would be to attribute terrorist activities to the Pakistani government.”

Via: Defence.

The Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, is going tomorrow in his first Latin American tour, which aims to culminate with the “return” to the region that Russia boosts in recent months.

Medvedev will arrive weekend in Lima, where he will participate the meeting of Heads of State and Government of APEC, will visit Brazil between 24 and 26, Venezuela between 26 and 27 and Cuba on 27.

Alexei Sazónov, Assistant Director of Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, said that the development of relations with Latin America does not depend on their relations with other countries or cyclical factors.

Sazónov, who has just returned from a trip by seven Latin American countries expressed their indignation by the press comments that this “incursion” to “courtyard” of the United States is the Kremlin’s response to the policy of Washington in the space of the former Union Soviet.

“The basis of Russia’s interest in Latin America are their own national interests,” he said.

In the political sphere, Moscow is in favor of a multipolar world and is interested therefore in maintaining a “fluid political dialogue” with the countries of Latin America, he said.

The economic and commercial relationship of Russia and Latin American countries this year can reach $ 15 billion, said the Russian agency RIA Novosti.

Via: Miami Herald.