A Glimpse at the Emerging Treasury Bubble

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/business/30markets.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Japan: The Trouble with “Free” Money

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/04/27/japan-the-trouble-with-free-money/

U.S. Loses a Trade Case Over Japanese Steel Imports

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 24, 2009

GENEVA (AP) — The World Trade Organization ruled against the United States on Friday in a trade case, saying that it continued to apply illegal import duties on Japanese steel products and ball bearings. The 65-page verdict said that Washington had failed to change how it sets fees for goods it suspects are being sold in the United States at below-market value, despite previous rulings that the United States was violating international trade rules.

If there is no appeal, Japan can ask the global trade body to authorize sanctions against American goods to force compliance. It said last year that the fees were costing Japanese industry $248.5 million each year.

The office of the United States trade representative had no comment. The United States has lost similar disputes with the European Union, Canada and others over how it determines antidumping fees for foreign goods.

Governments investigate dumping when they suspect foreign producers are exporting goods at artificially low prices — usually as a result of subsidies or in an attempt to corner a market. W.T.O. panels have consistently found that the United States overestimates how far below market value imports are, and as a result penalizes them with antidumping duties that are too high.

Stopping Power - Jack in the Box

Consumers are awash in advertisements. Marketers, zealous in their attempts to persuade potential consumers, have desensitized the vast majority of citizens. We have become, in effect, trained to filter out the massive amount of redundant advertising that we are exposed to. In order for marketing to be effective in this environment, marketing specialists need to be creative. According to Hiam (2007), “Your ads need to have much more stopping power than most to get a significant number of people to remember and think about your product” (p. 229). Young and Rubicam outlined seven principles to aide marketers in creating stopping power. These principles can be helpful in assisting marketing professionals to evaluate the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Jack in the Box (http://www.jackinthebox.com/) (click on ‘Commercials’ for examples) is a popular west coast franchise that frequently has a lot of stopping power advertising campaigns. While their ads tend to be slightly risqué, Jack in the Box advertisements are sure to grab your attention. Amongst the Young and Rubicam principles, these advertisements:

-Surprise the audience
-Communicate expected information
-Violate the rules and personality of the product

Viewers of any Jack in the Box commercial will be surprised and perhaps even startled by the main character, Jack. While Jack is an outlandish character, he communicates the intended message of the marketing team. Consider, for example, the first ad under ‘Commercials’ on the Jack in the Box web site. Jack is seen walking down the street comparing his company to “one of their competitors.” Towards the end of the commercial, Jack is standing with Burger King clearly in the background. At that point, Jack violates the rules and personality expected within the restaurant business by tearing off his sleeves and issuing the challenge: “Do something about it.” This is a very effective ad with plenty of stopping power. For a good laugh check out the next commercial about the jogger coming in for a smoothie. Outstanding stopping power!

References

Hiam, Alexander (2007). Marketing. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Business Practice: Thoughts on the Rotation of Personnel

The military policy of rotating members is similar in its intent to that of the international business world. Organizations have come to believe that diverse experiences from team members with varied backgrounds will bring more ideas to emerging problems. While there may be some benefits and legitimacy to the practitioners of such policy, I do not believe that it is absolutely necessary to rotate personnel as frequently as the military does. Aside from the enormous expense associated with moving families and personnel great distances, employees tend to operate with an efficiency that would best befit a bell-curve. Ones effectiveness is optimized not at the beginning or end of a tour, but rather in the middle. Shorter rotation periods would seem to have the unintended consequence of abbreviating this optimized efficiency period.