The IMF’s Role in Helping Protect the Most Vulnerable in the Global Crisis

In this difficult environment, the IMF is helping governments to protect and even increase social spending, including social assistance. In particular, the IMF is promoting measures to increase spending on, and improve the targeting of, social safety net programs that can mitigate the impact of the crisis on the most vulnerable in society. Below are some examples of how recent IMF-supported programs seek to protect social spending in a way that is both fiscally sustainable and cost-effective.

In this difficult environment, the IMF is helping governments find the necessary budgetary savings while ring-fencing social spending on the most vulnerable in society. Below are some examples of how recent IMF-supported programs have sought to protect social spending.

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Changes Proposed to Election of Corporate Boards

The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed rules on Wednesday that would make it possible for a company’s shareholders to elect a limited number of independent directors, commission officials said.

If adopted by the commission, the proposal would open the door to the most significant change in decades to the role of investors in governing publicly traded companies.

It would permit large shareholders — typically institutional investors — or alliances of shareholders to nominate as many as a quarter of the directors. For the largest public companies, nomination of a dissident slate would require approval by 1 percent of the shareholders. For other companies, it would be 3 or 5 percent, based on the size of the business.

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How China Censors the Internet - List of Banned Topics & Blacklisted Websites

An employee of Baidu, the Google of China, has leaked a document folder that suggests in detail how authorities in China censor the Internet.

Video - Internet Censorship in China

These internal documents contain information about internet monitoring policies of China, how censors can search web pages for sensitive keywords and the unique point system that is used by government to reward the "more efficient" Internet police staff.

Related: Know if your site is blocked in China?

List of Words Banned in China

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Court to Hear Appeal on Public Accounting Board

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday accepted an appeal by several groups that brought a constitutional challenge to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board created by 2002 changes in federal accounting laws.

The free-enterprise groups and a Nevada accounting firm sued to stop the Securities and Exchange Commission from naming members of the accounting board, set up by Congress to oversee public-company accountants.

"In creating the board, Congress deliberately sought to test the outer boundaries of its ability to reduce presidential power," the groups said in the appeal.

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Obama to Toughen Rules on Emissions and Mileage

President Obama will announce tough new nationwide rules for automobile emissions and mileage standards on Tuesday, embracing standards that California has sought to enact for years over the objections of the auto industry and the Bush administration.

The rules, which will begin to take effect in 2012, will put in place a federal standard for fuel efficiency that is as tough as the California program, while imposing the first-ever limits on climate-altering gases from cars and trucks.

The effect will be a single new national standard that will create a car and light truck fleet in the United States that is almost 40 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016 than it is today, with an average of 35.5 miles per gallon.

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Obama propondrá unos límites más severos para reducir las emisiones de los coches

Barack Obama durante un discurso en Indianapolis.

* Su objetivo será reducir un 30% las emisiones en 2016.
* Estos nuevos límites serán aplicados en todos los estados.
* California y otros estados querían aplicar sus propios límites.

El presidente de EEUU, Barack Obama, anunciará este martes en un acto en la Casa Blanca nuevas normas sobre la eficiencia en el consumo y las emisiones contaminantes de los vehículos estadounidenses.

Obama quiere recortar un 30% las emisiones de su país en 2016

Según indicó un alto funcionario del Gobierno que habló bajo la condición del anonimato, Obama anunciará medidas para recortar gradualmente las emisiones de los modelos nuevos de vehículos a partir de 2011, para acercarse gradualmente a la meta del recortes del 30% para 2016.

Además, el presidente de EEUU anunciará que para el 2016 el consumo medio de los automóviles deberá ser de 42 millas o más por galón (5,6 litros por cada 100 kilómetros) y de 26,6 millas o más por galón para camionetas (unos 8,8 litros por cada 100 kilómetros).

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Women could be the way forward

It's fair to say the average gathering of business leaders has a disproportionate number of men.

But a corporate event in London this week is completely different. It's made up of hundreds of businesswomen from around the world. The guest list is impressive - UK Atomic Energy Authority chair Lady Barbara Judge, PR guru Lynne Franks and 3i chair Baroness Hogg to name but a few.

One of the purposes of this conference is to talk about ways of getting more women running and setting up businesses. But ironically, some of the strongest advocates for encouraging women to become entrepreneurs are the small number of men here.

"Women have a huge amount to contribute to business at top levels. There are barriers holding them back," says Lord Mandelson, Britain's Business Secretary.

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Regulan instrumentos financieros clave

El gobierno estadounidense anunció este miércoles un nuevo plan para regular la comercialización de los derivados financieros extrabursátiles -estrechamente ligados a la crisis mundial del crédito-, a fin de reducir los riesgos para el sistema financiero.

El secretario del Tesoro dijo que se creará un sistema electrónico de control de las transacciones.

El secretario del Tesoro, Timothy Geithner, dijo que se creará un sistema electrónico para controlar la compra y venta de los derivados, que hasta ahora no habían sido regulados.

"Los días en que una compañía grande de seguros podía apostar la casa con créditos 'tóxicos', sin nadie que regule y sin respaldo creíble para proteger de pérdidas a la compañía o a los contribuyentes, deben terminar", dijo Geithner ante el Congreso de Estados Unidos.

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'An Explosion' in Women-Owned Companies?

Despite daunting statisitics, resources and opportunities for female entrepreneurs are better now than ever, say experts

Seven years ago, Nicole Loftus was entrenched in an $19 billion-a-year industry she felt was following an outmoded model. As a distributor of branded products, she served as an intermediary between companies that wanted products imprinted with their logos and the manufacturers that made them. Remarkably, neither side ever interacted. Loftus struck out on her own—against the advice of her family and then-husband—and began building what is now a multimillion-dollar company, Zorch International. The Chicago company offered an innovation to the branded-products industry's supply chain and changed how many corporations procure such products.

As a successful businesswoman, Loftus is defying statistics. According to Catalyst, a global nonprofit organization that tracks women in the workplace, only 28 of the 1,000 largest U.S. corporations have female CEOs. And women still earn 77¢ for each dollar made by a man, the Census Bureau reports.

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Obama wants 35 mpg by 2016, Greens score a huge win

Environmental lobbyists scored a big victory on fuel economy rules. President Obama is expected to announce tomorrow that he will boost the nation’s average fuel economy for new models just north of 35 miles per gallon by 2016. That’s about four years earlier than the Bush Administration originally proposed and similar to new greenhouse gas rules that California wanted to put in place on its own.

Here’s where the green lobby showed some real savvy. They knew they couldn’t get the Bush Administration to pass tougher rules. But groups like the Sierra Club figured they could get California to bite. So in 2002, they got California Senator Fran Pavley to sponsor a bill that would put tougher rules in place to govern carbon dioxide emissions. California has long had its own rules to govern emissions and pollution. But carbon dioxide can’t be scrubbed or filtered like other pollutants. You can only cut emissions by burning less gasoline. So any rule restricting it is a de facto rule on fuel economy. The industry tied the California proposal up in court, hoping to keep the feds from granting California a waiver.

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Global Warming Is Manageable -- if We're Smart

AN INTERVIEW WITH BJORN LOMBORG: This global-warming expert emphasizes sensible solutions to an often-sensationalized issue.

THE NEXT TREATY TO CURB GLOBAL WARMING WILL BE negotiated this December in Copenhagen, Bjorn Lomborg's home city. Called by The Guardian (U.K.) "one of the 50 people who could save the planet," Lomborg, a statistician, is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001) and Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (2007). He also maintains a Website on environmental issues at www.lomborg.com.

Contrary to widely held belief, Lomborg isn't at all skeptical of the fact that global warming is a problem, or that humanity is contributing to it. To get some idea of his real message, Barron's recently caught up with him at an event hosted by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, in which he presented his views on the major priorities for helping the world's poor. Afterward, he sat down to answer our questions in clear, unaccented English, marshalling facts and figures with stunning ease.

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Older workers and the road to (un)retirement

Despite layoffs and lost savings, some in the senior workforce find their jobs prospects are not all that gloomy.

Until last year, everyone in Georgette Pascale's communications firm in Pittsburgh was under the age of 38. Then she interviewed Deb Holliday, who is in her mid-50s, and hired her.

"Her experience has been invaluable to everyone," says Ms. Pascale, the company president. "It's nice to get the other end of the age spectrum."

Score one for hiring and keeping employees over 50 – a pressing need as the ranks of older Americans grow.

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Fair Game - When a Company Tries It, a ‘Say on Pay’ Works

ISOLATED and imperial chief executives who shun contact with the great unwashed — shareholders who actually own the companies — are a distressingly resilient breed.

That’s why the current “say on pay” movement, which requires companies to put executive pay practices to a shareholder vote, is so timely. It fosters fruitful dialogues between shareholders and the hired hands who run their enterprises.

Still, many company leaders continue to believe they are beyond reproach. So it’s refreshing to see executives consulting their shareholders for input on compensation and other hot-button issues.

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ONU: riesgo de desastre mundial

Un informe de Naciones Unidas advierte que el riesgo de un desastre mundial va en aumento.

El cambio climático, la degradación ambiental y el desarrollo urbano mal planificado tienen más probabilidades de afectar a la población mundial.

El reporte alerta que millones de vidas están en peligro debido a que pocas veces se sopesan los riesgos de manera adecuada, especialmente en los países en desarrollo.

La ONU asegura que el dinero invertido en la reducción de los riesgos es una manera efectiva de reducir las muertes y los daños.

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US plans derivatives regulations

The US Treasury wants more regulation of derivatives - the complex financial instruments that brought down some of Wall Street's biggest names.

Proposals to be set out by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will call for an electronic system to monitor buying and selling in the market.

Firms trading in derivatives will need enough capital in case they default and will face tough reporting requirements.

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Why green-power premiums may fade

Pricier options may become obsolete if government requires utilities to bring more renewables on line.

For the past decade, power customers eager to wean the United States off fossil fuels could do something about it: Pay a few extra dollars to bring energy from wind, cow dung, and other renewable sources to the grid.

Now these pioneers are at risk of getting swallowed up by a stampede of government green-energy programs. At least 29 states have mandated standards requiring utilities to bring more renewable energy on line. Congress is considering federal standards, too. So utilities are wondering if they should keep marketing voluntary programs or if there are better ways to harness the enthusiasm of their cutting-edge customers and, in turn, boost mainstream acceptance of green energy.

"These programs are likely to be reexamined," says Mark Crisson, CEO of the American Public Power Association, an industry group for more than 2,000 publicly owned utilities. "The whole idea here was to take a voluntary approach to promoting the idea of renewables and to raise customer awareness. Once the state and other jurisdictions step in with mandates ... it [raises] the question: Why do you need a voluntary program?"

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Doce empresas cántabras impulsan una plataforma por la Responsabilidad Social Global

En estos tiempos de incertidumbre, son pocas las compañías que escogen la opción, suicida para muchos, de congelar sus inversiones en RSC. Son muchas más las que se están apresurando a "hacer los deberes" en materia de buen gobierno corporativo, comunicación activa con los stakeholders o programas de cohesión social. Una “huida hacia delante” , una carrera de obstáculos en tiempos de crisis en la cual muchas empresas quieren obtener su dorsal. Es el caso de las doce compañías cántabras que el pasado 15 de mayo participaron en la firma de un memorándum para la creación de la 'Red por la Responsabilidad Social Global.

Empresas cántabras en el Pacto Mundial'. Una red que tratará de englobar a las empresas que en Cantabria están actuando con principios sociales y medioambientales y que tratan de promover el desarrollo económico", según explicó Belén Díaz, representante de la red.

Las empresas firmantes son Asociación Ciudad Utopía, Atecsol Soldaduras, BSH-Electrodomésticos España, Caja Cantabria, Fundación Laboral del Metal, Glezco Asesores y Consultores, SODERCAN, Hospital Sierrallana, Prisma, Técnicos Constructores Santander, Textil Santanderina y la Universidad de Cantabria. Todas ellas están adheridas al Pacto Mundial promovido por la ONU como parte de sus políticas de Responsabilidad Social, para impulsar la buena ciudadanía corporativa en los campos de los derechos humanos, las normas laborales, el medio ambiente y la lucha contra la corrupción. La adhesión a este Pacto es requisito inexcusable para todas las empresas que quieran participar en la red, una formalidad que las compromete a cumplir con diez principios fundamentales que están relacionados con el respeto a los derechos humanos, derechos laborales (políticas de igualdad, etcétera), derechos medioambientales y de lucha contra la corrupción.

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Mercer's 2009 Quality of Living survey highlights

* European cities dominate the top of the ranking
* Vienna scores highest for overall quality of living, Baghdad the lowest
* Singapore ranks top for city infrastructure; London ranks eighth

The quality of living rankings are based on a point-scoring index, which sees Vienna score 108.6, and Baghdad 14.4. Cities are ranked against New York as the base city with an index score of 100.

Mercer’s Quality of Living ranking covers 215 cities and is conducted to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments. In 2008, the quality of living in many regions has been affected. This is demonstrated by serious political turmoil, increasing unrest and instability, health and climatic concerns. The global financial crisis has intensified in 2008, becoming an area of increasing international concern. The effects of various rescue plans being implemented are yet to be known.

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Weddings go green

Tara Brown-Selders and Michael Selders left for their honeymoon under a shower of ecofetti, environmentally friendly confetti, after their green wedding in Houston.

Haily Zaki and Brian Tuey trekked four miles up southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains with 32 friends, accompanied by pack mules carrying granola bars and organic lamb. There, in a propane- and hydro-powered campsite dining hall bedecked with pine cones, they exchanged wedding vows.

Tara Brown and Michael Selders incorporated 21 “eco-initiatives” into their wedding at Houston’s Four Seasons Hotel. To make up for the pollution caused by their honeymoon flight to Hawaii, the Selderses purchased carbon offsets, a means of reducing carbon emissions by contributing money to plant trees or develop renewable-energy projects.

Dana Wilmert wore a 1950s sea foam green prom dress purchased for $1 from a thrift store when she married Johnny Damm in DeLand, Fla. She made the paper for her invitations and stitched magazines together to make the envelopes. At the reception, her guests ate local, organic fare served on biodegradable bamboo plates, which were later composted.

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Tainted Tea Leaves: How Market Expectations Can Lead Regulators Astray

Securities markets and government regulators, especially in times of financial crisis like these, eye each other warily, each trying to ascertain what the other knows and what the other is going to do.

The government looks at securities prices as an important source of information about when it should intervene to rescue a bank, like Citigroup, or a major industrial company, like General Motors. Meanwhile, investors are doing all they can to figure out not just the economic prospects of companies, but also the probability that government will intervene in troubled firms. If investors expect the government to step in to save a firm, they might bid up the security's price to a level not warranted by the fundamentals.

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The advantages of self-imposed exile | Expats at work

Living abroad gives you a creative edge

ANECDOTAL evidence has long held that creativity in artists and writers can be associated with living in foreign parts. Rudyard Kipling, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Gauguin, Samuel Beckett and others spent years dwelling abroad. Now a pair of psychologists has proved that there is indeed a link.

As they report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, William Maddux of INSEAD, a business school in Fontainebleau, France, and Adam Galinsky, of the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, presented 155 American business students and 55 foreign ones studying in America with a test used by psychologists as a measure of creativity. Given a candle, some matches and a box of drawing pins, the students were asked to attach the candle to a cardboard wall so that no wax would drip on the floor when the candle was lit. (The solution is to use the box as a candleholder and fix it to the wall with the pins.) They found 60% of students who were either living abroad or had spent some time doing so, solved the problem, whereas only 42% of those who had not lived abroad did so.

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Corporate governance - Robert A.G. Monks and Nell Minow

In the wake of the dramatic series of corporate meltdowns: Enron; Tyco; Adelphia; WorldCom; the timely new edition of this successful text provides students and business professionals with a welcome update of the key issues facing managers, boards of directors, investors, and shareholders.

In addition to its authoritative overview of the history, the myth and the reality of corporate governance, this new edition has been updated to include:

* analysis of the latest cases of corporate disaster;
* An overview of corporate governance guidelines and codes of practice in developing and emerging markets
* new cases: Adelphia; Arthur Andersen; Tyco Laboratories; Worldcom; Gerstner's pay packet at IBM

Once again in the new edition of their textbook, Robert A. G. Monks and Nell Minow show clearly the role of corporate governance in making sure the right questions are asked and the necessary checks and balances in place to protect the long-term, sustainable value of the enterprise.

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U.S. FASB adopts rule to put more assets on books

The Financial Accounting Standards Board, which sets U.S. accounting rules, voted on Monday to adopt two rules that could force financial institutions to bring more off balance sheet assets onto their books.

The rules will take effect at the beginning of 2010 and the FASB expects to issue final versions next month.

The changes, which affect two rules known as FAS 140 and FIN46(R), have been watched closely by investors amid concerns it could force financial firms to book trillions of dollars worth of troubled assets and raise more capital to offset risks.

The FASB has been working on the changes to securitization accounting for months, as it tried to improve disclosures relating to mortgage-backed securities, structured investment vehicles and other passive investments designed to be legally isolated from the banks that create them.

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Obama to launch landmark auto emissions standards

Traffic moves along the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles in this July 3, 2008 photo. The Bush administration blocked California from imposing its own regulations on greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles. Now, the Obama administration is using California's template as a national standard.

The plan will establish nationwide benchmarks for carbon emissions and fuel efficiency.

President Obama is moving to regulate, for the first time, one of the world’s biggest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions: the cars and trucks on US roads.

That plan, as outlined in news reports Monday, would represent a major regulatory shift affecting the environment, a struggling industry, and millions of American consumers.

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U.S. to unveil new policy on auto fuel standards

The White House will unveil an auto fuel efficiency proposal on Tuesday to resolve a dispute between California and the U.S. government over emissions and accelerate the timeframe for sharply improving mileage performance, industry and other sources said.

The proposal, if accepted by California and a dozen other states that want to more aggressively target greenhouse gasses, would effectively end legal and political battles with the struggling auto sector over the best way to cut fuel consumption and curtail tailpipe emissions.

It would also put more pressure on struggling U.S. automakers like General Motors Corp (GM.N), Ford Motor Co (F.N) and bankrupt Chrysler LLC to accelerate development of more efficient gasoline engines, as well as new gasoline/electric hybrids and all-electric cars.

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It's a man's world - in leisure as well

Memo To The CEO: Why We Need An Annual Report For Technology

The IT organization and the business units should be much more in tune. Here's one way to make that happen.

At last week's executive committee meeting, you made the point that our company's business units and technology organization need to be much more in tune with each other. In this memo, I'd like to explain how we could take a joint step toward making that happen.

No one doubts that our company's success depends on solid technology support. But everyone also believes that we can do a lot more to make technology serve the business units--for example, by deepening our insights into what customers need, integrating channels, speeding the delivery of services and accelerating new-product development. We struggle to realize this potential.

The basic problem is a lack of shared understanding. Our business unit leaders have only a vague sense of the value the technology organization delivers: They just see bits and pieces and don't seem to grasp the interdependencies.

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Getting Out From Behind the Wheel

Nate Silver, a baseball statistician who last year turned his number-crunching craft to political and social matters at the Web site FiveThirtyEight.com (it refers to the number of electors who choose the president of the United States), recently asked this question in a column for Esquire magazine: “Is America Still a Car Culture?”

The question was occasioned, Mr. Silver said, by data showing that Americans, who began driving less amid skyrocketing fuel prices last year, continued to curb their driving even as fuel prices plummeted.

He concluded that Americans tend to react slowly to changes in fuel prices, and while it was too soon to tell the extent to which individual consumers abandoned car culture for the communal exploit of mass transit, a rebound in driving was almost certain.

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Can China Go Green?

Beijing has big plans to curb pollution and start a cleantech industry. But the global recession and looming trade frictions will test its resolve

China's unprecedented growth in recent years has come at a terrible price. Two-thirds of its rivers and lakes are too polluted for industrial use, let alone agriculture or drinking. Just 1 in 100 of China's nearly 600 million city dwellers breathes air that would be considered safe in Europe. At a time when arable land is in short supply, poisoned floodwaters have ruined many productive fields. And last year, ahead of most forecasts, China passed the U.S. to become the world's largest source of greenhouse gases.

The immensity of these troubles has produced a result that may surprise many outside China: The nation has emerged as an incubator for clean technology, vaulting to the forefront in several categories. Among all countries, China is now the largest producer of photovoltaic solar panels, thanks to such homegrown manufacturers as Suntech Power.

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Confronting Hate Speech on the Web

On Wednesday morning, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center delivered a presentation to the students of New York’s Independence High School about the spread of hatred on the Internet. This was not your typical PowerPoint deck: Cooper’s tour through the darker recesses of the Web included YouTube videos depicting burning Korans; an image gallery belong to a Greek skinhead group on photo-sharing site Photobucket; and a controversial poem posted to IslamOnline.net entitled “How to Behead.”

In Simon Wiesenthal’s new report on this topic, “Facebook, YouTube +: How Social Media Outlets Impact Digital Terrorism and Hate,” the group discovered around 10,000 instances of what it considers hateful or potentially dangerous postings on the Web, an increase of 25% from last year. Cooper says this number of instances is, in a sense, “not even that important anymore” – since the conversational nature of the Web makes it hard to count the number of incendiary comment threads, Twitter posts and re-posts, and copycat videos.

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Regulator expects bank chiefs to lose jobs

A US regulator on Friday predicted that chief executives and directors of some of the banks that underwent the stress tests could lose their jobs, in another sign of the government’s desire to have a say in the running of bailed-out companies.

Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said the authorities could replace management and boards at some of the 10 banks that were ordered to add fresh capital after the tests.

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El replanteamiento de la gestión del riesgo

Antiguamente, las previsiones eran objetivas. Con el paso de los años, al aproximarse el final del primer trimestre, los gerentes solían tener una idea bastante razonable de cómo iban los negocios y si se alcanzarían las metas o no, o incluso si se sobrepasarían. La confianza en los pronósticos trimestrales y anuales era tal que ante el menor aumento o descenso en relación al valor previsto se reaccionaba con sorpresa y desencadenaba un proceso de cambios en los precios de las acciones. Este año, sin embargo, todo ha cambiado. Empresas como Unilever, Union Pacific y Visteon han optado por no hacer previsiones sobre su rendimiento en los próximos meses. En otras palabras, se han cancelado todas las apuestas.

De acuerdo con los informes de diversas empresas, el problema no es que éstas se muestren reacias a dar malos pronósticos. Ellas alegan que no saben el rumbo que tomará el mercado. La economía global es tan frágil que los ejecutivos tienen poca confianza en sus proyecciones. Esto significa que más y más gerentes están cada vez menos dispuestos, por lo menos de forma temporal, a hablar sobre el futuro y, luego, tomar alguna decisión con base a ese pronóstico. Con eso, las empresas corren el riesgo de quedarse paralizadas y, por extensión, la economía global también.

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Investors turn militant over director pay

The shareholder voting season across Europe is just getting into full swing but already the militancy of investors is noticeable in the wake of the financial crisis.

Protest votes on pay Xstrata suffered a stinging protest by shareholders over its pay policies on Tuesday as more than a third of votes cast on its remuneration report at its annual meeting failed to back it.

BP experienced a similar protest vote against its remuneration plan last month and pay is expected to be a contentious issue at Shell’s annual meeting this month.

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SEC Chief Mary Schapiro: The Watchdog's New Teeth

Maria Bartiromo talks with the new SEC Chief Mary Schapiro

As the dimensions of the financial crisis grew ever larger, the effectiveness of the Securities & Exchange Commission grew ever more dubious. Then came the Bernie Madoff scandal. And if you believe an investment manager named Harry Markopoulos, who repeatedly denounced the Madoff operation as a Ponzi scheme to a couldn't-be-bothered SEC, the agency wasn't just asleep at the wheel, it was snoring loudly. All of which is why so many eyes are on new SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, who in January was appointed by President Obama to clean up the mess former Chairman Christopher Cox left behind. As a financial regulator under three Presidents—including six years as an SEC commissioner—Schapiro is no stranger to the agency or the industry. In fact, she later served as head of the NASD and was one of the architects of the industry's self-regulating Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Now, as she deals with issues from executive comp to short-selling, Schapiro will have a hand in determining the shape and direction of the financial industry for years to come.

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The Great Ethanol Scam

Not only is ethanol proving to be a dud as a fuel substitute but there is increasing evidence that it is destroying engines in large numbers

"Does the average citizen understand what this means? In from 10 to 20 years this country will be dependent entirely upon outside sources for a supply of liquid fuels … paying out vast sums yearly in order to obtain supplies of crude oil from Mexico, Russia, and Persia."—Yale Professor Harold Hibbert, ethanol promoter, 1925

More than one major transportation-based industry in America besides Detroit is on the ropes. For the fourth time in our history the ethanol industry has come undone and is quickly failing nationally. Of course it's one thing when Detroit collapsed with the economy; after all, that is a truly free-market enterprise and the economy hasn't been good. But the fact that the ethanol industry is going bankrupt, when the only reason we use this additive is a massive government mandate, is outrageous at best.

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Seeking Moral Leadership in China

Chinese professionals are seeking moral grounding, and finding it in traditional values

Chinese professionals in Shanghai and Beijing are concerned about the financial disaster that has spread from New York and London throughout the world. They read the Western press that blames both individual executive greed and false belief in the inherent self-control of the capitalist market system; they worry about their own real estate values dropping; they question Adam Smith's notion of the invisible hand of the market as Western governments nationalize private banks. And they shake their heads. The West has lost any moral high ground it has had, and some now are wondering whether China can save the world from collapse.

Although China cannot save the world economy, it may help reduce the extent of damage caused by the financial crisis. And China is certainly in a position to claim a larger voice in world organizations, seen for example in Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank's governor, calling for a new world reserve currency.

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Identifying employee skill gaps

Employees’ own assessments of their learning needs can lead to more effective training programs.

Identifying the areas where organizations need to improve their capabilities most is an important step in any change effort. Such a skill is helpful particularly in times of cost-cutting—where limited training resources must be used to close the critical competency gaps that prevent companies from meeting business objectives.

However, many training programs don’t yield the desired results. One reason is that they are usually launched without sufficient knowledge of where the gaps in employee skills exist. We find that a good way to pinpoint these learning needs is to survey employees and let them evaluate the current skill levels of their peers and estimate the skill level their group must reach in order to be successful. An added advantage of this inclusive approach is that it heightens employees’ awareness of their learning needs and helps break down any resistance to learning new skills.

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From a Theory to a Consensus on Emissions

As Congress weighs imposing a mandatory limit on climate-altering gases — an outcome still far from certain — it is likely to turn to a system that sets a government ceiling on total emissions and allows polluting industries to buy and sell permits to meet it.

That approach, known as cap and trade, has been embraced by President Obama, Democratic leaders in Congress, mainstream environmental groups and a growing number of business interests, including energy-consuming industries like autos, steel and aluminum.

But not long ago, many of today’s supporters dismissed the idea of tradable emissions permits as an industry-inspired Republican scheme to avoid the real costs of cutting air pollution.

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Global Warming Biggest Health Threat of 21st Century, Experts Say

Public health officials call on their own to tackle issue

The warming of planet Earth is "the biggest global health threat of the 21st century," a varied group of experts warned Wednesday.

Their report is one of the latest to expound on the deepening environmental crisis, and one of the first to focus on the potential role of health-care professionals in ameliorating the problem.

"This is a bad diagnosis not just for children in different lands. It's for our children and grandchildren," Anthony Costello, a professor of international child health and director of the Institute for Global Health at University College London, said during a Wednesday teleconference. "Even the most conservative estimates are profoundly disturbing and demand action.

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Australia delays emissions scheme

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd: 'This is a hard piece of policy'

The Australian government says it will push back a planned carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) by a year.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the delay was necessary because of the poor economic climate.

But he also suggested that Australia could pursue tougher emissions reductions targets if an international deal was reached.

The ETS, which has been criticised by both industrial and environment groups, was due to launch in July 2010.

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E.P.A.’s Greenhouse Gas Proposal Critiqued

The Environmental Protection Agency ignored major economic and scientific questions in its April proposal to regulate carbon dioxide and other climate-altering gases, according to an internal government critique.

The undated and unsigned government memo, prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that the proposed finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare was not based on a systematic analysis of costs and benefits and fell short of scientific rigor on a number of issues.

It also said that the E.P.A.’s proposal to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act would have “serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the U.S. economy, including small businesses and small communities.”

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Tallying Climate Bill’s Cost to Consumers

How much would electricity bills go up if the federal government approves a major climate bill in the House? Texas has an answer, and it ranges from around $17 to $27 a month.

The study — carried out by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator, at the request of state regulators — looked at the potential impact in the state of the emissions-reductions required in the Waxman-Markey climate bill in the House.

Under a “business as usual” scenario — with natural gas prices hovering around $7 per million BTUs (roughly where the Energy Information Administation projects them to be in 2013) — the average household bill could increase by $27 in 2013, the study found.

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Watchdog Digs Into Conduct At SEC

Reports Focus on Use of Influence And Stock Trades

A Securities and Exchange Commission official attempted "to intimidate and influence" a family member's broker on multiple occasions by invoking her position, potentially violating agency rules, according to the agency's inspector general.

The allegation, detailed in a report reviewed by The Washington Post, is one of several that have raised questions about the internal conduct of some SEC employees at a time when the regulator is trying to counter accusations that it failed to effectively police Wall Street.

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A Sign of Maturity in Renewables? A Disconnect From Oil Prices

If an oil pipeline breaks, oil prices might reasonably be expected to rise — but that shouldn’t have an impact on solar shares.

History, however, has shown that it does. Indeed, generally speaking, when oil prices go up, nine times out of 10, clean-energy shares rise too, according to data from Bloomberg. It’s a long-standing correlation that has been something of a curiosity to analysts, given that there is little real-world connection between most renewables and oil.

Solar, wind and geothermal power, after all, produce electricity, while oil is mainly used to make fuel.

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China's 'sticky floor'

Economic success in China will hinge on fixing the gender inequality among its workers.

China’s transformation to a market-oriented economy has been accompanied by a significant increase in the pay gap between men and women. In many industrialized economies, gender-based differences are most pronounced in white-collar jobs, creating a “glass ceiling” for women who work in the office. But as China industrializes, gender pay differences are most striking among blue-collar workers. In this video interview, economists Li Bo and Chi Wei from China’s Tsinghua University consider whether China’s female factory workers labor on a “sticky floor.” The professors are the recent recipients of the first McKinsey Economics Award issued by the McKinsey China Council of Business Economists. Janamitra Devan of the McKinsey Global Institute conducted the interview in February 2009.

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Transparency Watch - Interview with Mary Robinson

Transparency Watch (TW): 2008 was the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights do you view corruption as a threat to this vision?

Mary Robinson (MR): Very much so. I was very keen to ensure that we made good links during the anniversary year with the many chapters of Transparency International that are tackling corruption and people on the ground who are addressing violations of human rights as there is a real overlap.

When we launched the Elders campaign Every Human Has Rights Cobus de Swardt [managing director of Transparency International] came to Cape Town for it. Huguette Labelle [chair of Transparency International] and myself are members of the board of the UN Global Compact and so we also worked in that framework to encourage more linking between human rights and corruption advocates because corruption leads to huge violations of human rights.

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Veterans Push Into ‘Green Jobs’

A year ago, John Ward was in Baghdad, finishing up 24 years of service in the Navy. These days, he manages operations at a wind farm in Missouri for Iberdrola, a Spanish wind-power company.

“For me, it was nice, because it’s not just a desk job, it’s a field job — and as a career naval officer, I kind of like to be out and about,” Mr. Ward said.

His engineering skills, honed in the Navy, also come in handy at a wind farm, he noted.

Rising numbers of veterans are entering the renewable energy business. At the top, there is former Gen. Wesley Clark, who co-chairs an ethanol lobby group called Growth Energy and also recently joined the board of a wind company, Juhl Wind.

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Biggest Solar Deal Signed … Again

Pacific Gas & Electric, a California utility, announced on Wednesday that it had agreed to purchase 1,310 megawatts of solar thermal power — enough to power 530,000 homes.

BrightSource Energy will provide the technology — which consists of mirrors that use the sunlight to heat water and spin turbines — and plans to build plants in California, Arizona and Nevada.

“From an industry perspective, the agreements between PG&E and BrightSource Energy now represent the largest solar deal in the world,” touted BrightSource’s chief executive, John Woolard, in a post on a PG&E site.

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Hope, Greed and Fear: The Psychology behind the Financial Crisis

To explain the current economic crisis, the world of finance has a particular lexicon -- including, for example, credit default swaps, mark-to-market and securitized subprime mortgages. Psychologists, on the other hand, might use very different terms: hope, greed and fear.

The language of psychology helps to address the fact that behind every cut-and-dried statistic about falling home prices and other indicators of economic decline, lies an ever-shifting horde of homeowners, bankers, business owners, unwitting investors -- in short, people. And people often pay no heed to fine-tuned economic models by doing things that are not rational, are not in their best interest, and are justified not by numbers -- but by emotion.

"There are spreadsheets and financial statements and models and rules and regulations," said Carolyn Marvin, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communications. "On the other hand, there are these feelings we have."

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Pact Is Close on Regulation of Ship Recycling

After more than five years of negotiations, delegates from 64 countries reached broad consensus here Thursday on a new international agreement regulating the recycling of ships. They scheduled a final meeting Friday to approve and sign the pact.

The dismantling of ships, so that their steel and other materials can be sold as scrap, is often done on or near beaches in poor countries, notably India and Bangladesh.

Both nations have pledged to improve working conditions and environmental practices. But activists contend that the process still kills and maims many workers each year and results in the contamination of shorelines with asbestos, oily waste, toxic paint and other dangerous materials.

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