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J'attire votre attention vers quelques articles sur vos métiers. (1) Difficultés de Coca Cola (7) Une politique sociale généreuse sanctionnée par les marchés financiers, (8) Extrait d'un site d'un établissement de financement d'entreprises.

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Week 15, 2004
THE REGULARS: Summary
A) Song of the week: "April in Paris" by Harburg and Duke, sung by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, etc.
B) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Kidzworld: NASA Sniffer [Un boulot insolite : un "nez" chez la NASA, qui veille au confort olfactif des spationautes.]
C) CNN/Global Office: Workers dream of staying at home [Des salariés aimeraient bien pratiquer le télétravail.]
D) The New York Times/The Ethicist: Clash of Cultures [Conseils sur l'éthique et la déontologie : Je suis coopérant dans un village de l'Asiec centrale : puis-je contester la violence envers ses soeurs du garçon de la famille qui m'héberge ? / Dois-je accepter les mémorials improvisés aux victimes d'accidents ou de crimes au bord des routes ? / En tant que végétarien, puis-je priver mon chat de viande ?]
E) Slate/Dear Prudence: Mixed bag [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : (Je panache cette semaine) J'aime pas les gens qui m'obligent à enlever mes chaussures avant de rentrer chez eux. / Je crois avoir reconnu ma cousine sur un site porno. / Ma meilleure amie a épousé un mec d'une classe sociale inférieure, et je désapprouve de la façon qu'ils élèvent leurs enfants.]
F) Washington Post/Miss Manners: A No-Dress Occasion [Conseils sur les bonnes manières : Quand je suis invité à une soirée jacuzzi chez des amis, suis-je obligé de me dévêtir et sauter dans le bain ? / L'ex de mon mari l'a invité à son deuxième mariage, mais sans moi.]
G) WNYC/On the Media: America, the Product [Entretien sur la question de l'image des Etats Unis et ses produits dans le monde. L'une des intervenantes est la publicitaire décriée dans un précédent article de The Economist.]
H) The Economist/Global taxation series: Net losses [Une série d'articles sur l'imposition à l'ère de la mondialisation : Les dangers d'internet pour les fiscs nationaux.]

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A) Song of the week: "April in Paris" by Harburg and Duke, sung by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, etc.

I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never knew my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace

Till April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom
Holiday tables under the trees
April in Paris, this is a feeling
That no one can ever reprise

I never knew the charm of spring
I never met it face to face
I never knew my heart could sing
I never missed a warm embrace
Till April in Paris

Whom can I run to?
What have you done to my heart?

^RETURN TO TOP^

For some jobs it's up to dogs to smell danger. At NASA it's up to George Aldrich to put his nose to work and sniff out any problems. He's in charge of 25 people who have to smell everything that goes into space. George tells New Scientist Magazine that smells change in space and once you're up there you're stuck with them. He works in the New Mexico desert and smells everything from sneakers to adult diapers.

Why He's Gotta Smell It All

Things smell different in space because of the confined space and the heat. "Think of a new car," explains George. "If you parked it in normal weather with the window open, that new car smell would be there in the background. But if you parked it in the sun on a sweltering day with the windows up, then the smell would be pretty overpowering. You'd be speeding up the evaporation of the chemicals."

George smells anything that goes inside a space shuttle. Here are a list of some of the things he's smelled: paints, magic markers, socks, shaving cream, tennis shoes, deodorized and non-deodorized tampons, adult diapers, a guitar and the case and toy animals like Chuckie Bear and Barney. FYI - astronauts wear diapers when they are out doing space walks and other circumstances where they just might need one. "We rejected some mascara from Sally Ride. She was the first American female astronaut and we tested a lot of things for her," says George.

Smell... I Mean Sound Appealing?

Does this job smell... I mean sound appealing? George explains how he became a NASA sniffer. "I never really thought much about whether I had a good sense of smell. I started with NASA in the fire department when I was 18. I was young and healthy and they asked me to be on their Odor Panel. I've now done 744 'smell missions' over 100 more than anyone else," explains George.

To get the job he had to pass a special physical. "You can't have any allergies or respiratory problems and they frown on high blood pressure. NASA wants healthy test subjects and if you have a lot of allergies your nasal passages are already irritated and cannot be used. And then you have to be able to smell. We have what we call the "10-bottle test": seven of them have odors and three of them are blanks. We have to certify our noses every three months like this."

Being a professional sniffer might make a few people chuckle but the job is very important. "For all the money it takes to get the shuttle off the ground, it's pointless if they have to abort the mission because of an odor inside the capsule," says George. "It is even more important because of the space station. The shuttle will be regularly supplying the astronauts up there with fresh supplies and taking away all their waste. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think it was important."

So what does George's business card say? "I call myself a nasal-naut. I've got a picture of the shuttle with the solid rocket boosters and my daughter has drawn a little skunk. Right in the middle it says: "If something smells in the space programme I'll be there to get wind of it."

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LONDON, England (CNN) -- Anyone who has ever tried getting to or from the office during the rush hour has dreamed of working from home. But new research suggests employers also have plenty to gain from liberating their staff from the daily grind. In a survey conducted among commuters at New York's Penn Station and London's Liverpool Street Station, eight out of 10 people said they would rather work from home if their employers offered the option.

Nine out of 10 said they felt having the choice of working at home or the office offered a perfect work-life balance, according to the results of the "Flexible Working Survey 2004," conducted by Netilla Networks and Infosecurity Europe. Most workers felt that swapping their desk for the kitchen table would make their jobs less stressful, enhance their relationships with their partners and improve their quality of life. One woman said it would perk up her love life, as she wouldn't be so tired after hours of commuting, while one man said long office hours had led to the breakdown of his marriage.

Increased productivity

While employers may have concerns about the reliability and trustworthiness of home workers, more than 70 percent of those surveyed felt their productivity would increase if allowed to work in a flexible environment. Nor would most workers want to spend all of their time at home. Eight out of 10 said they would still enjoy going into the office for the social life.

And with the average commuter now spending almost two hours a day traveling between home, work and back again, both employers and workers can gain from a more flexible approach. A person working from home for one or two days a week can save a company up to $12,000 a year though lower staff turnover, reduced office space and lower sickness levels.

"This survey proves what we have all suspected but never had the evidence to prove," said Netilla president Reggie Best. "We all seek the freedom to work when and where we want to, whether it is at home when the kids are off sick, or it's snowing or we're away in a hotel, at an Internet cafe, or indeed a crowded railway station using a wireless network."

^RETURN TO TOP^

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E) Slate/Dear Prudence: Mixed bag [Conseils sur la vie sentimentale et la vie tout court : (Je panache cette semaine) J'aime pas les gens qui m'obligent à enlever mes chaussures avant de rentrer chez eux. / Je crois avoir reconnu ma cousine sur un site porno. / Ma meilleure amie a épousé un mec d'une classe sociale inférieure, et je désapprouve de la façon qu'ils élèvent leurs enfants.]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2096529/

Dear Pru,
What do you think about people who invite you over for a social gathering, only to get you to their doorstep and politely direct you to take off your shoes—without explanation—but presumably so you won't soil their carpet or scratch their floors? Is this acceptable behavior? I personally find it offensive and ridiculous. Either buy carpet that will stand up to foot traffic, or don't invite people over. This has happened to me several times (different hosts). I am uncomfortable barefooted on cold hard-wood floors, and I don't particularly care for my unattractive feet being exposed without warning. Believe me, I am not unsympathetic to their plight, as I myself have light-colored carpet. (I just get regular carpet cleanings and spot-clean if I do get a stain.) Is it too much to ask to keep your shoes on when socializing, or should I suck it up and resign myself to carrying a pair of tube socks in my car for situations like this?

—Cold Feet in Houston

Dear Cold,
Prudie can think of two occasions when "remove your shoes" is a proper "request": If the party is in Japan or the hosts are offering pedicures. Asking guests to check their shoes at the door is not the most hospitable or gracious way to entertain. However, if the rest of the party components seem worthwhile (the other guests, ambience), give the crazy-clean hosts the benefit of the doubt and doff your shoes. Carrying tube sox is actually a good idea, assuming you wish to socialize with such fussy people. Pragmatically, your decision is between tube sox and declining the invitation.

—Prudie, optionally

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Dear Prudie,
I am self-employed and work at home. To my shame, and occasional self-loathing, I check out free pornography sites from time to time. (I have never gone further and actually paid to see more.) The other day I came across a porn scene featuring a female actress who, I swear, looks just like one of my cousins. Because the film clip is so brief, I can't be sure this person is my cousin. I'm not sure what my obligations are in this case. This cousin has been through some rough times recently (divorce, custody battle), and I would hate to think she felt she had to resort to porn to make ends meet. Our family has the resources to help her out. To verify her identity, or disprove it (I hope), I would have to pay $5 for a temporary membership. I've never wanted to do this for all kinds of reasons. The most practical of the problems: The charge would pop up on my credit card statement, which, in turn, would be spotted by my wife. What should I do? (And I also worry that I have a minor addiction to porn.)

—Dilemma From My DSL

Dear Dil,
Prudie can solve your problems (except maybe the one about looking at freebie porn, then feeling guilty). Regarding the woman you think might be your cousin, there is no need to phone her and ask if she's made any blue movies lately. How about a phone call to her saying you just wanted to know how she was doing, considering all the difficulties she's had? If she gives you any clue that money is a concern, then you can offer a helping hand. That way, if the "actress" was, indeed, your cousin, she need not suffer the humiliation of having been recognized by someone in the family. If the actress is merely a doppelgänger, you have not offended your cousin with the idea that you thought such a thing was possible.

—Prudie, decorously

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Dear Prudence,
My friend—I'll call her "Jane"—and I have been friends since before we were wives and mothers. I think she feels much closer to me than I do to her, in part because I was one of the few people who supported her choice of mate—a blue-collar fellow who didn't finish high school. "John" is kind and loves Jane, and I've always thought well of him. Jane and I now live in cities several hours apart and each have small children. During our last visit, Jane and John's 2-year-old son walked up to John, took the beer bottle from his hand, and took three big gulps of beer—probably one-fourth of the 12-ounce bottle. The boy then burped and patted his belly. Jane rolled her eyes at me and made a little joke. John looked on proudly. It was clear to me that this wasn't a one-time trick but definitely seemed that the child had had beer before, with his father's permission. Also, Jane's 4-year-old is a very shy girl, unlike her gregarious mother. Jane often forces her daughter to perform in front of people and teases her when she starts to cry or gets embarrassed. I love Jane's kids and John and Jane, too. My questions: 1) Do I say anything about how they're treating their kids with the beer and the teasing? And 2) how do I refuse their baby-sitting offers while offering my own to them?

—Sticking by an Old Friend

Dear Stick,
The kid is 2 and guzzling beer?! That is unhealthy, wrong, illegal, and most probably child endangerment. His addle-brained parents apparently think it's cute that they're encouraging a 24-month-old tot to imbibe a drink that is likely 4 percent alcohol by volume. And forcing the little girl to "perform" is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Prudie thinks the answer for you is to weave together both your concerns. Because you genuinely like this family and have proven your friendship, you need to talk turkey to Jane, explaining what parents are for. Tell her you only wish to be helpful and have no wish to criticize, but some rules of parenting are not judgment calls. As you're telling her the disastrous consequences of her and John's actions, let those reasons also be the explanation for why you could not, in good conscience, leave your children with them. It takes guts to correct a friend, but in this case, it's worth it to try.

—Prudie, constructively

^RETURN TO TOP^

Q:
Dear Miss Manners:

Must one participate in the principal activity at a party to which one is invited?

A couple of friends often host hot-tub parties, where all hot-tub bathing is totally nude. I am open-minded and have no objection to others getting into the hot tub together, but I have no desire to join strangers or even some friends in the hot tub myself. But quite a bit of socializing goes on at the parties outside of the hot tub, and I enjoy that aspect of the parties very much.

The hosts have indicated that no one is required to doff his clothes and jump in, but I wonder. I would very much like to attend the parties and socialize outside of the hot tub. If one were invited to a dinner party, I suppose one would be expected to eat. But if one is invited to a hot-tub party is it socially acceptable to enjoy the party fully clothed and out of the tub?

A:
This is not exactly like tagging along on a ski weekend when the only sports you practice are reading and rum toddies. Or going along on a picnic and saying, "Oh, I'd just like to watch" when the touch football game starts. Miss Manners can think of no respectable social activity in which some people are clothed and others are not. Unless your friends give two-tiered parties, so to speak, where clothed guests gather elsewhere while naked guests are in the tub, you should decline.

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Q:
Dear Miss Manners:

My husband received an invitation to his ex-wife's wedding. The invitation was addressed only to him. He is considering going, and I am hurt that he would honor and support an event of this nature that excludes me. My husband says people have the right to invite whomever they want to their wedding, and if his ex-wife or anyone else does not like me they probably have a good reason for it. He says he should maintain a good relationship with these people (the kids are all grown). He does not "hang out" with them socially at all. It isn't that I really want to go to the wedding. I feel that leaving my name off the invitation was very rude, and my husband is supporting his ex-wife's rudeness to me. Feelings aside, what is the proper etiquette for inviting a married person to a wedding? Is it appropriate to invite an ex-spouse who has been remarried for over 13 years and not invite his wife?

In your place, Miss Manners would be more concerned about that comment of your husband's that "they probably have a good reason" for not liking you. Unless his explanation is "because the contrast is so unfavorable to her," both of you should stay home, worrying not about other people's marriages, but your own.

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G) WNYC/On the Media: America, the Product [Entretien sur la question de l'image des Etats Unis et ses produits dans le monde. L'une des intervenantes est la publicitaire décriée dans un précédent article de The Economist. Vous pouvez écouter cet entretien sur le site indiqué.]
http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/transcripts/transcripts_032604_america.html

March 26, 2004

BOB GARFIELD: In a March poll by the Pew Center for People and the Press, 62 percent of Frenchmen declared disapproval of the United States. So did 93 percent of Jordanians and 34 percent of Britons. Anybody who still asks "Why do they hate us?" just isn't paying attention, and anybody who replies "They hate our freedoms," isn't looking at the data. 70 percent of Germans, according to the Pew poll, are less confident that the U.S. wishes to promote democracy. 66 percent of Turks believe U.S. leaders lied about the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. 63 percent of Moroccans believe America's motives are to control Mid-East oil. So the question is, if the great "Satan" is so damned unpopular, why exactly are the Golden Arches going gangbusters? [COMMERCIAL MUSIC]

CHORUS: [SINGING] I'M LOVIN' IT.

BOB GARFIELD: McDonald's grew 6.5 percent in Europe, Asia and Africa in each of the past two months. Coca-Cola is growing. Jack Daniels and MTV are growing. Marlboro, in spite of worldwide anti-tobacco legislation, is growing. It would seem to be a paradox. American products embraced and beloved, while America, the product, is met with contempt. In spearheading his magazine's annual brand survey, Business Week's senior editor Jerry Khermouch expected to see a backlash of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war on Iraq against America's commercial icons. What he found instead was ambivalence writ large.

GERRY KHERMOUCH: We had bureau reporters in places like India who'd seen examples of people demonstrating against America, burning American flags in front of the embassy for the TV cameras, and once it was all over, they went down the street to McDonald's and had lunch.

AHMED ALI ABOUL GHEIT: Look at the Palestinians throwing rocks against Israelis. They way they are dressed -- jeans, and often, t-shirts that have Disney characters on their chests.

BOB GARFIELD: Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit is permanent representative to the United Nations from Egypt where consumers have no difficulty compartmentalizing the American lifestyle they envy and the American politics they despise.

AHMED ALI ABOUL GHEIT: Yes, they objected to the war in Iraq, however they maintained their liking to whatever that is still American, from McDonald's to Pizza Hut to American cars, to American music, American films. [CLIP FROM FILM TITANIC] [MUSIC]

LEONARDO DI CAPRIO: [SHOUTING] I'm the king of the world! Whooo!

BOB GARFIELD: No, that wasn't Dick Cheney. It was Leonardo di Caprio in Titanic, one of the most successful American exports of all time, raking in more than 1.2 billion dollars in box office overseas. After the invasion of Iraq, Hollywood braced for a collision with an iceberg of anti-Americanism, because not only is Hollywood quintessentially American, it is also notoriously the vector for our alleged decadence, spiritual emptiness and moral depravity. But the catastrophic collision of foreign cultures and U.S. pop culture never came.

ELIZABETH GUIDER: Actually, the box office abroad has held up extremely well. In fact, it seems to be on the increase.

BOB GARFIELD: Elizabeth Guider is deputy editor of Variety magazine.

ELIZABETH GUIDER: Anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of the entire box office, say, in Italy is American movies, not Italian movies. In Indonesia the most popular shows at the moment are Fear Factor and Survivor.

BOB GARFIELD: So yeah, Fear Factor is very well-received. This wasn't. [CLIP PLAYS]

FAROUK MOHAMMED AMAR: My name is Farouk Mohammed Amar, paramedic for the Fire Department of New York. I have co-workers who are Jewish, who are Christian, Catholic, Hindu, even. All, all different faiths.

BOB GARFIELD: Though the State Department insists the campaign's message of America as a hospitable environment for Muslims jimmied open doors of understanding, it was widely ridiculed in the Arab press and quickly pulled off the air. But is it really evidence of that mysterious paradox, or is it just a question of over-estimating the power of advertising? Keith Reinhart is chairman of the ad agency DDB Worldwide.

KEITH REINHART: No amount of advertising would ever be able to sell a product which hasn't been carefully designed for the intended audience. The first step is listening very carefully through all the research we can gather so that we know what it is about the product we should promote, what it is we should change, and how we should conduct ourselves. We certainly never start with the advertising step.

BOB GARFIELD: After all, for all the glitzy ad campaigns, nobody ever bought the Edsel, the Newton or Touch of Yogurt Shampoo. At the moment, rightly or wrongly, American foreign policy is an Edsel, and neither a series of State Department videos nor such American-produced media as Radio Sawa are going to change that. American business has taken note of the government's failure to win hearts and minds, and is taking it upon itself to re-vitalize Brand America its own way. Ad exec Keith Reinhart also heads the Business for Diplomatic Action Initiative.

KEITH REINHART: It's about action. U.S. business could organize a collective intern program, once young people come and actually live here, they are changed forever as they go back to their home states. Listening programs. Youths listening to one another, online, possibly in a McDonald's or a Starbuck's. The idea of Americans listening to the world.

BOB GARFIELD: MTV, for one, is listening. The Viacom cable network has created 94 music channels around the world in the image of the local cultures, a colorful comical Bollywood take on India; high-tech everything in Japan; and in Indonesia, five times daily a call to prayer. And at least one successful world marketer invites locals to bow before another almighty, dangling the rags-to-riches promise of American prosperity. Michael Norris is vice president of global marketing for Alticor, parent company of Amway.

MICHAEL NORRIS: If I'm listening to the reports on Iraq, you know, the one frustration is that they want to see the American magic come to them; they want to see the quality of life improving. They want to grow. They want to be better. And it all boils down to opportunity. You know? And that's what America has.

CHARLOTTE BEERS: You can fragment the American brand experience into a thousand pieces, but the fundamental basis of it would have to do with the rule of law, the, the belief in freedom, the opportunities for the individual.

BOB GARFIELD: Charlotte Beers, for all her difficulties in her brief tenure as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, also still believes the greatest opportunity is to mine that core for the hope it still represents.

CHARLOTTE BEERS: America is one of the most complex and fascinating brands I've ever met.

BOB GARFIELD: Some bridle at the very notion of America, the brand, as if reducing our nation's ideals to something so crass as product attributes insults the very dignity of our democracy. But a brand, by definition, is not an accumulation of hype. It is the accumulation of core values and benefits, both intrinsic and perceived. The challenge facing the State Department and the nation at large is to persuade a skeptical world that Brand America is new and improved. [THEME MUSIC UP & UNDER]

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H) The Economist/Global taxation series: Net losses [Une série d'articles sur l'imposition à l'ère de la mondialisation : Les dangers d'internet pour les fiscs nationaux.]
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=276962
Net losses
Jan 27th 2000

Why the taxman fears the Internet

LIKE a newborn baby, the Internet is still young enough for people to predict all manner of things for it without anybody being able to prove them wrong. Some people say that e-commerce will never really take off. Others insist that it is the most important development since the invention of the printing press. Whoever is right, taxmen the world over would be wise to prepare for the worst.

Whereas most people worry that the Internet will reduce personal privacy, some tax experts reckon that it will allow unwilling taxpayers to hide more easily. According to Jeffrey Owens, head of fiscal affairs at the OECD, the Internet may make it hard to pinpoint the identity or location of people who are carrying out potentially taxable activities. A domain name used on the web may give no clue to the location of its originator. Even websites of well-known international businesses may not reveal the location of the offices that maintain them. The tax authorities still rely on paper-based records, yet the Internet will encourage the keeping of electronic records—which may well be stored in some foreign jurisdiction, safe from the taxman’s dawn raids.

When gathering information, tax collectors also rely heavily on independent third parties such as retailers, who have little to gain by helping others to evade taxes and can therefore be a valuable source of impartial data. However, e-commerce may well cut out many of these middlemen. Over the Internet, customers can buy direct from producers. One area of e-commerce that is expected to grow rapidly is online business-to-business auctions which allow, say, widget producers and widget users to make direct deals. These sites could make traditional brokers and dealers redundant, removing a useful information source for the taxman. The sites may also establish themselves in a country whose rules make data hard for tax authorities to get hold of. On the other hand, the Internet may make it easier for different countries’ tax authorities to communicate with each other, privacy rules and national interests permitting.

The Internet may also make it possible for secret transactions to take place through the use of anonymous e-money and highly secure encryption. Tax authorities, as well as the police, fear that this kind of technology will foster a culture of evasion and lead to an increase in money-laundering—moving money obtained by criminal activity into legitimate bank accounts.

How justified such fears are is difficult to judge. E-money has yet to catch on with e-commerce consumers, who seem to have come to terms with using their credit cards online. Thanks to government pressure, most of the different versions of e-money now being developed deny their users the anonymity needed to evade the taxman, and certainly the anonymity provided by old-fashioned cash.

Oakington, a firm developing a digital-cash system called eBits, is trying to persuade the American government to throw its weight behind its not-wholly-anonymous product so that fully anonymous alternatives never get established. However, the American government’s attempts to stop encryption technology being exported to places that might put it to nefarious uses have merely caused much of the development of the technology to be carried out in other countries.

Even if they can pinpoint their elusive taxpayers, the tax authorities may find it harder than ever to collect the money. Some of the third-party information gatherers that are now being cut out by technology have also played an important role as tax collectors. Retailers, for example, often collect taxes on the sale of goods, and companies collect income tax on behalf of their workers. In an effort to replace those middlemen, some tax authorities are now casting an eye in the direction of shipping companies such as FedEx, as well as credit-card companies, but are getting an unenthusiastic response.

Governments worry that the wired world may make it easier for many more people to take advantage of tax havens, hitherto the preserve of a wealthy few. Mr Owens of the OECD sums up the argument: “Internet banking will offer simple access, low transaction costs, a degree of anonymity and instant ability to move money around the world, to an extent not widely available now. If this is combined with well-run, well-regulated offshore institutions, a much wider clientele is likely to be attracted to these services than are using them today.”

Everywhere and nowhere
But it is the potential of the Internet to revolutionise the nature of work that may create the biggest challenge to the tax authorities. Today’s tax system relies on knowing where a particular economic activity is located. But the Internet may enable individual workers to operate in many different countries while sitting at the same desk.

Multinational companies may increasingly operate as seamless global organisations, with teams of workers based all over the world, passing projects backwards and forwards via the Internet or the companies’ private in-house intranets. This will make it more difficult for the tax authorities to demand that economic activity and value creation be attributed to a particular physical location. In the past, a company was deemed to have a taxable presence in a country if it had a “permanent establishment” there. But at the moment it is not clear whether the existence of a server or a website qualifies as such a presence. Tax authorities have shown considerable enthusiasm for a proposal by Luc Hinnekens, a lawyer at the University of Antwerp, for servers to be designated as “virtual permanent establishments”. The old trick of finding out where a company’s board meets to establish its place of residence may no longer work, because such meetings are increasingly conducted via satellite or the Internet.

Tax choices may play a much bigger role in deciding whether the Internet is a success than for previous technologies. “The costs of illuminating manuscripts were so much greater than those of printing them that the taxation of printed matter would probably have had little impact on the choice of technology,” says Charles McLure, an economist at the Hoover Institution. E-commerce, by contrast, is one of several different ways of delivering essentially the same product. These delivery channels are quite close substitutes for each other, so if one of them has a tax advantage, that may well give it the edge, he says.

Moreover, Mr McLure points out, “The taxation of electronic commerce faces technological constraints.” The Internet is so new that the direction of technological change is fiendishly hard to predict. By contrast, tax rules are precise and inflexible, and take a long time to change. As one frustrated taxman puts it, “They can move millions of dollars at the click of a mouse, and five years later, when we’ve changed the rules, they’ve come up with another scheme.” Mr Owens concludes: “Tax authorities cannot remain passive in the face of such developments.” But what should they do? The first place to look for an answer is online shopping.

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Coca-Cola is losing its fizz. Last week, the company pulled bottles of Dasani water from shelves in England, where the brand had just been launched, when it turned out the water had excessively high levels of the chemical bromate. Coca-Cola's stock trades lower than it did in December 1996. And with CEO Douglas Daft having announced his imminent retirement, the company's board is casting about for a new leader.

The Wall Street Journal noted that "to many board members, the ideal Coke chairman and CEO is a visionary who commands admiration, delegates easily, and communicates well with Coke's 50,000 or so employees and the public." That's a little like saying your ideal third baseman is a charismatic Gold Glove fielder who can hit 50 home runs and steal 40 bases.

Coke's next CEO will also apparently need the ability to overturn some basic economic rules. Once a national or global economy is sufficiently developed, exponential growth is impossible and even incremental growth becomes more difficult. The same argument applies to certain global brands like Coca-Cola, which has enjoyed exponential growth over its 118-year history. There is a limit to how much Coke the world's population wants—or can afford—to consume. And from the looks of things, we're bumping up right against it.

Coca-Cola is perhaps the most successful American brand ever. Each day, about 1.2 billion servings of Coca-Cola products are consumed around the globe. Coca-Cola is remarkably well-established in the world's wealthiest consumer market. The company's 2002 annual report noted that the average consumer in North America "enjoys at least one serving of our products every day."

Once you have the entire population of the world's richest nation using your product at least once a day, what do you do for an encore? Especially when the stock market requires you to keep earnings growing by 10 percent annually? You resort to financial engineering and engage in actions that damage the brand. That's what Constance L. Hays concludes in the new book The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company. The book doesn't contain the sort of juicy scandals that characterized the Enron fiasco. But it provides a careful and ultimately devastating account of how a very large corporation has coped—and coped poorly—with the limits of organic growth.

Much of Hays' book deals with the attempts of Douglas Ivester, who became CEO in 1997, to squeeze additional profits out of what had been a pretty simple business—selling the concentrate composed of sugar and a carefully-guarded mix of flavorings to bottlers. He bullied bottlers into accepting deals more favorable to Coca-Cola and relied more on Coca-Cola Enterprises—the bottler created and essentially controlled by the parent company—to make the company's balance sheet and profits look healthier.

But Ivester couldn't make Pepsi go away. Coca-Cola may dominate the beverage market, but it doesn't own it. Every day, it is forced to engage in vicious hand-to-hand combat with giant rival Pepsi. As a result, over the past couple of years, operating margins in the United States have shrunk. Overall, the company's operating income has grown at a measly 1 percent compound rate over the past five years. In fact, last year, the company lost market share in the United States. Meanwhile, many of Ivester's efforts to lessen reliance on the flagship Coke family of products failed. The European Union quashed his effort to buy Orangina in 1998 and sharply scaled back his attempt to purchase a portion of Cadbury-Schweppes' beverage business.

A climate of slow growth, declining margins, high expectations, and tough competition proved to be a formula for encouraging financial gamesmanship. The Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating Coca-Cola after a former employee alleged that the company stuffed distribution channels and failed to comply with accounting rules. Last year, Coca-Cola conceded that some employees fiddled with a Frozen Coke promotion at Burger King in 2000—making it seem as if Frozen Coke was more of a draw than it really was.

With U.S. Coca-Cola growth leveling off, future growth must come from the portions of the world where drinking Coke isn't a daily habit. In its 2002 report, Coca-Cola noted that in Asia (population 3.3 billion), people consume about two servings of company products per month, while in Africa (population 831 million), average consumption is three servings per month. But the majority of the consumers in these untapped markets are living in relative poverty. They can't afford to buy sugar and bottled water, much less pay a premium for a fizzy combination of the two substances. As a result, growth in these developing regions has been muted, too.

The economies of India and China are growing rapidly. But GDP per capita in those countries is just $500 and $1,200, respectively. And it will be several more years before huge chunks of the Indian and Chinese population have sufficient disposable income to spend on Diet Coke or Sprite. In the meantime, the business infrastructure that allows Coca-Cola to produce and distribute its products efficiently—and hence profitably—is sorely undeveloped in these massive potential markets. In 2003, according to Coca-Cola's 10-K, sales in Africa and Asia rose 5 percent and 4 percent, respectively. For sales from these regions to make a significant contribution to Coca-Cola's overall revenues, they'd have to rise at a pace several times greater.

It's difficult to see a way out of Coca-Cola's slow-growth conundrum. The next CEO of Coca-Cola—whoever it is—will face a daunting task. It's not enough to have a Coke and a smile. Now you also need a miracle.

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4) The Sacramento (California) Bee : Mess managed [Une réponse pour Marc ? Des groupes de soutien pour les bordéliques.]
http://www.sacbee.com/content/lifestyle/story/8651951p-9579902c.html

Mess managed
Problems pile up with possessions for clutterers, some of whom seek help
By Alison apRoberts
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Saturday, March 27, 2004

Five women and two men sit down at a clean table under a clear night sky in the courtyard of an office building. At first glance, this diverse group, from their 30s to their 80s, looks like upstanding members of a civic board ready to tackle problems on behalf of others. But they are gathered here in the East Bay to tackle a crushing problem of their own. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference," they say together.

Yes, this is the serenity prayer, the standard opening for a support group meeting. During the next hour and a half, the people here share the poignant assortment of feelings - shame, resolution and hope - that typify such gatherings. One of the members recites the group's mission statement: "To maintain a positive attitude as we help each other move into action in dealing with our obsession over clutter."

This is a self-help group for those who clutter. It might sound funny or trivial, but for these people - and countless others - it is not. As we enter the spring-cleaning season, this gathering is a timely reminder that cluttering can pile up into a very real problem.

Outwardly, the people at this table are all orderly, their hair, clothes and manners in place. But their problems are hidden at home, where bathtubs have become storage bins, where the kitchen counter hasn't been seen in years, where piles block doorways and hallways. As they talk, their pain and embarrassment are clear. They are willing to open their meeting to a reporter, but not their homes, and they are very concerned that they not be identified in any way. They take turns talking about any progress they have made and setbacks they have endured since they met a week ago. The rest ask questions and applaud even small successes.

One woman describes throwing out some magazines - although she has years' worth more to go. "This was such a good week," says another woman, explaining that she made her way through a stack of paper that included a long-overdue bill. "It's the emotional clearing that's the most important," she adds.

Another talks about cleaning off part of a TV tray that had long been loaded down with paper. "How did you start?" someone asks her, pinpointing one of the most elusive aspects of battling clutter.

One of the men talks about his victory in putting away tools that had piled up in a hallway. "Clutter is decisions waiting to be made," he says. The others nod in agreement.

Some might scoff at the notion that piles of junk can stack up to the level of destruction and compulsion that mark alcoholism or drug abuse. But to the people in this group, their problem is comparable. "This is like a disability that can interfere with people's lives; people aren't doing it deliberately," says one of the men who comes to the East Bay support group and helped to organize it. He is 57, has a professional job and is a skilled meeting leader, but clutter got in his way. "It was ruining everything in my life," he says of his problem, which he says contributed to a divorce. (He has since remarried.)

The fact that this meeting takes place signals a victory of sorts for those who showed up, according to Mike Nelson, who started the group's sponsoring organization, Clutterless Recovery Groups Inc., four years ago and has written several books on the topic. "Clutterers are really ashamed and they're not particularly outgoing people - alcoholics tend to be more outgoing - so it's harder for them to start a meeting," he says.

Nelson, who is 53 and describes himself as a recovering clutterer, says a single battle will never conquer the mess; only gradual changes in behavior will win. "We're all looking for the magic bullet; I'm afraid there isn't one," he says, speaking from his home in Galveston, Texas.

"We struggle and fail for the most part," says Sandra Felton, speaking from her home in Florida. She is the founder of another clutter-support organization, Messies Anonymous, which sponsors 12-step groups. She has written several books on the topic.

Nelson, who leads workshops around the country and is slated to come to Sacramento in August, focuses on the emotional causes of cluttering rather than on organizing systems. Sometimes clutter is a response to feelings of deprivation from the past: "I grew up pretty poor, so for me to have anything was a big deal, so I held onto everything," he says. Sometimes, he says, people become clutterers after the traumatic loss of a loved one or losing a job: "They feel they can control things by holding onto everything." To succeed, Nelson adds, you have to sweep away the common delusion that more space is the cure: "Every clutterer thinks the solution is to get a bigger house."

We may recognize clutter when we see it, but defining it and sorting out its causes are not so simple. "Chronic disorganization" is the term chosen by the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization, a nonprofit group started by professional organizers. The group says you are chronically disorganized if self-help efforts to change have failed, and disorganization is interfering with your quality of life.

The causes are varied and often multiple, according to NSGCD and others, and may include the following: poor lifestyle choices, such as overscheduling; neurological problems such as chronic fatigue syndrome and attention deficit disorder; mental-health issues, including depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder; and traumatic events such as divorce or death.

There are no statistics on how many of us are chronically disorganized. At the extreme, there is severe hoarding, considered a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder that afflicts as many as 3 percent of us at some point in our lives, according to some estimates. Such hoarding can be a true health hazard, turning a home into a firetrap or a vermin-breeding zone. With an aging population, the problem is likely to grow since hoarding often worsens with age.

Our yearning to clean up our acts certainly seems to be growing. The space-and closet-organizer market is booming, and home-organizing TV shows are piling up faster than the dust bunnies under the bed. These include "Mission Organization" on HGTV, "Clean Sweep" on TLC and "Clean House" on the Style Network. A growing number of people are willing to help us for a price: The National Association of Professional Organizers, founded in the mid-1980s, has grown to more than 2,000 members. There are about 30 in the Sacramento region; they charge anywhere from $40 to $150 an hour.

One of them, Terry Prince of Elk Grove, is president of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization. Prince says joining a support group can be a good first step. She leads facilitated support groups locally, rather than member-led groups such as Nelson's and Messies Anonymous. "The groups can help break the shame," she says. "For some it's all they need; for some it's just the beginning." Prince says some people need professional help from both an organizer and a psychotherapist. In her experience, the first indication of a serious clutter problem is confused roles for areas of the home: "The functions of the rooms are no longer clear - they might be using the shower stall as a storage place." It's easy to fall into a cluttering lifestyle, Prince says: "We have more stuff and more channels of acquisition today - ordering via eBay and online catalogs."

Lee Mahla, a professional organizer who lives in Gold River, often works alongside clients to clear a space, lending emotional as well as tactical support. And for many, there is a particular room that is a recurring battleground for clutter. "I've worked with people who spend $50,000, $75,000 $100,000 on a kitchen remodel, and then a few months later they call and say, 'Gee, I have this beautiful kitchen, but I can't find anything.' " No amount of remodeling or organizers can fight the clutter. All of us have to do it ourselves. "To some degree, disorganization is in everybody's life," Mahla says. "It's a matter of balance."

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Like movies? Try 'Movieoke'
Participants act out their favorite movie scenes
Saturday, March 27, 2004 Posted: 0712 GMT (1512 HKT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Remember the scene from "When Harry Met Sally ..." when Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan are sitting at the diner? Or when Jack Nicholson exclaims "You can't handle the truth!" to Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men"? Or how about the dance number in "Flashdance" when Jennifer Beals gyrates around in leg warmers to the song "Maniac"?

Anastasia Fite knows them all -- and acts them out on stage at "movieoke," which is essentially like karaoke but with movie scenes instead of songs. Fite, 24, runs the event out of a campy little theater called the Den of Cin in downtown Manhattan on Wednesday nights. "I can't karaoke," she said. "Film is my thing, which is why I had to create movieoke."

Fite said she once made a film in school where the main character could only communicate in movie lines, and after she became manager at the Den, which also shows independent films, she concocted the idea of having people act their favorite scenes on stage.

The process is pretty rudimentary. Fite has patrons write down which scene they want to do, she runs to the adjacent video store to get the DVDs, and cues it up. The process takes about 10 minutes. The movie flickers against a small screen, and the actors stand in front, with the scene projected on them, reading subtitles from a monitor that's set up on a table. Some people bring their friends on stage to act with them; others do all the characters. There's no admission, and people can bring in their own copies of films if they choose.

The most requested scenes come from '80s flicks such as "The Breakfast Club," and "Pretty In Pink," though Fite said some people do old movies like "Casablanca."

On a recent Wednesday, the tiny space was packed with mostly younger hipsters, although there were a few men in business suits. Capacity is 50, and Fite said usually she'll see about 80 people on a given Wednesday. Dave Rubaltelli, an ophthalmologist in New York, heard about the event from friends and was making his acting debut. "I talk about movies all the time. We all sit around and say 'Oh did you see this?' So this seems like a fun way to spend a night," he said. "But I'm a little nervous." Rubaltelli, 29, did a scene from "Trading Places" with Dan Akroyd. He was pretty stiff going up there, but he loosened up once the scene came on and he affected different accents for the two characters in the scene.

Others, like Matt Dujnic, 29, have been doing movieoke since its inception in October and are sort of house celebrities. Dujnic did a hilarious rendition of "Evil Dead II" with no lines, where a man's hand is possessed. He worked up a sweat by flinging himself around the stage, using paper plates for props, and the backdrop screen as part of the scene, eliciting cheers from the audience.

But the real master was Fite, who took off her shoes and danced around to the "Maniac" scene from "Flashdance." She had every move down. There's even the equivalent of the guy at karaoke who insists on dragging the crowd down with a version of "Feelings." This time, it was a long scene from "Back to the Future Part II."

The process needs a bit of refining. Currently Fite turns down the scene so the actors can perform, but the silence is a bit awkward, and the audience needs to participate more. The down time between scenes can be a bit long, and it's difficult for people to hold audience attention with no props or others on stage.

The other problem, patrons say, is the media. Since movieoke caught on in late November, there has been a string of TV and print reporters from all over the world harassing the audience and shining lights on the movie screen during scenes. "The media is getting a bit out of hand," Dujnic grumbled to his friends after doing an interview for a Swedish network. "I'm not here for them. I'm here for me."

And movieoke might be there for you before long: The idea is spreading. In St. Louis, a little coffee shop and video store called Farrago started its own version a few weeks ago, and an Internet search returns hundreds of movieoke hits.

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The restaurant industry is struggling to get in front of a bizarre hoax in which outlet managers across the country have been duped into strip-searching employees or customers.

Last week, a man allegedly claiming to be a police officer called a Fountain Hills, Ariz., Taco Bell and told the manager to conduct a strip search of a female he said had stolen a pocket book, and gave a general description of what she was wearing. Pulling aside a 17-year-old female customer who roughly fit the description, the boss complied. As in the other cases, no stolen property was found, though this is the first search involving a customer rather than an employee.

It might seem implausible that any manager could be compelled by an unknown caller to order someone to entirely disrobe and submit to a humiliating search for drugs or stolen money. Or that someone would succumb to such an examination. But investigators say there have been dozens of similar cases since 1999, involving Burger King, Wendy's, Applebee's and others. Similar incidents have been reported in Massachusetts, South Dakota, Indiana, Utah and Ohio. The managers and the victims of such incidents have been male and female. Investigators have begun linking the cases and say they believe the hoaxes are the work of a single person calling from North Florida public telephones using a phone card.

His likely motive, they say: Not money, but power and perversion.

In the Arizona case, the caller allegedly posing as a police officer remained on the phone to instruct the manager for each step of the examination of his young customer, which included a demoralizing cavity search, says Sheriff Joseph Arpaio of Marciopa County.

Discussing the March 22 hoax at the Phoenix suburb, the sheriff said he was surprised the manager believed the phony policeman when he insisted that the girl would go to jail if she didn't submit to the search. "For any cop to call a private citizen and ask them to do a search is wrong and beyond my imagination," he said. The sheriff says he has sent letters to corporate headquarters of Taco Bell, Wendy's, McDonald's, Hooters, Applebee's and Ruby Tuesday urging them to warn restaurant managers of the fake calls.

These cases raise enormous, complex liability issues: Last summer, an Odessa, Texas, Burger King franchise paid $35,000 to settle a civil suit filed by an employee who alleged she was forced to submit to a strip search by a male manager who received a similar phone call. The restaurant's manager was arrested and charged with "illegal restraint," and fined $500.

And last week, Wendy's International Inc. said it had been hit with four lawsuits by former workers of Boston-area company-owned outlets. In February, managers there, acting on a call from a man posing as a police officer, ordered the workers to submit to a strip search for allegedly stolen money.

Although these cases have been popping up for nearly five years, they are beginning to gain the attention of the National Food Service Security Council, a 25-year-old group of restaurant-industry security executives. Industry insiders say the restaurant chains hesitated to talk about the hoaxes because it was so embarrassing to the outlets that were involved. Tom Briggs, a council spokesman, said the idea of managers falling for the hoax points to a serious training flaw. "Whoever this caller is must be a hell of a good con man," Mr. Briggs says. "You'd think nobody would fall for this."

The National Restaurant Association, Wendy's, Taco Bell and Applebee's are sending memos to restaurants telling managers that if they receive suspicious calls, to ask for the caller's name and telephone number, then hang up and contact local law-enforcement authorities.

"We're directing them not to take any action," says Laurie Schalow, a spokeswoman for Taco Bell, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands Inc., Louisville, Ky.

Since last month's incidents, Wendy's has sent letters making clear to restaurant managers that "searches of employees must be visual and not physical. And physical means under no circumstances will an employee be asked to removed articles of clothing that covers the torso, except for outer coats, shoes or a hat," says Bob Bertini, a Wendy's spokesman.

Experts in employee-rights law and retail loss prevention say that courts have upheld companies' rights to search lockers and e-mail, for instance, so long as employees are told of the company's right to search its property. Still, most experts agree that strip-searching is an invasion of privacy, and that most companies move conservatively on tips about possible thefts, probing for sufficient evidence before accusing an employee.

Retailers, in general, have good reason to be on guard for internal theft: Stores lose about $31.5 billion annually to inventory shrinkage, about 48% of that from employee theft, according to the University of Florida's Security Research Project.

Restaurants are cash-intensive businesses, and thus prime targets for theft of items such as food, as well as robberies, burglaries and theft of cash by employees. Still, experts say internal theft is preventable, if only by using more rigorous measures of screening prospective employees.

Fast-food outlets are particularly vulnerable to being duped this way, says Kevin Tate, senior manager of retail work-force solutions at Unicru Inc., a Portland, Ore., firm that advises companies on loss-prevention issues. And a teenage supervisor of a fast-food store could lack the maturity and professional experience to deal effectively with such complex legal issues, he says.

"They don't have anywhere near the experience that a 30-year vice president of loss prevention has," Mr. Tate says, suggesting that companies beef up their management guidebooks to include tips from senior security executives.

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By ANN ZIMMERMAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 26, 2004; Page B1

When it comes to workers, companies can be accused of not paying enough -- or paying too much.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s parsimonious approach to employee compensation has made the world's largest retailer a frequent target of labor unions and even Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who has accused the Bentonville, Ark., chain of failing to offer its employees affordable health-care coverage.

In contrast, rival Costco Wholesale Corp. often is held up as a retailer that does it right, paying well and offering generous benefits.

But Costco's kind-hearted philosophy toward its 100,000 cashiers, shelf-stockers and other workers is drawing criticism from Wall Street. Some analysts and investors contend that the Issaquah, Wash., warehouse-club operator actually is too good to employees, with Costco shareholders suffering as a result.

"From the perspective of investors, Costco's benefits are overly generous," says Bill Dreher, retailing analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. "Public companies need to care for shareholders first. Costco runs its business like it is a private company."

Costco appears to pay a penalty for its largesse to workers. The company's shares trade at about 20 times projected per-share earnings for 2004, compared with about 24 for Wal-Mart. Mr. Dreher says the unusually high wages and benefits contribute to investor concerns that profit margins at Costco aren't as high as they should be.

Costco, which opened its first store in 1983 and now has 432 locations, disputes the contention that it takes care of workers at the expense of investors. "The last thing I want people to believe is that I don't care about the shareholder," says Jim Sinegal, Costco's president and chief executive since 1993, who owns about 3.2 million Costco shares valued at $118 million based on yesterday's price of $36.96, up 52 cents, in 4 p.m. Nasdaq Stock Market trading. "But I happen to believe that in order to reward the shareholder in the long term, you have to please your customers and workers."

Worker pay, benefits and job quality have been hot topics in the retail industry. While employees in many fields are worried about generally stagnant job growth and spiraling health-care costs, already-meager retail wages also are threatened by retail-pricing pressure, partly fueled by Wal-Mart's growing dominance in toys, electronics, groceries and other categories. Grocery workers in California recently waged a brutal four-month strike to protest health-care cuts that large supermarket chains were imposing to stay competitive with Wal-Mart.

Hourly retail pay grew only 1% in the 12 months ended last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with a 1.7% gain for private-sector jobs overall.

Wal-Mart last year added 99,000 jobs in the U.S., making it the country's biggest job creator, and nearly all those positions pay by the hour. And since Costco and Wal-Mart's larger Sam's Club warehouse chain increasingly are competing head-to-head on everything from turkeys to tires, the companies have to pay close attention to each other.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams says the company's "entire package of wages, benefits and career opportunities is at least as good as that offered by Costco," including bonuses, company-paid life insurance and a discounted Wal-Mart stock-purchase program. Sam's Club has a "cost advantage" over Costco, she adds, because it can "leverage efficiencies" from Wal-Mart in areas such as merchandise sourcing and logistics, keeping basic membership fees a third cheaper than Costco's.

Costco has won a reputation for having the best benefits in retail, a sector where labor costs account for about 80% of a typical company's total expenses. Costco pays starting employees at least $10 an hour, and with regular raises a full-time hourly worker can make $40,000 annually within 3½ years. Cashiers are paid $10.50 to $17.50 an hour.

Wal-Mart doesn't disclose its wage rates, since they vary by location. According to a recent study funded by Wal-Mart, cashiers at its Supercenters in Las Vegas were paid $7.65 to $11.45 an hour. Supercenters are Wal-Mart's discount grocery and general-merchandise stores.

Costco also pays 92% of its employees' health-insurance premiums, much higher than the 80% average at large U.S. companies. Wal-Mart pays two-thirds of health-benefit costs for its workers. Costco's health plan offers a broader range of care than Wal-Mart's does, and part-time Costco workers qualify for coverage in six months, compared with two years for Wal-Mart part-timers.

"From day one, we've run the company with the philosophy that if we pay better than average, provide a salary people can live on, have a positive environment and good benefits, we'll be able to hire better people, they'll stay longer and be more efficient," says Richard Galanti, Costco's chief financial officer.

Costco has several advantages over Wal-Mart that help it extend such unusually generous pay and benefits. Costco has a more-upscale reputation than Sam's Club, helping it attract shoppers with higher incomes. The average Costco store rings up $115 million in annual sales, almost double the Sam's Club average. And Costco, which charges $45 to $100 for yearly memberships, doesn't spend any money on advertising.

Costco says its higher pay boosts loyalty: Its employee turnover rate is 24% a year. Wal-Mart's overall employee turnover rate is 50%, about in line with the retail-industry average. Wal-Mart doesn't break out turnover rates at Sam's Club. High turnover creates added expense for retailers because new workers have to be trained and are not as efficient.

Some critics still aren't convinced that lower turnover is worth what it costs Costco in higher wages and benefits. "Their benefits are amazing, but shareholders get frustrated from a stock perspective," says Emme Kozloff, a retail analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein LLC.

Surging health-care costs have forced Costco to make more aggressive moves to control expenses. Moreover, Costco last year raised employees' contribution to about 8% of their health-care costs, up from 4.5%. It was the company's first rise in employee health premiums in eight years. Mr. Sinegal, the Costco CEO, said the company held off from boosting premiums for as long it could, and didn't give in until after it had lowered its earnings forecast twice last year.

Costco also is looking to employees for ideas that could improve efficiency. One suggestion that Costco implemented at stores was to install pneumatic tubes at check-out areas to speed the movement of cash to a store's back office.

Mr. Galanti says company officials want to boost Costco's pretax income closer to 4% of sales, compared with 3% now and 5% at Wal-Mart, without cutting pay. In its fiscal second quarter ended Feb. 15, Costco's net income rose 25% to $226.8 million, or 48 cents a share. Revenue rose 14% to $11.55 billion.

Some longtime Costco fans say the company should stick to its generous wages and benefits. "Happy employees make for happy customers, which in the long run is ultimately reflected in the share price," says John Bowen, an investment manager in Coronado, Calif., who has held Costco shares for eight years.

----
CLOCKING IN

Comparing some workplace statistics from Costco and Wal-Mart

Employees covered by company health insurance
Costco: 82% Wal-Mart: 48%

Insurance-enrollment waiting periods (Full-time)
Costco: 3 mos Wal-Mart: 6 mos

Insurance-enrollment waiting periods (Part-time)
Costco: 6 mos Wal-Mart: 2 yrs

Portion of health-care premium paid by company
Costco: 92% Wal-Mart: 66.60%

Employees who work part-time
Costco: 43% Wal-Mart: 30%

Annual worker turnover rate
Costco: 24% Wal-Mart: 50%

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8) America One Funding: Commercial bank loans [Site d'un établissement de financement d'entreprises]
http://www.venturecapital.20m.com/manufacturer_financing.html
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