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Week 48, 2006

6) AUDIO/Marketplace: Paulson's folly [Le ministre du travail de Clinton sur les propos de l'actuel ministre des finances sur la prétendue rigueur des normes comptables US. VOUS POUVEZ ECOUTER CE COMMENTAIRE EN LIGNE.]

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A ) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: Supreme Court [Entretien avec le Président de la Cour suprême des Etats Unis.]
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=7479

Scholastic News: Why was the Constitution considered such a remarkable revolutionary document when it was written more than 200 years ago? Was there anything like it before in human history?

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.: The people who wrote our Constitution recognized that those who governed countries—typically kings and queens, up to that time—often abused their power, so that the people suffered. The drafters of our Constitution had themselves been the victims of such abuse of power by King George III. So they took the revolutionary step in the Constitution of dividing power among the different branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—so that no one would have unchecked power that they might abuse. Ideas along these lines had been talked about before, but our Constitution was the first to put them into practice by setting out written rules establishing a new government.

SN: What about the Constitution gives it the longevity to remain relevant after 219 years?

Chief Justice Roberts: Our Constitution, adopted almost 220 years ago, on September 17, 1787, is the oldest written constitution of any nation in the world. It is not very long—seven short sections, called “Articles,” plus 27 Amendments—but it lays out the structure, powers, and limitations of our government. One of the reasons it has remained relevant for such a long time is that it can be changed, or amended. For instance, under the original Constitution, slavery was allowed in the United States. After the Civil War, in December 1865, the 13th Amendment was ratified, making slavery illegal everywhere in the United States. Another example is that when our Constitution was adopted, women were not allowed to vote. It was not until 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified, that all states were required to allow women to vote.

SN: How does the Constitution work in the lives of ordinary Americans today?

Chief Justice Roberts: By ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Americans every day against abuse of power by those in authority. The Constitution gives those who serve in public office the authority they need to govern effectively, to protect Americans from the threats we face in the world today, and to promote policies to make our lives better. At the same time, the Constitution limits the power of public officials and safeguards the rights of Americans, to secure the blessings of liberty for us all.

SN: How does the Constitution affect the lives of kids?

Chief Justice Roberts: There is no better gift a society can give children than the opportunity to grow up safe and free—the chance to pursue whatever dreams they may have. Our Constitution guarantees that freedom.

SN: Why do you think it’s important for children to learn about the Constitution? What is the most important thing kids should know about the Constitution?

Chief Justice Roberts: A document written long before the invention of the automobile, the airplane, the computer, and the Internet may seem so old that students might think that they today don’t need to know about it. But our Constitution will only work if people learn about it and actively participate in our democratic form of government. You can’t fight for your rights if you don’t know what they are. And you can’t participate in our democracy if you don’t know how it works. I think the most important thing children should know about our Constitution is that it applies to them, just like school rules apply to them. If children do not understand the Constitution, they cannot understand how our government functions, or what their rights and responsibilities are as citizens of the United States.

SN: At what age did you first become interested in and realize the importance of the Constitution? What was that experience like?

Chief Justice Roberts: In grade school I learned about how our government was organized – how we had local, state, and federal government offices; how the Constitution divided power among the different branches so that the President, Congress, and the courts shared authority; and how the Constitution protected the liberty of every individual. Learning about that helped me understand what it was we celebrated every year on the Fourth of July – the freedom we as Americans enjoy and have defended over the years.

SN: As an interpreter of the Constitution, where do you go for guidance and information on the document?

Chief Justice Roberts: I have a copy of the Constitution on my desk and the first thing I do when I have a case involving the Constitution is read what it says. I also have a copy of the Federalist Papers – a series of essays by the Founding Fathers that helps explain what the Constitution means. For over two hundred years, the Supreme Court has been interpreting the Constitution by writing papers, called “opinions,” in individual cases. Those opinions say what the Court has decided and explain what particular parts of the Constitution mean. Every one of the Court’s opinions is published in a book. All of those books of opinions together take up almost 100 hundred feet of space. I will go and find previous opinions of the Court that have interpreted the part of the Constitution at issue in a particular case, and I will read those opinions.

SN: Briefly describe how your role as Chief Justice differs from that of an Associate Justice.

Chief Justice Roberts: As Chief Justice I have one vote, just like every Associate Justice. So I really do not have much greater authority than anyone else on the Court. One thing I do get to do is decide who should write the opinion of the Court, explaining why we decided a case the way we did. I get to do that whenever my vote is with a majority of the Justices. I also have the responsibility to make sure the Court runs smooth—that we get the decisions out on time.

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B) AUDIO/Marketplace: Banks want you [Comment font les banques pour attirer de nouveaux clients? Avec une référence à nos amis de l'Umpqua Bank. VOUS POUVEZ ECOUTER CET ENTRETIEN EN LIGNE.]
http://marketplacemoney.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/11/10/banks_want_you/
Banks want you!

Keep your old customers close, but your new customers closer. Banks are rolling out the perks to get you to switch alliances. Lisa Napoli reports.

TEXT OF STORY

KAI RYSSDAL: Wedged all around the political ads we've been hearing this fall was a campaign of a very different sort, and this one's still going on: Banks trying to woo you to bring your money to them. There's nothing new about a financial institution trying to attract new customers, but there's a lot new about banking that makes those institutions eager to get you to do business with them. We asked Marketplace's Lisa Napoli to investigate.

[Bank Atlantic commercial "Over 20,000 people a month are opening bank accounts at Bank Atlantic. Are you ready to switch banks?" ]

LISA NAPOLI: This East Coast bank wants your money, and to get it, they're offering you a variety of gifts:

[Bank Atlantic commercial continues "Don't you want a $77 Master Card gift card for opening a free checking account? Don't you want a portable TV or MP3 player, free?" ]

The answer might be yes, but that's not inspiring most of us to sign up. Fewer of us are switching banks these days, and banks are learning there's more to winning you over than freebies.

RICHARD WESTELMAN: "People aren't chasing the toasters any more."

That's Richard Westelman of Hitachi's Dove Consulting Group, which studies banking trends. He says banks have done a good job of convincing us to do everything electronically. 70 percent of us now use direct deposit and half of us pay at least one bill online. That means it might just be too much work to leave your bank:

WESTELMAN: "When I go online to pay my bills, there's now probably 30 different payees and if you told me tomorrow you want me to switch banks, my first question is gonna be, what about all that?"

Banks are ready with an answer:

LINDA VERBER: When a customer comes to use we can get them everything they need as it relates to the new account opening process.

That's Linda Verber of Commerce Bank in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Like many banks, they're offering to do the heavy lifting:

VERBER: "We've got a concierge service that helps with the tougher stuff, so the tougher stuff is direct deposit and a lot of those bill pay transfers, but we can do it right there. We can do it for them, we can do it with them."

New technology coming down the pike will make it even easier for banks to make it easy for us to switch, but how do you convince an entrenched customer that a checking account's not just a checking account?

LANI HAYWARD: "You can't really differentiate through product, you cannot really differentiate through rate, and you really can't outspend or outresource the big guys."

Lani Hayward's with Umpqua Bank, which serves the Portland, Oregon area.

HAYWARD: "So we decided we were going to hone in on something that was missing in the financial industry, look at being a retailer of financial products and services."

That's marketing speak for making snazzy branches look like boutiques, not banks -- and function like community centers. No desks. Cozy chairs. Mood lighting. Umpqua serves free hot coffee and cold water. It even has a dog dish out front to welcomes pets. There's free Internet access at computer terminals and a music download station so you can sample local artists, and after every transaction, you get a free chocolate.

HAYWARD: "And it's good chocolate, not just any chocolate."

Hayward figures if perks like chocolate make people happy, then they'll tell their friends.

HAYWARD: "The best marketing is word of mouth-if you want anyone to switch banks or doctors or whatever, it's who tells you about it and that's what this is really all about, is that it's something that's so different and so good that you go tell other people about it. It really is the small things like that just make you feel welcome. Simple."

In other words, toasters may be out, but service is back in style. That's got to be good news for anyone with a bank account, even if you plan to keep your money where you've got it.

I'm Lisa Napoli for Marketplace Money.

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4 ) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: Happy Thanksgiving [Aujourd'hui c'est le Jour de Grâce.]
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=8070

Happy Thanksgiving!: A weekend of movies, parades, and football

By Tiffany Chaparro
November 22, 2006

Thanksgiving is a family favorite for many Americans. The holiday got an early start on Wednesday when President Bush pardoned Flyer and Fryer, the Thanksgiving turkey and the alternate. This year marks the 59th anniversary of the ceremony in which a turkey and alternate turkey are spared.

This Thanksgiving will also mark the television debut of another family favorite: March of the Penguins! The 2005 film won the Academy Award for best documentary. The first-time TV broadcast will include special extras with filmmakers Luc Jacquet and Emmanuel Priou, and will premiere on the Hallmark Channel on Saturday, November 25 at 9 p.m. ET.

The 80th anniversary of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City will bring back a former queen, Helen Gross. Gross was crowned queen of the parade in 1926 and 1927. She worked for Macy's in the complaints department.

"I felt like a queen," Gross said. "I felt so important. My folks had family on every block of the parade route waving at me. I can hardly believe how big it is now compared with when I was in it."

Gross, who is now 101, remembered being in a horse-driven carriage and surrounded by ladies-in-waiting. This year, she and her family will sit in the VIP section at Herald Square, the site in New York City of Macy's headquarters.

The parade will also include a marching band with participants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The Macy's Great American Marching Band will join Macy's famous balloons, including Snoopy and Scooby Doo, down the parade route to Herald Square.

Ready for Football?

This year's Thanksgiving games will be extra special, thanks to two halftime performances by rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Famer John Fogerty. He will perform during halftime in Detroit for the Miami Dolphins vs. Lions game, which starts at 12:30 p.m. ET. He will then perform in Kansas City during the Denver Broncos vs. Chiefs game. That game kicks off at 8 p.m. ET.

The other game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Dallas Cowboys starts at 4:30 p.m.. It will be played in Dallas, Texas.

Thankful History

Thanksgiving began in 1621 in New Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Pilgrims, who had come from England the previous year, celebrated the harvest with Native Americans. The Native Americans taught them how to plant the various crops that would feed them throughout the harsh Massachusetts winters to come.

The holiday was celebrated on and off until President Lincoln made it official in 1863. He designated the last Thursday in every November a day of thanks for the blessings throughout the year. The holiday is now celebrated every fourth Thursday of November.

For more about the first Thanksgiving, check out Scholastic’s newest interactive feature online.

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6) AUDIO/Marketplace: Paulson's folly [Le ministre du travail de Clinton sur les propos de l'actuel ministre des finances sur la prétendue rigueur des normes comptables US. VOUS POUVEZ ECOUTER CE COMMENTAIRE EN LIGNE.]
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/11/22/AM200611221.html

Paulson's folly

Commentator Robert Reich says Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is wrong when he blames strict accounting rules in the U.S. for fueling private acquisition of publicly-held companies.

TEXT OF COMMENTARY

SCOTT JAGOW: Seems about every week, we hear of a private equity firm buying a public company. This week, it was Blackstone Group buying a huge office real estate firm. Last week, we learned Clear Channel would be going private. In fact, this year, private equity's been involved in 17 percent of all mergers and acquisitions. Low interest rates have something to do with this. And private equity firms have a lot of spending money. But this week, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pointed a finger at government accounting regulations. He said laws like Sarbanes-Oxley have saddled public companies with too much of a burden. Commentator Robert Reich believes Paulson is wrong.

ROBERT REICH: If Hank Paulson thinks the flood of private equity-backed acquisitions of public companies is occurring because of regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley, he's either naive or doesn't want you to know the truth.

Companies that go private return to the public market within a few years. That's the whole point of the deal. When they go public again, their stock sells at a far higher price than what the private equity firm originally paid for it. So the private partners, along with the CEO and other top executives, make a killing.

Why else do you suppose private equity firms are raking in so much money? Why else do you think CEOs have been so eager to do these deals? Sarbanes-Oxley has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Sarbanes-Oxley, remember, was put into place to regain the confidence of investors, many of them small investors who got clobbered when CEOs looted their companies by pumping up share prices with false accounting, and then cashing in their stock options before reality caught up. Enron was the tip of a huge iceberg that's still there.

In fact, public companies are restating financial results at a higher pace than ever before. And these aren't just technicalities. The SEC reported last Friday that more than half these restatements are due to companies misapplying basic accounting rules or having the wrong data to begin with. Without Sarbanes-Oxley, investors would never know the truth.

Paulson is worried about Sarbanes-Oxley, but he really ought to be worried about the surge of equity-backed acquisitions. It's a new kind of CEO looting that goes beyond false accounting.

Here the CEO advises directors and shareholders that the sale is in the best interests of the company. And then after the company goes private — and shareholders are bought out — the CEO stays on and makes fixes that drive share prices up when the company goes public again. This way the CEO collects a bundle that otherwise would have, and should have, gone to the original shareholders.

If Paulson wants small investors to stay confident the market isn't rigged against them, he shouldn't try to weaken Sarbanes-Oxley. He should expand it to prevent this new form of CEO looting.

JAGOW: Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich now teaches public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. In Los Angeles, I'm Scott Jagow. Thanks for listening and from all of us at Marketplace, have a great holiday.

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7) The Economist: Ingenious punishments [C'est la mode aux peines insolites aux US.]
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RDPJQJN

Ingenious punishments
Their object all sublime

Oct 12th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
A vogue for shaming wrongdoers

ON SEPTEMBER 30th students at the University of Massachusetts threw a toga party. The cops showed up, uninvited. They charged the host, James Connolly, with under-age drinking, making too much noise, and having a keg without a licence. For punishment, he had to put on his toga again and stand in front of the police station for an hour.

Dan Markel of Florida State University reckons that such “shaming punishments” are on the rise. In 2003 a couple of teenagers who defaced a nativity scene in Ohio had to parade through town with a donkey. “The punishment must fit the crime,” explained the judge, Michael Cicconetti. Several cities have aired the names of men caught soliciting prostitutes on “John TV”. In 2004 a federal appeals court agreed that a mail thief could be made to stand outside a California post office wearing a sandwich board. “I stole mail,” it read. “This is my punishment.” In Virginia, if you fail to pay child support, you may find your car wheel-clamped: pink if you are neglecting a girl, blue for a boy.

Many support shaming punishments. Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University has argued that they are a good way to express communal values. Fines, in contrast, imply that you can buy a clear conscience. And shame seems to be a powerful deterrent. Mr Cicconetti says he sees few repeat offenders. Cheerful Hobbesian types want everyone to know who the bad guys are, so that decent citizens can avoid them.

Others are doubtful. According to Mr Markel, shaming punishments undermine human dignity. He suggests alternative punishments that omit the public-humiliation factor. A landlord who flouts the health code, for example, could be made to stay in one of his own slums. And it is true that there is something unpleasant about the desire to see other people humiliated. Remember the matron who objects to Hester Prynne's scarlet letter: “Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or suchlike heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!”

But voters appear to be comfortable on the high horse. Ted Poe, a former district judge from Texas, made his reputation by issuing a string of embarrassing sentences. He called this “Poe-tic justice.” Once, he sentenced a man who stole pistols from the Lone Ranger (technically, the actor Clayton Moore) to shovel manure in the Houston police stables. In 2004 Mr Poe was elected to the House of Representatives at his first attempt.

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8) AP: Is a burrito a sandwich? [Un juge américain est saisi de la question : un burrito est-ce un sandwich ?]
http://www3.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO33649/

Massachusetts judge settles food fight by ruling burrito is not a sandwich

WORCESTER, Mass. -- Is a burrito a sandwich?

The Panera Bread Co. bakery-and-cafe chain says yes. But a judge said no, ruling against Panera in its bid to prevent a Mexican restaurant from moving into the same shopping mall.

Panera has a clause in its lease that prevents the White City Shopping Center in Shrewsbury from renting to another sandwich shop. Panera tried to invoke that clause to stop the opening of an Qdoba Mexican Grill.

But Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke cited Webster's Dictionary as well as testimony from a chef and a former high-ranking federal agriculture official in ruling that Qdoba's burritos and other offerings are not sandwiches.

The difference, the judge ruled, comes down to two slices of bread versus one tortilla.

"A sandwich is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans," Locke wrote in a decision released last week.

In court papers, Panera, a St. Louis-based chain of more than 900 cafes, argued for a broad definition of a sandwich, saying that a flour tortilla is bread and that a food product with bread and a filling is a sandwich.

Qdoba, owned by San Diego-based Jack in the Box Inc., called food experts to testify on its behalf.

Among them was Cambridge chef Chris Schlesinger, who said in an affidavit: "I know of no chef or culinary historian who would call a burrito a sandwich. Indeed, the notion would be absurd to any credible chef or culinary historian."

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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9 ) The Economist: The National Spelling Bee [Un sport intellectuel très américain, les concours d'orthographe.]
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_SDQTTNG 

The National Spelling Bee 
Struggling towards Ursprache 

Jun 8th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC 
From The Economist print edition 
A peculiarly North American entertainment 

IN BASEBALL, you get three strikes. But at a spelling bee, one misplaced letter means you are O-U-T. That makes for a gripping contest, which is why two movies—“Spellbound” and “Akeelah and the Bee”—have been made about this all-American institution. And last week, for the first time in its 81-year history, the final rounds of the Scripps National Spelling Bee were broadcast live on prime-time network television. 
Reuters Just a hint, please God 

The struggle began with 10m spellers, all under the age of 16. Regional bees, mostly sponsored by local newspapers, whittled the number down to 275. This battle-hardened group came to a posh hotel in Washington, DC, for the final. By the time ABC started broadcasting, only 13 Uber-spellers remained. The pressure was excruciating, and not just for the parents. 

At a press conference before the broadcast, the children sat on the stage and discussed nerves, training regimens and the shock of seeing the favourite ejected in round seven. Samir Patel, a 12-year-old home-schooler from Texas (under “school”, his biography lists the “Patel Achievement Academy”), came second last year. But this year he stumbled on “eremacausis”. As probably none of the adults in the audience knew, this means: “gradual oxidation from exposure to air and moisture, as in the decay of old trees or of dead animals.” Any word in Webster's “Third New International Dictionary” may come up, which explains why, as the contest goes on, the testing terms tend to get more foreign. 

With Samir eliminated, the new favourite was Rajiv Tarigopula, a son of two doctors who came fourth last year. (Asian-Americans tend to do particularly well in the Bee; in 2005, they took the top four places.) Was Rajiv happy to see his rival eliminated, asked a callous journalist? “No,” said Rajiv, “it's a competition against the words, not the people.” This noble sentiment won him a round of applause. 

Striding up to the microphone and coolly rattling off words that would baffle a polymath, Rajiv looked like a winner. But he tripped on Heiligenschein and came fourth again. The final duel was between two girls. Finola Mei Hwa Hackett, a Canadian, was perhaps lucky to be given so many French words, but her nerve failed her on Weltschmerz, which she began with a “v”. 

Thirteen-year-old Kerry Close of New Jersey then had to spell kundalini and Ursprache to win. When the pronouncer pronounced the last word, the look on Kerry's face told 8.5m viewers that this was one she had revised. She nailed it. The crowd, especially her mother, were ecstatic. 

It was a great show. Which makes one wonder, as with so many North American sports: why do only North Americans play it?

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10 ) Financial Express: Perrier gets "sassier", "crazier" [Une nouvelle campagne pour Perrier aux US.]
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=144178

Perrier gets ‘sassier’, ‘crazier’
Posted online: Monday, October 23, 2006 at 0000 hours IST

Send Feedback E-mail this story Print this story
A beverage that many consumers still associate with “Dynasty,” A Flock of Seagulls and “Greed is good” is trying to shed its 1980s image with a nontraditional campaign that takes the risky business step of sending up the brand name.

The humorous campaign transforms the name of Perrier, the French sparkling water, into words that end in “-ier.” The reworked brand names, appearing in bottle labels, postcards, stickers, swizzle sticks, umbrellas and coasters, range from “Luckier,” “Sassier” and “Crazier” to “Scarier,” “Prettier” and “Riskier.”

Riskier, indeed. The campaign, by agencies that include Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in New York, breaks the rule that a venerable brand name, with a value built up through decades of marketing spending, is sacrosanct.

But executives at Ogilvy and Perrier say the offbeat approach is worth the risk if it can appeal to younger consumers who are awash in a sea of water brands.

“We always want to keep the brand fresh and contemporary,” said Bob Davino, vice-president for marketing at Perrier’s parent, Nestle Waters North America in Greenwich, Conn., part of Nestle.

“The brand is still instantly recognizable through the bottle shape and the way the label looks,” Davino said, “but we want our younger target who doesn’t have much of a history with the brand to discover it on their terms.”

“We had to try something different to force a reappraisal” of Perrier, said Terry Finley, group creative director at Ogilvy, particularly among consumers in their 20s and 30s for whom Perrier may be the beverage their parents drank after dancing to Duran Duran or going to the movies to see “Back to the Future.”

—NY Times / Stuart Elliott

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Nov 9th 2006

IT WAS never meant to be like this. Airbus, Europe's rival to Boeing as a commercial aircraft-maker, was supposed to become the very model of hard-headed business decision-taking. Instead, Europe's best example of industrial co-operation is mired in political infighting.

Just over six years ago Airbus Industrie was transformed from a marketing consortium for a group of European aircraft-makers into an integrated company. The switch was supposed to herald a more commercial approach, with committee decisions giving way to managerial clarity and a new focus on the bottom line. Factories that made the fuselage, wings and other parts were transferred from the consortium members into the new Airbus company, itself owned 80% by European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS) and 20% by a British company, BAE Systems. The latter sold out earlier this year; but EADS has become unstable as its core German and French shareholders have started selling down their stakes, while their governments hover as buyers, anxious to retain influence and protect jobs (see article).

So, instead of bringing a more businesslike approach, Airbus seems to be going backwards. In the past year the company has hit two problems: a two-year delay to its flagship A380 super-jumbo programme and a profit squeeze caused by the strength of the euro against the dollar, in which aircraft are priced. A cumbersome twin-headed structure that gave EADS German and French co-chairmen and co-chief executives has been complicated by the desire of Airbus bosses in Toulouse to go their own way. Three chief executives have had to leave EADS and Airbus. This week Fedex became the first customer to cancel A380 orders, while Airbus revealed emergency plans to cut its suppliers from 3,000 to 500; and EADS reported a net loss in the third quarter of €195m ($250m).

It is not only Airbus employees and European governments that are anxiously contemplating the woes of Airbus, particularly in the wide-bodied market where Boeing's long-haul 777 and its new 787 are cleaning up. The world's airlines and their passengers have been the big winners out of the arrival of Airbus to challenge Boeing. Airbus's advance in the late 1990s forced the American manufacturer to up its game. Boeing has had to redesign its cabins and improve the fuel-efficiency of its aircraft—and is doing rather well as a result.
The curse of economic nationalism

The best argument for the early subsidies that Europe's governments poured into the infant Airbus was that they prevented the emergence of an American monopoly. Taxpayers' money bought Europe an edge in a high-tech sector that sustained hundreds of thousands of well-paid jobs. And the money was not poured down the drain. Launch aid for the best-selling A320 has been repaid many times over by a share of sales revenue that keeps flowing into European exchequers. If the EADS board were to decide that it could not afford to proceed with launching the Airbus A350 wide-body jet, the Europeans would be retreating from the biggest part of the long-haul market, leaving it to the Americans.

The tragedy of Airbus is that a co-operative enterprise that promised to surmount economic nationalism is now being gradually killed by a dose of that very European disease. As the French Lagardère group started selling its EADS shares, a government-owned bank stepped in to buy part of it—purely, it seems, so that France would retain a bigger share than the Germans. The German government is no smarter, just less blatant: it has been twisting arms at Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank to do their patriotic duty and step in, at least for a while. And the Spanish government is eager to double its 5% share in EADS, in the hope of landing more Airbus manufacturing jobs. This smacks of back-door renationalisation of Airbus, exactly the opposite of the process that was supposed to have begun with the creation of EADS six years ago.

There is a better solution. Faced with the huge costs of launching new aircraft, Airbus needs two things: more commercial partners to share the risk; and the chance to outsource production to low-cost countries. Boeing has already gone down this route, and Airbus's intention to assemble A320s in China is a promising start. But bringing new partners into Airbus and sending more work outside Europe will always be difficult as long as governments hold stakes in its parent firm.

There is no compelling reason why Airbus should be yoked to EADS, a weak defence company subject to government meddling. Lofty talk of synergies is overstated. A civil aircraft business needs to be free to focus on airlines, which are very different customers from governments. EADS should sell Airbus, and return the money to shareholders. If the French government really wants to support aerospace jobs, it can do so by providing cheap land, research grants and the like. Xenophobic fiddling with the share register helps nobody.

No too long ago, I came across the statistic that less than 10% of Americans have passports. Later that week, while eating dinner at a restaurant with “map-of-the-world” vinyl placemats, I asked my dinner partner (who will remain nameless) to find the UK on the map. She pointed to northeastern Canada!

Although international business may be intimidating at first, I’ve learned the global market is not the planet Mars and requires no special spacecraft to access. According to the US Dept. of Commerce, more than half of American businesses export their products.

Just like any new skill, learning to export takes a bit of time and persistence. Once you’ve started, however, it’s actually quite simple. Although Southwest Windpower is a small company, we have distributors in 88 countries and products in over 125. We learned early on that the world is indeed “flat,” as Tom Friedman puts forth in his recent book. We came to realize countries like Germany, Brazil and Sri Lanka are certainly not on other planets. We came to see how selling to the Netherlands can be as easy as selling to Nebraska.

So how should you, the small business owner, get started? First off, make sure you have a market for your product. A good way to test the market is to place an ad in a few international publications that pertain to your industry. One great starting point is Commercial News USA, the official US Dept. of Commerce magazine for American-made products and services. The US government does a great job helping domestic businesses expand. The government has some great people willing to help however they can. Some services are free and some cost a small amount. Either way, they are a quite helpful.

Here are a few more tips for getting started…

Finding distributors:

Advertising, tradeshows, word-of-mouth and your website are great ways to find distributors. Another great way is the US Dept. of Commerce. You’ll want to find the Dept. of Commerce office in your state. These offices have contacts around the world and can introduce you to the right distributors.

Placing orders:

Your customers will place orders the same way domestics order are placed. The only difference is that you will be required to produce some additional documentation. Generally, your customers will ask for quotes that include shipping. UPS, Fed-Ex or any freight consolidator can help with these details. UPS and Fed-Ex have a lot of support materials to help you with all your export papers.

Collecting payment:

Unfortunately, most of your legal rights to collect on debt stop at the US border. As a small business, the safest way to do business is pre-paid. Of course, your customer has to trust you with his/her money and trust that you will ship the product. Letters of credit are a good way to use a third party (a bank) to ensure both parties are honest. However, letters of credit cost money. They are generally not worth the extra cost if your order is under $10,000. Another way is… yes, the government. Namely, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank). The Ex-Im Bank will actually insure your receivables. In other words, if you export a product on an open account but don’t get paid, the Ex-Im Bank will pay you. There is a fair amount of paperwork to do to get started. But once this is done, the process is very easy.

Shipping:

You can rely on the freight companies in the beginning. UPS and Fed-EX have spent heavily on programs to help make it easy to ship overseas. If you have not shipped internationally before, you might consider starting with the EU and expanding from there. Just call or go online and download all the details.

Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat describes the extent to which our world is connected. There is no question this is true. Take the time, do the research and dive in. You will expand your business in ways you never new possible and at the same time learn about the world!

Nov 2nd 2006
From The Economist print edition
Nancy Pelosi is poised to become the first female speaker of the House of Representatives

NANCY PELOSI is one of those politicians who seems made for caricature. She is the very embodiment of privileged liberalism—the wife of a rich-as-Croesus property investor and the representative of a city, San Francisco, that, as far as most Americans are concerned, is synonymous with ageing hippies, lay-about trustfunders, aggressive beggars and gay parades.

Ms Pelosi's public appearances do her no favours. Often she talks drivel. “The gavel of the speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests”, she said recently, “and now it will be in the hands of America's children.” Her speeches consist of a mixture of robotic talking-points (the Republicans are guilty of “the politics of corruption”) and clumsy alliteration (the Democrats are a “great collection of idealism, intellect and integrity”). It's like listening to a cross between a Stepford wife and Jesse Jackson. Yet Ms Pelosi has been at the top of the Democratic Party's greasy pole for almost four years. And, if the polls are right, she is poised to become the first Democratic speaker of the House in twelve years. This will not only make her the first female speaker; it will make her second in line for the presidency after Dick Cheney.

What can be made of all this? Is Ms Pelosi's rise a symptom of the dysfunctional state of the Democratic Party? Or is there more to the San Francisco liberal than meets the eye? America will have to wait until next Wednesday for an answer. If her party fails to take the House, she will be remembered only for missing an open goal; if they succeed, she will be an instant hero, at least on the left, a feminist pioneer who simultaneously broke the glass ceiling and gave George Bush a bloody nose.

Contrary to Lexington's expectations, Ms Pelosi has put in a creditable performance as opposition leader. She has raised more money than any other congressional Democrat—around $100m since taking over the job—and forced colleagues in safe seats to spend their time raising money for those in close races. She has also imposed a remarkable degree of unity on her party.

The Democrats are about as easy to control as Afghan warlords—headstrong and addicted to bloody feuds (the past few months have seen open warfare between Rahm Emanuel, who runs the House campaign committee, and Howard Dean, the party chairman). But Ms Pelosi has done pretty well. The Congressional Quarterly calculates that House Democrats voted with the majority of their party 88% of the time in 2005, the highest total since CQ started keeping track in 1956.

This is testimony to Ms Pelosi's toughness. The lady from San Francisco learned the art of politics in the old school. Her father, a New Deal congressman turned mayor of Baltimore, kept a ledger of favours done and owed, and “Little” Nancy, the youngest of six children and the only girl, was in charge of the book. She has had no compunction about dishing out favours to her underlings—and about threatening punishment for miscreants.

Her party's unity is also testimony to her grasp of Groucho Marx's great principle, as laid down in “Horse Feathers”: “Whatever it is, I'm against it.” Ms Pelosi realised that she did not need to compete with the White House in producing bright ideas that the Republicans might steal. Nor did she need to try to trump Mr Bush's Social Security reforms with reforms of her own, which might lead to a Bush-boosting compromise. All she needed to do was to oppose the White House.

This strategy has been triply successful. It deprived the White House of a victory on Social Security, one that could have provided momentum for the rest of the second term. It kept the Democratic caucus from fragmenting. And it forced the Republicans to resort to all sorts of dubious methods to get controversial legislation past a near-united opposition, from keeping votes open for hours to stuffing the pockets of doubting colleagues.
Checking, not overreaching

A victory next Tuesday will increase Ms Pelosi's ability to make life difficult for Mr Bush, not just in blocking his initiatives but in investigating his past deeds. But it will also confront her with a new set of problems. Speaker Pelosi will arouse the expectations of a liberal base that is hog-wrestling-mad at the president. She will also bring with her 19 powerful committee chairmen who are itching for the limelight after 12 years in the dark. Her problem will be less with the Republicans than with her own side.

But Ms Pelosi's style may be exactly what is needed in such circumstances. She is much more interested in running the party machine than in driving a far-reaching agenda. And she has laid the groundwork for her speakership well. She has drawn up a legislative programme that appeals to Middle America—from raising the minimum wage to extending stem-cell research. She has used Congressman John Murtha, a close confidant and leading war critic, to lay down the law to her party. Changes in Iraq policy must be made “in conjunction with the White House”, he says, and impeachment is off the table.

This is unexciting stuff. It is a far cry from the days when Newt Gingrich turned Congress into a combination of political theatre and policy laboratory. But Congress, lacking the presidential bullhorn, is a much less effective policymaking instrument than the White House, as Mr Gingrich eventually discovered. And Ms Pelosi's cohorts in Congress hardly represent the future of her party. Seven of the 19 prospective Democratic chairmen will be over 70 when the 110th Congress convenes. Thirteen voted against welfare reform. New ideas are best left to the party's presidential candidates, who can fashion them into a coherent shape and test them in the long race for the White House.

If Ms Pelosi understands that division of labour, as it seems that she does, and if she concentrates on checking the president without overreaching, she has a reasonable future as America's first female speaker. A pity she's so bad on television.

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