Worldwide Economy

?Common-sense? Bill to Save Food for the Hungry?Instead of the Trash Faces Looming Deadline in California Legislature

By Jenny Oropeza California State Senator When soaring food and oil prices hit our family budgets, when more and more people do not have sufficient money to buy enough food, when a global food crisis kills children, and when a quarter of all food is wasted and ends up in landfills, contributing to global warming, leaders must act. That’s why I came up with a plan to feed the hungry and save the planet by using resources more efficiently. Consider the following news headlines since late July: ...

Toyota's Top Engineer on How to Develop Thinking People

The August 4, 2008 Nikkei Business Online article titled Top Engineer Explains How Toyota Develops People (技術最高職が語る「トヨタはこう人を育てる」). The article is an interview with Nanpachi Hayashi, Toyota's top engineer. He was a student of Taiichi Ohno, and much what he talks about sounds like it came out of the pages of Taiichi Ohno's Workplace Management. The importance of making people think and struggle on their own, following up, and going to see are a few of the ...

Live: Yahoo Annual Meeting: Of Moral Pygmies, And This "Internet Opportunity"

Briefly met Jerry Yang prior to the meeting, and he seemed very relaxed. Only about 100 people in the room...thin. Roy Bostock, the most active board member from Yahoo during the MSFT drama, is up and speaking, and introducing other board members. CFO and General Counsel Michael Callahan is going through the motion, detailing the proxy voting procedures. Any gold proxy card will not be voted at the meeting..this was the Icahn group card, he mentions. No dissenting shareholders proposed their nam...

New Website -- "Millionaire in the Making" for Creators and Users

We have a multi-millionaire in the making among us. After previewing a new website that will be going live online at the end of August, developed largely by one of our own Superstar iReporters over the last 3 years, I can say with confidence that this new tool is fantastic. It has two primary functions: 1) Enabling sellers, renters or owners of properties to quickly and very inexpensively advertise their listings worldwide, including hotels with rooms to book, landlords with properties to lease...

A Tax Commission for California? How It Can Be Made to Work

By Annette Nellen Professor of Accounting and Taxation San Jose State University Both Governor Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Bass have stated that they would like to form a bipartisan commission to find ways to improve California’s tax system. They seek to modernize our tax system, make the state more economically competitive, and have a system that produces stable revenues. These are great goals. California’s tax system was designed decades ago in a manufacturing era when borders wer...

Obama: The Audacity of Branding

When it comes to propping up his supersized ego, is any move too audacious for the Obama campaign? At a discussion with a dozen Democratic governors in Chicago on Friday morning, each of the governors was identified with a small name plate but Senator Barack Obama sat behind a low rostrum to which was attached an official-looking seal no one had seen before. It is emblazoned with a fierce-looking eagle clutching an olive branch in one claw and arrows in the other and is deliberately reminiscent...

Naples - Korogocho

Father Alex Zanotelli, Chiaiano Click on the picture Father Alex Zanotelli, who is, in my opinion, a splinter of the heart of Christ, wrote and sent me this letter from Naples. The emergency business is the future of the Campania Region, a life insurance for rotten politics. The emergency justifies the means and the final objective is always money. "My dear ones, I write this letter to you, with my body racked with anger, from the very depths of Naples, namely the Sanità District, at the peak o...

2010 Chevrolet Camaro Official Pics And Press Release [2010 Chevy Camaro]

Here are the official details and press photos of the 2010 Chevy Camaro, which has become a bit of an afterthought given the giant friday leak and the Camaro live blog. Below the jump is a full gallery of the official (leaked and un-leaked) shots of the new Camaro, as well as full details on the car GM is calling a "Fun, Efficient Car For The 21st Century... That Looks Mysteriously Like A Car We Built Forty Years Ago In The 20th Century." Hit the jump for more photos and the press release. Chevr...

No, Kleiner Perkins won't give your Web 2.0 startup money [Venture Capital]

In the latest issue of Fortune, a feature about venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins pointed out that the company has yet to make any investments in Web 2.0. The firm which was an early investor in Google has not been so bullish on the likes of Facebook. (The investment in Friendster couldn't have helped.) Instead, it has continued to focus on biotech on the one hand and changed focus to cleantech on the other. Reporter Adam Lashinsky noted that KP didn't even send a representative to the Wall ...

The Next Great Deflation?

Phill Gramm got it right, says William Greider, or rather half-right. We don’t have an entire nation of whiners, but we do have a very vocal group of them. And they get what they want. To wit, our money. It is Wall Street — the financial titans and big-money bankers, the most important investors and worldwide creditors who are scared witless by events. These folks are in full-flight panic and screaming for mercy from Washington. Their cries were answered by the massive federal bailout of Fan...