The Random House Unabridged Dictionary provides three definitions for "hatchet man"

(1) a professional murderer.
(2) a writer or speaker who specializes in defamatory attacks, as on political candidates or public officials.
(3) a person whose job it is to execute unpleasant tasks for a superior, as dismissing employees.

In a shocking and very sad story out of India today is an instance where the first and the third met and the third was the worse off for it The first had a name, Lalit Chodhary and he was the CEO of the Indian operations of an Italian auto parts manufacturer that recently dismissed quite a few employees.

Corporate India is in shock after a mob of workers bludgeoned to death the chief executive who sacked them from a factory in a suburb of Delhi. Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, a manufacturer of car parts that has its headquarters in Italy, died of severe head wounds on Monday after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said. The incident, in Greater Noida, followed a long-running dispute between the factory’s management and workers demanding better pay and permanent contracts. ... Mr Choudhary, who was married with one son, had called a meeting with more than a hundred former employees who had been dismissed after an earlier outbreak of violence at the plant. He wanted to discuss a possible reinstatement deal.

Workplace violence happens wherever there is work, but India seems to have a particular problem of late with angry protests against its auto and other heavy industries:

A spokesman for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said: “Such a heinous act is bound to sully India’s image among overseas investors.” The murder has stoked fears that outbreaks of mob rule risk jeopardising the sub-continent’s economic rise. Thousands of violent protesters recently forced Tata, the Indian conglomerate that owns Land Rover and Jaguar, to halt work on a plant being built to produce the world’s cheapest car, the £1,250 Nano. The move could result in £200 million in investment costs being written off. The billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani said that the Nano crisis showed how protesters were creating “a fear psychosis to slow down certain projects of national importance”. Other companies, including Vedanta, the London-listed mining company, have encountered similar problems in India.

It's hard for an outsider to know if these are angry ex-employees engaging in grassroots protests or whether this is the rent-a-mob/shakedown industry looking for a bigger piece of the action. The statement released by the late Mr. Choudhary's employer hints at something even darker:

In a statement issued from Rivoli,Italy, Graziano said that some of Mr Choudhary’s attackers had no connection with the company.

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According to Daily Tech's Science Blog, the melting of the ice caps could prove very beneficial. First the science- paleoclimatology to be precise:

Recent short-term gains in Arctic ice coverage indicate nothing about the eventual state of the Arctic. Answers to the long-term status of the region lie in the realm of a scientific branch known as paleoclimatology. What does it tell us?

The Earth is currently in the geologic epoch known as the Holocene. This began nearly 12,000 years ago when the last ice age (more precisely, the Weichsal glacial) ended. Temperatures warmed, glaciers began to retreat, and the Arctic began to melt. This began what is called an interglacial: a warmer period between glaciation. We tend to think of the poles as immutable, but geologically speaking, permanent polar ice is a rare phenomenon, comprising less than 10% of history. Icecaps form briefly between interglacials, only to melt as the next one begins -- this time around will be no different. So we know the Arctic will eventually be open water. The only question is how it will affect us.

And now the economics:

What's at stake is nothing less than millions of square miles of territory, with some of the richest resources known. 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,700 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie in the region. An ice-free Arctic also means access to other mineral resources, and access to rich new fishing grounds. Analysts have hesitated to put a figure on the total worth. But that's not all. Just the ability to safely navigate the region is itself valuable.

First navigated in 1905, the famed Northwest Passage allows ships to cross between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Currently this requires a trip through the Panama Canal, a lengthy, expensive voyage that is barred to the largest "post-Panamax" class of ships. The permanent opening of the Northwest Passage will shave thousands of miles off each crossing, saving millions of barrels of diesel fuel annually, boosting trade and cutting shipment costs for a wide variety of imported and exported goods.

Nearly as important, the Northeast Passage is vital for parts of Northern Europe and Russia. First navigated as far back as 1879, a permanent opening will not only reduce shipping costs between Russia and Northern Europe, it will be a boon for thousands of tiny coastal communities that are currently cut off from the outside world for most of each year.

But what about the Polar Bears?

Recent research indicates that the species is significantly older than first thought, about 120,000 years old. This means polar bears have survived at least one interglacial before, and therefore doesn't depend on permanent polar ice.

Almost sounds to good to be true.

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The International Herald Tribune reports that China detains 19 in baby formula scandal.

China said over the weekend that 19 people had been detained by the police as part of an investigation into how baby formula had become contaminated with an industrial chemical. The formula is implicated in the death of one infant, and at least 432 others have been afflicted with kidney problems. The government also said Saturday that the Sanlu Group, China's biggest producer of milk powder formula, had first received complaints about its powder in March and had recalled some products but delayed reporting the problems to the government or the public.

The reminder contained in the last sentence of the paragraph of the story may prove prescient as to how this problem may end:

Last year...Beijing insisted that its food supply was largely safe. The government also started a nationwide campaign to root out food and product safety problems. It even executed the head of the food and drug administration after he had been found guilty of dereliction of duty.

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A press release from the Journal of Consumer Research sheds light on the role of advertising rapid transformation of Chinese society from a Maoist workers paradise to a semi-capitalist society.

Comrades to consumers: study of advertising reveals China's startling transformation. From ancient Arabian traders to Marco Polo’s followers, merchants have tried to transform China’s massive population into materialistic consumers. In less than 30 years, millionaires, pop stars, and “Mongolia Cow Yogurt Super Girls” have replaced Mao’s working-class heroes. How did China become a consumerist society in such short order?

A fascinating new study in the Journal of Consumer Research looks at the role advertising has played in China’s transformation. Authors Xin Zhao (University of Hawaii at Manoa) and Russell W. Belk (York University, Toronto) analyzed advertisements in the Chinese media for clues on how sociological and ideological change has taken place in the People’s Republic.

Advertising is the major propaganda vehicle for consumerism, and an excellent arena to explore China’s changing values, explain the authors: “We examine how advertising appropriates a dominant anti-consumerist political ideology to promote consumption within China’s social and political transition.”

The researchers studied advertisements in the People’s Daily, the oldest and largest newspaper in China, as well as additional sources. By taking a close look at the ads, the authors observed the ways advertisers utilized communist symbols and messages. “Throughout the 1980s and even today, sacred political icons such as red stars and red flags, which used to be closely connected with the power and ideology of Chinese communism, have often been co-opted in advertising to promote consumer goods from color TVs to refrigerators,” write the authors.

The research examined how advertisers transformed socialist economic goals of modernization into consumer messages designed to make consumers feel they were a part of China’s transformation.

The authors believe that China’s lessons are applicable to other developing economies. “Never in the course of human history have a larger number of people gained more wealth in such a short time. China provides an unprecedented opportunity to examine the rise of consumerism in the contemporary world and similar patterns likely exist in other societies,” the authors conclude.

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Wal-Mart is helping to get the vote out in all 57 50 states.

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Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, famous for the eponymous "show about nothing" have teamed up on a series of commercials for Microsoft Vista:

Those left scratching their heads after Microsoft's first new ad may find themselves just as itchy after the follow-up spot. The second in Microsoft's series of new ads airs Thursday night, featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld moving in with a family of "real people" in order to connect with them. The humor seems slightly better to me, but the references to Microsoft's products remain tangential. The ads are the beginnings of an expensive and ambitious effort by Microsoft to try to reclaim the Windows image after letting rival Apple mock it for years. As for the less than direct start, Microsoft spokesman Eric Hollreiser likens it to starting off a business presentation with a joke."It allows you to have a different kind of conversation after you've disarmed (the audience) a bit," he said. While Microsoft isn't saying just when it will get more direct in its sales pitch, the ads are expected to start talking turkey soon. "I know there has been some question about 'Is this it?'" he said. "No."

It's good that Hollreiser recognizes that the commercials will eventually have to say something substantive. Vista was, after all, not mocked without good reason: it is rightly considered by many to be a comedy of errors. And if the ads don't deliver, they'll be remembered as just much ado about nothing.

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From RealClearMarkets:

the vast majority of the impoverished in America don’t work and wouldn’t even if we raised wages or created more jobs. They are in poverty because of social or physical problems or choices in life they’ve made which make it difficult or impossible for them to work. Some have simply chosen not to work. It’s not that our economy doesn’t work for most of the poor, but that most of the poor don’t work.

This is not just the authors assertion. There are facts:

...of the 7.6 million families in poverty in America, more than 80 percent did not contain an adult who worked full time in the past year. In fact, in more than half of families in poverty the householder did not work at all in the last year. The problem was especially acute among single-parent families headed by women, which make up 19 percent of American families but 55 percent of all families in poverty. In only 17 percent of those impoverished families is the household head working full time. Still, even that is better than before welfare reform set time limits on public assistance in 1996. Back in the early 1990s, for instance, only 9 percent of all poor women who headed households worked.

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There's a little more soup in kitchens these days and Campbell's shareholder's are the better off for it:

The Campbell Soup Co. said Thursday its profit rose 46 percent from a year ago, as it raised prices on many of its products and got a lift from an extra week in the latest reporting period. Company President Douglas Conant told analysts on a conference call that the company was able to turn in that performance despite unusual inflation for ingredients. "In my 33 year career, I cannot recall a more challenging environment in the food industry," he said. Conant said he expected costs to continue to rise for the company — but for price increases to be enough to offset it in fiscal 2009.

In addition to higher prices and an extra week, there are several other reasons for the higher profits:

Domestic soup sales were also strong during the quarter which covered a part of the year when soup consumption is usually low. ... Campbell's said sales of its condensed soups were up by 6 percent and its ready-to-serve products were up 5 percent. But the company says its beverage sales increased by over 10 percent, partly because of an agreement to have Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. distribute its V-8 and V-8 V-Fusion juices. International sales were up by 17 percent — largely due to a weak dollar that makes exports more attractive and strong sales of its Arnott's brand of biscuits in Australia and the Pacific Rim region.

This is not duck soup.

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Via Marketwatch

Russia's sharp equity sell-off continued Thursday, with the RTS stock index tumbling 14% over the last three sessions, as supportive comments from President Dmitry Medvedev did little to calm investors' frayed nerves. In Moscow, the dollar-denominated RTS index fell 2.7% to close at 1,298 points. The ruble-denominated MICEX stock index dropped 3.7% to end at 1,073 points. In New York, the Market-Vectors Russia ETFwhich tracks the performance of the Russian stock market, fell 3.6%. Thursday's stock declines come on the heels of two consecutive days of sharp losses.

Reasons for the sell-off are many:

Investors have pulled money out of Russia in recent weeks on concerns over escalating geopolitical tensions with the West following the military conflict between Georgia and Russia, falling commodity prices and concerns about state interference in the economy. Russian equities have been battered by an ongoing sell-off, with the RTS stock index falling 43% year-to-date.

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The Grey Lady may have found a white knight, or if not that, then at least a wealthy man who can keep her (for a while) in the fashion to which she has become accustomed. It is none other than Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim:

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim acquired a 6.4 percent stake in New York Times Co., citing the newspaper publisher's ``attractive value'' following a 20 percent drop in the stock this year. The shares rose the most since 1993. The purchase makes Slim the third-biggest shareholder in New York Times outside of the company's controlling Sulzberger family. Slim and a family trust owned 9.1 million shares of New York Times as of Sept. 4, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. They hadn't previously reported a stake in the company, the third-largest U.S. newspaper publisher. The stake is passive, according to the filing. Slim may be buying the shares in a bet that a third party may acquire New York Times, said Hal Vogel, a New York media analyst. The company's largest investor, Harbinger Capital Partners, mounted a proxy fight this year for seats on the board, asset sales and more Internet investment. ``Maybe he's just buying what he thinks is part of a bargain,'' Vogel said in an interview. ``He might be playing it for someone else to take it out.''

"He might be playing it for someone else to take it out." Perhaps he's no knight in shining armor, but rather the Real Slim Shady.

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Lehman Brothers' shares dropped another 40% today:

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's survival was called into question as its chief executive scrambled to sell assets to cover losses from toxic real estate investments, sending shares down as much as 46 percent. The investment bank's need to raise desperately needed cash, broadly outlined by CEO Dick Fuld on Wednesday, failed to assuage investor concerns. The stock dropped $2.92, or 40 percent, to $4.33 on Thursday after falling as low as $3.88. The steady stream of grim tidings and the dearth of details from the company stoked fears that some of Lehman's clients and trading partners might take their business to more stable firms. Only six months since the collapse and eventual fire-sale purchase of venerable investment bank Bear Stearns, confidence in the Wall Street business model has faded.

In layman's terms: going, going, gone.

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A Seattle-area company is selling high heels for babies.

Washington Mutual shares tumble 30% to a 17-year low. An acquaintance tells me that "Last year they had the most lavish convention of any at the Wailea Marriott"

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Two stories about different stages in the illegal immigration value chain. First, business at the dusty border towns transit points is down:

Maribel Navarro remembers a time, not so long ago, when afternoons at La Perla restaurant in the remote border settlement of Sásabe, on the Arizona-Mexico border, meant crowded tables and queues stretching out of the door. The truck-loads of Mexican and Central American migrants who descended on Sásabe en route to the US provided enough business not only for Ms Navarro but for the whole community. Some estimates suggest that more than 1,000 migrants – between a third and a half of the total number – passed through Sásabe every day. This lunchtime, however, Ms Navarro is struggling to find things to do. The pots are bubbling on the stove, the tables have been set and the only movement in the semi-gloom is a few flies tracing rectangles in the air. “It’s dead here,” she says. “Sásabe is turning into a ghost town.” The sharp changes felt in Sásabe are the latest evidence that the huge volume of undocumented migrants, which for decades has flowed back and forth between Mexico and the US, is contracting sharply as the increasing difficulty of crossing has made migrants think twice about trying.

Meanwhile, the business end of the value chain is as foul, corrupt and inhumane as ever:

Agriprocessors' owner and four executives at the meat-processing plant could face jail time under a slew of criminal charges filed Tuesday. The five were each charged with 9,311 child labor violations, all involving 32 youths under age 18, the state attorney general's office said. Seven of the workers were younger than 16.Court documents allege the underage workers were exposed to poisonous chemicals, such as chlorine solutions, and dangerous substances, such as dry ice. Some were employed to operate power-driven machinery such as conveyor belts, meat grinders, circular saws, power washers and power shears. Agriprocessors leaders said that the youths lied about their age to get hired and that the company was not at fault. Separately, federal authorities on Tuesday charged two of the executives with felonies. They were accused of helping compile fake human resources paperwork for employees even though they allegedly knew the workers were undocumented immigrants.

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From the New York Times comes word that officials in the Interior Department have been playing fast and loose

As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct. ... The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

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Attack of the Chromes.

The battle for the hearts and minds of Wal-Mart mom's.

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Coca-Cola's "I'd like to teach the world to sing" advertisement in the 1970's is one of the most successful in advertising history:

When I read these lines about Coca-Cola's takeover $2.3 billion takeover of a mainland Chinese fruit-juice company, I could almost see the old commercial being updated:

Coca-Cola's US$2.3 billion bid to buy China's Huiyuan Juice, a market leader in the country's pure-fruit market, will serve as an early test for China's Anti-Monopoly Law, which came into effect just this August, a year after being passed by the government. Huiyuan chairman Zhu Xinli, who is set to receive HK$7.55 billion (US$967 million) from the sale based on his stake of about 40%, on Saturday said the deal "was a business act according to market rules" and should be allowed to go ahead. "Brand names should be free of country boundaries and the human race," he said.

On the other hand, I can also see Huiyuan Juice being made an example of. I can see a judge saying "One world, one dream was the slogan for the Beijing Olympics, not an organizing principle for managing competition in the marketplace. Hyperbolic rhetoric aside, we are not the world."

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"You had me at hello" is one of the most memorable and frequently reprised movie lines of the last decade or two. The movie was Jerry McGuire and another famous line from the movie is "Show me the money!" , one delivered by Jerry's client, football player Rod Tidwell, played to Oscar perfection by Cuba Gooding, Jr. But as we surely remember, for both Rod and Jerry life was about more than the money, they also wanted "the kwan." Rod described it with these words "love, respect, community... and the dollars too. The package. The kwan."

Fast forward from 1996 to 2008 and move the setting from Los Angeles to Beijing, and the kwan (or quan) is still the order of the day. The only difference is that it's the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that's giving the kwan to individuals rather than individuals like Rod and agents like Jerry (Rod's "ambassador of kwan") earning it in the marketplace.

A pointer to the shape of future changes came recently in the form of explicit remarks about "political reforms" by Zhang Chunxian, the CCP head of Hunan province. At a televised conference of Hunan officials on August 31 held to mobilize a province-wide campaign for further "emancipation of minds", Zhang said reforms in the past 30 years had focused on how "to return li [economic interests] to the people". The focus now would be on how "to return quan to the people" , with efforts devoted to "developing socialist democratic politics". The Chinese word quan has a double meaning and could refer to rights or (political) power or both. "To return interests to the people" is a brilliant summary of the economic reforms of the past three decades, for their main aim has been to privatize economic interests that had been entirely monopolized by the state under the socialist command economy. Zhang himself (probably deliberately) failed to further clarify what he meant by "to return quan to the people", which is open to different interpretations due to the double meaning of quan. From the context of his speech, he may have been hinting at giving back people some of their rights and power.

Given the way in which Zhang has failed to clarify, he may have retained the services of Jerry's fictional colleague and rival, Bob Sugar.

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In France, Scientology is being treated like an organized crime rather than an organized religion- and not for the first time.

The latest suit centers on a complaint made in 1998 by a woman who said she was enrolled into the Church of Scientology by a group of people she met outside a metro station. In the following months, she said she paid 140,000 francs (21,340 euros) for "purification packs" and books which she said were a fraud. Other complaints then surfaced, prolonging the investigation. Judge Jean-Christophe Hullin ruled that the Scientologists' Celebrity Center, bookstore and seven Church leaders should be tried for fraud and "illegally practicing as pharmacists".

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Community organizing is a taxpayer-supported industry. Money quote: "Today, New York now has more jobs at social-service agencies, most funded with government money, than on Wall Street."

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The Chrome Wars.

Think hard before you hit the "Send" button.

Personnel Changes at MSNBC. At issue are the perception of political bias and the impact on the bottom line, competitive position, and reputation.

Meanwhile, the plot to deprive Laura, Sean, and Rush of oxygen, air(waves) to be precise.

Neither McDonald's nor Ruth's Chris Steakhouse will be pleased with this latest pronouncement from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the makers of veggie burgers, and perhaps even soy farmers surely will.

Are we witnessing the beginnings of a spot-market for airline tickets or just a novel promotional campaign?

According to pollster John Zogby, VP nominee Sarah Palin is helping John McCain with some demographics more than others. Notable among those coming around to the Republican ticket are "frequent Wal-Mart shoppers, who tend to be "values" voters who like a good value for their money."

Kinder, gentler, and more thoughtful downsizing?

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If Oprah's media empire were a publicly-traded firm, I might be selling it short right now.

Wal-Mart Thrives When Democrats Are in Charge? Somebody doesn't understand that correlation is not the same as causality.

The wealthiest, smartest, and most influential 10-year old on the planet.

Do you care where your medicines are developed?

Stuff Daddies: the "curious economics of contemporary art."

Video: Independent's Day and week and month and year...

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The US recession that wasn't.

How to say "Pixar" in Chinese.

If there is going to be any kind of affirmative-action, it ought to be this kind.

The abstract from an academic paper co-authored by yours truly. WARNING: Drowsiness may occur. Do not operate heavy machinery or an automobile after reading this.

How not to apply for a job on Wall Street.

This is probably not the kind of product endorsement that makers of resealable sandwich bags will cherish.

I almost believe this story about Mitt Romney and a "Secretary."

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