When I ran into Steve Schwarzman at a charity dinner last month, I asked him whether his private-equity firm, Blackstone Group, was planning any “Richistan” plays–betting, for example, on the burgeoning demand for megayachts.
“The trouble with yachts,” he said, “is that when business is good, it’s really good. But when it falls, it really crashes.”

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The world of global sourcing is even flatter and growing smaller by the day thanks to the advent of online marketplaces.
Since the global economic downturn set in, people have been asking me about its impact on e-commerce and Alibaba.com. While it is true that some businesses have become wary and have held back from international [...]

This is an interesting article by Nevil Gibson in The National Business Review: Franchisers face prospect of regulation.
Nevil Gibson starts of with:
The Green Acres franchising scam, in which dozens of new migrants from China and India were bilked of millions of dollars, has sparked a government clampdown on the sector.
Commerce Minister Dalziel [picture] is quoted [...]

Zhou Zhengyu, deputy director of the Beijing municipal committee of communications announced in a recent press conference that the cheap bus fares that Beijingers have been enjoying during the Olympics will continue after the games.
We are all in support of more public transport to save the environment and to ease traffic congestion, but we are [...]

The Dalai Lama’s older brother Thubten J. Norbu died Friday in Indiana, USA. In exile in the US since 1959, Norbu had always voiced strong opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet and supported independence, not autonomy, for his homeland. When he was three, Norbu was recognized by a previous Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of [...]

The latest New Zealand Herald article on Blue Chip by Maria Slade [Immigrant banker put $1.7m in Blue Chip] is interesting for at least three reasons.
One, it points to a specific truth about fraud: all levels of class, education, access to financial counselling and sophistication are vulnerable:

2,000 mostly seniors living on a fixed income and [...]

By its very nature bribery is difficult to identify and analyze (except when people get caught!), but the good folk at Trace International are trying to uncover the inner workings through their BRIBEline www.bribeline.org initiative (which they have asked us to help promote).

“BRIBEline, available at www.bribeline.org, is a secure, multi-lingual website through which companies and [...]

Coal has been a booming export business for China in recent years, but inadequate supplies may threaten not only foreign trade but also energy supplies at home. While the increasing global demand for the fuel has allowed both China and India to successfully tap a huge international market, the rising cost of transporting the product [...]

Coal has been a booming export business for China in recent years, but inadequate supplies may threaten not only foreign trade but also energy supplies at home. While the increasing global demand for the fuel has allowed both China and India to successfully tap a huge international market, the rising cost of transporting the product [...]