No security alert or red flag went up when it was announced that a most celebrated icon of the US technology IBM was selling a part of itself to a Chinese company, Lenovo Group for a paltry sum of $1. 25 billion. Chinese companies, even when some of them don’t know how to manage themselves--Chinese Aviation Oil (Singapore) is a case in point--are nonetheless so ambitious that they are on an international hunt for acquisitions, especially for global brands.
IBM’s sale of its personal computer business would catapult Lenovo to become the third biggest computer company in the world, after Dell and Hewlett-Packard. “As Chinese companies move from prey to predator, they are also sitting on a powerful advantage: A possible currency revaluation. If the yuan rises 10 percent, 20 percent or even 40 percent analysts expect, overseas acquisitions of household-name companies and properties become that much cheaper. In other words we haven’t seen anything yet from China,“ writes Bloomberg’s William Pesek Jr.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Tuesday, December 7, 2004
American tongue-in-cheek
ND Batra
From The Statesman
Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal wonders “why no one has yet run for office by campaigning against the computer. After all, you couldn’t ask for a better sin-delivery system than a PC with a fast Web connection.” Well, you might as well call a gun as a death-delivery system, but no one dares run a political campaign against guns in the United States and get elected. If you talk against guns, some gun lover would fire back, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” If a politician runs against guns, it means that not only he is challenging the people’s right to bear arms (Second Amendment) but also getting into a crossfire with the National Rifle Association—the 500-pound gorilla who does not need a gun to kill you. Senator John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush, eagerly flaunted his Vietnam credentials, Purple Hearts and all, as well as his love for hunting by going on a goose-hunt, which proved to be of no avail.
But Gomes has a point: “With a week or two of patient work, someone with their hands on the keyboard of such a system—no matter what his or her age—could download a Kinsey library of erotica, play videogames depicting the cruelest kind of violence, steal a studio’s worth of music and movies, and gamble away small fortune.” If politicians can’t fight against the “girlie men” and “bushwhooping women” of Hollywood, how would they fight the Internet, where no man or beast has much control? Whether it was Dr. Alfred Kinsey or the Playboy that liberated Americans sexually, or corrupted them, as Rev. Jerry Falwell would say, nonetheless, sexual imagery, heterosexual, homosexual, omni-sexual, has been seeping into American social ecology, even into corporate brands. Is omni-sexual a new word in American lexicon?
But consider this. A Saks Fifth Avenue ad shows two itsy-bitsy girls, one a coy blond and the other a brash oriental with the belly-button up, pants slipping down with palms in her hip pockets, face-to-face on two opposite pages of a glossy magazine, with the tag line: “Saks loves it: both ways”. Both ways? Very naughty indeed, I thought and wondered if it were a new form of omni-sexuality. A constant hovering anxiety in the “Sex and the City” used to be the question on the mind of every single woman who met a hunk: Is he gay? Of course if he were a heterosexual, a girl could have a chance. She could steal him from his girlfriend or wife. But what can a girl a do with a homo? Oh, yes! She could cry with Dame Edna in Back with Vengeance! : “Darling, this is not a shoe. This is a cry for help, my possum.” Dame Edna has a new act for the world and could get away with her conceit, “Sorry dear, I am just not feeling naughty tonight,” but what can a single girl with sex on her mind do in New York, the city of spin, spin, spin, and sin. Girls are not calendar-resistant, are they? They wrinkle. They shrivel. Boys move on.
Of course you have heard of water-resistant and wind-resistant, but what is calendar-resistant? That’s Timberland’s ad for its men’s Mixed-Media Jacket, which says: “It is quite possible the jacket will last longer than you.” Something to leave behind to make the world a better place, when your “too, too sordid” self is gone! You could pass on the jacket to one of your poor relatives whom you never liked or donate it to the Salvation Army. That however reminds me of a plumber who came to my house to replace a leaky pipe and said that the new pipe had a life-long warranty. Amazed, I said: Whose life are we talking about? Yours or mine? He never felt so embarrassed. He had a triple by-pass a year before. Just like the Timberland’s jacket, the plumber’s pipe too was calendar-resistant. And that reminds of me something else that was touted as calendar-resistant. A few years ago, a young thirty-something brunette was shown gloating over her Seiko watch: “My husband has left me, but my Seiko is still with me.” Joy to the world! Seiko is ticking and the woman is waiting for another gentleman caller.
Talking of gentlemen and lovers, a few years ago I overheard an ambitious woman humming to herself: There are a thousand-and-one ways of getting rid of your lover. And she got rid of him, kept the sprawling house and the kids, and moved on to another city, another hunt. But that’s merciful, though she had a killer instinct and could have done more. In a red, red state in the South, where I was a professor once upon a time, the Bible belt where there are more divorces and single moms than in the blues states, a colleague whose department work I was evaluating said to me in a loud whisper, “In my county, we don’t kill anyone unless there’s a reason.” I got the message loud and clear. But that was no better than two men of God who one evening came to the beautiful Eagle Lake where the university had given me a living quarter and said that they wanted to deliver me from my sins. One of them said, “Do you go to church?” I said, no, but why? The other said, “Do you want to go to heaven or hell?” I said, “ I would rather stay here.” They laughed and left me alone.
Just as the Internet and Hollywood deliver to us our daily pipedream of sins, men of God are always ready to deliver us from our daily sins. Some call it checks and balances. I call it a supply chain system of American values.
From The Statesman
Lee Gomes of the Wall Street Journal wonders “why no one has yet run for office by campaigning against the computer. After all, you couldn’t ask for a better sin-delivery system than a PC with a fast Web connection.” Well, you might as well call a gun as a death-delivery system, but no one dares run a political campaign against guns in the United States and get elected. If you talk against guns, some gun lover would fire back, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” If a politician runs against guns, it means that not only he is challenging the people’s right to bear arms (Second Amendment) but also getting into a crossfire with the National Rifle Association—the 500-pound gorilla who does not need a gun to kill you. Senator John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush, eagerly flaunted his Vietnam credentials, Purple Hearts and all, as well as his love for hunting by going on a goose-hunt, which proved to be of no avail.
But Gomes has a point: “With a week or two of patient work, someone with their hands on the keyboard of such a system—no matter what his or her age—could download a Kinsey library of erotica, play videogames depicting the cruelest kind of violence, steal a studio’s worth of music and movies, and gamble away small fortune.” If politicians can’t fight against the “girlie men” and “bushwhooping women” of Hollywood, how would they fight the Internet, where no man or beast has much control? Whether it was Dr. Alfred Kinsey or the Playboy that liberated Americans sexually, or corrupted them, as Rev. Jerry Falwell would say, nonetheless, sexual imagery, heterosexual, homosexual, omni-sexual, has been seeping into American social ecology, even into corporate brands. Is omni-sexual a new word in American lexicon?
But consider this. A Saks Fifth Avenue ad shows two itsy-bitsy girls, one a coy blond and the other a brash oriental with the belly-button up, pants slipping down with palms in her hip pockets, face-to-face on two opposite pages of a glossy magazine, with the tag line: “Saks loves it: both ways”. Both ways? Very naughty indeed, I thought and wondered if it were a new form of omni-sexuality. A constant hovering anxiety in the “Sex and the City” used to be the question on the mind of every single woman who met a hunk: Is he gay? Of course if he were a heterosexual, a girl could have a chance. She could steal him from his girlfriend or wife. But what can a girl a do with a homo? Oh, yes! She could cry with Dame Edna in Back with Vengeance! : “Darling, this is not a shoe. This is a cry for help, my possum.” Dame Edna has a new act for the world and could get away with her conceit, “Sorry dear, I am just not feeling naughty tonight,” but what can a single girl with sex on her mind do in New York, the city of spin, spin, spin, and sin. Girls are not calendar-resistant, are they? They wrinkle. They shrivel. Boys move on.
Of course you have heard of water-resistant and wind-resistant, but what is calendar-resistant? That’s Timberland’s ad for its men’s Mixed-Media Jacket, which says: “It is quite possible the jacket will last longer than you.” Something to leave behind to make the world a better place, when your “too, too sordid” self is gone! You could pass on the jacket to one of your poor relatives whom you never liked or donate it to the Salvation Army. That however reminds me of a plumber who came to my house to replace a leaky pipe and said that the new pipe had a life-long warranty. Amazed, I said: Whose life are we talking about? Yours or mine? He never felt so embarrassed. He had a triple by-pass a year before. Just like the Timberland’s jacket, the plumber’s pipe too was calendar-resistant. And that reminds of me something else that was touted as calendar-resistant. A few years ago, a young thirty-something brunette was shown gloating over her Seiko watch: “My husband has left me, but my Seiko is still with me.” Joy to the world! Seiko is ticking and the woman is waiting for another gentleman caller.
Talking of gentlemen and lovers, a few years ago I overheard an ambitious woman humming to herself: There are a thousand-and-one ways of getting rid of your lover. And she got rid of him, kept the sprawling house and the kids, and moved on to another city, another hunt. But that’s merciful, though she had a killer instinct and could have done more. In a red, red state in the South, where I was a professor once upon a time, the Bible belt where there are more divorces and single moms than in the blues states, a colleague whose department work I was evaluating said to me in a loud whisper, “In my county, we don’t kill anyone unless there’s a reason.” I got the message loud and clear. But that was no better than two men of God who one evening came to the beautiful Eagle Lake where the university had given me a living quarter and said that they wanted to deliver me from my sins. One of them said, “Do you go to church?” I said, no, but why? The other said, “Do you want to go to heaven or hell?” I said, “ I would rather stay here.” They laughed and left me alone.
Just as the Internet and Hollywood deliver to us our daily pipedream of sins, men of God are always ready to deliver us from our daily sins. Some call it checks and balances. I call it a supply chain system of American values.
Thursday, December 2, 2004
Discussion: Internet democracy, Ukraine and China
On-site Internet voting system enables voters to cast ballots on Internet-connected machines located at polling places. Remote Internet voting system allows people to vote from any device, a computer or cell phone, connected with the Internet. What if Internet voting were available in Ukraine? There would have been no fraudulent voting. The political crisis could have been avoided. You might say the same thing about the 2000 US presidential election, which, as some contend, was undemocratically decided by the Supreme Court in favor of George W. Bush. Is the Internet truly a democratic medium that would create a new electronic democracy and spread freedom around the world? Would the Internet democratize China? Does it matter when all we need from China is cheap stuff?
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Drug companies too can kill
From The Statesman
Drug companies too can kill
ND Batra
Drug companies might have killed more people than all the terrorists put together. But who is counting? Raymond V Gilmartin, CEO of the pharmaceutical giant, Merck & Co., said in an open letter the company “is continuing to offer to refund patients for their unused Vioxx.” But Gilmartin didn’t say what kind of refund would Merck give to children whose mothers have been killed by Vioxx, an arthritis painkiller.
After a study established that patients taking the arthritis drug Vioxx for 18 months had twice the risk of heart attacks and strokes than those placed on a placebo, Merck pulled the drug off the market in September. Memos and e-mails leaked from the company to the media indicate that Merck had some knowledge about the side effects of the drug long before it was taken off the shelf. Did the company use its corporate power to choke the bad news? That would be for the lawyers to prove when they pursue class action suits, which might cost the company billions of dollars in settlement.
The US Drug and Food Administration, which approved the drug in 1999, now reports that Vioxx might have been responsible for causing an additional 27,785 heart attacks or deaths from 1999 through 2003. How much is the FDA culpable for not supervising the drug properly? Dr David J Graham, the researcher who led the Vioxx study for the FDA told the Senate Finance Committee Vioxx is a “national disaster” and that the FDA embodies “a profound regulatory failure” and is “incapable of protecting America against another Vioxx.” The drug, Dr Graham said, should have been removed from the market four years ago, alleging some people in the company knew the drug was not very safe but kept quiet. This is nothing but reckless disregard of the truth, what one might call as actual malice against the public, if the whistleblower scientist is proven correct.
But can any drug be totally safe? What are FDA’s safety standards? Sandra L Kweder, the FDA’s deputy director in the Office of New Drugs said, “Unless a new drug’s demonstrated benefits outweighs its known risks for an intended population, FDA will not approve the drug. However, we cannot anticipate all possible effects of a drug during clinical trials that precede approval.” But Dr Graham in his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee compared FDA drug warnings with weather forecasting. He told the Committee that if a weather forecaster said that there’s 80 per cent chance of rain, naturally a person would take an umbrella to his office. But the FDA believes that an umbrella won’t be necessary unless there is a 95 per cent probability of rain.
The analogical criticism of the FDA, however interesting, does not answer the question of acceptable risk for a drug. If a drug kills five patients but saves or makes the lives of a million livable, should that drug be put on the market? Should the FDA obligate the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the drug to put a label, such as: Five in a million users of the drug will die or develop some other serious problems?
Many people wonder whether the FDA has become a promotional arm of the pharmaceutical industry or is intrinsically incapable of doing its work properly. Dr Jerry Avorn, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, has authored a new book, Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks and Costs of Prescription Drugs. Talking with Ray Suarez of PBS NewsHour whether the FDA was doing a good job of protecting the public, Dr Avorn said, “I think it’s fair to say in light of both the Vioxx experience and also the experience we’ve had with other drugs in the recent past that, no, the system is not working well at all. There’s an enormous focus within the FDA about approving drugs quickly and getting them on to the market. And that’s okay if it’s done well. But then the attention of the FDA really drops off. And the vigilance disappears when it comes to requiring and analysing the data that we need to be able to learn about the safety of the drugs once they’re in widespread use.”
It is difficult to say whether the FDA suffers from a short attention span or is intimidated by corporate power, but Congress and the media can’t ignore the problem of drug safety any longer. In the meantime, Merck has begun its public diplomacy to win the hearts and minds of its shareholders if not the American public. Apparently the three full-page ads in major newspapers were not meant to assure the millions of people who have used Vioxx. Like the rest of corporate USA, Merck is interested in the bottom line; and that’s what Gilmartin said, “Our business prospects are strong and we are well prepared to address the challenges posed by the withdrawal of Vioxx.”
There is nothing wrong in Merck’s interest in delivering “returns to shareholders,” provided it also includes the welfare of the American patient. Now that Merck stands on trial in the court of public opinion and before Congress and faces class action suits, it would be its burden to prove what the ad claims: “Our ethical standards are the foundation of our company. Merck has consistently been recognised as one of the world’s ethical companies.” Who has conferred such a high distinction upon Merck? Where did the company executives learn their ethics? Are they confusing ethics with technical standards and profit making?
Drug companies too can kill
ND Batra
Drug companies might have killed more people than all the terrorists put together. But who is counting? Raymond V Gilmartin, CEO of the pharmaceutical giant, Merck & Co., said in an open letter the company “is continuing to offer to refund patients for their unused Vioxx.” But Gilmartin didn’t say what kind of refund would Merck give to children whose mothers have been killed by Vioxx, an arthritis painkiller.
After a study established that patients taking the arthritis drug Vioxx for 18 months had twice the risk of heart attacks and strokes than those placed on a placebo, Merck pulled the drug off the market in September. Memos and e-mails leaked from the company to the media indicate that Merck had some knowledge about the side effects of the drug long before it was taken off the shelf. Did the company use its corporate power to choke the bad news? That would be for the lawyers to prove when they pursue class action suits, which might cost the company billions of dollars in settlement.
The US Drug and Food Administration, which approved the drug in 1999, now reports that Vioxx might have been responsible for causing an additional 27,785 heart attacks or deaths from 1999 through 2003. How much is the FDA culpable for not supervising the drug properly? Dr David J Graham, the researcher who led the Vioxx study for the FDA told the Senate Finance Committee Vioxx is a “national disaster” and that the FDA embodies “a profound regulatory failure” and is “incapable of protecting America against another Vioxx.” The drug, Dr Graham said, should have been removed from the market four years ago, alleging some people in the company knew the drug was not very safe but kept quiet. This is nothing but reckless disregard of the truth, what one might call as actual malice against the public, if the whistleblower scientist is proven correct.
But can any drug be totally safe? What are FDA’s safety standards? Sandra L Kweder, the FDA’s deputy director in the Office of New Drugs said, “Unless a new drug’s demonstrated benefits outweighs its known risks for an intended population, FDA will not approve the drug. However, we cannot anticipate all possible effects of a drug during clinical trials that precede approval.” But Dr Graham in his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee compared FDA drug warnings with weather forecasting. He told the Committee that if a weather forecaster said that there’s 80 per cent chance of rain, naturally a person would take an umbrella to his office. But the FDA believes that an umbrella won’t be necessary unless there is a 95 per cent probability of rain.
The analogical criticism of the FDA, however interesting, does not answer the question of acceptable risk for a drug. If a drug kills five patients but saves or makes the lives of a million livable, should that drug be put on the market? Should the FDA obligate the pharmaceutical company that manufactures the drug to put a label, such as: Five in a million users of the drug will die or develop some other serious problems?
Many people wonder whether the FDA has become a promotional arm of the pharmaceutical industry or is intrinsically incapable of doing its work properly. Dr Jerry Avorn, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, has authored a new book, Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks and Costs of Prescription Drugs. Talking with Ray Suarez of PBS NewsHour whether the FDA was doing a good job of protecting the public, Dr Avorn said, “I think it’s fair to say in light of both the Vioxx experience and also the experience we’ve had with other drugs in the recent past that, no, the system is not working well at all. There’s an enormous focus within the FDA about approving drugs quickly and getting them on to the market. And that’s okay if it’s done well. But then the attention of the FDA really drops off. And the vigilance disappears when it comes to requiring and analysing the data that we need to be able to learn about the safety of the drugs once they’re in widespread use.”
It is difficult to say whether the FDA suffers from a short attention span or is intimidated by corporate power, but Congress and the media can’t ignore the problem of drug safety any longer. In the meantime, Merck has begun its public diplomacy to win the hearts and minds of its shareholders if not the American public. Apparently the three full-page ads in major newspapers were not meant to assure the millions of people who have used Vioxx. Like the rest of corporate USA, Merck is interested in the bottom line; and that’s what Gilmartin said, “Our business prospects are strong and we are well prepared to address the challenges posed by the withdrawal of Vioxx.”
There is nothing wrong in Merck’s interest in delivering “returns to shareholders,” provided it also includes the welfare of the American patient. Now that Merck stands on trial in the court of public opinion and before Congress and faces class action suits, it would be its burden to prove what the ad claims: “Our ethical standards are the foundation of our company. Merck has consistently been recognised as one of the world’s ethical companies.” Who has conferred such a high distinction upon Merck? Where did the company executives learn their ethics? Are they confusing ethics with technical standards and profit making?
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Corporate greed
Consider what Arthur Levitt Jr., a former chairman of the SEC, said in a recent piece in WSJ entitled “Money, Money, Money.” “Exorbitant compensation feeds the worst instincts and egos of powerful CEOs, fueled by their desire to win at all costs and resulting, too often, in the cutting of ethical corners.“
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
If Condoleezza Rice were a mother
If Condoleezza Rice were the mother of young children, would she have looked at Iraq differently?
What would Lady Macbeth have done?
“I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.''
What would Lady Macbeth have done?
“I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.''
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