Here is the eighth twenty-five of at least 200 contemporary buzzwords. Each is used in a sentence or followed by descriptive dialogue.

1. Politically charged - Mentioning transfers makes your entire conversation very politically charged
2. Prairie dog (in the cube farm) - Our loud laughter prompted our cube farm neighbors to prairie dog (stand up and look over the wall)
3. Process owners - If it doesn't work, then the process owners are at fault
4. Product shake-down - When you drive that car, do a complete product shake-down
5. Productivity-focused metrics - Productivity-focused metrics measure the key enablers to production efficiency
6. Promote accountability - Weekly project reviews will promote accountability among the troops
7. Pucker factor - Any questions not fully answered will create a pucker factor when the director visits
8. Pull out all the stops - They had to pull out all the stops to win the recognition award
9. Pull the plug on it - That project is no longer value-added so pull the plug on it
10. Push the button - Make sure the new budget is all-inclusive before you push the button
11. Quasi-approval - As long as the boss doesn't know about it, we have quasi-approval
12. Quasi-safe - No one has been hurt yet so it's quasi-safe
13. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.) - “Common courtesy - it's not so common anymore.” - Author unknown. So we must have an acronym: Rights and Responsibility, Equality, Standards of Success, Perception, Effort, Communication, Training.
14. Radar screen - The potential for error was not even on our radar screen
15. Ramp-up - Ramp-up the intensity until the assembly is complete
16. Recency of data - The value of your presentation is linked to the recency (freshness) of the data
17. Report on a dotted line - He works in the neighboring department but reports on a dotted line to our department's manager
18. Restructuring - This organization requires restructuring to become effective
19. Risk factors - Have you listed all the risk factors associated with making the data public?
20. Roadblocks - What are the roadblocks to getting complete buy-in?
21. Rocket science (not good) - We don't want to use rocket science to solve this problem
22. Role model - Very few employees are rated as a role model because most of us have imperfections in our work ethic
23. Root Cause Analysis - Perform root cause analysis to find the real culprits
24. Rosetta stone - The missing report could be the Rosetta stone of their data manipulation secrets
25. Rosy glasses - Sometimes we become protective and look at our employees through rosy glasses

International trade has mustered a positive fillip from globalization, rapid industrialization, advent of multinational companies and the tenets of outsourcing. For any country that likes to usher into the league of superpower, International trade can be the chief source of monetizing. Imagine a country without the boost-up of import and export. Such a nation would become a closed economy and eventually perish.

International trade is costlier than domestic trading as it has to fill for transport delays, tariff structures like import and export duties and also cover for the legal and linguistic hindrance that another national territory may pose. International trade is much rather restricted to trading in goods and services. It is fundamentally deprived of the mobility to carry capital and labor across the sea hence it refrains from dealing in this aspect.

The principle is simple, rather than dealing in the factors of production, international trade deals in its output; the quintessential goods and services. Land, labor, capital and enterprise create goods and services and international trade uses the last chain of the logistic- the end product.

International Trade in combination with International Finance makes for International Economics. Since the Second World War, most of the superpowers have affiliated to world-regulatory bodies like WTO and GATT. This is in view to build a globally regulated Free Trade structure. Tariffs like import and export duties are heavily regulated and it works in favor of producing laws which denies shutting down a country from entering another national market.

Where I work there are only a handful of employees. We have to work side by side and get along fairly well in order for the day to be productive. For the most part it is one of the better places where I have ever worked because we would all rather get along than fight, however some issues, and differences of opinions, come to the front at social events such as the "Staff Christmas Party".

For a few days following these events some feathers remain ruffled but we go back to getting along very shortly. I am well aware, however that in some work places the staff are not so tolerant of each others beliefs. In fact in some places they form up into sides based on political opinion or religion.

If people work together, they will be more productive if they want to help each other, rather than harbor any feeling of hatred or wanting the other person to look bad.

image source

What are your employees talking about or fighting over when they gather at the water cooler?

Not everyone is passionate about politics or has strong political views, but for those that do, their opinions are more than just political ones. If you support a party that is high on supporting environmental causes, chances are you are too. Therefore you are not going to want to be working with a bunch of people who drive Hummers two blocks to work, and who are generally wasteful people. If you support a political party that believes wealth should be shared equally among the people, you are not going to want to work with people who think that rich people deserve more or are more important than everyone else. You get the picture.

People cannot help the way they believe, or how they feel on certain issues pertaining to everyday life. Those issues are then put forth into our political views. This goes hand in hand with how we think in our daily lives. Most of us have friends with similar views.

Again, having co-workers who get along is very important to the running of any business, particularly a small business where people are often working along side of one another in, what should be, a co-operative manner.

While maybe it is illegal to ask a person what there political views are, and illegal to hire based on this, it might be something we should be aware of when staffing. Similar minded people will get along better. People of opposing views might just try to sabotage each other, and thereby hurt the company in the long run.

The news came from Washington Monday that shocked Wall Street: The bill extended for the tax-funded financial bailout proposal was voted down in the House of Representatives with a final tally of 205 votes “yes” and 228 votes “no.”  In reaction, the Dow Jones Industrial average dropped 777 points (over 6%) by markets’ close, and the Nasdaq fell almost 200 points.

 Kill Bill           

Both presidential candidates, President Bush, and congressional leaders of both parties showed public support for this bill—a politically safe choice so close to election time.  Ultimately it was the Republican Party that made the difference, 2/3 of the party voting “no” at a 2 to 1 ratio to democrats.  The majority of Democrats did support the bill, but a significant 40% voted against it.  Congress is now in recess, but the House plans to reconvene at noon on Thursday rather than adjourning as previously intended.

Based on the numbers, Wall Street had high hopes for the passing of this bill, but the relief it could provide in the long term was ultimately speculation, and many took issue with the tax payers bailing out big executives whose bad decisions brought on their hard times.  If it had passed, this bill would have set in motion the biggest government financial intervention since the great depression.

Compromise or Copout?

According to the proposal, the EESA (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act) of 2008 would have given up to 700 billion dollars to the Secretary of the Treasury to be spent purchasing the assets and mortgages that are making it so difficult to access credit.  This money would have been provided in installments, starting with $250 billion upfront and adding funds as deemed required under executive approval only. 

But it comes up short with its meager stipulations to limit so called “golden parachutes” and CEO windfalls, as well as a vague promise that taxpayers could potentially profit from future growth of companies that benefit from the bailout.

  

Financial Fallout

Doomsayers assert that a protracted effort to produce another bill that can be agreed upon would be cumulatively destructive to the economy and disastrous for retailers going into the holiday season.  And at the moment, fear seems to be the defining psychological state of the global market as some European banks have had recent interventions and the yield on treasury bills has decreased as well.  The average price of a barrel of oil has dropped $10, a common sign that demand for gas will fall as predictions of consumer spending wane.

The numbers on Wall Street speak for themselves of market confidence, or lack thereof, but it seems that this may be a time not of hasty reaction, but of consequence.  The House vote may have surprised those with big bucks riding on an invincible market, but for the average American skeptic, it may have been a surprise welcomed with open arms.

As Americans, we need our elected officials to simply outlaw all institutional lobbyists and return back to their roots and constituents for guidance. Most people are not so blind to the problems America is currently facing. Americans in general have a great sense of what is needed and it does not involve pomp and circumstance to get the job done correctly. All that is needed is for our elected officials to give a sincere effort to work together without interaction from lobbyists and power brokers.

As for how our country got to this point, it is very simple, the elected officials under the current administration for the first four years had complete control of both houses in congress and flaunted their policies that allowed all of the major corporate greed and noncompliance with the laws of the land. Just look in the past at ENRON and other corporate disintegreation that happened during that period of time. Then look at the policies this current administration has implemented and how those policies were arrived at mostly behind closed doors. Since the current policies were never revised our country continues to go downhill very quickly as a result of that kind of noncompliance with our laws.

Why is it that our country is still catering to the people that wish to do us harm both financially and physically? Our government needs a serious wake up call to come to grips with this crisis. The corporate governance needs to be overhauled in order for the American people to again trust in our American corporations ethical behaviour.

There are some of us Americans that revile all of the closed door policies of the current administration. Why do they perform that way when most of what they do effects all of us? We people of America want to find the reasons why this administration has flaunted their power in this way. As for the congress, until 2006 under the current administration, the same political party had control of all of government and during this time the elected officials catered to the lobbyists and power brokers allowing the less than stellar governance of our major corporations. How did this happen?

Now is the time that we Americans need to voice our discontent with our elected officials and make sure they understand that America can no longer tolerate the corporate greed and injustice.

Another example is the performance of the leadership of current Pakistan Government. Of course, they are occupying ruling positions, but it is very unlikely if the majority of an ordinary Pakistani Citizen view them as their rescuer. Leadership is about pointing direction, however, it appears to be that our leadership do not possess that lens which could allow them to envision the ultimate destination abound by prosperity and peace for this nation. Frustration among the people shows that our current leaders are viewed as a problem creator for them. However, Once, this nation is converted in to followers, they will bear all problems with the heart of iron.

 

Contrary, to the common perception, the rules of law in the World Trade Organization ( WTO, Uruguay GATT, 1995), superseding the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT, 1947), are not in principle multilateral but bilateral. This is evident by the way the WTO negotiations are conducted. WTO negotiations can be thought of as an experiment in that WTO members had to conduct the negotiations through a set of controlled conditions explicitly define by the Final Act on the 28 free-trade agreements or FTAs (Uruguay, GATT, 1995). To ensure that the FTAs are meet, WTO is authorize to oversee trade practices and adjudicate trade disputes refereed to it by member states. Ideally, so long as the rules are strictly followed, free trade supervenes but that materializes only if WTO members agree on the procedure of enforcing them. Once agreement is reach as a “single undertaking” (majority of votes of members on all negotiations completed), will WTO members to fully abandon tariff, domestic support and subsidy in agriculture, and other trade-distorting practices.

New FTAs however include new but costly WTO provisions on standardization of customs procedures; sanitary and phytosanitary requirements; government procurement; trade and investment; and trade-related intellectual property rights, etc., (a big IF for developing countries to comply with in the shorter term). It is the expectation that a consensus on enforcing WTO rules would allow WTO members enjoy “equal trading rights” and “greater market access” worldwide and raise annual World GDP by US $ 2.8 trillion by 2015.

That however remains moot as the series of WTO negotiations foundered on reaching a consensus beginning from the “collapse” of the Uruguay Round (1986-1994), followed by the aborted rounds in Seattle USA (1999) and deadlock over farm subsidies in Cancun Mexico (2003), and two years later, the “impasse” of the Doha Round (2005). It seems that getting WTO members agree there should be free trade was a lot easy but agreeing on how the FTAs be enforced was Gordian knot. Suffice to say, what seems simple, credible, and enticing about free trade doest not mean everything is easy. As the cliché rightly puts it “ it is easier said than done.” The temporization of the Doha Round however provide WTO members time to put their talking points in order as they wish to put the Doha Round back on track

WTO-Members Trade Positions

Thus far, WTO members failed to reach a consensus in most of the 28 free-trade agreements and split them into two opposing quarters. Agreement in agriculture remain a disputed issue whereby developing countries were reluctant to the consistent cut in tariff schedule and insisted on special differential treatment and the “aid for trade” commitments by developed countries. Developed countries like the US and the European Union (EU) were reticent upon cuts in domestic support and subsidies in agriculture. Developed countries proposed for a deeper cuts in tariff on their industrial goods while developing countries were not supportive of the proposal as the heavy burden would be shouldered by them. In terms of trade in services, developed countries wanted for far-reaching market access without however equally offering the same access into their own domestic markets. In the area of emergency safeguard mechanism, developing countries favored for such safeguard mechanism against developed countries' imports believed could negatively affect biodiversity and human resources while developed countries questioned the need for such mechanism.

While developed countries insisted on the inclusion of trade facilitation specifically in the improvement of customs and releases of goods but developing countries opposed it as it only add major investments and infrastructures and hailed it as argument for financial assistance by developed countries. On the other, developed countries opposed the concessions on special differential treatment (SDT) and stressed that SDT should not apply equally to “developing countries” and argued that developing countries with higher level of economic development as in the case of China, should not be accorded with the same treatment. On trade and environment, developed countries insisted upon developing countries' commitment in the protection of the environment while developing countries argued on its costly implementation and hailed it as argument for financial assistance by developed countries.

On the Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), developing countries wanted to maintain their biological diversity and traditional knowledge and argued on patent application to include : (a) prior consent by the resource/knowledge owner owning country, (b) disclosure of biological resources and traditional knowledge used in invention, (c) provision for benefit-sharing patent. Albeit, in this area, WTO achieved a major breakthrough in reaching argument in the issue of patent protection and access to affordable medicines by developing countries.

In the case of anti-dumping measures, developing countries felt that the provision is invoked against their imports while developed countries pushed for more stricter criteria for applying anti-dumping measures. On dispute settlement procedure, developing countries insisted on the provision of SDT that allows them longer implementation of their commitments and compensation for legal costs if proven not in violation of the provision. On the other hand, developed countries specially EU wanted further clarification on the implementation of the provision with emphasis in increasing promptness of the process and greater transparency of the procedures.

Legal Confusion on WTO Obligations

The breakdown of the WTO negotiations stems in large part from the legal confusion of the trade obligations of member states that could had been misconstrued as multilateral in nature. There are three underlying features of WTO negotiations on the WTO multilateral trade rules that had been in fact negotiated bilaterally and not multilaterally.. Along this line, distinction between bilateral and multilateral obligations is absolutely necessary. In the first place, WTO rules are different from the Geneva International Treaty on Genocide, Human rights, and Environment whereby the breach of treaty essentially affects all members including non-members.

Breach of this treaty knows no border, hence, for a country to effectively protect its citizens is to cooperate with other countries. Respect for human rights, condemnation of genocide and protection of environment had to be “internationalized” because of the “values” they protect and their causal effects domestically and internationally had to be avoided. On the other hand, the effects breach of the WTO rules are “trade-related” that apply only to two or more states engaged in trade amongst themselves individually and does not necessarily have effects on all the other WTO members collectively. The legal consequences of such breach therefore are bilateral not multilateral.

Albeit, the rights and obligations arising from WTO treaty are aimed at ensuring market access for goods of one country into another, and in effect give similar access to all WTO members through “Most-Favored-Nation Clause (MFN) clause,” and consequently result to an increased economic interdependence such that the effects of breach can might as well spread to all other WTO members. But this is not the same as saying that the breach of WTO rules necessarily affect the rights of all other WTO members, the way for example human rights and certain environmental law does. Albeit trade is inherently international but that does not inherently negate the bilateral nature of trade obligations.

Second, trade is not sought for the achievement of some “ global common” concerns where its benefits equate equally to all individual member countries. Trade is not a matter of “value” but merely an “instrument” to increase welfare which depends exclusively on what member-states decides to do with their welfare, not as a direct consequence of the WTO rules. Unlike the, the Geneva treaty which has all-embracing application domestically and internationally, WTO deals with “trade-related” matters whose damage directly affect only the trading parties involved.

Third, the way WTO obligations are enforced is exclusively for state-to-state relationship (bilateral). This is evident by the fact that WTO's dispute settlement mechanism does not litigate breach per se, but merely on the nullification of benefits accruing to trading nations in-between themselves. That is, if one defendant country does not comply with WTO rules the complainant country on the other end is authorized by WTO to engage in state-to-state countermeasures. This modality of trade negotiations is evidently bilateral

Though trade obligations are inherently bilateral does not make WTO as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations irrelevant. In fact, exclusive of the outcomes of WTO trade negotiations, the new global market is fast becoming more sensitive to global flows of investment, trade in goods and services, and domestic policies. As it has been expected, absence of an effective multilateral trade system could possibly result to adversarial effects such as : shocks in the global financial markets, global unemployment and inflation. These drawbacks could cause substantial losses accruing mostly to developing countries while losses of developed countries are expected to be relatively small.

There are however valid justifications for developing countries' slow-paced commitments to WTO obligations. In the shorter term, market efficiency of developing countries may not be realized because it takes time. The relative underdevelopment of these countries constrain them from competing. But inspite of this, they still commit to liberalize trade but first within their regional blocs say ASEAN as in the case of the Philippines. Why ? These countries know their constraints and by joining free trade within the regional bloc will accelerate their development through closer economic cooperation with other members. In the longer term, these countries will be capable of responding to a broader and deeper integration in the global liberalized trade.

Suffice to say, the conduct of WTO negotiations modus vevindi should refocus on “non-reciprocity” whereby concessions made by developed countries should not demand equal concessions by developing countries. This takes in the form of longer time of commitments, while at the same time allow developing countries to make bilateral or regional trade arrangements for the time being. This kind of trade agenda could set the Doha Round in motion.

Albeit, the benefits of this agenda could be small relatively for developed countries while greater benefits can be expected for developing countries. This is however more constructive than all member-states suffer because of the breakdown of the WTO talks. The agenda for WTO members should begin with the question What can I do to your domestic policy reforms so that I can do mine for both of us to make business ? Certainly this is a bilateral frame of questioning.

 

Contrary to the common perception, the rules of law in the World Trade Organization ( WTO, Uruguay GATT, 1995), superseding the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT, 1947), are not in principle multilateral but bilateral. This is evident by the way the WTO negotiations are conducted. WTO negotiations can be thought of as an experiment in that WTO members had to conduct the negotiations through a set of controlled conditions explicitly define by the Final Act on the 28 free-trade agreements or FTAs (Uruguay, GATT, 1995). To ensure that the FTAs are meet, WTO is authorize to oversee trade practices and adjudicate trade disputes refereed to it by member states. Ideally, so long as the rules are strictly followed, free trade supervenes but that materializes only if WTO members agree on the procedure of enforcing them. Once agreement is reach as a “single undertaking” (majority of votes of members on all negotiations completed), will WTO members to fully abandon tariff, domestic support and subsidy in agriculture, and other trade-distorting practices. New FTAs however include new but costly WTO provisions on standardization of customs procedures; sanitary and phytosanitary requirements; government procurement; trade and investment; and trade-related intellectual property rights, etc., (a big IF for developing countries to comply with in the shorter term). It is the expectation that a consensus on enforcing WTO rules would allow WTO members enjoy “equal trading rights” and “greater market access” worldwide and raise annual World GDP by US $ 2.8 trillion by 2015. That however remains moot as the series of WTO negotiations foundered on reaching a consensus beginning from the “collapse” of the Uruguay Round (1986-1994), followed by the aborted rounds in Seattle USA (1999) and deadlock over farm subsidies in Cancun Mexico (2003), and two years later, the “impasse” of the Doha Round (2005). It seems that getting WTO members agree there should be free trade was a lot easy but agreeing on how the FTAs be enforced was Gordian knot. Suffice to say, what seems simple, credible, and enticing about free trade doest not mean everything is easy. As the cliché rightly puts it “ it is easier said than done.” The temporization of the Doha Round however provide WTO members time to put their talking points in order as they wish to put the Doha Round back on track

WTO-Members Trade Positions

Thus far, WTO members failed to reach a consensus in most of the 28 free-trade agreements and split them into two opposing quarters. Agreement in agriculture remain a disputed issue whereby developing countries were reluctant to the consistent cut in tariff schedule and insisted on special differential treatment and the “aid for trade” commitments by developed countries. Developed countries like the US and the European Union (EU) were reticent upon cuts in domestic support and subsidies in agriculture. Developed countries proposed for a deeper cuts in tariff on their industrial goods while developing countries were not supportive of the proposal as the heavy burden would be shouldered by them. In terms of trade in services, developed countries wanted for far-reaching market access without however equally offering the same access into their own domestic markets. In the area of emergency safeguard mechanism, developing countries favored for such safeguard mechanism against developed countries' imports believed could negatively affect biodiversity and human resources while developed countries questioned the need for such mechanism.

 

While developed countries insisted on the inclusion of trade facilitation specifically in the improvement of customs and releases of goods but developing countries opposed it as it only add major investments and infrastructures and hailed it as argument for financial assistance by developed countries. On the other, developed countries opposed the concessions on special differential treatment (SDT) and stressed that SDT should not apply equally to “developing countries” and argued that developing countries with higher level of economic development as in the case of China, should not be accorded with the same treatment. On trade and environment, developed countries insisted upon developing countries' commitment in the protection of the environment while developing countries argued on its costly implementation and hailed it as argument for financial assistance by developed countries.

On the Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), developing countries wanted to maintain their biological diversity and traditional knowledge and argued on patent application to include : (a) prior consent by the resource/knowledge owner owning country, (b) disclosure of biological resources and traditional knowledge used in invention, (c) provision for benefit-sharing patent. Albeit, in this area, WTO achieved a major breakthrough in reaching argument in the issue of patent protection and access to affordable medicines by developing countries. In the case of anti-dumping measures, developing countries felt that the provision is invoked against their imports while developed countries pushed for more stricter criteria for applying anti-dumping measures. On dispute settlement procedure, developing countries insisted on the provision of SDT that allows them longer implementation of their commitments and compensation for legal costs if proven not in violation of the provision. On the other hand, developed countries specially EU wanted further clarification on the implementation of the provision with emphasis in increasing promptness of the process and greater transparency of the procedures.

Legal Confusion on WTO Obligations

The breakdown of the WTO negotiations stems in large part from the legal confusion of the trade obligations of member states that could had been misconstrued as multilateral in nature. There are three underlying features of WTO negotiations on the WTO multilateral trade rules that had been in fact negotiated bilaterally and not multilaterally.. Along this line, distinction between bilateral and multilateral obligations is absolutely necessary. In the first place, WTO rules are different from the Geneva International Treaty on Genocide, Human rights, and Environment whereby the breach of treaty essentially affects all members including non-members. Breach of this treaty knows no border, hence, for a country to effectively protect its citizens is to cooperate with other countries. Respect for human rights, condemnation of genocide and protection of environment had to be “internationalized” because of the “values” they protect and their causal effects domestically and internationally had to be avoided. On the other hand, the effects breach of the WTO rules are “trade-related” that apply only to two or more states engaged in trade amongst themselves individually and does not necessarily have effects on all the other WTO members collectively. The legal consequences of such breach therefore are bilateral not multilateral. Albeit, the rights and obligations arising from WTO treaty are aimed at ensuring market access for goods of one country into another, and in effect give similar access to all WTO members through “Most-Favored-Nation Clause (MFN) clause,” and consequently result to an increased economic interdependence such that the effects of breach can might as well spread to all other WTO members. But this is not the same as saying that the breach of WTO rules necessarily affect the rights of all other WTO members, the way for example human rights and certain environmental law does. Albeit trade is inherently international but that does not inherently negate the bilateral nature of trade obligations.

Second, trade is not sought for the achievement of some “ global common” concerns where its benefits equate equally to all individual member countries. Trade is not a matter of “value” but merely an “instrument” to increase welfare which depends exclusively on what member-states decides to do with their welfare, not as a direct consequence of the WTO rules. Unlike the, the Geneva treaty which has all-embracing application domestically and internationally, WTO deals with “trade-related” matters whose damage directly affect only the trading parties involved. Third, the way WTO obligations are enforced is exclusively for state-to-state relationship (bilateral). This is evident by the fact that WTO's dispute settlement mechanism does not litigate breach per se, but merely on the nullification of benefits accruing to trading nations in-between themselves. That is, if one defendant country does not comply with WTO rules the complainant country on the other end is authorized by WTO to engage in state-to-state countermeasures. This modality of trade negotiations is evidently bilateral

Though trade obligations are inherently bilateral does not make WTO as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations irrelevant. In fact, exclusive of the outcomes of WTO trade negotiations, the new global market is fast becoming more sensitive to global flows of investment, trade in goods and services, and domestic policies. As it has been expected, absence of an effective multilateral trade system could possibly result to adversarial effects such as : shocks in the global financial markets, global unemployment and inflation. These drawbacks could cause substantial losses accruing mostly to developing countries while losses of developed countries are expected to be relatively small. There are however valid justifications for developing countries' slow-paced commitments to WTO obligations. In the shorter term, market efficiency of developing countries may not be realized because it takes time.

The relative underdevelopment of these countries constrain them from competing. But inspite of this, they still commit to liberalize trade but first within their regional blocs say ASEAN as in the case of the Philippines. Why ? These countries know their constraints and by joining free trade within the regional bloc will accelerate their development through closer economic cooperation with other members. In the longer term, these countries will be capable of responding to a broader and deeper integration in the global liberalized trade.

Suffice it to say, the conduct of WTO negotiations modus vevindi should refocus on “non-reciprocity” whereby concessions made by developed countries should not demand equal concessions by developing countries. This takes in the form of longer time of commitments, while at the same time allow developing countries to make bilateral or regional trade arrangements for the time being. This kind of trade agenda could set the Doha Round in motion. Albeit, the benefits of this agenda could be small relatively for developed countries while greater benefits can be expected for developing countries. This is however more constructive than all member-states suffer because of the breakdown of the WTO talks. The agenda for WTO members should begin with the question What can I do to your domestic policy reforms so that I can do mine for both of us to make business ? Certainly this is a bilateral frame of questioning.

 

As you may know the federal government taxes dividends twice - once at the corporate level and once at the individual level. That means that dividend paying corporations and their shareholders are penalized compared with some other types of investments. Part of reason for reducing the tax was to address this seemingly unfair double taxation.

If the reduced dividend tax rate expires in 2010 as now scheduled, shareholders receiving these types of payments will be subjected to higher tax rates. This will have a negative effect on investment returns.

To change this possibility it will take companies and individuals becoming actively engaged in supporting legislation that will extend the lower rate.

Nobody can know for sure what, if any, legislation will be brought forth to make the 15% rate permanent. Hopefully, each of us will involve ourselves in the political process by contacting our elected officials. Let Congress know that double taxation is unfair and encourage them to support the 15% tax rate.

Language and culture are far more difficult to master than most people would believe. Easy problems like not selling pork to deeply religious Jews in Israel are few and far between. One of the more famous international language blunders occurred when General Motors decided to market the Nova in Mexico. In Spanish, the word Nova means "does not run." Everyone was lining up to not buy that car.

Companies like Kentucky Fried Chicken and WalMart have each had well documented marketing issues in Japan because of the dramatic cultural differences between the east and west. Just as an item that markets well in one part of the country may languish in another region, international cultural differences can all but kill a new business venture if a company has not done enough market research. The same is true if that research has ignored the regional differences in the new nation.

Tensions between nations can change the business view in a very short time. If one nation decides to slap tariffs on imports from a nation that they had always maintained a policy of free trade, it can be death to those products. An example from a few years ago involved Girl Scout cookies to soldiers in Japan. Japan opted to place tariff of more than $10 per box in these cookies. Thousands of boxes of cookies were left in the warehouse at the port because the tax was higher than the value of the product.

When a company gets slapped by these types of taxes, their products become waste. The profits then head for the basement to become large losses. Many nations try to avoid these practices so that their products are not given the same treatment, but it is too bad if you happen to be the unlucky one caught in the tariff crossfire.

If the international tensions rise too high, all imports and exports are stopped. Often the businesses running within the new country are seized and taken over by the government. This can happen both when nations are feuding and when national leadership experiences a dramatic shift.

Many of the oil fields developed by large companies were taken over in various areas of the world a few decades ago. It did not matter how loud the companies complained. The nation has a right to take what it wants when it is held by foreigners. Losing mineral rights, equipment, and buildings were extreme losses to be absorbed. Fortunately, big oil was strong enough to withstand these financial setbacks.

If a nation becomes radical or militant in its outlook, all assets held by foreign interests will be seized . This can spell not only problems for the new businesses in that country, but the losses can be large enough to topple the company that made the investments