High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news.
As a business owner, there’s a high chance that you will be used to taking some kind of risk. After all, it is essential to your role, whether you are bidding on projects or whether you are spending money in areas that may or may not benefit your company. Of course, even though risks are […]
When you have a business, one of your primary concerns is how to earn more money or increase your profit margins. It is usual for you to ask yourself that question, especially if you spent a significant amount of money and even took out some loans to launch your current business. Sadly, the majority of […]
It was exactly 10 days ago, I was bored, and broke a cardinal rule. Do not get your news from Facebook, and under no circumstances buy anything from a Facebook ad. Facebook news is about as reliable as a 1970’s British sports car with Lucas electric components. It might get you to the local pub […]
The Charles Schwab Corporation allegedly defamed and unlawfully interfered with the investment advisory services of a Republican money manager, according to a $100 million lawsuit filed on April 23 against the venerable firm. The suit, filed by Dallas money manager Ed Butowsky’s Chapwood Capital Investment Management, alleges that Schwab terminated its relationship with Butowsky solely […]
If you’re a retailer currently occupying an older space, you need to do some investigation. Customers place such a high value on the organization, cleanliness, and modern look of a store. Displays that showcase modern style and current products work the best. Your retail space needs to invite customers into a place of progress and […]
If you’ve heard of direct response marketing but you’re unsure exactly what it stands for, you’re just like a lot of other people with a budding interest in marketing. This is a known strategy, and in fact even a popular one which is well explained and employed by the Seismic Sales Enablement. But it’s not […]
The Food and Drug Administration today approved a drug designed to boost sexual desire in women. The drug, flibanserin (brand name: Addyi), is made by Sprout Pharmaceuticals and works by regulating serotonin in the brain, much like selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Although flibanserin is being widely referred to in the press as a “female […]
By John Donovan Royal Dutch Shell has expelled 60 workers from a Dutch chemical plant after workers were caught using drugs. The Shell Moerdijk plant in the Netherlands makes chemical products from petroleum. It employs over 800 employees and over 500 contractors. It is one of the largest chemical complexes in Europe. Last October I […]
You might not know Jeff Ma by name, but there’s a good chance that you’ve heard something of his exploits. As seemingly a jack-of-all-trades, Ma has been involved in many different enterprises, ranging from professional blackjack to starting up companies designed to manage development workflow. The former of these led to a starring role in Bringing Down the […]
There is a harsh take-down of World Acceptance Corporation (NASDAQ:WRLD) at SeekingAlpha.com today. Here is the link: http://seekingalpha.com/article/3037616-the-cfpb-just-made-world-acceptance-a-zero I am a big advocate for access to credit, but I have never been a fan of WRLD or WRLD stock. It is a sleazy business, and the company admits that three-quarters of its revenue comes […]
By John Donovan This morning the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc announced its second quarter results. In subsequent news coverage, Bloomberg commentators said they were stunned by the lack of comment by Shell on the risk of reprisals by Russia to the recent announcement of EU sanctions targeting the Russian oil and gas industry. […]
If you go back in time to the beginning of the 2000’s and hand them an ipad they will be amazed. Tell them that they will have this item in a few short years? Mind blown! Technology is changing at a rapid pace and its hard to keep up with. Just how fast? Well lets […]
The lowest-risk shorting opportunity in the market right now appears to be in the payday lending stocks: Cash America International (NYSE: CSH), DFC Global (NASDAQ: DLLR), EZCorp (NASDAQ: EZPW), First Cash Financial Services (NASDAQ: FCFS) and QC Holdings (NASDAQ: QCCO). The Department of Justice, as part of the covert Operation Choke Point, has launched a […]
Here in Asia, we have a society where the family is the basis for welfare: in disasters, you seek family to help you.. Many people are getting out of poverty because they have family members who support the rest of their family by working overseas and sending back money to pay for school fees, decent […]
In India, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is gearing itself to grant fresh Banking licenses. 26 applications are now under the consideration of RBI. The applicants include a diverse set of groups which includes a) A department of the Government of India b) 3 Public sector Companies c) 4 large private sector groups d) 11 Private […]
Back when the people of Iran were busy protesting their election being stolen, I found out about a program called “TOR”. Webpage here. The Tor software is a program you can run on your computer that helps keep you safe on the Internet. Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of […]
By just about any metric you can use, Spain is not doing well right now. Nearly 27% of the country is unemployed, their GDP continued to shrink in the last quarter, they have a credit squeeze that keeps interest rates far above the euro average and keeps new businesses from opening, and there are further […]
The latest episode of the “Consider This!†podcast is out; let’s talk politics in 10 minutes or less. In this episode, I have a one-track mind. In the President’s State of the Union address, he proposed increasing the minimum wage by about 25% to $9 an hour, as though this will somehow defeat poverty. The fact is, […]
There was a big story by National Geographic last week about illegal ivory being used by Philippino Catholics to make statues. They even named one of our more dubious priests as being involved in the practice. Corruption is not new in the Philippines, where winking at the law is a way of life and bribes […]
Last week I wrote about a fascinating new product in America’s war on obesity, known as LifeSize. This nifty little product from a start-up company is starting to garner quite a bit of attention. The New York Times did a piece on it. So did the Huffington Post. Newsmax picked up the story. Now the […]
The idea that in the world of Commerce Chief Executives might follow the lead of Harry S Truman and have a sign on their desks saying “The Buck stops here” has had something of a boost in recent times.The departure of top bankers from RBS (Fred Goodwin) and Barclays (Bob Diamond) and top oil men […]
Those of us who supported some kind of government health care bill for the 38 million uninsured were duped. Our hope was that a government program could help some who lack health insurance (or the underinsured who would go bankrupt if they had a health emergency). These folks would now have a safety net for […]
I think those who live and work in the US for x number of years without papers should get an amnesty, as was done by Reagan, and I support the targeted amnesty by Clinton for refugees from countries where their lives were in danger if returned, but the blanket amnesty by President Obama for illegal […]
Most Americans know about the “Asian Tiger” economies (and if PNoy keeps hitting at corruption, the Filipinos may join that group). But did you know that other areas of the world are similarly expanding their economies? A day or two ago, I ran into an article that those “undocumented” immigrants in the US are now […]
The calamity of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster continues to put corporate reputation as a subject very much in the spotlight and, hardly surprisingly, many commentators contrast BP’s past attempts to claim the moral highground on environmental matters with the stark reality of what happened in the Gulf of Mexico. The idea that corporations should be […]
I see the “Occupy Wall Street” folks are still there. But what is puzzling me: usually a movement starts with a few activists and then slowly grows, as more who believe the same things join. So exactly how many are in these rallies? We know who is in the rallies: From Fastcompany.com via the Democratic […]
By John Donovan of RoyalDutchShellPlc.com Today we provide a unique insight into the shadowy world of Shell Corporate Security, formerly known as “CAS” – Shell Corporate Affairs Security. Shell has had advance sight of everything you are about to read and therefore the opportunity to challenge authenticity of the featured CAS Intel Summary, correct any […]
When my kids were in high school, I lived in a small Pennsylvania coal town, we had an excellent library. Why? Because a lot of kids of the coalminers wanted to go to college, and so the beloved “Library Lady” would try to keep up on textbooks, classics, encyclopedias, and other literature needed by the […]
The ecosystem in the Philippine island of Palawan is unique, and to make it worse, the island has only recently been cleared of terrorists and reopened for tourism, so there is worry that the terrible scars from mining will destroy tourism too. A couple months back, a reporter and civic leader was assassinated because he […]
In a previous post, I joked that if the Governor of Wisconsin wanted to fire all his teachers, he could hire a lot of qualified Filipino teachers to replace them. Yet this is not quite a joke: The cut backs in US medical training have resulted in the active importation of foreign medical graduates to […]
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