National business summit to convene this week

Executives, politicians, academics meet to find solutions to current crisis

The country’s economic troubles already were brewing when organizers announced in September that business and other leaders would gather here to craft a plan for keeping the U.S. competitive in manufacturing, energy, technology and environmental efforts.

But few predicted the plunge to follow: Banks failed, stocks tanked, homes foreclosed and two once-mighty U.S. automakers landed in bankruptcy court. Congress has poured billions into hopeful fixes, and the new president has made it a personal mission to right the nation’s ship.



So, where does that leave the three-day National Summit, which starts Monday and brings more than 90 leaders from the public and private sectors to the especially hard-hit Motor City? The answer: scaled back but no less determined to do something.
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“The need is more crucial now,” said Tom Dekar, a vice chairman of accounting and consulting firm Deloitte LLP, which helped create the conference.

“I think we may be where we are because we did not have the right policy set in each of those topic areas,” he said. “Had we had a better set of policies in the industrial sector, had we looked at automotive market as a market ... we might not be where we are today.”

Conference organizers initially hoped to draw as many as 5,000 to Ford Field, home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions, but to cut costs they moved it to the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center. Nearly 3,000 are expected to attend. The summit is being convened by the Detroit Economic Club.

Still, the vision hasn’t changed: assemble leaders from business, government and academia to discuss issues facing the four sectors and come up with recommendations for increasing the nation’s competitiveness. Organizers hope the summit’s nonpartisan approach offers credibility to the ideas among policy-makers.

The conference includes dozens of top executives from corporations such as Microsoft Corp., Delta Air Lines Inc., ConocoPhillips Co., Citigroup Inc., Dow Chemical Co., General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. Members of the Obama administration expected to attend include Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Van Jones, special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation.

Dekar said the government’s heavy involvement in the government-led restructuring of GM and Chrysler LLC doesn’t dissuade conference leaders from offering recommendations. He said the U.S. auto industry illustrates what they can do beyond the scope of internal reorganization.

“They enjoyed 100 percent of the market share in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s ... then along came the transplants who didn’t have the same kinds of costs,” Dekar said. “Given we are where we are, what do you really want it to be in the future? How do we ensure the marketplace is fair to all participants?”

The focus on the marketplace concerns organizers of the People’s Summit, a simultaneous alternative gathering consisting of marches, rallies and workshops.

“The whole thrust of the summit, in our opinion, is misguided,” said spokesman Abayomi Azikiwe, a Detroit community activist. “The financial community, as well as the industrialists, have created the conditions for the worst economic crisis we’ve faced in 75 years. We don’t feel they have a solution.”

He said the People’s Summit is advocating for foreclosure and eviction moratoriums, full-employment programs and national health insurance.

Dekar said backlash based on the current economic condition is understandable but the National Summit’s attendees and agenda are important to finding ways out of it.

“We need a set of policies to remain competitive and be leaders in the world,” he said. “We’ve got to cure ourselves first, before we can be of benefit to the rest of the world.”

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Government’s role starts to chafe Big Business

As crisis starts to slowly give way, movement to get Feds out of exec suite

By Theo Francis

It remains an open question whether the much-heralded "green shoots" truly signal a turn toward a U.S. economic recovery. What's clearer is that the business backlash against government is well under way.

Not so long ago, business and policymakers alike were calling for Uncle Sam to step in and stop the bleeding — in the financial sector, at the automakers, in the housing and job markets. Most of the sniping that occurred came as various government figures criticized one another for doing too little. Now, however, the grousing is shifting to arguments that the government is overstepping that subjective line between helpful intervention and harmful meddling, including in areas where business only recently welcomed Uncle Sam's dollars.



"They're making business decisions in a way that is political," John A. Allison IV, chairman of BB&T Bank, told BusinessWeek at a Beltway gala on June 11. BB&T was cleared this past week to return $3.1 billion in federal bailout money. "Where does it stop? The people making the decisions don't have the knowledge of the industries, of the institutions, to make good business decisions."
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Certainly, last week brought plenty of revelations about the government's role as an activist investor, both now and at the height of the crisis. The Treasury unveiled broad principles for executive compensation and backed legislation to give the Securities & Exchange Commission and shareholders more say in how compensation policy is shaped; it also appointed a "pay czar" to police compensation at the seven companies that have received repeated federal aid.

The Food & Drug Administration got the go-ahead to regulate tobacco as a drug. The Supreme Court stood aside, letting the Obama Administration's plan for Fiat to acquire Chrysler go through, despite arguments by some creditors that it stood on end the usual bankruptcy process. And the Administration's role became clearer in everything from picking board members and top executives to "changing the culture" of also-bankrupt General Motors.

On Capitol Hill, indignant lawmakers listened as Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis described the pressure he felt late last year at the hands of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to go consummate the acquisition of an ever-shakier Merrill Lynch.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — perhaps the business lobby's most persistent voice against government regulation — picked this week to launch its "Campaign for Free Enterprise." Declaring that "capitalism is at a crossroads," Chamber officials called the effort to "defend and advance America's free enterprise values in the face of rapid government growth and attacks by anti-business activists … one of the most important and necessary initiatives in [the Chamber's] nearly 100-year history." Two days later, the Chamber sent an open letter to Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) supporting a "transparent exit strategy to ensure the timely withdrawal of the federal government from these most extreme and unusual forms of intervention."

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The Republican Party of Florida put it a little more bluntly, headlining its criticism of the Obama Administration's forays into business (and some other issues) "Back in the USSR" and decrying that the Administration has more czars — over health care, autos, executive pay, and more — than did three centuries of Romanov rule. (Never mind that some of the U.S. czars date to GOP Administrations or that the Romanovs and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics didn't exactly overlap.)

The Administration's approach has real dangers. Attempting to reorganize and tinker with the culture of a giant corporation like GM is risky in the best of times. Taxpayers may find themselves hopelessly entangled in lost corporate causes, with billions of loans never returned. Companies that are shackled with pay restrictions may lose top talent to those that aren't. Countless historical examples show the potential for unintended consequences from well-intended policies. (Just one example: the costly distortions in employee titles and pursuit of tax loopholes that followed imposition of government wage and price controls.)

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Citigroup to split as losses grow

Citigroup was bailed out by the US government in November

Struggling US banking giant Citigroup has announced plans to split the firm in two, as it reported a quarterly loss of $8.29bn (£5.6bn).

(BBC UK) It said it would realign into two new firms, Citicorp and Citi Holdings.

Citicorp will handle the company's traditional banking work, while Citi Holdings will take on the firm's riskiest investment assets.

Last autumn, Citigroup had to be rescued by the US government in a bail-out deal totalling $45bn.

The government also agreed to guarantee up to $306bn (£205bn) of risky loans and securities on Citigroup's books.

'Ongoing efforts'

"Given the economic and market environment, we have decided to accelerate the implementation of our strategy to focus on our core businesses," said Citigroup chief executive Vikram Pandit.

"This will help in our ongoing efforts to reduce our balance sheet and simplify our organisation.

"We are setting out a clear roadmap to restore profitability."

Citigroup's net loss for the last three months of 2008 works out at $1.72 per share, worse than analyst expectations of $1.31.

Its quarterly revenues were down 13% to $5.6bn, which Citigroup said reflected "the impact of a difficult economic environment and weak capital markets".

"I think people knew it was going to be bad, but I'm surprised it's this bad," said Matt McCormick, portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel in Cincinnati.

Good and bad

Analysts say the split essentially puts Citigroup's solid and profitable consumer banking interests in the hands of the new Citicorp, while the bad investment debts that forced it to seek government help go into Citi Holdings.

This will enable Citicorp to return to profitability much quicker than would have been possible for Citigroup as a single firm.

CITIGROUP SPLIT Citicorp - to have responsibility for universal banking operations Citi Holdings - to take on the firm's brokerage and investment interests, and a special pool of loss-making assets The rise and fall of Citigroup

Meanwhile, the bosses at Citi Holdings will have the arduous task of sorting through the mass of bad debt, picking out what can be salvaged.

Citigroup said it was now looking for a "strong manager" to head Citi Holdings.

Redundancies

For 2008 as a whole, the bank made a net loss of $18.72bn.

It blamed the losses on having to write-off bad debt and the cost of making redundancies.

The firm cut 52,000 jobs last year as its losses mounted against the backdrop of the sharp downturn in the US mortgage market and the resulting global credit crunch.

"We are committed to helping the financial markets recover as quickly as possible," added Mr Pandit.

The firm added that it also expected further departures from its board of directors.

It was announced last week that director Robert Rubin, a former US Treasury Secretary is to leave the firm.

Bank of America

Citigroup's announcement comes after news that rival Bank of America is to receive $20bn in fresh US government aid and $118bn worth of guarantees against bad assets.

The emergency funding will help the troubled bank - the US's largest - absorb the losses it incurred when it bought Merrill Lynch.

Bank of America has already received $25bn in capital injections from the Troubled Assets Relief Programme, known as Tarp, the bail-out fund designed to rescue banks reeling from the financial crisis.

In another development, the Irish government has said it is to nationalise the Anglo Irish Bank after its funding problems continued.

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by wahzhu

Markets start year on upbeat note

World stock markets have started the year on a positive note, gaining ground after shares saw record falls in 2008.

In London, the FTSE 100 index was up by 2.88% at close and in France and Germany the major indexes had risen by 4.09% and 3.39% respectively.

At close on Wall Street, the Dow Jones ended the day 2.94% ahead.

However, analysts said gains might not be sustainable, with many market participants still on holiday and low trading volumes.

'Distant horizons'

"It is customary to greet the New Year with a surge of optimism," said Stephen Lewis, an analyst at Monument Securities.

"Past cares are buried as eyes are raised to more distant horizons."


2008 - MAJOR MARKET FALLS
New York - down 33.84%
London - down 31.3%
Paris - down 42.7%
Frankfurt - down 40.4%
Mumbai - down 51.9%
Singapore - down 49.2%
Sydney - down 41.3%
Hong Kong - down 48.3%
Shanghai - down 65.2%
Tokyo - down 42.1%

The FTSE 100 had suffered its worst year on record in 2008 - a fall of 31.3%.

In Asia, South Korea's main stock index closed up 2.9% at 1,157.40 points. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 4.6% and Indian shares climbed 0.6%.

Markets in Japan and China were closed for a public holiday.

At close in the US, the Nasdaq was also ahead, by 3.50%, and the S&P 500 was up 3.16%.

Record falls

Global markets saw record falls in 2008 as the financial turmoil and economic slowdown ended the stock market boom.

Shanghai was one of the worst-hit major markets, ending the year 65% lower, which was also a record loss.

In New York, the Dow Jones lost almost 34% of its value in 2008, its worst year since 1931.

The year saw the credit crisis push several major economies into recession, with banks particularly badly hit - many requiring government bail-outs.

Whether the stock markets fall further in 2009 is a matter of debate.

Many investment strategists have written off any chance of a major rebound in at least the first six months of the new year, when company earnings could prove especially bleak.

TECHNOPRENEURSHIP: Incubator Carries On Business to get Technology basis Part 3

Advanced

In period time that long, resident scholarship on “ box ” alone exclusive, pretend outcast of economy activity. Scholarship the world or we call with education, looked on don't be part of an economic system. Education the world is viewed as a places alone the world be built appreciative glorious, while economy the world is viewed as universalizes that fraught double-dealing, injustice, even pretend world tanpai assesses (value). Viewpoint that dichotomy that, in period so long time can't yet most bridge one good manners. Each party mooring to accentuate and claim as side as correctness the most.

One that needs us to know are that deep economic era that get scholarship basis, education constitutes to form from national development success a state. Even education cans be competitiveness top a state. In other words, education holds strategics role in advance nation economy. And it was proven by new industrial states as Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia, whereabouts by building medium and infrastructure is serious ala education in ten the last years, that nation life qualities ever increasing.

How with Indonesia?. Up to tens of year, education was made by tool power politics, beginning of elementary education until college ladder. Accordingly education walks slow going (too slow), so can't run after change charge. Education has given contribution that significant to happening change or still measly (too little). Even education often times is slowed (too late) in adapts changing, so education drops behind and can't yet answer future daring. Its causal factor is because aught policy over and above patch embroider, also been made headlong ala. Even commanding being assessed haven't had vision and clear commitment educational.

So gets to be said that new Indonesia and doing changing education orientation of education that gets academic basis to education that gets interest basis. Here subject discussion about technopreneurship that needs to be developed. Really is not easily to be performed, but becomes one daring divide to advance this nation on proximately.

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TECHNOPRENEURSHIP: Incubator Carries On Business to get Technology basis Part 2

advanced

Changing by changing one happens of an epoch go to next epoch have delivered man enters digital era, an often times era evokes question: what we be still live at today or was living in the forthcoming. This question is evoked because well-nigh all something which originally doesn't be imagined will happen for the moment, with a bump appearance is before we. Pretend future can be pulled faster its existence of time that necessarily, technological upturned blessing information.

Communications technology and telematika's information or technology (information and communication technology –ICT) was admitted the world as one of medium and infrastructure is main to settle the world problems. telematika's technology is known as convergence of communications technology (communication), processing (computing) and information (information) one that dissemination uses multimedia's medium. Problem at the most Indonesian main is how solve digital difference problem that stills huge by grow develop innovation or technopreneur is telematika's industry. Technopreneurship or entrepreneur is technology constitutes to process and formation new effort that involve technology as basis it, with that expectation strategy and innovation creation in point coming can place technology as one of factor for developmental economic national.

Technological area entrepreneur (Technopreneur), notably technological information (TI) need to mark sense freedom in gets innovation, without has most rein by regulation what do on the contrary constrain. Progressively commanding loosen regulation's tights that manage grass root's movement TI's community at Indonesian, therefore will give positive impact as growing its TI Is alone and also its business aspect. It is momentous because understanding experience at the site, whereabouts happening often times bump among behalf warms up effort as unit of business that charges for always comports and get behaviour as entrepreneur and does changes, adjust among aught fact with changed charge and enlarges effort, but on the other side available Commanding behalf that may just at variance with behalf as an unit carry on business. Eventually in technopreneurship is required is ardour dominant competition, in order not to drops behind from turbulensi global business.

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President confident in the growth of 4.5 Percent

JAKARTA, WEDNESDAY - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is optimistic, even in the midst of the impact of the crisis situation, economic growth next year remains above 4.5 percent. Growth can be achieved if the government is working hard with the community to fulfilling.

It was delivered when the President gave the press after leading the Coordination Meeting on Building Financial Ministries, Jakarta, Wednesday (31/12) evening. The meeting lasted four hours was attended by Coordinating Minister for Economic Plt that dijabat Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Minister of Public Works Djoko Kirmanto, said Secretary of State and Minister Hatta Radjasa.

"The growth can be maintained with a fixed figure. This year could reach six percent growth next year but I believe it can be above 4.5 percent. That can be achieved if we all work hard," said the President.
According to President Yudhoyono, this month had occurred deflation. "Although not yet announced by the Central Statistics Agency, but I was informed that the deflation," he added.

President states next year, the government consider increasing the number of fiscal stimulus given to the real sector. "Indeed, until now, the figures have not been determined, because we still count. The government will increase fiscal stimulus," he continued.
Indonesia

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