Writing in the Malta Times Mr Agius Muscat the chief executive officer of the Malta Institute of Management reminds business to seriously think about the goose and the golden eggs.

Many seasoned entrepreneurs share a common belief that success in a competitive business environment is relative to their ability to cause discomfort to others while tolerating it themselves.

There is a moral and legal ‘caution zone’ in which, these business people would argue, it is acceptable to manipulate the rules of the business game. A smart leader will set the fine line and lets everybody know when they are getting close to it, and takes corrective action as soon as anyone steps over it.

All recognise that the role of companies is to make profits, but visionary leaders and managers with a genuine commitment to shareholder value do so in a manner that corresponds to the expectations of our society. There are various ways of doing this according to sector and type of the industry. Many companies in Malta act responsibly, sometimes without really realising it. Local companies play a key role in developing people’s knowledge and skills.

There have been occasions when business owners facing economic predicaments consciously decided to pay a hefty price just to protect the employment of their employees. Ultimately, it is all about sustainability and feasibility.

In today’s business environment the rules have changed and the challenges have become tougher. We are experiencing what may confidently be called a paradigm shift in the way leaders and managers need to manage organisations and, by implication, economies. Cost-cutting initiatives first come to mind in facing such new experiences.

But probably the best manual is the fairytale of the goose which laid golden eggs and was killed because of the unscrupulous greed of the farmer who believed that he could become rich overnight.

Tomorrow, such strategies will lead business nowhere but straight into the lost abysses. Essentially, the solution to the global economic mess is innovation – thinking outside the box – and embracing the principles that set the foundations for the forthcoming industrial revolution: Investment in branding; restructuring to integrate new technology; and embracing the concepts of green business and social responsibility. It is important for organisations to start recognising the need to widen the scope for business management tactics to include initiatives that aim to clarify their identity with a view to stand out in the crowd and face the challenges set by the established globalised brands. There is still scope for local businesses in the manufacturing, services or distribution industries – the trick for success, however, rests in proactively adopting a professional ID that clearly appeals to and is recognised by the target customer.

A new corporate image in the new markets must be reflected in the operations experienced directly by the customer. Knowledge of the global market is increasingly becoming accessible to the customer and only consistent efficiency and effectiveness will buy in their custom and loyalty. For companies aiming to succeed, this implies continuous change with an emphasis on e-business strategies that should integrate the organisational human element.

Success will also be determined by the degree of the company’s involvement in society, which essentially relates to building firm partnerships. We now realise the need to secure the environment and society in which we are doing business.

Notwithstanding genuine efforts on the local scene mainly spearheaded by the government, more awareness must be raised about the role and responsibilities leaders and managers carry in crafting a future for new generations.

All this comes together if it is recognised that when talented employees look to see what is organisationally or commercially acceptable in uncertain times, they do not look first at corporate policy manuals. Rather, they should look at leadership. True leaders in today’s tougher competitive markets must be winners – and winners like winning because they loathe the pain of defeat.

This is an attitude that can be developed, and business leaders need to encourage it in their colleagues. Observers have stated that the recession has ultimately done more good than harm to the business environment. For sure, it has given rise to a new redefined axiom: ‘Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser’.

I like this new business model.

Here is the link http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100221/business/managing-tougher-competition-responsibly

An interesting artcile was posted recently on a Reuters blog where they tell us that Germany is understandably proud of its renewable energy sector — wind and solar power supply more than 15 percent of the country’s electricity. Its  Renewable Energy Act (EEG) has fuelled its rapid growth over the past decade and been copied by more than 40 countries around the world.

But is the party over?

A new centre-right government announced plans to slash the EEG’s guaranteed feed-in tariffs (FIT) that utilities are required to pay the myriad of producers of solar energy, many of whom feed the modest amounts of solar power from their roofs into the local grid. The EEG already foresees a FIT decline of about 10 percent per year — a built-in incentive to keep overall costs falling.

Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen wants an additional 15 percent cut in April on top of the 10 percent from Jan. 1, 2010 and ahead of the next 10-percent cut on Jan. 1, 2011. In the past decade, the previous two environment ministers from the Greens party and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) worked closely with the solar industry before making changes.

Roettgen made it clear those days of compromise were over. He said he spoke to solar firms last week before proposing the cuts, but rejected their offer to a one-off mid-2010 cut of 5 percent. “This is not a compromise,” he told journalists in Berlin on Wednesday. “It’s a bullseye.”  He said the cuts would save consumers about 1 billion euros a year over the next decade. Consumer groups and some industry groups had wanted deeper cuts, Roettgen noted.

Solar companies in Germany, which have until now worked closely with the government on reducing the tariffs the utilities pay to producers of green electricity, criticised the cuts which amount to about 35 percent within 13 months. They fear they will cripple the sector and kill jobs. Roettgen said he wants solar power, which now generates about 1 percent of Germany’s electricity, to be providing 4 to 5 percent by 2020 even though the support is being slashed by one-third in the course of 13 months. He portrayed the cuts as if he were doing the industry a favour.

Several leading German companies — such as SolarWorld, Q-Cells and Solon — said there were dark days ahead for the solar industry. They pointed out that prices, and support, were already falling steadily and would reach grid parity by the middle of the decade. Why, they asked, ruin a good thing? Frank Asbeck, CEO of Germany’s biggest solar company by revenue SolarWorld, called the plans unacceptable. As my colleague Christoph Steitz reported here, the cuts would cause problems for solar companies around the world.

Carsten Koernig, managing director of the BSW solar industry lobby, said “a radical cut like that will rob German companies of the foundation for business”.

Claudia Kemfert, an energy policy expert at the independent DIW economic research institute, said: “This level of 15 percent is quite problematic. It means a 25 percent cut within a few months and I consider that to be too much. It’s going to hit the small and medium sized companies very hard. It’s going to bring a lot of uncertainty into the market.”

The German Renewable Energy Association also used strong language, saying: “The radical cuts endanger the expansion of renewable energy.”

Is it a done deal? It’s hard to say at this point. There could be a lot of resistance from key conservative-ruled states such as Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg. They have important solar power industries and in the past succeeded in watering down attempts to cut the FIT.

Here’s the link: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/2010/01/20/will-germany-kill-its-golden-goose/

eBay is the a place where you can just about purchase anything; including Goose and Golden Egg plates.

This collector plate was recently advertised on eBay and claims to be the first issue in the ‘Aesop’s Fables Collection’ by artist Michael Hampshire

Here is the link: http://cgi.ebay.ca/THE-GOOSE-THAT-LAID-THE-GOLDEN-EGG-COLLECTOR-PLATE_W0QQitemZ250556573166QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3a5655e5ee

Here is a problem that is not going away for Australia.

A recent report from the BBC in the UK tells us that the number of Indian students studying in Australia is projected to fall by about 20% in 2010.

Australia’s Tourism Forecasting Committee (TFC) has said the students are choosing to stay away due to a series of attacks in mid-2009.

Australian police blamed the attacks on opportunistic criminals, but some Indian students see them as racist.

The drop in the number of Indian students is expected to cost Australia almost $70m (£44m).

More than 70,000 Indians studied in Australia in 2009. Australia’s higher education industry is its third biggest export earner after coal and iron ore.

Safety concerns

The TFC said that judging from visa applications there would be 4,000 fewer Indian arrivals next year, a drop of 21% despite a predicted growth in international tourism numbers of 4.3% in 2010.

TFC chairman Bernard Salt said this was the first assessment of the impact of negative publicity over alleged racial violence and exploitation of Indian students this year.

“This is a segment that has grown strongly throughout this decade, but the downturn is expected in response to concerns that the Indian community have had about safety,” said Mr Salt.

The predicted slump was not as bad as some had expected immediately after the street protests in June against the violence in Sydney and Melbourne.

“We were predicting a drop of about 50%,” Gautam Gupta, president of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia told state radio.

Australia’s higher education industry has grown in value to $15.4bn a year and students from the subcontinent account for 19% of total international enrolments.

An interim report on Australia’s international education sector released this month found its global reputation and brand had been damaged by violent attacks and migration scams, “particularly in India”.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd visited India this year, together with his education and foreign ministers, to deliver assurances that Indian students were safe.

The attacks earlier this year on Indian students attracted prominent media coverage in India.

An Indian minister cancelled a planned trip to Australia and one of the country’s leading film stars, Amitabh Bachchan, turned down an honorary degree from Queensland University of Technology, saying he could not accept it under the circumstances.

Last weekend there was yet another serious attack on an Indian student in Victoria. His death adds to the serious concerns about these attacks.

Still have some Christmas shopping to do?

In a quaint bit of irony, even as the CD format appears headed for extinction the box set continues to thrive. Capitalizing on this fact, record companies are wooing consumers with bonus-laden packages that include such items as rare documentary footage, working amplifiers, and actual sit-down dinner dates with the artist at-hand (okay, just kidding about that last item).

In an effort to make your holiday gift-shopping easier, we’ve pared down the list of 2009 box sets to six releases that constitute the cream of the crop. Each is best enjoyed while sipping from a big glass of eggnog.

The Doors Live in New York

How many times can the goose in the Doors’ vault keep laying golden eggs? This latest box set, a six-CD behemoth that contains four shows staged in 1970 at the Felt Forum in New York, presents the band in full flight. Though a few of the songs appeared on previous releases, the bulk of the performances have never before seen the light of day. Longtime Doors engineer Bruce Botnick mastered the music, which boasts a sound quality that rivals the band’s studio discs.

AC/DC Backtracks

Who besides AC/DC would come up with the idea of packaging a box set inside a functioning guitar amp? Actually the packaging concept is merely a bonus, as the 3-CD, 2-DVD, 1-LP Deluxe Collector’s Editiondazzles in its career-spanning breadth and depth. Toss in a 164-page hardcover book and assorted other goods, and you’ve got a new standard by which future box sets can be measured. The 2-CD, 1-DVDStandard Edition is no slouch, either.

Want more? Then try…

The Beatles: Stereo Box Set (or Mono … take your pick)

Offering up the Fab Four’s 13 studio albums, a Past Masters compilation, and 13 mini-documentaries, this long-awaited collection gathers a hefty chunk of the best music of the 20^th century into one gargantuan package. The documentaries feature John, Paul, George, and Ringo (and producer George Martin) commenting on each of the albums, and the treasure trove of film footage is spectacular. Everything is spectacularly remastered, although from an audio fidelity standpoint some claim the mono set is even better.

Elvis Presley: Elvis 75 — Good Rockin’ Tonight

Hard to believe, but the King would have turned 75 on January 8, 2010. This set commemorates that fact is fine fashion. Spanning Presley’s entire career, the four-disc, 100-song set contains the trailblazing early hits, the so-so movie fodder, a smattering of live performances, and the late period songs that marked an unexpected creative resurgence. Rare photos and a solid essay round out this economically-priced package.

Big Star: Keep an Eye on the Sky

This four-disc set pays tribute to one of America’s greatest power-pop bands (the other being the Raspberries). Bad timing and bad luck consigned Big Star to cult status, but in fact the group should have dominated radio airwaves in the early ‘70s. Essential tracks like “September Gurls,” “Back of a Car,” and “In the Street” are rightly included, but it’s a series of acoustic demos – made by Alex Chilton for what eventually became Big Star Third – that comprise the heart of the set.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: The Live Anthology

Until this year there was just one live album – 1986’s Pack Up the Plantation – in the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ canon. No worries, however, as this colossal set puts thing right. Drawing from 30 years of Heartbreakers music, the 4-CD “standard” set features the hits, the near-misses, and off-the-radar covers such as the theme from the James Bond film, Goldfinger. Diehard fans will want to opt for the “Exclusive Collector’s Edition,” which tosses in a fifth CD, a documentary DVD, a concert DVD, and other bonuses.

Honorable Mentions:

Neil Young: Archives Vol. 1: 1963-1972, Kraftwerk: The Catalogue, Various Artists: Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968

Thanks Russell Hall at Lifestyle; and the link: http://www.gibson.com/en%2Dus/Lifestyle/Features/gift%2Dguide%2Dalert%2D1222/

Photo: Tony Buckingham

Susie Mesure of Leicestershire writes in the Independent that Claire Symington is not the first farmer’s wife to think that keeping a few geese might be fun. That’s why she asked her husband, Robert, for a couple when she turned 35. But she’s probably the first who, 21 years on, has turned that birthday present into a business that this weekend is supplying its first national retailer.

It transpires that Nemo and Nancy, the lucky pair on the hill, are family pets, so they won’t be served up this Friday. Unlike the 4,000 that are waddling around and pecking the dirt in the large fields on either side of the Market Harborough farm, in Leicestershire, when I visit. For them, the clock has been ticking since Michaelmas, the start of autumn but the beginning of end of the road for around 80,000 British geese being fattened up for Christmas. They might lack the run of the place like Nemo and Nancy, but even to my vegetarian eye they don’t look too badly off. For now, at least.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and it’s a different story. The fields lie empty, the only white now coming from a light dusting of snow, rather than feathers. The outhouses, however, are bulging with geese; dead ones, all dressed in their festive best and awaiting either delivery to the last few butchers or personal collection from the Seldom Seen Farm shop. “Our poor drive. We’ll get Ferraris caught on our cattle grid and women teetering out of their cars, all fresh from the hairdresser,” Robert says.

The driveway has already seen plenty of action in the past 24 hours. First the Marks & Spencer truck trundled in to pick up the 500 birds that started going into its stores yesterday, and then, at 4.30am, the last of the Symingtons’ delivery vans set out for butchers’ shops in Oundle, Cambridgeshire, and the West Midlands. “The M&S van turned up in the throes of a blizzard, but luckily at the last minute the heavens shone on us and it was dry,” Claire laughs. For the Symingtons, the next few days will pass in a blur. “We never sleep,” she says. “It’s the accumulation of your whole year. Your work gets condensed and condensed until it’s Christmas Eve and you get to collapse.”

In these times of 365-day gastronomic gratification, when toddlers take winter blueberries for granted, a goose is one of the few truly seasonal meals: the birds just won’t lay before May. Which translates as serious culinary kudos for those dishing it up. Goose is especially popular with younger foodies, those in their 20s or 30s wanting to try something a bit different. Or even their children. “We say if your children like roast duck then they’ll love roast goose,” Claire says.

It helps, of course, that the likes of Nigella and St Delia have anointed goose as their chosen one. Nigella, if you recall, sparked that extraordinary demand for goose fat a couple of years ago after slathering some on her roast potatoes. Robert, who often mans a stall in Borough Market in London, recalls: “That was an amazing day. The power of the woman: we’d normally sell about 20 or 30 tins but the next day we sold 300. Goose fat is now almost a mainstream part of the business.” (Although to the uninitiated goose is terribly fatty, the fat turns out to be “good fat”, more like olive oil than the artery-blocking stuff lurking in roast beef, another popular turkey alternative.)

Goose is not cheap – M&S is flogging them for between £40 and £50 each ? but per kilo they can cost less than some turkeys, plus their smaller size makes them better for small parties.

Aside from the taste, the other foodie appeal is that geese can’t be reared intensively, making them an ethical option. As well as giving them plenty of waddling space, for the Symingtons looking after them well also means killing them well. It’s all about a quick snap of the neck and making sure the other geese aren’t watching, apparently.

Demand has been stronger than ever this year, and the Symingtons sold out almost two weeks ago. If I were Nemo or Nancy I’d be waddling off as fast as my little webbed feet could manage. But I’m told that they’re safe. “They’re pets,” Claire says. “You just think of it differently.”

Here’s the link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/four-thousand-geese-alaying-golden-eggs-1845915.html

If you’re in London for Christmas here is your chance to see the golden egg.

It’s a slightly different take on story we have become familiar, but sounds like great nights entertainment.

Edward Martin writes this is the fourth time that Andrew Pollard has assayed the Dame at Greenwich Theatre for their hugely popular Christmas pantomime.
Mother Goose is ‘the Hamlet of Dames’ declares Andrew, and he ought to know, having played many Shakespearian roles in a long and varied career.
The band strikes up and ‘Fame’ welcomes us to Nursery Rhyme Land where Bo Peep and Miss Muffet dance and Mary Hubbard (Madeline Appiah) with her impecunious old mum (Andrew Pollard) bemoan their lack of finance as squire Georgie Porgie (Paul Critoph) arrives for the rent.
Old Mother H has to admit that her attempts to win the local talent contest with a version of I Dreamed A Dream was more of a nightmare and she is still flat broke.
Enter Essex-Girl Fairy Featherlight, the chav with a plan.
She introduces a feathered goldmine called Priscilla – goose on the loose – played by an anonymous but talented small cast member, and the golden eggs appear on cue to save Ma’s bacon.
However, with the advent of Demonica Baddegg (A spirited and glittering Manal El-Feitury) things take a turn for the worse, as she works her demonic charms on Ma and turns her into a wannabe beauty queen, rejecting her humble goose and loving daughter in favour of a dodgy beauty treatment at the woodland spa.
At this point Mary’s boyfriend Tom (The Piper’s Son) played by David O’Mahony, tries to put things right, but he is plagued by his reputation as a pig-stealer and nobody will help him.
There is much skulduggery and tomfoolery, as Hubbard and Georgie assail the captive audience with high-powered water pistols and Demonica and her gremlins throw a fetish party for wayward villagers in preparation for the roasting of a stolen Priscilla, soon to become queen of the dessert unless Tom can pull of a James Bond style rescue.
Needless to say good triumphs in the end and on the way there are several barnstorming numbers including a fabulous version of Beyonce’s Single Ladies video by Pollard and a rap spectacular by the cast which brought the house down.
Mary and Tom sing You’re Everything to point up the message that togetherness is what really counts in life not botox and Demonica is finally converted to flower power and joins in the celebrations as we all sing Like The Birdies Sing and go out transformed by the power of silliness and good humour into the endless winter rains.
Steve Markwick serves up another musical feast to follow last years triumph and Ellen Jakubiel provides the excellent choreography which the D&B college kids use to romp and twirl into our hearts.
Not even the appearance of some of the oldest jokes in panto history can take the shine off this Christmas spectacular.

Edward Martyn

* Mother Goose is at Greenwich Theatre, Crooms Hill, Greenwich, until January 3, 2010. Tickets are from £13, call the box office on 020 8858 7755.

Here’s an article from Mike Harvey at True/Slant that should be of interest.

This decade of ours is nearly over, thank God, and debate still rages as to what to call it. The Decade From Hell? ThanksTime. Apt. The Naughties? Imprecise. The ought-ohs. Not bad but it’s silliness masks the serious shit that went down. Roger Ebert suggested The Zeros. But I think the generally accepted term, at least at this point (with two weeks of it remaining) is “the naughts.” As in A Zed and Two Naughts.Where’s Peter Greenaway when you really need him?

Rather than (or perhaps “in addition to”) doing yet another boring old list, I’ve decided to take another approach to winding up the past ten years. A series. I’m calling it “The decade in Movies,” and I’ll be covering, basically, whatever I feel like covering. For our first edition, I decided to trawl back through what I consider to be a few of the decade’s biggest film-related disappointments.

Southland Tales

In some ways it’s not fair to pick on a misfire like this. There were plenty of awful films made in the last decade, and many of them were made expressly to beawful. Or rather, whoever it was behind them didn’t give a shit one way or the other. It was a bottom line deal. “Oh, it’s a profit game! Step right up and win some crap!” That’s right. So why pick on Richard Kelly’s spectacularly craptastic attempt at a film disaster to beat even Heaven’s Gate in film disaster lore? I admit, it’s not fair at all. But as we all know, that’s life. And it’s not even Kelly’s fault. The guy hit it so far out of the park with his very first movie, the epochal Donnie Darko, that the bar was set very, very high. So of course Southland Tales was hyped to high heaven.

It happens, as we’re well aware by now. Avatar. Inglorious Basterds. Batman. etc. But Tales was not just a bad movie, it was completely unwatchable. It was aggressively idiosyncratic, ruthlessly unconventional, and it didn’t work on a single level (although The Rock was pretty good). Even still, give me twenty crazy ambitions like Southland Tales for every Night at the Museum they pump out of the factory. Just don’t make me sit through them all.

Franchise Fever

Did we really need more than 1 mediocre movie based on a fairly lame ride at a family theme park?

If it turns out that yes, we actually did need more than 1 mediocre movie based on a theme park ride, did we really need 4? I think I’m gonna have to ask you to prove it. And while you’re at it, is it a good idea to keep making Harry Potter movies when the kids are now obviously, like, full grown adults with jobs and student loan debt and a crushing sense of impending failure carving tell-tell lines into their once pubescent foreheads? Harry Pottery and His New Baby. Harry Potter and His Shrinking 401k. I’d rather not see that.

And the clever Hollywood types behind Transformers– a movie based on a toy, people – had to go and make the first movie actuallyenjoyable. People ate it up, so guess what? Seconds. Sloppy seconds. And coming soon? I hope you left some room! That’s right, #3. On the way. If these go-bots aren’t trannies in the third movie, Bruckheimer and Bay don’t know athing about our collective dreams.

Quentin Tarantino

No one wants to admit it, but since Pulp Fiction, it’s been a case of diminishing returns. Tarantino gambled on Jackie Brown, thinking his casting goose would lay not just one golden egg this time out but two, and the bird was plugged up!

Pam Grier seems like a cool lady, but she couldn’t carry the movie.

Robert Forster fit the role of the worn down bale bondsman, but lacked a star’s charisma. To shove these two into the middle of this movie was to build outward from a near black hole. That said, it wasn’t a bad movie. He shot it well, and he had the good sense to cast an actual heavy weight, Robert De Niro, slightly off-type. The result, in my opinion, is De Niro’s last great performance, and reason enough to watch the movie. Then came Kill Bill, and an even longer leash, with which Quentin was allowed to hang himself. I like Kill Bill, particularly Vol. 1, more than I like Jackie Brown, but it’s got serious flaws. He should have been forced to make a single movie of less than two and a half hours. This flabbiness betrays a lack of focus that is the downfall of many an overpraised artist. When a billion people say, “You rock!” you can tell the half dozen who say, “Wait a minute” to fuck off. But the films are gonna suffer. Which brings us to Inglorious Basterds, probably the most divisive film of the year (or was that Public Enemy?). It just. Wasn’t. Good. Tarantino needs to do something radical – call it his own Schizopolis – to get his groove back.

Not knowing when enough is enough

I like The Office (I know, technically not a movie). It’s a really good show.

But come on already, people. There’s no longer even debate as to whether or not the shark has in fact been jumped. The bike’s engine is cold. The shark has died of old age. Go out with some dignity left. Don’t turn into The Simpsons.

Which brings me to: The Simpsons. Great show. Love it to pieces. But do we really need 450 episodes of it? This show has been on for 20 years! 20 years! You people today do not know a world without the constant presence of Homer Simpson. It’s time to put it away. It’s made enough money.

P.T. Barnum wasn’t a moron. “Leave ‘em wanting more!” he said. That’s right. Not, “Leave ‘em wondering when the hell this damn thing’s gonna be over.”

Iran

The country that virtually owned international cinema in the 90’s went very quiet in the naughts. Why? Kiarostami made a series of cinematic masterpieces in the 90’s, but his international stardom lead him, in the last decade, to a more diverse series of projects, like documentaries and omnibus films. Okay, great, that’s cool and all, but I hope he returns to making gorgeous full length feature films sometime very soon.

Majid Majidi, of Children of Heaven fame, also turned to documentaries, and even made a short film, in the naughts. Moshen Makhmalbaf, who made Gabbeh, made six films in the naughts, including Kandahar in 2001, but I’m not certain that more than one or two even made it to the U.S. Which is obviously not Makhmalbaf’s fault. The world looked at Iran in the 90’s and in the naughts, it simply looked elsewhere. “Next!” we shouted. “What have you done for melately?”

That the ban on ‘Blowing up Movies’ didn’t last forever.

Which is entirely thanks to freaking Roland Emmerich. Remember how, right after 9-11, people everywhere were like, “Let’s come together,” “Let’s be nice to each other,” “Let’s not clog our cinemas with expensive CG images of shit we just saw for real and don’t really want to pay to see in our movies, thank you very much.”? It was nice while it lasted.

Projects were put on hold, or even canceled. Approaches to cinema were rethought. We looked inward for a change. “What should we be doing with this precious gift called life?” right? Yeah. Sure. For about 3 years. Then Emmerich decided he needed another castle and The Day After Tomorrow came out. Great. So this is how the world ends!? Good to know. I guess I should stock up on ski booties. Then there was that little “indie”Cloverfield, featuring an overgrown chipmunk chomping its way through Manhattan (Part 2, on the way!). Destroying Manhattan again, already? Wasn’t that, you know, verboten? Guess not. So it’s only fitting that we end The Decade From Hell once again at the abusive hands of Roland Emmerich. This guy really really hates us. And I think I kinda hate him back.

Remake Everything

Remakes are as ubiquitous now as Starbucks, and usually just as disappointing. Of course there’s the occasional “reboot” that is, in fact, better than the real thing. Like, The Thomas Crown Affair (sometimes the only way to go is up), and Dawn of the Dead. But that’s about it.

On the one hand, America’s bald-faced pillaging of Asian cinema continues, bordering now on frenzy. We’ve seen redos of The Departed, The Ring, Dark Water, The Grudge, The Eye, One Missed Call, Shall We Dance? and scores of others, sometimes with as little as 2 years between original and the U.S. Grade-A Chuck version, which suggests that there’s a new cold war in town and its base of operations is in downtown Burbank.

And the horror genre has become a roiling incarnadine repository for cast0ff remakes, for some reason. Let me think… what could it be…? Profit? Pretty much any horror movie you’ve ever heard of has been remade, from classics like Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, andHalloween to awful stuff like My Bloody Valentine and The Last House on the Left.Nothing is sacred, no one is spared. To fans of the genre, this will come as no surprise.

But for the most part, most of the remakes were most often banal, completely unnecessary, somnolent at best, which made their presence on our screens even more depressing. Did we really need big budget reboots of The Manchurian Candidate, Fame, The Stepfather, and Clash of the Titans (the trailer and the above-the-line credits tell me all I need to know)?

More than perhaps anything else, the last decade – the decade from hell – has taught us a very cynical truth: That remaking everything has become just another interest of the Hollywood business machine, a new holding, and as long as it continues to generate revenue, its performance will be kept at peek.

See you in 2010. Again.

Here’s the link: http://trueslant.com/mikeharvkey/2009/12/16/the-decade-in-movies-the-biggest-disappointments/

Lets not give away the goose that lays the golden egg…

Bill Parish at the Huffington Post reports at the international climate talks going on right now in Copenhagen, Denmark, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to launch a major assault on global warming. Besides deciding emission targets and the legal structure of an agreement, commitments for long-term financing for developing countries to help green their economies and cope with climate change impacts is one of the most important element of a real deal. The chasm between what’s being offered by developed countries ($10 billion a year for 3 years) and what basically the entire developing world is asking for (a long-term commitment of $400-500 billion a year by 2020) must be bridged.

When you consider the enormous need for green economic development for the billions of people in these countries and the projections of the massive costs of climate change adaptation, these numbers are justified. The International Energy Agency’s 2009 World Energy Outlook says that investments in low-carbon energy technologies and energy efficiency on the order of $500 billion a year for the next 20 years will be required to reach 450ppm of carbon in the atmosphere. But if we want to avoid “certain death for island nations and certain devastation for Africa” that Sudan’s ambassador and the chair of the G77 and China block here says 450ppm would entail, then we’ll need substantially more than that.

But this is the same U.S. government that mobilized $11 trillion in a little over a month to combat the global financial crisis, that has committed $3 trillion for war in Iraq. When the US decides to make something a priority, it finds ways to fund it. So when the U.S. delegation here says it can’t come up with more money, the whole world hears that it just isn’t that big a priority.

But in addition to the commitments developed countries can appropriate through annual budgets and the auctioning of emissions credits, shifting the subsidies that currently go to fossil fuels to clean energy and vulnerable communities is one particularly elegant solution: Stop harming, and start helping.

Our elected representatives and their appointees have only days to get this right and agree to a well-designed, public funded effort to prevent catastrophe. If the US took leadership on this issues, it could be the game-changer that breaks the climate deadlock and unleashes a clean-energy future, not just for us, but for the whole world.

Here’s the link to the article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/billy-parish/finacing-a-real-deal-in-c_b_392345.html

McKinsey & Company, the venerable consultancy, has a thing with geese.  In 2003, the firm published a report on the then-recovering asset management industry called “Will the goose keep laying golden eggs? (October 2003)“  Then, last month, it produced another report on the beaten-up asset management sector asking the same question “Will the goose keep laying golden eggs? (October 2009)”

Who is this mythical goose and what has bestowed it with powers of prognostication not seen since Punxsutawney Phil cornered the market on predicting the onset of spring?

Thankfully, respondents to a survey in the report concluded that a “long freeze” was not in the cards.  Instead, they struck a more hopeful chord.  They said the industry was “battered but resilient”, but that stalled globalization would continue to hinder growth.  Still, a growing middle class in the developing world and a huge potential for managed savings products were seen as a source of “light at the end of the tunnel.”

So in a nutshell: six more weeks of winter for global asset managers, followed by gradual warming.

Selling eggs

For those employed as managers and salespeople in the asset management industry, the “golden goose” is their payroll department, laying golden paycheques and bonuses in their bank accounts every month.   And those individuals might be excused for wondering if the goose was laying a golden egg, or simply dumping on their career prospects.

According to the report:
“…when asked where they plan to cut costs, the majority were targeting the fund management and sales and marketing functions. Fewer players were considering structural reductions in middle/back-office and IT, but cuts here can be substantial and sustainable.”

But before the goose is taken ’round behind the barn, consultancy FPL Associates has some more positive news for marketers and investor relations personnel.  In a summary of the results from a recent survey it conducted, the firm writes:
“The need for dedicated investor relations talent has increased significantly. First, the environment for capital raising has become much more difficult and competitive. More time and effort is now required to get in front of potential new investors. Second, existing investors have become more demanding with respect to reporting on troubled portfolios. In response to these two trends, many surveyed firms have started to add dedicated investor relations staff, at both senior and support levels.”

Golden eggs as part of a well-balanced diet

The McKinsey report also notes that the global asset management industry shrunk in 2008 mainly because of the “performance effect” (a euphemism for the more widely recognized “lack-of-performance” effect).  In fact, according to their analysis, there was a net inflow of new assets into the industry in theannus horribilis.  North American and Asian managers saw net inflows of several percent.

The reason?  Institutional assets.  Reports the firm:
“Half of our survey participants had institutional inflows, while only a third had retail inflows.  Institutional asset managers tend to have a more conservative asset mix, with less exposure to equity, which helped them deliver superior investment performance in 2008. They also benefited from more stable flows from the pension business.”

Eggs.  Beaten.

Nonetheless, overall assets shrunk dramatically.  And to add insult to injury, the average revenue per unit of AUM is expected to fall this year as performance fees on hedge funds dry up.  The “injury ” (falling AUM) and the “insult” (falling revenue per AUM) are clearly illustrated in the chart below from the report.  The result is an injured and insulted bottom line for the industry this year.

Here is the link http://allaboutalpha.com/blog/2009/12/10/punxsatawney-goose-lays-golden-egg-six-more-weeks-of-freeze-for-asset-management-industry/