Although doing business on the continent is challenging, Sarah Russell said that starting a business in Africa “is worth a shot. This really is a land of opportunity in terms of business. If you can find something unique and something that is missing from the market and you are willing to put in the hard work, then go for it,” said Russell. Africa the New Frontier
“I was always focused on negotiating for my team but never as good at negotiating for myself,” said Dawn Lepore, the former chief executive officer at Drugstore.com and former vice chairman of Charles Schwab Corp. who’s now a director at AOL Inc. and TJX Cos. “When I think about the way I negotiated my package when I went to Drugstore.com, I thought ‘this is a great opportunity and rather than demand a lot upfront, I’m going to do a great job and then I’ll get rewarded.’ I didn’t want to be greedy, or viewed as out for myself. Maybe women are more collaborative.” In the US the Gender Gap in Wages is Real
But a School for Entrepreneurship in Australia is doing just that. By taking students ready to launch a project and helping kickstart their ideas, this school provides a new approach to start ups and creative business people. Schooling Entrepreneurs
We have found the stories of start ups to be each different in its own way, but also to have factors in common. Reading them helps to prepare for the trials of starting a business. Start Ups
The government in Singapore has declared war on corruption through its Corruption Practices Investigation Bureau. There is nothing in the pamphlet about finance in one of the leading financial capitals of the world. Pamphlet in English and Chinese attached. CPIB Booklet; CPIB Booklet Chinese
On this site, we advocate saying something if you see something. Public reporting and public protest are among the best tools available to combat corruption. But we are not naïve. There are consequences to standing up and standing out.
A story that has hit headlines across Europe concerns a German vintage car dealer who reported transactions he thought his wife was conducting. They involved the sending and hiding undeclared income of German citizens in a Swiss bank account. Most of the illegal money was funnelled through Hypo Vereinsbank (Hypovereinsbank Rport 2003 ) which has been taken over by UniCredit of Italy.
After Gustl Mollath reported this, he was taken to trial and accused of beating his wife and slashing tires on cars. His reports of tax evasion were treated as the musings of a paranoid. While the sequence of events surrounding the Mollath Affair are not clear, it may have been convenient for interested parties to put Mollath away in an insane asylum for life rather than taking him to trial for wife beating.
In any case, the mix of a marriage falling apart, Bavarian politics and bank takeovers leaves a murky trail.
The following is known: the bank admits employees laundered money, a physician who wrote the report that Mollath beat his wife had never met either party. And a Bavarian Minister of Justice Beate Merk, said that there was no evidence of money laundering when the bank’s admission is a matter of public record. She later changed her story: whatever transactions had taken place were ‘not indictable.’
Only public outcries and an upcoming election got Mollath released from the asylum. He is free until another trial is commenced. One wonders on what grounds a new trial can be instituted since all the evidence in the first trial was fraudulent or tainted.
Because Mollath is not your ordinary whistleblower, and may have come forward with information he gathered in his home to hurt his wife as part of a domestic dispute, we are not prepared to say that he fits the classic whistleblower mode.
What we can say is that his treatment was horrific. In the very city where Nazi criminals were tried after the Second World War, a higher court “Oberlandesgericht Nuremberg” freed Mollath. The Mollath Affair
More on German side
Mollath: gustl-for-help
At last. Will Attorney General Eric Holder have the guts to see this through. Will the President try to protect his personal banker? JP Morgan Faces Criminal and Civil Investigations into Mortgage-Backed Securities Sales
Warren Buffett touts the value of companies that make things. But his fortune has always depended on one kind of wager or another. His 4th quarter earnings last year were up 49% based on his derivative bets. Many in the US argue that since we don’t make things in the US any more, derivatives are all we have left. Like his secretary who is also held up as an example of the need for reform in the tax code with her secretary’s salary reported to be over $200,000 a year, Buffett’s talk about ‘real’ investing as opposed to gambling with derivatives is a foil for what he does. Following Warren Buffett
The overlooked part of getting work done. The Importance of Execution
The United States and European Union also questioned the election, but observers from the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (Sadc) said the vote had reflected the “will of the people”. But whatever the politics, of immediate importance to ordinary Zimbabweans is whether the country’s frail economy can survive the end of the MDC and Zanu-PF unity government and the return to Zanu-PF rule. Before the coalition was formed in 2009, the country had gone from being one of Africa’s strongest economies to one of its weakest – as Zimbabweans grappled with hyperinflation, mass unemployment and widespread poverty. Zimbabwe After the Elecction
