Monday, April 08, 2013

B&E This Fortnight

INTERNATIONAL
BUSINESS, ECONOMY & FINANCE
Zero job growth!
America’s gold plated standards in political and economic leadership have become a laughing stock. And President Barack Obama – also being dubbed as “President Zero” by the Republicans is at the receiving end of this phenomenon which has engulfed America. In fact, the dust from the debt ceiling drama hadn’t even settled when the government report on jobs released on Friday became a more pressing concern for the Obama administration. Apart from narrating the pathetic state of unemployment, the report revealed that there was zero job growth in August – an indication that the economy has come to a halt and that further inaction by the administration might be lethal. As a result Obama has devised a $447 billion job growth package and the proposal has been sent to the Congress for approval. Half the budget comprises tax cuts. The rest would be allocated towards improving infrastructure to keep people on the job. Further, measures include easing stringent environmental emissions (which supposedly hamper employment). With elections round the corner and Obama’s approval rating dropping to an all time low, it is increasingly becoming difficult to imagine how the President who came into power with hopes and mass hysteria will repeat history once again.

Carol Bartz fired!
“I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s chairman. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.” It didn’t take much time for Carol Bartz, the outspoken former CEO of Yahoo! to take out her iPad and write a mail to the company’s 13,000 employees informing them that she had been fired. Bartz’s two year tumultuous stint at the beleaguered web giant came to an end on September 07. One of the most celebrated entities of the Web 1.0 era, Yahoo! struggled to cope as Google took over the world wide web by storm. When Bartz took over as CEO, she had cut jobs, outsourced its loss making search business to Microsoft and attempted to streamline operation. She was partly successful in mobilising the stock at around $13, however, investors were uneasy and could not wait to see the impact of the fixtures Bartz had introduced. Moreover, she ended up publicly alienating Jack Ma, Group CEO, Alibaba (Yahoo’s key Japan ally) who in turn spun off the payment too, Alipay (one of the company’s most profitable asset) without compensating for Yahoo’s share. Further, the company missed second quarter revenue targets. Whatever the reasons were, investors didn’t like it and Bartz was fired. However, instead of cutting deadwood, Yahoo’s board should contemplate breaking down the business and selling it off. In fact, they goofed up when they turned down Microsoft’s acquisition offer three years back.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

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