The Economist (US) back issues from November 1998:
Oily charm.
Nov 05, 1998 ... MOSCOW DISARMING your critics with good public relations is not part of Russian business culture. Paranoid silence punctuated by intimidation is the norm. Until this week, Yukos-the country's second-largest oil producer-was no exception. The taciturn tycoon who heads it, Mikhail ...
BMW's British bruises.
Nov 05, 1998 ... IN 1984 it took BMW's German workers six weeks of a bitter strike to win a 35-hour working week. On December 2nd their colleagues in the company's Rover subsidiary in Britain achieved it at the stroke of a pen. This revolutionary (for Britain) flexible working deal, based on a 35-hour ...
The changing face of German unions.
Nov 05, 1998 ... BERLIN AND MANNHEIM Emboldened by a new left-wing government, Germany's trade unions seem to be flexing their muscles. In reality, they are getting ever more flexible AS WALTER RIESTER prepared to address this week's annual gabfest of IG Metall, Germany's-and ...
Oil industry: The decade's worst stocks.
Nov 05, 1998 ... Low oil prices are the immediate cause of the oil industry's merger mania; but its problems run far deeper BIG OIL is dead: long live Enormous Oil. This week, three months after BP agreed to buy Amoco for $48 billion, Exxon and Mobil, America's biggest oil firms, announced a $77 ...
Semiconductors: The monkey and the gorilla.
Nov 05, 1998 ... SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA IT IS a fair bet that more than half of the PCs bought this Christmas in America for less than $1,000 will have AMD rather than Intel inside. Not content with this seasonal miracle, Advanced Micro Devices, the perpetual also-ran of the computer processor ...
Impeachment: Clinton's stock falls.
Nov 05, 1998 ... WASHINGTON, DC LIKE Wall Street, Bill Clinton's popularity seems to defy gravity. But, like Wall Street, it is subject to unnerving moments. After a bull period during November, when Mr Clinton enjoyed the Democrats' mid-term election victory, the president's stock is now ...
The boomers' queasy future.
Nov 05, 1998 ... WASHINGTON, DC Does all the talk of reforming social insurance add up to anything? THE president's slogan is simple-``Save Social Security First''-and with the federal budget swelling into a comfortable surplus for the first time in 30 years, it has served him well ...
Conscription's lively ghost.
Nov 05, 1998 ... ST LOUIS MANY Americans of a certain age have, somewhere in their cupboards, a box containing relics of another age: love beads, year-books, vinyl records, Paisley shirts, granny glasses. Another relic of that age is still kept in suspended animation by the federal government ...
Closing the deals.
Nov 05, 1998 ... Albert Frere may be arranging what too few tycoons want even to think about: a happy retirement BUYING and selling, nothing more complicated than that, has kept Albert Frere busy for 50 years. Only the scale of it has changed. In 1948 he was jobbing odd lots of low-grade steel ...
Best-quality education, going cheap.
Nov 05, 1998 ... THE firm with the strongest balance sheet fired the first salvo, announcing discounts for customers. Other industry leaders quickly followed suit. Regulators, meanwhile, are casting a wary eye for the kind of price-fixing behaviour that has already prompted one lawsuit by the Department of ...
South Korean business: The eclipse of Moon Inc.
Nov 05, 1998 ... HONG KONG AND SEOUL THINGS are going from bad to worse for the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who once planned to become America's Messiah. His following there has dwindled to almost nothing. He is in South America, struggling to revive his career. Now his South Korean business empire ...
Philanthropy: Gates the Good.
Nov 05, 1998 ... NEW YORK JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER is remembered for two things: his rapacious business habits, and his reinvention of American philanthropy. Many of the country's great hospitals, churches and schools were built by the robber barons. People now hope that today's geek billionaires ...
The world's latest computer.
Nov 05, 1998 ... SUCCESS, it is often said, has many fathers-and one of the many fathers of computing, that most successful of industries, was Charles Babbage, a 19th-century British mathematician. Exasperated by errors in the mathematical tables that were widely used as calculation aids at the time, ...
The early earth: Spinning a yarn.
Nov 05, 1998 ... THE pre-Cambrian earth was not a comfortable place. From around 820m to 550m years ago, if the record of the rocks is to be believed, the planet was in the grip of an ice age far fiercer than the one that has afflicted it on and off for the past 2m years. When modern glaciers advance, they ...
Semiconductors: New balls, please.
Nov 05, 1998 ... GIVEN their tiny size and extraordinary power, it is not surprising that computer chips are extremely fiddly and expensive to manufacture. The process involves growing huge crystals of silicon, cutting them into thin circular wafers, subjecting each wafer to a series of chemical processes ...
Norse code.
Nov 05, 1998 ... A fierce debate in Iceland over genetics foreshadows many future, similar battles elsewhere IN THE next few days, Iceland's parliament, the Althing, will debate a bill to allow its citizens' medical records, family trees and assorted genetic information to be combined into a ...
Organised crime: Out of jail and on to the street.
Nov 05, 1998 ... AUSTIN, TEXAS IN ONE of the advertisements aired before his smashing victory in last month's election, Governor George Bush of Texas could be seen, upright and with a sober expression, inspecting a forlorn parade of juvenile offenders. The line-up took place at a ``Tough Love ...
Save Social Security? Here's a thought.
Nov 05, 1998 ... CHICAGO ONE possibility for reforming Social Security lies in a strange discrepancy. The system is a better deal for those who land on America's shores than for those born there. A factory worker from Budapest earns a higher return on every dollar paid into Social Security than ...
The travails of a census man.
Nov 05, 1998 ... BACK in the 1960s, when Kenneth Prewitt was a young professor in East Africa, his hosts taught him one lesson and he taught them another in return. The lesson he learned was that good government depends upon good data, for without data nobody can measure whether government policies work ....
Continuity, please-or else.
Nov 05, 1998 ... WASHINGTON, DC AS THEY watch Germany descend into what looks to them like introspective confusion, American officials draw comfort from two main arguments. The first is that German-American relations are bound to improve, no matter what kind of coalition runs Germany. As ...
Valentin Berezhkov.
Nov 05, 1998 ... IN 1943 Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met for the first time in Tehran. They scarcely knew a word of each other's language. Their only communication was through Valentin Berezhkov, and he was not entirely confident in English. ``You're not too tired?'' said an anxious Stalin as they ...
Where is it going?
Nov 05, 1998 ... BONN AND PARIS Germany's new leader needs to sort out a muddle over people, power and policy-and to tell the world what he means to do EVEN Gerhard Schroder, Germany's chancellor, admits that not everything has been hunky-dory. The government coalition that he has ...
Seasonal furbishments.
Nov 05, 1998 ... EVERY December since as long as anyone can remember, there has been a toy craze. For example, America's last-quarter gift spree for children is vital to the toy industry, accounting for more than half the roughly $24 billion spent annually in that country on toys. Predicting hot ...
The silence of the lambs.
Nov 05, 1998 ... Reliable truths about parents, children and families are inevitably mixed with myth and anxiety, as several new or recent books remind us THE opposite of ``innocent'', when said of children, is ``knowing''. For adults, the opposite of ``innocent'' is ``guilty''. What links these ...
Making bourbon fashionable.
Nov 05, 1998 ... MARION AND WOODFORD COUNTIES, KENTUCKY WILLIAM FAULKNER wrote that, though there was no bad whiskey, ``some whiskeys just happen to be better than others''. Makers of bourbon want drinkers to agree, and they are inventing newer, dearer brands, to encourage them to trade up. ...
Hunting for Saint-Exupery: France's Superboy.
Nov 05, 1998 ... MARSEILLES IN A padlocked shed behind the warehouse at his geotechnical survey company near Marseilles, Pierre Becker keeps a treasure. To most eyes it may be a heap of bent, corroded aluminium, but to Mr Becker, a part- time underwater archaeologist, the rubbish heap is ...
Toy collecting: Beanie here, got mine.
Nov 05, 1998 ... SANTA FE A BLIZZARD blowing through New Mexico's capital swept a group of business executives into a small toy store where your correspondent was fingering Beanie Babies. ``And this is Erin,'' chirped the shop assistant as she presented a green toy bear emblazoned with a ...
Japan in the right.
Nov 05, 1998 ... In refusing to bow to Chinese demands to apologise for past crimes and to isolate Taiwan, Japan did the world-and itself-a service EVERY few months, Japan comes under pressure to offer a ``proper'' apology for its conduct during some of the bloodier parts of this century. Then, ...
Israel and the Palestinians: Two views of the PLO charter.
Nov 05, 1998 ... GAZA WHEN Bill Clinton makes his historic stop in Gaza and the West Bank next week, he will be guest-in-chief at a ``festival'' of public support for the Wye peace accord signed in October. So say the Palestinians. The Israelis think the top of Mr Clinton's agenda should be a ...
The lesson of Quebec.
Nov 05, 1998 ... The province's separatists have retained power. Canada probably won't- and preferably won't-break up, but endless uncertainty would be even worse CAN Canada stay in one piece? Probably, if its English-speaking majority really want it to, and act accordingly. Quite possibly not, ...
World law and world power.
Nov 05, 1998 ... The United States, the world's sole superpower, should be the champion of international law, not a two-faced, half-hearted friend THE rapid expansion of international law since the second world war was largely instigated by an American husband-and-wife team. The world's central ...
Mum's the word.
Nov 05, 1998 ... When children should be screened and not heard WE LIVE in increasingly intolerant times. Signs proliferate demanding no smoking, no spitting, no parking, even no walking. ``No blacks'' signs have thankfully disappeared-but elsewhere the imperative of denial seems to be ...
The doomed and the dangerous.
Nov 05, 1998 ... Commercial bankers are caught between a rock and a hard place HARDLY a week goes by without another upheaval in international banking. The upheavals tend to come in two forms. One is when two big banks come together, by merger or acquisition-as in this week's announcement of the ...
Who's running Germany?
Nov 05, 1998 ... GERHARD SCHRODER, if indeed it is he who is leading the country with the third-biggest economy in the world, has made one of the worst starts to running any top European government since the second world war. As an election campaigner, he was vacuous and vague. But he was expected to ...
Hariri steps down.
Nov 05, 1998 ... BEIRUT IF ANY one man was responsible for Lebanon's drive to rebuild after its 17-year civil war, it was Rafiq Hariri. A penniless Lebanese emigre who made billions in the Gulf, he used his foreign contacts and business nous during his six years as prime minister to attract ...
Better times for a battered country.
Nov 05, 1998 ... MAPUTO UNTIL recently the second poorest country in the world, Mozambique is doing rather well. For about 30 years until the early 1990s there was war: first against the Portuguese colonialists; then a civil conflict in which Renamo, a mainly black rebel army backed by white ...
Africa comes to France for a party.
Nov 05, 1998 ... PARIS IT WAS, Le Figaro said, ``the return of France in Africa''. In a swirl of robes and striding suits 34 African heads of state rolled up for the 20th Franco-African summit, in the grand setting of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Out of Africa's 52 countries, 49 were ...
A hard war to stop-or win.
Nov 05, 1998 ... AKETI AND KABALO, CONGO Congo's rebels are unmoved by a government offensive-or by talk of a ceasefire. But reports from two rebel areas show they cannot win quickly STATE radio in Kinshasa brags daily about air raids and bush battles as counter-attacking government ...
Surprise party.
Nov 05, 1998 ... CENTRAL bankers like to take financial markets by surprise. They certainly succeeded on December 3rd, when Germany's Bundesbank, followed by the other ten central banks of the countries that will join Europe's single currency, the euro, in January, cut interest rates. None of the ten ...
South Korean finance: Junk funk.
Nov 05, 1998 ... SEOUL THE unhealthy commercial dominance of South Korea by its big business conglomerates, or chaebol, is legendary, as is the parlous state of some chaebol finances. Recent changes in the local corporate-bond market respond to both problems: chaebol borrowing will be curbed, ...
The unbearable lightness of finance.
Nov 05, 1998 ... NEW YORK The discipline of financial economics was flummoxed by the recent market turmoil, which saw the comeuppance of two of its leading lights ``THOSE that can, do. Those that can't, teach.'' Robert Merton and Myron Scholes seemed to prove the old saying wrong. ...
Investment banking: Commercial propositions.
Nov 05, 1998 ... ROLF BREUER, chairman of Germany's Deutsche Bank, is a busy man. Martin Taylor, until recently chief executive of Britain's Barclays Bank, used to be too. On November 30th Deutsche announced formally that it was to create the world's biggest bank, by buying Bankers Trust, America's ...
Credit derivatives: Of devils, details and default.
Nov 05, 1998 ... AFTER all the credit disasters that have afflicted international lenders in recent months, one might have expected some people at least to be looking smug. These far-sighted folk had bought insurance against their borrowers' defaulting, by dabbling in the growing market for credit ...
The business cycle: Puncture ahead.
Nov 05, 1998 ... America's economic expansion is now its longest ever in peacetime EXPANSIONS do not die of old age; they are typically murdered by policymakers' mistakes. Even so, America's current expansion is looking decidedly long in the tooth. The economy has just entered its 93rd month of ...
Bubble babble.
Nov 05, 1998 ... ``AN EDITOR is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff,'' said Adlai Stevenson, a perpetual American presidential candidate. Sadly, his words also apply to economic and financial commentary. Economic writers love to use-and abuse-jargon; and, to give their dry ...
Plastic arts.
Nov 05, 1998 ... MUMBAI AN ADVERTISEMENT for credit cards on Indian television tells the story of a young man on a date in a restaurant. His pockets bulge with wads of cash, but his lady-friend looks listless and unimpressed. In floats a bit of plastic and-abracadabra!-he oozes confidence and ...
A tract for the times.
Nov 05, 1998 ... GEORGE SOROS, to be clear about this from the outset, is a great and a good man-perhaps the most successful financial-market investor in history, and one of the most generous philanthropists of this or any age. His tragedy is that these remarkable distinctions do not satisfy him. He craves ...
Level-headed.
Nov 05, 1998 ... Just before EMU dawns, Europe is preoccupied with ``tax competition''. Yet does rivalry among taxmen really threaten good government? ONE of the ways in which globalisation is said to endanger civilisation as we know it is by reducing the ability of governments to collect ...
Economic and financial statistics on 25 emerging economies, plus a closer look at transition economies.
Nov 05, 1998 ... EX-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development reckons that Russia's economy has shrunk by 5.0% in 1998. The economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic states are forecast to have grown by 3.0%, their slowest rate for five years. ...
Economic and financial statistics on 15 developed countries, plus closer looks at business confidence, copper and exports.
Nov 05, 1998 ... OUTPUT, DEMAND AND JOBS Germany's GDP growth rose to 2.8% in the year to the third quarter. Japan's GDP fell by 3.6% over the same period; the third quarter marked its fourth consecutive quarterly decline-a record. Australia's GDP growth leapt to 5.0%; Canada's slowed to 2.3%, ...
Jose Maria Aznar, Spain's dark horse.
Nov 05, 1998 ... NOT surprisingly, Spain's prime minister is proud of heading the only purely right-wing government left in the European Union: Madrid's pundits say, rightly, that you cannot quite count Jose Maria Aznar's sort-of-rightish Irish counterpart, the ideological spectrum in Dublin being, well, ...
Laughter through Italian tears.
Nov 05, 1998 ... MILAN OVER the past two years, Italy's tax-payers have coughed up 53 billion lire ($32m) to spruce up the huge Sant' Andrea hospital in Rome. Very impressive, except that not a single patient has been admitted to this princely establishment since it was commissioned 24 years ...
Turkey and the Kurds: What a tangle.
Nov 05, 1998 ... ANKARA PERHAPS they were only trying to help. As Turkey's relations with Western Europe plunged to a new nadir, the governments of Germany and Italy brightly suggested that now might be just the time for Turkey to seek a political solution to the war with Kurdish separatists ...
Dirty tricks and democrats.
Nov 05, 1998 ... ST PETERSBURG IF DEMOCRACY can work properly anywhere in Russia, it should be in St Petersburg. The country's best-educated and most enlightened city will be electing a new municipal assembly on December 6th. The voting will decide whether the executive authority wielded by ...
Poverty and plenty.
Nov 05, 1998 ... TROWBRIDGE, WILTSHIRE The government's determination to tackle ``social exclusion'' in the cities risks obscuring an equally deep-seated problem in the countryside IF YOU take the Old Bath Road (now the congested A4) from London to the west country, you could be ...
Hague's history lesson.
Nov 05, 1998 ... William Hague has been double-crossed by the Tory hereditary peers. Another victory for Tony Blair? ``HISTORY teaches, never trust a Cecil,'' mused a senior Liberal Democrat earlier this year as the struggle over the future of the House of Lords took shape. William Hague, the ...
Shopping: A grey market.
Nov 05, 1998 ... A recent European Union ban on ``grey-market'' imports is unleashing a series of law suits which will drive up prices FANCY a bottle of Chanel perfume, some Versace sunglasses, or perhaps a pair of Levi jeans this Christmas? If you are looking for a bargain, you may be out of ...
The economy: Gathering gloom.
Nov 05, 1998 ... THE fading of autumn into winter is bringing out more than merely seasonal gloom among Britons. Few are out of work; most have plenty of money in their pockets. As workers, spenders and businessmen (if not as savers) they ought to have been cheered by cuts in interest rates in October and ...
Panic stations in Scotland.
Nov 05, 1998 ... EDINBURGH A COUPLE of weeks ago, the sustained assault that the Labour Party had made on the Scottish National Party (SNP) seemed to have paid off. Opinion polls, which in the summer had shown the nationalists threatening to win next May's elections to the Scottish parliament, ...
Jack Straw and General Pinochet.
Nov 05, 1998 ... WANTED-but also very much unwanted. The people of Chile put up with General Augusto Pinochet for 17 years-and even after he stepped down as head of state he arranged for himself to stay on, above the law, as senator for life. The managers of Grovelands Priory, a psychiatric hospital in ...
Teachers' pay: Cash for answers.
Nov 05, 1998 ... IN VICTORIAN times, schools got an extra four shillings for each pupil who passed a test set by visiting inspectors. This crude payment-by- results had many critics-most notably Matthew Arnold, a poet and sometime school inspector-who said it led to ``mechanical'' teaching in which pupils ...
No tax without misrepresentation.
Nov 05, 1998 ... Stories that the European Union may bully Britain into raising its tax levels are exaggerated in the short term. As for the long term . . . ``EURO-TAX on babies'', screamed the Mirror, a British newspaper. It was joking. But scares about new Europe-wide taxes have put Britain's ...
An axis creaks.
Nov 05, 1998 ... At a summit meeting in Potsdam, France's president, Jacques Chirac, and Germany's chancellor, Gerhard SchrCoder, made little progress over how to reshape the EU budget or Europe's common agricultural policy. Germany's finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine, rattled some European leaders by ...
Surprise cut.
Nov 05, 1998 ... Central banks in the euro-zone surprised markets with an early interest-rate cut. Germany's Bundesbank led the way, trimming its repo rate to 3%. Other euro members followed suit, except for Italy, which cut to 3.5%. Oskar Lafontaine, Germany's finance minister, welcomed the rate cut, for ...
Will Slobodan Milosevic fall?
Nov 05, 1998 ... BELGRADE The case for encouraging Yugoslavia's leader to stay in power is weakening, along with his reputation as the region's deal-maker EVER since communist Yugoslavia broke up and descended into war seven years ago, the United States has been playing a curious sort ...