Ireland Rolls the Dice on Financial Bailout

Ireland has launched a full-scale rescue of its financial system, issuing a state guarantee worth €400bn (£316bn) to cover the key liabilities of its biggest banks and mortgage lenders.

The Irish government guaranteed all deposits and debts of the country's major banks, one day after the Irish stock market plummeted 13%, nearly twice the decline of the Dow Jones industrials according to the LA Times

"We have to create confidence," Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said on RTE Radio, according to Bloomberg News. "We can't bail out a particular bank. That wouldn't be right. What we have decided to do is give a general guarantee that the banks can lend in security and safety."

According to the Guardian newspaper, "desperation can sometimes engender inspiration. During Monday night, the Irish government was facing the potential collapse of the Republic's banking system. Shares in Anglo Irish Bank had lost half their value in a single session, with similar sharp falls in other publicly listed Irish banks. Real concerns about the stability of Ireland's banking system – prompting a signal from the government a week earlier that it would "intervene" in the event of a bank collapse (Irish Times) – that had been percolating for months finally boiled over.

The goal is to jumpstart international confidence in Irish banks, to help unfreeze interbank money markets and give potential lenders confidence based on the Irish government's guarantee.

Domestic reactions to the bailout scheme were broadly positive. Although there were warning voices about the enormous risk potentially being taken on by the state – the €400bn commitment is more than twice Ireland's GDP and nearly 10 times its entire national debt – and critics on the left demanded that the Irish taxpayer be compensated for the risk with an equity stake in the institutions.

Other observers put the deal in its dramatic historical context, comparing it to the Irish decisions – also born of desperation – to open up its economy, slash taxes and grab foreign investment, that led to the Celtic Tiger phenomenon of supercharged Irish economic growth in the 1990s through the early part of this decade.

But for a government that seemed impotent and paralysed in the wake of the defeat of the Lisbon European reform treaty referendum in June, the radical action has proven to most Irish observers that their government – unlike most others in the western world – is willing to try whatever it takes to get through this crisis."

Corporate Global Mindset

Geocities.com poses the following questions:
Why are some companies highly successful in spotting and exploiting global opportunities, while others mismanage them or miss them entirely? The answer could lie in the company’s mindset, a topical subject currently doing the rounds at numerous executive education seminars. The term corporate mindset refers to how the company sees the world and how this affects its actions.

For companies operating on a global scale, developing a global corporate mindset presents a formidable managerial challenge. The corporate mindset determines to what extent management encourages and values cultural diversity, while simultaneously maintaining a certain degree of strategic cohesion. Developing a global corporate mindset and a group of global managers as its main flag bearers has become a key prerequisite for successfully competing and growing in worldwide markets.

Think Globally, Act Locally

""Think globally but act locally" sounds nice", says an article in the Washington Post, "but most people think and act locally, and short term to boot. This is why efforts to conserve resources and energy, reduce pollution, and decrease carbon dioxide emissions remain fragmentary and marginal. The scale and complexity of the problem are enormous. Most of the world's societies, including ours, resist acknowledging the problem and refuse to seriously tackle it."

Future World class Economies

From the archives of Workforce.com:

"The Philippines now rivals India for BPO investment and leads Southeast Asia in call center growth. Vietnam successfully competes against both China and India for software development centers and pharmaceutical facilities. Bangladesh is pulling light industry out of India and China, and Turkey is beating out Eastern Europe for auto assembly.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Turkey are part of the "N-11," the Next Eleven, a designation developed by Goldman Sachs in 2005 to identify a group of developing countries with the demographics and economic capability to become major economies and potential rivals to the "BRIC" nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China). In addition to the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Turkey, the N-11 includes Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan."

Relocating to find a new job

From MSN Careers with Career Builder.com:

In an ideal job market, you would find the job of your dreams right under your nose. You'd have a hefty paycheck, great benefits and flexibility, and you'd wake up every day loving the work you do.

The reality is you'll probably spend several weeks -- even months -- scouring the Internet and chasing job leads just to find a few openings worth pursuing. Even after all of your efforts, the jobs you find may fall short of meeting all of the criteria to be the right opportunity for you.

People in such situations may never come across their dream job because they've limited themselves in the job market. They've narrowed their search to local job openings and have no idea that their dream job is actually in another city or state.

Many people, however, would be willing to pursue those opportunities if they were aware of them. According to a study from CareerBuilder.com and Apartments.com, conducted by Harris Interactive, 59 percent of employees say they'd be willing to relocate to another city for a new job and 44 percent say they'd be willing to relocate to another state, province or region for a new job.

"Depending on your career goals and where you live now, your best chance of finding work and achieving a rewarding career may be in another city or town," says Michael Farr and Laurence Shatkin, co-authors of "Today's Hot Job Targets."

They warn, however, that relocating for a job isn't the best option for everyone. In their book, they encourage people to consider five factors before making the decision to relocate.

International Travel: Good for Children

Rebecca Ruiz at Forbes.com says: "Parents have been sending their children abroad for education and culture since at least the advent of the Grand Tour in the 15th century. At that time, young men from aristocratic families spent months traveling Europe with the aim of learning about music, classical history, languages and art, among other subjects.

Times have changed and now kids have countless demands on their time, from SAT-prep courses to playing the latest Wii game. But that doesn't mean parents should give up on turning their son or daughter into a world traveler. Even by taking one trip abroad each year, parents can instill in their children an appreciation for languages, food, history and cultural traditions.

The New Generation Gap - and Retention

I (www.JackKeogh.com) just saw this on "WorldatWork:

August 28, 2008 –– With four generations of employees that are as different as LPs are from iPods, companies need to do a better job of identifying and utilizing the varied skills available to them under the same roof. A recent study has found that almost 70% of companies don’t have programs in place to deal with the four different generations currently in the workforce.

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) study found that a third of the companies say that generational issues are not important or only somewhat important in their organizations. Additionally, a full eight out of 10 companies devote less than 5% of their learning and development budget to the issue.

"With four distinct groups at work, building relationships that cross generational gaps is important to a cohesive culture," says Jay Jamrog, i4cp's SVP of research. "If you want to be a preferred employer with the ability to attract, retain and engage top-flight workers, it makes sense to be keenly aware of the beliefs, attitudes and values of your workforce, no matter how diverse it is."

Of the organizations that do have generational initiatives in place, most cited the inclusion of training and/or educational programs, flexible work arrangements and overall issue awareness. When asked what the specific focus of their generational initiatives was, 59% of respondents pointed to awareness, a measure that jumps to 67% for companies with more than 10,000 employees. 47% overall said they look at differences beyond the generational issue (other diversity issues), and 45% utilize tools for promoting better interaction.

To gauge the effectiveness of generational initiatives, 33% of organizations track the impact on retention, 28% measure impact on engagement, and 26% look at individual performance/productivity. 43%, however, admit their organizations do not measure the effectiveness of these initiatives. Furthermore, even though companies say they do measure retention and engagement after an initiative, 72% don't know if retention rates increased in correlation to the initiative and 64% don’t know if the initiative is responsible for improved employee engagement.