Jackie Chan Speaks For Censorship "Chinese Need to be Controlled"

Jackie Chan isn't just punching faces now and doing his karate moves for Hollywood, he's facing mixed responses as he spoke about censorship in Chinese conference of business leaders- the Boao Economic Forum.

"I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not," the 55-year-old action superstar told delegates when pressed by fellow panel members to give his views on China's rigorous controls on the media and restrictions on film-makers.

"I'm really confused now. If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic.

"I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled," he continued. "If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

Chinese high-profile personalities seem to have agreed with his statements but certain legislators have been outraged by his speech.

Guardian.UK reported that "He's insulted the Chinese people," Hong Kong legislator Leung Kwok-hung said. "Chinese people aren't pets."

"He himself has enjoyed freedom and democracy and has reaped the economic benefits of capitalism. But he has yet to grasp the true meaning of freedom and democracy," Taiwanese legislator Huang Wei-cher said.

The World's Richest Got Poorer By Forbes

Forbes just released the world's richest for the year 2009, and the big announcement is that they all got poorer (woohoo big surprise!) - only about 4% got richer over the period. A whopping third of them just bowed out of the list while 83% decreased in wealth.

If we're suffering so should they right? Nevertheless, as a result of the financial meltdown we've got two trillion floating around somewhere.

Okay as an overview Bill Gates and Warren Buffett swapped places. Warren used to be number one, but well he's not anymore - Bill Gates owns that spot now. Maybe the stint on tv helped him out a bit.

Mark Zuckerberg, once dubbed as one of the youngest billionaires in the world fell off that pedestal after losing big - approximately $600 million, he must have sunk a lot of investments

For more details, check out the source at Forbes.com

Subprime crisis for dummies

A really funny comic presentation about how we ended up having the financial crisis as a result of the sub-prime fiasco, care of Pinoy Money Talk

Warren Buffett Owns Up To Mistakes - Business Tips from Warren Buffett

What makes a man an even bigger man? A man who is accountable. Warren Buffett is that kind of a man. No wonder he's the world's most widely followed investor.

Being the respectable businessman that he is, Warren Buffett had this to say in his annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Warren Buffett's insurance and investment company

"During 2008 I did some dumb things in investments," he wrote, adding later, "I made some errors of omission, sucking my thumb when new facts came in that should have caused me to re-examine my thinking and promptly take action."

"The economy will be in shambles throughout 2009 -- and, for that matter, probably well beyond -- but that conclusion does not tell us whether the stock market will rise or fall."

"Though the path has not been smooth, our economic system has worked extraordinarily well over time," he said. "It has unleashed human potential as no other system has, and it will continue to do so. America's best days lie ahead.

Berkshire Hathaway went down by a significant percentage, overall the company ended the year with $25.54 billion of cash, down from $44.33 billion a year earlier. It said it made roughly $6 billion of acquisitions in 2008, and spent $14.5 billion on fixed-income securities from General Electric Co, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and chewing gum maker Wm Wrigley Jr Co. Buffett sold some stocks to fund the latter purchases.

For all of 2008, profit at Berkshire fell 62 percent to a six-year low of $4.99 billion, or $3,224 per share, from $13.21 billion, or $8,548. Revenue fell 9 percent to $107.8 billion.

Wow even the world's most-admired investors, and Forbes magazine's second-richest American had a bad year in 2008

Some tips, which indexes does Warren Buffett use?

• Standard & Poor's 500
• Britain's FTSE 100
• Europe's Euro Stoxx 50
• Nikkei 225 in Japan

Yahoo... What Happens Next?

Since my last post here just blatantly outlined how Yahoo let go of about 100 or so employees, I saw it fitting to post an update on how they're doing after the fact. Yahoo has a new CEO (who's apparently paid millions), and a new management structure.

Here's Business Week's Robert Hof's take on the rehabilitation of Yahoo

Just six weeks after taking over as chief executive of Yahoo! from co-founder Jerry Yang, Carol Bartz has now made it quite clear who's in charge and what demands she'll place on her executive team. On Feb. 26, Bartz announced an overhaul of the embattled company's management. The new, streamlined structure is intended to make the company "a lot faster on its feet," Bartz wrote in a post on Yahoo's official blog.



In one of the biggest changes, Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen, who joined Yahoo in June 2007, will leave in the next few months after a new CFO is chosen. Jorgensen was a close ally of former Yahoo President Sue Decker, who left in January after being passed over for the top job. Jorgensen's departure follows those of mobile chief Marco Boerries earlier this week and news head Neeraj Khemlani, who's leaving for Hearst as vice-president and special assistant to the CEO for digital media.

The changes, though largely expected after recent reports in the blog BoomTown, are no less momentous for a company that for years has been hobbled by slow decision-making and ineffective execution on those decisions. As far back as 2006, one executive who has since left, Brad Garlinghouse, penned a now-famous "Peanut Butter Manifesto" that outlined those management problems. The new management organization has all major executives reporting directly to Bartz, who lamented in her blog post that there's "plenty that has bogged this company down." "It looks like she isn't afraid to go in with a chain saw," says Kevin Lee, CEO of search marketing firm Didit.

Divestitures of Businesses Expected

In the most important leadership picks, current Chief Technology Officer Aristotle "Ari" Balogh will be head of all products and Hilary Schneider, current chief of ad, publishing, and audience groups in the U.S., will head North American operations. A new chief of international operations, to be chosen soon, will oversee what had been three separate global regions.

Although Bartz has kept her specific plans for Yahoo close to the vest, her revamped organization may pave the way for underperforming operations to be jettisoned more quickly. "We expect more significant restructurings and divestitures of various businesses will occur in the future as the simpler org chart leads to more of a focus on the company's core businesses," UBS Securities (UBS) analyst Ben Schachter wrote in a report after the announcement.

The more centralized management structure doesn't guarantee Yahoo will find its footing. Indeed, some observers fret that centralizing too much can hobble innovation. "We tend not to like that much concentration in product development," says Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay, who would prefer a structure that focuses on key strategic products such as search ads.

Trying to Speed Decision-Making

Still, he and others note that the new organization is a vast improvement over the previous "matrix management" system that handed multiple executives oversight over many products and new projects. That led to slow decision-making and little accountability, Yahoo insiders say. "Carol's patience for the whole matrix management is limited," one insider says with evident understatement. Indeed, the plainspoken Bartz said in her blog post that "you'd be amazed at how complicated some things are here."

By most accounts, the swing to centralization is the right move for Yahoo after so many years of decentralized product groups around the world, each with their own engineering and other functions. Yahoo has an "inability to stop doing good things that don't fit with their strategy," says Robert Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, where Yahoo was founded in the dorm room of Yang and co-founder David Filo.

Besides the internal changes, Bartz made it clear that she aims to get much more direct feedback from customers as the flatter organizational structure makes it clearer who's in charge of what. In addition, she has created a Customer Advocacy Group whose chief will be chosen soon. "After getting a lot of angry calls at my office from frustrated customers, I realized we could do a better job of listening to and supporting you," she told customers in her blog post.

Wall Street Likes the News

Bartz also aims to restore some luster and visibility to Yahoo's brand, which remains well-regarded by many consumers. "Look for this company to kick ass again," she wrote. Bartz created a new chief marketing post, which will be occupied by Elisa Steele, currently senior vice-president for corporate marketing at NetApp, a data storage company on whose board Bartz serves.

Investors apparently liked what they heard, as Yahoo's stock rose 4% to 12.98, even as the broader market slipped, though it was nothing Yahoo executives hadn't said before. Many analysts view a Microsoft-Yahoo pairing as one of the few ways the companies could mount a credible defense against Google, the leader in online advertising.

Bartz has been coy about whether she's interested in revisiting a pair-up with Microsoft. One former Yahoo executive noted that Microsoft is probably willing to do a deal that involves paying Yahoo nearly all the revenue it now gets from search while letting Yahoo cut nearly all its considerable spending on search. In exchange, Microsoft would gain much needed scale in the lucrative market for advertising related to Web-search queries. "Jerry's and Sue's egos got in the way of a deal," this person said.

More Leverage in Microsoft Dealings

Others, however, note that Yahoo's profitable search operation has improved recently. It gained about a percentage point of market share in the past six months, after years of declines, and produced higher revenues per search query in the fourth quarter. Bernstein analyst Lindsay goes so far as to suggest that if Bartz manages to steady Yahoo, the company could turn the tables and propose a deal by which Microsoft would sell or outsource all of its own online operations to Yahoo.

Either way, Bartz's moves may give her some increased leverage in whatever deal might be struck. Any improvement in Yahoo's fortunes or stock price makes it look that much stronger than Microsoft, whose online operations have been struggling even more than Yahoo's. And as investors wait to see how the management overhaul works, they may give Bartz some time before getting vocal about a deal again. But to avoid a replay of Yahoo's lost year in 2008, when the failed Microsoft deal distracted many Yahoo managers from tasks at hand and led scores to leave the company, she will have to show progress sooner rather than later.

In a case like this though, Yahoo is so rock bottom there's nowhere to go but up

Yahoo's Very Public Lay-off

Last December 10, Yahoo laid off 10% of it's work force. This is equivalent to about 1,500 employees losing their jobs just a couple of weeks before Christmas. Affected departments include sales, marketing, content, administration, engineering, and acquisitions like Maven Networks and Right Media Exchange. Yahoo has been in trouble for a long time. Ever since the Microsoft billion dollar offer or probably even before that when they were so obviously lagging behind Google in advertising revenue.

This laying off was magnified because it became very public given that Yahoo is an advanced company plus everyone and their mother is online. The scenario was adjudged negative for Yahoo as a company but possibly redeeming for the newly unemployed.

"People in this business know the internet as their go-to place to express themselves," said managing director Don Leon, Stephen Bradford Search, to AdAge. "The benefits of […] getting your name out there and letting people know you're available outweigh the potential downside of being perceived as bitter."

Now care of Valleywag, here are some leaked power point slides that indicate how to lay-off people during this time. Apparently it is not to be called "firing" but "getting fit." Nevertheless it's still having people jobless and no matter what that is called, that still hurts

It's just sad when things like this have to happen. I have experienced having to lose a team of 12 before and compared to this the numbers are smaller ~ true. But that didn't make it any harder. I cried when the news was relayed. It's never easy, but it's management decision. Apparently cutting off some of the branches would make the tree grow better (or more financially stable - whichever turned you on)

For managers out there, this might be useful I think. I for one, am not good at following such orders and would have most likely lost my nerve and ended up getting fired myself. Here are the Yahoo "how to sack employees" slides

War of the Dolls: Barbie Vs. Bratz Translates To Mattel Vs. MGA - Bratz Dolls Infringed On Barbie Doll Copyright

Intellectual property rights are very important nowadays where mere ideas and concepts can be the capital to any successful business venture. It used to be that you had to create some tangible product and manufacture it to make your business empire. These days it can become much easier to create that business, but it can also be that easier to lose!

Bratz for instance, which looks weirdly like Barbie in most ways has recently been canned by federal court recently and will have to stop selling come next year.


“In the most dire scenario, MGA can’t sell Bratz at all and a humongous chunk of their business disappears,” said Needham & Co. analyst Sean McGowan. “But it’s likely they will work out a way for MGA to stay in business but Mattel to profit.”

Here's some more detail from MSNBC.

The federal judged banned MGA from making and selling all 40 dolls in the Bratz line, which it began selling in 2001, including the four originals — Yasmine, Chloe, Sasha and Jade. U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson also ordered MGA to reimburse its vendors and distributors for the cost of the dolls and all shipping charges for sending them back.

The ruling, issued in a California federal court, followed a jury’s finding that Bratz designer Carter Bryant developed the concept for the dolls while working for Mattel. The same jury later awarded Mattel $10 million for copyright infringement and up to $90 million for breach of contract after a lengthy trial stemming from Mattel’s 2004 lawsuit ended in August.

The post-trial dispute that prompted Wednesday’s ruling centered on whether the jury found that only the first generation of Bratz dolls infringed on Mattel’s copyright or whether all the dolls in the line were in violation.

The jury verdict form asked panelists only to find whether there was infringement and assign a dollar reward, but did not ask them to specify which dolls violated the law.

If you're asking, what led to this scuffle? The Bratz range of dolls were the first serious competition given Mattel's fashion doll queen, Barbie. In 2004, sales figures showed that Bratz dolls were outselling Barbie dolls in the United Kingdom, although Mattel maintained that in terms of the number of dolls, clothes and accessories sold, Barbie remained the leading brand. In 2005, figures showed that sales of Barbie dolls had fallen by 30% in the United States, and by 18% worldwide, with much of the drop being attributed to the popularity of Bratz dolls.

In April 2005, MGA Entertainment filed a lawsuit against Mattel, claiming that the "My Scene" line of Barbie dolls had copied the doe-eyed look of Bratz dolls. The lawsuit is currently pending in the court system of California.[13]

Mattel sued MGA Entertainment for $500 million alleging that Bratz creator Carter Bryant was working for Mattel when he developed the idea for Bratz. And so here we are now, Barbie wins over Bratz