The Economic Picture Just Keeps Improving
Kerry and his crew were throwing around phrases like "worst economy since the Depression" as recently as May 7 in an effort to weave a reality distortion field . This has become their main battle tactic - pitching their version of events in face of overwhelming facts. This is true on the economy, the war on terror, you name it.

On the economic font, good news is coming out in a pretty steady stream on improving economic conditions, much to the dismay of the democratic leadership:

o The Department of Labor reported that payroll employment increased by 248,000 jobs in May following even larger job gains in both April (346,000 new jobs) and March (353,000 jobs).

o First quarter GDP growth was revised up to a 4.4 percent annualized rate, from the earlier reported 4.2 percent rate

o Over the past 12 months, unemployment has fallen in 47 states (leaving the democrats gleeful in Montana, Rhode Island, S. Carolina, and the District of Columbia).

I expect continuing economic growth and improvement in employment in the months leading up to the election, meaning the democrats are going to have to try to convince people that the economy is worse than it really is.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 6:52 AM (Permalink)
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Ethics Case Study
What do you do when you find out you have a customer who is acting unethically? Here is a real-life situation my company is facing.

Customer "E" purchases services from my company using a consultant/purchasing agent. My company had nothing to do with the set-up and, in fact, were told by the end customer to use the purchasing agent over our objections.



Purchasing agents typically make their money by placing an "adder" on what we quote, and in return for a margin on the business usually provide consulting, project management and other consulting services. Manufacturers such as my company don't like them since this structure simply adds a middleman that brings little added value and inflates the cost of our business to the customer.

Turns out there is another reason this middleman is being used: he is providing kickbacks to one of the managers at the customer:




Here are the other facts for the case:
1. My company had no say in the set-up of this middleman and actually requested he not be used in the first place. In other words, we had won our business directly (and ethically) with Customer E and were told after the fact that this was to be the set-up.

2. Word of the kick-back scheme is based on rumors and contacts with others who "are in the know", but there is no proof of this scheme that could be used in court

3. This customer is one of the few loading the factory on this particular product and losing the business, while not hurting the company at a high-level financially, could result in the temporary layoff (6-8 weeks) of overseas line workers until the line is converted to another product.

So what are the options? Here are the few I see:

1. Walk away from the business - personally I rather not deal with unethical companies, but walking away from the business doesn't solve the problem. The set-up will just be taken to one of our competitors while some of our line workers pay the price with losing a month or two of pay.

2. Inform upper management at the customer - This couldn't be done through official channels since we would be passing on a rumor without proof (but we believe is true). It would have to be done through an executive level meeting in a non-business environment (over dinner, drinks, maybe unethical Cuban cigars) where word of the rumor could be passed onto the customer's executives. Perhaps they root out the problem, perhaps they ignore it, but we passed on what we heard.

3. Do Nothing - The past of least resistance, and you know what they say about that.

I like option 2. Does anyone else have any suggestions or comments?



posted by Director_Mitch @ 6:48 AM (Permalink)
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Tips on Smuggling
After over 15,000 miles of travel I am finally back to hearth and home. Before moving off to other topics, I thought I would end this series of posts with some smuggling tips.

Director Mitch smuggles? Certainly that must a mistake made by a jet-lagged addled mind. But it's true. This paragon of virtue, this beacon of justice has one vice that requires smuggling of illicit contraband: Cuban cigars.

Now, as a right-wing, commie-hating business man, I am all for the Cuban embargo and will hopefully soon read about the death of Castro and the overthrow of his regime. But as noted before, Cuban cigars are better than others, and I have to get them from somewhere.

Finding Cuban cigars overseas is easy enough. I got mine from a duty-free shop in the Seoul airport, and my boss, who hooked up with me for my last leg of the trip, thought I was on to something and picked some up from a duty-free shop in Taiwan.

Before dispensing advice, I should note: the penalty for smuggling small quantities of Cuban cigars for "personal consumption" is simply confiscation of the merchandise. Bringing in large quantities for "dealing" (more than a couple of boxes) is dealt with pretty harshly - you can serve time - and drug dogs at the airport aren't trained to go off on tobacco, and they are all over the place these days at international arrivals. So read this post as tongue-in-cheek since I'm not taking any real risks and since my pointers won't help with real contraband. So here are my tips:

Pigs get Fat, Hogs Get Slaughtered - an entire box of cigars (20) is hard to hide. The boxes are bulky and should a screener open your luggage, even a casual glance through your clothes will turn up that bulky box. Instead I buy the small boxes of 5 cigars that easily fit in the inside pocket of a suit jacket. After all, even if you are screened, pat-downs are still pretty rare these days, so I only buy quantities that fit on my person.

Businessmen Are Low-Probability Targets: As a Customs screener, who would you stop:



The second guy might be an Enron executive ripping off stockholders, but that isn't the Custom Agent's problem. He's looking for contraband, and the best bet is to screen people who look like they've been hiking through poppy fields in Cambodia.

Quite frankly, I am a bit surprised that there are people who travel internationally looking just like the first picture, but there are. They might as well just put a big SCREEN ME sign on their forehead. And it's worse over in Asia. I've seen backpackers have every single item in their possession turned inside out by custom agents in Japan because they fit a profile.

Racial profiling isn't practiced, but I guarantee that every other form of profiling is.

Nervous? I'm Not Nervous - One time in Europe, I took the Chunnel from Paris to London looking pretty disheveled: I was in jeans, I hadn't shaved, and I looked more like a student than business person. Sure enough, I was "randomly" approached by a customs agent as I got off the train:

Screener: Sir, did you know that marijuana and pornography are illegal to bring into the country? (Mitch: okay, he knows about Amsterdam, so I understand that part of the question, but why did he peg me for porn?)

Mitch: Of course (Mitch: although as an American I actually didn't know about porn being verbotin).

Screener: Would you mind if I search your luggage?

Mitch: Not at all. (pointing towards a table and starting to walk that way)

Screener: Never mind. (abruptly turns to more people behind me)

Obviously he was looking for an adverse reaction, a change in my facial expression, a stutter saying that wouldn't be necessary. Seeing that I didn't care, he concluded that I had nothing to hide and went off looking for someone else to screen.

U.S. Customs does this, as well as other low-level psychological screens. They ask how your trip was. What business you're in. Where you were. They don't care what you answer. They care how you answer. They're looking for signs of lying and nervousness.

Remove Identification - Cigars are legal. Cuban cigars are illegal. Remove their identification, and suddenly your illegal contraband is legal. You can even declare it. I have cigars. They were a gift. Don't know where they're from. Customs can't do anything, so off you go with your unmarked cigars.

Of course, after doing this it becomes difficult brag about your illegal cigar with your friends and colleagues, but if taste is what matters, it's the safest route.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 2:36 PM (Permalink)
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Outsource Yourself: Go Expat
I had dinner last night with several ex-pats who are working in Taiwan, and they told me something that I actually found surprising: they are starving for talent over here.

Engineers, production people, management. You name it, they need it. And they need even more of it on the Mainland. And they don't care where it comes from, local or imported, they have a business to run and they need people to do it. As they looked at me like a piece of fresh meat, the inevitable question came: So, Mitch, you ever thought of going ex-pat?

In my observations and conversations with people who have done ex-patriot rotations, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that you either love it or you hate it with little in between. In fact, my experience is that people who go ex-pat usually take multiple assignments in a row, basically "going native", or return back to the States as soon as possible, even breaking their assignments.

There are many benefits and problems with going ex-pat, and most times whether it works is highly dependent on a person's family situation and lifestyle. Singles who like working hard and playing hard usually do pretty well over here. Married people who like fixed hours and lots of time with the family probably won't. If you're in between - married but don't mind long hours - it will depend on your spouse whether an ex-pat assignment will work.

But there are plenty of perks working here: high pay, spending allowances, home visits, nice homes, cheap live-in help for the kids (one of the guys I was with last night pays less each month for a live-in nanny than I pay each week for day-time child care). And in the super low-cost countries like China and Philippines, most ex-pats have several servants and usually a driver.

At this point in my life, an ex-pat assignment is not for me, mainly due to the fact that I want my daughter to grow up in the U.S. and see her daddy. However, when I no longer have kids running around the home, it might be something I would consider.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 3:29 PM (Permalink)
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Carnival of the Capitalists Coming Soon
The Window Manager, in its ongoing effort to teach the world on how to get a six figure job that doesn't require any real work, will host next week's Carnival of the Capitalists.

Please send your entry to capitalists-at-elhide-dot-com, and while you're at it, check out this week's post at Small Business Trends.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 3:15 PM (Permalink)
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Memorial Day? What Memorial Day?
Monday morning in the Republic of China - that's the democratic China that hardly anyone recognizes. But as my fellow Americans take the day off and remember our fallen soldiers who have died for their country (or observe the first day of the summer vacation season) it will be business as usual here.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 3:47 PM (Permalink)
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The Gaijin Club

(Being a foreigner in Japan) is like being a black guy back home. Only there are less of us. - Dennis Haysbert as "Hammer" Dubois in the movie Mr. Baseball

The sideways glance. The slight nod. The brief eye contact. These are the subtle "secret handshakes" that fellow non-Asians pass while in Japan, or pretty much any Asian country.

Japan's population is over 99% ethnic Japanese. South Korea is over 99% ethnic Korean. Taiwan is 98% Chinese or Taiwanese. And so on throughout Asia, so non-Asians stick out like sore thumbs. And not only do the natives notice it, but these countries are so homogeneous that even we visitors notice it when a non-native is around.

So when two Westerners see each other, there is the immediate bond, but also the questions: Is he also here on business? Is she a tourist? Does he live here? Does she speak the lingo? But the bond is immediate, and if in a restaurant, bar or lounge, conversation is easy to strike up since there is the bond of we're outsiders here. (This little fact is what made the link-up in Lost in Translation so believable).

And people from the same country have an even closer bond, and you can tell with a pretty high accuracy what country someone is from just by looking at them. How? Believe it or not, the stereotypes of looks and dress are incredibly accurate (which is why they are stereotypes):

Europeans never match. Something about "fashion" out of Milan or Paris dictates that ties don't match suits. And their shoes are a dead give away they're from the Continent since European men seem as fussy about shoes as American women. Europeans also have the strangest tastes in eye glasses. Their casual wear, however, is of better quality than anyone else's, so some white guy walking down the streets of Japan with a $600 cashmere cardigan tied around his shoulders is almost certainly not an American.

British are wrinkled and dishelveled. Always. Whether in a suit or casual, they look like they just slept in their clothes, even if they just put them on. This is a curious stereotype considering Seville Row, James Bond and Prince Charles, so those nicely dressed chaps must stay in Hong Kong and off the "tech circuit" (I don't run into a lot of finance types).

Americans are heavier set, carrying a few extra pounds than everyone else (I like to think it is a sign of our prosperity). While American professional dress is better than the Europeans (we match, after all), Americans seem to think "casual dress" means beach attire, and we have really become the slobs of the world when out of a suit and tie (myself excluded). Americans (and Canadians) also are the only ones where goatees are still in style.

Canadians look like thinner Americans. Our sloppiness seems to have snuck north of the border.

So fellow citizens have no problems finding each other out over here, but even then, the shared status of being a Gaijin (or Gwilo in China) puts all non-Asians into a single club when over here.

posted by Director_Mitch @ 2:01 AM (Permalink)
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