The Hindu Business Line : Yes, yes, yes...no

GLOBAL economy is getting out of hand and resistance is building up in various places. Who is involved? What do they want? To find out Paul Kingsworth sets out on a journey, to visit the epicentres of the anti-globalisation movement, and says his story in One no, many yeses. Read on:

One no, to the homogenising power of an undemocratic market. Many yeses in its place — many different worlds, cultures, economic and political models, within a shared humanity. It is about redistribution not just of resources or wealth or land, but of the power from which all these flow. It is about democracy: real, local, participatory democracy. It is about different worlds within one world — the vitality of the human rainbow.

South Africa has a law allowing the government to make use of `compulsory licensing' of drugs in times of national emergency — taking away patent rights from a company and mass-producing cheaper versions of the drug. South Africa has 4.7 million people — that is, one in nine of the population — as HIV positive, and has a national emergency on its hands by any standards. But 39 of the world's biggest drug companies brought in 2001 a legal case against the South African government saying its cheap drugs policy was illegal.

The US, with just 5 per cent of the world's population, consumes 30 per cent of the world's resources, including 25 per cent of the world's fossil fuels.

By the time a baby born in the US in the 1990s reaches the age of 75, he or she will have produced 52 tons of rubbish, consumed 43 gallons of water and used 3,375 barrels of oil. The waste generated each year in the US would fill a convoy of 10-ton rubbish trucks, which would stretch over halfway to the moon. The amount of energy used by one American is equivalent to that used by six Mexicans, 38 Indians or 531 Ethiopians.

Almost 60 million adult Americans — over a third of the population — are overweight, and there has been a 42 per cent increase in childhood obesity in just 20 years — a pandemic which has been blamed on over-consumption of both fast food and television.

American teenagers are typically exposed to 360,000 adverts by the time they graduate from high school, which seems to have the desired effect: 93 per cent of American teenage girls say that their favourite hobby is shopping. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have branded entire schools, paying them up to $20 per pupil in exchange for selling a set number of drinks on campus, and banning the products of their competitors.

Read it to know what is happening around the world.

Laws of money

TRUTH creates money; lies destroy it. Look at what you have, not at what you had. Do what is right for you before you do what is right for your money. Invest in the known before the unknown. Always remember that money has no power of its own.

These are the `laws of money' that Suze Orman offers in her book The Laws of Money, the Lessons of Life, subtitled with another piece of advice — "Keep what you have and create what you deserve". Suze was called a "one-woman financial advice powerhouse" by USA Today. The back cover of the book proclaims Suze as the "most trusted personal finance expert" and the book itself as "a compass" that can "direct you to safety, security and prosperity". More: (www.simonsays.com)

In relationships, in your work, in money, in weight, looking only at what you had instead of what you have will not let you create that which you really want. If you live in yesterday, you will never be able to get to where you want to be tomorrow.

When an unknown event occurs, your biggest problem usually will be to know where to get the money you need to pay for your known expenses and your unknown, unanticipated ones until you can become safe and secure again.

Keep in mind that your financial world can be shaken or destroyed by very common, unforeseen possibilities. Prepare for them.

For any money that you have decided can stay in the stock market for growth and that you have decided to invest in individual stocks rather than mutual funds, it is mandatory that you have no more than 4 per cent of it in any one stock.

Do not repeat the mistakes of those Enron and WorldCom employees who had all or most of their retirement money in their company stock.

Let's face it. In a consumer-oriented society such as ours, it is easy to fall into the trap of using things — clothes, shoes, the house we buy that we cannot really afford, cars, boats, furniture, jewellery, cell phones, and even computers — to make an impression on others.

Just as some people don't look their chronological age — they either look a lot younger or a lot older than they are — some people do not act their age when it comes to money. When you live the laws of money, you act like a financial grown-up, and that means you keep what you have and create what you deserve.

Before you spend the next rupee, read this.

Say sorry

KEN Blanchard's The One-minute Apology has a parable that teaches readers "how to accept responsibility for errors and deal with the cause of the damage while maintaining a genuine sense of integrity". Read on:

The toughest part of apologising is realising and admitting that you were wrong. Apologising has the potential to not only correct a wrong, but restore the confidence others have in you.

In the one-minute apology, there are no excuses, no self-victimisation, no drama. It's simple, to the point, and very effective. The time-consuming part comes in being completely honest with yourself and taking responsibility for your mistakes before you apologise.

One minute of being honest with yourself is worth more than days, months, or years of self-deception.

Once you are honest with yourself, then you must take full responsibility for your actions and the harm you've done to someone else.

The only way you can demonstrate that you are really sorry is by changing your behaviour. That way the person you have harmed knows that you are committed to not repeating what you did. The best way to apologise to someone you have harmed is to tell them you made a mistake, you feel badly about it, and how you will change your behaviour.

People with humility don't think less of themselves. They just think about themselves less.

Worth practising.

(Books courtesy: Fountainhead, Chennai. E-mail: fhbooks@satyam.net.in)

Tailpiece

Patient: "I read horror books at night and get nightmares."

Doctor: "I too read horrors before going to the operation theatre."

hindubusinessline@hotmail.com

D. Murali

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