| July 2005
Issues: Bribery & Corruption | Labor & Employment | WTO |
Industries: Agriculture
| Automobile Industry | Banking
| Pharmaceutical Industry |
Issues
B1 - Anti-Money Laundering Overkill?
Reuter, Peter; Truman, Edwin
International Economy, Winter 2005, v19, #1, pp56-60
There are no systematic estimates of the scale of money laundering,
nor has cost-effectiveness been measured for the international
set of anti-money laundering (AML) standards developed by the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF), note Reuter and Truman. In
response to the current AML regime, they say, it is widely assumed
that many money launderers simply moved their business to less
regulated avenues. Although FATF would like to widen the array
of institutions and activities it monitors in order to catch more
of these mobile crimes, the authors say there should be a careful
assessment of the achievements of the existing AML regime before
it is expanded. Peter Reuter is a professor at the University
of Maryland, Edwin M. Truman is a senior fellow at the Institute
for International Economics. Fulltext
B2 - On the Money Trail
Hall, Robert
The World Today, May 2005, pp. 20-22
The private sector plays a major role in unraveling the money
trail that finances terrorism, says Hall, corporate security manager
for Barclays Bank. On top of the plethora of rules from national
and international groups involved in combating terrorist finance,
a group of the world's largest banks has voluntarily developed
the Wolfsberg anti-money laundering principles, which offers worldwide
guidelines to combat money laundering and financial crime, he
writes. The long-term goal of disrupting terrorist networks and
arresting their principals should remain the primary focus, says
Hall; therefore, gathering intelligence needs to take precedence
over the private sector's laudable but secondary goal of recovering
illicit funds. Robert Hall is Senior Corporate Security Assessments
Manager for Barclays. Request
Article
B3 - Trading Down
Kinetz, Erika
Harper's Magazine, July 2005, v311, #1862, pp.62-65
”Kinetz highlights the restorative powers of Trade Adjustment
Assistance (TAA), a government program that offers job retraining
and an array of benefits to workers deemed to have lost their
jobs due to foreign trade. Among other things, TAA offers qualified
unemployed workers up to two years of training in high growth
fields, extended unemployment compensation, a 65 percent subsidy
for health-insurance premiums, and a modest form of wage insurance
for older workers.” Erika Kinetz is a regular contributor
to the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.
Fulltext
B4 - Clash of the Corporate Kingmakers
Sellers, Patricia
Fortune, July 25, 2005, v152, #2, pp.58-65
The article focuses on the competition between two of the United
States' best-known headhunters, Tom Neff and Gerry Roche. Between
them, Neff and Roche have a virtual lock on the high-level CEO
headhunting business. Their firms, Spencer Stuart and Heidrick,
each account for about 40% of such searches. While Neff and Roche
each personally lead only about five high-profile assignments
a year, they have their hands in virtually every FORTUNE 500 CEO
search that their firms take on. So they largely determine who
gets the most elite jobs at the biggest companies in the nation.
Fulltext
B5 - Crisis in the U.S. Labor Movement: The Roads Not
Taken
Leary, Elly
Monthly Review, June 2005, v57, #2, pp28-38
Placing the crisis in the US labor movement misreads history and
is too simplistic. All along the labor movement has faced choices
about what to do in times of crisis and difficulty. Here, Leary
points out these different choices and, more importantly the roads
not taken that have led to where Americans are today. Elly Leary,
a former autoworker whose plant closed, retired from UAW 2324
at Boston University, where she was vice-president and chief negotiator.
Fulltext
B6 - Sugar Daddies
Steorts, Jason Lee
National Review, July 18, 2005, v57, #13, pp33-36
“As WTO members move toward final agreement on the Doha round
of trade-liberalization talks, protectionist schemes for sugar
and other crops will grow ever harder to defend. The EU has just
announced a plan to cut its sugar subsidies by 39 percent; to
the degree that its member states consent in liberalizing their
sugar industries, pressure for U.S. reform will increase. Meanwhile,
the sugar industry's opposition to CAFTA has alienated agricultural
lobbies traditionally sympathetic to sugar growers.” Mr. Steorts
is a freelance writer for the National Review among other publications.
Fulltext
Industries
Agriculture
B7 - Policy Options for a Changing Rural America
Whitener, Leslie A.
Amber Waves, April 2005, v3, #2, pp28-35
Today, rural America is vastly different from 50 years ago. The
rural economy has shifted and the goals of economic/community
development programs and policies in rural areas vary widely,
as do the resources, the opportunities and the challenges communities
face. This report analyzes the ongoing changes in rural areas
to help policymakers assess strategies to enhance economic opportunity
and quality of life for rural Americans. Leslie A. Whitener
is Chief of the Rural Economy Branch at the Economic Research
Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Fulltext
Automobile Industry
B8 - Comparing the Environmental Costs
Kester, Corinna
World Watch, July/August 2005, v18, #4, pp19-21
Environmentally minded motorists are likely to include additional
issues in their decision for a new car. Kester compares the environmental
performance of diesel-fuel-vehicles and hybrid cars examining
“the entire life-cycle, including extracting raw materials, manufacturing
and assembling automobile components, producing and combusting
fuel, and maintaining and disposing of vehicles. Several differences
between diesels and hybrids are undeniable: diesel engines are
inherently more efficient than gasoline engines, diesel fuel contains
approximately 10% more energy per volume than gasoline, and diesels
produce significantly produce more air pollution.”
Corinna Kester is Sustainability Coordinator at the Texas
Department of Environmental Health and Safety. Fulltext
B9- Hybrid Car Credit Accelerates on Hill
Schatz, Joseph J.
CQ Weekly, July 18, 2005, v 63, #29, p. 1946ff
Hybrids account for less than 1 percent of overall car sales in
the United States even though the sales of gas-electric cars nearly
tripled over the past year. To push the market supporters of this
technology including President Bush are currently discussing tax
incentives. “The idea has been around for several years, but might
be enacted as part of a major energy bill being negotiated by
House and Senate lawmakers this summer.” Schatz outlines the current
discussion. Joseph J. Schatz is a CQ staffer. Request
Article
B10 - Driving Forces
Kilcarr, Sean
American City & County, July 2005, online version
Kilcarr looks into arguments of public transportation authorities
adding hybrid buses to their fleets. “Although it can be tricky
to save fuel using hybrid technology, government fleet managers
are finding other ways the vehicles can contribute to the bottom
line. Utilities and transit agencies are using hybrids to reduce
emissions, noise and maintenance costs. Hybrid vehicles are designed
to reduce the fuel consumption of cars, trucks and buses by mating
a gasoline or diesel engine to an electric motor and battery pack.
However, hybrids only save fuel in stop-and-go driving, when the
electric motor powers the vehicle at a low speed and then helps
with acceleration.” This article provides examples, it also includes
a list of manufacturing companies of hybrid truck systems. Sean
Kilcarr is senior editor at American City & County's sister
publication, Fleet Owner. Fulltext
Banking
B11 - Banks are Quietly Wooing Undocumented Immigrants
Bergsman, Steve
US Banker, June 2005, v115, #6, p.24
The estimated six to eight million undocumented Latinos in the
United States aolen represent a potential $44 billion market in
homes. U.S. Banks are increasingly banking on the desire of illegal
immigrants to be homeowners. Banks are not required to work with
the immigration department, and there is no law against them issuing
a mortgage to an illegal immigrant.Fulltext
B12 - U.S. Wants International Bank Record Access
Information Management Journal, Jul/Aug 2005, v39, #4, p12-14
"The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Department
of Treasury plans to develop a strategy to obtain access to logs
of international wire transfers into and out of U.S. banks. Such
overseas transactions were used by the hijackers during the September
11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The effort would give officials the
tools to track leads on specific suspects and, more broadly, to
analyze patterns in terrorist financing and other financial crimes.
A final plan is not expected before the end of the year, and logistical
and legal issues must still be resolved. Fulltext
Pharmaceutical Industry
B13 - New Federal Guidelines For Physician-Pharmaceutical
Industry Relations: The Politics of Policy Formation
Chimonas, Susan; Rothman, David J.
Health Affairs, Jul/Aug 2005, v24, #4, p949-961
”In October 2002 the federal government issued a draft ‘Compliance
Program Guidance for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers.’ The draft
Guidance questioned the legality of many arrangements heretofore
left to the discretion of physicians and drug companies, including
industry-funded educational and research grants, consultancies,
and gifts. Medical organizations and drug manufacturers proposed
major revisions to the draft, arguing that current practices were
in everyone's best interest. To evaluate the impact of their responses,
the authors compare the draft, the changes requested by industry
and organized medicine, and the final Guidance document (issued
in April 2003). They also explore the implications-some intended,
others unanticipated-of the final document. Susan Chimonas
is a sociologist and associate research scholar at the Center
on Medicine as a Profession (CMAP) at Columbia University's College
of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. David Rothman is
the director of CMAP and Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social
Medicine at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Fulltext
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