Resources Profile - macs2005

Source: U.S. Small Business Administration

Summary. Thinking of owning and managing your own business? It's a good idea – provided you know what it takes.

Starting a business is risky at best, but your chances of making it succeed
will be better if you understand the problems you'll meet and work out as many of them as you can before you start.


Here are some questions and worksheets to help you think through what you need to know and do. Answer each question with a YES or NO. Where the answer is NO, you have some work to do.

Before you start
Are you the kind of person who can get a business started and make it run efficiently? ___

Think about why you want to own your own business. Are you willing to work long hours without knowing how much money you'll end up with? ___
Have you worked for someone else as a supervisor or manager? ___

Have you had any business training in school? ___
Have you saved any money? ___

How About the Money?
Do you know how much money you will need to get your business started? ___
Have you determined how much money of your own you can put into the business? ___
Do you know how much credit you can get from your suppliers — the people you will buy from? ___
Do you know where you can borrow the rest of the money you need to start your business? ___
Have you figured out what net/loss income per year you expect to get from the business? ___
Are you willing to re-invest your salary/business profits to help your business grow? ___
Have you talked to a banker about your plans? ___

How About a Partner?
If you require a partner for additional financing, do you know someone who will fit – someone you can get along with? ___
Do you know the good and bad points about running your own business, having a partnership, and incorporating your business? ___
Have you talked to a lawyer about a partner? ___

How About Your Customers?
Do most businesses in your community seem to be doing well? ___
Have you tried to find out whether or not businesses like the one you want to open are doing well in your community and in the rest of the country? ___
Do you know what kind of people will want to buy what you plan to sell? ___
Do people like to live in the area where you want to open your business? ___
Do they need a business like yours? ___
If not, have you thought about opening a different kind of business or going to another location? ___

Your Building
Have you found a good building for your business? ___
Will you have sufficient room to expand when necessary? ___
Can you fix the building up the way you want without spending too much money? ___
Can people access your business easily from parking spaces, bus stops, or their homes? ___
Have you had a lawyer check the lease and zoning requirements? ___

Equipment and Supplies
Do you know just equipment and supplies you need and how much they will cost? ___
Is it feasible to buy second-hand equipment? ___

Expenses
Do you know what your expenses will be for: rent, wages, insurance, utilities, advertising, interest, etc.? ___
Do you need to know which expenses are direct, indirect, or fixed? ___
Do you know how much your overhead costs will be? ___
Do you know how much your selling expenses will be? ___

Miscellaneous
Are you aware of the major risks associated with your product? Service? Business? ___
Can you minimize any of these major risks? ___
Are there major risks beyond your control? ___
Can these risks bankrupt you? ___

Your Merchandise
Have you decided what things you will sell? ___
Do you know how much or how many of each you will buy to open your store with? ___
Have you found suppliers who will sell you what you need at a competitive price? ___
Have you compared the prices and credit terms of different suppliers? ___

Your Records
Have you planned a system of records that will keep track of your income and expenses, what you owe people, and what other people owe you? ___
Have you worked out a way to keep track of your inventory so that you will always have enough on hand for your customers but not more than you can sell? ___
Have you figured out how to keep your payroll records and take care of tax reports and payments? ___
Do you know what financial statements you should prepare?___
Do you know an accountant who will help you with your records and financial statements? ___

Your Business and the Law
Do you know what licenses and permits you need? ___
Do you know what business laws you have to obey?___
Do you know a lawyer you can go to for advice and help with legal papers? ___

Buying a Business Someone Else Has Started
Have you made a list of the advantages and disadvantages of the business someone else has started?___
Are you sure you know the real reason why the owner wants to sell this business?___
Have you compared the cost of buying the business with the cost of starting a new business?___
Are the equipment/inventory up to date and in good condition?___
Is the building in good condition?___
Will the owner of the building transfer the lease to you?___
Have you talked with other business owners in the area to see what they think of the business for sale? ___
Have you talked with the company's current suppliers?___
Have you talked with a lawyer about the existing business?___

Advertising
Have you decided how you will advertise? (newspapers, posters, handbills, television, radio, Internet, mail?) ___
Do you know where to get help with your ads? ___
Have you watched what other competitors do to get people to buy? ___

The Prices You Charge
Do you know how to determine what you should charge for each item you sell? ___
Do you know what your competitors charge?___

Buying
Do you have a plan for finding out what your customers want?___
Will your plan for keeping track of your inventory tell you when it is time to order more and how much to order?___
Do you plan to buy most of your stock from a few suppliers or several? __
Do you know the advantages and disadvantages of each supply method? ___

Selling
Have you decided whether you will have sales associates or self-service? ___
Do you know how to encourage customers to buy? ___
Have you thought about why you like to buy from some sales associates while others turn you off?___

Your Employees Yes No
If you need to hire someone to help you, do you know where to look?___
Do you know what kind of employees you need?___
Do you have a plan for training your employees? ___

Credit for Your Customers
Have you decided whether or not to let your customers buy on credit?___
Do you know the good and bad points about joining a credit-card plan?___
Can you tell a deadbeat from a good credit customer?___

A Few Extra Questions
Have you figured out whether or not you could make more money working for someone else?___
Does your family go along with your plan to start a business of your own? ___
Do you know where to find out about new ideas and new products? ___
Do you have a business plan for yourself and your employees? ___

If you have answered all these questions carefully, you've done some hard work and serious thinking. Moreover, you have probably found some things you still need to know more about or do something about.

Do all you can for yourself, but don't hesitate to ask for help from people who can tell you what you need to know. Remember, running a business takes courage! You've got to be able to decide what you need and then go after it.

Good Luck!

Small-business owners who expect to hit the ground running when 2008 arrives might want to think about sitting back for a just a bit and doing some strategic and financial planning.

Assessing how you did in 2007 and setting goals for the coming year will increase your chances of success, and might even help you lower your stress levels a little.

Accountant Scott Rutter recommends that owners go beyond examining revenue and profit figures, instead taking a holistic view of the business and coming up with a long-term strategic plan.

"If you don't have one, you should put one in place," said Rutter, a partner in the New York-based firm Citrin Cooperman & Co. Llp. He noted that an owner needs to consider "Where am I taking this business in three years, in five years?"

Strategic planning by necessity needs to be honest and realistic, and it can require some hard questions such as "Do they think the business has legs? Can I diversify or not?" Rutter said.

January is also the time to think about relationships - do you need new customers or suppliers? If you need to prospect for new business, come up with a marketing plan first.

"Target some significant areas where you think you can get the business and focus your energies on that," Rutter said.

Meanwhile, he said, "you really should re-evaluate your relationships with vendors.

Be sure you're getting the right price on the right product."

More: http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzsmal315520768dec31,0,5336994.story

Whether your customers are Baby Boomers, Echo Boomers, Gen X-ers or Gen Y-ers, or even Seniors, one thing is sure: They know and understand much more about marketing than ever before.

Call today's consumers more fickle. Call them more curious. Call them more educated. Or call them more in touch with what they want. Maybe it's a combination of all of these elements.

The bottom line is this: To meet and exceed the growing challenges that today's consumers inflict upon a brand, marketers must find the right balance of marketing tools and program elements to create and deliver the right product or service to consumers at the right price, right location, right time, and with the right features and attributes.

Otherwise, the consumer (or buyer) is just not interested.

And oh, by the way, one more thing... to add one more element of complexity: Marketers must constantly adapt to changing consumer demands, consumer tastes, shifting customer priorities, economic downturns, economic upturns, savvy consumers and buyers just looking for something new. Thus, marketing always has to adapt to change.

And every time marketing adapts, there is another plan, another approach, another way of looking at things, another way of creating excitement and, most important, another way to capture the attention of consumers and customers alike.

But before marketing can affect a change with either a new product offering, or reinvigorate a new brand, there's one constant. In marketing, it's the "Four Ps."

The standard Four Ps of the marketing mix—Product, Price, Place (distribution) and Promotion—are often viewed singularly and in more of a silo approach. But we're finding more and more that each cannot work alone. In fact, it would be challenging to look at them just as independent functions of the marketing mix. By integrating these traditional tools to adapt to today's constantly changing and fluctuating marketplace, marketers can be more productive in the overall process.

Rapid Market Penetration

Rapid Market Penetration is an integrated, three-phase process that simply makes each function more relevant for marketers. Rather than looking at each marketing mix element individually, each phase of the process combines the use of multiple marketing elements to help marketers develop more intelligent marketing programs for today's increasingly competitive marketplace.

Under the Rapid Market Penetration model, the first phase, Strategic Marketing Analysis, includes looking at every element of the marketplace. From such economic factors as the market, industry growth and size to the number of competitors and their market share, Strategic Marketing Analysis helps you determine what has worked versus what has not, what competitive forces are inherent in the marketplace or industry, who are your potential customers and consumers, and how can you reach them.

Essentially, in this first phase, the issue of Product, Price and Place (distribution) all come together tangentially to identify if there is in fact an opportunity or void to fill. You also could sum this up as an "Opportunity Analysis" phase.

The second phase is Market Entry Strategy. This is the point after which you have already answered the questions "Is there an opportunity?" and "Is there a need?" and now must move on to actually developing the strategy. During the Market Entry Strategy phase, product strategies are reviewed, including what the product or service offering will look like, what key benefits it will deliver to the consumer or user, what its price will be, how to get customers, where the product will be sold and how to penetrate distribution channels.

Like the initial phase, Market Entry Strategy utilizes many key elements of the marketing mix and relies heavily on the Product, Price, and Place (distribution). In addition, Promotion elements are reviewed during this second phase as developing integrated marketing programs and sales support materials for the selling process are crucial.

In the third phase, Strategy Implementation, everything comes together and the consumer actually sees the product or service. Three key elements in this phase include (1) looking at new products, services, and brand extensions to support a long brand lifecycle, (2) developing an integrated marketing program and plan including advertising, promotions, and public relations, and (3) finally the creation of selected partnership marketing programs.

It is important to note that the Strategy Implementation phase uses all of the Four P's in concert with one another:

• New Products are reviewed and planned.
• Pricing remains a key concern, can be massaged to constantly be competitive, and can include customer and consumer incentives.
• Placement (distribution) is always top of mind as key marketing communication drivers help to gain and maintain distribution.
• Promotions are used to introduce consumers to a product or service by inducing trial and eventually building customer loyalty.

Using the Rapid Market Penetration process will allow marketers to view all of the Four Ps of the marketing mix together to better understand whether there is a need or opportunity for their product or service, what that product or service will look like, who it will appeal to, and finally how to get consumers to buy or use the product or service.

In today's busy world of brand marketing, utilizing the strength of this Rapid Market Penetration process will help marketers plan better, get to market faster and remain even more competitive in today's constantly changing marketplace.

Gregory J. Pollack is founder and president of PBM Marketing Solutions, Los Angeles.

November 15, 2005
http://www.marketingprofs.com/5/pollack1.asp

BACKGROUND In 1951, the Nepalese monarch ended the century-old system of rule by hereditary premiers and instituted a cabinet system of government. Reforms in 1990 established a multiparty democracy within the framework of a constitutional monarchy. A Maoist insurgency, launched in 1996, gained traction and threatened to bring down the regime, especially after a negotiated cease-fire between the Maoists and government forces broke down in August 2003. In 2001, the crown prince massacred ten members of the royal family, including the king and queen, and then took his own life. In October 2002, the new king dismissed the prime minister and his cabinet for "incompetence" after they dissolved the parliament and were subsequently unable to hold elections because of the ongoing insurgency. While stopping short of reestablishing parliament, the king in June 2004 reinstated the most recently elected prime minister who formed a four-party coalition government. Citing dissatisfaction with the government's lack of progress in addressing the Maoist insurgency and corruption, the king in February 2005 dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency, imprisoned party leaders, and assumed power. The king's government subsequently released party leaders and officially ended the state of emergency in May 2005, but the monarch retained absolute power until April 2006. After nearly three weeks of mass protests organized by the seven-party opposition and the Maoists, the king allowed parliament to reconvene on 28 April 2006. In November 2006, the government and Maoists signed the Comprehensive Peace Accord to end the ten-year insurgency.

GEOGRAPHY
Location: Southern Asia, between China and India Geographic coordinates: 28 00 N, 84 00 E
Area: total 147,181 sq km land 143,181 sq km water 4,000 sqkm
Area - comparative: slightly larger than Arkansas
Land boundaries: total 2,926 km border countries China 1,236 km, India 1,690 km
Coastline: 0 km (landlocked)
Climate: varies from cool summers and severe winters in north to subtropical summers and mild winters in south
Terrain: Tarai or flat river plain of the Ganges in south, central hill region, rugged Himalayas in north
Elevation extremes: lowest point Kanchan Kalan 70 m highest point Mount Everest 8,850 m
Natural resources: quartz, water, timber, hydropower, scenic beauty, small deposits of lignite, copper, cobalt, iron ore
Land use: arable land 16.07% permanent crops 0.85% other 83.08% (2005)
Irrigated land: 11,700 sq km (2003)
Natural hazards: severe thunderstorms, flooding, landslides, drought, and famine depending on the timing, intensity, and duration of the summer monsoons
Environment - current issues: deforestation (overuse of wood for fuel and lack of alternatives); contaminated water (with human and animal wastes, agricultural runoff, and industrial effluents); wildlife conservation; vehicular emissions
Environment - international agreements: party to Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: Marine Life Conservation
Geography - note: landlocked; strategic location between China and India; contains eight of world's 10 highest peaks, including Mount Everest and Kanchenjunga - the world's tallest and third tallest - on the borders with China and India respectively

PEOPLE

Population: 28,287,147 (July 2006 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 38.7% (male 5,648,959/female 5,291,447) 15-64 years: 57.6% (male 8,365,526/female 7,925,941) 65 years and over: 3.7% (male 513,777/female 541,497) (2006 est.)
Median age: total 20.3 years male 20.1 years female 20.4 years (2006 est.)
Population growth rate: 2.17% (2006 est.) Birth rate: 30.98 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Nationality: Nepalese
Ethnic groups: Chhettri 15.5%, Brahman-Hill 12.5%, Magar 7%, Tharu 6.6%, Tamang 5.5%, Newar 5.4%, Muslim 4.2%, Kami 3.9%, Yadav 3.9%, other 32.7%, unspecified 2.8% (2001 census)
Religions: Hindu 80.6%, Buddhist 10.7%, Muslim 4.2%, Kirant 3.6%, other 0.9% (2001 census)
Languages: Nepali 47.8%, Maithali 12.1%, Bhojpuri 7.4%, Tharu (Dagaura/Rana) 5.8%, Tamang 5.1%, Newar 3.6%, Magar 3.3%, Awadhi 2.4%, other 10%, unspecified 2.5% (2001 census)
note: many in government and business also speak English
Literacy: definition age 15 and over can read and write total population 48.6% male 62.7% female 34.9% (2000-2004 est.)

GOVERNMENT

Country name: Nepal Government type: parliamentary democracy
Capital: Kathmandu geographic coordinates: 27 43 N, 85 19 E
time difference: UTC+5.75 (10.75 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)
Administrative divisions: 14 zones (anchal, singular and plural); Bagmati, Bheri, Dhawalagiri, Gandaki, Janakpur, Karnali, Kosi, Lumbini, Mahakali, Mechi, Narayani, Rapti, Sagarmatha, Seti
Constitution: 9 November 1990; the government began working on an interim constitution in May 2006
Legal system: based on Hindu legal concepts and English common law; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal

Flag description: red with a blue border around the unique shape of two overlapping right triangles; the smaller, upper triangle bears a white stylized moon and the larger, lower triangle bears a white 12-pointed sun

ECONOMY

Overview: Nepal is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world with almost one-third of its population living below the poverty line. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, providing a livelihood for three-fourths of the population and accounting for 38% of GDP. Industrial activity mainly involves the processing of agricultural produce including jute, sugarcane, tobacco, and grain. Tourism is a key source of foreign exchange. Nepal has considerable scope for exploiting its potential in hydropower and tourism, areas of recent foreign investment interest. Prospects for foreign trade or investment in other sectors will remain poor, however, because of the small size of the economy, its technological backwardness, its remoteness, its landlocked geographic location.

GDP (purchasing power parity): USD41.92 bil (2006 est.) GDP (official exchange rate): USD7.154 bil (2006 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 5% (2006 est.) GDP - per capita (PPP): USD1,500 (2006 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture 38% industry 21% services 41% (2005 est.)

Labor force: 10.4 million note: severe lack of skilled labor (2004 est.)
Labor force - by occupation: agriculture 76% industry 6% services 18% Unemployment rate: 42% (2004 est.)

Population below poverty line: 31% (2003-2004)
Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 2.6% highest 10%: 39.1% (2003-2004)
Distribution of family income - Gini index: 37.7 (FY04/05) Inflation rate (consumer prices): 7.8% (October 2005 est.)

Budget: revenues USD1.153 billion expenditures USD 1.789 billion; including capital expenditures of $NA (FY05/06)

Agriculture - products: rice, corn, wheat, sugarcane, root crops; milk, water buffalo meat
Industries: tourism, carpet, textile; small rice, jute, sugar, and oilseed mills; cigarettes, cement and brick production
Industrial production growth rate: 3.8% (FY04/05)

Electricity - production: 2.565 billion kWh (2005) Electricity - consumption: 1.85 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - exports: 111 million kWh (2005) Electricity - imports: 241 million kWh (2005)

Oil - production: nil Oil - consumption: 11,980 bbl/day (2005 est.) Oil - imports: 11,760 bbl/day (2001 est.)

Exports: USD822 million f.o.b.; note - does not include unrecorded border trade with India (2005 est.)
Exports - commodities: carpets, clothing, leather goods, jute goods, grain
Exports - partners: India 53.7%, US 17.4%, Germany 7.1% (2005)

Imports: USD2 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.)
Imports - commodities: gold, machinery and equipment, petroleum products, fertilizer
Imports - partners: India 47.7%, UAE 11.2%, China 10.8%, Saudi Arabia 4.9%, Kuwait 4.2% (2005)

Debt - external: USD3.34 billion (March 2005) Economic aid - recipient: USD424 million (FY00/01)

Currency (code): Nepalese rupee (NPR) Fiscal year: 16 July - 15 July
Exchange rates: Nepalese rupees per USD - 71.368 (2005), 73.674 (2004), 76.141 (2003), 77.877 (2002)

COMMUNICATIONS

Telephones - main lines in use: 448,600 (2005) Telephones - mobile cellular: 248,800 (2005)
Telephone system: general assessment: poor telephone and telegraph service; fair radiotelephone communication service and mobile cellular telephone network
domestic: NA international: country code - 977; radiotelephone communications; microwave landline to India; satellite earth station - 1 Intelsat (Indian Ocean)

Radio broadcast stations: AM 6, FM 5, shortwave 1 (January 2000) Television broadcast stations: 1 (plus 9 repeaters) (1998)

Internet country code: .np Internet hosts: 17,789 (2006) Internet users: 175,000 (2005)

TRANSPORTATION

Airports: 48 (2006)
Airports - with paved runways: total: 10 over 3,047 m: 1 914 to 1,523 m: 7 under 914 m: 2 (2006)
Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 38 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 914 to 1,523 m: 8 under 914 m: 29 (2006)
Railways: total 59 km narrow gauge 59 km 0.762-m gauge (2005)
Roadways: total 17,380 km paved 9,886 km unpaved 7,494 km (2004)

Authors: Rawi Abdelal and Adam Segal
From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007

THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
Once upon a time, not very long ago, economic globalization -- the free worldwide flow of capital, goods, and labor -- looked both inevitable and inexorable. Most governments seemed to embrace the very real benefits being offered by rapid technological change and international markets and sought to liberalize their economies in order to maximize these gains. Policymakers worked to prepare their societies for a world of ever-increasing interconnectedness and relentless competition, and the debate -- at least within the United States -- started to revolve around how to cope with the effects of this new "flat" earth.

Then came the financial crises of the 1990s and the early years of this century in Asia, Russia, and Latin America. The U.S. current account deficit -- the difference, broadly speaking, between what U.S. residents spend abroad and what they sell abroad -- shot upward. The U.S. dollar fell in value and seemed headed for an even more precipitous drop. As outsourcing accelerated, the American middle class came to feel increasingly insecure. Historians such as Niall Ferguson and Harold James pointed out that the previous era of globalization (which ran from about 1870 to 1914) had once seemed as unstoppable as the current one but had ended disastrously; so, too, they warned, could today's.

But will it? Has the current age of globalization already started to come to a close? Will the process of integration continue, or will it grind to a halt?

The paradoxical answer is neither of these scenarios. The technological revolution that has driven the current wave of globalization will continue. Communication will become still cheaper and easier, allowing corporations to spread their operations -- research and development, design, and manufacturing -- around the planet. Companies will exploit scientific talent in other countries to spark a new wave of technological innovation.

At the same time, certain barriers will start to rise. The institutional foundations of globalization -- such as the rules that oblige governments to keep their markets open and the domestic and international politics that allow policymakers to liberalize their economies -- have weakened considerably in the past few years. Politicians and their constituents in the United States, Europe, and China have grown increasingly nervous about letting capital, goods, and people move freely across their borders. And energy -- the most globalized of products -- has once more become the object of intense resource nationalism, as governments in resource-rich countries assert greater control and ownership over those assets.

Taken together, these contradictory trends indicate the shape of things to come. The picture is muddled. Although globalization as a process will continue to sputter along, the idea of unrestrained globalization will wane in force. As Cornell's Peter Katzenstein has argued, globalization and internationalization are not the same. The more prosaic process of internationalization -- that is, exchanges across borders -- can and will continue, even as the transformative ideological process of breaking down barriers slows considerably.

Much now depends on how national governments respond to these changing circumstances; they could still make conditions better or worse. As the integration of national economies stalls, maintaining the high degree of openness already established will require deft management. U.S. policymakers, in particular, need to do a better job of countering their constituents' wariness of global markets and managing the political backlash against openness that has already begun. The challenge is to sell the benefits of ongoing globalization to a wary public, to make sure those benefits materialize, and then to ensure they are distributed more equitably.

Read full essay: http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101faessay86108/rawi-abdelal-adam-segal/has-globalization-passed-its-peak.html

New Economics Foundation, an independent think-and-do tank based in UK and founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES), has come up with a ‘new international ranking of the environmental impact and well-being’, the 'Happy Planet Index' or HPI. The HPI provides a very different picture of the wealth, and poverty, of nations.

“The resulting Index of the 178 countries for which data is available reveals that the world as a whole has a long way to go. In terms of delivering long and meaningful lives within the earth's environmental limits - all nations could do better. No country achieves an overall 'high' score on the Index, and no country does well on all three indicators.'

This new global measure of progress incorporates three separate indicators: ecological footprint, life-satisfaction and life expectancy. Though the underlying statistical calculations for the HPI are quite complex, the concept is straightforward and intuitive. The formula used to calculate the HPI is:

HPI = Life satisfaction x Life expectancy / Ecological Footprint

“The HPI reflects the average years of happy life produced by a given society, nation or group of nations, per unit of planetary resources consumed. Put another way, it represents the efficiency with which countries convert the earth’s finite resources into well-being experienced by their citizens.”

“The HPI Index report reveals for the first time that happiness does not have to cost the Earth. It shows that people can live long, happy lives without using more than their fair share of the earth's resources. It moves beyond crude ratings of nations according to national income, measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to produce a more accurate picture of the progress of nations based on the amount of the Earth's resources they use, and the length and happiness of people's lives. The HPI strips the view of the economy back to its absolute basics: what we put in (resources), and what comes out (human lives of different length and happiness).

The HPI Rankings of 178 Countries

1 Vanuatu
2 Colombia
3 Costa Rica
4 Dominica
5 Panama
6 Cuba
7 Honduras
8 Guatemala
9 El Salvador
10 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
11 Saint Lucia
12 Vietnam
13 Bhutan
14 Samoa (Western)
15 Sri Lanka
16 Antigua and Barbuda
17 Philippines
18 Nicaragua
19 Kyrgyzstan
20 Solomon Islands
21 Tunisia
22 São Tomé and Principe
23 Indonesia
24 Tonga
25 Tajikistan
26 Venezuela
27 Dominican Republic
28 Guyana
29 Saint Kitts and Nevis
30 Seychelles
31 China
32 Thailand
33 Peru
34 Suriname
35 Yemen
36 Fiji
37 Morocco
38 Mexico
39 Maldives
40 Malta
41 Bangladesh
42 Comoros
43 Barbados
44 Malaysia
45 Palestine
46 Cape Verde
47 Argentina
48 Timor-Leste
49 Belize
50 Trinidad and Tobago
51 Chile
52 Paraguay
53 Jamaica
54 Nepal
55 Mauritius
56 Mongolia
57 Uruguay
58 Ecuador
59 Uzbekistan
60 Grenada
61 Austria
62 India
63 Brazil
64 Iceland
65 Switzerland
66 Italy
67 Iran
68 Ghana
69 Bolivia
70 Netherlands
71 Madagascar
72 Cyprus
73 Algeria
74 Luxembourg
75 Bahamas
76 Papua New Guinea
77 Burma
78 Belgium
79 Slovenia
80 Oman
81 Germany
82 Croatia
83 Lebanon
84 Taiwan
85 Haiti
86 Syria
87 Spain
88 Hong Kong
89 Saudi Arabia
90 Gambia
91 Cambodia
92 Albania
93 Jordan
94 New Zealand
95 Japan
96 Congo
97 Egypt
98 Turkey
99 Denmark
100 Brunei Darussalam
101 Georgia
102 Korea
103 Bosnia and Herzegovina
104 Senegal
105 Azerbaijan
106 Gabon
107 Libya
108 United Kingdom
109 Laos
110 Benin
111 Canada
112 Pakistan
113 Ireland
114 Poland
115 Norway
116 Macedonia
117 Israel
118 Namibia
119 Sweden
120 Romania
121 Hungary
122 Guinea
123 Finland
124 Mauritania
125 Kazakhstan
126 Togo
127 Kenya
128 Czech Republic
129 France
130 Armenia
131 Singapore
132 Slovakia
133 Greece
134 Tanzania
135 Guinea-Bissau
136 Portugal
137 Eritrea
138 Bahrain
139 Australia
140 Mali
141 Mozambique
142 Cameroon
143 Djibouti
144 Ethiopia
145 Bulgaria
146 Nigeria
147 Moldova
148 Burkina Faso
149 Lithuania
150 United States of America
151 Cote d'Ivoire
152 Rwanda
153 Sierra Leone
154 United Arab Emirates
155 Angola
156 South Africa
157 Sudan
158 Uganda
159 Kuwait
160 Latvia
161 Niger
162 Malawi
163 Zambia
164 Central African Republic
165 Belarus
166 Qatar
167 Botswana
168 Chad
169 Turkmenistan
170 Equatorial Guinea
171 Lesotho
172 Russia
173 Estonia
173 Ukraine
175 Congo, Dem. Rep. of the
176 Burundi
177 Swaziland
178 Zimbabwe

The full publication is downloadable in PDF for those interested at
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?pid=225

Publication Authors: Nic Marks, Andrew Simms, Sam Thompson and Saamah Abdallah

Source: New Economics Foundation (Publisher)

Source: University of Leicester
http://www.physorg.com/news73321785.html
(Sept 2006)

Adrian White, an analytic social psychologist at the University’s School of Psychology, analysed data published by UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, the WHO, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer, and the UNHDR, to create a global projection of subjective well-being: the first world map of happiness.

The projection, which is to be published in a psychology journal this September, will be presented at a conference later in the year. Participants in the various studies were asked questions related to happiness and satisfaction with life. The meta-analysis is based on the findings of over 100 different studies around the world, which questioned 80,000 people worldwide. For this study data has also been analysed in relation to health, wealth and access to education.

Whilst collecting data on subjective well-being is not an exact science, the measures used are very reliable in predicting health and welfare outcomes. It can be argued that whilst these measures are not perfect they are the best we have so far, and these are the measures that politicians are talking of using to measure the relative performance of each country.

The researchers have argued that regular testing as a collaboration between academics in different countries would enable us to track changes in happiness, and what events may cause that. For example what effect would a war, or famine, or national success have on a country's members' happiness. .

Adrian White said: “The concept of happiness, or satisfaction with life, is currently a major area of research in economics and psychology, most closely associated with new developments in positive psychology. It has also become a feature in the current political discourse in the UK.

"There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth. A recent BBC survey found that 81% of the population think the Government should focus on making us happier rather than wealthier.

“It is worth remembering that the UK is doing relatively well in this area, coming 41st out of 178 nations.

"Further analysis showed that a nation's level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51).

"The three predictor variables of health, wealth and education were also very closely associated with each other, illustrating the interdependence of these factors.

“There is a belief that capitalism leads to unhappy people. However, when people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per captia, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.

“We were surprised to see countries in Asia scoring so low, with China 82nd, Japan 90th and India 125th. These are countries that are thought as having a strong sense of collective identity which other researchers have associated with well-being.

"It is also notable that many of the largest countries in terms of population do quite badly. With China 82nd, India 125th and Russia 167th it is interesting to note that larger populations are not associated with happy countries."

“The frustrations of modern life, and the anxieties of the age, seem to be much less significant compared to the health, financial and educational needs in other parts of the World. The current concern with happiness levels in the UK may well be a case of the 'worried well'."

The 20 happiest nations in the World are:

1 - Denmark
2 - Switzerland
3 - Austria
4 - Iceland
5 - The Bahamas
6 - Finland
7 - Sweden
8 - Bhutan
9 - Brunei
10 - Canada
11 - Ireland
12 - Luxembourg
13 - Costa Rica
14 - Malta
15 - The Netherlands
16 - Antigua and Barbuda
17 - Malaysia
18 - New Zealand
19 - Norway
20 - The Seychelles

Other notable results include:

23 - USA
35 - Germany
41 - UK
62 - France
82 - China
90 - Japan
125 - India
167 - Russia

The three least happy countries were:

176 - Democratic Republic of the Congo
177 - Zimbabwe
178 - Burundi

Author: Bjorn Lomborg
Date: August 22, 2002
Published in The Guardian

Sustainable development is a hollow concept if limited to the rich world while forgetting the poor, or focused on the future while forgetting the present. The summit in Johannesburg must rediscover the obligation to fulfil the needs of all those in the current generation as well as everyone in future generations that was laid down in the 1987 Brundtland report.

It seems we have become so preoccupied with worrying about small problems for future generations in rich countries that the much greater needs of the poor now have been neglected. Such bias may be understandable for well-fed westerners, but it doesn't make it right. This is particularly the case with energy consumption.

The question of sustainability of the world's energy resources has changed significantly. In the past, we worried about running out of oil. The continued use of fossil fuels was said to be unsustainable. Yet the fear turned out to be unfounded. Not only has the availability of oil, coal and natural gases increased dramatically throughout the past 100 years but we also leave the generations of tomorrow with many more sources (including renewable) of energy extraction.
Why? Because just as we have used more we have also improved our ability to find even more, to use it more efficiently and eventually to substitute it with other more efficient energy sources. As Sheik Yamani, a founding architect of Opec, said: "The oil age will come to an end, but not for lack of oil, just like the stone age came to an end, but not for lack of stone."

One of the energy sources likely to overtake oil is renewables. Wind and solar power have halved in price every decade for the past 30 years and they are expected to be able to meet our energy demands before the end of the century.

In short, we are not running out but rather leaving the world with ever more energy. Therefore the present-day concern has shifted towards worrying about the two environmental consequences of our energy use.

First, using fossil fuels leads to air pollution. Empirical evidence suggests, however, that air pollution is more correlated with income than with energy consumption as such. As income rises beyond a certain point, we can afford to reduce major air pollutants dramatically, despite an increase in energy consumption. In richer western cities, smog is a thing of the past as almost every type of air pollution has diminished significantly. This achievement can be ascribed to technological advances and political action. In other words, although air pollution is a real problem it can be solved effectively through development.

Second, the emission of carbon dioxide causes global warming. With renewables taking over before 2100, the UN Climate Panel estimates a temperature increase of 2-3C. Such a rise is projected to have little net impact in the industrialised world but a fairly severe impact on the developing world.

Yet again, most of the concern about global warming has been expressed in terms of western sustainability over third world development, as is perhaps best expressed in the Kyoto protocol. Here we have promised cutting industrialised carbon emissions by 30% in 2010. The global cost will be large: the estimates from all macro-economic models show a cost of $150-350bn every year. Yet the benefits will be marginal: the climate models show that Kyoto will postpone the temperature rise a mere six years from 2100 to 2106. If our goal is to improve the world, reducing carbon emissions is most certainly not the most effective way. Kyoto basically costs three to seven times the global development aid budget on doing imperceptible good for the third world. In fact, for the same amount that implementing Kyoto will cost the EU every year, the UN estimates that we could provide every person in the world with access to basic health, education, family planning and water and sanitation services. Wouldn't this be a better way of serving the world?

Some would say that the world is rich enough to combat both poverty and global warming. While being an attractive theoretical argument, it does not fit well with the empirical evidence where developed countries clearly prioritise global warming over immediate help to the developing world.

We need to re-emphasise sustainable development. Development not only possesses an intrinsic value but also allows the third world the relative luxury of worrying about the environment. Only when you are rich enough to feed yourself can you worry about the environment and future generations. Sustainability easily ends up prioritising future generations at the expense of current generations, which is a backward way of solving our problems. In contrast, development has the advantage of both helping people today and creating the foundation for an even better tomorrow. It is time we got our priorities straight.

Bjorn Lomborg is director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist

The questions are organized in eight sections, each of which covers a particular aspect of export preparation. Each question is formulated to be answered as [yes] or [no]. By answering [yes] to a question, the firm confirms that they have planned that aspect of export . Where the answer is [no] the firm can obtain more information on that topic through a customized report generated at the end of each section.

Link to use the tool: http://www.intracen.org/ec/checker/online/welcome.htm

Source: Business Advisory Services, International Trade Centre

An article on the two sides of the globalization story.

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