BBC Business Headlines

Goldman Sachs fined £20m by FSA
Wall Street banking giant Goldman Sachs is fined £20m by the UK's financial watchdog, the BBC learns.

Rig firms hit back at BP report
Contractors who worked for BP on the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon oil rig criticise the company's report into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Shoppers turning to card payments
The number of cash machines in the UK has fallen and withdrawals have dropped as shoppers turn to cards, figures show.

Empty shops highlighting 'divide'
The number of shops closing in Britain is slowing but a north-south divide has emerged, a survey by retail analysts the Local Data Company suggests.

US economic growth 'decelerating'
US economic growth showed "widespread signs of deceleration" in August, says the Federal Reserve's Beige Book.


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NY Times Economix

Nearly 5 Jobless Workers Per Opening in July
That's a better ratio than what the economy showed earlier this year, but it still shows persistent softness in the United States labor market.

The Thoughtful Roar of the Housing Bears
Bloggers expand on the case for gloom in the real-estate market.

What We're Reading: Lying Pants
Links from around the Web.

New York State Still Has Highest Unionization Rate
A new report looks at the organized labor in the Empire State and around the country, and how its size and composition have changed over the years.


Paul Krugman
Japanese Demography
Where have all the workers gone?Read more...




Buy the Book


The Moneymakers: How Extraordinary Managers Win in a World Turned Upside Down
by Anne Marie Fink

Published by Crown Business - Random House

Read Excerpt


How to be a moneymaker

When real money is at stake, it tends to clarify the mind, and for over a decade, Anne-Marie Fink has had literally billions of dollars resting on her assessments of companies. As an equity analyst and professional investor, she has been charged with understanding whether businesses are solid, long-term moneymakers -- or rotten tomatoes -- before investing with them.

She has had unusual access to an incredible variety of businesses, from entertainment conglomerates to newspapers, Internet companies, airlines, railroads, furniture manufacturers, auto suppliers, staffing agencies, and others. Well known for her ability to drill down to the details and understand what makes a business tick, she has skillfully dissected the story of many a CEO and talked with people up and down the ranks, as well as customers, suppliers, regulators, distributors, bankers, and rivals -- anyone who could give her insight on a company's operations.

The result is a book of great originality -- an unusual and perceptive look at business that busts myths and conventional thinking. Based on what she and her investing colleagues have seen firsthand, Anne-Marie Fink's The Moneymakers provides a highly pragmatic framework for thriving in our hypercompetitive world. They include:

  • Shrink to grow: Why expanding a bad (low-return) business means you just have more of a problem, and how a step backward is often the best way forward.

  • Good performance requires inefficiency and duplication: How maximum efficiency produces suboptimal results by stifling innovation. 

  • Don't be a customer fanatic: How to know when to listen to and when to ignore your customers. 

  • Economics always trumps management: Ignore bedrock economic laws -- such as supply and demand -- at your peril; it is akin to ordering the tides to stay in place.

  • Why happy employees don't make for high-performance workplaces. 

  • Problems in business are like cockroaches -- there's never just one: How to catch problems before they infest your company. 

  • Avoid the trap of profitless growth: Additional profit is an illusion if it consumes too much capital. 

  • Megatrends start as ripples: How to position your business to ride long-term waves, not be drowned by them.

pub date: 2009-01-27 | hardcover | 9780307396303