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 | | More from Shaun Rein | At a recent World Media Summit in Beijing Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of News Corp., exhorted China to clamp down on copyright infringement. Murdoch is right that piracy is a huge problem in China. Pirated DVDs, fake Ralph Lauren shirts, and cracked software are everywhere. Pushing the Chinese government the way Murdoch did, however, is unlikely to cultured pearl jewelry have any meaningful effect. Most Chinese believe they should have the same access to products the developed world has even when they can't afford them. Why should the West get ahead by having better technologies, the reasoning goes. What can you do if your China operations are hit by piracy? Should you turn a blind eye and think of it as brand exposure? Should you spend money battling in Chinese courts? Here are some key thoughts to keep in mind: First, China's piracy problem is not a matter of morality. More than anything, it is a matter of poverty. Piracy was similarly rampant in Taiwan, Korea and even Japan until consumers there got wealthier and domestic forces emerged to twisted pearl necklace press those countries' governments to take action. The Chinese won't do much beyond the occasional high-profile crackdown to show it takes the issue seriously, except when there is serious domestic pressure, as there has been to root out fake medicine and milk powder, for instance. Even if the central government wants to crack down, it may not be able to make it happen politically at the local level. Municipal officials often resist directives from the top, as I wrote in "In China, Reputation Rules." DVD vendors, like other illicit business operators such as brothel owners, pay policemen to look the other way, and those policemen make only a couple of hundred bucks a month. Second, you need to change your sales and pricing strategies for products like software and DVDs. Time Warner ( TWX - news - people ) provides an example of how not to do it. It realized it needed to lower its prices, so it started selling DVDs for $3 apiece. The problem? Most pirated DVDs in China sell for less than a dollar. Even though Time Warner had lowered its prices far below American rates, the DVDs still remained uncompetitive. There was no compelling reason for consumers to blister pearl buy them. After much fanfare, Time Warner retreated from the market. What should the company have done? Perhaps it could have created a loyalty program for people who bought legitimate disks. Or it could have looked to pirate vendors themselves for direction. Savvy fake peddlers have recently increased their prices by 25% on most DVDs and doubled them on the highest-quality ones. Instead of selling them from haphazard piles on carts in the streets, they have opened Blockbuster ( BBI - news - people )-like stores, with air conditioning and wide selections. They've also started to guarantee refunds if products are of poor quality. Customers now have reasons to spend a little more, getting comfortable shopping environments and quality guarantees at competitive prices. Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) is making headway by changing how it sells its products. It has computer retailers advertising that only legitimate Windows is dependably secure and stable. After years, it has finally lowered prices to levels acceptable to multi-strands pearl necklace many Chinese. Buyers fork over extra cash to protect their computer purchases. Shanghai's tax bureau is requiring businesses to use legitimate Microsoft software on all computers that issue official tax receipts. Without it they can't issue the receipts. Businesses can also buy the software, and Hewlett-Packard ( HPQ - news - people ) computers, directly from the tax bureau itself and deduct the cost all at once, rather than amortizing as they would if they bought from elsewhere. By being creative in its sales channels and by touting stability and security, Microsoft is finally starting to make headway. In luxury goods the piracy situation has gotten markedly better in the past three years. By the end of next year, China will overtake the U.S. as the second-largest market, after Japan, for genuine luxury products. My firm, the China Market Research Group, conducted what we believe is the most extensive research ever on luxury consumption in China. We interviewed thousands of consumers in 15 cities to understand how they consume luxury items and view fake products. The vast majority of them told us they would buy nothing but genuine luxury products if they could afford to. Most said they already buy what real items they can and then match them with fake ones. A 24-year-old secretary in Shanghai said, "Right now I can't afford to buy all real Gucci, so I save to buy a real Gucci bag and match it with fake shoes. But I'm not fooling anyone with the fake stuff. My friends can tell. As soon as I have enough money, I'll buy only real products." Consumers value the real thing when it comes to luxury items, unlike with DVDs and software. Fakes don't bring them the status they aspire to. Therefore luxury goods companies shouldn't waste time and money suing or raiding vendors of fake goods. They should build flagship stores, penetrate third- and fourth-tier markets and launch marketing campaigns that truly connect with the Chinese to freshwater pearl jewelry create brand loyalty. Ultimately, taking a moral or legal approach, the normal American way, simply won't work. The courts will often find in your favor, but the compensatory damages will be low and may not even cover your legal costs. And you won't truly stop the problem anyway. Going halfway in changing your pricing strategies, as Time Warner did, won't help either. You have to be creative in your sales strategies, as Microsoft has been, and provide a real reason to buy legitimate goods, as Gucci has done by focusing on brand building and product quality. As Chinese consumers get wealthier and as domestic forces get hurt by piracy, the situation will get better.
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  A documentary on the declining population of bees worldwide is causing a migraine for German drug company Bayer. n Vanishing of the Bees, which opened in British theaters this month, beekeepers blame neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides produced by Bayer ( BAYRY.PK - news - people ), for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder. They theorize that neonicotinoids disrupt bees' navigational abilities, making them dizzy and unable to find their way back to inflatable bouncers the hive. There's more at stake than honey on your cereal. Without bee pollination, a third of the earth's food crops would fail.
In the U.S., Bayer faces more bad buzz, including a recent backlash to deceptive ads for its One A Day vitamins. Bayer first claimed that the presence of selenium in the vitamins reduced the risk of prostate cancer. The company backed the claim with marginal proof from a dated health study. The company apparently ignored a more recent, seven-year, $118 million study funded by the National Institutes of Health, which determined that selenium doesn't prevent prostate cancer in akoya pearl healthy men--but it does cause diabetes in some.
In June, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit group focusing on food safety, demanded Bayer remove the anti-cancer claims on its packaging and recall the product. A day later, the FDA issued a letter stating it was "highly unlikely" selenium reduced the risk of prostate cancer. Last month, after Bayer failed to biwa pearl issue a recall, CSPI sued Bayer over its cancer claims. Bayer, in turn, threatened CSPI with a libel suit.
"Bayer should hope the case never reaches a courtroom," says Steve Gardner, CSPI's legal director. "Their executives would commit perjury just reciting their ads under oath," he says.
When it comes to over-the-top marketing, Bayer can't seem to help itself. In 2007, it paid $8 million to resolve charges by state attorneys general that the company failed to issue safety warnings about Baycol, a cholesterol-lowering drug. Earlier this year, Bayer agreed to pearl jewelry Chian fund a $20 million corrective ad campaign involving health risks of its Yaz birth control pill.
What does Bayer have to say about all this? Not much. "We take these matters seriously," says spokesman Bryan Iams.
This month, yet another Bayer product is under fire. The chairs of two House committees, Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak, sent a letter to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services questioning the safety and effectiveness of Bayer Aspirin With Heart Advantage. Marketed as both an over-the-counter drug and a dietary supplement, the letter asked why Bayer has ignored FDA advice to pearl necklace stop marketing such "combination" products.
Bayer has had run-ins with regulators beyond marketing--they range from accusations of inflating costs for drugs to price-fixing. Settling these claims cost Bayer $337 million in penalties and fines. With $48 billion in global revenue a year, does Bayer care? "Apparently not," says CSPI's Gardner. "This is Bayer's version of 'omerta'--their unspoken, but calculated cost of doing business."
Vanishing of the Bees opens in the U.S. this spring. Bayer's Iams suggests it could be Bayer, for once, that's a victim of exaggerated claims. Other causes--mites, viruses, climate change or poor husbandry--may play a role in the bee die-off, he says. Some scientists and beekeepers agree.
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 Douglas McKenna It has been a long morning. You started with an invigorating run at 5:30 and had a breakfast meeting at 7. Since then you've wrestled with your leadership team, sparred with analysts and delivered a tough message to cultured pearl jewelry your chief marketing officer. You've felt sharp and in control. But by your 11:30 review with a struggling product team, you're beginning to feel tired, fuzzy and prickly--not to mention hungry. The stage is set for a lapse in your self-control. Not just a little burst of anger or a poppy-seed muffin binge but the kind of momentary lapse that can undermine your leadership. You might, for instance, get stuck on a detail and find yourself unable to move on, or fail to see that certain assumptions are no longer supported by the facts, or drop into a pessimistic mood and overlook a sign of progress, or ask the product manager if she wouldn't be happier working elsewhere--in front of her team. As a senior executive, you are always being watched. One sarcastic comment or rash decision can set in motion a wave of unnecessary drama, confusion or conflict that can paralyze your whole organization. Your ability to rope pearl necklace control your thoughts, feelings and actions is critical to your effectiveness as a leader, whether at a 7 a.m. staff meeting or at a midnight curfew showdown with your 16-year-old. Here's a secret about self-control: It works like a muscle. With each use, that muscle temporarily loses some strength, leaving you with reduced capacity to handle yourself if the next self-control challenge pops up too soon. That's the bad news. The good news is that just like with any other muscle, you can be smarter about how you use it. And you can strengthen it with exercise. Here are four things to do to keep it in top shape. 1. Plan your time with depletion in mind. Whether you have a massive self-control muscle or a modest one, its strength declines each time you call it into action during your workday. Knowing this, take the ebb and flow of self-control into consideration as you build your calendar. If you know that an upcoming meeting will demand all your intellectual and emotional horsepower, be mindful of what you schedule before and after it. Think conservation before and caution after. Try to button pearl avoid scheduling demanding meetings back-to-back. You'll have less self-control strength for the second meeting, making you more susceptible to sloppy thinking and poor judgment. Also, watch out for the back-end booby trap. Just imagine: You've been razor sharp through a critical meeting in the late afternoon, managing yourself brilliantly. You're depleted but feeling good and ready to relax. When you get home, your spouse surprises you with your child's report card showing two D's. It's prime time for a meltdown, because your self-control muscle is out of gas from your big meeting.
2. Standardize recurring tasks. Albert Einstein in his later years wore a gray sweatsuit every day. Why? He wanted to save his thinking for the most important problems, like figuring out how the universe works. Bill Gates, my former boss at Microsoft, would get annoyed when, in our eagerness to be creative, we'd show up at a midyear review with a new way of calculating key metrics for recruiting or compensation. He'd have to burn precious time and bandwidth decoding our amazing new report rather than work on improving the company's performance.
It's a fine balance. No one appreciates a good new idea more than Bill Gates, but creativity puts a heavy load on your self-control muscle. Imagine changing your golf stroke every round just to be more creative. Policies, procedures and best practices can be as boring as a gray sweatsuit, but they also can free up your bandwidth for knotty new challenges.
Be as smart as Einstein and Gates: Standardize your approach to problems you know how to freshwater pearl earrings solve, and save your self-control for those you don't.
3. Rest and refuel. A good night's sleep or a nap will do wonders for your self-control muscle. But physical rest isn't everything. The fastest way to rejuvenate a muscle is to avoid using it. And the way you avoid using your self-control muscle is by switching your brain over to automatic pilot.
Develop a relaxation routine that you can turn to when you sense that your self-control muscle is getting depleted. For example, take a 10-minute walk between tough meetings. Stretch. Read something fun. Anything that shifts your brain into neutral will help; what works will be different for each of us.
Your self-control muscle also needs fuel. Studies show that exercising self-control reduces your blood sugar level. One of my coaching clients discovered that meetings went bad more often when she was getting hungry. A quick, healthy snack will restore blood sugar and rejuvenate your self-control muscle. But watch out for chocolate bars and baked goods. They send your blood sugar level rocketing up, but the crash that follows may be even worse for your self-control and your health.
4. Work out your self-control muscle. You can strengthen your self-control muscle with regular exercise over time just as you can strengthen the muscles in your legs or back. Remember: Anytime you take conscious control of your thoughts, feelings or actions, you are practicing self-control.
If you're willing to experiment, try this simple exercise for the next two weeks: Once an hour, take three deep conscious breaths from your belly. Follow the full length of your inhale and exhale. Sounds crazy, but it works. Why? Because most of the time, you don't think about breathing. It's an automatic process. So when you interrupt and take conscious control of your breath, you exercise your self-control muscle.
Since all self-control efforts work that same self-control muscle, exercising it in one activity (e.g., doing regular deep breathing) definitely helps in others (e.g., staying calm when a colleague blames your group for a customer problem).
Just knowing that the self-control muscle exists is a game-changer for the executives I work with. Recognizing when you are using the muscle and when it's getting depleted is half the battle. You start to understand what it takes to naughty castles be at your best when it counts the most.
Small changes to your self-control muscle can make a big difference in your effectiveness as a leader. Don't take my word for it. Try it yourself.
Douglas McKenna is chief executive officer and co-founder of the Oceanside Institute. Formerly head of leadership development at Microsoft, he coaches senior executives around the world.
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The belief that the U.S. will emerge from the recession only to slog through years of lackluster economic growth seems to be gaining a wider following. It's "the new normal," an idea championed by the bond guru Bill Gross at Pimco and especially popular among fixed-income investors. How do you play it?
Analysts at debt research firm CreditSights have offered some tips for bond buyers. They've picked a roster of companies they expect will be able to withstand a period of prolonged high unemployment, tight lending and pinched consumer spending. The list includes Deutsche Telekom ( DT - news - people ), construction supplier Martin Marietta Materials ( MLM - news - people ), food and drink maker Kellogg Co. ( K - news - people ) and mining giant Rio Tinto ( RTP - news - people ). Many have ties to naughty castles China, India and other fast-growing developing countries.
Throughout most of this year, fixed-income investors never had it so easy. The credit-market rebound and a flood of cash from investors have pushed investment-grade bonds up 17.9% and risky, speculative-grade bonds up 49%. Now it's trickier. The average investment-grade bond trades at 104 cents on the dollar, above its face value, and those who think economic growth will remain weak are warning others away from speculative-grade bonds. In the akoya pearl jewelry new normal U.S, they say, the default rate for debt-heavy companies would stay high. Weak consumer spending means that Inflation, usually bond investors' biggest fear, won't be a threat.
Data released on Thursday lent some support to this view. The consumer price index rose 0.2% in September, according to the Labor Department. Consumer prices have dropped 1.3% over the past year.
Many of CreditSights' picks have credit ratings near the bottom of the investment-grade scale, in the BBB range. They pay more than other high-grade bonds – an average 6% yield, at present – but are less likely to default than a junk bond.
Some appeal mainly for their staying power. Deutsche Telekom, the analysts write, is unlikely to freshwater pearl jewlelry attempt any ambitious and costly investments. There's also the implicit support of the German government. Others play on tighter consumer spending. Kellogg, with its Rice Krispies and Eggo waffles, and cost-cutting grocery chain Kroger ( KR - news - people ) stand to benefit when Americans eat at home. Rio Tinto, the world's second largest producer of iron ore, derives more than a quarter of its sales from China, which is expanding steel production.
This mix of companies jibes with what other new-normal adherents have recently said. Edward Bradford, managing partner at Bradford & Marzec in tin cup pearl necklace Los Angeles with $3.5 billion under management, favors BBB-rated credits. He refused to name companies he likes but says he's wary of anything dependent on Americans spending more money.
"It's a new game," he said. "You can't take and apply historical recoveries to now."
Few debt-heavy companies wind up in pearl necklace Bradford's portfolio, because a bond must have at least a single-B rating, two notches into junk status, before he will look at it.
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WASHINGTON -- The White House will not commit to freshwater pearl necklace health care legislation that would cap insurance premiums or tax benefits, taking a wait-and-see approach as congressional negotiators seek a deal, advisers said Sunday.
President Barack Obama will not demand that a final bill include a government-run plan as a way of driving down costs through competition, though that's his preference, they said.
"There will be compromise. There will be legislation, and it will achieve our goals: helping people who have insurance get more security, more accountability for the insurance industry, helping people who don't have insurance get insurance they can afford, and lowering the overall cost of the system," aide David Axelrod said.
Asked on ABC's "This Week" if Obama would sign a bill that ended the rope pearl necklace antitrust exemption for the insurance industry and allow caps on premiums, Axelrod said, "We'll see what Congress does."
A 1945 law lets states regulate insurers without federal interference.
Axelrod was similarly noncommittal when pressed about whether Obama would support taxing insurance benefits, a proposal that has brought criticism from labor unions and others. "I think that this thing is going to be adjusted as we go along," he said, "so let's see what the final proposal says before we talk about what the president will or won't sign."
The White House and lawmakers are trying to blend five House and Senate committee versions of health care legislation into a bill that will pass both houses. Near unanimous Republican opposition is expected.
House Democrats are insisting on a government-run plan, known as a public option. In the Senate, Republicans and some Democrats oppose the bread pearl measure, meaning inclusion of the public option would foreclose winning the 60 votes needed to advance a bill.
Obama "will obviously weigh in when it's important to weigh in" on the possibility of a public option, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said. Added Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett: "He's not demanding that it's in there. He think it's the best possible choice."
The president promoted his health care initiative Saturday in his weekly radio and online address and challenged policy makers to resist special interests. He accused the insurance industry of "filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads" and paying for studies "designed to mislead the American people."
Jarrett said the president's criticism was a sign of his frustration with the insurance industry's efforts to freshwater pearl earrings "tank this bill."
A study commissioned by the industry reported that the Democrats' health care effort would drive up premiums for the insured, a conclusion faulted for taking a decidedly narrow view of legislation. The industry also has been running an ad that could easily be mistaken as asserting that basic Medicare coverage is at risk.
"I think that the message that we've seen from the president and the huge momentum that is moving through Congress shows that the American people are ready for health care reform," Jarrett said. "And they're ready for it this year, and nothing's going to stop that."
The bill approved last week by the Senate Finance Committee drew the only Republican vote yet cast with Democrats on the health care overhaul. Even then, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, did not commit to supporting the final version of the bill.
Labor groups say plans to finance health care reform by taxing insurance companies would end up costing middle-income Americans because the industry would simply pass along the taxes with higher premiums.
Emanuel, while not directly disputing that claim, insisted Sunday that the leisure chairs Senate Finance Committee bill "hits the insurance companies and the high expansive and expensive plans."
"One of the most effective ways of putting downward pressure on health care premium increases is a disincentive to ever-expansive and expensive plans," Emanuel said. "I find it ironic because some of the critics on the right were the people that called for, in fact, eliminating the tax exclusion. Now they've become the biggest defenders."
Emanuel spoke on CNN's "State of the Union" and CBS ( CBS - news - people )' "Face the Nation" while Jarrett appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press."
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