Here Comes the New, Improved Upjohn (int'l edition)

I grew up in Kalamazoo, Mich., and saw Upjohn produce many strong products--while never seeming to get the business right (''How Fred Hassan rescued Pharmacia & Upjohn,'' The Corporation, Apr. 26). Its outstanding innovation and product strength have been enough to enable the company to survive a mess of management upheavals and even a rocky merger. Imagine what this dumb workhorse will be capable of achieving with the benefit of smart marketing and business strategies, which up until now have hardly been implemented at all.

Upjohn's fresh marketing ideas are working, and its management is finally striking some key deals. As the strong supply of new drugs in the pipeline enters the market in a few years, they'll be poised to create a wave bigger than most people are expecting. As for a takeover, someone had better act, posthaste, because this one is going to be too big to swallow pretty soon.

Michael Ozzie Zehner
Frankfurt

This Taipan Has a Lot to Make Up For (int'l edition)

''The Taipan's last chance'' (Asian Edition Cover Story, Apr. 26) on Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd. concludes with: ''Jardine has a brilliant past. It must do much more...to secure a brilliant future.''

William Jardine pushed opium in the last century and built his empire on the suffering of countless people. Opium caused 100 years of human deprivation and broken families in China. Only totally mercantile observers would characterize Jardine's past as brilliant. Most good people of the world would view the scale, cynicism, and ferocity of the British opium trade with some measure of abhorrence.

The Chinese culture views human behavior in the context of the extended family. As a person performs good deeds or misdeeds, the respective merits or demerits are accumulated in some cosmic registry. If a person is not rewarded or punished appropriately in his lifetime, the residual merits or demerits are inherited by the descendants as blessings or curses.

Beijing's animosity toward Jardine Matheson reflects a widely held view among Chinese people toward William Jardine's descendants. In the Chinese context, the Jardine progeny can make amends to humanity by performing extraordinary charitable activities, and gain their own merits in the cosmic registry. After accumulating sufficient counterbalancing merits, the Jardine progeny can then proceed to achieve their own brilliant future.

Robert Wu
Hong Kong

To Revamp Japan Inc., First Reform the Banks (int'l edition)

Your comments on the liquidity trap are quite right (''Why Japan is stuck,'' Asian Business, Apr. 12). But the effectiveness of the method being used to get rid of the business slump in Japan is doubtful. Consumers' anxiety about the loss of their jobs, and hesitation regarding capital spending by enterprises, are really the cause of the slump. But without any strong measures by the Japanese banks, no solution will be found.

Meantime, some economists think inflationary steps may be necessary for Japan to recover economically. Under no circumstances should these be adopted. Even the expectation of possible inflation is harmful, unless a consequent expansion would help increase the total economy of Japan.

Hisashi Noda
Chiba-Ken, Japan

Is It Healthy That CEOs Are So Wealthy? (int'l edition)

It is interesting that in an otherwise hard-hitting article, you do not make the point that many of the defenders of CEO pay--in particular the boards of directors serving as members of compensation committees--are themselves CEOs of other companies (''Is greed good?'' Cover Story, Apr. 19). Of course they think there is justification--their own pay.

A potential bright spot is that some mutual funds are beginning to recognize that managers are stealing stockholders' equity through the excesses of options. I would hope that some of the trial lawyers will see that the CEOs, their boards of directors, and the mutual-fund companies, particularly those holding large blocks of voting stock and failing to oppose these excessive awards, are all violating their fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders. They are not acting in good faith when they make large awards based on a stock-price performance which will be largely nullified by the adverse effects of those very awards on the stock price.

Edwin S. Townsley
New York


Like winning gamblers who give a big tip to the croupier, shareholders feel comfortable tipping the CEO for their windfall capital gains. It's legal, the tax law says it's O.K., and the ''winner-take-all'' atmosphere hyped in the entertainment industries has made our culture blind to the long-term problems of short-term excess payouts.

This is a natural result of our current investment and tax systems, now intensified by electronic communications. Real value creation still happens at human speed. But high-stakes, short-term financial wagers, in the name of liquidity, have become the holy grail for too many investors.

There are good solutions to the problem that would focus attention on the long-term fundamentals of our society while preserving the strengths of the capitalist system. But it would take executive and congressional leadership more interested in the nation's health than their own wealth to solve the problem. It's not likely to get better soon.

Brian McKibben
Naperville, Ill.


I note hypocrisy in the corporate boardrooms and executive suites. Nationwide, human-resources departments argue that money does not motivate employees, but ''empowerment'' and ''employee of the month'' programs do. Evidently, CEOs and top executives do not follow the same sage wisdom.

In the end, CEOs and executives go home with ridiculous sums of money and bonuses, while the workers bear the brunt of long hours, missed family business, and missed personal opportunities. Keep in mind that the soaring U.S. stock market and top wages for corporate executives are paid for by someone. It doesn't come free, as most financial salespeople would have everyone believe.

Michael Pietrobono
Gilbert, Ariz.

Better to Repay Top Taxpayers Than Waste Money (int'l edition)

Laura D'Andrea Tyson (''Why America is tuning out the tax-cutters,'' Economic Viewpoint, Apr. 26) sounded more like Congressman Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) than a business school dean when she said that more than half the benefits of a cut would go to the richest 10% of taxpayers. As she well knows, or should know, 10% of all taxpayers pay about half of all taxes. One wonders if Tyson thinks that wealthy people bury excess funds in a hole in the ground, or spend it all on Gucci bags and Cartier gems. Instead, they buy nice homes and cars and furniture and appliances, they travel, and they stay at hotels and dine at restaurants--all of which promote manufacturing and employment.

Last year, my wife and I gave substantial amounts of money to the Nature Conservancy and to our local high school for college scholarships. In contrast, some of our taxes paid for (1) an ethanol subsidy for Archer Daniels Midland, (2) continued price support for tobacco farmers as the Surgeon General fights cigarette smoking, and (3) bloated and essentially useless bureaucracies like the Energy Dept.

What's wrong with returning surplus tax money to the people who paid it?

Robert H. Paschall
Bishop, Calif.