Readers Report
China: Aggressor or Victim?
"China: Coping with its new power," (Cover Story, Apr. 16) seems trapped in the cold war myth that only communist societies are a threat. This underestimates the power of capitalism, which has been the engine of most of modern history's great powers and empires. The Soviet Union as a great power was an anomaly. The largest, global empire of modern times was Britain, the model of democratic capitalism. And it was a very capitalist America that became a superpower. Imperial Japan and the Germany of kaiser and fuhrer had capitalist economies. The lesson of history is: More wealth brings more war, as regimes find the resources to pursue new ambitions and settle old scores.
William R. Hawkins
U.S. Business & Industry Council
Washington
I can't help but wonder why you fail to see the real danger [from China]. A military confrontation between China and the U.S. is not a remote possibility but almost a certainty. China has strong expansionist aims in the Pacific area, and this directly collides with U.S. interests there. It is also a completely repressive state that will have no scruples whatsoever in nationalizing all Western property when it feels that this best suits its interests. The best advice anyone could give Western CEOs is to keep this scenario in mind when contemplating an investment in China.
Michael Stein
Flechtorf, Germany
You write that "Chinese Internet chat rooms are full of anti-U.S. hate" ("China: Globalization, not cold war," Editorials, Apr. 16). The main reasons are the unending meddling on the part of the U.S. in the internal affairs of China and the ceaseless harassments by the U.S. of the Chinese under the guise of defending democracy, human rights, etc., while their real design is to create obstacles to China's development.
I am a French citizen, born to Chinese parents and living in France. I fully support the Chinese regime that is doing its utmost to extract the Chinese people from poverty and underdevelopment. The U.S. must stop bullying the Chinese people and respect the country's sovereignty.
Laurent Tchang
Villejuif, France
Lining Up to Say Executive Pay Is out of Line
I found the article on "Executive Pay" (Special Report, Apr. 16) really disgusting. How can a person watch his company and fellow workers go down and still demand and/or accept increased compensation for himself?
John A. Hoefling
Fort Lauderdale
Your report on executive pay amply demonstrates why the drive to do away with estate taxes is misguided. When a few people are paid over $100 million a year, we must protect society from generations of useless "aristocratic" offspring. The propaganda in Congress is about family farms and small business. There are other ways to protect these. Your article makes an excellent case, in fact, for a big increase in the marginal income tax for very large incomes.
Robert I. Weil
Villanova, Pa.
We see once again how far executive compensation has gotten out of line, even at companies where growth in long-term shareowner value has been above average. As an investor, it is encouraging to see a few companies like Biomet Inc.--whose president and CEO, Dane A. Miller, year after year produces real shareowner value at reasonable compensation.
Edward Singletary
Washington
Are the BusinessWeek 50 Masters or Flukes?
"Masters of Innovation" (The BusinessWeek 50, Spring 2001 Bonus Issue) cites Bell Labs, circa 1950, as one traditional model of innovation. Bell Laboratories, now the research & development arm of Lucent Technologies Inc., has come a long way since then in our approach to nurturing innovation. There used to be a number of layers between Bell Labs and the customer. That's no longer the case. Now, development teams work directly with customers during the design phase. Also, we often now use customer networks to beta-test new products before we consider them final. The model seems to be working: Bell Labs innovations are making the journey from lab to market faster than ever, and we earn more than four patents per work day.
Arun Netravali
President
Bell Labs
Murray Hill, N.J.
The BusinessWeek 50 should be renamed "The Lucky 50." Of the top 50 companies in 2000, only 13 made it again in 2001. While this is statistically significantly different from a random draw, one has to wonder about the usefulness of such a ranking to your readers whose faces are not in the magazine. I find it very difficult to believe that so many so-called "top" companies can fall from grace within just one year. Are the fundamentals of corporations really that volatile or is your ranking merely a reflection of the stock returns?
Shou Wang
Ithaca, N.Y.
Information Superhighway Robbery
Congratulations on your exposé of how VCs and big financial service firms perpetrated the greatest fleecing of the public at large in the history of the nation ("The Great Internet Money Game," BusinessWeek e.biz, Apr. 16). It was a simple and proven boiler room scheme: create a shell, get the respectable names behind it, hype it, and unload it on the suckers. If the Merrills and the Goldmans of the world believed these companies to be the great investments their "analysts" proclaimed them to be, then how many shares of these companies did they buy or accumulate? Pity Henry Blodget and the rest. What were they to do? Not rob the people who left their wallets unlocked?
David Anton
New York
Tough Competition: 1.5 Billion Workers at $2 a Day
Don't bet on the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Quebec is just the opening skirmish ("Business winces as Bush fumbles on trade," Washington Outlook, Apr. 16). I don't see the need to compete with another 500 million people working for $2 per day in Latin and South America. After all, I already have to compete with 1 billion Chinese working for $2 per day.
Rich Cree
Columbus, Ohio
Is Your Privacy Safe If They Say It Is?
Not only is consumer financial information being distributed, so is their medical privacy information ("Think your secrets are safe?" Finance, Apr. 9). Because of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, financial institutions and insurance companies are exchanging consumer information. Now, when the consumer applies for a home mortgage or a car loan, the financial institution will not only have the credit information, but health insurance information as well.
C.J. Braun
Houston
Property and casualty insurers take the personal privacy of our policyholders and other consumers seriously. We value our customers and understand their desire to protect their privacy. This is why we want them to be aware of the protections afforded by the new financial-services modernization law. We welcome the new law's consumer protections and would like, once again, to strongly recommend that consumers pay attention to the new set of rights they now enjoy.
Robert E. Vagley
President
American Insurance Assn.
Washington
A Bronx Cheer for a Dated Metaphor
Nicholas P. Heymann, the Prudential Securities Inc. analyst, was insensitive in using the imagery of an automobile chop shop in the Bronx in "GE-Honeywell: How Jack stumbled" (The Corporation, Apr. 16). The Bronx has had much success since its worldwide-known nadir of the mid '70s. Hundreds of businesses with thousands of jobs have expanded within or moved to the Bronx, more than 40,000 units of housing have been renovated or newly built, and the hometown ball team has won a few World Series.
Michael J. Gill
Riverdale, N.Y.
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Copyright 2001 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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