It’s a Dog’s Life for Singapore’s Pampered Pets; “A lot of people wouldn’t bat an eyelid on spending several thousand dollars on a dog. The litmus test is whether the dog stays with them for the rest of its life or not,”

It’s a Dog’s Life for Singapore’s Pampered Pets
March 01, 2013

The guests lean over the side of the boat to catch the morning breeze as their catamaran eases off from a jetty in Singapore. A typical cruise, except for the fact that the passengers are dogs. “Actually, this is their third cruise,” said Andy Pe, 43, the doting owner of two Black Labrador Retrievers, a Yellow Labrador, a Golden Retriever and two mongrels. “They enjoy the sea breeze and water so much.” From boat cruises and spas to their own obituary section in the leading newspaper, pets are pampered in a big way in Singapore, a city-state with one of Asia’s highest standards of living. Read more of this post

The Tyranny of the Queen Bee: Women who reached positions of power were supposed to be mentors to those who followed, writes Peggy Drexler—but something is amiss in the professional sisterhood

March 1, 2013, 3:17 p.m. ET

The Tyranny of the Queen Bee

Women who reached positions of power were supposed to be mentors to those who followed—but something is amiss in the professional sisterhood.

By PEGGY DREXLER Read more of this post

You can influence your return on luck

Saturday March 2, 2013

You can influence your return on luck

By ROSHAN THIRAN

Luck and success: Datuk Seri Idris Jala during a conversation said he had six key points to leadership success and his final point was about having good luck.

THESE past few weeks, with the Chinese New Year celebrations in full swing, many friends wished me “luck” many times. Everyone was hoping for a great year with lots of luck. Most believe that luck happens by chance. Luck, we believe is something you cannot plan for or obtain by design. Luck is fated, or is written in the stars. Or is it?

I remember a conversation I had with Datuk Seri Idris Jala many years ago when he explained the secret to his success as a leader. He had six key points to leadership success and his final point was about having good luck. He did not term it “luck” but called it “divine intervention.” He believed that you could control about 40% of things you were working on. The remaining 60% were things beyond your control where you had little influence. However, Idris believed that if you were a good human being, operating with ethics and spending time in solitude and reflection, you could “influence” the divine to be on your side and bring yourself good “luck.” Read more of this post

Family Fortunes: How to Build Family Wealth and Hold on to It for 100 Years; Why family money should NOT be invested in “safe, conservative” investments; Why you can’t trust wealth “professionals” and why you should never entrust your money to money managers; why most celebrity CEOs are a threat to the businesses they run; Why giving your children as much education as possible is NOT a good idea

Family Fortunes: How to Build Family Wealth and Hold on to It for 100 Years (Agora Series) [Hardcover]

Bill Bonner (Author), Will Bonner (Contributor) Read more of this post

David Brooks: The Learning Virtues; A book on education cultures finds that the Chinese tend to define learning morally while Westerns define it cognitively

February 28, 2013

The Learning Virtues

By DAVID BROOKS

Jin Li grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. When the madness was over, the Chinese awoke to discover that far from overleaping the West, they were “economically destitute and culturally barren.” This inspired an arduous catch-up campaign. Students were recruited to learn what the West had to offer. Li was one of the students. In university, she abandoned Confucian values, which were then blamed for Chinese backwardness, and embraced German culture. In her book, “Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West,” she writes that Chinese students at that time were aflame — excited by the sudden openness and the desire to catch up. Li wound up marrying an American, moved to the States and became a teacher. She was stunned. American high school students had great facilities but didn’t seem much interested in learning. They giggled in class and goofed around.

This contrast between the Chinese superstudent and the American slacker could be described with the usual tired stereotypes. The Chinese are robots who unimaginatively memorize facts to score well on tests. The Americans are spoiled brats who love TV but don’t know how to work. But Li wasn’t satisfied with those clichés. She has spent her career, first at Harvard and now at Brown, trying to understand how Asians and Westerners think about learning. The simplest way to summarize her findings is that Westerners tend to define learning cognitively while Asians tend to define it morally. Westerners tend to see learning as something people do in order to understand and master the external world. Asians tend to see learning as an arduous process they undertake in order to cultivate virtues inside the self. Read more of this post

McDonald’s to open on Zhangjiajie mountaintop; Zhangjiajie received 35.9 million visitors from home and abroad and had a tourism revenue of 20.87 billion yuan last year.

McDonald’s to open on Zhangjiajie mountaintop

English.news.cn   2013-03-01 15:32:17

CHANGSHA, March 1 (Xinhua) — American fast-food giant McDonald’s is expected to open an outlet on the top of the Tianmen Mountain of Zhangjiajie scenic spot in central China’s Hunan Province before May 1. McDonald’s has signed a 20-year rental contract with the owner of the Tianzi fast-food restaurant located atop the 1,518-meter-high peak, an official with the scenic spot’s infrastructure construction headquarters said on Friday. McDonald’s will invest 20 million yuan (3.2 million U.S. dollars) in renovating the outlet, a staff member of the retailer’s public relations department added, while confirming the targeted timeline for opening.

Zhangjiajie, classified by UNESCO as a World Geopark and also a World Heritage Site, was formally warned by the organization in January for inadequately disseminating knowledge of earth sciences to the public. It has also been criticized for over-commercializing in the past decade. A total of 124 hotels and 1,791 residents on the mountain have been relocated in the government’s renovation campaign. Zhangjiajie received 35.9 million visitors from home and abroad and had a tourism revenue of 20.87 billion yuan last year.

Luxottica Billionaire Del Vecchio Says ‘Why Not’ to Grillo as Premier

Billionaire Del Vecchio Says ‘Why Not’ to Grillo as Premier

Billionaire Leonardo Del Vecchio, the second-richest Italian, praised Beppe Grillo for taking a novel approach to public policy in Italy and said he could support the ex-comic as a prime minister.

“Grillo the premier, why not?” Del Vecchio told Italian newswire Ansa today in Milan. A spokeswoman for Del Vecchio’s Luxottica SpA (LUX) confirmed the comments and said the entrepreneur’s remarks were made off the cuff after he was approached by journalists on his way to lunch.

Grillo, 64, is at the center of negotiations over the formation of Italy’s next government after his upstart political party won more than 160 seats in the Feb. 24-25 general election. Grillo, who ran on a platform of anti-austerity and more robust social safety nets, is jockeying with established politicians like Pier Luigi Bersani and three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi for influence over the next administration.

“I don’t think Grillo is stupider than the ones we have had up to now,” Del Vecchio told Ansa. “I don’t mind the way he has of reasoning over ideas.” Read more of this post

Blood and Wine: An 11th generation Riedel with his own ideas assumes the helm of the family-owned Austrian wine glass company beloved by oenophiles

February 28, 2013, 11:48 A.M. ET

Blood and Wine

This article was written by Carrie Coolidge.

It was the suit that announced a new chief executive, with his own distinct style and ideas, was taking charge at Riedel, Austria’s 1756-founded family firm that makes the fine-stem wine glasses beloved by oenophiles across the globe.

Dressed in a burgundy-colored velvet suit, the 35 year-old Maximilian J. Riedel strode purposefully through his company’s showroom in search of the Bloomingdale’s buyer who had flown to Frankfurt, Germany, to see the latest designs offered by his family’s eponymous company. At the world’s largest consumer goods fair that recently took place at Messe Frankfurt, the Riedel firm had constructed an elaborate if temporary stage to present its wine glasses and decanters to wholesale customers coming from around the world to place orders for their retail stores.

Max and Georg Riedel Read more of this post