More than 20,000 Kasikornbank staff nationwide all found on their desks a green apple that contained a smile-shaped sticker: “Kasikornbank’s success comes from small smiles of us all.”

Smile: secret to success?

Last Friday brought a big surprise to more than 20,000 Kasikornbank staff nationwide. That morning, they all found on their desks a green apple that contained a smile-shaped sticker. With the apple was a card. Written and signed by chairman Banthoon Lamsam, the card said: “Pan Yim Hai Khun – Kasikornbank’s success comes from small smiles of us all.”
We knew “Pan” was Banthoon’s nickname. With the apple and the card, he gave smiles to all and reminded them all how important smiles are. Banthoon was also onstage at KBank’s head office in Bangkok’s Rat Burana district, to launch the internal rebranding. He told the staff about the importance of smiles, which were key to the bank’s success when it was established 68 years ago. He acknowledged that smiles could evaporate because of economic hardship, but says smiles don’t cost anything, so everyone should start smiling.
It seems all the executives agree. They appear in the music video, singing the song “Yim Noi Yim Yai” (Big and Small Smiles).  Well, Khun Pan, we can expect you to keep smiling too, right?

October 4, 2013, 2:14 PM ET

Amid Corporate Crime Crackdown, Expectations for Board Rise

CHRISTOPHER M. MATTHEWS

A growing expectation among U.S. enforcement agencies that companies investigate themselves when allegations of corporate misconduct arise and turn over the results means the consequences of mishandling the probe have never been larger. Amid the heightened risks, prosecutors increasingly prefer an even higher standard of review. They want internal probes to be led by the board of directors to ensure independence from management interference, according to current and former officials at the Department of Justice. Read more of this post

Wal-Mart Entertains a Pitch: ‘Made in U.S.A.’; Some Manufacturers See Opportunity in Opening State-Side Factories

October 6, 2013, 8:25 p.m. ET

Wal-Mart Entertains a Pitch: ‘Made in U.S.A.’

Some Manufacturers See Opportunity in Opening State-Side Factories

JAMES R. HAGERTY

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT -0.49% has long lured Americans with a cornucopia of low-cost merchandise from overseas, ranging from softball bats made in China to candles from Vietnam. For the past nine months, however, Wal-Mart has been trumpeting patriotic promises to stock more U.S.-made goods. Manufacturing means “good middle-class jobs, and that’s exactly what our country needs,” said Bill Simon, chief executive of Wal-Mart’s U.S. arm, in a revival-style speech at a recent supplier meeting in Orlando, where a children’s choir sang the national anthem. Read more of this post

New battle cry in France: ‘Let us work Sundays!’

New battle cry in France: ‘Let us work Sundays!’

BY JAMEY KEATEN

AP OCT 6, 2013

PARIS – When economic inequalities helped foment the French Revolution, the legendary cry from on high was, “Let them eat cake!” Now, as modern France struggles economically, the cry from below is, “Let us work!” As France battles high unemployment, rising taxes and pinched pocketbooks, the Socialist government has said its main focus is job creation. Now, critics of a more-than-century-old law that prevents most stores from opening on Sundays say revising it would be a good step in that direction. Read more of this post

Intel Israel president: I hate “Start-up Nation”; We’ve become a country that crowns kings, and then damns them, stones them. We have no trapped profits.

Intel Israel president: I hate “Start-up Nation”

Mooly Eden: Start-ups are fine, but we must attract the multinationals.

3 October 13 17:53, Adrian Filut

“There is stigma over the tax breaks in the Law for the Encouragement of Capital Investments. It’s unpleasant to read the newspaper every day. The newspaper does not even call to ask whether a report is right. We’ve become a country that crowns kings, and then damns them, stones them. We have no trapped profits. People don’t understand that the tax breaks are legal. Every man in the street believes that I am stealing the money. We built a fab for $4 billion. Then they began to shout and we lost the fab to Ireland. So how much should we give: a little more than a country that competes against us. We have advantages, but we also have disadvantages, like the geopolitical situation. I don’t think that too much is being given to Intel. The fact is that we lost a fab to Ireland,” said Intel Israel president Mooly Eden, speaking on the panel moderated by “Globes” editor-in-chief Hagai Golan at the Go Global Project on Wednesday. Read more of this post

Dow’s Exiles Often Have Last Laugh?

October 6, 2013, 5:30 p.m. ET

Dow’s Exiles Often Have Last Laugh

Recently Dropped From Dow, Alcoa Could Be Set to Outperform, If Past Holds True

SPENCER JAKAB

“How’d the market do today?” If your answer takes the form of a number, then it had better be in Dow points. Citing some index other than the Dow Jones Industrial Average to an American is akin to complaining about the temperature in Celsius or your weight in kilograms. But investment professionals roll their eyes at the attention the 117-year-old index receives. Far more products are linked to the S&P 500-stock index with its broader footprint and more sophisticated design. That the two indexes have performed almost identically in the long run is viewed as a curiosity. (The Dow is overseen by S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, in which Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, owns a stake.) Read more of this post

A ‘Perfect Storm’ Hits TIPS Funds; Rising interest rates and falling inflation expectations batter Treasury inflation-protected securities

October 6, 2013, 4:50 p.m. ET

A ‘Perfect Storm’ Hits TIPS Funds

Rising interest rates and falling inflation expectations batter Treasury inflation-protected securities

TOM LAURICELLA

Owners of inflation-protected-bond funds have learned a painful lesson this year, and it’s one well-heeded by all investors: Understand how an investment will perform in unlikely scenarios, not just likely ones. These funds, which are usually purchased as a hedge against spiking inflation, own government bonds designed to adjust their payouts as inflation rises and falls. Read more of this post

Why Bentley’s boss is driven to succeed; The German chief executive of the quintessentially British luxury car maker is on a mission to expand the brand’s appeal

Why Bentley’s boss is driven to succeed

The German chief executive of the quintessentially British luxury car maker is on a mission to expand the brand’s appeal.

By Louise Armitstead

8:30PM BST 06 Oct 2013

This is not a dream. My right foot hovers over a pedal that controls a 6.0 litre W-12 engine with 616 brake horse power. With the lightest command, the vast engine will propel this 2.5 tonne, red machine to 60mph in 4.1 seconds, and 100mph in 9.7 seconds. While I grip the hand-stitched leather steering-wheel and flip the gear stick into “sport”, the PR man tightens his fist around a disclaimer I’ve signed without reading. Bentley reckons that its Continental GT Speed Convertible, which has a top speed of 202mph, is the fastest soft top on earth. We – the PR man, me and the A530 outside Crewe – are about to find out. Read more of this post

New American Economy Leaves Behind World Consumer of Last Resort; The rising American economy isn’t lifting all boats — and may even sink some

New American Economy Leaves Behind World Consumer of Last Resort

The rising American economy isn’t lifting all boats — and may even sink some.

As the U.S. looks set to accelerate, economists from Bank of America Corp. to Morgan Stanley predict it will provide less oomph abroad than it once did, partly because of changes wrought by the financial crisis and recession. The new-look America is focused on greater demand and production at home and taps more of its own energy, paring the need to buy overseas in a trend reflected by the smallest current-account deficit since 1999. Read more of this post

China’s doctors not part of society’s elite; “When I see so many patients each day how can I smile at them? They still want me to smile at them”.

October 6, 2013 8:04 am

China’s doctors not part of society’s elite

By Patti Waldmeir in Shanghai

©Getty

Roy Wang did not want to be a doctor but his grades were too low for engineering – so his southern China university transferred him to a course for weaker students: medicine. In most western countries, medicine is a profession that guarantees prestige, high salaries – and the approval of parents who love to brag about “my child the doctor”. But in China, the reverse is increasingly true: doctors are ill-paid, overworked and maligned or even attacked by patients – while many parents would prefer that they became bankers instead. Even Chinese doctors overwhelmingly prefer their children not to follow them into the profession: according to a 2011 survey by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, 78 per cent of respondents said they hoped their child would not don a white coat. Many of China’s less prestigious medical schools find it hard to recruit students to train as doctors and others find that students with lower scores on the national university entrance exam, or gaokao, will use the lower requirements of some medical schools to gain entry to university, only to transfer later to faculties with higher earning potential. Read more of this post