Custom Search

What advice do you have for MBAs who are negotiating their salary?
Many MBAs don’t think they can negotiate before they get an offer. But they can plant the seeds for negotiation during their internship. They can consider what tracks they can follow or what teams they can join in an organization that will help them get promoted faster and paid more.
Also, they can make the first move. They should think of the negotiation as just asking questions. Think of it as a nuanced conversation that is exploratory rather than a negotiation. You want to start a job feeling really good, as though you got a fair MBA salary.



If there’s one thing China has plenty of, it’s people—right?
Well, not exactly. With China’s economy expanding at a solid and sustainable 7.8 percent last year, many Chinese companies are having trouble recruiting and retaining the workers they need.
As recently noted in The Wall Street Journal, “the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, a trade group for manufacturers in China, says about 80% of its members are having problems recruiting workers.” Keeping them after they get them is another problem. Wage increases alone are no longer enough. Companies are trying everything to win the hearts and minds of their increasingly mobile and independent-minded workers.
As the global economy recovers from its long malaise, the challenges will grow. If the U.S. Congress approves comprehensive immigration reform, somewhat of a long shot at this stage, the competition for talent will increase even more. We could see global bidding wars for the best, the brightest, and the hardest working; don’t bet against it.
When we wrote “GLOBALITY: Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything” some five years ago, we predicted, among other things, that the competition for skilled workers and management talent would increase significantly in the coming years. Little did we realize how quickly everyone would feel the pinch.
Much of the story, as we suggested then, has to do with demographics. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the country’s working-age population—which includes all able-bodied individuals between 15 and 59—was 937.3 million in January 2013. That would seem more than enough. But pull the camera back and use a wider lens, and you see a different picture: The 937 million was nearly 3.5 million fewer than the year before.
With China’s one-child policy, which some are rethinking, the trend is both unmistakable and ominous.
Make no mistake: The challenge is global. Despite Europe’s continuing economic woes, including extraordinarily high rates of unemployment, similar long-term trends can be seen there.
Consider Germany, the lynchpin of the EU economy.
A recent study from the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart, as reported in the Financial Times, estimates that aging and population decreases could shrink the German workforce by as much as 12 percent by 2030. Already, according to the CIA World Factbook, the median age of Germany’s population is 45.7 years, more than eight years greater than the U.S. median age. Other current estimates include 40.6 in France, 44.2 in Italy, 41.3 in Spain, 42.4 in Sweden, and 40.3 in the U.K. Japan’s median age is even higher: 45.8.
By comparison, China looks youthful at 36.3. But the population is aging rapidly, and the one-child policy offers no relief. So employee recruitment and retention become more important and more competitive every year.
Germany is fortunate right now. With the overall EU unemployment rate over 12 percent, they can import skilled workers from elsewhere. But this provides only temporary relief. When demand increases elsewhere, Germany will have the same problem as everyone else.
While demographics isn’t everything, talent acquisition should be near the top of every executive’s long-term planning agenda: How many and what types of workers will we need in the future, and where are we going to find them?



It has already begun: Japan has just cancelled a large contract to purchase U.S. wheat. "We will refrain from buying western white and feed wheat effective today," Toru Hisadome, a Japanese farm ministry official in charge of wheat trading, told Reuters.

As many readers well know, I predicted precisely this scenario just yesterday in a Natural News article warning about the consequences of genetic pollution. There, I wrote, "All wheat produced in the United States will now be heavily scrutinized -- and possibly even rejected -- by other nations that traditionally import U.S. wheat. This obviously has enormous economic implications for U.S. farmers and agriculture."

Now we're already seeing the result: the ditching of U.S. wheat by world nations that want nothing to do with GMOs.

Monsanto is a ticking time bomb for U.S. agriculture

This proves, without any question, that Monsanto's genetic experiments which "escaped" into commercial wheat fields are now going to devastate U.S. wheat farmers. Expect the floor to drop out on wheat prices, and watch for a huge backlash against the USDA by U.S. farmers who stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on this.

As the USDA has now admitted, Monsanto's GMO experiments from 1998 - 2005 were held in open wheat fields. The genetically engineered wheat escaped and found its way into commercial wheat fields in Oregon (and possibly 15 other states), causing self-replicating genetic pollution that now taints the entire U.S. wheat industry.

"Asian consumers are keenly sensitive to gene-altered food, with few countries allowing imports of such cereals for human consumption," writes Reuters. It continues:

Asia imports more than 40 million tonnes of wheat annually, almost a third of the global trade of 140-150 million tonnes. The bulk of the region's supplies come from the United States, the world's biggest exporter, and Australia, the No. 2 supplier.

Another incredible Monsanto achievement: the genetic contamination of the U.S. wheat supply

Nice job, Monsanto. You've managed to spew your genetic pollution across the fields of innocent U.S. farmers who are now going to lose huge sums of money due to the reject of U.S. wheat by all the other world nations that refuse to feed their populations GMO.

And a big thumbs up to the USDA, too, for screwing U.S. farmers by green-lighting open-field GMO experiments that we all warned were going to result in runaway genetic pollution. The USDA, of course, is the official cheerleading squad for Monsanto's criminal "science" that we all know is a total fraud. How do these scientists now suggest this self-replicating genetic pollution be put back into the black box from which it emerged?

It can't be done, of course. So now the entire future of the U.S. wheat supply is at risk thanks to Monsanto and the USDA. Nice one, folks. Score another victory for the scumbag destroyers in Washington D.C. and the greed-driven executives at our favorite corporation, Monsanto.

And remember: Genetically modified wheat is only the beginning. Monsanto has no doubt unleashed genetic pollution across many other crops as well. We're now living in an age where Monsanto is essentially ejaculating its patented seed across all the farms of America, then claiming to "own" the contaminated crops. What a wonderful image of corporate responsibility and service to humankind. I can't wait to see what other U.S. crops will be rejected by world nations due to Monsanto's genetic pollution.