You are in one of the category of Reflections of a Business Driven Life.  To read all posts, go to the main page, or you can choose to read or subscribe to a category:   on technology, on life, on business, favorite quotes, jokes, tidbits, EntrepreViews & reading reviews.

	Monday, June 13, 2005

Encouraging People NOT to Save  (on business) As you might have known, I have always advocated frugality as an essential virtue, both for the achievement of family bliss by reducing your worries.  As you might have noted, I have always been wary that increased material consumption can really go a long way towards making a person really happier.  On a national scale or in the world of macroeconomics, however, the mechanics are different -- a certain amount of consumption is necessary for economies to grow.  It is no secret that fueling the material prosperity worldwide has been the Americans' propensity to spend too much... Currently, the simple blueprint, they say, to achieving a better world economic order is three way -- Americans should save more, Europeans should work harder, and Asians should spend more. The truth is Asians are spending more  Household savings in Korea has dropped from 25% in 1988 to only about 6.1 percent of today.  Japan, famous for saving, has dropped from over  12 percent in 1995 to a little over 5 percent today.  Both countries have lower household savings now than Germans ( still around 12 percent), but higher than Americans ( at 2 percent).  China's is still higher at 18 to 24 percent, though lower already than 10 years ago. Definitely, Asians are spending more, and there are implications on the national, as well as on the business level.  Newsweek's article 'Frugal is So Over' provides more details...   11:36:33 AM     comment []   trackback []

CEO Blogs   (on business) Last year, Bill Gates in the Microsoft CEO Summit made it a key messages on Why CEOs should blog  ( here is the full speech text).   Here is a rejoinder on a comment on why until now, CEOs still don't blog.   The debate on how blogs matter and don't matter continues.  Meantime, here is a list ( growing fast) on the CEOs that DO blog.  Check out the list, and if you may want to be included in the list.   9:44:22 AM     comment []   trackback []