World Bank honcho passes on verbal bait
The Financial Times' Chris Bobinski baited him with a question about how he had prepared for the visit. Did he approach the Poles as if they were young children needing help from a parent, or as students needing help from a teacher?
Linn said that's not how he'd frame the issues here at all.
He approached Poland as a country "with a long, proud history," with an abundance of "good human capital," with an "aging" industrial base "after a perhaps misdirected industrial development" and an agricultural sector that was "still in transition."
The bank is "neither teacher nor parent," Linn said, but can bring cross-cultural economic experiences to the table, in Poland and in neighboring countries emerging from state socialism. But, he said, "each of these countries is extraordinarily mature and able to deal with their problems."
And here, as in countries such as his home of Germany or the United States, dealing with front-line crises such as slow growth or budget deficits depends on domestic political leaders more than outside advisers.
* * * *
Last year, Deloitte & Touche sponsored a high-visibility conference on bankruptcy. This May, it will sponsor one on forensic accounting - providing a rare public debate on such issues as tax fraud and money laundering. Among the VIP speakers: the head of the Warsaw police and forensic accounting experts from England, Canada and elsewhere.
* * * *
There's lots of ferment in the National Investment Fund program. Look for an announcement soon that Richard Gangel and his GICC Capital company are out as fund managers at NIF No. 7. All of the NIFs say there's an undercurrent of pressure to downplay the role of Westerners and give more clout - or a larger percentage of the potential fees - to Polish managers. In Fund 7, however, French investment house Lazard Freres is buying up the shares of their onetime NIF partner, the American Gangel. Outsiders say the split was partly personality, partly policy. In this fund as in others, there can be differences between the NIF managers when deciding on a game plan to focus on the best of the 34 companies in their portfolio - and then there are protests from companies who say they're being given short shrift.
* * * *
Flowers can be political. And the absence of them can be a political act, too. At least that's how women on the assembly line at the Gerber-Alima plant in Rzesz-w looked at the fact that only female managers - not "workers" - got flowers on International Women's Day earlier this month. Women comprise 80% of assembly-line staff. "We're not women - we're just slaves," one of the women told U.S. anthropologist Elizabeth Dunn who is working in the plant to gather material for her doctoral degree from Johns Hopkins University.
It was a different story at a small, high-pressure office in the Aktyn Tower in Warsaw, which has housed a 26-person fiscal-agent office for the mass privatization program (MPP). The men gave the women flowers; much appreciated but no big deal. But supervisor Malgorzata Sob-tka enlisted the other women into a surprise next-day declaration of "International Men's Day," with mini-bags of sweets for the guys.
"This is a very young, very special group of people and we've been working together a long time," said Sob-tka. As the share certificates get closer to being listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, the office will soon be absorbed into the National Depository for Securities.
* * * *
Short Take: McDonald's goofed in advertising its shindig for its new general manager as jointly sponsored with the American Chamber of Commerce. It was news to the chamber, when they got the invitation.
Linn said that's not how he'd frame the issues here at all.
He approached Poland as a country "with a long, proud history," with an abundance of "good human capital," with an "aging" industrial base "after a perhaps misdirected industrial development" and an agricultural sector that was "still in transition."
The bank is "neither teacher nor parent," Linn said, but can bring cross-cultural economic experiences to the table, in Poland and in neighboring countries emerging from state socialism. But, he said, "each of these countries is extraordinarily mature and able to deal with their problems."
And here, as in countries such as his home of Germany or the United States, dealing with front-line crises such as slow growth or budget deficits depends on domestic political leaders more than outside advisers.
* * * *
Last year, Deloitte & Touche sponsored a high-visibility conference on bankruptcy. This May, it will sponsor one on forensic accounting - providing a rare public debate on such issues as tax fraud and money laundering. Among the VIP speakers: the head of the Warsaw police and forensic accounting experts from England, Canada and elsewhere.
* * * *
There's lots of ferment in the National Investment Fund program. Look for an announcement soon that Richard Gangel and his GICC Capital company are out as fund managers at NIF No. 7. All of the NIFs say there's an undercurrent of pressure to downplay the role of Westerners and give more clout - or a larger percentage of the potential fees - to Polish managers. In Fund 7, however, French investment house Lazard Freres is buying up the shares of their onetime NIF partner, the American Gangel. Outsiders say the split was partly personality, partly policy. In this fund as in others, there can be differences between the NIF managers when deciding on a game plan to focus on the best of the 34 companies in their portfolio - and then there are protests from companies who say they're being given short shrift.
* * * *
Flowers can be political. And the absence of them can be a political act, too. At least that's how women on the assembly line at the Gerber-Alima plant in Rzesz-w looked at the fact that only female managers - not "workers" - got flowers on International Women's Day earlier this month. Women comprise 80% of assembly-line staff. "We're not women - we're just slaves," one of the women told U.S. anthropologist Elizabeth Dunn who is working in the plant to gather material for her doctoral degree from Johns Hopkins University.
It was a different story at a small, high-pressure office in the Aktyn Tower in Warsaw, which has housed a 26-person fiscal-agent office for the mass privatization program (MPP). The men gave the women flowers; much appreciated but no big deal. But supervisor Malgorzata Sob-tka enlisted the other women into a surprise next-day declaration of "International Men's Day," with mini-bags of sweets for the guys.
"This is a very young, very special group of people and we've been working together a long time," said Sob-tka. As the share certificates get closer to being listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, the office will soon be absorbed into the National Depository for Securities.
* * * *
Short Take: McDonald's goofed in advertising its shindig for its new general manager as jointly sponsored with the American Chamber of Commerce. It was news to the chamber, when they got the invitation.
