Word: accountably
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...longer the only way for businesses to slash their payroll costs. After working so hard and spending so much to recruit employees during the talent wars of the past decade, more firms are desperately trying to hang on to their workers while still cutting labor costs--which account for fully two-thirds of most companies' expenses. "One of the great successes of the U.S. economy has been putting flexibility into the wage structure and compensation plans," says Ira Kay, a compensation consultant at Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a human-resources consultancy. Variable pay "is a shock absorber." So much...
...that day will come, in a war against an invisible enemy with a front line that could be in Afghanistan--or Albuquerque. "Tourism and travel are at financial ground zero," says Andrew Hodge, chief U.S. economist at the forecasting firm DRI-WEFA, who figures absent foreign tourists alone could account for around $10 billion in losses in the fourth quarter...
...currently available models of defined-contribution plans aren't so Darwinian. Most give employees some kind of tax-free personal health account so they can manage their health-care dollars, along with a wraparound, high-deductible insurance policy for catastrophic and other care. Companies still negotiate rates and discounts on behalf of their entire work force. But because many of the most onerous restrictions of managed care--from pre-certifications and referrals to utilization review--are eliminated, the new plans hope to attract much bigger networks of physicians. Definity Health, for instance, has signed up renowned, choosy providers like...
...from laser surgery and acupuncture to vision care and in-vitro fertilization. MyHealthBank, which has partnered with Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield to focus on small employers in the Northwest, hopes eventually to offer consumers a debit card to have their visits to the doctor automatically paid out of their accounts. In such a competitive market, says Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger, doctors will finally offer services that consumers really want, such as integrated teams to better treat chronic illnesses, which account for close to 80% of health-care costs...
...million BPD from Saudi Arabia, our primary supplier in the region. Quite surprisingly, we buy 0.6 million BPD from Iraq, presumably under restrictive aid-for-oil programs. The remainder is supplied by nations like Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, making the Persian Gulf account for 22 percent of U.S. imports. Interestingly, this means that one of the primary justifications of the Gulf War—that we are dependent on oil from Kuwait—is entirely spurious, as these consumption patterns roughly hold for over 15 years, excluding embargoes against Iraqi oil in the mid 1990s...